Dr. Rod Paton

The Canon Symposium begins. Great discussions about canon formation and preservation as well as canon “busting”. Ethnomusicologists are in the vanguard here - they cut through the nonsense whereby academics and other elites create canons purely to preserve their own narrowly focussed power bases. It has nothing to do with musical quality or the widening of (useful) knowledge.Will have to leave further discussion until another time but am now determioned to run a conference titled “You’re Fired! - Creating and Busting Canons in 21st Century Music”.

My 61st birthday begins with an earthquake - a “birthquake” I suppose! It shakes me out of bed at 6 in the morning and I prepare to run out into the street in my pyjamas. But then it fades and Kaz comes out of his room, cool as anything and tells me to sleep on. Only 5.4 on the Richter but epicentre was in Effingham.Payback time for last nights music!

Kaz was booked to play a gig with a band called “The Mannheim Steamroller”. The music is awful - chunks of fast food prepared with too much salt and little substance. It sounds like Richard Clayderman dressed up in New Age rock clothes.The accompanying video is tacky and saccharine. It is billed as “Open Aire (sic) Music” and it feels like an over extended Timotei advertisement. The concert is in Effingham, midwest, conservative heartland. They love the show. This music is very popular in the USA but I am sure it is totally non-exportable.

Visiting my friend of 40 years, Kazimir Machala (”Kaz”) who is now Professor of horn at the University of Illionois. I run an improvisation workshop with brass and wind players. The American students are very courteous and polite but also very forthright - open. They respond very well to the Lifemusic methods and some of them cluster round me after the session wanting to arrange another one. So that feels gratifying.The departments are called “divisions” and this is exactly what they are - the composers, musicologists, performers, jazz musicians and ethnomusicologists seem totally separated from each other, protecting their own spaces.

I meet one of my heroes, the grand old man of ethnomusicology, Bruno Nettl. Turns out he was born in Prague and we exchange a few Czech greetings. He is running a symposium - “The Canon Symposium” at the weekend. What luck!