1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:06,006 ♪ Opening theme music ♪ 2 00:00:12,112 --> 00:00:16,850 [Diane] Hello and welcome to this episode of ArtsAbly in conversation. 3 00:00:16,850 --> 00:00:19,085 My name is Diane Kolin. 4 00:00:19,085 --> 00:00:23,923 This series presents artists, academics and project leaders 5 00:00:23,923 --> 00:00:26,359 who dedicate their time and energy 6 00:00:26,359 --> 00:00:30,296 to a better accessibility for people with disabilities in the arts. 7 00:00:30,563 --> 00:00:33,233 You can find more of these conversations 8 00:00:33,233 --> 00:00:36,002 on our website, artsably.com, 9 00:00:36,002 --> 00:00:41,241 which is spelled a-r-t-s-a-b-l-y.-dot-com. 10 00:00:42,709 --> 00:00:47,714 ♪ Theme music ♪ 11 00:00:55,422 --> 00:00:59,225 [Diane] Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with Eric Whitmer, 12 00:00:59,225 --> 00:01:02,061 a third-year Ph.D. student in musicology 13 00:01:02,061 --> 00:01:04,063 at the University of Michigan. 14 00:01:04,197 --> 00:01:08,568 You can find the resources mentioned by Eric Whitmer during this episode 15 00:01:08,568 --> 00:01:10,637 on ArtsAbly’s website, 16 00:01:10,637 --> 00:01:12,338 in the blog section. 17 00:01:14,407 --> 00:01:20,880 ♪ Marimba music, soft rhythms, over continuous ethereal patterns ♪ 18 00:03:32,645 --> 00:03:36,249 [Diane] Welcome to this new episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation. 19 00:03:36,249 --> 00:03:43,623 Today, I am with Eric Whitmer, who is a third-year PhD student in musicology at the University of Michigan. 20 00:03:43,623 --> 00:03:49,229 Their research draws from the fields of disability studies and digital studies, 21 00:03:49,229 --> 00:03:56,402 and seeks to understand how and why people utilize music to make the world "better." 22 00:03:56,402 --> 00:04:00,907 So we're gonna talk about that, that's a very interesting concept. Welcome, Eric! 23 00:04:01,074 --> 00:04:03,409 [Eric] Thank you so much for having me, I'm so excited to be here. 24 00:04:03,409 --> 00:04:07,714 Long-time listener, first-time caller, you know, it's gonna be great. 25 00:04:07,714 --> 00:04:10,617 [Diane] Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you. 26 00:04:10,917 --> 00:04:18,257 Okay, so I always start these interviews by asking about the background of my guests. 27 00:04:18,257 --> 00:04:24,430 So would you mind telling us where music comes from, 28 00:04:24,430 --> 00:04:29,802 where… what your artistic practices are about, 29 00:04:29,869 --> 00:04:31,537 and where you come from also. 30 00:04:31,537 --> 00:04:35,508 [Eric] I hail from Northern California, which is a very interesting place, 31 00:04:35,508 --> 00:04:39,379 because it rejects all of the stereotypes of regular California. 32 00:04:39,812 --> 00:04:43,483 And it is rather conservative. 33 00:04:43,483 --> 00:04:46,786 And so it's a very interesting place to grow up. 34 00:04:46,986 --> 00:04:52,992 But I was introduced there through a school of the arts, and 35 00:04:52,992 --> 00:04:58,197 because my parents had sent me to piano lessons when I was a kid, and I had no interest in it. 36 00:04:58,197 --> 00:05:02,769 I was the world's worst pianist, I still maintain that I'm the world's worst pianist. 37 00:05:03,202 --> 00:05:07,106 And then when I was at the Redding School of the Arts, 38 00:05:07,106 --> 00:05:09,809 it is the name of the school, in case anyone's listening from there, 39 00:05:09,809 --> 00:05:14,947 but as I was at RSA, they had the Orff approach in music education 40 00:05:14,947 --> 00:05:17,317 it was how they ran all of their classrooms, and so, 41 00:05:17,317 --> 00:05:22,021 the Orff approach is this idea that kids learn music the same way they learn language, 42 00:05:22,021 --> 00:05:25,792 so we should be teaching them through dancing and games and all these kinds of things. 43 00:05:25,825 --> 00:05:29,562 And so, I ended up, you know, doing percussion, 44 00:05:29,562 --> 00:05:34,834 because Orff approach uses a lot of, like, xylophones and smaller vibraphones, these kinds of things. 45 00:05:35,034 --> 00:05:38,304 And both my parents are community college professors, 46 00:05:38,304 --> 00:05:42,842 and so I remember very distinctly getting picked up from school one day and my dad being like, 47 00:05:43,042 --> 00:05:45,278 you know, what we need to do is we need to figure out, 48 00:05:45,278 --> 00:05:49,048 you need to figure out what you love doing in this world, and how you can get paid, 49 00:05:49,048 --> 00:05:51,951 or get so good at it that you can get paid to do it. 50 00:05:52,318 --> 00:05:55,788 Which, you know, a little bit daunting as a small child, but 51 00:05:55,788 --> 00:06:00,326 I do maintain that I was… I'm a musician because my parents' support. 52 00:06:00,326 --> 00:06:02,628 But I responded to him that I loved playing the drums. 53 00:06:02,628 --> 00:06:06,332 And so, from there, I started taking lessons, and, 54 00:06:06,332 --> 00:06:13,339 you know, played in the community orchestra, started taking lessons with the local university percussionist. 55 00:06:13,406 --> 00:06:16,676 Then started working with Jake Nissly at the San Francisco Symphony, 56 00:06:16,676 --> 00:06:18,978 and then did my undergrad in percussion performance, 57 00:06:18,978 --> 00:06:22,648 and then, while I was going through, 58 00:06:22,648 --> 00:06:27,353 you know, the very traditional conservatory approach, I ended up 59 00:06:27,353 --> 00:06:31,190 developing a chronic pain condition related to my playing, 60 00:06:31,190 --> 00:06:35,328 which pretty summarily kicked me in the booty 61 00:06:35,328 --> 00:06:41,334 and made me have to have a little bit of a, you know, early midlife crisis, and figure out: 62 00:06:41,334 --> 00:06:48,207 if I can't play music, who am I? What am I? What's… What is life? What is music, etc, etc. 63 00:06:48,207 --> 00:06:54,013 And, you know, I'm very grateful to the undergrad profs that I worked with, who 64 00:06:54,013 --> 00:06:58,518 at the same time that I was kind of having this, developing 65 00:06:58,518 --> 00:07:02,021 and starting to seek treatment for this chronic pain condition, 66 00:07:02,822 --> 00:07:08,895 that these musicology professors, for some, like, strange universe, like, karma, fate, 67 00:07:08,895 --> 00:07:16,169 whatever reason, they had put in to the syllabus a lot of disability studies. 68 00:07:16,602 --> 00:07:21,440 So Joe Strauss, Extraordinary Bodies - excuse me, Extraordinary Measures, my apologies. 69 00:07:22,608 --> 00:07:28,915 That was one of the beginning readings. And then I was also in a course just 70 00:07:28,915 --> 00:07:33,519 randomly that, from the, you know, filling the liberal arts requirement, 71 00:07:33,519 --> 00:07:36,889 and that also had a lot of disability studies things in it. 72 00:07:36,889 --> 00:07:43,763 And so, as I was literally, like, dealing with the… my inability to perform playing music in the way 73 00:07:43,763 --> 00:07:47,266 that I had been for, you know, a significant portion of my life, 74 00:07:47,266 --> 00:07:52,038 I was reading all of this stuff about disability studies, and so, 75 00:07:52,038 --> 00:07:56,209 for me, my academic journey really began with disability studies, and 76 00:07:56,209 --> 00:07:59,912 then it was like, oh, how can I apply this to music, and how is 77 00:07:59,912 --> 00:08:03,950 what I am reading about actually really related to what I am, 78 00:08:03,950 --> 00:08:06,652 like, embodying and going through in my experience? 79 00:08:06,652 --> 00:08:11,157 And so, you know, I was looking at the end of my degree 80 00:08:11,157 --> 00:08:15,528 and was like, gee, I don't know what I can do to get money. 81 00:08:15,528 --> 00:08:20,533 And realized that if I applied to grad school for, to the PhD in musicology, 82 00:08:20,533 --> 00:08:22,101 I could get paid to do that. 83 00:08:22,101 --> 00:08:26,105 And so, I applied to a bunch of jobs, and I applied to a bunch of PhD programs, 84 00:08:26,105 --> 00:08:30,343 and it happened that the University of Michigan paid better than any of the jobs I got offered. 85 00:08:30,343 --> 00:08:34,947 And I was like, great, I love the idea of, you know, getting to go study music 86 00:08:34,947 --> 00:08:40,086 and thinking and talking about music for 5, 6, 7 years seems like a wonderful way 87 00:08:40,086 --> 00:08:43,322 to spend the next few years, and we'll go from there. 88 00:08:43,322 --> 00:08:46,192 And that's kind of how I came to the University of Michigan, 89 00:08:46,192 --> 00:08:48,427 and that's where I am now. 90 00:08:48,427 --> 00:08:53,399 [Diane] So, now you are doing many things. 91 00:08:53,399 --> 00:08:58,404 What is your research project exactly in Michigan? 92 00:08:58,538 --> 00:09:01,140 [Eric] Yeah, so… 93 00:09:01,140 --> 00:09:05,945 Don't tell my dissertation committee this, but we're still working on it. No. 94 00:09:06,178 --> 00:09:08,347 [Eric] I think, broadly speaking... [Diane] It's going to be published, you know that. 95 00:09:08,347 --> 00:09:12,652 [Eric] it's going to be published, they will know about it eventually. 96 00:09:12,652 --> 00:09:15,788 No, I think, uh, where I am right now is, 97 00:09:15,788 --> 00:09:20,192 I'm very interested in this idea that music makes the world a better place, because 98 00:09:20,192 --> 00:09:24,830 I think that both you and I, and anyone that has a background in disability studies can attest. 99 00:09:24,830 --> 00:09:29,468 What some people say is better does not always actually mean better for everyone. 100 00:09:29,468 --> 00:09:34,840 And so, I'm very interested in this notion of how people use music 101 00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:38,678 to make themselves feel better about things like social development, 102 00:09:38,678 --> 00:09:41,647 about gentrification, 103 00:09:41,647 --> 00:09:45,885 about these kind of widespread cultural... 104 00:09:46,319 --> 00:09:54,327 Um... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, not, like, cultural, 105 00:09:54,327 --> 00:09:59,398 not diseases, but something like slightly less negative connotations of that, but like, 106 00:09:59,532 --> 00:10:03,369 the cultural breaking points, the ways where people feel very uncomfortable 107 00:10:03,369 --> 00:10:07,039 or feel like there needs to be something done here in order to 108 00:10:07,039 --> 00:10:11,043 fix it or to alleviate some kind of social condition. 109 00:10:11,077 --> 00:10:15,081 And I think a lot of times what ends up happening is that people 110 00:10:15,081 --> 00:10:16,949 turn to music, because music's really great, 111 00:10:16,949 --> 00:10:20,987 but 9 times out of 10, a lot of people don't 112 00:10:20,987 --> 00:10:26,292 always think about what… the ways that music is a very contextual definition, 113 00:10:26,292 --> 00:10:29,595 and what someone says is music, other people would say is not music, 114 00:10:29,595 --> 00:10:33,032 and that there's a lot of entanglements of, 115 00:10:33,032 --> 00:10:35,334 you know, embodiment, enmindment, 116 00:10:35,334 --> 00:10:39,472 race, class, gender, sexuality, all of these things exist within music, 117 00:10:39,472 --> 00:10:45,344 even though, a lot of times, the people that are implementing these large-scale social phenomenons 118 00:10:45,344 --> 00:10:50,349 don't always realize the kind of very deep history 119 00:10:50,349 --> 00:10:52,652 that comes along with these things, and so… 120 00:10:52,652 --> 00:10:57,590 For me, I'm still working on what exactly the case studies that I'm going to be incorporating are, but 121 00:10:57,590 --> 00:11:00,026 broadly speaking, I do a lot of work with institutions, 122 00:11:00,026 --> 00:11:04,063 so I'm very interested in the notion and the technology of philanthropy 123 00:11:04,063 --> 00:11:06,966 and the way that people give money, 124 00:11:06,966 --> 00:11:12,071 and the way that music and musical institutions become codified as 125 00:11:12,071 --> 00:11:16,842 non-profits or charities, and how that is very much a synthesis 126 00:11:16,842 --> 00:11:19,612 of this making the world better with music 127 00:11:19,612 --> 00:11:25,918 while also, here are very real economic, social, cultural implications that come 128 00:11:25,985 --> 00:11:27,653 just from the organization itself. 129 00:11:27,653 --> 00:11:29,522 So, that's the kind of 130 00:11:29,522 --> 00:11:32,391 broad view of what I'm working on. 131 00:11:32,391 --> 00:11:35,161 I have a few different ideas for case studies, I'm… 132 00:11:35,161 --> 00:11:39,365 This summer, I'm very excited because this is after I pass my qualifying exams, 133 00:11:39,365 --> 00:11:42,668 I'll get to start going to some different archives and getting to 134 00:11:42,668 --> 00:11:46,372 tease out which will probably be the final case studies, 135 00:11:46,372 --> 00:11:48,808 and actually make it into the dissertation, but... 136 00:11:49,442 --> 00:11:52,244 Yeah, broadly speaking, that's kind of what I'm working on. 137 00:11:52,745 --> 00:11:58,751 [Diane] And so, uh, are you… you're working with critical disability studies models, or… 138 00:11:58,751 --> 00:12:05,691 So I'm thinking of, if you… if the listeners are a little bit familiar with past episodes, 139 00:12:05,691 --> 00:12:11,297 there is something called the social model of disability, something called the medical model of disability. 140 00:12:11,297 --> 00:12:16,135 And one of these models is called the charitable model of disability, right? 141 00:12:16,135 --> 00:12:20,773 So, are you going to use these kinds of models? And if yes, how? 142 00:12:20,773 --> 00:12:24,376 [Eric] So, that's one of the things that I'm actually very curious about. 143 00:12:24,376 --> 00:12:28,380 So, one of the things that I… 144 00:12:28,380 --> 00:12:30,416 I need to go into the archives to see. 145 00:12:30,416 --> 00:12:34,920 My suspect is that there is a lot of this notion of 146 00:12:34,987 --> 00:12:37,656 music making the world better in this kind of, 147 00:12:37,656 --> 00:12:40,693 through this rhetoric of the charitable model of disability right, 148 00:12:40,693 --> 00:12:48,834 this idea that, if you are disabled, you need the, like, help to alleviate yourself of your disability. 149 00:12:48,834 --> 00:12:52,471 A lot of that is tied up in things like music therapy, 150 00:12:52,471 --> 00:12:56,108 the history of medicalization and 151 00:12:56,108 --> 00:12:59,945 the medicalized usage of music, there we go. 152 00:12:59,945 --> 00:13:04,617 And it is, like, that is one area of the work that I do, so, 153 00:13:04,617 --> 00:13:10,856 I just recently presented for the AMS [American Musicological Society] Disability Study Group 154 00:13:10,856 --> 00:13:14,593 about some work that I've been doing on early 155 00:13:14,593 --> 00:13:17,363 autism studies and psychologists who are, 156 00:13:17,363 --> 00:13:20,366 and music therapists who are studying autism that basically say, 157 00:13:20,366 --> 00:13:23,402 "hey, music is gonna cure autism, fun fact." 158 00:13:24,069 --> 00:13:29,375 Fun fact, it does not cure autism, I can say that as an autistic musician, it really does not. 159 00:13:29,375 --> 00:13:32,711 I am very autistic and also play a lot of music, and 160 00:13:32,711 --> 00:13:35,915 haven't really figured out what the, what other people said. 161 00:13:35,915 --> 00:13:38,984 And so this is one of the things that I'm trying to think about 162 00:13:38,984 --> 00:13:44,990 through early models of philanthropic giving, especially related to musical institutions, 163 00:13:44,990 --> 00:13:49,962 is that oftentimes they talk about music alleviating things like 164 00:13:49,962 --> 00:13:53,999 "social disabilities," and they use the language of disability 165 00:13:53,999 --> 00:13:58,404 to talk about society as a whole. And this model of rehabilitation. 166 00:13:58,404 --> 00:14:03,609 So, my hypothesis, and who knows if this is true or not, 167 00:14:03,609 --> 00:14:06,512 I am looking forward to trying to figure out if it is or not, 168 00:14:06,779 --> 00:14:11,383 but is that in some of these early, like, 169 00:14:11,383 --> 00:14:15,421 pioneering orchestras and musical institutions in the US, 170 00:14:15,421 --> 00:14:20,125 there is some overlap between, like, a kind of eugenicist 171 00:14:20,125 --> 00:14:24,496 scientific model of social welfare and social benefit 172 00:14:24,496 --> 00:14:29,501 that plays into critical disability studies, and that disability studies really 173 00:14:29,501 --> 00:14:31,604 allows a kind of read-on. 174 00:14:31,604 --> 00:14:36,575 But even broader than that, I kind of make the joke usually that I'm a… 175 00:14:36,575 --> 00:14:39,645 I use disability studies as just my permanent methodology. 176 00:14:39,645 --> 00:14:43,916 Because a lot of the things that I'm most interested in is not necessarily, like, 177 00:14:43,916 --> 00:14:46,652 proving that this is absolutely the way that, like, 178 00:14:46,652 --> 00:14:51,724 this worked, or that this is, like, the better way of thinking about this history, or these kinds of things. 179 00:14:51,724 --> 00:14:53,492 A lot of the work that I'm most interested in 180 00:14:53,492 --> 00:14:57,696 is really trying to sit with a lot of the complexity that comes from 181 00:14:57,696 --> 00:15:02,768 contradictory statements. I think that's a place that I feel very comfortable as a disabled person, 182 00:15:02,768 --> 00:15:08,440 is in the very, like, these are two contradictory ideas, but I… somehow they, 183 00:15:08,440 --> 00:15:11,443 they are still being enacted, and they are still being embodied. 184 00:15:11,443 --> 00:15:14,546 And so, you have to sit with the fact that, 185 00:15:14,546 --> 00:15:19,451 like, especially as I, like, as someone that has a chronic pain condition, like, I don't want to 186 00:15:19,451 --> 00:15:25,457 have more pain, but I also don't know that I want to be completely alleviated of my pain condition. 187 00:15:26,592 --> 00:15:29,561 Contradictory statements, but nevertheless are very true. 188 00:15:29,561 --> 00:15:34,333 And so a lot of the work that I'm really interested and am very motivated by, 189 00:15:34,333 --> 00:15:37,102 is the work that tries to sit with the, 190 00:15:37,102 --> 00:15:42,474 these complexities and try to understand how do we hold both of these perspectives 191 00:15:42,675 --> 00:15:46,946 in such a way that we can then imagine a different future, 192 00:15:46,946 --> 00:15:51,116 or imagine a way of being that has more compassion 193 00:15:51,116 --> 00:15:53,118 towards other people. 194 00:15:53,118 --> 00:15:59,191 [Diane] Wow! That's fantastic, that's a very good way to approach things in that research. 195 00:15:59,191 --> 00:16:03,195 I think you're gonna have interesting things to say in the musicological world, for sure. 196 00:16:03,195 --> 00:16:08,200 [Eric] Listen, I hope so, you know. That's the goal. 197 00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:10,069 [Diane] Okay, I have a question about… 198 00:16:10,069 --> 00:16:15,007 so you told… you told me earlier that, 199 00:16:15,007 --> 00:16:21,613 as a musician, at a certain point, you had difficulties progressing and seeing a future 200 00:16:21,980 --> 00:16:25,718 because of your chronic pain. 201 00:16:25,718 --> 00:16:32,324 By studying more and by looking at these texts, and by yourself immersing completely into these 202 00:16:32,324 --> 00:16:36,762 concepts and finding these, these conflictual debates, 203 00:16:36,762 --> 00:16:41,433 did it change something in your musician... you as a musician, 204 00:16:41,433 --> 00:16:44,670 did it change something in the way you are performing? 205 00:16:45,037 --> 00:16:48,574 [Eric] Absolutely, yeah. This is actually really funny, 206 00:16:48,574 --> 00:16:52,811 because I was talking about this with my therapist earlier this week, which, you know, I feel like 207 00:16:52,878 --> 00:16:56,815 podcasting, therapy, like, there's some amount of overlap there. 208 00:16:56,815 --> 00:17:01,954 But one of the things that I fundamentally do believe is that 209 00:17:01,954 --> 00:17:05,691 I, as a musician, have been impacted by my disability, 210 00:17:05,924 --> 00:17:12,164 and would not be… and I am not the same musician that I was when I, you know, started my conservatory education. 211 00:17:12,164 --> 00:17:18,037 Like I... And I don't necessarily want to be the the same musician that I was, or that, 212 00:17:18,037 --> 00:17:23,008 the musician that I even dreamed about being when I started my conservatory degree. 213 00:17:23,008 --> 00:17:26,645 I think I'm much… I'm much more interested now 214 00:17:26,645 --> 00:17:30,582 in ways of making music that are sustainable, 215 00:17:30,582 --> 00:17:34,720 and that value cooperation and interdependency. 216 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:39,224 I think that's so much more interesting, so much 217 00:17:39,224 --> 00:17:42,628 more fun to make music in these ways, it's, 218 00:17:42,628 --> 00:17:44,129 it's also such a relief. 219 00:17:44,129 --> 00:17:47,733 I was a drummer once upon a time, you know, 220 00:17:47,733 --> 00:17:50,936 and I remember the whole, like... 221 00:17:52,671 --> 00:17:57,176 the joke that you would always kind of make is that it's, like, the jocks of the, you know, the music world or the drummers. 222 00:17:57,176 --> 00:18:01,046 Like, you know, it was, how can you play harder, how can you play faster, how can you play louder. 223 00:18:01,046 --> 00:18:04,983 Like, very much of this idea of, like, how do you drill 224 00:18:04,983 --> 00:18:07,719 and, like, find and achieve perfection. 225 00:18:07,719 --> 00:18:09,521 And… 226 00:18:10,656 --> 00:18:14,960 You know, I think that there's an extent to which that, if that's what someone loves, 227 00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:18,664 and if that's what someone really does find very satisfying with music, 228 00:18:18,664 --> 00:18:20,065 great! 229 00:18:20,499 --> 00:18:27,673 Power to you, have fun, go at it. I am so, so, so, so, so not interested in that anymore, and I am 230 00:18:27,673 --> 00:18:35,314 so much more interested in the ideas of frailty and of, you know, 231 00:18:35,314 --> 00:18:39,117 to borrow terms from, you know, Molly Joyce, like, write this, like, crip virtuosity. 232 00:18:39,351 --> 00:18:42,287 I really do think about that a lot in my own musical practices, that, like, 233 00:18:42,287 --> 00:18:46,158 I am very interested in being the best musician that I know how to be 234 00:18:46,158 --> 00:18:48,927 in the body that I have, and of 235 00:18:48,927 --> 00:18:53,632 utilizing and creating music in such a way that's not dependent on a 236 00:18:53,632 --> 00:18:58,337 very specific kind of physical embodiment, but that is 237 00:18:58,337 --> 00:19:02,141 capable, potentially only being executed by me, 238 00:19:02,141 --> 00:19:08,146 but at the very least has a methodology or a kind of a procedure that can be followed by 239 00:19:08,180 --> 00:19:14,186 anyone, and so I think in that way, I'm very interested in, like, works by composers like 240 00:19:14,186 --> 00:19:19,258 Julius Eastman, Pauline Oliveros, Susie Ibarra... 241 00:19:20,392 --> 00:19:23,662 I should know more of these off the top of my head. Molly Joyce, I already mentioned. 242 00:19:23,662 --> 00:19:28,166 But like these kinds of musicians and thinkers who are really trying to 243 00:19:28,166 --> 00:19:35,173 get at the interstices of multiple ways of making music, and to find plurality in 244 00:19:35,173 --> 00:19:39,411 acknowledging that there are lots of ways to make sound, and that there... 245 00:19:39,711 --> 00:19:44,283 The more that we try to identify one sound as being the ideal, and that we move towards it, 246 00:19:44,283 --> 00:19:46,518 the less we have… 247 00:19:46,518 --> 00:19:48,020 or less ability we have to hear. 248 00:19:48,020 --> 00:19:53,192 And I think what disability studies allows me to think about is the other ways of hearing. 249 00:19:53,192 --> 00:19:57,796 And to try and think about where else, what other sounds might be possible. 250 00:19:57,796 --> 00:19:59,831 And that's so much more exciting to me 251 00:19:59,831 --> 00:20:05,370 than trying to cultivate my body in my musical practice to achieve that, like, 252 00:20:05,370 --> 00:20:09,408 you know, things when I can play "Lieutenant Kijé" perfectly, 253 00:20:09,408 --> 00:20:12,878 and, like, win the Chicago Symphony Orchestra percussion drop, like… 254 00:20:12,878 --> 00:20:17,783 Again, if that's what people love doing, great, go for it. I'm really no longer interested in that. 255 00:20:18,116 --> 00:20:22,354 And I think what I'm very interested in, 256 00:20:22,354 --> 00:20:26,291 in terms of, like, "making the world better," that kind of big scare quotes thing, 257 00:20:26,291 --> 00:20:31,964 is so much about the way that… it's less so even about the music itself, but rather the 258 00:20:31,964 --> 00:20:37,402 ways that people create relationships amongst themselves, and through institutions, 259 00:20:37,402 --> 00:20:43,442 in order to amplify certain ways of making music and discourage other ways of making music. 260 00:20:43,442 --> 00:20:47,746 Because so often, I think, as we can pretty much all agree, 261 00:20:47,746 --> 00:20:49,581 although asking any musicologist to, 262 00:20:49,581 --> 00:20:54,620 or any amount of musicologist to agree on something is always a dangerous gamble. [Laughs.] 263 00:20:54,620 --> 00:20:57,823 But, like, that there are very much... 264 00:20:57,823 --> 00:21:02,227 There is a certain kind of pedagogy when you say, I am learning music. 265 00:21:02,260 --> 00:21:05,430 And that is usually assumed to be a form of Western art music, 266 00:21:05,430 --> 00:21:08,066 or a kind of derivative of that. 267 00:21:08,066 --> 00:21:12,204 And the more that you talk about "serious" or "beautiful" musics, 268 00:21:12,204 --> 00:21:17,876 you usually move closer and closer towards, like, a personified ideal of Western art music. 269 00:21:17,876 --> 00:21:22,948 And so often, I think we can see in the history of Western art music 270 00:21:22,948 --> 00:21:26,485 that it has not been a space for disabled bodies and disabled minds. 271 00:21:26,485 --> 00:21:29,688 And in fact, it has been deemed off-limits 272 00:21:29,688 --> 00:21:33,992 as my research on early autistic scholars have kind of brought up, 273 00:21:33,992 --> 00:21:36,962 although I don't know that I would say I'm a scholar as much as they'd say they are... 274 00:21:36,962 --> 00:21:40,365 experimenters might be the best way that I could describe it. 275 00:21:40,365 --> 00:21:45,837 But, that they bring this thing up is that this music should be making these kids less autistic. 276 00:21:45,837 --> 00:21:47,539 It should be making them better. 277 00:21:47,539 --> 00:21:51,343 And that, I think, is this, very complicated notion. 278 00:21:51,343 --> 00:21:55,347 And not to say that, like, all orchestras or all Western art music organizations 279 00:21:55,347 --> 00:21:59,151 are, like, trying to "heal" disabled people without their consent. 280 00:21:59,151 --> 00:22:05,290 But rather that there is always this notion about music making the world a better place, and that 281 00:22:05,991 --> 00:22:08,794 I think the more that we complicate it, the more sounds we get to have. 282 00:22:08,794 --> 00:22:11,663 The more relationships with music we get to cultivate. 283 00:22:11,663 --> 00:22:14,966 And that's so exciting for me, because, 284 00:22:15,667 --> 00:22:18,236 you know, I want there to be more ways of making music. 285 00:22:18,236 --> 00:22:23,508 I want there to be more types of sounds that we get to hear, and I want there to be more... 286 00:22:24,343 --> 00:22:28,947 more openness to the way that people experience sound. 287 00:22:30,649 --> 00:22:33,952 My grandfather is very fond of saying that he is not musical at all, 288 00:22:33,952 --> 00:22:35,620 and that he has... 289 00:22:35,620 --> 00:22:40,358 He can't hear tones, he's tone - he just, he's not able to hear music. 290 00:22:40,358 --> 00:22:43,528 That is, words that he uses, not me. 291 00:22:43,528 --> 00:22:47,199 But I think about this a lot in the sense of how this man 292 00:22:47,199 --> 00:22:49,701 who is genuinely one of the kindest individuals I know, 293 00:22:49,701 --> 00:22:53,905 like, truly a source of light in the universe that I have no idea how he exists. 294 00:22:53,905 --> 00:22:59,745 But, like, that he was able to internalize this idea that he has no relationship to music 295 00:22:59,745 --> 00:23:04,883 is so, like, deeply upsetting to me that, like, I want to make sure, like... 296 00:23:04,883 --> 00:23:08,887 And I've tried multiple times for the record. I don't know that it will happen. But 297 00:23:08,887 --> 00:23:12,023 I do want to try and find ways of 298 00:23:12,023 --> 00:23:16,128 allowing people that maybe thought their bodies or minds were off-limit to music. 299 00:23:16,128 --> 00:23:18,997 that we can say, no, you do have a relationship to music, 300 00:23:18,997 --> 00:23:22,434 no, you do have this ability to engage with it. 301 00:23:22,934 --> 00:23:24,836 It's just potentially that 302 00:23:24,836 --> 00:23:29,474 the ways that we have talked about, the ways we have taught, the ways that we have encouraged music making 303 00:23:29,474 --> 00:23:30,942 have not allowed you to, 304 00:23:30,942 --> 00:23:35,480 and that's not a fault on the individual, that's a fault on those systems of music making. 305 00:23:35,647 --> 00:23:40,352 [Diane] Yes, definitely. Yeah, thank you. 306 00:23:40,352 --> 00:23:43,021 I'm interested in something 307 00:23:43,855 --> 00:23:47,159 about yourself. So you, you talked about your research. 308 00:23:47,159 --> 00:23:55,333 And I was thinking of the group of scholars and musicians and composers and, 309 00:23:55,901 --> 00:24:01,373 and audiences and everything, which touches these, 310 00:24:01,373 --> 00:24:03,575 this researcher of yours. 311 00:24:03,575 --> 00:24:08,513 As someone working in this realm, 312 00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,350 how is it… what is it for you? 313 00:24:12,717 --> 00:24:16,321 How could you describe what it means for you, 314 00:24:16,321 --> 00:24:19,791 to work with these awesome people all around, 315 00:24:19,791 --> 00:24:26,832 creating music or discussing music or controversial ways, or whatever. 316 00:24:26,832 --> 00:24:28,834 What is it for you? 317 00:24:28,834 --> 00:24:31,970 [Eric] I distinctly remember one of the moments that I realized 318 00:24:31,970 --> 00:24:35,941 that I was, like, no longer making music away, that, like, 319 00:24:36,675 --> 00:24:41,713 that would be, you know, "fittable" under the traditional definitions of Western art music, 320 00:24:41,713 --> 00:24:45,750 was this conversation that I had with a colleague where in which that I was 321 00:24:46,184 --> 00:24:50,789 critiquing some performers in the field because of the way that they were 322 00:24:50,789 --> 00:24:56,928 utilizing their status as a tax-exempt organization, but not necessarily 323 00:24:56,928 --> 00:24:59,197 giving back to the field. And 324 00:24:59,197 --> 00:25:04,803 this was, you know, early on when I was like, oh, what's the definition of a 501c3, and was like, 325 00:25:04,803 --> 00:25:06,872 I know tax a lot, yadda yadda yadda. 326 00:25:06,872 --> 00:25:13,245 Very young, arrogant Eric. Not to say that I'm not arrogant now, but I've tried to dilute it to some extent. 327 00:25:13,245 --> 00:25:17,282 But, anyways, suffice it to say that I was critiquing them, and 328 00:25:17,282 --> 00:25:19,818 they just made the, they just made this assertion, like, 329 00:25:19,818 --> 00:25:21,920 why would you even care about this? 330 00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:27,259 Why does this matter? Like, they're just playing music. Like, if it's good music, it's good music. 331 00:25:27,259 --> 00:25:29,694 And I just remember having this moment of, like, 332 00:25:29,694 --> 00:25:31,796 Oh, we're never gonna see the same way on this. 333 00:25:31,796 --> 00:25:32,898 Like, we're just… 334 00:25:32,898 --> 00:25:38,637 Maybe in, like, two decades, maybe they'll come around, and I hope, and wish them well and the best. 335 00:25:38,637 --> 00:25:42,107 But I think that where I have gotten to the… 336 00:25:42,107 --> 00:25:45,110 or what I have… the point that I have gotten to is that 337 00:25:45,110 --> 00:25:49,214 the music that I am interested in making, and the music that I enjoy the most, 338 00:25:49,214 --> 00:25:51,316 and feel the most collaborative about, 339 00:25:51,316 --> 00:25:55,320 is the music that we fundamentally try to deconstruct, like, 340 00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:59,624 the notions of perfection, the notions of, like, this... 341 00:25:59,624 --> 00:26:05,130 You know, like the consecrated, beautiful music that's like 100% pure. 342 00:26:05,130 --> 00:26:10,035 And to steer towards, like, no, let's do the thing that we can and be very honest about 343 00:26:10,035 --> 00:26:13,371 the limitations in the ways that we exist. 344 00:26:13,371 --> 00:26:19,444 You know, I've performed, mostly these days, I'm performing by myself as a carillonist. 345 00:26:19,444 --> 00:26:22,447 Because that is something that I 346 00:26:22,447 --> 00:26:24,983 decided to learn how to do when I came to the University of Michigan, 347 00:26:24,983 --> 00:26:26,851 and there just so happened to be a job posting, 348 00:26:26,851 --> 00:26:30,188 and so now I work as a carillonist for a church in Detroit. 349 00:26:30,188 --> 00:26:32,924 And I really do love that, 350 00:26:32,924 --> 00:26:35,427 because it's a fascinating experience, like, 351 00:26:35,427 --> 00:26:36,928 I, as a Jewish person, like, 352 00:26:36,928 --> 00:26:38,663 do not know a lot about church, 353 00:26:38,663 --> 00:26:42,500 and so I have had to learn a lot of things about the Christian religion, 354 00:26:42,500 --> 00:26:47,806 and also, like, how do I create music, and in what ways do I, like, 355 00:26:47,806 --> 00:26:50,809 find beauty and make things put together. 356 00:26:50,809 --> 00:26:53,612 Like, I'll very distinctly remember. 357 00:26:53,612 --> 00:26:57,582 During my first year working there during the High Holiday season, 358 00:26:57,582 --> 00:27:00,218 I had played... 359 00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,623 "Avinu Malkeinu" during high holidays, which is, like, a Jewish, 360 00:27:04,623 --> 00:27:07,926 let's use the word "hymn" for lack of a better term, 361 00:27:07,926 --> 00:27:14,366 and had played this, and then one of the, you know, churchgoers at the end of the concert had come up to me and said, 362 00:27:14,366 --> 00:27:16,101 Oh, I… or the service had just… 363 00:27:16,101 --> 00:27:18,970 I love this, I just heard God so much in this music, 364 00:27:18,970 --> 00:27:21,873 and I… she definitely did not know it was "Avinu Malkeinu." 365 00:27:21,873 --> 00:27:25,310 And so it was just this fascinating experience of, like, 366 00:27:25,310 --> 00:27:29,881 Oh, you got something very different out of the thing that I was trying to do. 367 00:27:29,881 --> 00:27:34,686 I love that it brought you joy and, like, some kind of spiritual connection. 368 00:27:34,686 --> 00:27:41,826 I don't exactly know how much, like, I was thinking about, like, spirituality in the exact same way that you were. 369 00:27:41,826 --> 00:27:43,795 But, like, that's great, and like... 370 00:27:43,795 --> 00:27:46,698 Yay! Love that for you, you know? 371 00:27:46,698 --> 00:27:53,772 I think this has really been so influential, like, working as a carillonneur has been so influential to me as, like, a musicologist, 372 00:27:53,772 --> 00:27:56,241 is because it's so humbling. 373 00:27:56,241 --> 00:28:00,645 A carillon, for anyone that doesn't know, is this big bell tower of an instrument 374 00:28:00,645 --> 00:28:04,783 where in which all, like, bells are strung with clappers, 375 00:28:04,783 --> 00:28:08,453 and then they all come down to kind of, like, an organ-like console. 376 00:28:08,887 --> 00:28:10,121 And so… 377 00:28:10,121 --> 00:28:14,092 And then you play the console using your hands and feet. 378 00:28:14,492 --> 00:28:17,629 Unlike organ you can't play with your fingers, you have to use your fists, 379 00:28:17,629 --> 00:28:24,169 so it's very, I analogize it a lot to a marimba, it feels very at home for me, being a percussionist 380 00:28:24,169 --> 00:28:31,009 by training. But the thing about playing carillon is that as you play, you watch people walk around. 381 00:28:31,009 --> 00:28:34,946 and have dismiss your music making sometimes. 382 00:28:34,946 --> 00:28:39,417 Like, it's very funny playing at the University of Michigan, because you'll play every day. 383 00:28:39,617 --> 00:28:43,555 I play as a one of the carillonists at the University of Michigan, I should clarify. 384 00:28:43,555 --> 00:28:46,324 But every day that the university's in session, 385 00:28:46,324 --> 00:28:48,727 there is an afternoon carillon concert that goes on, 386 00:28:48,727 --> 00:28:51,996 and as you're playing, you'll watch people put on their headphones. 387 00:28:52,530 --> 00:28:54,499 Right after you start playing! 388 00:28:54,499 --> 00:29:00,105 And so it's really funny in some senses, because you are, like, dominating the sonic soundscape, 389 00:29:00,105 --> 00:29:02,707 but also people just, like, don't care. 390 00:29:02,707 --> 00:29:08,379 And there'll be times that, you know, you're playing something that, like, feels very poignant and very, like, 391 00:29:08,813 --> 00:29:10,782 you know, has some kind of special meaning for you, 392 00:29:10,782 --> 00:29:13,685 and people are like, Oh, that was nice, like, it was just so pretty music. 393 00:29:13,685 --> 00:29:18,890 And they just have no… like, it's just two completely different experiences. And, 394 00:29:19,290 --> 00:29:22,760 you know, I think that's one of the things that I actually really love about playing carillon, 395 00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:23,795 is that it just… 396 00:29:23,795 --> 00:29:30,201 you have to deal with the plurality of experience, and that it's this… it's kind of beautiful, the way that just humans are 397 00:29:30,201 --> 00:29:35,540 kind of a human, and, like, you might think that you're doing so many great things, but 398 00:29:35,540 --> 00:29:39,410 at the end of the day, people have individual agency, and it's this... 399 00:29:39,410 --> 00:29:43,414 I think the interesting thing, and the thing that I just fall in love with every time 400 00:29:43,414 --> 00:29:48,119 is, like, the way that people can react in just so… such different ways, and have such 401 00:29:48,119 --> 00:29:53,558 natural reactions, wherein, like, at a performance, people feel like they have to cultivate their reaction, 402 00:29:53,558 --> 00:29:56,594 or have a certain kind of feeling 403 00:29:56,594 --> 00:29:58,797 to music, and it's 404 00:29:58,797 --> 00:30:05,103 kind of really awesome when it's so diffuse in a public soundscape that you're able to 405 00:30:05,103 --> 00:30:09,474 watch as people choose to or choose not to interact with your music. 406 00:30:10,208 --> 00:30:13,645 [Diane] Were you a carillonneur before? 407 00:30:13,645 --> 00:30:17,448 Like, when you were a percussionist, were you already playing the carillon? or is it something new? 408 00:30:17,448 --> 00:30:19,050 [Eric] No, I was not. [Diane] Wow. 409 00:30:19,050 --> 00:30:21,553 [Eric] So that was something completely new. I… 410 00:30:21,553 --> 00:30:27,125 So, when I came to the University of Michigan, one of the professors 411 00:30:27,125 --> 00:30:31,729 at my undergraduate institution had introduced me to Tiffany Ng, who is a musicologist 412 00:30:31,729 --> 00:30:35,633 and the university carillonist, big TM there, 413 00:30:35,633 --> 00:30:38,903 for the University of Michigan. And so, 414 00:30:38,903 --> 00:30:42,373 I had gone to one of her concerts when I was doing my visit at UMich, 415 00:30:42,373 --> 00:30:45,109 and saw this instrument and was like, 416 00:30:45,109 --> 00:30:49,447 I think it's the percussion urge to play the loudest thing possible, because as soon as I saw, like, 417 00:30:49,447 --> 00:30:53,151 the carillon and, like, what it entails us, like, I absolutely have to do this. 418 00:30:53,151 --> 00:30:56,821 And so I started playing it, I thought I was just gonna take lessons for a semester, 419 00:30:57,055 --> 00:31:03,862 because at that point, I was still... my pain condition was pretty consistent, and it was... 420 00:31:04,128 --> 00:31:08,466 I was pretty sure I wasn't gonna be playing drums anytime in the future. 421 00:31:08,466 --> 00:31:10,201 And so I was like, here. 422 00:31:10,201 --> 00:31:14,706 I'll do this carillon thing, it'll let me have some amount of music making, 423 00:31:14,706 --> 00:31:18,076 and, you know, that will just kind of be, like, a pacifier. 424 00:31:18,076 --> 00:31:23,615 Like, you know, I'll wean myself off of making music, and… 425 00:31:23,615 --> 00:31:25,683 you know, surprise, surprise, I fell in love with it, 426 00:31:25,683 --> 00:31:30,622 and was like, nope, this is amazing and awesome, and I want to keep on doing this. So, 427 00:31:30,622 --> 00:31:35,426 I kind of, you know, re-fell in love with, like, playing music through playing carillon, and then 428 00:31:35,426 --> 00:31:41,399 I've started playing drums again as, you know, my PT and all the fun things 429 00:31:41,833 --> 00:31:46,271 regimen allows me to, and so that was kind of my way back into music making. 430 00:31:46,504 --> 00:31:50,875 [Diane] Speaking of feeling the music and listening to the music differently, 431 00:31:50,875 --> 00:31:53,645 when you play the carillon, can you feel the vibration? 432 00:31:53,645 --> 00:31:58,049 Can you, is there, is it a bit like the organ where you will have some - 433 00:31:58,049 --> 00:32:03,254 I mean, not "a bit like the organ," but you know, you know what I mean, it's gonna be, 434 00:32:03,254 --> 00:32:07,859 feeling the instrument in a different way that is part of… that is not listening anymore. 435 00:32:08,226 --> 00:32:11,429 [Eric] Yeah, so it's actually funny. 436 00:32:11,429 --> 00:32:17,135 One of the things that I think I never really realized about being a drummer is that you never touch your instrument. 437 00:32:17,902 --> 00:32:21,873 And, like, you always play through sticks, you play, I mean, sometimes you play with your hands, right? 438 00:32:21,873 --> 00:32:23,508 But, like, there's always this kind of, like, 439 00:32:23,508 --> 00:32:29,948 removal from the instrument itself that I always kind of felt as a percussionist. 440 00:32:30,081 --> 00:32:33,651 And playing carillon, is that on, like, to the extreme. 441 00:32:33,651 --> 00:32:37,588 Because even as you're playing, you're… 442 00:32:37,588 --> 00:32:44,195 as you press down on any individual lever, you pull a wire which then brings a clapper against a bell, 443 00:32:44,195 --> 00:32:47,298 and that's how the carillon actually, like, physically makes sound. 444 00:32:47,298 --> 00:32:50,835 But it's so loud, the mechanism itself, 445 00:32:50,835 --> 00:32:54,339 is that it can be hard to hear the actual bells and the music you're making itself, 446 00:32:54,339 --> 00:32:56,708 so usually we actually have amplifiers, 447 00:32:56,708 --> 00:33:01,612 and, like, electronic speakers that then allow us to actually hear the sounds that we're making. 448 00:33:01,746 --> 00:33:05,583 And so I… you know, it's this really interesting thing of that, like, 449 00:33:05,583 --> 00:33:09,754 you're almost so removed from the music itself that you kind of have 450 00:33:09,754 --> 00:33:13,224 to trust and feel this, like, disconnection 451 00:33:13,224 --> 00:33:17,729 and recognize that as the music-making process in and of itself. 452 00:33:17,795 --> 00:33:21,632 And they're heavy, like, especially the University of Michigan carillons. 453 00:33:21,632 --> 00:33:24,936 Yes, I did say that right, the University of Michigan has two carillon. 454 00:33:24,936 --> 00:33:30,875 Please don't ask me why. Again, not my decision. I'm glad they knew, but again, not my financial decisions. 455 00:33:30,875 --> 00:33:36,547 But these carillons are so big that, especially the historical one that's on Central Campus, 456 00:33:36,881 --> 00:33:40,418 when you play the lowest note, it, like, 457 00:33:40,418 --> 00:33:44,689 it's so heavy that it pushes you up. Like, you can jump up of that note, 458 00:33:44,689 --> 00:33:48,593 because the pedal has that much resistance to it. 459 00:33:48,593 --> 00:33:51,963 And so, you end up very much feeling like you're pushing against this, 460 00:33:51,963 --> 00:33:55,199 like, very physical thing that then makes the sound. 461 00:33:55,199 --> 00:33:58,102 It's this really, really interesting. 462 00:33:58,102 --> 00:34:03,574 And one of these days I'm gonna write some really weird musicology thing about, like, the cyborg musician, and like, 463 00:34:03,574 --> 00:34:08,613 how the carillon relates to the human body, and, like, there's some new musicology thing in there, I'm working on it. 464 00:34:08,613 --> 00:34:15,119 But that's the, like, it is this kind of very removed process from music making that I, 465 00:34:15,119 --> 00:34:20,558 I really like it, it's a challenge in some ways to, like, really feel like you have a very specific touch on the instrument. 466 00:34:20,558 --> 00:34:23,728 And that's what I think is… makes it entertaining and exciting to play, 467 00:34:23,728 --> 00:34:28,065 is that you work to cultivate that very, like, delicate touch. 468 00:34:28,499 --> 00:34:33,905 [Diane] I try to envision what is happening when you're playing. [Laughs.] 469 00:34:33,905 --> 00:34:38,609 [Eric] Listen, one of these days, I'll figure it out, we'll find a carillon, and we can do it. 470 00:34:38,609 --> 00:34:40,211 [Diane] Okay, great! Let's do it! 471 00:34:40,244 --> 00:34:43,848 [Eric] Actually, one of the University of Michigan carillons is completely ADA accessible. 472 00:34:43,848 --> 00:34:45,450 [Diane] Oh, wow! [Eric] And we are very proud of that, 473 00:34:45,450 --> 00:34:48,052 because we don't actually know if any, like. 474 00:34:48,052 --> 00:34:51,155 There are very few carillons in the world that are ADA accessible, 475 00:34:51,155 --> 00:34:55,326 but one of ours actually is, which is, like, for some miracle it actually works. 476 00:34:55,326 --> 00:34:56,761 So, yeah. 477 00:34:56,761 --> 00:35:00,131 [Diane] This is a perfect reason for me visiting you in Michigan. 478 00:35:00,131 --> 00:35:01,999 [Eric] There we go! 479 00:35:01,999 --> 00:35:03,067 [Laughs.] 480 00:35:03,067 --> 00:35:06,737 [Diane] Not the only one! [Laughs.] 481 00:35:06,737 --> 00:35:11,042 Okay, I have a question about... as a musician and as a scholar, 482 00:35:11,476 --> 00:35:18,883 who are the people who really counted for you in your, in your career as a musician, or 483 00:35:18,883 --> 00:35:20,685 as a researcher? 484 00:35:20,785 --> 00:35:23,888 [Eric] You know, I… that's such a wonderful question. 485 00:35:23,888 --> 00:35:27,658 I think… there are lots of people. 486 00:35:27,658 --> 00:35:32,630 There is this rule in, that, you know, I got taught when I was still a drummer. 487 00:35:32,630 --> 00:35:36,167 No, when I was back in percussion mentality 488 00:35:36,167 --> 00:35:38,536 by Josh Quillen of Sō Percussion. 489 00:35:38,536 --> 00:35:42,740 There's a shoutout to Josh, they have a podcast you can go listen to. But 490 00:35:42,740 --> 00:35:45,109 he has this rule that he talks about that's 491 00:35:45,109 --> 00:35:49,547 if you're asked for help, you give it, and if you're, and if you need help, you ask for it. 492 00:35:49,747 --> 00:35:51,782 Alright, did I say that right? Yes. 493 00:35:51,782 --> 00:35:54,485 If you're asked for help, give it, and if you need help, ask for it. 494 00:35:54,485 --> 00:36:00,391 And I'm very much of the opinion that that is, like, one of the golden rules of life, that, like, this is something 495 00:36:00,391 --> 00:36:03,327 that I was given a lot of help, so I want to be able to give that back 496 00:36:03,327 --> 00:36:05,496 and pass it on to other people, 497 00:36:05,496 --> 00:36:09,600 and to work with other people in such ways that I was given opportunities, 498 00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:11,269 and afforded things. So, 499 00:36:11,269 --> 00:36:14,672 obviously, the musicologists at my undergraduate institution, like 500 00:36:14,672 --> 00:36:19,076 Melanie Lowe, Joy Calico, Robbie Fry, Doug Shadel, 501 00:36:19,076 --> 00:36:21,779 have been hugely monumentally influential to me, 502 00:36:21,779 --> 00:36:25,049 as well as some of the music theorists, like Stan Link. 503 00:36:25,049 --> 00:36:28,386 Also, I'm thinking of my undergraduate institution. 504 00:36:28,386 --> 00:36:33,824 They have all been very much cheerleaders for me as I was starting to do musicology. 505 00:36:33,824 --> 00:36:36,861 Also Rebecca Epstein-Levi was one of my first... 506 00:36:36,894 --> 00:36:40,498 She was, it was her class, really, that I started to really engage with disability studies. 507 00:36:40,498 --> 00:36:44,769 And then she had the... for some reason, agreed to do an independent study with me on disability studies, 508 00:36:44,769 --> 00:36:47,572 and that really just blew my mind. 509 00:36:48,306 --> 00:36:51,576 I think, towards the find of... 510 00:36:51,842 --> 00:36:55,413 Um... the... what's the work that they use? The... 511 00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,449 Parasocial is the word that I'm looking for. 512 00:36:58,449 --> 00:37:02,920 So, I think about, like, the kind of parasocial para-scholar, 513 00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,056 like, I don't know if we can use that 514 00:37:05,056 --> 00:37:08,626 mashup of words, but, like, this notion of, like, working, 515 00:37:08,626 --> 00:37:12,530 and learning from people that you feel like you have some kind of, like, 516 00:37:12,530 --> 00:37:16,801 academic or intellectual relationship because their work inspires your own 517 00:37:16,801 --> 00:37:19,704 and that you feel like you want to engage with in some way. 518 00:37:19,704 --> 00:37:23,207 Towards these kinds of scholars that, like, very much influence me, that 519 00:37:23,207 --> 00:37:29,313 don't know who I am, but that, nevertheless, like, I am, like, very much a fangirl of, I think about 520 00:37:29,580 --> 00:37:33,351 Alison Kafer, Simi Linton, Stella Young. 521 00:37:33,351 --> 00:37:40,625 I think I play videos of Stella Young, talking and beside her reading probably 522 00:37:40,625 --> 00:37:43,260 on par with a lot of other people. 523 00:37:43,260 --> 00:37:47,231 Gaelynn Lea, obviously. 524 00:37:47,231 --> 00:37:50,668 Towards, like, musicology realms, I think, of works by, like, 525 00:37:50,668 --> 00:37:53,838 Jessica Holmes, Will Cheng, and Anabel Maler, 526 00:37:53,838 --> 00:37:56,507 are all wonderful scholars whose work I very much enjoy, 527 00:37:56,507 --> 00:37:58,609 and whose work makes me, like, 528 00:37:58,609 --> 00:38:00,144 very excited about. 529 00:38:00,144 --> 00:38:04,348 Like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to think about this and to like read their next thing. 530 00:38:04,682 --> 00:38:06,851 And, yeah, you know, like, 531 00:38:06,851 --> 00:38:08,786 so those are the names that are coming to my mind right now. 532 00:38:08,786 --> 00:38:10,588 But then also just, like, 533 00:38:10,588 --> 00:38:12,623 towards the people that are always rooting for me. 534 00:38:12,623 --> 00:38:16,794 Obviously, I have to shout out, like, my parents and family, and then also, you know, 535 00:38:16,794 --> 00:38:20,698 my friends that have rooted me along the way. 536 00:38:20,965 --> 00:38:24,835 Abrielle Scott is my best friend in the whole world, and probably. 537 00:38:24,835 --> 00:38:30,174 through, like, me has probably earned at least the equivalent of some kind of master's degree in musicology, 538 00:38:30,174 --> 00:38:32,576 just because I rant about it so much to her, so 539 00:38:32,576 --> 00:38:38,849 she also deserves a big shoutout for bearing witness to my rants about musicology. 540 00:38:39,817 --> 00:38:44,021 [Diane] Okay, thanks, that's a lot of people, that's great. 541 00:38:44,021 --> 00:38:45,189 These names are awesome. [Eric] I like a lot of people, I really like people. 542 00:38:45,189 --> 00:38:47,124 I really like people. 543 00:38:47,124 --> 00:38:49,727 [Diane] You like people, that's good. That's a good problem. 544 00:38:49,727 --> 00:38:51,529 [Laughs.] 545 00:38:51,529 --> 00:38:55,599 Okay, I have a last question for you, and it's about what you're doing right now. 546 00:38:55,599 --> 00:39:00,338 Are you working on specific projects that you want to tell us about? 547 00:39:00,905 --> 00:39:06,777 [Eric] Yeah, so literally today, I am finishing the minor edits for a forthcoming colloquy 548 00:39:06,777 --> 00:39:11,816 in the Journal of Music pedagogy... Musicology Pedagogy, I think is the new name of the journal, 549 00:39:12,049 --> 00:39:16,053 formerly the journal known as Music History Pedagogy, 550 00:39:16,053 --> 00:39:22,326 that is coming out soon as a, thanks to the AMS Disability Study group, 551 00:39:22,326 --> 00:39:26,497 and so that, my portion of that is talking about… 552 00:39:26,497 --> 00:39:30,101 or it's entitled - there we go, I pulled it up so I make sure I get it right - 553 00:39:30,267 --> 00:39:33,604 "The Relevance of Kairotic Spaces in the Musicology Classroom." 554 00:39:33,771 --> 00:39:37,775 And it's basically using the theorization done by Margaret Price 555 00:39:37,942 --> 00:39:43,614 and Remi Yergeau, about this idea of how do we design... 556 00:39:43,614 --> 00:39:46,851 or think about trying to design a classroom that is 557 00:39:46,851 --> 00:39:50,888 flexible, and that is designed in such a way that 558 00:39:50,888 --> 00:39:55,393 we think about accessibility as being a collaborative endeavor instead of being something that 559 00:39:55,393 --> 00:40:01,398 students navigate by themselves, and so that's the thing I am actively, literally working on right now. 560 00:40:01,799 --> 00:40:04,101 [Diane] And this will be out when? You don't know? 561 00:40:04,101 --> 00:40:05,736 [Eric] Late December, I believe. 562 00:40:05,736 --> 00:40:10,274 I don't know the exact date, but I know that I have to get it done soon, so that… 563 00:40:10,274 --> 00:40:16,113 I know that at the very least it will be very quickly turned around, so look for that soon! 564 00:40:16,113 --> 00:40:17,381 [Diane] Yeah, okay. 565 00:40:17,381 --> 00:40:19,850 Well, we are gonna also publish a page 566 00:40:19,850 --> 00:40:24,922 with all this information, like, everything we've mentioned during the conversation, 567 00:40:24,922 --> 00:40:28,259 so that people can find a little bit more about you, 568 00:40:28,259 --> 00:40:30,461 and read your work, and 569 00:40:30,461 --> 00:40:33,063 see you perform, maybe, I don't know, you know? 570 00:40:33,063 --> 00:40:36,567 [Eric] We'll see, I gotta find a good video, we'll see if I can do it! 571 00:40:36,567 --> 00:40:38,102 [Laughs.] 572 00:40:38,102 --> 00:40:41,338 [Diane] Well, thank you so much, it has been a real pleasure 573 00:40:41,338 --> 00:40:46,043 to learn a little bit more about you, it was great. Thank you for sharing all your work. 574 00:40:46,343 --> 00:40:48,546 [Eric] Thank you for having me, this has been awesome. 575 00:40:48,779 --> 00:40:54,185 [Diane] Well, the only thing I need to do now is come to Michigan and play the carillon with you. 576 00:40:54,185 --> 00:40:58,556 [Eric] We're gonna make it happen, and you know, I got a guest room, we'll figure it out, it's gonna be great. 577 00:40:58,722 --> 00:41:01,559 [Diane] Okay, thank you so much Eric, have a great day. 578 00:41:01,559 --> 00:41:02,827 [Eric] You as well. 579 00:41:02,827 --> 00:41:03,794 [Diane] Bye. 580 00:41:04,795 --> 00:41:09,800 ♪ Closing theme music ♪