Ethnomusico - what?

I never aspired to be a rock star. I always loved music, and I played in the church growing up. But I wasn't a star.

I got a note from a college buddy the other day, saying, "I didn't know you were going to be a musician. When did this happen? What the hell?"

Yep, it's true. You're got a late bloomer on your hands.

The short version: When I went off to college, I picked Wake Forest, a good old Baptist school. I got a bachelor's degree in the completely safe and totally respectable field of political science. Then I graduated, and I was in love -- not with politics, but with a fella. So I worked for a while, then followed him. All the way to Australia.

The justification for me to go was that I got a fellowship at Australian National University to get a master's degree in ethnomusicology (a field just as obscure and random as it sounds).

But blah, blah, blah, fast-forward through the academia and romance (which ended). I realized only later that the whole expedition was about trying to justify my desire to be around music with enough distance to keep me categorized in people's minds as still on the Track to Succeed.

A degree in music, and being able to parse the social and political implications ofAustralian Aborigines' songs, is all well and good. To an honors-student kind of kid, it's the sort of thing you feel expected to do.

But here's what I found out: In terms of the real world and making a real difference there, ethnomusicological theory doesn't make it much further than the dinner table. I believe in the power of music, and more than anything I support Indigenous rights. But philosophizing about it doesn't change a thing.

People will play their music -- and along the way, use it to transform their communities and their lives -- whether we talk about it or not.

So, I knew. It was time to drop my tape recorder. And notebook. And observer's pen. It was time for me to do music.

And as soon as I got home to South Carolina, that's exactly what I did.