Two hours of performing classical music and jazz with my friend, Amy, didn’t take too much of a toll on me. I was glad. Aging is tricky. Is my fatigue related to my schedule, my age, or some form of depression? So I am tired this morning but not exhausted.

I suppose we were in a well to do home in a fancy suburb of Holland. The party was catered. The daughter of the anniversary couple tipped us $40 after we had played. Most of the people at the party stood away from us across an area of comfy chairs and sofas. They felt distant. Occasionally someone would come over and assure us they were listening and they appreciated us. Once, a young boy sat on a nearby sofa and listened intently as we played.

I played a Yamaha home electric piano owned by the husband of the anniversary couple. The keys were not as weighted as my own Yamaha. The sound was not terribly good, but I was glad not to have to haul my own equipment to perform. My electric piano doesn’t sound that good anyway.

My friend Rhonda must have read about me preparing piano duets since she emailed me yesterday. We are planning to meet this Wednesday to play some.

I was discouraged when i weighed this morning.

I am gaining weight. And of course I have a doctor’s appointment Tuesday. I am planning to contact Ann McKnight this week. She is the second therapist Rev Jen recommended to me. When I called last week her answering machine said she was out of town until tomorrow.

I’m not convinced that I am suffering from a dire mental illness, but I will continue to pursue this.

McKnight is not covered by our insurance. It’s possible there might be a way to submit her fees as an out of network provider. I’ve asked Eileen to check into this. If McKnight doesn’t work out, I will return to John Gibson.

This all will cost money out of pocket apparently.

We spent a bit more money than we should have this pay period. The $270 from yesterday’s gig will go right in the account to cover bills (and possibly shrink fees).

The Voter Support Agency Accused of Suppressing Votes – The New York Times

I now understand the weird campaign to stop Americans from voting in several ways. There is the obvious idea that Republicans benefit from lower voter turn out.

But McChesney also postulates that the depoliticization of our society via loss of franchise benefits the oligarchy (which is not limited to a political party). It echoes the “bread and circuses” notion of ancient Rome. And of course racism drives the American dream.

I spent an hour or so poking around in the Hope College library trying to find information about “Flocks in Pastures Green Abiding” or “Sheep may safely graze.” Katherine K. Davis did a version which is copyrighted 1942. This predates the publication of the Oxford Easy Anthem Book (1962). However a little more poking around online shows that Roper’s arrangement from the OEA was published in 1946.

Sometimes it’s helpful to simply browse materials when doing this kind of search. This is what I did yesterday. I didn’t learn much. I think my next step will be to carefully compare the original cantata text to Phyllis James’ “translation” which Roper uses.

Looking at the above it looks like Davis wrote the text: “Sheep may safely graze.”

I pulled together a bunch of piano duets yesterday.

My friend Rhonda mentioned playing duets together.  When we did so previously, I found myself stumbling quite a bit to keep up with Rhonda’s tempos. She is a good reader of course. So I’m thinking of practicing a bit before we end up playing some together. I love Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos and own volume two of Max Reger’s weird 4 hands piano transcriptions of them. I also have a creaky old edition of Opera overtures of Mozart and Weber for four hands. And Schubert’s symphony.

Today my goal is to survive prep for tomorrow’s church and a two hour gig with Amy the violinist.

Why Musicians Need Silence in an Always-Connected World

In this interview with Stephen Hough, he makes some excellent points about classical music. I especially like his ideas about not dumbing music down to the audience. Very cool. And very different from Chilly Gonzales’ weird resentment of classical music’s demands on listeners.

Yesterday Janice Ian celebrated her birthday by sharing a new song. I like it. I especially like that she has a “bridge.” This third section (after a few verses and choruses) of the music which offers a bit of variety seems to be omitted these days by many pop writers.

So Saturday I have a gig with my friend and colleague Amy Hertel Piersma. She booked it for us. For $250 a piece we will play for two hours. It’s a surprise 50th Anniversary party in a home. The people putting it on requested a mix of classical and jazz. We have developed a pretty cool play list including some pieces she and I play very well: a Mozart violin sonata movement and two movements of an incredible CPE Bach violin sonata. In addition to this we have added some lovely Loillet and Telemann. Amy is making a little collection of Jazz tunes she recognizes in my Real Books for both of us. This will be fun two hours for me.

I sometimes let the library set my reading patterns, putting books that I have checked out higher on my daily reading list than books I own. Consequently, I have been working on the following two books.

Bernard Knox has called George Steiner’s book, Antigones: How the Antigone Legend has Endured in Western Literature, Art, and Thought “a profound analytical discussion of the impact of [Antigone] … on the modern consciousness.” That was good enough for me to want to examine it. Now I’m reading it in earnest. Steiner delves deeply into areas that interest me like philosophy (Hegel) and Romantic poets (Byron) and there understanding of “Antigone.”

The book is full of thought provoking sentences like “The coordinates of Idealism are exile and attempted homecoming.” I think of myself as a life long outsider which is a kind of exile. Steiner is speaking in a strict sense about Idealism in terms of philosophical discipline, but it still causes an echo in my little pea brain when he says later “self-exile seems implicit in the life of consciousnesss, in the capacities of the human ego to think ‘outside’ and ‘against’ itself.” This observation rings throughout my own consciousness. I see myself as someone who often embraces his own struggle.

The other library book I am madly reading is Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy America. If you read this blog with any regularity and attention you know that co-author of this book, Robert W. McChesney, is on my intellectual radar these days as I think about our political system and media. I am reading an ebook copy of his book,  Blowing the Roof Off the Twenty First Century: Media, Politics and the Struggle for Post-Capital Democracy. In it, he mentioned Tragedy and Farce as important reading to understand his ideas.

I had already checked this book out and was reading the illuminating chapter on the November Presidential Election of 2004. (Did you know that GW Bush was caught using an ear piece feeding him answers in the debates that year? The New York Times killed the story just before the election that year as at the same time the right crescendoed the hideous Swift Boat lies about candidate Kerry) McChesney’s mention of his own book motivated me to return to the beginning of Tragedy and Farce to see what else he has to say.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Turn to Attacks on Credentials – The New York Times

This is a troubling turn of events in the Democratic presidential primaries. I have been trying to understand it. I have a suspicion that Sanders and/or his campaign might have been reacting as much to the following Washington Post headline as to anything Clinton actually said.

So church work is percolating along in the usual crazy manner. I have been courting a parishioner, encouraging her to meet with me weekly and work together on her flute playing. She message me yesterday that not only could she not make our appointment today, but she really needed to back away for the time being due to health reasons. Perfectly reasonable.

Then i received a text from a choir member. He wouldn’t be coming to rehearsal even though he knew I would be introducing new music. When I arrived at the rehearsal, another chorister had written on the calendar that he would be arriving late due to a lecture being giving on The German Requiem of Brahms (which he and other members of my choir are singing with a local group). Several people have signed out for upcoming rehearsals. We only have six weeks left.

I continue to attempt to draw volunteers into more commitment by providing some cool music and good rehearsal techniques. This fails. I realize this is not something unique to my situation. In our society in the USA people’s commitment to extra activities has changed drastically. This makes little things like amateur choirs and handbell choirs very difficult to do well.

I gave a good rehearsal last night. But it was difficult. I systematically presented the new material attacking two of the three challenging pieces with strategic rehearsal techniques that seemed to pay off immediately.

We ended the rehearsal going down the organ and singing through Sunday’s Alice Parker anthem (easy) and the E. Stanley Roper rendition of Bach’s “Flocks in pastures green abiding” (not so easy). The people present did a good job with this especially for a first run through evening.

Speaking of this last piece, as I prepared for last night’s rehearsal I realized I didn’t know anything about how this famous adaptation from Bach’s Cantata 208 came into popularity. Since then I have been poking around, googling, looking at text books and trying to figure out where the choral harmonies and text came from since they are not original to Cantata 208 which is a hunting cantata.

Afterwards I had two choristers wanting to continue to attend the Brahms lectures. They will go for two more weeks. One of them immediately backed down when I began explaining to her my strategy of learning some cool music. She had (of course) arrived too late to hear this explanation that I gave to the people present at the beginning of rehearsal. The other chorister was undaunted when I pointed out that it was inconvenient to church choirs to schedule an important series of lectures on Wednesday evenings because we were not the only church choir rehearsing on this night. He pointed out that the church where the lecture was being given must not have their choir rehearsal on that night.

Sigh.

I will continue to keep trying to figure out where “Flocks in pastures green abiding” originated. Plus I think I’m going to look closer at the original score from the Cantata and see what I glean from that.

I perceive that I am feeling low this morning. The copy machine has been on the fritz since last Friday (very low toner cartridge).

Mary told me that this happened because the company that regularly sends us all of our supplies for our printers sent a package that she thought contained black ink but only ended up having color ink in it. Usually, she went on, she can order toner and have it arrive the next day. She was expecting it the past few days. If it arrives today, it will come after two when the UPS deliveries usually come. This is a bit late for me.

I need to make copies of one anthem for this evening. I am going to go to Kinkos this morning and just do it. I had originally thought I would do two anthems, but yesterday I looked at the version of “Sheep may safely graze” in the Oxford Not So Easy Anthem Book and decided it was superior to the St. James Press version I was thinking of doing.

The organ accompaniment is a little more difficult. But the St. James Version omits the entire B section of da capo Cantata movement. The B section is quite beautiful and I don’t want to omit it. Hence I spent an hour or so working on the organ accompaniment in the Oxford version (which we own) yesterday.

There was a stupid meme on Facebooger yesterday that said something about real friends not turning their back on you. The phrase, “turning their back on you,” sort of lodged in my brain. I wonder if it’s an apt description of how some people treat me. It’s sort of the “being invisible” notion but seems to include the idea that I will continue on my merry way despite being ignored and/or avoided.

I am thinking especially here of a few men I have known as friends and colleagues who have chosen to pretty much terminate our relationship from their end. Don’t worry. It’s probably just the mental illness talking.

Mark mentioned that it’s easy to “pathologize” one’s behavior. I instantly recognized that behavior in myself. Mention a symptom, mental or physical, and a part of me instantly suspects that it describes me. Not helpful, believe me.

Eileen and I walked to The Good Earth yesterday for breakfast. My phone told me it was .9 miles from our home. Oddly while we were there the phone thought it would be .8 miles back to the house. Hmmm. I finished up my blog yesterday at the restaurant and had Eileen proof it (and okay the mention of our “silly misunderstanding”). Both of us missed the typo in the title. Thank you, Elizabeth, for pointing it out. It’s fixed now.

Iceland’s Prime Minister Steps Down Amid Panama Papers Scandal – The New York Times

Interesting that this report from the NYT doesn’t mention the organization that actually did the leg work for this acquisition of info. On the Media is where I learned about it in this podcast:

Behind the Panama Papers – On The Media – WNYC

this is the website of the organization: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists:

 The Panama Papers · ICIJ

I think the description of how these reporters used a Facebooger like interface to work on this vast amount of material is very very cool (it’s on the OTM podcast).

It also puts me in mind of something I read recently in McChesney: Journalists in order to be journalists these days need to be scholars not lawyers. By that he meant scholars who dig into information to understand and even prove own notions wrong. Of course most so called journalists these days (especially broadcast types) are more lawyers or even hucksters.

I noticed that I went through a similar trajectory of mood yesterday that I did the Monday before. I started out fine but by the middle of the day I was watching myself reproach myself in terms of inadequacy. I’m not sure where this comes from. But often on the day after a performance my emotional terrain is one of discouragement and even failure.

I phoned the office at church to find out if the copy machine had had the toner changed. I went to use it over the weekend and it had a message to change the tone cartridge. Mary said that she had ordered one last week and it would be in today or tomorrow with any luck.

I was  (am) hoping to get some new  anthems ready for tomorrow night’s choir rehearsal. This will involve legally photocopying two anthems. I asked Mary to email me when the cartridge arrives.

On the way home from church, Eileen and I had silly misunderstanding. After this I noticed a mood shift that was disproportionate to any discussion with Eileen. Maybe I AM mentally ill, eh?

The mood lingered the entire day. I returned later to practice organ. I decided that two weeks is not enough time to learn a completely new prelude and fugue by Bach. Instead I am going to perform the G minor fugue that I love so well.

I will pair it with a rendering of the Art of Fugue 9 on the piano for a prelude. The choir will sing a cantata movement for the anthem: the famous “Sheep may safely graze.” This is one of the two anthems I want to make with the photocopy machine. St. James Press has done a new version of this old favorite. I can probably use one from the church’s choral library instead.

It is ironic that I agonize over this stuff since it’s indeterminate how many people pay attention at church. I had a funny dream Sunday night about performing a concerto for some kind of odd instrument which involved strawberries. I was playing the strawberries by oddly tapping them dexterously. They were wet and falling apart. The ending of the piece was coming and when I went to play the last strawberry it fell wetly into my hand. I ate it and looked at the crowd. The group was watching me with humor. A few people clapped and then stopped.

Then a long silence as I looked at the audience. In the dream I shrugged.

Ph.D. Thesis – Singing as one: community in synchrony | Guy Hayward – Academia.edu

This guy put a link up on Facebooger to his doctoral thesis. It looks interesting but a bit long.

When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 6 – The New York Times

Today is Booker T. Washington’s birthday. I got this from my daily listen to the Writer’s Almanac. Keillor quoted him as saying:  You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

Also listened to the New Yorker Politic podcast:

This morning I head a woodpecker pecking away  when I put the garbage out. Yesterday, I heard him as well. Also, Eileen and I saw a robin walking back and forth to church. I do like having the birds back.

I was very tired after church yesterday. I was thinking of going to hear a concert by my colleague, Rhonda. I thought it started at 2 PM. But when I got dressed to go, Eileen pointed out that it actually started at 4 PM. Since I was dressed, I drove to say hi to my Mom and then to church to practice organ. The Alice Parker pieces I am learning need as much attention as I can give them. I played well yesterday but I could tell I didn’t know the pieces as thoroughly as I would prefer.

When I looked up from practicing it was about ten minutes until Rhonda’s recital. I thought of rushing and trying to get there but it took me too long to get in the car. I feel a little bad not supporting a local colleague, especially since many of the other local organists don’t show for these fine recitals. (Sorry, Rhonda!)

This song sums it up:

I have already emailed off the info for this Sunday’s bulletin. Again I requested a pdf to edit. I missed some stuff in the last proofing that I hope to get changed this week. I wish I could get the office to work further ahead than a week on these things. When I was in charge of bulletins (worship resources I think they called it) at Our Lady of the Lake, I had a process of about four weeks with four bulletin in four stages of preparation.

By that process, I would finalize a bulletin at least a week before needed so that it would be ready to publish.

Oh well. It seems as though locally planning ahead is an old fashioned attribute. And god knows I am a person from the past not the future.

As I was going to see my Mom a guy shouted out as I approached he and an elderly woman to join them in the elevator that he liked my hat (I was wearing my jester hat because it was fucking cold yesterday). When I joined him in the elevator he then complimented my beard. “How long have you had it?” he asked. I paused and said probably about forty years. I told him I shaved it off once in that time and my wife asked me not to do that again.

Old fashioned jupe with his extremely old  beard I guess.

There are pluses to being invisible due to age.

President Obama’s Interview With Jeffrey Goldberg on Syria and Foreign Policy – The Atlantic

I linked this before but only finished it this morning. This article shows a very adroit and intentional President Obama. Long.

Angela Merkel’s Unpopular Goodness – The New York Times

Merkel seems to have sacrificed her reelection possibilities by doing the right thing.

A C.I.A. Grunt’s Tale of the Fog of Secret War – The New York Times

I love intelligent people talking about the C.I.A. or the military. I might have to read this guy’s book.

It was good to get some time away and it’s good to be back home as well. I had music waiting from me that had arrived in the mail while I was gone.

I can remember wanting to see this music when Glass released recordings of them. I do think his picture on the cover is a bit goofy. And I’m not totally sure what I think of this music yet. I played through the first etude this morning. This book contains 20 etudes in 2 “books.” It will fun to get to know this music.

Also there was an envelope with  multiple copies of the above spiritual. Apparently my mail man is not concerned about leaving music where it can wet. Both packages were drenched. My neighbor laid out the piano book to dry and I did the same with anthems. No harm done I guess. It’s probable that I usually retrieve packages before they get wet. But I wonder that someone would leave packages outside in inclement weather.

The Hogan arrangement is pretty straight forward. This spiritual is in our hymnals but I wanted a bit fancier version for my choir to learn. I couldn’t find a copy online to examine. But I did listen to this video and decided it would be a good version for us.

On vacation, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had already chosen organ music for next Sunday. We are singing a choral anthem by the great composer, Alice Parker. I happen to have a slim little volume for organ called “Double Dances.” I am playing two of these next Sunday and they are charming. And not particularly easy for me.

For the prelude I am playing the first movement called “Passacaglia.” It’s marked “With humor.” I quite like it. I am omitting the short second movement, “Sarabande with Arabesques.” For the postlude I am playing the last movement, “Jig.” It will take a bit of rehearsal this week, but this is very satisfying music to me and worth the work.

 Review: For Roomful of Teeth, It’s All About the Polyphony – The New York Times

Despite the review, I think this sounds interesting. I love this group.

No April Fooling Please, We’re Chinese – The New York Times

Forbidden by the Chinese. Or are they joking?

Today we drive home. I think it’s been a good time away. I also don’t think I was quite as  burned out this time. My blood pressure came down to 130 over something. That’s an 8 point fall from yesterday. Just keeping you up to speed. Ahem.

After Greek this morning I turned to further comparison of versions of “The Art of Fugue.”

I think it’s interesting that the movement I am trying to learn (9 in Czerny and the 1751 publication and V in the Bach autograph) is written in two ways: with the quarter note getting the beat in the autograph and with the half note getting the beat in the other two.

I think quite a bit about measures and meter. If you look above at the section where the theme of the entire work enters you can see clearly there is a bit of a different feel. Bach’s has two half notes in a measure. Metrically this can be seen as more of a “down up” feeling. The second has one whole note per measure. This can have a continual “down” feeling on each note.

If you look at the beginning the two versions, you can see that Bach has a line in the middle of his first measure.This would make it more like 2/4. But then he goes on with 4 beats per measure. If you compare the second entrance you can see that in the second version, the fugal answer (the second statement) is identical to the first rhythmically occurring in the same way. You could count it “& – 2”. But in the older version when this entrance occurs, Bach has shifted it from beats 2 and 3 (if you think of the first measure in 4) to beats 3 and 4. This is typical of many Baroque composers. They shift material from a strong position to a weaker one metrically. Not sure exactly what it means but this is lost in the later version.

Also the autograph has many fewer ornaments than the published version.

You can see that whoever did the 1751 edition added a “trillo” (as Bach calls them in his ornament table).

I am doing a comparison of these two editions and making notes, but when I arrived at this fugue, I got a bit bogged down in it because I’m learning it.

It looks like we are going to leave sometime this afternoon to return home. Leigh has lessons this morning. Mark is meeting with one of his writer groups and won’t be home till after lunchtime. He and Eileen are going to some weaver things together. Then we’ll be on the road.

Barney Frank is not impressed by Bernie Sanders.

Frank is always worth listening to. He sounds off on several issues here. I also copied links from this article to read in the future:

President Obama’s Interview With Jeffrey Goldberg on Syria and Foreign Policy – The Atlantic

and

Don’t Break Up the Banks. They’re Not Our Real Problem. – The New York Times

The latter is by Steve Eisman, the real life person that Steve Carell portrays in the movie, The Big Short.

Learning From Obama – The New York Times

I think Krugman is often spot on and he is in this article. One of the commenters pointed out that President Obama is one world leader who has accomplished quite a bit in his two terms, more than most other world leaders in the same environment. Plus there has been a concerted effort to block everything he tried to do by the opposition. I am not a 100% fan of his presidency, but I do think it’s amazing how much he has done.

My blood pressure is creeping up, but the upper number (the one I watch the closest) is still below 140. I’m also eating too many calories while visiting. Oh well. The food and drink has been good.

I’ve also been using the wonders of the internet to compare Bach’s autograph of “The Art of Fugue” with the one published a year after his death. This is fun. Yesterday during my practice I played through the first four Countrapuncti (?) in the versions I have for organ.

I also managed 45 minutes on Mark’s treadmill. This is something I may do again today. I need to purchase a treadmill very soon. Purchasing one isn’t what’s holding me up. It’s where to put the dang thing.

I am enjoying my time away.

I’m still managing to do some work via email and that’s probably okay. My rescheduled doctor’s appointment is a week from next Tuesday. I hope my blood pressure comes down a bit before then. But whatever at least I will be seeing my doctor and talking with her about how best to address it.

Mark has been showing us episodes of Louie CK’s “Horace and Pete.” They are quite good.

I will probably purchase ones we don’t get to see here and follow it.

Today is my last scheduled rehearsal at St. Paul’s Chelsea. They are very good about letting me practice on their organ. I will give them my usual $20 donation as a thank  you.

I am hoping to return tomorrow a bit more rested than I left.