Music City Hostel: An Experience

Back when I was booking my trip to Nashville for the AMS-SMT convention, I began looking for options other than the convention hotel. There were many reasons for this, but the main factor was cost. So I used Google Maps and searched for hostels in the vicinity of the convention center. Music City Hostel is the only hostel in the Nashville area. Now, I know that the general conception of hostels is of dirty, over-crowded, and unsafe places. This place was really nice. Not at all the kind of place where people disappear into and never come out alive.

My experience of the hostel was of a fun place to stay with people who respect one another’s boundaries. Clearly this has the potential to fall through, but, at least in this instance, it didn’t. The quiet hours were strictly enforced and people respected those who were sleeping. I never worried about leaving my luggage or other personal belongings there.

By far the best part of staying at the hostel was of all the people I got to meet. If I had stayed at the convention hotel, I would have met only other convention goers and would not have been expected or forced to mingle with them once I went into my room. At the hostel, I met a few people in town for the conference, and a lot of foreign students traveling across America.

I had the time of my life going out with these students on Saturday night. It was something I would have missed out on if I hadn’t stayed at the hostel. If you ever get the chance to stay at a hostel, I highly recommend it. It can be an amazingly fun experience. Take the chance. I know that as a culture, we Americans tend to focus on the personal aspect of vacations. The hostel showed me that the communal side is a blast too.

~The Countess~

AMS-SMT National Convention: A Review

This past weekend I was in Nashville for the American Musicoglogical Society and the Society for Music Theory’s joint convention. They meet together every other year. I like having the two conventions together because it gives a broader view of music. There is a wider berth of topics that are covered. And you get to see how the different approaches bring out different aspects of the music.

I worked as a volunteer at this year’s convention and really enjoyed that too. I got to work registration on Thursday morning. This served as an opportunity to meet everyone as they came in. It also served as a chance to put names to faces. Which I spent the whole weekend doing. I also was a room monitor for two sessions. One was an SMT session and the other was an AMS one. Room monitoring is really easy. You’re only there to distribute handouts and in case something goes wrong. I evjoyed every aspect of volunteering. You feel like you’re in the middle of everything going on. And, on top of that, they wave your registration fee and pay you for the hours you work.

This year’s convention was huge. We had around 2,000 people registered to attend. In accordance a lot of the papers were really good. Some of the presenters were incredibly dynamic and made you want to research in their field, just because they were so amazing. Others clearly struggled with presenting. It can be sad to see a brilliant idea/thesis ruined by poor presentation. I ached for some of the presentors. I wanted to throttle some of the others.

Another fun part of the convention was meeting people from all over the world who share my interests in the study of music. Now, we might not all be interested in the same kind/style/type of research, but we do all love music. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed getting to talk to all sorts of fun people, hearing some amazing papers, and renewing my interest in my field of study. All while reinforcing the fact that I don’t ever want to become such an academic that I’m unwilling to skip a day of a conference in order to go watch football.

~The Countess~

Home Again!

My trip to Nashville was amazing! I’m dead tired though, so I’ll blog about the actual trip soon. Highlights to come include:

10+ hours of musicology and theory papers

New friends that love music as much as I do

Hanging out with friends of friends and friends of friends of friends

Drinking with a bunch of Aussies and Swedes

I’ll fill you in on the rest later…promise.

~The Countess~

On the Road

I’m taking off today for Nashville, TN. The American Musicological Society and the Society for Music Theory are having their National Convention there this weekend. I’m so excited. But, I’m not taking my computer so this will be the last you hear from me until Sunday at the earliest. I hope everyone has a good week.

~The Countess