I managed to get reauthorized to use the library at Hope College yesterday. I had to walk from the dance department (who had done all they could think of) to the main college library.

The librarian clicked something on her screen and I was legal again. Hooray!

I tested it by renewing the book I have been reading: The English Hymn A Critical and Historical Study by J. R. Watson. Of course, the used copy I have ordered arrived in the mail as well. I am find Watson’s history and analysis of hymns to be very valuable. It has helped me see the historical significance of many hymns included in the Hymnal 1982. I have been writing little notes in my Hymnal 1982 Companion. Mostly I am simply cross referring it to Watson’s more lucid exegeses. Very cool.

I was listening to Bach and Beethoven this morning as I made coffee and cleaned up the kitchen a bit (my usual morning ritual enhanced with music since Eileen is away and there is no danger of disturbing her with my tunes), I was wondering about how people listen to classical music these days.

Could it be possible that the logic of music is something that many fail to apprehend, opting instead for fleeting moments of emotion and sensuality?

I do know that it’s often easy for me to doubt that the music I make in church is being noticed much less enjoyed or understood.

Nevertheless I persist because I do love making music, the more excellent it is the better.

I also love learning about shit on the internet. Case in point:  recently I ran across a reference to Bach’s Feet: The Organ Pedals in European Culture by David Yearsley (mentioned in my Aug 30th post). So I interlibrary-loaned it. Yesterday I gathered another bunch of Christian Romances (emphasis on the Amish) for my Mom and also picked up my copy of the Yearsley.

As I was reading Acknowledgements in it, I was delighted to discover that a new book was coming out about Mendelssohn and the organ.

A little poking around and ta da! I now have requested a copy of it.

I continue to think that Mendelssohn and a pretty underrated composer. Although after my cynical morning musings, maybe very few people are paying much attention to any of this historical stuff any way. I’m glad to be among them.

I also ran across this book in an Organ Historical Society email. Yep. Interlibrary loaned.

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Bob Dylan at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y. – NYTimes.com

This sounds like an interesting concert.

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An Ex-President Back in the Limelight – NYTimes.com

Letters to the editor. I liked the one signed by twenty prominent people including Gary Hart, Jennifer Granholm, Jim Hightower, Norman Lear, Ron Reagan, Robert Reich, and Eliot Spitzer.

This sentence struck me as true:

In America, you can’t love your country and hate your government, since we are the government.

Recently I have actually offended (something that’s pretty hard to do) by the Facebook page “I pledge allegiance to my country but not my president.” Followers I know include people in our military. Sheesh.

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Cleaning Up the Economy – NYTimes.com

Since I’m being all biased and shit here’s a link to an excellent Paul Krugman article. Example quote:

“Now, you may have noticed that in telling this story about a disappointing recovery I didn’t mention any of the things that Republicans talked about last week in Tampa, Fla. — the effects of high taxes and regulation, the lack of confidence supposedly created by Mr. Obama’s failure to lavish enough praise on “job creators” (what I call the “Ma, he’s looking at me funny!” theory of our economic problems). Why the omission? Because there’s not a shred of evidence for the G.O.P. theory of what ails our economy, while there’s a lot of hard evidence for the view that a lack of demand, largely because of excessive household debt, is the real problem.”

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Eileen gets on a plane and flies away to New York today. I don’t get to go. I couldn’t take a weekend off so early in the new choir season. Eileen will have good time and get to see daughter Elizabeth and her partner Jeremy before they move to Beijing. Elizabeth didn’t seem too upset that I was unable to visit. If she had I probably would have finagled it some how.

As it is, I am putting huge amounts of time and energy into upcoming music at work. It looks like my fall work week will peak from Sunday through Wednesday. So yesterday, a Thursday, will probably become a day for recuperating. Despite trying to take this into account I spent several hours practicing yesterday.

Of course I have one ballet class a day to play for on Mondays through Fridays. This leaves only Saturday open as a possible day of rest. And I find that I need to prepare for Sundays on Saturdays.

So reinstating the Wednesday evening rehearsal is changing my work schedule and inevitably increasing it as well.

At least I go in with my eyes open realizing this.

Speaking of being reinstated, I checked and I still am not authorized to use the library and resources at college yet. Sheesh. I will stop by the Dance department office and check with the secretary again today. On Monday she said this could probably be fixed with a few emails and that she would get back to me.

I have been reading in The Robert Shaw Reading. I admire the many letters reproduced there that he wrote to his choirs. They range from humorous to analytic to inspiring.

Yesterday they were in my mind as I emailed my choir recordings of two upcoming big pieces.

This setting of “Christus Factus Est” is an ambitious one for a small choir. I do think we can pull it off. I found a recording by John Rutter’s small choir (I don’t think this Youtube version is it). Of course my church choir is not the quality of his, but still it shows that a small ensemble sound can make it work.

I do think it’s a pretty cool piece.

I hit the accompaniment to the Bach cantata 139 movement we began rehearsing this week pretty hard yesterday. It is a mountain for me to climb because of the intricate (and necessary) voice leading in the transcription of the two oboes and violin obligatos.  It began to fall together a bit better yesterday. I have been practicing it slow so I was encouraged at how slow this recording was. Here is a screwed up Youtube version of the recording (It doesn’t begin well as you will see… the choir doesn’t come in for a page anyway).

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AP’s Mostly Factless Factcheck | FAIR Blog

Democrats Stretch the Truth in Talk and Text – Check Point – NYTimes.com

After all the hoopla about misstatements at the Republican convention I guess scrutinizing the Democrats was inevitable. At any rate, I am completely for accuracy.

And of course there is the critique from the left which reminds us what Clinton’s governing philosophy really was. I’m afraid it’s the way I see his presidency as well. I couldn’t vote for him the second term. Although I did admire the adroitness of his speech on Wednesday evening especially the part about not hating the opposition.

What Clinton Left Out Last Night

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Naomi Wolf: ‘Neural wiring explained vaginal v clitoral orgasms. Not culture. Not Freud’ | Books | The Guardian

Naomi Wolf’s new book is making a splash. Haven’t read this review yet.

Here’s the link to the excerpt of it on the Guardian website:

Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf | Society | The Guardian

I quite like the picture the New Yorker used in its review:

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TobyMac Tops the Charts – NYTimes.com

Christian music at the top of the charts. I can remember when Christian pop music was pretty terrible. Now I usually find it a bit cloying but much better written, performed and produced. I plan to check out some of the music mentioned in this article.

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John Dewey’s Vision of Learning as Freedom – NYTimes.com

I’m a long time admirer of Dewey.

“… [S]chools first and foremost should teach us habits of learning.

For Dewey, these habits included awareness of our interdependence; nobody is an expert on everything. He emphasized “plasticity,” an openness to being shaped by experience: “The inclination to learn from life itself and to make the conditions of life such that all will learn in the process of living is the finest product of schooling.”

From the link above

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A Never-Ending Story – NYTimes.com

I’m so glad that Linda Greenhouse continues to write and publish in her retirement. Here she gives us  a bit of history her insights on the ugly pre-Roe V. Wade aspects of abortion.

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All in all, I was pretty satisfied with last night’s choir rehearsals. Notice the plural. I had two rehearsals scheduled.  Two 3rd graders showed up to be in the Kid’s Choir. I was pleasantly surprised. Eileen helped me by sitting with them during rehearsal and helping them practice process and singing while I was at the organ in the church. I have asked them to come this Sunday and process with the choir at the beginning and ending of the service.

I was also pleasantly surprised that I had so many returning members show for the Chamber Choir rehearsal. Actually only one person just didn’t show without bothering to let me know. One person called in sick. The rest was the crew from last year. We had a good rehearsal and started working diligently on compositions by Bach and Bruckner.

Part of the happy surprise is the ease with which this group of singers recommitted themselves to a weekly rehearsal after not having one for two years. Pretty cool.

I was slightly disappointed that not one of the many new people I sent letters to showed up. Four people bothered to let me know they couldn’t accept my invitation to join.

I’m thinking my musical (or maybe otherwise general) creditably is pretty low with people who might otherwise join the church’s choir where I work.  And I’m sure there are a host of other reasons, not the least of which is living in a passive and under educated culture that prizes appearances and busyness over living a bit deeper life.

But as I told the choir last night, I want to make some good music before I die.

I didn’t follow this comment with my strong feeling that people can either join in or get out of the way. It’s their life and it’s their choice.

If I sound bitter this morning, it probably has a lot to do with fatigue. I tried to pace myself yesterday. I did an early ballet class with a new (to me) teacher which went pretty well. Then I traipsed off to the  Farmer’s Market. Came home and folded and collated a couple of anthems. Had lunch with Eileen. Went off to church and did a bunch of tasks prepping for last night. Practiced organ.  Managed to come home and lay down and rest for about an hour and a half. Then I met Eileen at church with some take out supper for us and did the rehearsals.

This will be a typical Wednesday for me. I’m hoping this soon to be 61 year old can keep up the pace and learn and perform some good music this fall.

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I think I just found a discrepancy between the vocal/keyboard score edition of the Bach cantata movement and the Bach Gesselschaft full score (both available online).

The full score indicates that there is one A sharp in this measure.  As usual the person who has made the keyboard adaptation has had to alter the lines a bit to make them fit. In the adaptation there is a voice crossing which puts the tenor A in the path of the ascending bass’s A sharp accidental. In normal keyboard practice, this A would be sharped which is how I’ve been rehearsing it.

I did however think it sounded a bit odd. So I checked the score.

As far as I can tell there is only one A sharp in this measure.  The second oboe (the second line) has an A natural in the first beat. The first violin (the third line) has A natural also in the first beat. And in the third beat, the spot where adapter has made up a tenor line (apparently out of thin air) there is no accidental on the A in the Viola part. In addition in the same spot in the figured bass at the bottom there is no sharp indicated on the 5 below the F sharp in the bass which would normally be there if the A was sharped.

As to the adaptation, I find it discouraging that the vocal/keyboard rendition also introduces a G sharp in the tenor line in the second beat where no G sharp exists in the original. This is the sort of thing I like to correct and just do a whole new little edition.

In this case, since I am hard pressed to learn this by the performance date of October 7th, I will probably only change the A sharp to A natural. This is pending an actually playing it at the organ and listening carefully.

As you can see, upcoming choral music is on my mind. This evening I have two initial rehearsals scheduled. At 6:30, Eileen and I will be sitting in the choir room waiting to see if any kids show up for the first Kids’ Choir rehearsal. I am pretty skeptical that any will tonight since no parent or child has indicated to me they will be there. But I am hopeful that in the course of the next few weeks some kids will drift in as their family begins to participate in our new weekly Wednesday education evening.

Eileen will be there because of the diocesan policy of not allowing only one adult in a room full of children.  It’s always handy anyway to have another adult present when you’re working with kids anyway.

At 7:30, I’m not sure who will attend the first Chamber Choir rehearsal. But I want to have folders ready and a rehearsal planned. (I will also have a Kids’ Choir planned and ready as well)

At this point I have all the Chamber Choir music ready to fold, assemble and stuff into 25 slots. That’s one of my tasks today. Another is to prepare this rehearsal. I have already begun some score study. When I’m doing such fine music, score study is essential to leading a rehearsal.

Another task is spending time at the organ console rehearsing upcoming preludes, postludes and accompaniments like the Bach at the beginning of the post.

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John Cage’s Music of the Unquiet Mind – NYTimes.com

Thanks to brother, Mark Jenkins, for pointing this article out on Facebook. I especially like the mention of Cage’s definition of an error: “simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality…”

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When It Pays to Talk to Terrorists – NYTimes.com

Description of unintended consequences in US reaction to 1972 Munich massacre.

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Syrian Children Speak of Revenge Against Alawites – NYTimes.com

I heard Kofi Annan talk about Syria on the radio this week. He said there could be no peaceful resolution reached by armed conflict. This article sounds like any resolution is highly unlikely. So discouraging to read about hate.

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Different Varieties of Mustard Plants Have Unique Spice Genes – NYTimes.com

Genetics and cooking. Whoo hoo!

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‘Visual Strategies’ Transforms Data Into Art That Speaks – NYTimes.com

Some concrete suggestions for clear design and image presentation in this article.

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I don’t think I mentioned that the prelude and postlude went well Sunday. I’m thinking of looking at the entire third Organ sonata by Francis Jackson from which I drew the slow movement (the Andante below) as the prelude.

I like his combination of spicy little harmonies with lyricism in it. Not sure if I’m going to have the time and energy to work on it soon.

Since I’m already planning to play Buxtehude’s Praeludium in F major, BuxWV 145 and Andrea Gabrielli’s Ricercar Arioso (IV) this Sunday as prelude and postlude respectively, I went ahead and chose organ music for the following Sunday. This puts me ahead a week. I’m thinking I could learn some harder music if I gave myself a minimum of two weeks for each Sunday. Of course some pieces will be longer projects.

Yesterday I scheduled Introduction, Theme and Variation One from “Variations on a Hymn Tune” Op.20 by William Mathias for the prelude. The nomenclature is my own. He doesn’t really call the beginning of this piece the “introduction.” But that’s what it is. I like to be clear as possible to listeners who notice the music citations in the bulletin.

I am very partial to William Mathias. Again he uses spicey harmonies and is in the same vein as Francis Jackson. But Mathias has a unique flavor all his own. I once heard an Anglican musician I knew in Detroit talk about interviewing Mathias before he died. The interviewer told me that he wasn’t sure that Mathias was living on this planet or something like that.  Whatever he said gave Mathias an otherworldly feeling as a person that matches his lively and eccentric music.

For the postlude I scheduled Toccata pour Grand Orgue (1912) by Gaston Bélier.

I found this piece by searching “toccata” on the ISMLP site. He was a pupil of Gigout. The French wikipedia article indicates a couple other composers who like him are basically known for one toccata, Albert Renaud and Marcel Lanquetuit.

Renaud’s is also copyright free and on ISMLP:

His is dedicated to Guilmant. Marcel Lanquetuit’s toccata is not on ISMLP. I figure this is because he lived well into the 20th century and somebody still holds copyrights on it.  Again the French Wikipedia indicates that his Toccata in D major was published in 1927. He died in 1985.

It’s kind of a gas to find three composers I’ve never heard of. I played through Belier yesterday before scheduling it. It’s fluffy but satisfactorily flashy.

I feel like as I kick off the choir season it might be a good idea to play a few of these flashy pieces for postludes.

At this point I’m bracing myself for no shows at the rehearsals tomorrow evening. I scheduled the rehearsals because the boss wanted the choirs to sing on Kick Off Sunday (that would be this coming Sunday).

I didn’t do enough (any?) follow-up to my recruitment letters except to talk with several people Sunday who basically told me “no thanks.”

My obstinate commitment to quality music in worship persists. Fuck the duck. I will begin teaching my choir the Bach cantata movement I want to sing on October 7th this Wednesday. I have some excellent music planned. I only hope I can pull some of it off with whoever bothers to volunteer for choir (and come to the reinstated Wednesday rehearsal). If it looks shaky I have plans B, C, D, and on.

Whatever shrug.

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Mexico City’s Aztec Past Keeps Emerging in the Present – NYTimes.com

Mexico City fascinates me. It’s a huge city and it sits on important archaeological treasures.

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Reagan’s Personal Spying Machine – NYTimes.com

I remember many negative things about Reagan’s regime (Hello, Olly North!), but this writer points out the irony of Republicans ready to gut entitlements who worship at the Reagan altar. Unfortunately Reagan did not hesitate to accept government assistance. This from the man who brought the USA the false idea of the Welfare Queen.

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Scaring the Voters in the Middle – NYTimes.com

Kristoff names off some important facts about rape and birth control in America.

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Aug. 27: Michigan Isn’t a Tossup – NYTimes.com

Thank you to nephew, Ben Jenkins, for linking this interesting take on polls.

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Ricky Gervais: Is There a Difference Between British and American Humor | TIME Ideas | TIME.com

And thank you to daughter, Sarah Jenkins, for putting this link up on Facebook.

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A parishioner accosted me after church at coffee hour and suggested that we should sing “Holy,holy, holy” or “A Mighty Fortress” in honor of our assistant priest sometime. The requester caught me off guard because he had tossed out a  comment which took me a moment to register.

Our assistant priest is a Lutheran minister. The ELCA branch of the Lutheran Church has an arrangement with the American Episcopal church in which clergy can serve in either denomination (if I understand this correctly).

I smiled non-committedly at the parishioner. Hymn requests are a tricky thing. My understanding is that public liturgical worship is diminished when it is used for self-expression (Sing my favorite hymn!).

I worked for a fine Roman Catholic priest who would never talk about his own musical predilections in my presence. He didn’t want his music director (me) to be influenced by his tastes.

I did say in response to this request that I had actually worked for the assistant in the Lutheran church and that we do use Lutheran music in our services. (How could one not?)

After he walked away, I realized that he had identified “Holy, holy, holy” as a Lutheran heritage piece. I admit that when he first said it, I thought he was talking about the Sanctus portion of the service which is sometimes called “Holy, holy.”

It took me awhile to realize he meant the hymn which begins that way.

The pairing of Heber’s text with Dykes’ tune occurred for the first time in the 1861 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Nothing more English and less German.

I continue to read of J.R. Watson’s The English Hymn. This morning he has just arrived chronologically at this hymnal. It has been helpful to my understanding to follow Watson’s elucidation of the evolution of English hymnody. This places Hymns Ancient and Modern as a hymnal which was consciously put together and promoted to reach over the many divisions of the English Christian church people at the time (sectaries as they were called).

The elderly parishioner who caught me after church yesterday was educated at Valparaiso University and seemed to identify strongly with the Lutheran tradition.

Pretty ironic that in his mind “Holy, holy, holy” was as Lutheran as “A Mighty Fortress.” Would that I had been a bit more nimble in my response. Missed the teaching moment I guess.

Went to log on to the OED this weekend and discovered that my Hope College privileges have expired. What a revoltin’ development! Hope College has classes today. So after class I plan to stop by and see if I can rectify this.

Recently after a comment about my attire (“nice shorts”) with an odd look from the chair of the department, I realized that I would dress any way they wanted if they would let me keep my online access to stuff. I mentioned this to Eileen and added, “I would cut my hair to keep that stuff.”

Looks like I jinxed it. Hopefully it will be possible (but probably a hassle) to get reinstated properly.

Stay tuned.

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I ran across four interesting looking articles yesterday and bookmarked them to read. Here are the links.

How Biomimicry is Inspiring Human Innovation | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine

“… [W]e human beings, who have been trying to make things for only the blink of an evolutionary eye, have a lot to learn from the long processes of natural selection, whether it’s how to make a wing more aerodynamic or a city more resilient or an electronic display more vibrant.”

Times Higher Education – Smoke and mirrors

“‘Agnotology’, the art of spreading doubt (as pioneered by Big Tobacco), distorts the scepticism of research to obscure the truth. Areas of academic life have been tainted by the practice, but some scholars are fighting back by showing the public how to spot such sleight of hand, reports Matthew Reisz”

The Millions : The Marquise Went out at Five O’clock: On Making Sentences Do Something

“When I find that a sentence I’m writing isn’t working, I don’t think about what I want that sentence to look like or to be; I don’t pull it from the page to weigh it in my hand; I don’t worry over its internal balance. I simply ask myself, ‘What do I need this sentence to do?'”

How Noam Chomsky’s world works | TLS

“Chomsky has achieved eminence in two very different fields, theoretical linguistics and political commentary. The “Chomsky problem” is that his approaches to these fields appear to contradict each other.”

Spent the entire morning finishing up a working copy of the Mendelssohn anthem I putting into Finale. I need to get practicing this as soon as possible, so even though it’s not quite done, I want to print up what I have and start learning the organ part.

All that is left to do is put in the words. I am thinking of making a different score for the choir utilizing this doc in which I will expand the two staves of the choral part into the more traditional four.

Anyway, that’s all the time I have for blogging.

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All-Star Orchestra Records Series for WNET – NYTimes.com

This seems like a valiant attempt to support this kind of music.

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Rage by Miners Points to Shift in South Africa – NYTimes.com

It happens over and over. The idealistic revolutionary becomes the fat cat and suppresses others.

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Students of Harvard Cheating Scandal Say Group Work Was Accepted – NYTimes.com

More on this story. Sounds like the situation might have been a bit more involved than the first news story:

Harvard Says 125 Students May Have Cheated on Exam – NYTimes.com

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The G.O.P. Fact Vacuum – NYTimes.com

We’ll see if the Democrats manage to do as prevarication.

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Transport for London razes homeless woman’s shelter | Society | The Guardian

Classical musicians living on the streets of London for years.

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Chinese City Gives Retirees License to Ticket – NYTimes.com

Interesting concept. It probably works better in a society that not only can see the invisible old but actually respects them in a culturally embedded way (I have experienced this there).

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Roma Still Waiting for a Change of Fortune in France – NYTimes.com

Roma=gypsies…. still get oppressed.

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On Gulf Coast, Low-Profile Victims Are Hit Hard – NYTimes.com

NYT tries to expand the notion of where Isaac has done damage beyond Louisiana.

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Negative Campaigning, Pompeii-Style – NYTimes.com

Same as it ever was.

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Party of Strivers – NYTimes.com

[T]here is a flaw in the vision the Republicans offered in Tampa. It is contained in its rampant hyperindividualism.

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A sentence from J. R. Watson’s The English Hymn keeps rattling around in my head:

The sound of these angelic harmonies ‘swelling'(a mysterious crescendo of sound) over the synecdoches for the created world, which themselves oversimplify it, anticipate film music, supplying the  emotions to meet the images.

A “synecdoche” is “a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in ten sail for ten ships or a Croesus for a rich man.”

Watson’s neat phrase about “film music supplying the emotions to meet the images” struck me when I read it.

My first realization that music could be used to maniuplate emotion was thinking about the idea of “altar calls” in the church where I was raised.

At the end of a church service there would be a moment when an emotional pleading hymn would be sung and people would be urged to walk up to the front of the church, kneel down and “give their heart to Jesus” …. i.e. to be “saved.”

I watched my father and other preachers lead this moment. They would often ask the musicians to keep playing while they spoke gently encouraging people to “come forward.”

The moment was emotional.

We have a family story about an older family member urging the son of the preacher to go forward during an “altar call” his dad was leading because “you dont’ want to your dad to be a failure, do you?” This story is not about me. But the young man developed an aversion to all things church as an adult. Who could blame him?

There is much movie music that I admire. I think the connection between music and images is fascinating and pretty constituent to being alive in the USA right now.

Yesterday Eileen and I went to see the movie, “The Dark Knight Rises.” It’s a weak flick in my opinion, but most movies hit me this way.

But it was mildly entertaining if lacking in even comic book plausibility.

The music was by Hans Zimmer and I think it included high quality synthesized orchestral sounds as well as more abstract sounds.

As I listened to Zimmer utilize the tricks that John Williams “borrowed” from composers I love like Vaughan Williams and Paul Hindemith I pondered Watson’s little phrase.

Music is emotion. But when it becomes the emotional servant of content like “altar calls” and super heroes movies what is going on? It seems to devalue the musical content especially when the music itself is outlining the emotions sought by the movie makers to evoke in the audience.

I have thought about how music works in church as well. Inevitably it must serve the moment. When it is used in an “altar call” or a similar obviously manipulative moment it is not far from Zimmer’s little tricks.

Zimmer by the way is a fine composer. As usual the music that caught my attention the most was during the credits. It is then that the composer can sort of let loose and do when he/she wants.

But music in church can work with integrity. For one thing there is a long musical history to draw on and utilize in choral anthems, hymns, organ music and other music.

I think of the distinction as helping people pray, not tricking them into feeling something. I have often thought of music as a sort of “frame” for the church service. The main activity is prayer.

Chanting prayer can “heighten” the language, removing it from the everyday experience of speaking and drawing it into mystery.

Idealistic, I know.

I will continue to think about this, I’m sure.

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