In a fit of flattered silliness I agreed (several months ago) to give a talk tonight at the PRCC on “Music in the Civil Rights Movement” in honor of MLK day. I then mostly ignored it for ages, and of course had to scramble all day today to get it together.<\/p>\n
There was a nice crowd of about 15 people that were attentive and appreciative, so I think it went well. I played some very cool music, which was the easy part, although whittling the huge pool of cool music down hurt lots<\/em>. In the end I probably had 5-10 minutes more music than I should have, even after deciding to only play excerpts from two pieces to make more room, but people still stayed to chat for a bit at the end so I don’t think it was out of control long.<\/p>\n I wish I’d had more time to practice my talk and transitions, and I wish I’d somehow made more time for audience discussion, since many of the pieces really needed a chance to talk about them. (Sadly, I am a professor at heart, and will lecture at people when given half a chance.) Still, I think it went well, and I certainly enjoyed the excuse to think about the topic in some detail and pull together a playlist.<\/p>\n And to think that Bernice Johnson Reagon will be on campus for two weeks later in the semester. If she’d been there tonight I quite clearly would have so intimidated that I would have simply wet myself and run.<\/p>\n I wonder if I should post my playlist to the iTunes store? I have no idea how many of the songs I played are available through their store, but it might be fun. I’ve got nothing else to do, right?<\/p>\n And classes start tomorrow. Syllabi? What syllabi?<\/p>\n Help.<\/p>\n