The Girls In The Band

Guest post by Meritxell Neddermann Vinaixa, 6th semester student majoring in Piano Performance and Berklee College of Music Library Student Worker

El día 26 de Febrero se proyectó el documental "The Girls in the Band", de Judy Chaikin. Fue una experiencia muy positiva, un documental muy interesante y ocurrió en un ambiente muy agradable. La mayoría de público eran mujeres y de esas mujeres casi todas eran instrumentalistas. El documental esta muy bien construido: repasa cronológicamente diferentes bandas de mujeres y destaca algunas de las mujeres músicas más importantes del momento, que tenemos la suerte de tener muy cerca aquí en Berklee: JoAnne Brackeen y Terry Lynn Carrington, así como Ingrid Jensen que viene mucho a Boston y también estudió en la escuela. Es un documental que trata el tema de la mujer en la música desde una perspectiva muy neutra e imparcial, en la que cada participante da su opinión con libertad y sinceridad. El film nos revela algunos grupos no populares en estos tiempos pero que en su momento disfrutaban de gran fama como "The International Sweethearts of Rythm" y otros grupos y shows que comprendían mujeres solamente.

Despues de la proyección tuvimos la oportunidad de contactar por Skype con la directora del film, Judy Chaikin, que tiene un currículum de filmaciones muy repleto de premios y buenas críticas. Ella pudo explicarnos porque se le ocurrió la idea de hacer este documental entre otras cosas y después hubo una discusión en la que la gente del público entre ellos Christine Fawson (Berklee Faculty) compartió su experiencia.

Fue ciertamente un evento muy interesante y bonito que nos dejó reflexionando a todos acerca del papel de la mujer y su "voz" en el mundo de la música y el arte en general.

Sustainable Creative Practice with Caroline Harvey

Guest post by Ethan Smith, Berklee College of Music Library Student Assistant, Music Business Major, Performance Poet

I first met Caroline Harvey, Berklee professor and renown performance poet, when I started attending the Berklee Poetry Club. After my first meeting, I knew that the room was a place where self-expression was encouraged and the atmosphere was the most welcoming place I had experienced since I began my Berklee career. This safe space was nurtured into being by Caroline when she first came to Berklee as an Artist in Residence and a Visiting Teacher in the Liberal Arts Department in 2009. Caroline worked with her Liberal Arts colleagues and some interested students to launch this incarnation of the Poetry Club, now called reVERB Poets. The poetry club has now existed for just over four years, and it has grown tremendously in this short amount of time thanks to Caroline's hard work and dedication to making the program a success.

Caroline recently gave a talk at the library based on her new original curriculum titled "Sustainable Creative Practice." Or in other words, how we as artists can create art from a safe space and learn how to continue our productivity throughout our careers while maintaining our physical and emotional health.

I took away many incredible life and career lessons from this event. Firstly, that "artists have a responsibility to document the human experience." This was especially revolutionary to me because in the past I myself have wondered, why am I putting so much effort into a passion that may never present itself as a career opportunity for me? Until now, I have used my work primarily to accomplish self-healing. While this is absolutely valid and a big part of what art can do for us, I've also realized that we as artists are serving and potentially inspiring others simply by sharing our stories. By documenting our own experiences, we are creating a historical timeline through our art. The same way that we look back on great artists of the past, people will someday look at today's artist's work and understand how the world was interpreted through their minds and eyes.

Caroline also has studied Buddhism faith and culture and presented to us what she calls the "Tantric Spectrum of Emotion," where love is at one end and despair at the other. She observes that humans tend to attempt to avoid despair altogether and work to stay happy all the time. And that this way of thinking does not allow for genuine art to be produced because when aspects of the human experience are ignored, we miss opportunities for expression. She states that "When we are not moving, we are not creating." This also moved me because again I was confronted with something that I had done in the past. I always thought it would be so great to be happy all the time! I now realize that no person can achieve this and if they are, they are repressing something that may come to the surface at some point and they won't know where to go from there, as they've never allowed themselves to feel despair.

Also during her presentation, Caroline spoke to us about the many parts of ourselves. She referenced the work of Dr. Richard Schwartz, the creator of a therapeutic modality called Internal Family Systems. She talked about our moods and inner voices, and how one part of self may attempt to be at the forefront of our mind or behavior, and we may feel ruled or "hijacked" by our different parts/emotions, depending on the day. She encouraged us to regularly identify the parts of ourselves so that when something does come to the surface-- an emotion, a desire, a memory-- we are aware of its presence and won't be taken by surprise, therefore giving us the ability to make choices and not feel blindly overwhelmed by a roller coaster of emotion. I believe this is an incredible tool for an artist to have. We are all truly emotional beings, and identifiably more emotionally aware than those in some of other professions. I will definitely be putting this into practice, so I may learn to keep myself under control, make healthier choices about how I live and create, and also know when it's appropriate to let loose in a healthy way.

I have learned a lot from Caroline Harvey simply by being around her as I've become more involved in slam poetry, and especially since she spoke at this event! I feel I've learned things that will stay with me and become tools that I can relate to my experience as an artist. I appreciate Caroline coming and sharing with us things she has learned through research and experience so that we all may become more sustainably creative throughout our careers as artists.


To read Caroline's full biography and see her work, got to http://caroline-harvey.com

Some resources from which Caroline has studied and have impacted her work are available in the  Stan Getz Library:

Poets on Prozac: mental illness, treatment, and the creative process. Berlin, Richard M.
Call# RC451.4 .A7 P54 2008

To be an artist: musicians, visual artists, writers, and dancers speak. Colatosti, Camille
Call# BF408 .C65 2012

Yoga for emotional balance: simple practices to help relieve anxiety and depression. Forbes, Bo
Call# RA781.7 .F67 2011

Touched with fire: manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament. Jamison, Kay R.
Call# PD JAM1993 (CDC)

Musician's yoga: a guide to practice, performance, and inspiration. Olson, Mia
Call# ML3820 .O47 M8 2009

Creativity and disease: how illness affects literature, art, and music. Sandblom, Philip
Call# R702 .S26 1995

The 27s: the greatest myth of rock & roll. Segalstad, Eric
Call# ML394 .S44 2008

The creative habit: learn it and use it for life. Tharp, Twyla
Call# BF408 .T43 2006

Archives Exhibit

If you've come by recently, you've probably noticed the new exhibit at the entrance of the Library and Media Center. This display features a sampling of items found in Berklee's newly-formalized Archives. 

"From Schillinger House to Berklee School: One College's Journey..."

Here are a few highlights: 

• Official announcement of Berklee’s renaming in 1970 when it became the Berklee College of Music. The College had previously been known as the Berklee School of Music since 1954, following its founding as Schillinger House in 1945.

• Early student records featuring a registration form dating from the College's initial days as the Schillinger House, Arif Mardin's (‘61, H ‘85) certificate of acceptance, and a roster starting with student number 1.

• Commencement 1971 program, featuring commencement speaker Arif Mardin (‘61, H ‘85) and Berklee’s first honorary degree recipient, Duke Ellington (H ‘71).

• Three works by former Berklee faculty member (1959-1985) John D. LaPorta (1920-2004): Developing the School Jazz Band, Tonal Organization of Improvisational Techniques, and “Excursions for saxophone quartet” (original composition). A saxophonist and clarinetist, LaPorta was a prolific composer for professional and collegiate ensembles as well as a dedicated educator who authored a number of instructional workbooks and other teaching material.

• Framed and signed composition written by Berklee faculty members Al Kooper and Dennis Montgomery III for Lee Eliot Berk, president of the College from 1971-2004:

“Musical Fortress: The Lee Berk Song”

Lee Berk didn’t grow up in the style of Tom Sawyer.
Lee Berk went to school to be a lawyer.
But Lee Berk’s name backwards is a musical Acronym,
so he went to work in the school they named after him.
Twenty four years he’s been our leader and the man
and in this space he’s made a place every musician can understand.
The more you know about what it is you do
a better melody will come from deep inside of you.
Lee Berk, all of us salute you tonight.

Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal and Other New eBooks

Reference books don't circulate, which means they are always available in the library, but that does mean you need to get to the library to use them. This is what makes our online resources so convenient. A great example that was just added to our collection is the Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal Music from our eBook collection. You can access it from anywhere. And although, like our other eBooks, you can download the full text, because it is an encyclopedia, you'll probably only need to look up specific entries, which you can view online.

If you love heavy metal enough to at least consider reading this encyclopedia cover to cover, be sure to look at its bibliography, which will lead you to more sources to dive further into the subject.

EBooks that are new to our collection show up in our eBooks on EBSCOhost database before they make it to our catalog, so it's always worth the extra step of looking there when doing research. Among other new titles in the collection:

• Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's 'Illmatic' by Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai
• No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays by Ellen Willis
• Writing The Broadway Musical by Aaron Frankel
• The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age by Thomas MacFarlane
• Sounding Like a No-no?: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-soul Era by Francesca T. Royster

On-Campus Access to Electronic Resources

We don't have off-campus access to our electronic resources, but you can still get to our eResources, including databases and streaming media, from on campus.

If the page won't load when you click on the link for a resource, delete this from the beginning of the URL:

http://catalog.berklee.edu:2048/login?url=

Reload the page with page with the remaining URL (something beginning with http://), and you should have full access.

We apologize for the inconvenience and are working hard to restore full service to all our resources.

Citing Tweets

One of the challenges of citing sources in your research is that new types of sources emerge faster than rules for citing them properly are formulated. We have a research guide, How to Cite Print & Electronic Sources, with examples of how to cite most common sources. In our reference collection, we have style guides such as MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (LB2369 .G53 2009).

But what about citing tweets? Twitter wasn't much of a consideration when MLA was last updated in print, but the Modern Language Association answers the question of how to cite tweets on their website.

Joy Division: Learn the Myth, See the Mythbuster

Peter Hook, bass player for Joy Division and New Order, will speaking at Porter Square Books on Friday, February 8 to discuss his new book Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division. A halo of myth surrounds Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, who sang of gloom and despair on the bands' two iconic album then hanged himself at 23 on the eve of their first American tour. Hook brings not only his first-hand knowledge of life in Joy Division but also the perspective he's gained in the three decades since the band's demise. In an interview on Salon promoting the book, Hook discusses how his has sliced through the Curtis mythology:

Peter Hook: Ian Curtis wasn’t curled up in a ball, head in his hands

We don't have Hook's memoir yet, but an understanding of the legend helps to fully appreciate his point of view. To comprehend it, check out:

The two Joy Division studio albums:

• Unknown Pleasures (Annex CD (Box 57))
• Closer (CD 10095)

The feature film about the band and their Manchester scene:

• 24 Hour Party People (DVD 1203)

Documentaries about Joy Divison:

• Joy Division: The True Story of the Meteoric Rise and Fall of One of the Most Influential Bands of Our Time (DVD 3354)
• Joy Division: Under Review (DVD 4359)

Books about the band and their work:

• Torn apart: The life of Ian Curtis by Mick Middles & Lindsay Reade (ML420.C92 M53 2009)
• Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott (ML421.J696 O88 2004)

Peter Hook appears at Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White Street
Cambridge, MA, 02140, 617-491-2200, at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, February 8, 2013.