Revisiting Old Haunts (aka, Revision)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

It has been a fortnight of revisions. I had a minor tweak to do to my book manuscript, but that was done pretty much in the twinkling of an eye. So far, so good. I zipped it all up in another zip-file, and off it went.

I’m also revising a paper that I’m giving to a professional organisation at the end of April. Most of it is fine, but I have an extra bit I need to add since I last gave the talk to a different group.

But then, yesterday I decided to do some revision to a lecture that I’m scheduled to give to our own students in a month’s time. I’ve given it annually for several years, and each time it gets a little brush-and-polish to reflect any additional thoughts I’ve had on the topic.

This time – and I don’t know why I thought of it – it underwent a slightly more detailed overhaul. Partly, this is because of the work done on my book since this time last year. In March last year, I was still completing the manuscript for the first draft. Now, it’s with the editors, so my thoughts have had time to settle.  But actually, it’s quite interesting to stand back and look at this particular lecture, since it draws on my research over two decades, albeit in a pretty superficial way. (Well, how much can be said in an hour?!)

Writing Under Headings

As I read the lecture through for the umpteenth time today, I realised that there were bits of rearrangement to do. I remembered my PhD supervisor’s advice: write headings, then ensure you write to those headings. Today, I retrospectively added some headings and – miraculously – any passages that were slightly out of order pretty much jumped out and slapped me in the face. It definitely improves the clarity of one’s writing.

The Hebrides (Image by rachinmanila from Pixabay)

The controversies around Marjory Kennedy-Fraser’s achievements are clearer with some of the life history pruned out, and her friend Professor Blackie is introduced in a more organised way.

Ironically, my listeners won’t even know what’s changed (and they won’t see those  new headings!),  but I’ll know it’s more polished, and that’s the main thing.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

After their Moment of Glory, the Books Slept …

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Well, the talk seems to have gone well, and again, I found a very responsive audience. After being taken out for a delicious dinner, I headed for Dundee, which was the only way I was going to be at work on time in the morning.

Hotel room obligingly had low lighting and glass topped table, illuminating Wee Davie!

Another time, I need to clarify, for anyone not familiar with Tonic Sol-Fa, that it was devised for singers, not instrumentalists.

If you played an instrument, you learned off standard staff notation or by ear – with or without an instructor. In late Victorian times, after the 1870 and 1872 Education Acts, it stands to reason that more children would have learnt sight-singing by Sol-Fa, than learnt an instrument. Children whose parents could pay, might have had private instrumental lessons. Some might have had opportunities to join a band, learn from someone known to them, or pick up a fiddle (for example), but I still maintain that the majority of children were more likely to have encountered Sol-Fa.

As to social mobility … I’m not entirely sure whether it was easier or harder to fight your way up the ladder in those days. I’d need to ask a social historian of that era. I can only comment on the few instances that I’ve observed: ‘my’ music publishers certainly seemed to do well for themselves.

So, here I sit on a train back to Glasgow. Like Cinderella, my carriage will change back to a pumpkin, and my garb back to rags, if I’m not a librarian behind my desk by nine o’clock!

From Magic Lantern to Microphone:

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

the Scottish Music Publishers and Pedagogues inspiring Hearts and Minds through Song’

You just have to get to St Andrews!

Thursday at 5.30 pm

https://x.com/ISHRStAndrews/status/1726346251262722510?t=Pcj4iHBLW-ABj4-jzAECvw&s=09

All quiet over here

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

The Fellow had a migraine yesterday.

Caffeine, carbs, codeine and a lunchtime walk restored me to near normality, so I did some reading in preparation for the book revisions, and continued the task today. But migraines are very draining, so I’m tired!

Sea view

I have taken annual leave in order to spend my Thursday afternoons researching, to maximise the time I have in St Andrews. So I settled down to do what needs doing, but STILL I received emailed queries. I spent as little time as I could, but readers shouldn’t be kept waiting. Anyway, back to the research ….

Having a finite amount of time certainly concentrates the mind. Is this relevant? Useful? How does it help the argument?

It pays to get an oversight of a book’s chapter structure, and to make use of the index. If something is in digital format, searching for keywords certainly gives an indication as to whether it’s worth spending time on.

And home-time!

From Magic Lantern to Microphone

Next week, I’m giving another talk, this time to the Institute of Scottish Historical Research. It’s all written, so I just need to read the whole thing out loud to myself between now and then, to ensure there are no tongue-twisters to trip me up!

Crucial to the talk ….

And after carrying far too much to last week’s talk, be assured that I won’t make the same mistake again! My props will be no larger than will fit in a pocket.

What a Day! Action-Packed …

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I attended a lunchtime concert, gave a talk, and heard a doctoral presentation. Surprisingly – or maybe not – I’m knackered!

‘What are we doing in St Andrews?’, the books asked.

I have a bone to pick with Mozart Allan. I brought a backpack full of his publications with me. If anyone has seen a small, middle-aged woman with a heavy backpack, staggering around St Andrews, the lady is not a tramp! It just renders me incapable of going up or down stairs at anything faster than snail’s pace.

I really HAD to bring Morven with me, but I was starting to regret my decision before I’d even reached St Catherine’s Lodge yesterday morning! Much as I love my travelling companions, I’ll be glad to put them safely back on my shelf at home, where they can talk about the exciting time they had being the centre of everyone’s attention.

Those Wakeful Hours weren’t Wasted

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I would still have preferred a couple more hours’ sleep yesterday morning, but I sat down to revise my paper in the afternoon, and found my early morning brain had done me a favour: moving a couple of chunks of text didn’t involve much rewriting, and I think it makes a more interesting narrative.

My weekend working pattern is a bit disjointed – anyone running a household will understand – but that’s just my reality. Revise a bit of writing – start cooking dinner – a bit more revision. And so on. I tell myself that my subconscious mind is still working on it. (So, when I was carving the roast …? No, I don’t believe it was working at all!)

How to Slow Down Speaking Pace?

I also timed my paper. I think I must still read a bit too fast, though, although I do try to pace it. I don’t gabble. Maybe I should try again tonight, as slowly as I can manage. How do other folk get themselves to slow down? Any special strategies, tips or hints?

Here are suggestions from friends and colleagues. I’ve been practising with the first two already:-

  • Count one for a comma, two for a full stop, and three for a paragraph
  • Mark the script with where to breathe
  • Imagine you’re speaking to people for whom the language you’re speaking isn’t their first language.

I woke early again this morning, but thankfully my wakeful brain wasn’t in editorial mode today…

‘Sleep, Sleep, I couldn’t go to Sleep’ (to quote Eliza)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I didn’t sleep well last night.  Apart from external disturbances, once I was FULLY awake at 5 am – the fourth time I’d woken up – my mind did its usual trick of rehearsing anything I was worried about. I  reflected about my choir (I’m a church organist); had a wee think about an optician’s appointment; wondered  – again  – whether someone about to revise a book draft had any right to think about sewing a jacket – and mused contentedly about the first of two talks I’m giving this month.

Then, there it was. The second talk – the whole hour of it – there in my mind, Word headings structured down the side and all.  It’s a perfectly good paper, and I was happy enough with it earlier in the week. I was still pleased enough yesterday evening.

Or was I?

Yes, I was – consciously, at any rate.  Plainly, there was a subconscious part of my mind that was less so.

All it amounts to, is moving a chunk of text, and I can see how to make the link smooth at the beginning of it.  I’m just concerned about the other end of it. But lying in the dark, I was warm and comfy – and tired, albeit awake – and nothing was going to drag me down to my laptop at five in the morning.

My mind decided to have a go at something else: the PowerPoint. It’s a lovely set of slides, no problem there.

‘You’re going to have to rearrange the slides’, said my mind, shoogling them about in its imagination. ‘You’re bound to get in a muddle with the order.’

I don’t really think that’s a big deal, though. Just a practical detail, not a conceptual one. 

Huffily, my brain metaphorically shrugged its shoulders. ‘Suit yourself. Wanna go back to sleep, then?’

At 6.54 am? On a Sunday morning, when I have to rehearse the choir at 10? Nope, no more sleep. I put the light on. ‘Why is the light on so early?’, asked the other sleepy organist beside me.

So early? He doesn’t know the half of it. And I can’t do anything about my paper until this afternoon.

But it could have been worse – at least I wasn’t Eliza, after a giddy night out!:-

Bed, bed I couldn’t go to bed,
My head’s too light to try to set it down;
Sleep, sleep I couldn’t sleep tonight,
Not for all the jewels in the crown.
[I could have danced all night …]

Sung by Eliza in My Fair Lady, by Lerner and Loewe

Image by DanFa from Pixabay

7 & 8 November  – TWO McAulays in a week (in different places)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

It appears both my husband and I are giving presentations in a fortnight’s time!

The evening of Tuesday 7th , Hugh is talking on Zoom about Newcastle trolleybuses, to an enthusiasts’ group in Turin.* (Sadly for him, he’s sitting in Glasgow, not Turin, to do it!)

Less than 24 hours after that, I shall be giving a talk about a couple of Mozart Allan Scottish songbooks, in the Gifford Room (at the University of St Andrews’ Laidlaw Centre) on Weds 8th at 2.30 pm.

The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song: compiling a book with the 1951 Festival of Britain in mind

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/assets/university/music-centre/documents/music-events.pdf

The Glories of Scotland is a ‘snapshot in time’, as I shall explain. It has connections with another contemporary Mozart Allan title, and also with the Festival of Britain.  Admittedly, it doesn’t look particularly special to our modern eyes, but it indirectly tells us a lot about postwar British culture.

As it happens, I’m giving a lecture to the historians later in November, in connection with my Ketelbey Fellowship.  But I’ll be taking a very different tack that time. The music talk on 8 November is about one – okay, two books, whilst the history one covers half a century. And it feels as though, whilst I’ll be introducing history to the music lovers, I’ll be sharing music history with the historians – looking at how contemporary trends were reflected in what Scottish music publishers produced.

I’ve just finished writing my music talk.  On Wednesday, I made a list of all the images I’d need for the PowerPoint, and I had intended on Thursday to see which pictures I had already (as opposed to those I needed to scan), draft the Ppt and do some reading. 

However, I didn’t bargain on Storm Babet. Suffice to say, I got a bus home to Glasgow and spent the afternoon and evening scanning and finishing the slides. No reading got done, but at least the talk and slides are all sorted. Well, apart from timing it …

Postscript. Thankfully, the postie’s delivery of one particular rarity didn’t get drenched in the rain last week. It was only 2/6 in 1950 – I dreaded it getting damaged. Especially as I’m talking about the diaspora intentions of the publisher, and this particular copy comes from France!

* For Hugh’s talk, visit the ATTS Torino Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/attstorino

When Things Come in Threes

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Notebook cover reads, 'I am really busy'. Pen lying on the notebook.

I submitted the book on time at the end of July. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only thing I was supposed to complete by the end of the month. There was also my social media input before the Congress, which had a very fixed deadline indeed.

And that meant I absolutely could not complete the third thing on time. However, today I submitted the peer-review that I should also have submitted at the end of July. HOORAY!!

Necessary morning caffeine!

Anyway, when I’m not tied up being a librarian, I can now concentrate on a chapter I’ve promised to write, and two new lectures in my capacity as Ketelbey Fellow. After the hard slog with the book and the anxiety that the peer-review caused me (It was not only challenging, but I hate missing deadlines) – having these three things to do feels positively invigorating.