The Process of Long-Term Research

Exciting news: I was given the email address of a woman who has written a lot about Taneyev.  She is a Russian scholar and I don't think she speaks English, so I wrote her an email.  I would like to find out if she knows where any other Taneyev manuscripts maybe be located.  I am looking forward to when she responds.  Hopefully she will.  Her writing is very helpful, concise, and new.  She does not recycle the same information.  I'm having a lot of her scholarship translated into English so I can use it.  If only my Russian skills were developed enough... but they are not.

Dissertation researching is a long process.  I move quickly, but when I consider the amount of research to be done, it seems slow.  There are days I feel like I am on track, but most days I have concern about getting everything done to a degree that my committee will approve.  These are the hoops we must jump through.  By calling it a "hoop," I am not saying it is not important, but that there is a lot of "i" dotting and "t" crossing.  

Each new discovery, no matter how small, is important.  An email address, other potential archives, a new scholarship translation, an email from a colleague who studies Taneyev piano music, etc.  This is all important.  Through this research, I have discovered what a rabbit hole research can be.  There is always more to be done, another lead to follow-up, more questions to be asked and other questions that are unanswered.  

In a way, research is similar to music performance.  When we perform, the music is never perfect.  There are always musical ideas that can be changed or improved.  It is a never ending quest for more musical involvement.  Yet, at some point there is an end.  Normally it's a performance.  We sing, then we put it away.  We research and then we have to start writing so we can turn in a dissertation and become the doctor we have always dreamed of becoming.  

Onwards and upwards!