The second issue of Maynooth Musicology Postgraduate Journal will be a memorable one for the student editors, and for me too as founder and general editor. Many of the young musicologists who have written these essays will embark on new journeys, leaving our department with MLitts. or PhDs, some bringing their experience at Maynooth to bear on studies further afield. It is to the students of this volume and to musicology students in general that this preface is directed, for what matters on such occasions is not so much the educational givens of your background but the state of readiness of your own spirit. In fact, the ability to start out upon your own impulse is fundamental to the gift of keeping going on your own terms, not to mention the further and more fulfilling gift of getting going all over again -never resting upon the oars of success or in the doldrums of disappointment, but getting renewed and revived by some further transformation.