Midnight Ascent

This weekend I went on a crazy trip with the Melbourne University Mountaineering Club. It was a bushwalking (backpacking) trip up the northwest spur of Mt. Feathertop. It is one of the MUMC annual trips that takes place mid-winter around the time of a full moon - here is some more about Midnight Ascent. We met in groups on Friday evening and drove up to the trail head in time to start hiking around midnight. The drive over was pretty neat. It was the first time I had been outside of the Melbourne suburbs since I've been in Victoria. I was pretty surprised by how flat things were. On the way over to the Victorian Alps (the range of mountains containing Mt. Feathertop) I kept looking for hills and mountains but it all seemed very flat until the last few kilometers. We were able to see several planets and a lot of stars very clearly on the drive over but unfortunately by the time we arrived at the trail head, the sky had gone from clear to cloudy and rainy.

all ready to go at the club rooms in Melbourne

It took a while for the group to get their packs situated in the dark and in the rain but we started hiking sometime between 12:30 and 12:45am. The trail up to the MUMC hut where we were headed is 6.5 km (4 mi) long and gains 1,100 m (3,600 ft) in elevation. The first part of the trail seemed perfectly reasonable. I think around 2:30am we reached the part of the hike called The Wall. It goes pretty much straight up for a while and then the trail changes to a series of switchbacks. After that is a long steady climb. In the dark, you can only see as far as the beam of your headlamp allows so it didn't really seem that bad. You just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Occasionally, we stopped for some much needed chocolate and water breaks and leaned against some trees (no place to sit in the snow!). Pretty soon the rain changed to sleet and then to snow. By the time 5am rolled around, I was getting pretty worn out so I started singing to keep me moving. My boots, even covered with gators weren't really that waterproof so by this time I was pretty much walking in my own personal puddles. Its not so bad when you are moving because it stays warm but when your shoes don't dry out and end up freezing overnight (the next night) it is not so fun putting them back on. It started getting light around 6am so the last bit of the hike was light enough that we didn't need our headlamps. We finally reached the hut at 7am and pretty much just dropped our stuff and curled up and went to sleep.

about 5:30am

finally! the hut is in sight!

The hut was built in 1965 and is a geodesic dome. It has two floors for sleeping on and tanks with water. All of the materials to build the hut were carried in and put together by about 200 people. Here is some more about the hut from the MUMC website. We had about 40 people in our group so a number of people had to bring tents and camp outside in the snow. Sleeping in a tent may have been a better idea than in the hut because it is quieter out there and the condensation from so many people in the hut meant that it was essentially raining inside. The first "night" was fine but on Saturday night I covered my sleeping bag etc. up with a tarp and everything still managed to get wet while I was sleeping.

After napping for several hours I got up and made some food and went outside to play in the snow for a little while. We built a snowman and threw some snowballs. In the evening, everyone made 3 course meals completely from scratch! My group make smoked trout and stuffed potatoes for the entree, Thai coconut chicken curry (including cracking and scraping the coconut to make the cream) and rice for the main, and apple goodie with cinnamon whipped cream for dessert. Everything was so delicious!

Sunday we headed out around 12:30. The sun came out for a while and I was surprised to see other mountains surrounding us! Every other time I had been outside it was either snowing or there was a lot of fog / low-lying clouds covering the surroundings.

The hike down was pretty easy. It only took 3.5 hours to go back the same trail that took 6 hours on the way up and the weather was perfect. There were a few areas where the snow was very slushy and slippery and a lot of places that were really steep and needed careful foot placing. Lots of gummy worms and chocolate on the hike down :)

I was so happy to change into dry, not sweaty clothes and dry socks when we reached the bottom! I was disappointed that I didn't see any animals on the hike at all. I heard a few birds but didn't see them. We found some evidence of deer (introduced) and some other people saw a mouse of sorts. There aren't ticks here this time of year but there are leaches. One of them found me in the parking lot when I was drying out my feet - that was interesting. We stopped at a pub on the way home for some nice hot food. I had roast lamb for the first time. It was quite good!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend! I am still incredibly sore. Climbing stairs is very interesting.

Bicycle Adventure to St. Kilda

When I am tired, upset, sad, or frustrated some of the things that make me feel better are music, hugs, dancing, and being near the ocean. Last week the night before my day off of class I couldn't sleep. Somehow I must have decided to set my alarm clock for no reason because it went off at 7:30am the next morning. Trying to think positively, I decided the best course of action was to throw some clothes on, grab a book and take the bicycle and try to find the beach. I followed the bike paths I could find through the city but somehow lost them a bit and ended up following the tram lines down to the beach. I went past Albert Park at one point and finally made it to Beaconsfield Parade where there is a great bicycle path along the beach. I wandered around for a while and found a few piers and saw the Spirit of Tasmania (the ship that travels between Melbourne and Tassie).

The beach area reminds me of what little I remember of the beaches in Santa Monica, CA and some of the ones I saw in Denmark and France. It is a very narrow beach with a lot of restaurants, cafes and swimming clubs right up against it. There are several boardwalk areas along the beach. After about an hour of bicycling and wandering, I stopped for some breakfast and read a book for my Ethnography of Music class.

After it rained for about an hour, I continued on my way around to somewhere between Elwood and Brighton past some wildlife parks and marinas and more beach areas. I was really impressed by the bike paths and pedestrian paths along the beach. They were really accessible and pleasant. Here is a picture of the Melbourne skyline from the furthest point of my trip.

I headed back to the city through St. Kilda road and it decided to pour down rain again just before I got to the VCA. All in all, the trip was a little over 20 miles and a really fun excursion!

I hear parrots out my window on sunny days

So I have fallen way behind on blogging – there has just been a lot going on! It is amazing how much the weather can affect your day. Some days it has been really rainy, cold, and just plain miserable. Others have been reasonably nice – and even sunny for a few hours! I am getting a bit tired of winter but things are looking up. I have even worn sandals a few times because I was tired of wearing boots all of the time.

There are lots of really neat birds around Melbourne. I see Lorikeets regularly on my walks to class and lots of Australian Magpies. I saw a really pretty Sulpher-crested Cockatoo flying around Southbank a few weeks ago and I have seen a number of King Parrots around as well. I have heard a number of Kookaburras but I haven't really seen any up close. If you are curious about some of the other birds around, this website has a very good list with lots of pictures and descriptions: http://birdsinbackyards.net/finder/birdlist.cfm.

Jamie and I went to the Melbourne Museum two weeks ago for our Tuesday Adventure because it was pouring down rain. We only saw a small portion of the museum in the two hours that we were there but luckily it is free for students so I plan on going back some other time. There were some really interesting film reels playing that were taken around city of Melbourne over the last hundred years. It was really interesting to see what has changed and what is still the same. In one exhibit there were the newsreels that would have played at the movies during the 20s, 30s, and 40s. They even paired the silent ones with piano music. I kind of wish there were more “silent” films these days. You pay a lot more attention to what is on the screen and the different music that is played can really affect your interpretation.

In another exhibit there were baskets made by different Aboriginal groups around Australia. They were very similar in design to the sweetgrass baskets that are made in the SC Lowcountry. Another exhibit had canoes and wooden carvings of human and animal figures from different Pacific Island groups. It reminded me of a canoe exhibit I saw in Denmark and the wooden carvings were remarkably similar to some wooden dolls I have from Africa. It is really neat how different groups of people all over the world come up with very similar things.

The Australian Coat of Arms. They chose the Kangaroo and the Emu because they never take a step backwards - only forwards or sideways.

Some of the sails and canoes on display at the Museum.

The Melbourne Royal Exhibition building.

I've been meaning to put up some pictures of the Queen Victoria Market so here are a few I took on one of the non-rainy days.

there is a huge area with clothing, shoes, jewelry, luggage, souvenirs and other things

some of the fruits and veggies - yum!

farm fresh eggs and honey!

there are stands with flowers

there is a large meat and fish market section

Apparently American doughnuts are pretty popular here, I haven't ordered one yet to see how they are. I've also been meaning to do some wine tasting at the market but I haven't done it yet. One of my favorite treats from the market is the lemon curd tarts. You can get them plain or with a passion fruit layer on the top. They are sooooo delicious!

Dance to the music, any old way you choose it

Well, it has been a busy, fun filled week! On Monday, I booked plane tickets and made various other reservations for spring break (September 18- October 3). Jamie and I are going to Alice Springs and Kings Canyon, Kata Tjuta (Olgas) and Uluru (Ayers Rock) for the first part of spring break and then I am going down to Tassie for about a week and a half. In other news, my Monday class (Historical Performance Class) opened another section on Tuesday mornings at the same time so now I have Mondays free instead of Tuesdays!

Our Tuesday adventure this week was a bit restricted by time, so instead of going to St. Kilda, Jamie and I wandered around the neighborhood by our apartment building and down around the Queen Victoria Market. We had a delicious lunch of Thai food at this little hole in the wall restaurant by the market and saw a whole bunch of interesting shops around the market that we hadn’t noticed before.

On Tuesday afternoons, the Early Music Studio has a masterclass series. This week Rachael Beesley, a baroque violinist who splits her time between Victoria and the Netherlands, led the class. I played Lord Massereen on the baroque violin I have borrowed for the semester. I think I am really going to enjoy this series of masterclasses. Next week is one focused on Baroque Dance.

On Wednesday in Baroque ensemble, we worked on some Uccellini Sinfonies that one of the recorder players is arranging. That night, I got to play with the Melbourne Colonial Dance Band at their monthly ‘live music’ dance. The dances are organized a bit differently than the contra dances at home. The dances are set weeks in advance and the musicians play music that goes specifically with each dance. In some cases, the tunes have been spliced together to get the correct number of bars of music for that specific dance. Because they dance a variety of dances including some Schottisches, Polkas, and Quadrilles there are more types of tunes available than just the jigs and reels used for most contra dances. I had a lot of fun playing and even got some good recordings on my little digital recorder of the band and the caller!

Thursday, I had Conducting. It is getting intense fast! Last week we just worked on some simple conducting patterns, but this week we have to look at the introductions to each movement of Beethoven Symphony No. 1 in C Major and Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale and figure out how to conduct them! Some pretty crazy things happen in those pieces. In Soldier’s Tale, the bass has constant eighth notes but the rest of the ensemble switches meters all the time. I hope everyone else in the class feels just as overwhelmed as I do! It should be fun though.

Friday evening, Alysha and I decided to go to St. Kilda. As we were walking between the two trams along Southbank, we stumbled across this Winter Festival. They had a tent with Poffertjes! Mmmmm so tasty. The kids working there spoke Dutch and were very nice – they gave us free tickets to go ice skating at the outdoor rink set up for the festival! So, thoroughly sidetracked from going to St. Kilda, we skated for a while and then they cleared the ice so some professional skaters could perform. It was so much fun! We continued our wanderings to the Crown complex. It houses a really nice hotel, restaurants, an entire mall, and a casino. We got some gelato and wandered around looking at everything.

the ice skating rink at the winter festival

Alysha on the ice

the performance by professional skaters

Everyone I have met here is so nice. People keep driving me to dances and rehearsals and feeding me and driving me home again. On Saturday, I went out to Ringwood (about a half-hour outside the central part of the city) for a rehearsal with the Melbourne Colonial Dance Band. There were about eight fiddle players there and a hammer dulcimer player and a guitar player. After working through the set list for the dance that night, we took a break and had an incredible sit-down dinner. Everybody brought something and without any coordination we had two kinds of soup, a salad, some baked veggies, a roast chicken, several quiches, wine, and some fruit for dessert. It was so delicious. At the dance in Ringwood I think we had almost as many musicians on stage as we had dancers. It was a blast! We were joined, at the dance, by another fiddler or two and a guitar/banjo player.

there was a mass of fiddle players!

this dance had the widest age range I've seen here so far

fiddles

fiddles

and more fiddles!

Sunday I went back out to Ringwood for a rehearsal with Borderline Kaylee. This is a group of young musicians and dancers that performs at festivals as well as playing for dances etc. It was a great rehearsal - we played music, danced, had some “Australian meat pies” and danced and played music some more!

Today, there was a lot of sunshine. I didn’t have any class today so I didn’t do much. It was nice enough outside that I sat on the South Lawn on campus for a while and did some reading and I didn’t even need a sweater! Spring is almost here! Well, I’m off to dance again at The Quiet Man. Until next time.

Now for the fun stuff!!

I went folk dancing three times this week J. On Wednesday, I danced with the Melbourne Colonial Dancers http://www.melbournecolonialdancers.org.au/ at their weekly Wednesday night dance. I brought Claire along for her first night of dancing and I think she had a blast too!The group is mostly older folks but they are all great dancers. The dances are set for the whole evening and most evenings they dance to recordings. It is a lot more like the folk dances I have been to in Oregon than the contra dances in Charleston and other places. They do a wide variety of dances and a lot of choreographed partner dances. Once a month, the Melbourne Colonial Dance Band http://www.melbournecolonialdancers.org.au/band.html plays live for the dances. Next week is one of those nights and guess what? They asked me if I wanted to join in! Because the dances are set in advance, the music is also often picked out in advance so they gave me a copy of the set list and will bring extra copies of the music to the dance. It should be great fun!

On Saturday, I went to the Old-Time Tea Dance. There was an incredible live band with multiple accordion players, a pianist, a whistle player, and a banjo player. It sounds like they have been playing together for almost fifty years. Most of the dances are not called or walked through. However, they are usually done twice or three times in a row so if you don’t know the dance yet you can stumble through the first time and then actually dance it the second time.Here are the dances we danced:http://www.melbournecolonialdancers.org.au/TeaDance%20July%202010.jpg. About half-way through the evening, they stopped for a potluck dinner. It was awesome!

Tonight, I went to a Celtic set dance with some of the young people that I met at the Old-Time Tea Dance. It was so much fun! It is at an old Irish pub not too far from my apartment. We danced a whole bunch of quadrilles on just about the smallest dance floor I have ever danced on! There were usually two and a half sets (10 couples) on a floor about 15’ by 15’. Nice and crowded J. It really makes sense in that kind of space that couples take turns dancing in the square and that movements are a little more controlled. The dance teacher was such a hoot!She threatened to swat us with a broom if we skipped with our feet too much. I hope I get back there a couple of times throughout the semester.

After Conducting class on Thursday, I decided to go over to the new Melbourne Recital Center down the street from the music building to ask if they offer student rush tickets – they do. The concert that evening sounded very interesting and started in a little over an hour so I decided to stick around the area for a while. I headed over to Flinders Street Station to get my concession card since I was told by my student center at the Uni that that is where I should take the form and get my card. Well, it turns out that the form I was given was a bit out of date and did not have on there that they do not process the forms at Flinders Station between 4:30 and 6pm. Huh! After having a very confusing and frustrating conversation with the “customer service” counter, they finally relented and processed the form and gave me my card. I still had some time to kill before the concert so I wandered out of the station.

Outside there was an older man busking on the street corner. He was playing Meditation from Thais. They really appreciate music here. There are so many street musicians. I am actually considering applying for a busking permit – they are free to apply for and it might be nice to earn a couple of dollars now and then. I have also been watching a little bit of Australian TV.Their Dancing with the Stars has a whole orchestra that performs live on every show.

Anyway, I went back over to the Recital Center for a Vibraphone concert by Speak Percussion.It was so much fun! I am always so impressed by percussionists. Speak Percussion performed a lot of recently composed pieces including one premier performance. One of the pieces was for prepared vibraphone. The spinning valves had bits of cardboard and Styrofoam placed in and around them along with some of the metal plates and mallets hung by strings – not a great description, sorry, but it was a very interesting piece. There was another piece written for tuning forks and vibraphone. I don’t think I had witnessed tuning forks being used as an instrument before. They struck them with mallets and then waved them around in the air before setting them back down on the table. It was fun to watch. The last piece on the program was my favorite. It had five movements and was written for 4 musicians on one Vibraphone.Each movement had a very different flavor. One of the movements used bass bows instead of mallets and one was with fingers instead of mallets.

On Sunday, Alysha and I went to a Footy match (Australian Rules Football) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It was a lot of fun. I think this is a sport that I could actually handle watching.It is played in a round field, also the cricket field, with goals on two “ends” of the field. It reminds me of Frisbee, Quidditch, and American Football combined. There are a lot of players on each team and it is very unpredictable and fast paced like Frisbee. Goals are scored through three goals at either end – 6 points for the middle and 1 point for the side – kind of like Quidditch. Other than that, there is a good bit of tackling and there are four quarters to a game.The clock doesn’t stop all of the time like it does in American Football but I think there are a lot of similarities in the rules. The teams seem to be more community or city based and aren’t associated with a University. Players don’t seem to have huge salaries like professional football in the US so it has much more of a community feel to the sport.

The view from our seats - nice and dry and right near the center of the field.

The Richmond Tigers - the team we decided to cheer for - they won!

During play - I am not sure who the people in neon yellow are.

During half time, a bunch of kids got to play mini games on the field.

The birds were not at all shy. They kept hanging out all over the field.

The goal posts - looks like you could fly a broom around there right?

Surprisingly we didn't freeze solid.

We had four different types of weather during the match: Sun, rain, sun, clouds, and hail?

Did that stop play? No!

Some more about the Uni

I guess I’ll start out with my classes. Wednesday I had Baroque Ensemble and The Ethnography of Music. I think that I am going to really enjoy both of them! I am not 100% sure how the ensemble class is going to run yet. It seems like it is a very flexible and fluid group. A bunch of the other musicians that are in that class were apparently still in Europe during class so I am not quite sure even what instruments we have. It sounds like we will break into a number of smaller ensembles and maybe play some pieces with a larger ensemble as well. I know there are a number of Baroque flutes and recorders, at least on harpsichord player, and at least one or two other violinists. I have borrowed a baroque violin and bow for the semester with gut strings and all and I am getting used to playing at 415 without a shoulder rest or a chin rest again. Oh, that reminds me, I need to go get a piece of shammy to help keep the violin from slipping off of my narrow shoulder so much.

The Ethnography of Music is mostly a class about how to do research. I think I am going to try to do my project on dance music or Australian Bush music or something. I’ll have to see what I can find in the library and by asking people. I found a really interesting web page before I left home about some of the dance music traditions: http://www.australian-heritage-dance.com/ellis.html. Peter Ellis lives only a few hours away from Melbourne so I think I am going to try to shoot him an email and maybe I can find my way over to Bendigo to play music one weekend.

On Thursday, I had my Conducting class down at the Southbank campus. It seems like it will be a very fun class. This time we spent about a half-hour waving our arms around in the air and starting to get the feel of conducting. Next week we are all bringing our instruments to form a hodge-podge ensemble to practice conducting. I think it is primarily brass and percussion with a few guitars and a token pianist (I am the only violinist!) so I think it will be fun.

Friday, I had Music and Health. It is by far my largest class with over 410 students enrolled (the rest are around 20). It is going to be a blast! We have two professors in a huge lecture hall. They walked in and started off with some call and response singing. Two of the suggested reading books for the semester are books that I already read this year for fun!

The undergraduate degree system here is a lot more focused than most programs in the US. Most programs run only 3 years and students take almost entirely classes in their degree area. Students really seem excited to be here and focused on their studies more than what I have experienced at home. Classes have a lot fewer assessments, usually just a paper or two throughout the semester that become the basis for your entire grade. I haven’t quite decided yet if I like that idea or if it will just stress me out more. I am going to have at least three big research papers this semester so I guess I’d better get started!