It’s been a while since I posted here. 1st of June to be accurate. Lots of changes going on. As of tomorrow I load a truck and move to Johnson City, TN to start a semester-long tenure as Artist in Residence at ETSU.
I will be posting to all my social media sites and accounts as time goes by to stay current, something that I have not been doing that much this year. It has been a struggle to get fully back into the swing of things after starting last year losing a good year’s work and having no gigs in sight for a year. But this is the beginning of a new era for me, lots of changes and attitude adjustments, things that really need doing in that regard.
What needs doing? First, I will need to take care of all the business of working at a university before anything else can take place (eg: ‘the fun stuff’). There appears to be a substantial investment of time and energy just in filling out forms and reading policies and agreeing/disagreeing with them, deciding on retirement plans, insurance options (Not much to do there because I’m on Medicare now. The rest is sort of a moot point), getting parking passes, an ID card and employee number, etc, etc. After all that’s done I will be working pretty much weekly on keeping up a schedule of classroom subject matter that will be informative and helpful to students who are placing their trust in me to help them undertake an artist way of life. Egad. They’re giving me their trust and their time, two of the most precious commodities anyone of us has. So now I really feel responsible for making sure I help them.
One of the things that I have been thinking about quite a bit is that I have no earthly idea what young people think about these days, not being one myself. What do they think about the state of affairs in the US? In the world? What are their political views? What music do they listen to, who are their idols/favorites? How do they operate in a musical environment? How do they interact? I have a feeling none of this is remotely similar to what I’m used to. I remember realizing years ago that I didn’t have a clue what my own kids listened to and I’m very sure that this will be similar. What I want to do, what I hope will happen is that my interaction with them will be more of a “tell you about me, tell me about you” situation. I hope that they will take interest, indeed ownership of the direction the class goes and be interactive and more concerned about their education than I am. It can’t work the other way around, IMO. I think if this comes about then we will all not only learn from each other but will have a very enjoyable and rewarding next 9 months.
In the time that I will not be in a classroom, giving private lessons or coaching bands I plan on working on my Patreon page (that thing that has turned into an albatross before my eyes) to get an active community going, working on my Monroe notation project, working on my own tunes, continuing to co-write songs, continuing to give online lessons and workshops and engage with the music-loving community. I would really like to meet you folks there one way or the other. We can break the virtual bread as it were. And too, I plan on continuing to work in-person gigs when I can. I hope that the COVID situation calms down so that nobody has to think about it anymore. We’ve all lost too many loved ones to it.
I plan to post more ambitiously on the blog too. Sorry for my neglect of the privilege. There are more projects in the works and in the wings to do, more coming. Time to manufacture more content and figure out what my brand really is, time to think about it. I don’t plan on buying any more overalls for a while I found enough boxes of spares that I bought when I was skinny to last me the next 10-15 years. I can’t imagine what it was I thought was going to happen. So it’s safe to say my appearance won’t change much but I have been thinking of changing my name to Grinnan Barrett.
Looking forward to every day as it comes and not taking anything for granted anymore. Thanks for your interest and support. If you’re ever in East Tennessee say howdy.