So It Begins

Hey everybody!

This is the beginning of my efforts to chronicle my life for the next four months or so out at the Contemporary Music Center (CMC) on Martha's Vineyard. Hopefully it's interesting (I'll try to put some pictures up eventually...) and feel free to shoot me questions if any come up as I'm sure there will be things I forget to mention in here.

Okay so, *Dun-dun-dunnnn...* here's what's happened so far:
Getting to the island - I'm the female RA this semester along with a guy named Brad, and we had to be out to the CMC a day early for training, so my original plan was to drive out to MA with mom, but at the last minute (literally the day before we were supposed to leave) I found out that my car had a couple of severe issues that couldn't possibly be fixed before the trip.
Conundrum.
Shift to...no, create Plan B.
Mom and I ended up flying out of Minneapolis on Thursday morning (Jan. 7th), connecting in Philadelphia, flying another hour to Boston where we caught a charter bus to the ferry at Woods Hole, and finally arrived at the CMC at about 6pm. Mom caught a ferry back to the mainland on Friday (the 8th), took another bus ride back to Boston and arrived in the Cities around 10pm that evening.

Campus - The campus is actually a camp in the summer and is owned/used by a group called FOCUS (Fellowship Of...something. I'm horrible with long acronyms). There are several buildings on the grounds, a couple of which date back to the 1920s, but most were built between the 70s and mid-90s.

The Buildings

The Palace - This is the place where all of the students sleep and occasionally hang out. There are six rooms (three on each end with a common area separating the two sides), each with 3-4 bunk beds, 6 small dressers and a closet-esque fixture.

The Cafe - The upper level of the Cafe is the main congregating area on campus where everything from (amazing) meals to classes to late-night games of Scattergories (or whatever else you can think of) happens. The basement consists of a practice studio, linen closet and laundry room (both of which double as practice spaces), and the Res Life office.

The Lodge - This is where the Executive track students consider home base and it's primarily under their jurisdiction, but when they're not having secret meetings (class) everyone else is free to watch movies, play Wii, use the computers, etc.

The Barn - This is by far the most expensive/intimidating/exciting location on campus. It's the place where all official performances happen and where the Techs do their thing. I don't know how to describe this. Honestly, anything I say would make it sound cool but wouldn't do it justice at all, so I'll just put up some pics later.

Days 1 + 2
Well, seeing as I meant to post this before, this is going to be more of a recap of the first few days.
Everyone started showing up around 11:30am until 6pm, so Brad and I spent most of the afternoon showing people where everything is on campus, explaining what would be happening the rest of the day, and attempting to answer any questions they came up with.
Some of the A.I.R.s (Artist In Residence, former students) and local artist Mike Benjamin put on a great mini-show for us in the Barn, kind of gave us an idea of what to expect for the rest of the semester.
Yesterday (Sunday) we all had church together in the Barn and it was quite the experience. I've never been in a service where the message was completely music based with a few monologues and readings scattered throughout. After an amazing lunch we all just sat around playing games or instruments for a few hours until dinner, and I planned the evening social event (which ended up being called "Speed Friendship") with Brad. Overall, the night was a great success and I think everyone here is going to click really well.

Day 3
Today.
Monday.
The first day of class.
My final first day of class...ever?
Dang...alrighty then.

So yes, all of the above. Basically, Monday consisted of our directors Tom and Warren overwhelming everyone with the amount of technology at our fingertips. Stage lights, instruments, their own expertise in just about anything musical or music related, more Mac computers than I've ever seen in one place other than my dad's office...
Next came 3-ish hours of freetime in the afternoon to do (literally) whatever we wanted, then some of us closed the day with a showing of (500) Days of Summer on the Lodge's enormous flatscreen.
It was a good day.

Day 4 (Today)
Tuesday brought another wave of information overload. Today it was ProTools and the $75k worth of sound/recording equipment located in Studio A (alone). Warren demonstrated is sound-god abilities on the mildly intimidating soundboard, giving a basic explanation of the process of transferring sound from mic to the amplifiers (and everything in between). Tom discussed the importance of a well-functioning relationship between an artist and their manager, describing some real-life scenarios that any of us may encounter once we leave the CMC. It's going to take some time for all of this to sink in, but I think the foundation that they are building, not only in me or the other students as individuals but also as a group/family, is going to be more beneficial than any of us realize right now.

Stay tuned for more sporadic thoughts, pictures (eventually, I promise), and the general train of thought going through my head :)

Romans 12