nailed it at work

Yesterday I performed Bach’s 2 part invention in C minor for the postlude. The Inventions of Bach are a life long love of mine. But, I haven’t performed them in public very much. I often think of my brother Mark’s story about watching a skilled musician attempt to read them as background music at a cathedral event in Detroit. The poor dude underestimated their difficulty and didn’t do so well. Anyway, that’s how I remember the story. It’s silly, I know. But, for me this story has hovered over the idea of playing these in public even though I regularly play them in private.

Also, I managed to convince my very first piano teacher to let me try to learn one before I actually had the technique to play it (the  F Major, still one of my favorites). Unlearning all my bad habits on that particular Invention has been an accomplishment for me.

So I was a bit dismayed when my preparation for the C minor Invention always faltered at some point. Yikes. Then I remembered the old piano trick of rehearsing with a bit of “bump” or muscular action on each note. This is actually the opposite of how one plays the organ. After a couple sessions of approaching the piece in that way, it ended up very secure in performance.

reading in the backyard

It was a beautiful day yesterday. The temps were in the low 70s. Perfect. After church, Eileen decided to work on purchasing a ticket to fly to China and start working on a visa. We have learned as a couple that has one retired person in it and one that is not, that it’s better if I vacate when Eileen is trying to do certain kinds of concentrating (not weaving, thank God). I took advantage of the weather and mercifully let Eileen work alone at the computer inside.

book review

I finished reading this book yesterday. When The Kissing Had to Stop by Constantine Fitzgibbon is described by its author as a “fable” peopled with “types rather than people.” This might be a bit charitable on his part. I expected it to be a dated story since it is imagines what will happen in the near future from the point of view of 1960 when it was published. So I approached it with a reasonably tolerant expectation.

But, the writing is thin on the ground. I found myself having trouble keeping track of those “types rather than people.” But books of this sort ostensibly about a “future” are usually about the book’s present. (Orwell’s 1984 has often been viewed as a comment on 1948) and even with the author’s “updated’ new introduction and epilogue dating from 1972 this book is about English politics at the time and some unintended hilarious plot twists such as Russia invading England with the help of some English politicians.

I can’t remember where I picked up on this title. It had to be in the discussions taking place recently of dystopian novels now that we in the USA live in an atmosphere that can seem vaguely dystopian.

I finally heard from David Sutherland, the harpsichord guy in Ann Arbor. He is wiling to do the work. Estimates it might cost around $1K. But he’s too busy to take it on at the moment and requested I contact him again in a month or so. This is very exciting to me. Yesterday I spent a couple hours at the organ and did rehearse some French Classical music. This style needs sympathetic instruments like the harpsichord and appropriate registration on the organ. The latter is sometimes difficult if not impossible to pull off on American instruments. Ray Ferguson taught me how to adapt organ composer’s ideal registration to whatever instrument I play. So I have done that all my organ playing life.

And I find that much music can be pulled off credibly with less than ideal instruments. So while Bach is the best example of music that survives many different treatments and instruments, the French Classical Period (the Couperins and many many others that I love to play) doesn’t quite get it on the piano and usually suffers some diminished effectiveness on American organs unless they specifically set up to do French Classical music well.

You may be wondering where our new Pasi pipe organ at Grace will fall on this continuum. The answer is I’m not sure until I work with it. It is designed to accommodate some aspects of the French Classical demands. But the truth is that the proof to me is how it sounds.

Restless audiences vs acoustic instruments – Susan Tomes

Susan Tomes is an English pianist/author whose blog I read regularly. Here she makes an interesting point about why people make noise while musicians are playing.

I’m cranky this morning. I find it helpful to write in my journal when I’m at this point. So that’s what I did this morning. As I get older, I find reticence easier. I’m not sure it’s always best thing, but I do find it easier.

So this is a reticent blog today. See you tomorrow.

Processing with Dr. Birky

I had my by-weekly meeting with Dr. Birky this morning. I am finding our talks very helpful. I feel a little guilty about paying him to chat with me, but what the fuck. This morning I talked to him about all the things on my plate. One of these things was waking up to find that the USA had bombed Syria.

It helped me to unburden on the poor dude. I thanked him for helping me understand myself better. Yesterday Dawn my cellist who is also singing under Nick Palmer for an upcoming sing-along Messiah mentioned that Nick had complimented me to the group when it was announced I was to be the harpischordist for the event. Nick told them I was “smart.” I thanked Dawn and then mentioned that Dr. Birky has helped me become more aware of this. I reported this to Dr. Birky as well.

Piano trio

My piano trio agreed to play the postlude at the Easter Vigil this year. That’s a load off my mind. I was having difficulty imagining how to do a postlude on the piano for that service. I am sure I could do it, but it will be much cooler with the trio. We decided to perform my recent composition, “Stirred Hearts and Souls.” We know it pretty well. All we have to do is get it back in our fingers.

Dawn, my cellist agreed to help out on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. On Maundy Thursday, we come up from downstairs to strip the altar in the church. This means I will have the piano downstairs for the parts of the service prior to that. All we sing upstairs is the Taize number, “Stay with me.” Usually I do it on organ with some viola obbligatos. This year I thought it would be nice to do it with guitar, cello and viola.  That’s now the plan.

Dawn also agreed to play on the prelude for Good Friday. We are going to do a piece from an organ score. It’s a slow tune by Herbert Howells that was originally composed for piano and violin but transcribed for organ. We are now going to do it with piano and cello on the pedal part. Amy, my violinist, toyed with coming and playing on this as well. But after we played through it, she decided that it might be a bit much for her schedule.

New music on the web site

This morning I uploaded the “Frenchified” Purcell piece I arranged for violin, cello, and organ.

It’s on my music page, but I thought I would put it here as well.

Dance of the Green Men – violin.pdf
Dance of the Green Men – cello.pdf
Dance of the Green Men – score and organ.pdf

I am now inspired to finish “Frenchifying” another movement by Purcell.

I will put up my piano trio, “Stirred Hearts and Souls,” soon. I would do it today but it needs some editing to reflect how we play it, especially the piano part which has some wrong notes in the score that I ignore.

It’s about 8 AM in Holland, Michigan and it’s raining. I mention this because I heard on WMUK Kalamazoo Public Radio that there was a 100% chance of snow today and that it would be falling before 9 AM. So I guess we’ll see if we get a nasty little snow/freezing rain situation in Holland today that could be reasonably expected under that forecast.

My hard copy of The New Yorker is one of two magazines I have continued to subscribe to despite this being the age of cyber access to stuff. The other I think of as a trade magazine, The American Organist. Although I often wonder what exactly trade it is serving. Many of its members (my former teacher at Notre Dame is one) think it should not be about anything except the art of the organ. Specifically that it has no business discussing church music. The mission statement of the organization adapted last year makes no mention of church so maybe that’s becoming an official position.

On the other hand, I notice a lengthy letter in the January 2017 issue which has a heading “Reformation Fear” and seems to be about Luther’s attitude towards music and its use in church, so I guess the notion that members are interested in  music in church is not completely out of the question. I know for me over the years this magazine has informed me about both topics plus others.

Back to The New Yorker. I set aside my weekly copy of The New Yorker specifically to distract myself on Wednesday afternoons as I rest up for the evening choir rehearsal. I basically like the cartoons. Usually I also read the first line of the poems in it. The first line almost invariably fails to interest me in the rest of the poem. I bring it up because yesterday I read a poem in The New Yorker all the way through and realized what a rare occasion that was for me.

The poem in question was “Hot Tub after Skiing, December 2016” by Jill Bialosky. Thankfully, you can click on the title if you are interested in reading it. Both magazines I’m writing about have an, ahem, interesting relationship to the idea of open sourcing of their articles on line. In each case i think  it does a disservice to the core of their content. But that’s just me. And look, I am subscribing to both of them, although I only pay for The New Yorker. The AGO magazine is part of my membership which my church thankfully pays for me.

Anyway Bialosky’s clever little poem is about the mess we are in right now in the USA. She never uses the name of our current president (something many people who are unhappy with him advise). But it does talk about “bitter gods” who frighten the little group of women in the poem as they climb mountains and end up in a hot tub (“Tree huggers” for sure, eh?).

I didn’t really get where the poet was going until she started using little snippets of conversation presented in italics the first of which was “Hate has been unleashed.” That is certainly true right now and not just in the good old US of A.

So anyway before I knew it I had actually read a poem all the way through in The New Yorker.

Was it me who had changed? After all I spend a good part of most mornings reading several poems. Maybe I was become unjaded, maybe even, gasp, more tolerant and soft headed. After starting each of the remaining poems in the magazine and losing interest I was relieved to know it was probably the poem not the reader that was the reason.

Turning Negative Thinkers Into Positive Ones – The New York Times

This article has been rattling around in my brain since I read it. Jane Brody connects finding pleasure in life to good health. I like that. She has a handy dandy list at the end of her article for fostering positive emotions in oneself.

This morning I am thinking about two things: How lucky I am. This is in stark contrast to  how many misfortunes I am witnessing in the lives of others at this time. The first makes me feel grateful, the second sad.

These are not necessarily in opposition. In other words I don’t want to gloat about how good I have it at the expense of others going through hard times.

I regularly feel grateful. Grateful to be living a fulfilled life with the woman I love. Grateful to have a church job at this time that fits me so well. Grateful to make music and read and think. If you read this blog at all you will stumble across my occasional  gratitude and unreasonable optimism.

However, right now I seem to know many people who are going through a tough time.  A loved one dies of an overdose of illegal drugs, a parent is dying, a husband suffers from dementia, someone copes with a spouse’s changing sexuality, someone buries a companion of many years and then relapses into a loss of cognition. Believe it or not these are more. Recently a composer friend of mine on Fecesboogers posted a self pity rant. What do I have to show for sixty years of service to music and church? he wrote.  It was weird to read. I couldn’t help but see a mirror of my own self pity at its worst.

Although legacy has never interested me that much.

I think it helps to read the Greeks and see personal struggles in terms of tragedy and fate, as part of being alive.

Although I believe we have more control of our fate than we usually assume. But things do happen to people. And it can seem random when loved ones die or submit to feelings of self pity or addictions.

Tough stuff.

I left a message and emailed this harpsichord builder and repairman yesterday (Click on the pic to link to his website). He lives in Ann Arbor. I am hopeful he will welcome working on my instrument and not charge me too much to get it back into working order. I’m not sure how I will transport it there. He does mention making arrangements for transporting so that might work. I bet my boss could come up with a way for me to get the harpsichord to the shop and back. Anyway, I haven’t heard back from him.

How to End the Politicization of the Courts – The New York Times

I agree with David Leonhardt that Republicans have largely gotten us into a partisan judiciary situation. It will continue according to Leonhardt until it is in the best interest of both parties to have a judiciary that works more outside of current politics.

BERNARDINE EVARISTO – Writer

You wouldn’t think reading a scholarly article on Derek Walcott would turn you on to new vibrant writers. This writer is intriguing to me and is now on my list of authors to check out more thoroughly. Like Walcott she has written a book length poem as well as several other works.

When you work on Sunday, Mondays can be hard days if you don’t get much time to rest. Yesterday was a full day for me. But even fatigued we got a lot done. When with her typical Energizer Bunny genes Eileen persisted in cleaning and organizing and putting things back after we had spent the morning getting her new loom from the porch to the dining room, I urged her to stop. She planned to grocery shop and then drive to Grand Rapids  in the evening for her Weavers Guild meeting. I was getting tired for her just thinking about it.

After breakfast and ritual boggle we carefully tied up the loom to make it as narrow as possible. We were relieved to see it fit through the narrow doors into the living room. This was all Eileen’s directing. I was just the helpful extra set of hands.

There was a bunch of stuff to move to make way.

We also had to roll back the carpet to facilitate the loom’s move.

The dining room table and defunct harpsichord had to move into the bathroom doorway. They are still in this position this morning. No harm in that actually.

Eileen and I had to keep walking around the house to get to either side of the loom as we gently urged it into the house.

Eileen was getting happier by the moment.

Finally in place, the loom now had to be untied and unfolded.

Looms are beautiful objects to have sitting around the house. I like it.

Then the truck to pick up the defunct Subaru arrived.

Again, Eileen handled the legwork of donating the car to Michigan Radio.  Then, I began working on music for Palm Sunday. We still hadn’t picked out a processional chant for the outdoor procession. I began emailing my boss ideas. We exchanged emails for the rest of the day working on this since we had a Worship Commission meeting in the evening (no rest for wicked).

Eileen left around 5 PM for Grand Rapids. Since her mini is in storage and the Subaru is gone, I walked to church in the rain. It was lovely.

Cool. Donna Leon has just published a new mystery. I enjoy these. I am fifth on the hold list at my library.

America’s Cult of Ignorance – The Daily Beast

An excerpt from Tom Nichols’ new book. Looks good.

Nico Muhly on Why Choral Music Is Slow Food for the Soul – The New York Times

I haven’t had time to read this article by a composer I admire, but it’s bookmarked for future perusing.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Poet Who Stirred a Generation of Soviets, Dies at 83 – The New York Times

Another poet dies.

The Achievements of Derek Walcott – Poetry Off the Shelf podcast

I listened to this podcast this morning while I  cleaned the kitchen.

Paris Review – Derek Walcott, The Art of Poetry No. 37

This interview was mentioned in the podcast. The interviewer, Ed Hirsch, was one of the participants in the podcast.

Inventions

When Bach used the word, inventions, he meant “ideas.” I have been playing, studying, and learning about Bach’s Inventions since first being introduced to them in my cousin Jerry’s front room in his house on a steep Central Avenue hill in South Charleston, West Virginia. I was probably fourteen or fifteen years old.

I own and consult several editions of these pieces. Recently I purchased another edition which was done by Sandra Soderlund. Saturday I played all the way through her versions of them. You wouldn’t think you would benefit from examining multiple versions of this music, but I definitely do. These fifteen little pieces called “ideas” continue to amaze and attract me for no other reason than the music, itself.

And I love being able to pull up manuscripts that date from Bach’s life. The one above is described on the IMSLP site where it is available as dating from 1745-55 and was copied by H.G.M Darnköhler. Googling and checking Groves Dictionary online doesn’t provide any info on this dude. Neither did a quick check of some indices in standard scholarly reference books laying around my chair, so your guess is as good as mine as to who this guy was, but this copy of the Inventions seems to enjoy a good reputation as one that existed near the end of Bach’s life or right after he died so that’s something.

I remember being delighted to read a references to the Inventions in The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. One of them I recall is when the aging Music Master sits and plays haltingly through one of the Inventions with only two fingers, imagining the music more than making. The Music Master figures into the story of the book as the man who sees the potential for genius in the young Joseph Knecht, the hero of the story.

emotions

As I finished up rendering Phillip Glass’s intense and driving Piano Etude 11 at chuch yesterday, I could feel a familiar overwhelming emotion gathering.

It’s not uncommon that when I put my heart and soul into something, that I fight back tears after playing it.  This makes taking a bow more difficult and I’m sure people close enough to notice my weeping wonder what the fuck is going on? As do I.

I usually chalk it up to being overly sensitive since this also happens at the end of most movies I watch. But I have begun to wonder that it might be a learned emotion. This occurred to me while listening to Dr. Lisa Barrett be interviewed about her new book, How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain on BBC.

If I understood her correctly, her theory is that we learn emotional associations and they are more mutable than we think. She talked about how a baby cries and the parents try to guess why. Eventually they begin to identify cries that mean certain things. In doing so, they are actually teaching the baby to associate certain emotional expressions with certain things like hunger, touch and other things. Dr. Barrett resists the notion that the way we express and feel emotion is hard wired the same way into all humans.

So, I speculate that maybe I not only received genetic equipment along the sensitivity line but can easily see myself watching my mother weep and being overwhelmed. Thus learning to weep at being overwhelmed. I haven’t worked this out completely and I am sure I have a simplistic understanding of what Barrett is saying, but I will continue to ponder this.

narrations

I’m on Chapter 8 of Derek Walcott’s book length poem, Omeros, enjoying it immensely.  I believe it is actually a sort of verse novel since there is a plot and recurring characters. The title means “Homer.” It’s not a retelling of Homer, but something else. I recently inter-library loaned a book as a result of reading Walcott’s poem.

Classics in a Post-Colonial World is a collection of scholarly papers that grew out of a conference on the topic in 2004. Walcott, who died recently, represents one writer of many who are discussed in these papers. I read the introduction and am now reading Katharine Burkitt’s essay, “Imperial Reflections: The Post-Colonial Verse-Novel as Post-Epic.” It is helping me understand Walcott’s verse-novel as well as enjoy it.

It’s Sunday afternoon. The service this morning was a very interesting experience. The acoustics were very different even with people in the room. I told the choir that sitting in the choir area is now like sitting in front of a live microphone. And this is true. I had parishioners after church commenting about how the sound of the choir traveled into the room.

So the service went well. The choir sounded splendid. My Phillip Glass piano etudes went pretty well. I managed to get lost a couple of times in the postlude (#11). This player does a nice job.

I went just a touch slower. There are some fours against threes that I was working on before church this morning. I pretty much nailed those. However, I got lost twice in sections it had never happened to me before.

My left hand was bothering me this morning. It was cold and achy (in an arthritic way). it’s frightening. It feels fine now. But of course I was anxious about what it would do in performance. I remarked to Eileen about the irony of having anxiety about a performance that wasn’t “performance anxiety.”

I will do something about this if it persists. Probably even if it doesn’t. I have a six month check up this month and will sound out my doctor about what she recommends.

Yesterday I watched this video on Facelessbook.

I pretty much fell in love the music which is Escualo by Astor Piazolla.

I found most of a violin/piano setting online yesterday. Then I ordered a set of parts for this arrangement. I would love my piano trio to learn and perform this at a Grace Notes 2017 recital.

I lazed around this morning until about 7:30 in bed. This is unheard of for me. I think I managed to get some rest yesterday as well. My motivation went to zero. My hands have been hurting more lately. It’s discouraging to think that someday I might not  be able to use them. On Thursday night I thought I felt a twinge in my wrist. You know, right where my tendon is. Great. This added to my lack of motivation yesterday.

I can’t help but wonder if practicing Phillip Glass is contributing to my arthritic twinges. Yesterday, I went through Sunday’s postlude slowly. That was all the piano practice I did.

I worked on my frenchifying Purcell project.

After breakfast and boggle today, Eileen and I went to church to set up for tomorrow. On Wednesday, I had the choir chairs locked together via connectors which will also provide a place for a book. There’s not enough room for some of my singers that way. I was thinking I would quietly unhook a few chairs to make more room for people who are a bit larger.

Then it occurred to me that I probably didn’t need the choir sitting so close together in this acoustic. They were saying Wednesday that they could hear other well. Then I had the flash of using music stands to allow them to have a place to put their books and folders during service. We have been having this conversation for ages about how to make a place that emulates the old choir stalls.

I took a couple stands from home and scoured the church for all of Grace’s stands. Then I set it all up (with Eileen’s help). I emailed Jen and asked if it was okay. Here’s the pic.

You’ll notice the piano is missing from this pic. The piece of paper in the center is a note from Thom the janitor. It says that they came by yesterday and finished tiling the sliding steps that move in so the piano can be inset. Thom asked me to leave it to dry and he would push the piano in place in the morning.

I told Jen I would go back and redo it if she wanted it differently.  It’s after 2 PM and she hasn’t contacted me yet.

YourClassical from American Public Media

So this is cool. This is a web site with multiple classical music streams. What I like is that they are curated and also the piece playing shows.