Sometimes a Musicologist, Other times at the Organ …

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Neilston Parish Church organ and chancel.

I’ve had my Finale Songwriter music engraving software for a very long time, and it has served me well. Apart from occasional glitches, that is. However, it’s no longer sold, no longer supported – and is installed on a very old laptop. (I only keep it for Finale.) This week, I took it into my head to arrange a hymn for my church choir. All went well until …

RIP Finale Songwriter

The Finale Songwriter sound crashed. And with it, the scrolling playback. I tried to fix it. I tried a system restore, which takes hours and hours, but has always fixed it in the past. However, the system didn’t restore. (It’s a very old laptop.) With much persistence, I retrieved some kind of sound, but not the sampled sound. Hooray – I could playback my efforts with a tinny MIDI sound, and it scrolled obediently along. But it’s not how it should be. It was time to get new software for the new laptop. Before that, however, I thought I’d prune my Finale files, so that I’d have less to transfer across.

I file most of my Finale documents by year, and I’ve only reached 2020 in the pruning exercise. This will take a while! I’m deleting tunes that were either transient, functional versions of hymns, or really not worth saving for even family posterity.

Invisible Organist

But I found a piece I’d written for organ, back in the Covid pandemic lockdown. Entitled, Invisible Organist’s Blues, I can no longer remember if I wrote it whilst literally locked down at home, or if it was written at some stage in the next strange months when we conducted services with no congregation, or no singing. I may have written the piece whilst I was not only invisible but also almost inaudible – with not much to play. It felt as though little notice was taken when I did play.

In other words, I was disgruntled. Invisible Organist’s Blues was born out of sadness and frustration. I think it was only played once. It is blues-y. It ends with ‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen’, and that was chosen intentionally. I suspected I might have written something that really didn’t sound very agreeable, but I wanted to hear it again before I deleted it. Finding this piece brought back a lot of unpleasant emotions. In my last months there before I left in 2021, I felt my mental health suffering. I cried behind my glasses and face-mask each Sunday – no-one would have noticed the tears streaming. And I cried as I drove home, which was certainly not ideal. I felt marginalised, and for long enough, I told myself to ‘man up’ and accept that it was all in my head – I was imagining it.

Reality

Until, finally, I came to the conclusion that the sadness was real. Was I imagining my shrinking role? It was shrinking. Churches are absolutely entitled to change ways of doing things, and the organist just has to understand that. Was I imagining that the choir and organ were unmentioned throughout an online Zoom group meeting that I attended? They weren’t mentioned. If I was suffering, then that, too was real. Yes, times were changing – and it was time for me to accept it. I did accept it. A few months after my resignation, I was fortunate to find another organist position, where the welcome was as embracing as a warm hug. This was more how things were meant to be!

Neilston Parish Church, West of Scotland, my new church.

Fast forward back to this present week. My finger hovered over Invisible Organist’s Blues. Should I just delete it, and its uncomfortable memories? I played it back with my tinny, defective Finale Songwriter playback, prepared to be disgusted.

But I wasn’t! The tinny playback certainly didn’t enhance it. It lost any semblance of a deep pedal bass-line, but it felt as though there was something worth keeping. I tried it on the piano at home (and any organist will tell you that playing organ music on the piano is weird, because you have somehow to accommodate music that’s intended for two hands and two feet, without having an organ pedal-board) – and I was quite gratified by the results.

Today, I headed for church and tried it there. Tweaked a couple of chords, and – yes, two movements will be played tomorrow. The third does need a bit of practice. I need to decide whether the rhythms are not only too difficult, but unnecessarily so. (Nobody will hear the trouble I’ve seen, either!)

It would be nice to think that by resurrecting the piece and playing it sensitively, I can put the ghosts to rest, and make use of something that I put a lot of work into.

I’ve installed new music-engraving software. I haven’t even tried it out yet, but I did bite the bullet, decide which one to go for, and pay for it! Maybe at some point I’ll convert Invisible Organist’s Blues into music XML and transfer it across. Alternatively, I could just save it as a pdf and accept that that’s it, finished and unchangeable!

I’m not going to share it here yet – not whilst it’s still technically a work-in-progress! However, here’s a Scottish folk song that I played as my warm-up when I was practising this morning – Flow Gently, Sweet Afton – clattering tracker action and all!

Friday Afternoon, and I’m Feeling Mischievous

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
image by Nitish Gupta from Pixabay - woman holding LinkedIn sign

Headhunted!

I’ve had a series of phone-calls from the in-house talent team at IQVIA today. This is apparently because I am looking for clinical manager roles. I can see one tiny problem. No, more than one!

AM I?

I’m semi-retired, and geographically tied to where I am. I can’t relocate.  And whether or not I would take on more work is hardly the question, because I haven’t activated LinkedIn’s looking-for-work function. Quite apart from the elephant in the room – that job title.

They were Persistent!

I ignored the first call. Told the second and third that I hadn’t asked them to contact me. Finally, I asked the fourth caller – Amelia – why she thought I was suited for a role as clinical manager, and she said it was because of my LinkedIn profile.

Have I ever intimated that I have medical qualifications? I have not. I told Amelia very firmly to remove me from their database because I am utterly unqualified for a clinical manager role. (I’m not even entirely sure what a clinical manager does!)

However, if I get any more calls, I can’t promise that I won’t enjoy myself stringing them along and wasting a bit of their time. I’ll share my age and qualifications. I’ll tell them about my specialisms, and bring them up to date with my latest research. It’ll be most amusing – well, to me, at any rate.

After all, my insights into the history of Scottish music publishing might be exactly what is needed to cure someone’s duodenal ulcer …

On This Day in Past Summers

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

WordPress has a habit of reminding me what I posted ‘on this day’ in previous years. Today’s reminder has been quite interesting!

2019

… seems a long time ago! I was in Killin, speaking at the Clan Gregor Weekend. Sir John Macgregor Murray was an interesting historical figure whom I’d encountered in passing during my doctoral research. A decade later, I’d been invited to give a research paper about him at the Sorbonne, and it turned out that Clan Gregor was also interested in my research, so I gave an after-dinner talk there, too.

The paper eventually became a peer-reviewed article in vol.13 no.1 (2026),  pp.50-63 of the Folk Music Journal, ‘Sir John Macgregor Murray: Preserver of Highland Culture, Music and Song’.

2022

I gave a lightening paper at a HoPIN webinar. HoPIN is the History of the Printed Image Network, so my paper was probably rather unfamiliar territory for researchers more familiar with images than old sheet music.

2023

A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951

I was revising my second monograph prior to submitting it to the publisher. And looking forward to taking up my Ketelbey Fellowship in the History Department at the University of St Andrews. (By the end of the fellowship, I’d be working on revisions to the book!)

2024

I had not long retired from librarianship, but now I identified as semi-retired. So for the research fellow part of me, it was full-steam-ahead on indexing the second monograph, and my ‘vacation’ was somewhat busy. I was also contemplating an emergency visit down to Norfolk – I can’t remember if I actually went that time, because there were several such crises, some resolving sooner than others.

2025

Again, my vacation was far from relaxing. I was back from a trip to Norfolk, and in Glasgow we were having a new bathroom fitted. Meanwhile, we knew that a family bereavement was very imminent. I got the sad news on the final day of the bathroom re-fit, with a houseful of plumbers and electricians around. The news and our domestic circumstances will always be combined in my memory!

2026

Down-time

It’s more like a vacation this year, I guess. It’s warm and sunny. The garden’s looking moderately tidy, and I’m not rushing to meet a deadline.  If I feel unsettled and vaguely guilty for my laziness … well, maybe I’m just out of practice!

Anyway, I know I’ll be busy enough when my holidays come to an end.

Hammer and Pliers (not habitual Research Tools)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Song Gems (Scots) embossed song book cover, gold on olive green

The morning started well. I was so early arriving at the dentist that the receptionist made me a coffee, and I was back off the bus in Govan, five minutes after my Partick appointment should have started. (Don’t worry – no hammer or pliers were needed there. I just had a filling replaced. The nougat my son bought me had a lot to answer for!)

With more morning left than I anticipated, I turned to look at the proofs of my article about the Song Gems (Scots). Tweaking the abstract (still no hammer or pliers in sight), I decided I ought to look at the cover again, before using the word ‘beneath’. But there was a problem …

No Song Gems (Scots), my much-loved pride and joy.

I blamed my boxing-up and un-boxings occasioned by the rewire and redecorating projects, but only I could be blamed – no-one else was permitted near my precious research materials. Whilst I was still in a state of panic, I moved the duet piano stool to get better access to the bookshelf.

The bottom fell out of my world. Or, more correctly, out of the duet piano stool. Did I say I had time in hand? The hammer and pliers are easily accessible, but the tool-box containing nails is far less so.

The regular piano music is now back IN the piano stool; the tool-box is back under the stairs; and the prodigal Song Gems (Scots) has been found hiding in a pile of equally big, heavy books that are too tall for the allocated bookshelf. Proofs have been read, a bio written and the abstract perfected.

I could not use the word, ‘beneath’. Good thing I checked!

Shipment for a Semi-Retired Researcher

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

There’s no such thing as a typical semi-retired researcher! But my mail this week pretty much sums up my current preoccupations:  a tripod for the Zoom 5 Handy Recorder (research) and assorted double-ended knitting needles (semi-retirement sock project)! I now have all the tech I need, both for my oral history interviews, and for learning how to knit socks.

Researchwise, I’ve designated this week, The Last Week of Procrastination. I need to  get started on my interviews – no more ‘I must just …’ prevarication. Florence Nightingale’s ‘invalid’ of last week is not technically an invalid this week; I do know how my various technical options work – why, I even have a wee tripod to help me look the part! – all that remains is to start scheduling. (This is proving easier said than done, but I’m working on it …)

Who’d have thought a tripod was such dangerous tech?!

Retirement-wise, though,  I’m not quite sure where the sock-knitting fixation came from. My feet feel the cold, true. And I need something else to do other than embroidery, at times when I find myself ‘relaxing’ in front of the TV. (Let’s just park those inverted commas for now.)

Sheer Bloody-Minded Determination

But I’ve been driving myself crazy with this knitting malarky! If only I had an amenable granny sitting beside me telling me what to do next. As it is, I’ve downloaded instructions off the internet, bought a couple of books, and sworn quite a bit  … I absolutely hate being beaten by a circular needle and a variable quantity of double-ended needles.  (Manipulating these is worse than trying to hold bagpipes.*)  I can’t admit defeat to a 4-ply woollen sock, for heaven’s sake.  I’m meant to be intelligent. As my late mother said about cookery, surely anyone who can read instructions can do this thing? 

If nothing else, it’s proof that I don’t give up easily.  In the grand scheme of things,  I made a second attempt at a PhD. On this micro level, I will work out how to knit socks.

I finally (at the fourth attempt) turned a heel, and arrived at something resembling a sock. If it’s on my foot, it’s a sock, right? Even if Kitchener Stitch is a form of torture, and the sock foot is really only just long enough.

The other one of the pair will be better. And quicker.  I’m getting there.  The BBC recently showcased research proving knitting to be good for one’s mental health.  Relaxing.  Well …

Okay, it’s a ‘neat’ fit!

*Postscript. I did give up on the bagpipes. Learning whilst completing the second PhD was really not a good idea!

Spanners in the Works

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Last year, there were spanners a-plenty. Family and domestic life presented sadness and major challenges respectively. Nonetheless, last year was amazing. My IASH Fellowship was more than a highlight  – it was a great big blazing beacon, giving me focus and purpose.

This year, we’ve had the rogue trader, in the guise of the unreliable painter and decorator. Then a succession of good guys (plasterers, windowsill-fixers, tilers …).  The round of home improvements is nearly finished now. (Let’s just get the kitchen lino replaced, then we can settle down to await the stone-masons.)

However, more challenges still remain in other quarters. There are so many spanners in the works, that it’s a blessing my work’s only a small part of my week.

I didn’t even want to knit or sew, this morning.  Until I finally decided that even if sewing didn’t raise my spirits, I would at least have a new jacket, if I just got on with it.  And in between the 8000 steps occasioned by unexpectedly role-playing Florence Nightingale, I did achieve my mission. Well, very nearly.

Here’s hoping I’ll be wearing it when I go into work on Thursday!  However, I’m still hoping I get to go to town at all. I’ve  never been what you’d call a Florence Nightingale. And I know I’m a disappointment (this comes across loud and clear!) when it comes to stroking brows and smoothing sheets.  I can handle disinfectant and laundry, but I’d never have made a nurse! Thursday is still something of an unknown quantity. Whether I’ll be Florence Nightingale or a research fellow is equally unknown.

Anyway, let’s see what the rest of the week brings.  I’m itching to get on with the research project, circumstances permitting.

Postscript

More gains than losses:- trip to town not achieved; however, recording device mastered; jacket completed Thursday evening; and invalid improving.

Reader, I Killed It

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I thought I’d make bread for lunch. (It’s a semi-retirement day.)  The idea occurred to me too late, so I decided to try the bread-machine’s fast-bake setting.  I measured my ingredients carefully, but evidently not carefully enough.  It came out underdone: solid, squishy, and pale. Pasty – as in complexion, not the Cornish kind.

I could fix this. Into the oven it went, and then I sat down to reply to Checkatrade.  My dealings with them have been wholly positive. (More than can be said about one of their traders, but let’s not go there.) I composed one of my best replies, because I do appreciate the care they’ve taken with my complaint.

My nose alerted me to a problem. I had forgotten about the underdone loaf.  ‘Well-fired’ is a thing in Scottish bread products, admittedly.  But I’m no’ Scottish, and I can tell a burnt loaf when I smell it.

Ah, well. I sent my email, and the dead bread proved surprisingly edible. I won’t be using ‘fast-bake’ again.  (Neither will I  bake it myself from scratch – I’ll just use the regular setting!)

How to Make Life Difficult for Yourself

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’m not writing about scholarship today. Indeed, this is more a case of, ‘Don’t do as I do …’

  • Buy old house
  • After 30 years, learn that rewiring is needed
  • Box most household goods (this is mainly my remit) to facilitate rewiring
  • Pull a muscle in your back (ouch!)
  • Vacate premises
  • Return to scenes like this:-

Upheaval is Anathema

Now, having very elderly and neuro-divergent family members will make any upheaval twice as traumatic. It was. Keep this in mind.

  • Despite the need for redecorating next, I was told that We could not live like that, so the majority of the boxes had to be unboxed (again, my remit)  before Christmas. A painter was engaged to start after Christmas.
  • But first, I had to coordinate Christmas and pack it away again,  singlehandedly.  The pulled muscle complained.
  • And boxing up began again. (Again mainly, painfully, my remit). 
  • But this time, more of my books had to be boxed. Even for a former librarian, heaving big boxes of books about is strenuous work.
  • There were delays. And timekeeping issues. The estimated 4-5 days (this is disputed; apparently they estimated 5-6) extended to 18 immensely stressful days. Testosterone Towers took it out on me.  I’m mentally exhausted, and now the house has to be unboxed and tidied again.
  • OK, so now is a good time to go for a shingles vaccination. Only a mild reaction, but temporarily adding physical aches and tiredness to the mental draining. 

Between 4 and 10 pm yesterday, I emptied 12 boxes and cooked dinner.  Testosterone Towers can’t wait for order to be restored out of chaos.  It will happen.

In Fairness

  • Three rooms completely redecorated
  • Two rooms, hall and landings repaired

Although we had expected a couple of ceilings to be fully repainted, which weren’t, I have to say that the painter’s partial solution was masterful. The highlight of my morning today? Waking to this:-

Never was I happier to look up at a white ceiling. (Even if other parts of it are less pristine!)

I cannot think about research just yet.  I don’t need to, today or most of tomorrow. My mind is still frazzled, and there’s major tidying to do.  But hopefully a nicer environment will make for a calmer mind.

(Now, where’s the hot water bottle for my back?)

Writing a Review

We academics are good at writing reviews. I wrote a fair, but honest review of the work done. The ongoing outcome was a bit of a nightmare. Shall we just say, it was not well-received. (Some things are best left off social media.)

Suffice to say that I can recognise extortion. I spoke to Trading Standards and Checkatrade. I noticed last night that the trader is no longer affiliated to Checkatrade.

Parkinson’s Law in Reverse

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Many clock-faces

‘Work Expands to Fit the Time Available’?

Mr Parkinson, you’re so wrong!

Parkinson’s Law was apparently a saying coined by Cyril Parkinson in 1955. But today, I’m watching time expand to fit the work available, rather than the other way round. In our case, the work we expected to take four or five days, began at the end of one week, ran through last week and is still ongoing halfway through this present week. And I’m the site manager – but only insofar as I’m chasing up workmen and trying to keep the residents of Testosterone Towers happy.

You mean we have to keep looking at THIS?

Aged people and neuro-divergent people really do struggle with chaos and uncertainty, and there are bucketloads of chaos and uncertainty round here. It makes them uncomfortable and on edge.

Fortunately, I work part-time. The rest of my time is being spent making futile attempts to keep everything else under control. Testosterone Towers’ residents have clean, dry, ironed clothes. They can see as much carpet in our lounge as the slow progress of the work elsewhere will permit. (I can’t put things back in their rightful places whilst there are still dustsheets, plentiful dust, and ongoing work all over the place.)

The residents are fed on time (because one of the residents is comforted by timetables); and the supermarket shopping is still happening to the usual plan.  I’ve been using oven-ready meals.

What is harder for me is endeavouring not to annoy the most easily annoyed resident. As for keeping tabs on the project, my struggle is to keep a balance: enough for my efforts to be perceived as diligent, without actually annoying the working people I’d rather not offend!

I’ve booked a cleaning team for next Tuesday. But will they be able to come then? Watch this space.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Rewire, Redecorate … Research?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
White paint-pot and brushes on a sheet of newspaper

Rewired

Followers of this blog will recall that our Edwardian home was rewired at the end of November. ‘We’ don’t take kindly to upheaval, of which there was plenty, so I had to unpack and put back a lot of goods (including hundreds of books) afterwards  – notwithstanding the need for remedial decorating  – in order to make the place bearable for Christmas.  Note the ‘We’ and the ‘I’.

Redecorate: Magnolia and White

Today, the remedial redecorating commences (not a DIY effort), so I’ve been repacking goods all over again. I’m the youngish, averagely fit one – and I’m already knackered!  Even my FitBit agrees.  My back has only just recovered from November/December; my fingers are sore; I’ve run out of empty boxes (how, I can’t imagine); and am almost out of floor on which to stack stuff. We have too much stuff. 

I have done my employed research for the week.  Does anyone else working from home recognise this kind of thing?

‘I thought you might have started cooking dinner by now?’

‘But I work until 5 …’

And I did work. Then I cooked. Then I packed and stacked, and continued stacking and packing this morning.  The lounge looks like a library on the move –  and is now so much smaller, in terms of cubic air volume, that it’s actually perceptibly warmer with the same heater settings.

But even women who feel as though they’ve been dragged kicking and screaming back to the 1970s, against their will, have their limits. The kitchen is being decorated first, so it’s fish and chips for tea. There will be no cooking here.

Research?

I’m only contemplating research to the extent of acquiring a decent recording device this weekend! I’m starting an exciting new research project soon, and as soon as the ethical approval process is complete, I’ll be raring to go. Monday will see the Magnolia and White project going on elsewhere in the house – hopefully my own working environment will by then be spick-and-span – with me sitting enjoying remote training to ensure that the new research project goes well.

Now, what colour shall I inject into my magnolia and white dining room to make it a joyful zone in which to work …?

Image by tookapic from Pixabay