I’m sitting at my desk waiting for a Skype interview to possibly teach at Berklee.

And now I’ve had the interview. They called while I was in the middle of writing the first sentence. I think the interview went well. They seemed to get that I am a professional - that I know what I am doing and feel confident about my abilities as a teacher. They said they are going to call back several candidates for in-person class teaching in mid-July, and I know that is my way in. If I can get in front of a group of students I know I have an advantage. I wouldn’t imagine there are many applicants for this job that have as much experience teaching as I do. I think I’m in like Flint.

I would love, ultimately, to teach full-time at Berklee. It sounds as if they want to hire people to fill several sections of the African American music history course as well as for a Freshman seminar. It would be lovely to teach only at Berklee rather than at STCC. I love my students at STCC, but the pay is abysmal. Berklee, because it is in Boston, would most likely pay much better. In any event, it would be nice to teach at Berklee - any musician who teaches music history needs to know that Berklee is one of the best music schools in the country. Being able to influence the minds of a bunch of musicians would be a fascinating exercise in teaching; I could stretch out a bit and really dig into some musical info while hitting them with the cultural history.

This also means that I really need to get back to regular musical practice, at least resurrecting my fingerstyle jazz repertoire. Musicians can be tough if they think their teacher is not up to snuff with their level of musicianship. I need to have some confidence in my abilities as a musician in much the same way that I am confident about my teaching. I need to know that I have some decent music under my fingers.

I also need to work on my writing about music. I know that this is a freewriting blog, but I could write about music more often than I have. When I do write about music it is usually about what I need to be practicing rather than what I think about a particular genre or composition or musician. Especially given that my dissertation is waiting to be edited into publishable form, I really need to put that high on my list of priorities.

But freewriting, in and of itself, is very cool. I can easily now write 500-700 words per post without breaking a sweat. I’m sure my ability to write rapidly has been there all along, but I have had it ingrained in me - most writers have - that my writing needs to go down on paper fully formed. Freewriting has helped me to move past all that. I do at some point, though, need to pay some more attention to writing revision. As I have written before, I should try to revise some of the writing on this blog at some point, shooting for a book of essays, or possible just a book. I don’t really know yet if the substance of a book can be found in this blog. This post will be number 114 since I began the blog, and I haven’t re-read any of it. At this point it will be a lot of work to re-read everything and copy and paste the stuff I want to revise. It will probably be a rewarding exercise, though.