Hell Week/Mariachi Madness

So this week is hell week. For me, anyway. The week between Winterfest (my last one...sniff!) and juries. You can tell it's jury week when you're walking through the music department and the entire orchestra is standing outside their practice rooms running through their repertoire. Which is what I should be doing, I think to myself. Instead I'm running around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to get things done before tomorrow.

Tomorrow is epitome of hell week (aside from my jury, anyway). I have three huge projects and a presentation due, none of which are entirely completed as of this posting. Here I am, too, procrastinating even longer.

I fell in love with ethnomusicological fieldwork last night. For one of my projects, I got to interview several members of a mariachi ensemble out of Orange, CA. They brought out their instruments and stuck around past closing to serenade me! They told me about how long they'd been involved with mariachi, and a couple of them gave me some recordings of their other ensembles. They invited me to sing a few songs with them, too. I don't think non-musicians can do this kind of thing. I was able to communicate openly with these guys because I speak their language (well, broken Spanish, but I'm talking about music here).
Needless to say, I can't wait to do more fieldwork. I really believe understanding what we all have in common musically is the key to understanding our underlying cultural simiarities.