So Long, and Thanks for all the Shostakovitch

Hello! To many of you, welcome back! This is not the message for which you'd probably been waiting—I didn't finish the book, and I'm not resuming the blog. Instead, I'm dying.

(To those finding this blog for the first time—Hello! You're just as welcome to be here, and there are plenty of entries that aren't about my inevitable, imminent death, if you're not into that when you're trying to research Beethoven's deafness.)

We'd known early on that this could only be a short-term blog given how deadly cancer is when it hits Stage IV, especially in the brain. I kept going so long as I still had ideas—and I still do!—but the lesions in my brain have made it difficult to find the right words when writing, and the periods of lucidity between chemo cycles have gotten shorter and more painful. When it got to the point that I wasn't feeling any sense of recovery between chemo sessions, I declared my treatment over and asked to be given palliative care only. I'm living in hospice, responding to old friends, being visited by people I haven't seen in years, consuming more chocolate and coffee than I can handle (I'm working on that, for comfort's sake). My husband is taking leave from work and our son is off of school (which he would have been otherwise at this time of year), so ideally I'll get to die with them by my side.

From Blog to Book: After the Proposal

Status Update and Writing Process

Hello, everyone! It’s been months since I’ve posted on this blog, though I’ve been active on social media—admittedly more with my personal accounts than with the blog’s Twitter and Facebook—to announce excellent news about the book: One month ago, I signed a contract with Clemson University Press for them to publish my book based on this blog. The book is another step toward becoming real!

Of course, there are still plenty of steps between here and the published book. For example, we haven’t completely settled on the title. The contract refers to the book as Riotous Rites and Other Lies about Classical Music—for now. I also have about twenty-five chapters of content to write, as well as a conclusion.

I’ve also had unavoidable delays: chemo side effects, my son being home all day during summer break, etc. 

Whisper (the cat) has been an outstanding writing assistant, aside from behaving like I'm his assistant

My Writing Process: Last week I worked on the introduction and the first chapter, writing and revising the intro to the point I felt secure enough to show it to friends for feedback. Now that I have their suggestions, I’m revising the intro again before I send it to my managing editor for her comments.

I’ve found I work best when I receive feedback early in my writing process because it helps me adjust my tone before drafting the rest of the book. I'll continue asking for comments and suggestions as I go, this time focusing on scholars who are experts (or have at least shown an interest) in the topic at hand. Once I complete writing the whole book, chapter by chapter, I’ll return to the introduction and revise it according to what the book really does instead of what I thought I wanted it to do.

For this early round of feedback, I purposely asked more non-music scholar friends than fellow musicologists because I consider Riotous Rites a trade book as well as a scholarly one. I don’t know whether you, reader, consider yourself a music scholar or not; in any case, I’m grateful you've come to my blog and read this far into my rambling personal post. Thank you.

I invite all of you to buy the book—or request it from a library—in spring/summer 2021.

Too Long, Didn’t Read: I signed a contract with a Clemson University Press for a book based on this blog. Writing has gone well so far, so I am aiming for a deadline that would put it on the shelves mid-2021.

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Like what you’ve read?

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“How’s that book coming along?”

Hello, everyone! It’s been five months since I last updated this blog, and I hope I haven’t lost too many of you during this hiatus. As I announced in the previous post, I’m taking a break from blogging so that I can work on a book based on this blog!

When I announced that back in January, I had no idea how many obstacles lay ahead: debilitating, unexplained leg pain; a few days’ stay in the hospital; further radiation treatments; and all the energy-sapping stress that comes from chronic medical issues. On top of all that (or because of it), I had a nasty bout of procrastination.

However, around late March I found a new determination to make this book happen. I began to use a day planner to set concrete goals and schedule time for writing every day. That’s when the book started to take shape.

Me, hard at work, writing at the local coffee shop.
Thanks for all those Ko-fis!

As it stands right now, part of it will be a discussion of the larger clichés of classical music, such as  all composers being dead, white, men, and this style being associated with the upper class, elitism, and snobbery. Then I devote a section to bad science applied to music—or science applied to music badly. Finally, I get to the classic debunking of specific myths, sorted by composer.

If you’ve been reading this blog, most of these topics will be familiar, but reading the book will be a new experience. Though I’m planning to revisit many of my most relevant posts, I am improving them: updating them with recent research, incorporating feedback from the comments (You readers know your stuff!), and expanding the discussions so the chapters reflect some unifying themes of the book.

Also, since no one would want to buy something they could get on the internet for free, the book will include exclusive content. One of the reasons for my break from blogging is that I need that fresh, original content for the book!

But the book is still in the future. In my burst of disciplined writing, I’ve drafted all the components of my proposal. Right now, they’re being looked at by trusted colleagues who’ve kindly offered to give me feedback. My contact and I are hoping to send the proposal to the publisher by the end of the month, and then…we’ll see!

The feedback I’ve gotten has been very positive, but then, so far it’s coming from my friends. Nevertheless, I’m very excited to be working on this book, and I hope you enjoy it once it eventually exists!

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Like what you’ve read?

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Announcement: Why the Blog is not Updating Right Now

Hello, everyone!

Happy new year! I’m sorry that it’s taken me more than midway through January to wish you a happy 2019, but I suspect you’ll forgive me when you learn the reasons for my lack of posts in the past few months. In addition to holidays and travel (which aren’t unique to me, I know) and family responsibilities (also not unique to me, though some of you know the complications I face), and medical issues (I had brain radiation again in October 2018, and I’m in the process of trying a new chemotherapy regimen, which can be unpredictable), I have some exciting news:

I’m working on a proposal for a book based on this blog.

You'll be as fascinated by what you read as
Samuel Johnson in this portrait by Joshua Reynolds!

I’m still in the earliest stages, but so far, I’ve received a lot of positive and enthusiastic responses to this idea, so I’m optimistic that some press will want to publish it. My plan for now is that the book will be similar in tone and aim of the blog—debunking myths, challenging clichés, explaining why certain narratives persist even when they’re false, etc. Much of the book will be essays take directly from the blog, with some revisions and, I hope, improvements. However, it would be foolish to expect people to pay for content that they can already get online for free, so I’m going to come up with additional, new material. As a result, some content I would normally put up on the blog I’m now saving to be exclusive to the book.

So, I’m taking a hiatus from the blog. I don’t know how long this break will last, and I can’t announce an expected publication date for the book—it’s too early for me to know, as it hasn’t been accepted or even proposed yet! I will still be active on Twitter, mostly on my personal account (@lindahyphen), but also on the blog account (@MusHistCliches) when something relevant happens. I’ll also keep posting relevant updates on the blog's Facebook page.

In the meantime, I invite you to go back through the archives, and I’m asking you a favor: If you’re willing, can you please let me know any classical music mysteries that you’ve been wondering about but that I haven’t addressed through the blog yet? I already have some ideas for the new essays (including a question that took musicology by storm thirty years ago!), but I’d love to know what questions have been burning in your mind. You can email me at linda@shavergleason.com. I prefer email to social media for this purpose, as it lets me archive and retrieve correspondence easier.

Thank you so much for sticking around enough to find this announcement, and I hope the potential book will be worth your patience!

Too Long, Didn’t Read: The blog is on hiatus because I’m working on turning it into a book. If you have questions or stories I haven’t addressed yet, please email them to me at linda@shavergleason.com.

Report from "Music and Musicology in the Age of Post-Truth" (with link to the paper I delivered there)

Hello! If you haven't been following this blog on Facebook or Twitter, you may be wondering why I haven't updated the blog for a few months. I was preparing for a conference last week in Dublin, Ireland, where I delivered a paper and had some incredible conversations with fellow music scholars who share some of my concerns about music and its role in today's society.

When I saw that the  conference title was "Music and Musicology in the Age of Post-Truth" and read the call for papers, I knew it was a great fit for my views as a scholar and the mission of my blog. Mythbusting is a quest for verifiable truth, and I do my best to explain how certain myths endure and why people choose to believe them.

Programme booklet for the Music and Musicology
in the Age of Post-Truth conference.

Since this conference intended to reflect on present culture, I realized I had to step away from my nineteenth-century comfort zone and find something recent to investigate. I pitched a paper that would be an offshoot of the lecture I delivered at Utah State University last January, which dealt with the perception of classical music as cultivating better morals in its listeners. Since the presentation could only be twenty minutes long (with ten additional minutes for questions and discussion), I had to narrow my focus. So, I chose one of the hottest topics in classical music at the moment: the scandals surrounding former Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine.

Announcement: Guest spots on "The Listening Service" and "Are We Okay?"

Hello, everyone! I am currently working on an essay about a listicle which mines a composer's life for business advice, which I plan to post either this week or next. In the meantime, you can listen to me chat about music on two different shows:

For Tom Service's show "The Listening Service" on BBC Radio 3, he consulted me on the issue of whether music is a universal language. As you may recall from my post on this topic, my stance is that it is not. I state my case beginning at about 16:00 in the show.

"Is Music a Universal Language?" on The Listening Service

What is music good for? In our concluding link with the BBC's Civilisations season, The Listening Service asks one of the most fundamental questions we can about music, a claim often made on the art-form's behalf in a list of reasons why it's an essential good: is music a universal language? More »

I had a much longer conversation with Chris Lambert for his podcast, "Are We Okay?" We talked about music a bit, but we covered a lot of other topics, as you can read in the description. If you ever wondered how my life is doing outside of this blog, you can find the answers somewhere in this hour of off-the-cuff rambling.

"Rock the boat before I go" on Are We Okay?

I drop by musicologist and blogger Dr. Linda Shaver-Gleason's apartment to talk about female composers, Florence Price, playing the viola, musicology, Felix Mendelssohn's reception, finding something compelling in pop music, writing a blog, Harald Krebs' Fantasy Pieces, escaping school through logic puzzles, reading Mahler scores with her dad, being diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, auditioning for Jeopardy! during brain radiation treatment, outliving a prognosis of six months, the process of chemotherapy, the BRCA2 genetic mutation, what she wants to be remembered for, and why she still feels lucky. More » 

And since this is an announcement post, I want to thank the readers who have sent me a total of 80 "coffees" via Ko-fi, as of the time I'm writing this. I write the blog for personal reasons and not as a stable income source, but I do put a lot of research into every essay I publish here. Using Ko-fi to buy me a $3 coffee is a way for readers to express support encouragement. You are, of course, under no obligation to send me anything, but I appreciate every coffee and note I receive.

Thank you for reading and (potentially) listening! More classical music culture critique coming soon.

The Adventures of a Visiting Scholar in Utah (with link to my talk, “The Morality of Musical Men: From Victorian Propriety to the Era of #MeToo”)

Hello, everyone! If you’ve been following my social media accounts (either Facebook or Twitter), you’ll know that I was busy last week. I traveled to Logan, Utah for Utah State University’s Visiting Artist & Scholar series, part of their Year of the Arts. For two days, January 25-26, I was treated like a musicological rock star. It was an amazing experience, and I want to let you know what I did out there—for those readers who wonder what public musicologists do, or what an academic trip like this can look like, or just like to know what I’m up to.

 Poster for my talk in the lobby of my hotel. 

I received the invitation to USU in late 2016 from musicology professor Chris Scheer, whom I’d met through our shared Anglophilia and membership in the North American British Music Studies Association (the group that I mentioned in my post on Clara Schumann). Honored, I accepted, but I had a lot of concerns due to my health.

Long-term planning is difficult for someone with stage IV breast cancer, especially since my condition has been very unpredictable—in fact, last summer I had such a big setback that I absolutely would not have been able to travel then. I still haven’t gained back all the strength and mobility I lost then, so as my trip neared, I had to trim the trip down to the barest responsibilities of the position, knowing I wouldn’t have the stamina for much more.

Fortunately, Dr. Scheer and everyone else I met was accommodating and sensitive to my medical issues. The schedule was adjusted to four days: two days of teaching, discussing, and presenting, and a day of travel on either end. I arrived in Utah on Wednesday, January 24th, with responsibilities beginning on Thursday the 25th.

Problems with “Evolution” Narratives

A side note before I get into this post: I’ve recently received some unfortunate medical news that will probably affect my ability to update this blog. In a previous post, I’ve mentioned that I have cancer. A few weeks ago, we learned that it has spread to my brain, and that I’ll be undergoing full brain radiation (starting this afternoon!), which will affect my short-term memory and ability to concentrate. In the future, I hope to work on writing with the extra mental challenges, but in the meantime, even just finding out about the cancer spreading has made it difficult to focus.

…Which is why I haven’t updated for a while, despite there being plenty of musical misconceptions to clear up. I’ve actually had two potential posts on my agenda for over a week: a take-down of a “new” (actually just recirculating) theory about Beethoven’s infamous Immortal Beloved, and a Twitter conversation I had last week about whether classical music can be considered political (my stance: Of course it’s political!). I’m still planning to post about those, as I think they’re both interesting and important. But what ultimately motivated me to update the blog today was a cartoon:

“The Evolution of Classical Composition” is as adorable as it is problematic!
Note: The panels read down first, then right. Click link for larger version.
Source: http://classic-jenny.tumblr.com

Announcement: Guest post for The Outline

Happy New Year! I hope you’ve had a wonderful holiday season. I’ve been busy writing. Fortunately (for me, but perhaps unfortunately for this blog), I’ve been working on articles for other sites. Unlike my post for Musicology Now, however, these articles are in line with the aim of this blog: busting musical myths.

Today, The Outline published my article, “You Don’t Need Science to Tell You Why You Like a Song.” This essay is like a companion piece to one of the first posts on this blog, “Science Proves Your Favorite Music is the Best.” My earlier post explored how classical music media outlets tend to be self-congratulatory about scientific studies involving classical music. Since The Outline doesn’t focus on classical music, though, I wrote about why we place so much emphasis on scientific (or scientistic) studies of music in the first place. I still mention the Mozart Effect, but I pair it with a ridiculous formula that claims to have determined the “10 most uplifting songs ever,” which are astonishingly all Dad Rock Standards. Here’s a preview:

Announcement: Musicology Now guest post!

Although I haven't updated the blog recently, I've spent a lot of time writing about it. This week, I wrote a post for Musicology Now (yes, the same Musicology Now that I criticized in a previous post, now with a new editorial board). In it, I reflect on my experience with this blog and what I've learned about doing public musicology on the internet, in the hopes of passing along some advice to others who want to try it for themselves. I don't debunk any musical myths in this essay, but if you're interested in learning about my process and goals, please check it out! Here's a preview:

• Your job is to stimulate enthusiasm, not quash it. Since I threw myself into the business of debunking myths, I’m at risk of being the pedant who derails an interesting conversation with, “Well, actually…” Sometimes I worry I’m so caught up in correcting misconceptions about music that I give the impression I don’t actually like it. That’s motivated me to write more than just corrections, to explain why the history matters and hopefully replace the warm fuzzies of a feel-good false narrative with an awed appreciation for history.

Read more »

Also, in the wake of articles celebrating Beethoven's birthday on December 16th, I've been working on a post about myths pertaining to his deafness. That post will probably be published early in the new year.

Have a merry Christmas, happy new year, and marvelous any other holiday you're celebrating! I look forward to busting more musical myths with you in 2017.