I performed my two pieces pretty well yesterday despite not feeling 100 %.  Interestingly in each case, there was one small moment when I didn’t play well as I intended.

In the “Nettleton” piece which is quite delicate there was one small lag in my rhythmic confidence barely perceptible but I noticed it.  My understanding of this piece as a performer was still evolving early yesterday morning as I rehearsed it silently on my electric piano with earphones.

Revisiting “Nettleton” was a pleasure because I began to understand how I used an array of rhythmic treatments in ways that satisfy me as a performer. Specifically I realized that I consistently made an irregular larger rhythmic group on beat 2 and 4 in one section.  Thus the emphasis under the melody was either 12+123+12+12 or 12+12+12+123. I don’t remember thinking about this as a composer but I most likely did.

So the piece breaks down like this: Ms. 1 – 16 in 7/8 time with a consistent emphasis of 12+12+123,

Ms. 17 – 42 in 9/8 time with either of two groupings of rhythms (12+123+12+12 or 12+12+12+123 as above),

Ms. 43 – 75 in 5/8 with an emphasis of 123+12  (interrupted 3 times with 3 measures of straight 2/4)

and ending with the 7/8 rhythm.

Once I figured out all of this as a performer the piece was both more coherent to me and easier to perform yesterday morning.

Revisiting “Little Recessional Dance” was a bit more startling as I kept rewriting this piece right up until the day before the performance. It was one of these rewritten measures yesterday that didn’t go well.

But interestingly I did have several comments. One person whispered a compliment on the “Nettleton” in between the prelude and the first hymn. This surprised me because the “Nettleton” piece is quite delicate and quiet. I do play pieces like this, but figure that they are lost on listeners because they are so delicate and quiet at a moment when people are coming in and getting settled.  It seems that we are so used to “in-your-face” artistic statements that the subtle and delicate fly right past us.

Another person came over before I began playing and told me that she and her husband were preparing to leave the state for the winter but that she had enjoyed my work this summer, especially the hymnody, I guess. It’s pleasantly surprising to me when people notice this stuff.

But I think my biggest compliment was when someone “danced” across the choir area while I was playing the postlude. “Little Recessional Dance.” Get it?

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Scientists Say Atlas Is Wrong on Greenland’s Glaciers – NYTimes.com

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For Billy Beane, Winning Isn’t Everything – NYTimes.com

The rest of the story about the person on which “Moneyball” is based.

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It Takes a Village by Charles Blow – NYTimes.com

“They have taken the most extreme cases, given them a warm, safe, stable and, yes, beautiful place to live, while treating them with dignity and respect. And the transformations of the adults, and, more important, the outcomes for the children have been incredible.”

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The humiliation of Barack Obama – Opinion – Al Jazeera English

Very interesting inside look at how diplomacy works.

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So I have been reading Lewis Hyde’s The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World.

Hyde writes that the giving of gifts is part of how communities have been created. He demonstrates this with studies about how certain human tribes treat gift and commodity, the scientific community’s exchange of ideas  and the folk wisdom of fairy tales.

Using the “The Elves and The Shoemaker” story, he points out its similarity to how artists develop their gifts. First the shoemaker is starving and only has enough leather to make one last shoe.  The elves come and make wonderful shoes for him. The shoemaker goes from destitution to prosperity because of the wonderful shoes the elves continue to make for him at night.

Eventually he and his wife decide to make clothes (and SHOES) for the naked elves. After they do this the elves dance gleefully away and the shoemaker continues making the wonderful shoes himself.

Creativity is a kind of gift.

It’s like the elves making wonderful shoes in the night for you.

But the next step is to take the art into discipline and become the elves as it were.

So the gift is received and then given back.

This seems like one of the many ways “gift” functions in being human.

I think the language of gift and vocation are part of my Christian heritage that I have not rejected.

Vocation is a calling, a destiny if you will. It seems to me that each human has a destiny or a calling, a passion waiting for them. It’s up to each of us to figure it out and then run with it.

I also feel like the idea of gift is related to the idea that humans flourish when they are helping and connecting with other humans. They seem to shrivel up as people when they become self centered.

I read a disturbing letter to the editor in the NYT yesterday which said that we must choose as a society between generosity and responsibility. This is a false choice to me.  To be fully human I think we need to be both generous and responsible. Generous to others and responsible in our own actions. When we focus on the actions of others, we end up short-changing both them and ourselves.

Creative people know that when they create or “make” something mysteriously flows through them. It’s like waking up and finding elves have made your raw leather talent into something beautiful and amazing. It’s just a first step, but probably a necessary one.

This gift is related to the gift that we give to each other in our selves. When we become selfish or angry something in this stops and we lose the change to become who we are.

Here endeth the sermon.

I started reading Musicking: The Meanings and Performing of  Listening by the late Christopher Small this morning. I interlibrary loaned it. After I read the following section, I went to Amazon and bought the Kindle version with my birthday gift card (Thanks again, Mark & Leigh!).

“There is no such thing as music.

“Music is not a thing at all but an activity, something that people do. The apparent thing ‘music’ is a figment, an abstraction of the action, whose reality vanishes as soon as we examine it closely…..

“This is the trap of reification, and it has been a besetting fault of Western thinking every since Plato…”

Christopher Small,  Musicking

I often say that music is something you do. I will probably write more on this later. I’m still feeling a bit punk even though my ear is better.

Yesterday I tangled with Spotify and Trend Micro (my security software).

They seem to have become mutually exclusive of each other. I kept trying to allow Spotify as an exception to Trend Micro rules. Finally gave up and turned off my security (I know. I know. Not a good idea) so I could listen to music as I groggily treadmilled.

I also had problems with my two organ pieces. I took my new versions to the bench and found mistakes in the scores and further need for re-write. I came home exhausted and ill and put it aside. So I have that to do today as well.

Eileen balanced the checkbook for me this morning (Thank you, dear). That was another dead end for me yesterday when it would balance.

It’s hard to do stuff when you don’t feel well I guess.

I’m hoping I can get through performances of my work tomorrow and the choir rehearsal that follows the service. Maybe I’ll feel better by then.

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Teenage Brains – Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine

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Allentown: Inside Amazon.com warehouse workers complain of brutal conditions – mcall.com

Amazon. The new Walmart?

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David Lodge’s “A Man of Parts,” reviewed by Michael Dirda – The Washington Post

Book review.

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Book Review: That Used to Be Us – WSJ.com

Another book review. This time it rips Thomas Friedman to shreds. Even though I suspect this a bit of ideological writing, I haven’t liked Friedman since he was a cheerleader for the Iraq war. I know. I know. Everybody was except for a few misfits.

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Gratitude and Forbearance: On Christopher Lasch | The Nation

The long dead Lasch is a very interesting (if conservative) writer I have read.

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Joseph Heller Catch-22 50th Anniversary: How the Novel Changed America – The Daily Beast

Catch-22. Can’t beat it!

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Davis Execution Leads to Chorus of Outrage in Europe – NYTimes.com

Eileen asked me this morning why this execution went ahead so relentlessly despite doubts of his guilt. I replied, “I don’t know.”

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Hunger in America, Visible if You Look for It – NYTimes.com

Quotes from an Episcopal priest running a food pantry in Chicago. Yay Episcopalians!
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York: Media bias on display as NBC grills Suskind | Campaign 2012

Seriously thinking of buying Suskind’s new book as an ebook.

I quite liked this one:

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The Power of Flat Out Lies | Mother Jones

Not sure the right has a corner on this, but I do see a lot of public lying.

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I’m not deaf! At least not as deaf as I was.

My left ear is beginning to get some of its hearing back as my inner ear becomes clearer.

No way to avoid the paranoid dreams (often thought of with a shudder in my life as someone in love with sound and music) of increasing deafness.

I have been rewriting (editing really) both of my compositions I am planning to perform Sunday.  I am making the most radical changes in the “Little Recessional Dance.”

Before:

After:

the effect is to make the melody stand out more. I found this necessary on my little organ because the chords come out muddy. Also making some changes to “Nettleton for Manuals.”

When I finish, I will email copies of the new versions to the two men who I associate with these pieces: Nick Palmer who commissioned “Nettleton” and Peter Kurdziel to whom I dedicated “Little Recessional.”

These are probably the two people who might have interest in these changes (besides yourself, dear read, heh).

I spent my early morning reading Baruda-Skoda’s excellent scholarship and advice on Bach interpretation  and marking copies of my music and playing through pieces by Bach on my electric piano with the headphones.

Life is good.

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Particles recorded moving faster than light – CERN | Reuters

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2 hidden ways to get more from your Gmail address – Official Gmail Blog

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Amazon’s Kindle to Make Library E-Books Available – NYTimes.com

This makes Eileen happy.

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Richard Nelson and Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s Takes on 9/11 – NYTimes.com

Two interesting new plays I’ll probably never get to see.

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I had a phone call from my boss recently informing me that the church governing body (the Vestry) had recently voted me a substantial raise to be implemented over 2012 & 2013. The purpose was to bring my wages closer into line with suggested professional standards.  The 2012 increase is to be implemented retroactive to Sept 1, 2011.

This is satisfying on several levels. My boss, Jen, wanted me to know that the Vestry was very appreciative of my work as well as adamant in beginning to establish professional standards for my position.

And I of course could definitely use the money.

Another level that both Pastor Jen and I share is establishing some professional standards in the Episcopal church in Western Michigan.

When I came to this area as a full-time Roman Catholic church musician, very few musicians were being paid fairly by their churches. I witnessed and was part of an attempt to raise awareness about professional standards. This did result (I believe) in the over all raising of wages for Roman Catholic professional church musicians especially in the Grand Rapids area.

Working in the Episcopal church I haven’t really had much contact with other Episcopal church musicians in the area. I believe that the way people are paid varies widely from poorly paid to donating their services. It would be nice to think that raising the standards in my parish would have some affect both on its own future practices and possibly other churches in the area.

Hey. It could happen.

In the meantime this is pretty satisfying.

Speaking of satisfying: I am suffering from a clogged inner (and possibly outer) ear which is making my head feel like a balloon on the end of string. My left ear is my best ear (there is some hearing loss in my right) and it, of course, is the one that is clogged.

This made my ballet class particularly miserable yesterday since the stuffed up ear is accompanied by the usual body cold aches and pains.

In the middle of the first hour, I did an improv that I thought was especially beautiful and coherent. One of the techniques that I use that produces this result is to improvise counterpoint (that, is more than one melody being played at the same time) but not in a stuffy academic way, rather using the language and ideas that seem beautiful and appropriate to me.

This is what I was doing yesterday.

After I finished, the teacher commented on the music. She then proceeded to tell the students how lucky they were to have live, beautiful music to help them dance with expression. Embarrassing but flattering.

For most of the time yesterday (and probably today as well) I was on survival. This means that I’m not trying to be clever with the improvs only clear, accurate and coherent.

This was good thing because my first hour ballet class teacher matter-of-factedly outlined some very unusual phrase groups in her combination instructions to the group (3 measure phrases in one case instead of the usual 4).

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Rick Wilcox Magic Theater | Wisconsin Dells

I knew this man when he was younger. He was a dexterous and imaginative drummer. It looks like he has put those skills to use.

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I decided I would play two of my own compositions next Sunday as the prelude and postlude. For the prelude I am going to play “Nettleton” (pdf link).  NETTLETON is the tune for “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” which is Sunday’s opening hymn.

A few years back, a friend of mine, Nick Palmer, was putting together a little pamphlet of local composers for an upcoming convention and invited me to contribute something. My response was this little piece on NETTLETON.

For the postlude I am going to attempt to play my “Little Recessional” (pdf link). Both of these pieces will require some rehearsal. But I am proud of both of them and would like to see them performed occasionally. I don’t think I have submitted them to publishers for consideration, but I think I’ve kind of given up on that due to the fact that I dont’ really have a lot of “commercial appeal” (true of most of my work I think).

Recently received an email from Linda Graham, the chair of the dance department at Hope College, asking me to sign a release form for use of my composition, “Ebb and Flow,” for a possible documentary of the Global Water Dances that happened this past summer.

This made me think about the fact that I did actually sit down and compose a piece this summer and have it performed. I have been wondering about the fact that I’m not doing much writing. But I guess I am doing some, eh?

I think that doing hours and hours of improvisation (at the ballet classes) draws on the part of myself that composes. So it sort of uses it up or at least drains it a bit. Which doesn’t trouble me too much because I enjoy the improvisation and the idea that my music is existing in the moment. I, of course, believe that music is most itself when it is happening in time. So it’s pretty satisfying anyway.

Speaking of dance, I have to grab some breakfast and walk over for my first class.

I have been thinking about strong and weak personalities.

I am drawn to strength in people.

The strength that interests and attracts me is not that obvious.

Here’s a story that Louis Erdich tells Bill Moyers about her inspiration for her novel The Blue Jay’s Dance.

“It was a blue jay’s dance of courage in front of a hawk. I saw it from the window as I was nursing my baby. I kept feeders, and all sorts of birds came down. I saw a blue jay. And then a hawk swooped down on it. The blue jay knew it was doomed, but it started to dance at the hawk. And the hawk was startled. The blue jay was confusing it. This dance of an inferior bird against a superior raptor finally so mortified the hawk that it flew away.” Louis Erdich in Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues

It is a strong image. A nursing mother witnesses a doomed bird that dances its way to freedom despite overwhelming odds.

My wife and my daughters strike me as strong people.  Sarah who is visiting from England and I had a conversation yesterday in which she expressed frustration about many people she sees there who seem to be caught in a vapid and  materialistic approach to life.  She seemed to be wondering  how can she find the people who see life more the way she does? A difficult question for the thinking individual and one I am afraid I have bequeathed to my daughters since it’s definitely one I share.

In the same Moyers book, Nikki Giovanni, the poet, talks about dealing with the fact that Seung-Hui Cho, the English major at Virginia Tech who abruptly killed 32 people and wounded 25 before killing himself was actually a pupil in one of her poetry classes. She was asked to speak at a memorial service for the victims and gave a deeply strong and comforting speech.

“And this thing that happened at Virginia Tech, it was an incredibly sad time for us. The only thing I could do to make sense out of it was to connect these dots. The only thing to connect the dots was love. Because no matter what else is wrong with you, good wine and good sex will make you feel better. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that on this show.

You are granted permission.

Well, good, because you know, sixty-five-year-old women are not finished.”

Nikki Giovanni in Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues

I found both Giovanni’s and Erdich’s interview inspiring examples of strength as I do talking with my daughters and wife.

And as a sixty-year-old man, I like to read about sixty-five-year-old women who are not finished.

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Ron Suskind’s ‘Confidence Men’ Focuses on Obama – Review – NYTimes.com

Suskind is a former Wall Street Journal writer that I admire and read. This book looks interesting.

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Senegal Rappers Emerge as Political Force – NYTimes.com

I love the spirit of these musicians.

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Economic Bleeding Cure – NYTimes.com

Krugman keeps quietly making sense to me. I have been reading him for years and have followed his transition from economist to political commentator.

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Fill In the Blanks – NYTimes.com

Bill Keller has another excellent mind. Here are some intelligent comments about Obama.

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Recipe – Cucumber Kimchi – NYTimes.com

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How Dick Cheney Reined in Presidential Power – NYTimes.com

Cheney is in the news. This is another perspective on his actions in regards to insider struggles in the Bush administration from an insider.

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My daughter Sarah brought me a ton of vinyl stickers she made of my drawing of my face (I sometimes use in my signature) and of my website address.

She makes them with this cool machine where she works:

Very cool. She and my wife sang “Happy Birthday” to me yesterday when she brought her birthday gifts in the room.

Besides the stickers she also gave me a CD.

and some very cool plates.

Church yesterday really took a lot out of me. Preparing the choir with little rehearsal is a bit nerve wracking.  Last week and this week I only had about forty minutes to teach them a piece from scratch for each service. The first week I did an arrangement of a hymn, yesterday I put an easy SAB anthem down a third (!) to make it more singer friendly (I often resist doing this sort of thing, thinking that I should be teaching people how to sing and to utilize their range… unfortunately I had to skip vocaleses in order to just learn the dam notes… oy!).

In addition I performed a Vaughan Williams organ piece (Musette) which I took a lot of pains to register.  In order to do this effectively, I ended up with a delicate and very quiet registration.  I thought maybe it was a bit too subtle but the one organist in the room told me (via her husband) that she quite liked it.  Delicate and quiet is a bit counter cultural these days.

I found a lovely paragraph in The Gift this morning:

Analyzing an early commentator on North Pacific culture, Lewis Hyde writes this in a foot note:

“Barnett’s language, the language of gift exchange, has procreation at its core. Generosity comes from genere (Old Latin: beget, buy valium london uk produce), and the generations are its consequence, as the gens, the clans. At its source in both Greek and Sanskrit, liberality is desire; libido is its modern cousin. Virtue’s root is a sex (vir, the man), and virility is its action. Virtue, like the gift, moves through a person, and has a procreative or healing power (as in the Bible story about the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’s garment in the faith that it would heal her: ‘And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him turned about in te press and said, “Who touched my clothes?” ‘).

There’s so much about this paragraph that I admire. I love it when the historical resonance of a word informs a deeper and more rich usage.  I love the idea that virtue has virility as its action, that generosity (of spirit as well as other things) begets the “generations” and the community (the clans).

This thinking stands in such stark contrast to the paltry one-dimensional understanding of life as economic transaction and commodity consumption that predominates in American cultural conversation.

It reminds me of Mozart (and other composers) whose vitality and sheer zest for living breathes throughout their music.  It is the difference between impotent and shallow living and dancing/embracing life.

SPOILER ALERT

I was annoyed by a review of WonderStruck by Selznick by Adam Gopnik in yesterday’s NYT Book section.

He didn’t mention what to me is the most fascinating thing about Selznik’s book. Selznik alternates pages of pictures with pages of prose. The picture stories are about a little girl in the past. The prose stories are about a little boy in 70s. But the cool thing is the immediate relationship between pictures and prose.

Our Saturday movie yesterday was “Contagion.” Eileen and I have decided that it would be fun to try do a movie or something on our weekly Saturday off. Since so many movies kind of suck these days, this necessarily entails trying to find movies we can stand instead of be attracted to.

Contagion was kind of fun. Unfortunately, it was probably as much because of the actors involved: Lawrence Fishburne,

Matt Damon,

Jude Law (who does a fine job as a crazy blogger who captures unwarranted credibility online and becomes a weird leader in interpreting the outbreak of the new disease),

and

Gwyneth Paltrow.

After reading a recent article on the fake science in the movie (The Real Threat of ‘Contagion’ – NYTimes.com), it was fun to see the invented bacteria and realize that it was at least reviewed by real scientists.

It’s a not bad movie. Clever with what seems like an actual story and some pretty good acting. Good entertaining distraction for Eileen and me.

Sarah Jenkins arrived safe if not sound yesterday from England.  Her trip sounds sort of like a nightmare since she was ill during it. She was just pulling out of it as she arrived by train last night in Holland.

Eileen and I gently teased her about the movie we had seen. It involved spreading a disease world wide via plane trips. We told her if she had that disease she would be dead in 72 hours. Welcome home.

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AccuRadio online radio | Listen to free Internet radio

This web site was mentioned in the Guardian newspaper magazine Sarah brought me last night.  I’ve never heard of it, but it looks kind of interesting. Sort of a Pandora thing I guess.

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Paris Begins Enforcing Ban on Street Prayer – NYTimes.com

Even though I am deluded atheist, I have mixed feelings about the repression of harmless expressions of religion. It’s not only Amerika that is dealing with public hate, eh?

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Robertson Remarks on Alzheimer’s Stir Passions – NYTimes.com

The Energizer Bunny of Craziness, Pat Robertson, just keeps on going and going. I thought about my Dad’s death in the throes of Lewey Body Dementia reading this article.

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Pacifist Goshen College Reconsiders the National Anthem – NYTimes.com

Interesting conundrum for the Mennonites. I have come to pretty much abhor nationalism in my old age. My young age to think of it.

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Learning From Hammarskjold – NYTimes.com

A leader that I grew up admiring. We had his book, Markings, on our shelf when I was a kid.

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Why I’m Just Saying No to ‘The Help’ and Its Historical Whitewash ( a blog entry by Akiba Solomon)

This blog entry articulates a lot of my own misgivings about The Help movie and book. I read the book. It seems to be unaware of its own patronizing plot of having a white woman rescue a bunch of exploited maids. Very much a book for people who haven’t thought too much about race in the good ol’ USA.

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Brazilian Couple Traverses the Americas on Motorcycle – NYTimes.com

Inspiring story of a man who decides to do some interesting stuff before he dies.

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NASA’s Kepler Telescope Finds Planet Orbiting Two Stars – NYTimes.com

Is this cool or what?

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I’m breaking pattern and blogging before relaxing this morning. I got up and linked a very cool radio show on the Grace Music Ministry page. It’s called “Civility, History and Hope.” It’s from Krista Tippett’s Civil Conversations project on her “On Being” show.  She interviews Vincent Harding who wrote Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement.

Harding has some great stories and insights including some observations about singing in the Civil Rights movement.

When he puts songs in this context he breathes life back into some old warhorses like “This Little Light of Mine” and “Kumbaya.”

He mentions a NYT article which discusses the derision sometimes associated with the idea of a “Kumbaya” moment.

I experienced this from a priest I worked for. He used to bring this song up in a mocking way. Harding (and the article) put it back into a healthier context. Harding in particular says he cannot bear to hear the song ridiculed with his associations of it being sung by young civil rights workers who were frightened by the murders of their peers.

In addition I think Harding has some very important things to say about getting beyond civility to building a compassionate and “beloved community.”

He talks about connecting the elders with youth in some pretty exciting ways.  I highly recommend this show.

While I’m on this topic I am reminded that recently a “friend” on Facebook accused me of playing the “race card” when I mentioned racism currently in our society.

I think many white people misunderstand the concept of racism as a personal flaw. While I have seen this kind of stuff, I think the racism that pervades our daily lives is much more insidious. I think it links to the hatred and injustice that is part of the fabric of the USA right now.

Here are some examples to ponder from recent links.

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Arthur Evans, 68, Leader in Gay Rights Fight, Is Dead – NYTimes.com

Judging from this moving obit, Evans was a brave and witty man who lived combating hatred and discrimination.

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The Moral Values of America’s Youth – NYTimes.com

These are letters in reaction to a recent David Brooks indictment of young people.

One young person responded this way:

“We don’t frame our moral commitments in the black-and-white language of previous generations, because we’ve inherited the damage that comes from absolutes, whether partisan politics or fundamentalisms.”

Peter Coyote, the actor, wrote this in his letter:

“When those with the highest social status routinely lie, cheat, exploit their office for personal gain, profit from outrageous conflicts of interest, when they are rewarded for their turpitude with wealth and acclaim, repeating the conservative party line about moral laxity and self-indulgence is disingenuous.”

It seems to me that these voices are chiming in with Vincent Harding about building a better union, building a democracy.

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Free to Die – NYTimes.com

Paul Krugman comments on the lack of compassion that is worn like a badge by many people in America.”[C]ompassion is out of fashion,” he writes,” — indeed, lack of compassion has become a matter of principle.”

I think this is evidence of sickness in our society. When he points to the recent exchange at the Republican Presidential debate where the crowd began cheering letting people die who don’t have insurance, it is a chillingly made point.

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Suit Over Lead Dust Names Kennedy Krieger Institute – NYTimes.com

And if you’re looking for evidence of recent racism, this article makes a case for it.

Not to mention this sad sad story of a death on the street recently of another casualty of the weird public values in our country.

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Lewis Brown, Faded Basketball Prodigy, Dies Homeless – NYTimes.com

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I can see I’m blogging a bit on the serious side this morning so let me end with the wonderful book I finished reading last night.

The book is Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick.

He’s the author of  the wonderful The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

He tells stories with pictures he draws.

In Wonderstruck Selznick explores some fascinating themes of being a deaf young person and seeking out community both in your family and outside it.

I highly recommend it.

I had an amazing number of Facebook friends wish me a happy birthday yesterday. I don’t remember that many from last year.

Born in 1951, 2011 brings me to the beginning of my 61st year.

My day went nicely yesterday. Included my weekly meeting with the boss, my trio rehearsal and ended up going out to eat with my lovely wife (2 evenings in a row! Last night we celebrated her new job which she starts in October!).

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Sewing Her Way Out of Poverty – NYTimes.com

Inspiring story by Nicholas Kristof.

” [I]f a former prostitute in a Nairobi slum can build a dressmaking business, buy a home in the suburbs and produce over-achievers like Caroline, Anthony and Cynthia, then it’s worth remembering that sheer grit, and a helping hand, can sometimes blaze trails where none seem possible.”

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Do Individual Acts Help Save the Planet? – NYTimes.com

Letters in reaction to a recent article I linked. I especially liked this response:

“…despite Mr. Wagner’s cold-hearted economic analysis, reducing one’s pollution footprint is simply the right thing to do.”

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Making New York’s Glass Buildings Safer for Birds – NYTimes.com

Amazing ideas to save birds from banging into buildings.

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6 Things the Film Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know About | Film School Rejects

These just add to my already curmudgeonly take on movies.

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The Other Socrates – The Barnes & Noble Review

Nice blog entry on Loeb classics and Socrates.

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Laughter Produces Endorphins, Study Finds – NYTimes.com

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Pre-blog Morning reading today included The Gift by Lewis Hyde as well as more Badura-Skoda on Bach interp.

“I believe that since the 1989 fall of the Soviet Union, the West has undergone a period of remarkable market triumphalism. We’ve witnessed the steady conversation into private property of the art and ideas that earlier generations thought belonged to their cultural commons, and we’ve seen the commodification of things that  a fear tears ago would have seemed beyond the reach of any market. The loyalty of school children, indigenous knowledge, drinking water,the human genome—it’s all for sale.” Lewis Hyde

My daughter, Elizabeth, mailed me The Gift for my birthday. It inspired me to return to this book that I started reading a while back.

“You received gifts  from me; they were accepted.
But you don’t understand how to think about the dead,
The smell of winter apples, of hoarfrost, and of linen,
There are nothing but gifts on this poor, poor earth.”

Czelasaw Milosz

I was pondering my experience yesterday playing for my Mom’s nursing home. Hyde talks about art and music as non-commodities. He talks about the relationships inherent in gift giving and in the arts.

“The artist appeals to that part of our being… which is a gift and not an acquisition—and, therefore, more permanently enduring.” Joseph Conrad

I felt this yesterday as I played and talked with people at Resthaven.  This group sits attentively and listens while I play classical music. Yesterday it was Haydn, Chopin and Bach. Then as I play popular tunes from the past, the group starts humming and singing along.

I encourage them to do this.

I like these old tunes myself.

Then we turn to hymns.

I’m always interested in what hymns people know. So I enjoy this part as well.

Today is my 60th birthday and it’s shaping up like I will have a bit more time to relax today and tomorrow. My biggest birthday gift has been watching Eileen land a new position at the library. Yay!!!! She will be doing more of the stuff she enjoys like working with kids. And she will be getting paid more. One of her co-workers said that she was a no-brainer to land this gig. She has her heart set on it! I’m very glad she got it!

I used a bit of my morning to read and study again this morning. I’m hoping I can make a path to less stress this way. We’ll see.

Speaking of stress, it looks like I am seriously close to living to the age of sixty, since tomorrow is my sixtieth birthday.

I have mentioned before that my Uncle Richard died in his sleep at the age of 57 from heart troubles.  I have a bad ticker as well. So when I past passed (thank you Sarah J for the correction) the age of 57 I felt like I was getting some extra time to live. Still do. Life is good.

With the assistance of the janitor I crawled around in the pipes of my organ yesterday.

John Muller, a Columbus organ builder I have been talking to, and I had a phone conversation regarding the current upgrade project of the organ at my church.

I told him I would send him more concrete info.

You can make some sense of this if you look at this pic:

The organ console (the keyboard) is on the left. New pipes to go to either side of the windows. Present pipes hidden behind wall upper right.

Here are few more pics of the pipes. I got dusty and dirty crawling around taking these crappy pictures, but all in a good cause.

So there you have it. That’s how I spent part of yesterday.

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Christopher Small, Cultural Musicologist, Is Dead at 84 – NYTimes.com

This guy sounds very interesting. I will check out his books.

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European Union Extends Copyright on Recordings – NYTimes.com

Once again everyone benefits but the creators. Sheesh.

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Really? The Claim: Fingers Wrinkle Because of Water Absorption – NYTimes.com

Wrinkled wet fingers serve a purpose. Better traction. Who knew?

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Attacking the Obesity Epidemic by First Figuring Out Its Cause – NYTimes.com

Distinguishing Cognitive Impairment From Normal Aging – NYTimes.com

A couple of recent Jane Brody articles. The second refers to a study about the connection between improved cognitive function and exercise. This is why I started treadmilling.

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I have been using the beginning calm of my morning to read and think before I sit down and blog a bit. I have noticed that I am more stressed than usual lately. My blood pressure has intermittently been trending higher this summer. I wonder if the fact that I am getting older also means my body is more sensitive to stress. I hope not.

Amazon seems to occasionally make some kind books free for a short period of time. Stress proof your life: 50 brilliant ideas for taking control by Elisabeth Wilson was one of these. I downloaded it free and browsed through it.

Apparently it’s no longer free. Wilson talks about many different sensible strategies for lowering stress in one’s life. Most of what I have read is not new to me but it helps to be reminded to take time to think and reflect each day.

“As a rough rule, every waking hour should have five minutes of pleasure.” Elisabeth Wilson

I quite like that. I know that I get lots of pleasure in my life. I see my self as very lucky to have the companionship of my wife and my passion for music.

But I still stress out. Usually it involves other people. Especially when these people rattle around in my head after an encounter. Which leads me often to think of myself as having an introverted streak, that I do not usually draw energy from contact with others (this excepts Eileen). Rather I am drained. The more deeply I care about others, the more stressed I can be when I watch them go through tough patches.

Wilson is clear to point out the value of stress and its place in our lives:

“We’re designed to get stressed.  It’s how we deal with it that’s the problem…. Coping with stress should be simple. My central message to you can be summarized in one sentence. Get stressed—relax.”

Elisabeth Wilson

I recommend her book for tips on this subject.

A final quote:

“[G]ood health is not just an absence of disease but the ‘presence of emotional and physical well being.” Elisabeth Wilson

This is a bit different than I sometimes think of good health. Worth pondering.

So before sitting down to blog this morning I sipped coffee and finished Badura-Skoda’s chapter 2  “Studies in Rhythm” in his book, Interpreting Bach at the Keyboard.

As a musician I often think about rhythm and tempo. I love music that is rhythmically alive. I think this is part of my attraction to dance.  I also think about tempo quite  a bit. Steady tempo is an important part of accompanying congregational singing. Ensembles of musicians however make beautiful music when they allow tempo to breath.

Of course this entails an equality of respect and listening that is not always present in ensemble playing.

I spend lots of time using my metronome. But at the same time I realize that mechanical adherence to it does not produce music, only improved ability to play steadily or discover which sections one is unintentionally distorting. This is probably my biggest concern.

My piano trio is a great workshop for me to think about tempo and rhythm. The other two players are fine musicians. String players often have a highly developed sense of rubato and rhythm and these two are no exception. It is instructive to play with them and then discuss what was happening to the tempo as we played.

A slight increase in tempo is something we allow as an ensemble sometimes sense the music we are making is a team effort between players equally concerned with making music together as well as performing well individually.

Toward the end of his chapter on rhythm, Badura-Skoda made a couple of comments that stood out to me.

“Anyone who has listened to a half-speed tape recording of evenly played fast runs has made the sobering discovery that what sounded even at a fast tempo sounded quite uneven and uncontrolled, indeed amateurish, when played slowly.” Paul Badura-Skoda

This resonated to me because years ago I heard an inadvertent recording of myself playing drums. In it, I could hear variations in the tempo that I was unaware of. This was indeed a sobering experience for me. I like to think that I learned to think more consciously about tempo by hearing myself play badly on a recording.

Then Badura-Skoda makes this observation on ensemble playing:

“Are we not reminded of a symphony orchestra when a flock of birds, as though informed by one will, moves along steadily in a straight line, draws irregular figures in the air, or lands and flies away simultaneously?”

I find the image of groups of birds flying in ensemble very inspiring and though provoking.

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The Real Threat of ‘Contagion’ – NYTimes.com

Science consultant for the movie talks about his process and recommendations.

So my little anthem worked out well yesterday. I designed it so that it could be done by almost any group of singers that showed up. I took the melody from the hymnal, retained the original bass line, omitted the later composed alto and tenor, added a descant like soprano line.  That way I could omit any line except the melody.

I have added the updated version of the anthem to my free music page.

I was glad to see the usual group of singers yesterday to perform this anthem. It would have been nice if some other singers had taken me up on my usual fall invitations to join.

I also wrote a descant for the opening hymn.

A copy of this is also available on my music page.

I played pretty well yesterday. Prelude and postlude went well. It’s hard to be heard over crowd noise during the postlude. But I prefer the energy to silence.

Finished reading this book on Friday. Pretty good stuff.

Started reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman this weekend.

I have been confusing him in my mind with Neil Stephenson.

I’m about half way through Anathem. But Gaiman interests me more right now and my brother, Mark, has graciously given me the ebook to read.

I continue to find Badura-Skoda very helpful. This morning I sat and marked an old copy of Bach keyboard suites and partitas with notations from Badua-Skoda. Seems like there is a musical example I want to remember on almost every page.

I have a newer copy of the dover Bach at work. I have been seriously thinking of purchasing Neue-Bach-Ausgabe versions which reflect better scholarship.

The problem is that they are expensive and I will have to buy several volumes in order to get the suites, partitas, Goldberg and other works I already own.

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Arguably – Essays — By Christopher Hitchens — Book Review – NYTimes.com

Was sorely tempted to purchase the ebook version of this book this weekend. I resisted, but it’s only a matter of time before I get this book by Hitchens.  I enjoy reading him even though I don’t share all of his conclusions or points of view. A helluva writer and very erudite.

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Japanese Official Resigns Over Radiation Joke – NYTimes.com

“According to Japanese newspaper reports, Mr. Hachiro, who was wearing protective clothing, moved as if to wipe his sleeve against a reporter and jokingly said, “Look out, radiation!”

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Eileen, Barb Phillips, and I went to hear the Blind Boys of Alabama perform last night. They did the tune, “Way Down in the Hole.” We were happily surprised because we hadn’t remembered that this tune was used as the theme song for the first season of the tv series, “The Wire.”

This was a TV series that both Eileen and I enjoyed watching. I’m not much for TV but I liked the fact that this series took a long look at differing aspects of the city of Baltimore from its streets to its docks to its backroom politics. The ironic point is that all the players were struggling in similar ways with similar dilemmas. Bad guys and good guys at all levels.

The tune is actually by Tom Waits. I like his version as well.

Worth a listen.

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I have been over-saturated with the babbling incoherent rhetoric of our public discussions in the USA.  I try to stay informed. But I am developing a very low tolerance for the hyperbolic.  I have had it with deliberately provocative speech. I am exhausted and disgusted with  dishonesty which ranges from manipulative to plain lying. So needless to say the insane coverage of the 10th anniversay of 9/11 is something I am trying not to pay too much attention to.

But FWIW, here are a few links.

Critique of coverage is always interesting to me:

Whistling Past the Wreckage of Civil Liberties

The ‘Worst of the Worst’?

Here is a good aggregate page of articles from Real Clear World:

http://www.realclearworld.com/topic/around_the_world/911/

John Dean: A Dud From ‘Darth’ – Book Review – Truthdig

Even though this article is polemical, I can’t resist adding it. It’s a review of Cheney’s new book:

I seriously considered getting a doctorate in liturgy a few years back.

When I think of this I am grateful that I did not do it. My relationship to organized religion reminds of Jonah’s struggle in the Bible with God’s command to go to Ninevah and preach to them of their impending doom if they didn’t change their ways.

This is how he ends up in the whale. He takes a ship in the other direction. There’s a storm. When the crew discovers he is running from God, they throw him overboard and he is swallowed by a large fish.

After he repents in the belly of the whale (as I remember it) he is spat up on land. He goes to Nineva. They repent and are saved.

He is disgusted and sits down in dirt waiting to see if the city is truly spared. It’s hot and God mercifully causes a plant to grow and give Jonah shade.

Then God causes a worm to destroy the plant.

In the heat, Jonah begins to suffer and asks God to take him from the world. God asks if Jonah is angry because of the destruction of the plant. Jonah is. God (going to the “root” of Jonah’s bitching) asks if Jonah has concern for this plant why should God not be merciful to Ninevah.

For me, organized religion is just where I don’t want to be. My Ninevah.

Yet I continue to end up serving church communities as their musician. Not only that, but I always end up enjoying it.

I also like the overtones of the Jonah story I have in my head. It reminds me both of Pinocchio

and Joseph Campbell type mythologies.

I was reminded of all this when I heard Richard Mouw quote Martin Marty on a podcast of a recent “Being” show.

Martin Marty was the teacher I thought of studying with for my doctoral program.

Speaking of Marty, Mouw says: “Marty said, you know, a lot of people today who have strong convictions are not very civil, and a lot of people who are civil don’t have very strong convictions, and what we really need is convicted civility.”

This comes from what Yeats said in a poem:

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”

This got me to thinking about civility and how I treat other people.

Another excellent section in this broadcast:

“… to be civil comes from “civitas” and it means learning how to live in the city. The origin with a guy like Aristotle, the ancient philosopher, who said early on, as little children, we have a natural sense of kinship. We have strong positive feelings toward those who are blood relatives, my mother, my father, sisters and brothers, cousins and the like. And then as we grow up, we have some of those same positive feelings that develop toward friends. So we go from kinship and we build on that to a broader sense of friendship where you have that same sense of bonding or something like it that isn’t just based on blood relative stuff.

But he said to really grow up, to be a mature human being, is to learn in the public square to have that same sense of bonding to people from other cities, people who are very different than yourself. And that’s not just toleration, but is a sense that what I owe to my mother because she brought me into this world, what I owe to my friends because of shared experiences and memories and delights, I also owe to the stranger. Why? Because they’re human like me and I’ve got to begin to think of humanness as such as a kind of bonding relationship.” Richard Mouw

I like all of this stuff. I aspire to this even while having reservations about organized religion.

FWIW I did get back to all of those articles I mentioned yesterday. Here are citations of a few of the more interesting looking ones.

Fuller David, “An introduction to automatic instruments”  Early Music, Vol 11, No. 2 (1983)

Clark, Jane “Domenico Scarlatti and Spanish Folk Music: a Performer’s Re-Appraisal” Early Music Vol 4, No. 1 (1976)

Kikpatrick, Ralph “On Re-Reading Couperin’s ‘L’Art de Toucher le Clavecin” Early Music, Vol 4, No. 1 (1976)

O’Donnell, John “The French Style and the Overtures of Bach: Part Two” Early Music Vol. 7, No. 3 (1979)

I think these look interesting.

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New Fossils May Redraw Human Ancestry – NYTimes.com

I took a class in physical anthropology in under grad school. Learning about the ancestors of humanity awakened a bit of curiosity in me. I’m still fascinated by this history.

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Michael Hart, a Pioneer of E-Books, Dies at 64 – NYTimes.com

He’s the pioneer because he stopped off at a convenience store where they were giving out copies of the Declaration of Independence. Went home and typed it into his computer as the first ebook.

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When Quoting Verse, One Must Be Terse – NYTimes.com

Copyright problems for poets and critics of poetry. It never ends.

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Bronx Woman Charged With Leaving Body in Suitcase – NYTimes.com

This story really captured my imagination. It could almost be a fictional short story plot.

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Larry Fagin, Bohemian Poet and Teacher, Minces Few Words – NYTimes.com

A profile of a curmudgeon.

Mr. Fagin takes a blighted view of the current generation of aspiring artists, whom he likened to “pod people.”

Nor does he have much good to say about what has come of his once-beloved downtown art world, which, by his reckoning, ended in February 1975 at a dinner party around the corner hosted by Claes and Patty Oldenburg.

Mr. Fagin, who went with his friend the critic and poet Peter Schjeldahl, recalled his excitement that the artist Robert Smithson was to be in attendance. “But when we got there, all anyone talked about was real estate,” he said. “They’d all just bought lofts in what was later to be called SoHo. We left and I said to Peter, ‘Well, that’s the end of civilization.’

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Instead of jumping on the computer first thing in the morning with cup of coffee in hand, lately I have been using part of this valuable time to read and study.

This morning I read Kenneth Gilbert’s introduction to his edition of the Domenico Scarlatti sonatas.

Then I did what I have been meaning to do for several days. I used my Hope College Staff access to Project Music & JSTOR to pull down several articles bibliographed in my recent reading.

If you’re interested here are the titles. Unfortunately I can’t link in the entire article. Someday maybe this kind of information will be more freely legally available.

Dam. It looks like I didn’t quite manage to download the 15 articles and reviews quite properly. There goes a half hour of research.  A couple articles did download so that I could access them:

“J. S. Bach’s ‘Well Tempered Clavier’: A New Approach” by Peter Williams, Early Music, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Jan. 1983)

“French Overtures at the keyboard: the Handel tradition” by Graham Pont, Early Music, Vol. 35, No. 2 (May 2007)

I’ve linked in an abstract for the first article. It looks like the link to the Handel article may allow anyone full access. Not sure. Sometimes my browser keeps me logged in and I get a link to full access even though others might now.

Sigh. Now I have to trace the history of those other articles on my netbook. Ah well.

In the meantime, I am fascinated by Badura-Skoda’s mention of extant 18th century organ-barrels (a kind of mechanical musical instrument that was designed to replicate music …. in effect a sort of dubious 18th century type of recording).

It turns out that there are significant possible insights from examining music on these instruments. Badura-Skoda reports his conclusion that even factoring in accelerated tempos for a mechanical instrument, tempos may have been faster in the Baroque period than many revivalists in the 20th century thought.

My violinist and cellist both grimaced when I told them this yesterday. I share their frustration. This kind of performing requires a great deal of preparation.

I recall performing a Haydn symphony with the Grand Rapids symphony (my one instance of playing with them). Lockington took tempos at breakneck speed. His tempos surprised me and presented a challenge for me at the harpsichord since the purpose of the harpsichord in these early Haydn symphonies is largely to keep the ensemble on time (the audience can barely hear it).

I was unhappy with my performance. I wish I had another shot at it.  I think I could do better. At the time I suspected Lockington of trying out a modern tempo on Haydn. Now I suspect he had read more extensively than me and was possibly reflecting contemporary scholarship about tempos.

Another sigh.

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‘The Contenders’ on C-SPAN, Lessons From Losers – NYTimes.com

Upcoming series on people who didn’t win election in history on C-Span. Looks like fun.

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Beverly Hall, Schools Chief During Atlanta Cheating Scandal, Defends Actions – NYTimes.com

In my college career I believe I witnessed some pretty unethical cheating by both students and professors. Ay yi yi.

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Crane Repairing Cathedral Topples – NYTimes.com

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Wardell Quezergue, Hitmaker of New Orleans R&B, Dies at 81 – NYTimes.com

Used this obit to create a wonderful playlist on spotify.

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Finding Hope in Libya – NYTimes.com

“Countries like the United States, France, Britain and Qatar did something historic in supporting a military operation that was largely about preserving lives, not national interests.”

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Going Green but Getting Nowhere – NYTimes.com

This is a discouraging article. I detect a whiff of ideology in the stance of author, but nevertheless suspect he is largely right in contended that individual action counts for naught on a the world wide scale.

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I’m still adjusting to my evolving schedule.

Wednesday is turning out to be a long day (and hence stress).

I like my work, but am having more fatigue, both mental and physical. Yesterday in addition to 2.5 hours of ballet class I also had a staff meeting at church. In between events I dashed to the Farmers Market to get tomatoes, cukes and peaches.

My rule at work (and sometimes in other parts of my life) is do no harm.

This entails more quiet from Jupe.

I try not to talk or react quickly.

I wonder if this makes my presence more brooding, but can’t help it.

I actually think that people notice I’m in the room less and less as I age.

I also have my basic dang introverted nature to constantly deal with.

When I have to interact with people I can do so pretty well. It just takes a lot out of me.

So Thursdays are shaping up to be good days. One short ballet class, meet with boss, piano trio rehearsal, give a piano lesson, all pleasant things for me.

I just have to get past this  fatigue.

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MUSIC SHOP TALK COMMENT FOLLOWS

Still plunging head with my study of interp of Bach.  I’m concluding that Bach didn’t use cross rhythms very much.

Instead Badura-Skoda (for one maintains) Bach expected performers to “assimilate” written duple rhythms as triple ones.

“Assimilation” is what Badura-Skoda calls this.  I hadn’t heard that term used in this way before, but it’s quite handy.

Due to my training in performance of French Baroque music which is often played much differently than it is written I have been aware of this possibility for much of my performing life.

I also know that Bach played with a French band of musicians as a young man and would have been exposed to this practice.

But this didn’t convince me that it should be applied with triplets and duplets are mixed.

Badura-Skoda convinced me with his arguments. Badura-Skoda careful examined Bach manuscripts and publications that occurred in his lifetime with his supervision which give evidence. Also there is some pretty convincing internal evidence in some pieces.

Anyway, it’s a working solution which is what a performer needs.

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Paging History – NYTimes.com

I hate to see the Congressional pages tradition stopped in the House of Representatives.

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The Whole Truth and Nothing But – NYTimes.com

I quite reading Thomas Friedman when he became such a cheerleader for the Iraq War.  But this article caught my attention.

Maybe Friedman has learned this from his Iraq experience. I know he is a “Middle East” kind of expert and have even in the past read in his books.

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Haiti’s Needless Cholera Deaths – NYTimes.com

This kind of thing drives me crazy. Help is available just not being connected with the people who need it.

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I don’t think I have mentioned this book in the blog yet. I have been reading it since Monday when I picked it off the shelf of the Hope College Music Library.

Badura-Skoda is an elder statesman in the performing and scholarly world. Along with his wife he has done quite a bit of work in this area. I am just discovering his writings and recordings.

The book I am reading is chock full of very clear recommendations and rationale about how to play passages of Bach that puzzle me.

It’s refreshing to read Badura-Skoda’s clear prose and ideas about these problems. He draws not only on logic but also Quantz and CPE Bach both of whom I have read in.

Another cool thing about reading this book is that now I have access to many of the articles footnoted via my online staff privileges at Hope.

Speaking of books, I don’t think I’ve mentioned the new fiction book I have started.

Somewhere I read about this writer and inter-library-loaned a couple titles by her. As I began reading I remembered that she had been described as writing about family in a way that intrigued me.

I am about fifty pages in and Desai definitely has sharp insight into the way families work and more interestingly don’t work.  Here’s an early passage that I think shows this.

“MAMANDPAPA. MamaPapa. PapaMama. It was hard to believe they had every had separate existences, that they had been separate entities and not MamaPapa in one breath. Yet Mama had been born to a merchant family in the city of Kanpur and lived in the bosom of her enormous family till at sixteen she married Papa. Papa, in Patna, the son of a tax inspector with one burning ambition, to give his son the best available education, had won prizes at school meanwhile, played tennis as a young man, trained for the bar and eventually built up a solid practice. This much the children learned from old photographs, framed certificates, tarnished medals and the conversation of visiting relatives.  MamaPapa themselves rarely spoke of a time when they were not one.”

To me this is a breathtaking suggestion of a basic lack of differentiation that is part of so many relationships. Probably inescapable at some level.

My quasi son-in-law, Jeremy, recently observed to me in an online chat (he is living in China right now) that he did not know many people whose living parents were still together and still liked each other. It was a huge compliment to Eileen and me.

I see “lack of differentiation” as “globbing” that we all do.

Ironically, it expresses itself both in loss of identity as Desai describes and also (maybe more often) “cut-off.”

Briefly: when people cut themselves off from significant others in their lives it usually is an indication of lack of clear differentiation between themselves and the ones they are in reaction to.

This kind of thing often lasts a lifetime and many times outlasts the lives of one or another of the people involved. Tragic but common.

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Sidebar — When Perpetual Dissent Removes the Blindfold – NYTimes.com

A little info on Supreme Court justices and their dissents.

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Salvatore Licitra, Tenor at the Met, Dies at 43 After Crash – NYTimes.com

another good argument for wearing helmets on scooters and bikes

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The Last Moderate – NYTimes.com

Joe Nocera talks about Congressman Jim Cooper as a dying breed of civility and coherence in Congress.

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Revive Home Economics Classes to Fight Obesity – NYTimes.com

a little history and some sound recommendations from Mich

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Discharged for Being Gay, Many Seek to Re-enlist – NYTimes.com

“It almost feels like I’m getting back in bed with a bad lover…”

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Libya Rebels Focus Wrath on Sub-Saharan African Migrants – NYTimes.com

Racism in Africa

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Call a gynecologist! ‘Vagina Tree’ is deflowered in McCarren Park • The Brooklyn Paper

Vagina Tree had its own Twitter account. Sadly it is no more.

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Proprioception – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Learned this word yesterday in Ballet Class.

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