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EDWARD JACOBS

Author: Ed Jacobs

  • Monday, June 8, 2020

    These are learning days for me. Specifically, ‘attending’ a few days of workshops relating to online teaching; Canvas, our online system; ways to organize within that system; technical matters, etc.

    What’s clear to me is that this is going to be a ton of work–but it seems equally clear that once it’s done this will save alot of work in terms of delivery of materials, and even in terms of grading/giving feedback. Each subsequent run will offer chances to improve/tweak, of course, but this first run will certainly be the most difficult.

    And speaking of learning, this video came through this morning; Jackson clearly learning to shake his head ‘no.’

    Gotta love seeing a sense of humor develop!

  • Saturday, June 6, 2020

    Joe, Jackson working up a tune

    Yesterday was Joe’s 32nd birthday. This morning they video-called and we all enjoyed a nice visit. Jackson now crawling all over, very determined to get where he wants; when redirected, he turns right around to get back to his goal. Pulling himself up easily, even standing unaided for a few seconds on occasion.

    The living room there has become his playroom, and there’s so much to play with. He’s a joy to watch, and now clearly becoming a handful. It’s good they’re both home to watch him, and to enjoy his milestones and antics.

    What a relief from the day-to-day news to see Jackson, to know they’re all ok, healthy.

  • Thursday, June 4, 2020

    Maybe there’s solace in the huge turnouts for protests. So many cops still acting as though the anonymity they find behind armor, shields and masks (yet again, masks playing a role), makes their militaristic, third-world, power-hungry tactics acceptable.

    Correspondence/dialogue with my dear sis has been helpful over the past day. Reaching back to memories of family, of the perspectives that molded our sense of ‘differences.’ So interesting as we found those starkly contrasted models among those who’d themselves been singled out.

    So curious to me that the effects of being singled out lead o different paths. Like victims of domestic abuse, i suppose, some are led to follow in their abusers’ steps; others do whatever they can to stem the tide of such models. Childhood memories of being called kike created a hatred of hate, not of people. Is that just something in one’s nature, or something that can be instilled and nurtured. And old question, that nature/nurture argument, certainly beyond me.

    Protests against hatred happening world-wide. Protests in countries using the despondency that comes from failure of expectations of the U.S. For centuries we’ve failed; but perhaps the world thought us capable of more. We’ve failed continually. Perhaps now we can find additional energy towards change from others around the world, who’ll lead to value energy towards change from others within.

    An exchange with my Dean and another colleague is leading to lots of thinking about how to respond in the little world i inhabit. Really glad this is so much on the table for all of us, and I have been thinking about how this might relate to first-year music theory, a course i teach, and am having problems in finding answers.  Is it just my own now-implicit bias, instilled by decades of learning and teaching tonal harmony via Bach, that leads me to continue using Bach?  Should I use music with a similar vocabulary/syntax—from more recent history—so that white/Euro-centricity of the Baroque era is not the core of our studies?  Do we do a disservice to this cause by saying that WA Mozart is the core of the literature that students need to know—or is that just an excuse to keep teaching the same material year after year?  Is it our charge now to finally supplant Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, et al., in order to bring exposure to long-neglected names?  

    If we start to use music of non-Eurocentric traditions, are we venturing into cultural appropriation, especially when we’ve so little context (as non-Ethnomusicologists/Anthropologists)?  If we use music from our own culture—jazz, say—then do those who don’t know the history/tradition of jazz, its roots and practices, again just play lip service to a rich practice?

    I’m not a researching theorist, musicologist, ethnomusicologist; not even a licensed ‘educator’.  Just a composer with enough stamina to earn a doctorate, and now I’m supposed to teach the historical foundation of centuries of musical practice without referencing that foundation?  And my colleagues who teach instruments via applied lessons—how are they to find appropriate literature to teach basic skills without using the literature you learned on, and what you’ve learned to effectively use in your teaching for so long?

    Way more questions than answers.  I know that this is going to be hard for all of us, but I also know it’s so much easier to preach from a soapbox than to bring the sermon home to the kitchen, so to speak.

    The search continue to bring more growth.

    Another article to get us thinking about teaching in the fall… in the pandemic world.

  • Tuesday, June 2, 2020

    The world’s in a horrible state, and I get notice that this recording is now publicly posted and available. I don’t know how to process the idea of music–organized sounds with no literal message–having import at a moment like this. I post the music here, because it’s an honor to have had fabulous musicians–Eliot Heaton and Ran Cheng–apply their gifts and time to the order I’ve tried to create; and because I think ACA has done a great service to both composers and performers in generating this “Shelter Recordings” project.

    Eliot Heaton & Ran Cheng, violins, recording On Balance

    I spoke with a dear friend yesterday, a gifted clarinetist with whom i’ve worked on many occasions, over many years. He asked me to write him something that’s responsive to this moment, and i said that if i did so, it would likely be noise. Literally, noise, and actions such as taking apart the instrument, perhaps breaking it under foot; it could be about nothing but destruction, fear, hopelessness.

    I know there are so very many people who are marching in protest with hope on their minds, believing that their actions can constructively, incrementally, improve society. I’m not at that point, and i just don’t know how anyone is able to have such hope, after centuries of being beaten down, how does one maintain hope? After an eternity of watching humans’ inhumanity to ‘the other’ human, how does one maintain any sort of faith in humans’ needs to exert control?

    I wrote something a few years ago that pondered a similar despair. The Line Between set two poems of E.E. Cummings, one of which spoke of our ability to destroy our world, the other with perhaps a glimmer of hope. I can only feel hope today in the miniscule world that surrounds me; the maintenance of a yard, plants, cooking, Pattie, the care of our immediate space.

    It feels so difficult to feel hopeful about even those close to my heart who are physically absent. I only feel fear for family and dear friends who are not within sight. The video-calls I get from Joe, Cristin, & Jackson bring an exhale of relief, even as I know the struggles they deal with in their world. For the duration of such calls, I can see and hear them for a moment, I can cherish the smiles from the little guy who is so actively crawling around to explore, pulling himself up to get a better view, holding on to feel the security of his mom and dad.

    Perhaps even Jackson’s a bit leery these days

    Perhaps Emily Dickinson was right, and hope “perches in the soul,” “and never stops at all.” But this is a time when it’s more than challenging to have faith in hope; if hope never asks “a crumb of me,” then how is it fed, how does it survive “in extremity,” “in the chillest land,” “on the strangest Sea”? There must be an iota of nourishment, a single cell of positivity that might reproduce and grow into a well that can bolster resiliency from this sere landscape.

    Put one foot in font of another, I suppose, just as we’re teaching Jackson. Put one foot in front of another and see what there is to see. The sun shines on the greenery, the birds sing regardless of the all-kinds-of-disease that we’ve made this place into. Put one note after another, and just honor the sounds that come out; not every day will bring anything worth highlighting, but it will bring the next day.

  • Monday, June 1, 2020

    Centuries of abuse, decades of police brutality, years of undeniable video proof of killings throughout this country, of hateful, deeply ingrained prejudices on plain display. So very many peaceful protests over so very many years, ignored or fodder for creating distraction via discussion about patriotism.

    We are in a moment of both implosion and explosion. Coming out of pandemic-driven lockdowns and business closures for months, desperate people are crying out, screaming out for justice; and others are using the confusion to loot businesses trying to reopen.

    Who’s to blame now becomes fodder for creating distractions, again, via discussion about who is a “law & order” political party, about Antifa. Every night people protest to try to keep the focus on police brutality and the injustices heaped on non-whites in the U.S. And a segment, likely a very small segment, of ill-intentioned people bury themselves in these protests and await the ‘right moment’ to break a window and loot.

    We’re seeing examples of police marching with protesters, of police taking a knee to show support, of protesters locking arms to protect isolated police officers, of protesters creating human barriers to prevent looting. The struggle to keep the focus on what must be addressed in this country is so difficult, with so many forces on all sides trying to distract.

    And we’re also seeing these anti-police brutality protests being met by more police brutality. Police driving cars into crowds, too many instances of tear gas, mace, concussion bombs. The protests are not only in the U.S., but in Canada and many cities in Europe. There are so very many ways in which the entire world is protesting the inequities we have built into and sustained in our country. And all of that is added to the many ways our current gov’t has withdrawn from the world’s community.

    This moment of a complete lack of leadership in the White House is causing a horrific situation even worse. We can not stand this leadership vacuum any longer. The leadership we are seeing is coming from a few governors, mayors, District Attorneys, from a few in the law enforcement hierarchy, even from some corporate heads. But where we truly need it, in our nation’s criminal justice system, our Justice Department, it’s not at all trustworthy. Our fundamental systems are crumbling at the top, and many are trying so hard to keep the weight of that disintegration from reaching to the local levels.

    Even here, in Greenville, NC, the protests are turning violent here, as in so many other places. Am awaiting the morning reports about damage, etc., from last night’s protests, as live reports (FB live, etc.) seem filled with rumors.

    And, of course, the crowds forming in the midst of covid only breeds fear of another outbreak, another lockdown…

    And today is June 1, the start of hurricane season–evidently in too many ways.

  • Saturday, May 30, 2020

    just a horrific few days this past week. That we’re living in a time when the spirit of Gerge Wallace is louder than the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. More than infuriating, more than depressing, more than discouraging.

    From the top on down, the institutions that comprise the powers within the U.S. are so rigged against the non-white, the non-male. Could it be that this country is boiling over, again, as it did 60 years ago, 50 years ago, 40 years ago.

  • Thursday, May 28, 2020

    I honestly did not think I’d be saying this any time soon, but yesterday Pattie and I did a walk-through at in Surf City.  A very small punch list, and we’re likely to go there next Friday to do a deep clean, then have everything moved back in about 2 weeks from now.  After 19 months, we’ll actually get to spend lots of time there this summer, much to our surprise, and we’re psyched!

    There’s a long list of things to take care of (taxes, house stuff), get to work on (teaching online, learning software), and continue (writing projects). Sensing today the things I want to accomplish before next Friday, as i know that when we get to Surf City there will be about a week of cleaning, then moving in, before any return to work is practical. And that tighter schedule feels like a good prodding…

  • Tuesday, May 26, 2020

    this article (picture links to a NYTimes op-ed) elevates long-standing argument, but is more than ever necessary to consider. [https://nyti.ms/3ejLhL2]

    For sure, the current (pre-pandemic) model has been in free-fall for some time.  And just as certainly, schools will struggle to stay alive in any way they can.  So much of the bloat has been centered around ‘student experiences’, i.e. dorms, gyms, student centers, dining halls.  And that investment is what they’re being forced to make income-impotent with no one on campus.

    If the large-scale demise of universities comes to pass, then the use of that U-infrastructure will have to be repurposed in some ways, and I almost wonder if high schools or private el-hi schools might be the winners there, especially in the case of smaller schools in the <5000 student zone.  Dorms?  Who knows, maybe low cost public housing.

    The teaching and learning that this author advocates as a move that can be both pedagogically effective and open up access to the ‘other 99%’ has been the argument for correspondence and other asynchronous learning models for decades.  Like you, I don’t see this as a good thing for education-learning, even while it may be good for education-business.  Some of this author’s claims are exaggerations, noting tech that isn’t at all common—as an example, the mention of a Stanford prof using tech which allows real-time performance.  That tech exists in the world, but not in the US.  So much of the US infrastructure/backbone needs fundamental re-conception, from burying electric/phone/net lines, to universal ‘net access, to computers in everyone’s hand…  Otherwise there’s still the 1%-elite issue that exists in the until-now model.

    I have long wondered (and I’m sure you/I have discussed) whether post h.s. education is a must for everyone, or if we need to boost the content of h.s., and not push everyone to another degree.  I think the pursuit of a BA just isn’t for everyone; an AA is an appropriate starting point and, if it makes sense, then continue further.  But the ‘passing through’ of students through college programs to allow college income. 

    There is a ton of content that can be offered online, asynchronously.  As an example, Pattie and I have now taken three scuba certification courses which were about 30-40% online.  Definitely enhanced the in-person time, as it was almost completely experiential rather than lecture.  Same with getting my motorcycle license.  But it’s the blending that’s key, as skills can’t be learned without the experiential supervision and guidance.

    I’ve been spending lots of time (too much, if you ask my writing projects) reading about and exploring different online teaching models.  While still in Hawaii, I started taking an online course on Max, a piece of software I teach in e-music.  The course I’m taking is free, asynchronous, and produced by Stanford.  It’s a lightning fast, non-stop lecture, that goes on for hours—each class is about 2.5 hours, and there are 12 of them.  It is exhausting, and the only way I can get through it feeling that I’ve absorbed the material is to constantly pause it, work on the concept, and return.  The 2.5 hour lecture usually becomes ~4 hours. 

    So, how to adapt this to broader use by students who can’t possible spend that kind of time?  Lots of different approaches out there, and some seem doable to me.  But this is a wholesale re-writing of a course and its content delivery.  The ‘flipped classroom’ is at the center of it—leaving the content-digestion to the students on their own time, then either a synchronous session, or a discussion forum, or something else (which I’ve not yet found) that hones the use of that content through “in-class” practicum as individuals or small-groups.

    The author of this article does note that “training” will be necessary for this transition-to-online to happen, but that training will have to happen at every level of the educational process.  The best teachers in this medium will be those who grow up with it, really know the pitfalls from the learning perspective, and are then trained in the tech through their own higher-level education.  They’ve likely not yet reached kindergarten, but I bet that by 2050 the entire culture will have changed in ways that we can’t even imagine.  And I wonder how the current college campuses will be utilized. 

    Too many words spilled here, sorry about that.

  • Monday, May 25, 2020

    Memorial Day

    Yesterday was a good day of chores, yoga, and even a bit of writing. Problems with the refrigerator fixed; lawn mowed, weeds wacked.

    Very tired this morning. Even the Monday NYTimes crossword was hard; just not feeling sharp. But did just begin the dreaded process of prepping taxes for the accountant…the original plan of being back here late March before heading to Europe would have allowed gathering all those materials together by April 1. Not getting back until April 19 meant no access to important paperwork/forms. Thankfully the July 15 deadline means we aren’t late, but it’s time to get this out of the way, little by little.

    I want to finish up this little ‘cello piece for Jason; I’ve really barely given it my attention over the past four weeks, but need to do so over the coming week. Then I’d like to move on to two more projects; the E. E. Cummings setting (link is to recording of Cummings himself reading the poem) for Rachel and Ari (Duo Cortona), and perhaps an arrangement of the slow movement of Aural History for small wind ensemble, per request from ECU’s Director of Bands, Bill Staub, a talent I’m very glad to know won the position when it opened.

    The previous Director, Scott Carter, had a fabulously successful career and was a wonderful partner and colleague through many projects. And Bill, during his time as Director of Athletic Bands, has already repeatedly shown his ability and interest in doing the same. The position of Director of Bands, and the Band program (Covid-19 notwithstanding) is in good hands, for sure.

    The idea of adapting the recitative movement for the band is an interesting one which i’d like to pursue. Haven’t yet given it too much thought, but enough to think it’s doable…

  • Sunday, May 24, 2020

    This Memorial Day weekend is making clear how much people are craving a return to ‘normal.’ Pictures everywhere of families on beaches, crowds at bars and restaurants, and more ‘normalcy.’

    The desire to get back to work, to get business cranked up, to see the economy begin to recover, get some income going to pay bills…it’s all so very understandable. And, at the same time, the flouting of this pandemic’s presence among us will, I expect, lead to a terrifically horrid second wave in the months to come.

    Even as the catastrophe of disease, economic ruin, an personal isolation have brought on the closing of the walls around us, the world’s weather patterns are just as frightening. Weather early hurrican-season events are emerging in the Atlantic, so are events in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Truly feels like apocalyptic times.

    And yet, the need to spend time focusing on what’s within our control. The rebuilding of our deck (old one rotting away) is 99% complete, and I put up a bit of a sun shade yesterday. This will, i hope, allow us to use the deck during the afternoons, when the sun can make the deck surface too hot to step on. [Hoping this expands the available hours, allowing for afternoon yoga.] I don’t mind the afternoon heat, but the inability to lie on a mat or step barefoot on the deck is a bit of a shame, so hoping this will help.

    On Monday we’ll have a gate put at the top of the stairs…in preparation and anticipation of visiting toddler(s) and puppies. Then, at some point during the coming week we’ll have the aging and falling-apart roof replaced. Tough time to be spending money, but a good time to be giving people work.

    The morning began with heavy rains…

    …but the sun’s emerged and a beautiful day’s expected. When the lawn dries I’ll pull out the mower and take a walk around the yard.

    A wonderful video call with Joe, Cristin, and Jackson always lifts my spirits, and this morning’s call was no exception. Just so fabulous to see Jackson’s mobility surge, and his confidence at doing things that were a bit teetering just a few days ago. I’ve finally downloaded an app allowing me to record some of these calls, so am armed and ready for the next call.

    Finally, after being home for five weeks, am genuinely glad to be here. Feeling good about the Greenville home projects improving things; and looking forward to getting close to moving back into Surf City. The summer now feels like it has possibilities beyond isolation.

    I guess we’re feeling just about ready to join the “opening up” on our terms.