I got a bunch of my tasks done yesterday: paid Mom’s and Eileen’s and Steve’s bills. Both of our accounts balanced to the penny. I have been trying to balance these on a weekly basis. Eileen helps if I can’t manage to make the numbers work. I like it when I can do it myself.

I did a modern dance class and a ballet class yesterday. I felt a bit more connected. Improvisation draws me on to innovate as I do my job. Yesterday seemed to be melody day. I always think melody but yesterday I tried to make beautiful and interesting melodies up on the spot. That was fun.

I finished music for my string players for Easter Sunday. I also outlined a plan for my little ensemble of volunteers called GELO (Grace Episcopal Liturgical Orchestra). Today I need to nail down an organ postlude for the Easter Sunday Vigil service (usually done on Saturday night, but this crew sort of does a faux sunrise service with the vigil ritual). Then I need to get titles and anthem lyrics to the secretary so she can finish up the booklet. Then get to work on doing several arrangements for GELO (That would be for viola, two cellos and piano, these are the people who have indicated they will be there).

I received some sheet music in the mail that I ordered.

Charles Ives’s “Five Piano Pieces” and his first piano sonata. Unfortunately I’ve been too busy to sit down and look at them. But soon I will.

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Languages Grew From a Seed in Africa, a Study Says – NYTimes.com

I find this stuff fascinating. The article links to the recent original published research.

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Obama: GOP tried to “sneak” agenda into budget – Political Hotsheet – CBS News

I found this leak encouraging. I noticed that later the White House was not upset (White House: No regrets over Obama’s open-mic comments Los Angeles Times)

This makes sense to me:

“The president told his backers Thursday night that he expects Republicans to continue using that process to enact their political agenda under the guise of cutting spending. He specifically called into question the sincerity of Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who crafted the House GOP’s controversial 2012 budget which includes significant and controversial cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

“When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he’s just being America’s accountant … This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill — but wasn’t paid for,” Mr. Obama told his supporters. “So it’s not on the level.”

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Lady Liberty Stamp Depicts a Vegas Replica – NYTimes.com

Heh. Oops.

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Ultimate Spoiler Alert by David Brooks

Brooks tries for middle ground by mis-describing both sides.

I prefer Kristoff’s take:

Raise America’s Taxes – NYTimes.com

“As I see it, there are three fallacies common in today’s budget discussions:

Republicans are the party of responsible financial stewardship, struggling to put America on a sound footing.

Low tax rates are essential to create incentives for economic growth: a tax increase would stifle the economy.

We can’t afford Medicare.

Partisan, but coherent.

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My cellist canceled rehearsal yesterday so I spent the time arranging music for my piano trio to play on Easter Sunday morning. I managed to finish adding string parts to the anthem we are singing and also arranging an organ piece for violin, cello and keyboard for the postlude. I’m over halfway through arranging another organ piece the prelude. I am planning to tuck my musicians back behind a modesty wall behind the organ. That way, they won’t have to suffer with unconscious people not noticing them and bumping into them or what not.

Next project is to arrange material for use with the Grace Episcopal Liturgical Orchestra for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  This organization has not accomplished the task that I designed it for, namely to draw in multi-generational talented instrumentalists into an occasional performance at church. The reason it has not done this, I believe, is that I don’t contact 20 or so people personally.  I send out an email, put announcements in the weekly bulletin. This works mostly with people who are self-motivated anyway to participate.

This time even two of those have indicated that they are too busy.

But my goal will be to use the people who have indicated they want to play and make it both a rewarding experience for them and an addition to the silly prayer of the Triduum.

This is a bit challenging because of the wide range of abilities of the players. But I think I can do it.

Ballet class was weird yesterday. I guess I should say that I was in a weird space. I felt disconnected. It was not helped by the fact that this teacher neglected to tell me I wasn’t needed for a class on Tuesday and then yesterday didn’t mention it. I’m sure it was just an oversight. I should have said something to her diplomatically. But I just sat and did my job and said nothing.

Besides burn out, I also find that as I age I become more and more reticent. I believe this is partly from pressure from my extended family and acquaintances and also our society seems to think that men (especially old men?) should be the silent type.

If you read this blog regularly you will probably find that amusing if not amazing. But that’s one of the reason for this blog. It’s a place where I can gab on and on.

My wife is an excellent listener and very supportive, but it’s not realistic to expect her to be the only outlet for my ideas and blather. I try to keep my logorrhea appropriate and sometimes screw that up because of my own failure to factor in other people’s boundaries.  This is almost always inadvertent.

I did chat briefly with my lovely daughter, Sarah, yesterday on Skype. She is also a good listener but she lives in England and has a pretty busy life of her own. I had to cut our chat short so that I could go and do errands like grocery shop and pick up my suit at the cleaners and then exercise before Eileen got home.

Enough.

TODAY’S ONE LINK

Hendrik Hertzberg: Obama Cuts His Rhetorical Deficit : The New Yorker

I read Obama’s entire speech and commentary pro and con. I must say that most reaction seems pretty incoherent to me, but I like what Herzberg blogged. He is a writer I read regularly.

First Herzberg deftly describes Obama’s critics on the far left:

“…the disillusioned left, which is easily, almost perpetually disillusioned because it has such an ample supply of illusions. (A lot of lefties, notwithstanding their scorn for “the system,” seem to have an implicit naive faith in the workability of the mechanisms of American governance…).”

Then he describes himself (I relate to this)

Then there are “…people like me: liberals who continue to respect and admire Obama; who fully appreciate the disaster he inherited and the horrendous difficulty of enacting a coherent agenda even when your own party “controls” both Houses of Congress; who think his substantive record is pretty good under the circumstances; who dislike some of the distasteful compromises he has made but aren’t sure we wouldn’t have done the same in his shoes (etc.—you get the idea); but who are puzzled that our eloquent, writerly President seems to have done so little to educate the public about his own vision and to contrast it with that of the Republican right—which is to say, the Republicans.”

I have to say that the reaction of people like Charles Krauthamer and the WSJ editorial (both linked in the last post) does not make sense to me.  I can’t even understand the logic of what they are saying which frustrates me. I would like to be able to think logically about people I disagree with, but the criticism I have read is incoherent. But come to think of it some of the support reaction was pretty incoherent to me as well. Maybe it’s just me.

Despite my ongoing burnout, modern dance class yesterday was fun.  The movements the dancers make tend to be angular and sharp and have a different kind of beauty from classical ballet. More and more  I find I am improvising music that sounds like these movements look to me. Satisfying.

I have now scanned in over a hundred pages of my father’s memoir and emailed it to interested people (my daughters, my son, my brother). Every time I send out an email I also include one published article and one sermon outline.

Holy week is staring me in the face.

I need to make some final choices about instrumental music. Plus I need to start planning beyond Easter Sunday. I am unmotivated, but am sure I will rally in time to get stuff done.  Several parish musicians who usually play have indicated they are too busy this Holy Week. I wonder if this portends low attendance at these services.

Fortunately I received an email overnight that my violinist is willing to play at the later Easter Sunday service. This means I will have a cello and violin available for that service. I meet with these people today for our usual rehearsal. I think I’m going to curtail my blog and get to work on making some scores for them to read through today.

Here’s some links:

Obama’s Speech on Reducing the Budget (Text) – NYTimes.com

I listened to part of this yesterday on C-Span.

Plan to read the rest.  I was glad but skeptical to hear the President talk about taking responsibility for each other in our society. This will probably never fly given the current political environment.

Here are the editorials I plan to read after I finish the speech.

Review & Outlook: The Presidential Divider – WSJ.com

President Obama, Reinvigorated – NYTimes.com

A couple other reactions (links from Real Clear Politics)

At Last: A President, Not a Ref – E.J. Dionne, Washington Post

Obama’s Speech Was a Disgrace – Charles Krauthammer, FOX News

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Barcelona Expected to Approve Resolution on Nudity and Improper Dress – NYTimes.com

This article mentioned the area where Eileen and I stayed when we visited this lovely city:

“On the charming triangular plaza named for George Orwell, who lived here during the Spanish Civil War, stone steps once invited young tourists to sit, drink themselves drunk and make noise through the night. The steps were recently removed, and in March a large round children’s playground was opened, in an effort to deter unruly loitering.”

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Budget Battles – The Price of Ill-Conceived Cuts – NYTimes.com

“Instead of adopting the Republican language and argument, Democrats should be deploring it, pointing out that the deal was the result of extortionate pressure from the House and represents poor economic judgment during a nascent recovery…”

“Democratic leaders and President Obama’s failure to tell the truth about the budget deal for this year: It ushers in a denuded era of loss to vital government services, mostly at the expense of the most vulnerable.”

I rushed over to college yesterday only to find my 8:30 AM ballet class sitting in front of a TV monitor waiting to view a video. “Didn’t she tell you she wouldn’t need you today?” a student asked.

I walked home slower.

Since class was canceled I was able to fix Eileen breakfast and spend some time with her before she left for work.

Between having lunch with my Mom and spending time with Bach at the piano, I managed to ameliorate my burn out a small bit. It is encouraging to see my Mom’s outlook on life improving.

While she was in her shrink’s office I read Bach Collegium Japan, and John Eliot Gardiner by Alex Ross, a music writer I admire (link to his blog, The Rest is Noise).  Once again I had the real copy of this article in the current issue, but this time I read it online.

Later in the day, I carefully played through Bach’s A major English suite. Lovely music. Here are the Prelude and Allemande lovingly played on the harpsichord by B. Van Asperen.

I also played through a few movements from his F major English suite (no. 4) working especially on the first movement.

Bach led me to Brahms which is what I was playing when Eileen arrived home last night. Music does soothe my soul, there is no doubt it.

In between, I purchased some MP3s. The first group was Prokofiev’s second piano sonata and Schumann’s G minor piano sonata. I put them together with Prokofiev’s first piano sonata and listened while I made Eileen’s supper.

Afterwards, I couldn’t resist buying and listening to Paul Simon’s new album, “So Beautiful or So What.”

Not bad for a 69 year old guy. I enjoyed listening to it.

Last night laying in bed and reading about Ives’s work “Thanksgiving” which began life as an organ piece and later becomes the fourth movement of his “A Symphony: New England Holidays.”

I realized that my database privileges at Hope College would allow me to instantly listen to this if it was on Naxos. And it was. And I did. Whew. Life is good.

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Democrats Allow Trims to Favored Programs – NYTimes.com

Has links to pdfs of summary of recent legislation and specific program cuts

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Hedda Sterne, Artist of Many Styles, Dies at 100 – NYTimes.com

This woman’s art looks interesting. I’d never heard of her before reading the obit. Typical experience for me: to discover someone in their obituary.

I like the fact that she never settle on one style.

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Poetry for Everyday Life – NYTimes.com

A strong essay by my favorite conservative David Brooks on language and metaphor.

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An American Tragedy – NYTimes.com

Lots of Civil War stuff around due to the 150 years thing.  I winced as a U of M NPR radio announcer stumbled over pronouncing sesquicentennial and then actually gave up. Ah literacy and preparation. Anyway, this is a good short article about how many Americans differ in how they see the Civil War.

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Obama, the G.O.P. and the Budget Cuts – NYTimes.com

This is a link to letters in response to an article on this topic. I especially liked the last one from U of Notre Dame poly sci prof, Sotirios A. Barber, in which he writes:

The modern G.O.P. believes that the current distribution of property and opportunity is basically fair. It believes that, in essence, egalitarian measures by government entail theft.

Its anti-unionism implies that even government’s concern for equal bargaining power entails theft, for management’s unequal bargaining power represents property fairly earned. The modern G.O.P. is a Social Darwinist party.

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Unfettered Campaign Money – NYTimes.com

Good editorial critiquing some current thought and anticipating some more actions of the Supreme Court.

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United States Sanitary Commission Processing Project: A Sense of History | The New York Public Library

Browse images from the records in the Digital Gallery

Very cool Civil War project from NYPL.

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I’m pretty sure my schedule is starting to burn me out a bit. Yesterday I did 3.5 hours on the bench at ballet class. I continue to enjoy it, but I am watching the clock a bit more.  Today I only have one class and am looking forward to that.

I have committed myself to playing for the May term. This looks like a bit of an increase in schedule. M-F 5-8 PM. Whew. Well, hell,  I can use the money.

I continued thinking about Ives and Prokofiev yesterday and playing through their music (and that Schumann G minor Sonata). But by the middle of the day I was feeling pretty dull and tired mentally. After my last class I came home and poured myself a glass of wine and put on the dang TV. This is pretty unusual for me. Not the wine, but the TV.

Next week is Holy Week. And the last week of term. It promises to be kind of hectic. I am finding church discouraging. People misbehaving. Late paycheck. Probably just burn out, but nevertheless real enough.

I got up late and have to leave in a bit for class so here are today’s links:

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Detroit Symphony Returns From Strike to a Giddy Reception – NYTimes.com

First good news from Detroit in a bit.

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Woody Woodpecker and Shamus Culhane’s Animation – NYTimes.com

Modern art hidden in old cartoons.

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Obama Is Missing – NYTimes.com

I like Krugmann the author of this column. quote:

“[T]he philosophy now dominating Washington discussion [is]… a philosophy that says the poor must accept big cuts in Medicaid and food stamps; the middle class must accept big cuts in Medicare (actually a dismantling of the whole program); and corporations and the rich must accept big cuts in the taxes they have to pay. Shared sacrifice!”

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Bradley Manning: top US legal scholars voice outrage at ‘torture’ | World news | The Guardian

I do check International media on occasion. Bookmarked this to read.

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Review & Outlook: The Tea Party’s First Victory – WSJ.com

I also try to inform myself about people’s views I don’t necessarily agree with. The Wall Street Journal is a decent reporting outfit, but its editorial page usually has something I don’t agree with on it. So I try to make sure I read at least an article or two from this source a week.

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Yesterday was the first day of mild weather we have had this year. Eileen washed her car.  I sat outside and read poetry and my Charles Ives bio. Later we opened windows and let the lovely breeze air out the house.

On Saturday I finished The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Written in the sixties, it’s a classic police procedural murder mystery that takes place in Sweden.

I started another Swedish mystery.

This kind of reading is strictly escape reading for me.

Church went well yesterday even though I was definitely not in the mood for it. The choir was less of a challenge behavior wise. They sang a Bach chorale setting of “Out of the Depths.” This is a Martin Luther rendition (German words and melody) of Psalm 130 which was the psalm of the day for the service.  The organ music was also based on this melody: The prelude was “Out of the Depths (Jesus in the Desert)” from “Three Gospel Scenes Quoting Familiar Hymns” by James Biery.

The Postlude was a passacaglia like variation on the first few notes of the melody by the late German composer, Max Drischner.

Both went well.  After church, a talented soprano decided to join the choir for a while before she moves away and joined us for our post-service rehearsal. That was nice.

In his book on Prokofiev, Boris Berman suggests that Prokofiev’s first piano sonata is written in the spirit of Schumann’s G minor piano sonata.

I have been playing my way through this piece. I find it quite lovely even though I am playing it under tempo in order to get the notes. Berman even goes so far as to say that they are motivically related. I can see this, but not sure that it’s a result of Prokofiev borrowing so much as sort of a basic building block of music.

Eileen pointed out to me that the communion hymn, Thuma mina, sounded like the Pulkingham Kyrie we have been singing. Pulkingham says only that she based her melody on African melodies (of which Thuma Mina is one).  Both melodies begin with a filled-in descending fourth and proceed pretty much the same.

How ’bout that?

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Our Cowardly Congress – NYTimes.com

For my money, Kristoff hits it right on the head. Our leaders are acting badly. A plague on all their houses.

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The Prosecution Rests, but I Can’t – NYTimes.com

An essay from John Thompson. He describes what it’s like to almost be executed and then watch the people responsible for screwing up walk away with no consequences. The Supreme Court recently reversed the case which awarded him damages.

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Got up this morning and put a descant by Erik Routley into Finale for the opeing hymn for this morning’s service. The tune is called 124TH and the words are “Eternal Lord of love, behold your church.”

I think I might be feeling a little guilty about my lack of motivation. Yesterday I had trouble doing anything too productive for work. Instead I cooked and studied Prokofiev, played piano and read mystery novels. Appropriate for a day off. But I had to drag myself to the church to rehearsal and prepare for today.

I was probably three parts exhausted and two parts discouraged about lack of paycheck. The last vanished when I saw that the church managed to get my deposit into my pending transactions online (see yesterday’s post for background on this).That was good.

I read the preface and the first three chapters in Boris Berman’s Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas yesterday.  The preface and the first chapter are background material on Prokofiev and Berman’s approach (he is an active concert pianist and teacher). The second chapter is about the first sonata.

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891-1953)

I numbered my score, labeled the themes according to Berman (it’s a one movement, strict sonata allegro form in a late romantic style), and played through the sonata. Great fun, really.

Prokofiev was 15 years old when he wrote the first draft of this sonata. Originally in three movements, he discarded the second two and presumably revised the first one into his first “Opused” composition.

Interestingly, his piano teacher at the time, Professor Anna Esipova at the St. Petersburg conservatory, (with whom he had a stormy student-teacher relationship) was critical of his pedaling in his own piece. She took the piece home and wrote in suggestions for better pedaling. As a mature pianist, Prokofiev was known for his restrained use of the pedal. In fact, the published versions of this sonata contain no pedal markings at all. Heh.

The fact that Prokofiev was a clear careful pianist who eschewed a lot of rubato and pedal is helpful in understanding his piano music. Once I learned this yesterday and returned to his first sonata at the piano, it made a ton more sense to me.

Prokofiev is living and composing at the same time as Charles Ives (one of my other current musical obsessions).  Ives was about 17 years older than Prokofiev. But it interests me to think of all these composers early in the century coming up with music that uses new techniques. It reminds me of scientific discoveries that occur independently and simultaneously.

Of course composers work much differently than scientists.  For one thing, I notice that both Ives and Prokofiev spent their life composing and revising old compositions. This is not very unusual for composers. But makes it harder for people trying to make story out of the events history (Who came up with what technique first? Who influenced who?).

In his Twentieth-Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practise, Vincent Persichetti cites Ives compositions 15 times and Prokofiev only 8,  according to the index, anyway. Persichetti uses numerous examples which he does not specifically identify illustrating techniques. The numbers in the index seem to point instead to chapter lists of different compositions by different composers. There are many more for Stravinsky, Hindemith,  and Schoenberg.

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Devin Alexander’s Ravio-sagna Recipe – Guideposts

This is what I made for supper last night. Alexander’s recipes tend to be easy, quick, low-fat, low-cal and taste pretty good.

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Cool Tools

The WeirdRalph Daily

A couple of blogs that look kind of interesting. The first is about new ideas, the second a digest of sorts.

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Prostitutes’ Killer Seen as Versed in Police Techniques – NYTimes.com

This disturbing news report reads like the plot of an unsolved murder mystery.

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Fareed on America’s broken politics and bloated budget – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs

Since I don’t watch much news on TV, I do still try to follow trends. This interview with a CNN reporter looks interesting. I bookmarked it to read.

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Editor of Independent Bahrain Newspaper Silenced – NYTimes.com

Freedom of the press going down the drain in Bahrain.

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Rubik’s Cube of Re-elections – NYTimes.com

Charles M. Blow has some interesting observations about Obama:

For some, change has not come fast enough, if at all, or it has been change for the worse, and hope has slowly melted away. To those unhappy on the left, he’s a corporatist, war-waging, pusillanimous pushover who is silver-tongued and rubber-spined. To those who most oppose him on the right, he is a Socialist, spendthrift, republic-destroyer who is unfit, unqualified and literally, by way of his “Kenyan birth,” ineligible to be president.

I find that I disagree with all of these characterizations of the President.

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and then there’s Donald

Gail Collins recently wrote a column about his latest weird antics. This attracted a letter from him in which he affirms he is a “birther.”

Links:

Link to the first column “Donald Trump Gets Weirder” by Gail Collins

His response Donald Trump Responds – NYTimes.com

And Collins’s response to his response Donald Trump Strikes Back – NYTimes.com

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Yesterday, I went online to do my bills and discovered that my church had not automatically deposited my paycheck.  Since it was pretty early, I didn’t do anything until after my first ballet class.  I called the church and asked the secretary if she knew anything about it. She checked her account online and found that she also had not received the expected paycheck.

Oops. It later turned out that the accountant had forgotten to finish her job.  They should have it straightened out by Monday.

The secretary offered to write me a check from the church for $100 if I was short.  I thanked her and said it was okay. I decided not to pay bills until after I see them money in my account (my usual procedure).

Over and over in my life as a musician, I keep having to not only earn my pay but then beg for it.

In fact in the last church before the one I am working at now, I actually walked away from a service when instead of a paycheck I had a note in my box about how they couldn’t pay me that week. Eventually I quit the job. I found it interesting that the people in the church seem largely unsympathetic to my quandary.

Oh well. Life is still good.

I ended up playing piano for ballet class for four hours yesterday. By the end of the day, I was pretty pooped, but I still managed to make supper for Eileen and me.

In between I found myself playing a lot of Bartok for some reason. Four hours of improvising seem to take up all my composition motivation. Maybe I can get some composing in today.

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Justice Prosser Surges to Lead in Wisconsin After Clerk Reports Vote Error – NYTimes.com

I bookmarked this article to help me remember about this race as it plays out.

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“A Murder Foretold: unraveling the ultimate political conspiracy” by David Grann

I admit that I read most of this offline in my paper copy of the New Yorker that is delivered to my house. Guatemalan murder mystery.

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Rules of Misbehavior: Dan Savage, the brilliant and foul-mouthed sex columnist, has become one of the most important ethicists in America. Are we screwed?By Benjamin J. Dueholm

Dan Savage rocks! Bookmarked to read.

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Der Spiegel interview with Richard Dawkins

Professor Dawkins, your book “The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution” has just been published in Germany. The German title, though, is “The Creation Lie: Why Darwin Is Right.” Are you happy with that?

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“The human brain: turning our minds to the law: Our understanding of the way the brain works could help us create a better legal system, says neuroscientist David Eagleman.

From the Telegraph… that’s the way they byline articles.

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Started my day listening to the Mozart Bassoon concerto.  Lovely way to start the day. Yesterday should have been a bit of a day off with only one ballet class in the morning and nothing else scheduled.

However, I ended up having another busy day.  Treadmilled after ballet class. My Mom not only agreed to go out for lunch but wanted to do some shopping and go the ice cream shop downtown. I was happy to see her so engaged and interested. The sunlight might have had something to do with that. Afterwards I grocery-shopped and got home just in time to have a meal ready for Eileen when she came home. This all seemed to take quite a bit out of me.

Today I have a full schedule of three ballet classes: 8:30 AM, 11 AM and 3-5:30 PM.

My hero, Howard Rheingold, is offering an online course called “An Introduction to Mind Amplifiers” which he defines as “a five week course using asynchronous forums, blogs, wikis, mindmaps, social bookmarks, synchronous audio, video, chat, and Twitter.”

It costs $200 to officially sign up. But as far as I can tell from a cursory glance, anyone can sort of audit it and utilize the online resources.

I thought this article looked very interesting:

Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think,” The Atlantic Monthly, August, 1945

“In this visionary essay, written decades before the invention of the transistor, Bush imagined a machine that used telephone connection, miniature cameras and specially marked paper cards and microfilm to create an extension of the human mind, which he called ‘the Memex.’ ”

Demonstrating the flexibility of teaching online Rheingold also links the instructor’s highlighted version this article.

I continue reading in the Ives bio by Jan Swafford. Last night this paragraph jumped out at me:

Ives writes: “Father, who led the singing, sometimes with his cornet or his voice,sometimes with both voice and arms, and sometimes … with French horn or violin, would always encourage the people to sing their own way …. If they threw the poet or the composer around a bit, so much the better for the poetry and the music.”

Swafford continues: “In the same spirit was George’s [Ive’s father] observation about stonemason John Bell’s off-key bellow at camp meetings: ‘Watch him closely and reverently, look into his face and hear the music of the ages. Don’t pay too much attention to the sounds—for if you do, you may miss the music. You won’t get a wild, heroic ride to heaven on pretty little sounds.’ ”

from Jan Swafford’s Charles Ives: A Life with Music

I was recently chatting with a fine musician about the hymns that Ives uses in his music. She was saying how she found the sound of bad out-of-tune singing distasteful. I had to admit that I have that sound lodged in my ears in a nostalgic way which I associate with my childhood in Tennessee.  Ives brings together American singers bellowing and his own adept virtuosity as a composer and performer. This attracts and interests me.

I noticed this book laying around at the library recently. Checked it out and read it yesterday. I like it. The Inspector (whom Snicket says “was a very handsome and intelligent person, not unlike myself) interviews sections of the orchestra looking for the murderer of the Composer.  I hate to ruin the ending but it turns out that all musicians murder music occasionally and this plays into the denouement.

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Revolution Fatigue Shows in Egyptians’ Changing Sense of Humor – NYTimes.com

Half-way through reading this one. I always find it interesting to read anecdotes about history in the making.

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George Tooker – NYTimes.com

George Tooker, Painter Capturing Modern Anxieties, Dies at 90 – NYTimes.com

Once again I learn about someone from their obit. I think this man’s paintings are pretty cool.

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Why Pay Congress? – NYTimes.com

The government looks like it’s going to shut down today.  It looks like cynical maneuvering by the leaders in Congress. Republicans, Tea Party Expressers and Democrats seem to think that others will be hurt politically. Of course, the entire country loses when our elected officials lose the will to govern well.

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One of the ballet teachers has been ill this week. She canceled her classes on Monday. Yesterday she asked them to meet without her and appointed a student in each class to lead them.

I was impressed with both the student leaders and their classes yesterday. The energy was a bit different, almost goofy. But the focus was pretty much there. And the discipline.

The series of moves in a given dance exercise are called “combinations.”  The student teachers began by giving these instructions for each exercise, but encouraged class members to offer their own. Which they did. The spirit in which this exchange went on was giddy but respectful.

In one of the classes, the teacher had prepared a handout on “The Physics of Dance” (link to html version of this handout). The student leader led the class through a quick review of it. She told them that she wanted to do her graduate study on this topic. She seemed to be very versed in physics.

I tend to think of college students a bit negatively these days. I live near a conservative college plus when I meet people who are college educated they often have huge holes in their reasoning and even empirical knowledge.

Watching ballet students has changed this a bit in me.  These students are actually too old for a conventional ballet career. But they love the dance. And they work at and it and do it well.  Their personal character is obvious.

When I taught Music Appreciation a few years back, it seemed to me that students were basically looking for another notch on their belt to get them closer to getting a degree. Most were fundamentally disinterested and unmotivated. At best they were mildly curious. I saw this as a challenge and enjoyed awakening in them a sense of their own ability to connect to music.

I can’t imagine them having the motivation I see in these ballet students. Probably an unfair comparison. But nonetheless it has been instructive to me to get a better perspective on the capabilities in college age people that I believed were there but lacked anecdotal evidence of.

Encouraging.

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Michel Martelly Pledges Reconciliation in Haiti – NYTimes.com

I have been sort of following this election. We elect actors to public office in the USA,  so why not pop singers in Haiti. It will be interesting to see how this man governs.

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Detroit, Losing Population, Makes Plans to Shrink – NYTimes.com

Michigan feels like it is preceding the rest of the country in sinking into a black hole.  I mourn Detroit and her symphony and her many wonderful attributes like the Art Institute, the great historical architecture, my alma mater Wayne State, and many other things.

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Hunting Birds of Paradise – NYTimes.com

A surprisingly interesting portrait of Bill Cunningham, the 82-year-old New York Times fashion photographer.

Good quotes:

Talking about the time he refused to take money for his work at Details after Si Newhouse bought the magazine, Cunningham says: “You see, if you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do, kid. … Money’s the cheapest thing. Liberty, freedom is the most expensive.”

Cunningham is asked if he has ever had a romantic relationship in his life.

“Now do you want to know if I’m gay?” he says, smiling uneasily.

“Isn’t that a riot? Well, that’s probably why the family wanted to keep me out of the fashion world.” Then he answers simply, “I haven’t,” adding, “I suppose you can’t be in love with your work, but I enjoyed it so much.”

Talking about his Catholic faith as “a good guidance in your life,” he gets choked up for a few seconds before grinning and confiding: “As a kid, I went to church and all I did was look at women’s hats.”

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I fell in love with some choral music yesterday. The harmonies in this music resonate in my ears with great beauty.  It sounds to me like it could easily have been written last week.

It was written in the 1890s by a 20 something Charles Ives.

Charles Ives (1874 – 1954)

What was he doing when he wrote these psalms? In Charles Ives: A life with music, Jan Swafford quotes Stravinsky about the void that  the 20th century composer shaking off older conventions faced.

Stravinksy wrote in his book Poetics: “… finding myself before the infinitude of possibilities that present themselves, I have the feeling that everything is permissible to me… if nothing offers me any resistance, then any effort is inconceivable… and consequently every understanding becomes futile.”

Ives peered into this infinitude with a cool Yankee indifference. He was writing music for a future no one could imagine.

Stravinsky was a young guy in the 1990s.

He was 8 years younger than Ives.  Schoenberg was the same age as Ives.

Swafford points out that Schoenberg was a late bloomer and came up with his hugely influential compositional ideas much later than Ives.

And then there’s this guy:

His music resounds with harmonies that Ives uses in his early psalm settings. Ives wrote these pieces in hovering combined textures called bi-tonal harmony.  Apparently these pieces created in his youth were the only pieces where he used this technique all the way through a composition. He tried it and then moved on. Bartok later exploited this technique in many wonderful pieces.

It’s hard to imagine how Ives heard his music. Usually it was so far-fetched to the American ears who heard it, it provoked laughter. He constantly self-censored his music and tried to tone down his experiments in efforts to get accepted and published. Later in life, he restored his original intentions. And like any composer, he constantly recomposed his work.  In the past decades in efforts to establish who came up with what technique first, Ives has been suspected of back dating some of his work. This is true of his setting of Psalm 90.

The truth seems to be more that when he put the good parts back in he was working from pencil sketches and memories of sketches and his evolved musical ideas.

I say, “Who cares!” What cool music.

Then there is the World’s Fair-like 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. Ives is there.

John Philip Sousa is there. His band included two songs, “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay!”

and “After the Ball” in their performances at the fair.

The brass band sound and specifically these two songs caught the imagination of the American public. The young Ives must have heard these songs in Chicago. He later used them both in compositions.

Scott Joplin is there.  It is thought that Ives probably heard him perform. Joplinesque ragtime rhythms permeate Ives’ later work. It was a great time in the flowering of American music. The hugely influential American conductor, Theodore Thomas, quit his position as music director for the Exhibition half way through saying, “for the remainder of the Fair music shall not figure as an art at all, but be treated on the basis of an amusement.”  In retrospect his words almost seem like an indictment of how classical music wanders away from its audience in the 20th century leaving some voids to be  filled by fascinating wonderful music of the “amusement” kind.

The last decade of the 19th century was a fascinating time.

Brahms is writing some of his loveliest music for solo clarinet and solo piano.

Debussy and Satie are writing and squabbling in Paris. Both with very different styles and aesthetics.

There is some doubt about when he was exactly born, but the fabulous Jelly Roll was a young man at this time.

W. C. Handy was an active musician at the time as well. He later popularizes a form of the Blues.

It boggles my mind that all these people were alive and making fascinating music in the same period.

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At Age 84, a City’s Last Geisha Defies Time and a 4th Tsunami – NYTimes.com

bookmarked to read

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After Rape Report in Libya, Woman Sees Benefit in Publicity – NYTimes.com

Amazing report about a courageous woman recently beaten, raped and probably saved by the limelight of international media coverage. Wow.

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Women Under the Budget Knife | The Nation

This article is by Katha Pollitt. I have been reading her work for years and admire it.

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Wisconsin’s Prosser-Kloppenburg Court Race a Test of Gov. Walker – NYTimes.com

I bookmarked this in order to keep track of what happened yesterday at Wisconsin polls. At this writing, it’s too early to tell. This article maintains that this election is a referendum on Walker’s extreme actions against unions. I’m not sure I buy that kind of speculation but it’s interesting to watch. Here’s the link to the morning report in Milwaukee.

Supreme Court race too close to call, Prosser has narrow lead

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Mrs. Disney, I’m sorry.
It doesn’t feel like I’ve done anything great so far.

I can still see you looking a bit like a mature Kathryn Hepburn
concentrating on writing the note on my report card:
“Stephen, I’m expecting great things of you!”

Your last name was magic to me,
as were you.

I imagined your husband whom I never met
must have been like the Sunday night TV Walt Disney.

When I was in my teens, my family came back to Tennessee.
The little church where my Dad used to be the minister
had moved to a larger fancier building on the edge of town.
We were there to help celebrate their new digs.

I called you on the new church phone.
You acted like you remembered me.
One of the hundreds of messy kids
who passed through your classroom.

I wanted to believe this.
Just as a kid, I clapped
and helped Mary Martin/Peter Pan bring “Tink” back to life
on my family’s little black and white TV set screen.

Now, I don’t think it was important
whether you actually remembered me.
What was important is that at a moment’s notice
you were there again.
Like magic.

I have been thinking lately of the house where I grew up.
It stood right next to the old church.
There was a pear tree in the back yard
I used to climb it and sit and eat pears.
There was a crazy lady next door who would holler at me
for no apparent reason.

At night I could lay in bed and hear the train whistle blast.
The tracks were just across the street.
A few doors down was Crescent School
where I was in your second grade class.

In Google street view
the old house and church are both gone.
Crescent School is still there.
Peering at the screen, now,
I recognize the slope of the hill
behind the school
where the playground no longer stands.

Probably the closest I’ve come to touching greatness
is performing great music
and reading great books.

And who can deny loving
and living with another person for decades
is deep and wonderful like greatness must be?

Watching my children be born
and grow into life is deep like that.

Is that something of what you meant?

At 59 I find my musical skills improving.
This opens up more music for me
to actually touch and create.

My life deepens.

I spend time staring at my computer screen.
Watching for the magic.

Thanks, Mrs. Disney.
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Guest Commentary: The civic purpose of public broadcasting – The Denver Post

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Mark Chatterley’s Clay Sculptures Follow Golden Mean – NYTimes.com

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How Slavery Really Ended in America – NYTimes.com

I know I put this link up yesterday. But I hadn’t read it yet. It’s adapted from Adam Goodheart’s book, 1861: The Civil War Awakening. As I mentioned on Facebook it shows how history unravels from small actions of real people. Recommended.

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Yesterday was a particularly challenging Sunday to work with the choir.  Anxiety seemed very high in several members. At the same time, coherence of this anxiety was down. Several people came in late, without their music and proceeded to struggle through the rehearsal.  Plus we weren’t sounding sound very good, vocal wise in this rehearsal.

Part of my job is to help a group of people with limited commitment to perform music in service in ways that are as artistic as possible.  Yesterday was definitely a triage day. Half way through preparation of the anthem I switched strategies from teaching the anthem to working on vocal production.

I had difficulty keeping people focused.

To show how desperate I was, for the first time with this group of singers I mentioned my little maxim for musicians:

To be early is to be on time.

To on time is to be late.

To be late is unforgivable.

I quickly appended that I understood that church choir was a very small part of their lives and that I do not expect them to be professional in their commitment. But that the music does not understand this.

I felt that I had to make this comment to reinforce the confidence and morale of the singers who are on time and prepared and focused. Plus for my own integrity.

Speaking of which this was a particularly good week for the final execution in public of the organ music I prepared.  I chose two pieces both of which has some technical challenges for me.  I have been experimenting around with better practice techniques. One very simple almost silly idea is to insist to myself that I play sections through at least 8 times when rehearsing them.

Sunday morning found me doing some final rehearsal of sections this way while I waited for choir members to arrive.

Then in the prelude and the postlude I was able to focus pretty clearly on “making music” as we musicians say. I was very satisfied with the result.

My cellist handed me an envelope with two pop songs she needs arranged for her string quartet: Yellow by Coldplay and November Rain by Guns N’ Roses. I agreed to try my hand at that. This is just the sort of thing I enjoy doing.

After an intense post service rehearsal I came home pretty exhausted.  After lunch I finally installed the back up drive I purchased recently.

My blood pressure had spiked this week a bit (158/97), so I made myself treadmill even though I was exhausted.

Walking to church yesterday I started writing a poem or essay or something about my second grade teacher, Mrs. Disney. Will post if I finish it and I feel like it’s worth reading.

Today I have a full day ahead of me: three ballet classes and a worship commission meeting.

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Book Review – Unfamiliar Fishes – By Sarah Vowell – NYTimes.com

This book looks fun. Especially if I can get hold of Vowell herself reading it.

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Cleveland, Texas and Gender Jim Crow by William Jelani Cobb | The Nation

I recently read a book by the author of this article about the “category five media storm” surrounding the recent gang rape of an 11 year old girl in Cleveland Tennessee.

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FCC takes belated action on ‘fake news’: On the Media – latimes.com

As the article says the good news is that ‘fake news’ is being reined in, the bad news is that it took four years.

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Hypertension – PubMed Health

This is the link I looked at after my blood pressure spiked. I have been drinking a bit more but I’m not sure that is the problem.  This article linked in to Alcoholism and alcohol abuse – PubMed Health which in turn links back in to Hypertension – PubMed Health.  Whenever I evaluate my drinking habits, I find that I am historically a heavy drinker, but do not exhibit any of the classic alcoholic symptoms like disruption of work habits or  relationship problems. I think the spike is probably related to a bunch of stuff in my life including stress and exhaustion. Will continue to try to lose weight, moderate the drinking a bit, and exercise. Can’t deny that I’m just an old guy.

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Former FCC Chairman Powell to Lead Cable Industry Group PC Magazine

Ay yi yi. Fox in charge of the henhouse. Business as usual in the USA.

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Up early poking around in the Hope College online access to Groves Music Dictionary.  I have been using this research tool for years and years. In the past, I routinely photocopied articles and the bibliography section at the end of them for further research. Groves was considered the first place to begin when trying to learn in deatil about Gregorian Chant, biographical details of a composer, you name it.

One of the reasons I wanted to move to a small town with a college in 1987 was continued access to the print edition of the New New Groves Dictionary of Music. Any small liberal arts music department would have a copy. Sure enough, Hope College did and does.

When Groves went online I became very excited because of the possibility of these bibliographies being kept up to date. This indeed is the case. But access is restrict to those who can pay an exorbitant subscription rate or could get access through their institution. I just checked and it costs $295 a year for an individual online subscription to what is now Oxford Music Online which includes not only the Groves but the The Oxford Companion to Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Music and the Encyclopedia of Popular Music.  Needless to say this cost is prohibitive to many many people who would use this.

But probably most of them (like me at this point) can get access through the college or university they work at.

Due to often not being connected with a college or university since graduating in 1987 (pre internet boom years much less online subscription), I’m not that experienced at online research. However judging from this morning it doesn’t seem too difficult.

I was excited to see each entry of the bibliography on Charles Ives had a link.

Unfortunately all this link does is open a window with links to Hope College’s A-Z list of Journals and their catalog.  So it’s not site specific to the resource. But still with a few clicks you can find out if the article you seek is available online or if the college has the book listed. I have started a list of books I want to grab Monday. Also pulled down an article on Ives full text, “Bad Resolutions or Good? Ives’s Piano Takeoffs” by Michael J. Alexander, Tempo, no.158 (1986), 8–14 (link to a first page citation… blah, notice that non-subscribers can get access to this ONE article for the reasonable price of $34. You’ve got to be kidding me!)

This all brings me around to thinking about the tiering that has already happened in access to information and is happening even as I write.  I have believed all my academic life in the need for people to have access to ideas. When I was in grad school, the profs would assign reading that had limited access (one copy available at the library). I would routinely make photocopies of this primary material for the entire small class. Eventually the department wrote a letter prohibiting me from using the copy machine. Fuck learning. I remember well the ex-grad student who guarded the machine. I’m sort of proud of this.

Likewise, I feel that people who are interested in understanding their field should somehow have reasonable access to the material. Often this only means connecting to a local library as a visiting scholar. But if you are like me and have very unconventional interests in your area (plus in 1987 Hope College was even more calcified than it is now and not easy to approach if you happen to not be a clean cut white Christian), this is not as easy as it sounds.

I have recently purchased online subscriptions to my local paper and the New York Times. I think of this like pledging to NPR. I want to support the institutions I need access to. But when the cost of these becomes so exorbitant, I begin to wonder about the tiering of our society.  Check this article out: AT&T Imposing 150GB Data Cap for DSL Customers Starting May 2? – PC Magazine

This morning I was listening to Media Minutes March 18th broadcast on my MP3 player. They quoted people who said their was no reason for this cap, that the idea that increased congestion is causing any kind of a need for this charge is unfounded (link to article about this on Wired).  The “haves and the haves-not” is not only a disparate economic situation in the USA and other countries, it is also a restriction of ideas and innovation. Sheesh.

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How Slavery Really Ended in America – NYTimes.com

Bookmarked to read.

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In Egypt’s Democracy, Room for Islam – NYTimes.com

Some interesting observations from Egypt’s current Grand Mufti [The title of Grand Mufti refers to the highest official of religious law in a Sunni Muslim country. The Grand Mufti issues legal opinions and edicts, fatw?, on interpretations of Islamic law for private clients or to assist judges in deciding cases. … link to source]

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Malcolm X Biographer Dies on Eve of a Revealing Work – NYTimes.com
Manning Marable, 60, Historian and Social Critic – NYTimes.com
Excerpt – Malcolm X – By Manning Marable – NYTimes.com

I have followed Malcolm X since before he was killed. These are three related links about the untimely death of an author and research just days before his magnum opus was to be published. I am planning to wait a few months until some of the people who purchase this 600 page work are seeking to sell it used online. Than I plan to buy and read it. Heh.

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What I Learned at School – NYTimes.com
The Teachers Who Shaped Our Lives – NYTimes.com

A well written essay about the effect of good teachers and follow up letters.

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http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters/show/march-20th-2011/

This is a link to the MP3 of a recent broadcast which includes the Media Minutes mentioned above. I am about half  way through listening. Anya Schiffrin discusses economic media coverage in a fascinating and enlightened way. Recommended.

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I have always enjoyed writing and performing music. Often the music I write, I write with specific performers in mind. Then it is very satisfying to go through the preparation and playing of the music with the very people who were in my head when I wrote a piece.

I was talking to a friend this week and mentioned that I have not followed a conventional career as a composer, but that I am interested in writing music and then having it performed.

I used to be much more interested in publishing.

I submitted compositions to several publishers and even managed to get a few choral pieces published.  I got to know the executive directors of a couple of publishing houses.  They began by encouraging me. They ended up discouraging me, not actively, but by their insistence that my music should follow the norms of church music as they saw them.

Fair enough.

The men I had contact with have all retired and been replaced by people who are probably even less  interested in my work. Now I look at their catalogs strictly as someone who might purchase and perform their work. I find the pieces they are publishing written with conventional craft (usually) but I also find the work mostly deadly boring.

This is a tiny vindication of my own lack of conventionality. Whippy skippy. I also feel that at least my work is available to anyone who can make their way to my website and navigate it. Admittedly this is probably not many people. But at least it’s publicly available.

The only recent evidence I have of people interested is that a representative of a publisher was lurking on my site and noticed I had used a tune of theirs in a compositions. He emailed me and politely requested that I purchase copyright permission in order to use it. I pugnaciously just removed the composition from my site. Screw em. I guess they didn’t see any worth in my work except as a possible source of income for their organization.

Also I receive an annual humiliating copyright check from Morningstar which lines out in detail how many copies my titles have sold in the last year.  That would be 81 copies of the 3 titles (link to a list of them at publisher web site) I have with their catalog sold during in the July through Dec period of 2010.  I figure these are pity purchases from ex-colleagues. Heh. They also mis-attributed someone else’s title to me so that the check (which was for a whopping $18.25) wasn’t really all mine.

I emailed them last week about this error but haven’t heard back yet.
When I mentioned to Eileen that I didn’t know if people were accessing my work online (via my “Mostly Original Sheet Music Page“), she suggested that I put a request for people to let me know if they download any music. I did so this morning.

So despite all this, I continue to compose. Recently I rewrote the piece I composed in memory of my maternal grandparents and added it to my Mostly Original Sheet Music Page (Psalm 121 (For Jim and Thelma Midkiff, my grandparents). SAB, Violin, Keyboard pdf ).

And yesterday walking back and forth to my college ballet gig, I had a full blown idea for a multi-movement piece for my piano trio.  I find that talking about a work in progress is not always helpful, so I’ll leave it at that. Suffice it to say that I am thinking about simply writing this piece and performing it and then probably posting the score here. We’ll see if the idea comes to fruition. I have been pondering it for quite a while.

I also have a couple other pieces in mind. I have started an organ multi-movement piece as well.

Yesterday I was proud of my improvs at my two classes. There at least I know that my ability to make music up has an immediate function and the possibility of appreciation by people hearing it.  Satisfying.

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Ohio’s Anti-Union Law Is Tougher Than Wisconsin’s – NYTimes.com

This article by Steven Greenhouse annoyed me because whoever wrote the headline didn’t seem to read far enough into the piece to find this sentence which specifically contradicts it using similar language: “The Wisconsin law is in ways tougher toward unions..” Sheesh.

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Vietnam Clamps Down on Independent Christians, Report Says – NYTimes.com

It’s against the law to pray in your house in Vietnam unless authorized.

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Nixon Library Opens a Door Some Would Prefer Left Closed – NYTimes.com

I have been to this library and was amazed at the whitewashing the Watergate story received there. This sounds like it’s changed. For the better. I lived through this time and remember it quite well.

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Failure of Empathy and Justice – NYTimes.com

A “defendant without means or power” loses 18 years of his life due to a the illegal actions of a  “prosecutors’ brazen ambition to win the case, at all costs.” Supreme court reversed damages awarded by a lower court. Favorite sentence in this article: “The district attorney, Harry Connick Sr., acknowledged the need for this training but said he had long since “stopped reading law books” so he didn’t understand the duty he was supposed to impart.”

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The Mellon Doctrine – NYTimes.com

Ultimately I find that Krugman’s article is about GOP “framing” the idea that cutting government spending and employment would create jobs even when understanding that studies prove otherwise.

Wikipedia articles on framing from a social science perspective (link) and a psychological one (link).

He who “frames” best, seems to win.

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This is totally making me crazy. My internet and phone seem to be down again this morning. This  intermittent service seems to occur with more frequency in the morning but that might be just because I’m a pretty regular morning user of the internet.  At this point I’m connected to a nearby weak wireless signal, probably a neighbor’s. Sheesh.

I have been doing some reading of Emerson.

He is pertinent to an understanding of Ives’s Concord Sonata since the first movement bears his name. Ives apparently came from a family saturated with the New England Transcendentalists the way my family  history is saturated with the Church of God brand of Christianity.

Here’s a link to the essay I have been reading: The American Scholar. It’s actually a speech he gave at Harvard which he published later as an essay. Here’s a link to handy online Cliff notes for more info like that.

He begins talking about the difference between the notion of Man and of men. Lower case individual “men” are fragmented notions of the idea of Man. This idea helps me see how I connect to the larger idea of humanity. His first object of scholarship is Nature. It’s a great essay.

Yesterday I had a conversation with someone who keeps insisting I am a “scholar.” I told her that I thought of myself more as someone who was curious and she said that was what she meant by scholar. I think that’s where Emerson is at as well. In that case I guess I’m a scholar. But it seems doubtful to me.

I am, however, like a kid in a candy shop when I get access to some more primary research tools like full-texts of scholarly articles in academic journals and online encyclopedias and music dictionaries like Groves.

I do know that my curiosity is not shared by many or doesn’t seem to be anyway.  At one point in my life I was a bookstore owner. This reflected my basic love of books and words. I still have that same love.

I think it’s important to realize that all of the words in a TV news show easily fit on a page of print newspaper.

More words don’t necessarily mean better thinking or clear explication, but it’s buy valium 5mg hard to escape the notion that less words do mean less ideas and less clarity especially in the hands of the writers who write so poorly for TV.

I got this notion from Neil Postman.

Anyway, I only have two classes to play for today. Eileen stayed home with an upset stomach yesterday and took advantage of it to catch up on her rest. I think she was more tired than ill, but didn’t realize it. She has the day off today. We are going to try to get my Mom out of the nursing home today for a lunch or something. I will have to fit it in in between my classes (11 AM and 3 PM).

The internet and phone line are back. I just don’t get this. I suppose I will have to report it again.  In the meantime, a few links:

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Press Releases – Bennet, Johanns Lead Bipartisan Call for President to Support Comprehensive Deficit Reduction

This is very admirable. I notice that many Republicans are proposing solutions to pressing problems. That’s good in that they are problem solving at a time when we desperately need leadership. I can see that in Michigan’s governor. But these solutions seem to be largely built on attacking notions they oppose instead of trying for larger views and discussion. This letter could represent a more constructive approach. Here’s hoping.

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Eiko and Koma in ‘Naked’ at Baryshnikov Center – Review – NYTimes.com

Dance? Performance art? Who knows? But this sounds very very cool to me.

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Acer’s Iconia Is the Craziest Laptop of All Time – NYTimes.com

Another new toy. I’m working on my little ancient (first generation) Acer netbook right now. I like it!

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‘The Pale King’ Is Sold Before Its Promotional Date – NYTimes.com

I read excerpts from this unfinished posthumous novel around the time Foster died. He is one of my favorites.

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Amazon’s Cloud Player Provides Music From Everywhere – NYTimes.com

Amazon MP3s are an important source of music I purchase these days. I noticed they were doing this cloud player. Interesting.

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Democracy Is Messy – NYTimes.com

I know that Libya and Japan have been dominating the news. And now it looks the Ivory Coast is next. But remember way back when stuff was happing in Cairo? Still is. This article by Nicholas Kristof is an update.

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On Mondays and Wednesdays I have three ballet classes to play for.  This week I found myself exhausted after doing all of that. I have been faithfully treadmilling each day. That seems to help me feel  more relaxedly exhausted.

Anyway, my one Thursday ballet class canceled so today should be a bit easier.

I have my weekly meeting with my boss today. And my trio rehearses.

Yesterday I managed to get a solid hour of organ practice in before my day officially began. I find that my skills as a keyboard player are improving as I age. Also I find myself benefiting from better approaches to rehearsing.  Silly old things like doing hands separately and repeating small sections of music numerous times. These techniques that I have known for a long time suddenly seem fresh and helpful again. Go figure.

I am performing two chorale preludes Sunday on hymns we are using in service.  This is my default consideration for choices for this kind of thing. To me it adds a small measure to the coherence of the design of the worship. I find it satisfying when the hymns, anthem and instrumental music all relate to the gospel of the day. This takes a bit of planning.

When I first began this work in the seventies, I began a cross index of my organ music by hymn tune. I now have two boxes of 4×6 cards filed by hymn tune with notations of where I can find organ music in my collection based on them.  I am particularly proud of this because I came up with the idea before I understood much about research. Now I understand such databases as basic to this activity. Interestingly I have never been tempted to convert my little file index into electronic media. Living through the switch from vinyl recordings to tape recordings to CD recordings to digital recordings on a hard drive has led me to understand the ephemeral nature of media choices for retention of information.

I am willing in most cases to convert to the most convenient form of media storage with back-up. I have a new external hard drive sitting in a box and waiting for me to get it up and running to back up my other external hard drive.

But I don’t see any reason to abandon my two little file boxes of information specific to my collection of hymn based organ music.

Since gaining access to the world of online research via my college job, I have been reading articles on my netbook quite a bit.

And now that I am paying customer of the New York Times digital subscription I also downloaded the Times Reader to my netbook so that when I anticipate an extended period without wireless connection (like sitting in some of my Mom’s doctors offices), I can take along the paper. and scholarly articles in PDFs so that I can read without a wifi connection to the net.

And there’s always the multiple books I have on my little netbook.

I envision that it’s possible that my access to emedia could suddenly be curtailed quickly for some reason like when the original Napster stopped. I envision that corporate interests could easily manage to tier the system so that access will be based on enabling consuming (and paying) for what is most popular. This will not be research or even good journalism. My guess is those areas could become even more expensive.

Maybe I sound a bit gloomy, but my thoughts run more like this: I can always survive with my books and my piano even if the wonderful internet becomes too expensive and too much like TV.

Happy thoughts on Thursday.

One way I think about the net is that it is like sitting in a room with friends and interesting people. We share insights, mention resources and sometimes quote an interesting passage in a book or an article we are reading.

Example:

Recently I have started utilizing the access provided to staff/faculty at Hope College to an array of resources.  Reading one of several articles in music journals I have downloaded to read I came across this in an interview with composer William Bolcolm.

Speaking of talking to young composers, Bolcolm says  that some students “were doing what they thought was expected of them. Sometimes I’d have to sit down, about the second class and say, ‘You know, what’s your background, musically?’ And they’d gulp and say, ‘Well, I used to play in a garage rock band when I was in my teens.’ I say, ‘That’s terrific.’ You knew that this person was ashamed of even playing rock, because that was a period when there was still a stigma about that in music schools…. And then the conversation would go on. I’d say, ‘So, do you still play in the garage or rock band you describe?’ Gulp, ‘Yes.’ And I’d say, ‘Well, why is it not reflected in what you’re writing?’

“You don’t have to walk around your past. It’s perfectly all right to expand, no reason to stay within the situation stylistically. But something of what you got in rock, or whatever you’ve been doing, will have something to do with how you write, because part of your personality is your performing self.”

from “Teaching Composition in Twenty-First-Century America: A Conversation with William Bolcolm” by Marilyn Shrude (American Music, Volume 28, Number 2, Summer 2010, pp. 173-190)

Teaching Composition in Twenty-First-Century America: A Conversation

with William Bolcom

Marilyn Shrude

American Music, Volume 28, Number 2, Summer 2010, pp. 173-190 (Article)

This really interested me because I experienced the stigma he describes as a student. Later he observes that this is not near the case now that it was in the 70s.  I’ve noticed this as well.

I remember showing some of my rock and roll friends a piece I had written while at school.  One of them said he was surprised by it. He thought I would be writing music that wouldn’t relate much to the music we had made together.  Instead he found my work intelligible.

At the same time, I only gradually felt comfortable enough with my fellow student musicians to mention that I not only appreciated non-classical music but performed it on the guitar.  I was surprised when many but not all of them shared my interests and were themselves performers and writers in many styles.

Another way I see the net is as a vast reference library. This doesn’t excite everyone the way it has excited me from the beginning. When I get more access to online resources as I am doing now, I am reminded of the incredible power of getting to the information I need.

I continue to read and learn about my fields (music, poetry, and church music).  So now through the Hope College website, I not only have access to the resource I mentioned yesterday (Project Muse), but also several others including the Online Groves Dictionary of Music, Oxford Reference Online – Performing Arts, and the ability to stream the complete extensive catalog of Naxos Records. Woo hoo!

I had some of these privileges when I taught at Grand Valley. Very helpful. The drawback is that they are limited in who can access them, so I can’t curate or share links to stuff as well.  I wish it wasn’t so. But I will use the privileges myself while I have them.

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How Wall Street Crooks Get Out of Jail Free | The Nation

This is by William Grieder.  I have read “Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy” by him and think he is a solid thinker.

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With Field Guide, a Cloud Enthusiast Is Out to Win Hearts and Minds – NYTimes.com

This is a fun article about looking seriously at clouds.

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Maine – Labor Mural Is Moved to Undisclosed Location – NYTimes.com

It drives me nuts when people adjust history to reflect present understandings. Due to the recent union bashing of most of our politicos, someone noticed the mural depicting Maine’s labor history in the lobby of its Department of Labor. Labor. Get it?
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Tools for Thinking by David Brooks – NYTimes.com

Brooks ticks off a fascinating list of looking at things a bit differently including ideas like avoiding path dependence (continuing in a certain pattern after the reason to do so has ceased), Einstellung Effect (the idea that we often try to solve problems by using solutions that worked in the past instead of looking at each situation on its merits), the Focusing Illusion, which holds that “nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it” and others.

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I finally used my assigned Hope login and password to begin to access some of the information available to staff/faculty online. I think I was prompted to check this out because I have been thinking a lot about Ives’s use of hymnody and realizing there was probably discussion of this topic in academic music journals most of which do not allow access to mere mortals without paying.

I discovered yesterday that by logging in to the college library website with my Hope info I could get access to Project  Muse.

Project Muse is an online resource that provides full-text access to many many academic journals. I downloaded several articles and interviews to my netbook to read later. Cool beans.

I’m also interested in other music information sources I might now be able to use. I plan to simply ask the music librarian about them before I go hunting through the labyrinth of the library and college websites.

Yesterday was also a red letter day for me because I finally (finally) got New York Times to allow me to pay for an online subscription.

I was a longtime print subscriber who decided a few years ago that online access was all I really wanted. But since I had a login, there was no mechanism for me to do so. I spoke to several operators online. The best hope one of them could give me was to wait for my cancellation to through and then resubscribe. This did not work. The software thought I was still a subscriber and would not allow me to do anything but resubscribe to the print delivery in order to get online access.

I think the New York Times does some of the best journalism in the USA,  but I do find their online presence to be very uneven. I have given much feedback to them and been pretty much ignored. Whippy Skippy. At least now I feel like I am remunerating the people I get a lot of my info from.

My goal yesterday was to get through my classes and do some treadmilling. This I did. At the end of the day I was pretty tired and even sleepy.

I have been scanning in material my father wrote and emailing it to interested family members.

Yesterday I scanned in another twenty pages of Dad’s memoir and accidentally omitted a page. Shoot! At first I thought I would just redo it. Then I considered how silly that was. So I looked for free software to edit Adobe PDFs. They do exist but the one I tried didn’t work with such large docs. Another watermarked the re-edited version on each of the twenty pages with large distracting brand marks. Fuck it, I just emailed out what I had, hoping someone else might have access to editing software. Eventually I’ll probably correct it somehow. In the meantime I forge ahead.

This morning I have one class and then I am booked to sit for four hours and wait for the Comcast guy. It makes me crazy that this is the way these outfits operate. Like so many parts of American life, stuff is set up for the convenience of the service provider (cable guy, doctors, and others) not for those receiving the service. Sheesh.

I am thinking of doing some church work while I wait. It has crossed my mind to arrange a hymn I have scheduled as an anthem and make it a bit more of a fit for my choir. Also I’m just beginning to feel the pinch of only being planned through Easter.

Yesterday seemed to be Beethoven day at the piano. I have been thinking and reading a lot about Ives. And not only does he dip into Americana hymnody, Beethoven is also very important to his Concord Sonata.

I ordered my own copy of his first piano sonata and a collection of some of his other piano music.

My advanced ballet class ended class with everyone learning the tap dance routine: “The Shim Sham.”

Apparently at an upcoming tap concert everyone in the audience will be invited up to the stage to dance this dance. The teacher invited me to try to learn. Which I hilariously did. Try. I still don’t have it.  Hey, I’m a music guy not a dancer.

Well yadda yadda.  I have been feeling pretty grateful about my life lately. Glad to still be alive at 59. I enjoy the people I love very much and try to savor as much as I can about the things I love to do (practice, read, compose, think).

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The Kill Team by Mark Boal

I haven’t been able to bring myself to read this article due to its subject. It is, however, breaking news about alleged atrocities of US troops. I have been reading reports like this for years and my heart sinks every time.

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Post-Tsunami Japan Turns Away From Excess – NYTimes.com

This is a fascinating description of on the ground Japanese cultural response to the recent calamities: practicing self-restraint in sympathy with those who are suffering.

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The Dissident’s Wife – NYTimes.com

Chinese dissident’s wife writes about injustice and repression.

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The Reckoning – Words Without Borders

Got about half way through this. Seems to be fictional surreal account of experiencing  a contemporary facist state.

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Back to the weekly grind. I haven’t had a regular schedule like this in quite sometime. At this point I only have one day a week (Saturday) where I don’t have work scheduled. The ballet accompaniment at this point adds up to about 13.5 hours a week. Officially at church I work 20 hours but it’s always more than that. So I have a pretty full schedule. For me.

I felt a bit vindicated this weekend. I recently murdered some music in public. The piece was an organ work by C. Hubert Parry. It was based on the melody “Rockingham.” It is a lovely little thing and fits nicely on my tiny romantic organ.  I pulled this piece out again for the funeral on Friday as well as another by this composer based on “Martyrdom.” I also played the latter yesterday for the prelude. In all cases I performed this little pieces well. I felt sort of like I owed it to Parry.

We also had applause after our choral rendition of “Jesus Met the Woman at the Well.” I ended up accompanying it on piano and playing in a Taj Mahal blues like manner, mostly understated and just supporting the singers. You can find recordings of it by Peter, Paul and Mary and others on Youtube. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the one that I transcribed by Chanticleer. I did find one that I quite like:

In the afternoon I scanned in the first twenty pages of my Dad’s chronology/memoir.  My son has asked me for copies of this material. I figure I can scan in twenty pages or so and eventually have the entire thing in pdfs. It’s only 160 pages.  I emailed copies to everyone in the family and asked them to let me know if they want to be in on future emailings.

I’ve had a lot of nice compliments on my playing at the recent funeral including a couple of appreciative emails from my boss. I never quite know what hits people about a certain performance. I was at the piano and the organ for a good portion of two and a half hours at Friday’s funeral and played a lot of different music. I figure that different people take away different things from something like that.

One prof corralled me after church and complimented me on the funeral. He told me he liked the way I went from doing a gospel version of “Amazing Grace” on the piano and then went to the organ and played a different version of it. I thanked him and told him the organ piece was by George Shearing.

Though the man complimenting me is a very accomplished musician, he admitted he had never heard of this Jazz musician. I wanted to talk to him about the reason I chose the Shearing setting (which was the fact that one of Shearing’s strengths as a Jazz musician was his ability to reharmonize tunes in complex and satisfying ways… which showed a bit in his organ setting). I was afraid I might come off a bit weird since he didn’t know who Shearing was.

So I simply said to him that after hearing one of the eulogizers break into an acapella version of “Nature Boy” (with the words adapted to the gender of the deceased) and do such a nice job of this Jazz classic I was glad I had done a smattering of Jazz in the prelude (along with some gospel piano and lots of classical organ — the Parry mentioned above and beginning and ending with Vaughan Williams’ setting of Rhosymedre).

Okay. I’m having difficulty again with Comcast. It keeps going down. I have called and scheduled a technician to come out tomorrow. Right now I have managed to use my wireless to connect to a neighbor’s weak modem, so I’m going to finish here and post this.