When I received my harpsichord kit from Zuckermann way back in the late sixties, the instructions recommended purchasing three pieces of music: The Dover Edition of Bach’s harpsichord music,

The two volumes of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book,

and the two volumes of Schirmer’s Early Keyboard music.

The first two of these are still impacting my musical life. In fact I have bought a second copy of the Bach. When I’m working I keep one at church and one at home.  The Schirmer was a very bad edition of the wonderful music on its pages and I’m not sure if I even still have either volume.

At the time my musical training was limited to some piano lessons from a woman whose name escapes me right now and some trumpet lessons. Most of what I knew about music at the time was self-taught.  This was  more of an accomplishment before YouTube. I remember working out how bass clef worked after asking my Dad where middle C fell in it. I knew the treble from trumpet playing. I learned my first understandings of chords by examining the music found underneath chord symbols in pop music.

It interests me that the Bach and the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book both continue to be valued parts of my daily life at the piano. Oddly enough it was the Pentangle (which I was listening to at this time) which got me to take the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book more seriously. John Renbourn and Bert Jansch performed music from it. I was fascinated by how carefully they performed the written music. Their abilities to perform the music so accurately inspired but even more inspiring was the coherence and beauty that lurked in the  music.

In my sixties the music of Bach and the Renaissance continues to astound and deeply attract me. I’m grateful to the Zuckermann people for recommending them.

The Living Room Candidate – Commercials 

The Museum of the Moving Image has all of the presidential commercials made available for watching online. All  you need is an updated Adobe Flash Plug-in. Jill Lepore mentions it in These Truths: A History of the United States.

Arabic, Muslim symbols ordered taken down in China’s capital