Detective work!!
I love playing detective! And I don't get to do it very often. As a technical services librarian I am mostly in the background, cataloging materials so that patrons can find them. And I love what I do, can't imagine doing anything different.
But every now and then, I do get asked something, it's usually a no pressure situation, and I get to have some fun. Today was one of those days.
A music librarian colleague from another institution emailed me this morning. He knew that I had contributed the clarinet section of a publication that is coming out later this fall and he was hoping that I was also a clarinetist and would be able to help him identify a piece.
He was cataloging a student recital from 2006 which contained an encore piece that was not identified on the program. Unfortunately the file he sent me wouldn't open. After some back and forth and me contacting my IT department I learned that the file needed to be open in Quick Time. Luckily for me my iPod Touch has Quick Time. So I opened my email on it and got the file to play.
Then I got stuck again, I didn't recognize the work. Of course, I suspected that I probably wouldn't recognize it, but my hope was that someone I knew would. Yet I persevered and with the help of one of our student workers (who is also a clarinetist) we took a guess at the composer, did a little searching online and in our catalog, pulled a few pieces off the shelf, and did some listening and score reading. I found it pretty quickly after that. Also found a CD of this composer's works and sent it to our music librarian to order for our collection.
I was so proud of myself for actually being able to help identify this piece of music. I was certain that if I could just get the file to open I could send it to a few friends who are more active in their clarinet playing and teaching than I am and one of them would know. But only being able to get the file to open on my iPod forced me to exhaust all my resources first. I'm still amazed that we found it!!
That was my fun today!! Overall, this was a small accomplishment, but it felt like a lot more. I not only helped someone else out, but I managed to accomplish a lot of other things as well today because that feeling of success carried over into everything else I as doing.
I'm glad I could end the week well, but I'm also glad the weekend is here. Time to relax and renew!
By the way, for all you who are dying to know what the piece was that we were trying to identify, it was from Preludio y Merengue by Paquito D'River, and it was the Merengue section only. It's a trio for piano, clarinet, and cello. A quick, bright work in 3/8+2/8 time with an improv section in the middle for the clarinet. Good selection for an encore piece.
ReplyDelete