music chit chat

me on the far left. Scott Karr middle and Ronn Fryer on right.

My high school friend, David Lyle Strong, has asked me to email him some of the details of my life since we knew each other back in the sixties. So that’s what I’ve been doing this morning. Whew. I’m up to 1987. I figure that’s enough for one email.

I had an interesting chat with my boss yesterday. She surprised me by doing a bit of research around music director jobs and salaries both locally and via the AGO.  She noted that even when one considers my current position as half time, I am still well below AGO recommendations. (I’m around 25K annual and the AGO recommends more like 28K). We didn’t talk too much about it, but I think I’m doing much more than a half time position.

In fact that is my question that I want to sort of ask this community. If my position is not full time, what’s the difference between what I am doing now and what full-time entails?

The other thing I suggested to my boss was that since she does seem happy with my work that we list off all that I do in the course of my job and then we could prioritize my tasks.

One of the reasons I want to do it this way is that I feel that my experience and understanding of my gig surfaces in consultative collegial conversations I have had with Pastor Jen. I have actually made quite a difference in the way this church worships on Sundays. This has been through appropriate wide ranging discussions about our community. Followed by judicious applications, development, refinement and/or discarding of these ideas by Pastor Jen.

Both of us seem to value this kind of conversation and would like it to continue. I would like it to be somehow acknowledged as part of my job. But we’ll see how it fleshes out.

In the meantime,  I do enjoy chatting with her.

I spent several hours on the organ bench yesterday. I have been rehearsing a long Bach chorale prelude that would be appropriate for Pentecost.  It’s based on the tune, “Komm Heiliger Geist” (Come, Holy Ghost), BWV 652.I was gratified to find that James Kibbie takes it pretty slowly on his recording. [link to free MP3… Kibbie has made his recordings of Bach’s complete organ music available free online. Cool!]His recording is 8 minutes long. I think this kind of a long prelude. I will probably go even a bit slower so it’s going to be more like 10 minutes.  Apparently it is one of his longer choral preludes.

Excerpt-BWV652.png
Bach's Komm Heiliger Geist.... my version doesn't have that funny clef... thank goodness...

And the dang thing is requiring some practice by gosh. I also read through Vierne’s Carrilion Westminster. [link to info on this piece]My buddy, Peter Kurdziel, performed the hell out of this on Wednesday. God bless the ISMLP online library of free music scores [link].

I am learning Mendelssohn’s Prelude and Fugue in G major. Lovely stuff and works nice on my little (very little) Moller organ. [link to PDF of this piece]

So all of this is taking time at the bench. Plus my piano practice. Yesterday I was working on Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Life is good.

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0 thoughts on “music chit chat

  1. There is no difference. People who are dedicated to their passion or craft or employment do not let little things like that interfere with their passion. Eventually, you want to get paid more and you will be recognized by others which leads to more money, but money is not an end in itself. Your passion is. Always do something that you are passionate about. It is very difficult to not recognize your passion.

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