“Beauty and the Beast” is finally done. Now to see if I get paid. The band director, Greg Maynard, was very clear that if I have not received a check by next Saturday I should let him know. The choral/theater department also owes me money for the extra accompanying I did for them. Sigh. I hate wondering whether I will get paid or not after all that work.

I’m not too exhausted this morning after two shows yesterday. It was very encouraging to see my Mom come out and see the matinée with Eileen. Apparently when Eileen inquired they gave them easy access seats on the front row due to Mom’s age and walker. Very cool.

I spent the interim time between shows at Panera. During this time I had contact with Sarah in England and Eileen in Holland via facebook and David in California via a brief online chat. I do love the internet.

Now all I have to do is survive today. I have a pre-game rehearsal, a service, a post-game rehearsal, a funeral and then I’m done.

My Mom received her first land contract payment from the buyers in mail yesterday. Excellent. It looks like the property in Fenton has at the very least turned from a drain on my Mom’s assets to a source of income.

Now I am going to get serious about figuring out how spread sheet formulas work and set up some docs to keep track of this and some other running totals like my own extra income. I looked briefly at formulas this morning and they don’t look too hard. Eileen can help me with this.

Tomorrow I plan to do some grocery shopping for Turkey Day. It is also my Mom’s birthday and I have invited her to come with me to take Eileen her supper at work and celebrate that way. She will be 84.

Only two performances left and then I’m done with “Beauty and the Beast,” the high school musical.

There have been some comical moments in this endeavor. The best one so far was on opening night when a cellist accidentally unplugged my piano.

For some reason, the band director stopped the show when I discovered the piano was not working. I frantically tried to figure it out.

This so rattled the actors on stage, that the final number was pretty ruined with the singer jumping around, the director attempting to follow him and me not being able to hear him and following him apparently incorrectly.

There is a lot of music in this musical. It’s more like a film score than your typical musical. And for once there are honest to god piano parts. I work from a  piano/conductor score (as does the director…. there is no full score which makes it tricky sometimes because players have parts that the conductor does not see.) There are many passages where the piano part seems to be very important to the music. This is kind of fun, because usually I envision my role as one of reminding high school players where the fuck we are in the score.

I have been listening to a dramatization of one my favorite series of novels by Anthony Burgess on BBC. It’s called ‘Inside Mister Enderby.”  [here’s a link that will soon expire as BBC only keeps up its shows for about a week online]

It’s a dramatization of the first of the Enderby novels. I keep wondering why I find it so unsatisfactory. I think it’s because they don’t capture the personality of Enderby very well. He just sounds like another dramatic radio personality.

I have a picture of a little unattractive man with huge glasses, a steely determination about his calling (poetry) which easily devolves into irony intended on not.  In fact the whole essence of this character for me is irony.  Enderby is a total loser, but extremely logical in his own little world.

The actor who plays him often raises his voice and sounds emotional. I never pictured the character that way.

Enderby in the novels is ridiculous but extremely funny in an understated way. It is interesting to remember that Burgess’s first wife was actually Dylan Thomas’s mistress for a while (they had an open marriage).

Enderby is nothing like Thomas but does seem to smack of a little poke at him and his ilk.  Poets who take themselves seriously are much funnier than the BBC characterization of a desperate loud shallow loser.

Speaking of comedy, I spent two hours yesterday trying to figure out why I lost the internet.

I mistakenly did one of those registry clean ups that are offered on a trial basis and my mainframe desktop couldn’t find the internet while my wireless could. Then both of them couldn’t. I did a restore and several reboots of the computer and the modems. I picked up the land line to call Comcast and had no dial tone. The cable tv was still working (we bundle all these services with Comcast). I called Comcast on my cell. While I was talking to robots and technicians (press one if your internet is not working), the phone returned.

The human I finally spoke to walked me through more reboots and lo and behold everything worked. For a while. As I proceeded with my weekly online bill session, it once again stopped. Before I could reboot anything, it started again and continued for the rest of the day.

I love technology.

I slept in this morning. Having a morning ballet class five times a week makes for long days when I have other stuff like the musical and  church stuff. I usually can’t sleep in. But today it was no problem.

By the way, I figured out a back door entrance into the stupid online book mark service which changed its configuration. Good grief. No response to the email I sent them. Sooprise.

I had a very full day yesterday.  I meant to do more resting in preparation for the evening opening night performance, but couldn’t stop myself from cleaning the kitchen and doing some piano practice. I also had the usual ballet class, meeting with my boss and trio rehearsal that happens on Thursdays.

My trio rehearsal was largely chatting yesterday. I was exhausted. My cellist also has a strenuous schedule since she has a full time job at Hope College Library and also plays in the Grand Rapids Symphony which means several rehearsals and performances a week during the season.

We rehearsed the Telemann pieces we are playing Sunday then the cellist asked if we could play through an arrangement of a Gershwin piano prelude that I purchased at the college library sale for fifty cents.

We liked it so much that the trio quickly agreed to play it for the church on the Fourth Sunday of Advent for the morning Eucharist Lessons and Carols. It is a lovely thing.  It motivates me to get a copy of his preludes and look at them. I doubt if I will find one for fifty cents.

I also couldn’t resist a bit of organ practice yesterday when I should have been resting up for the evening. I have been reviving a Franck organ piece from my undergraduate study. I’ve never been wild about Franck’s music.  I learned his Grand Piece Symphonique and his Pastorale under the tutelage of the late Ray Ferguson.

It is the Pastorale I have been rehearsing.

Franck was supposedly a very gentle man. I don’t dislike his music. I’m just not attracted to it that strongly.  I recently put Marcel Dupre’s recording on my turntable and figured out that it’s not a recording or even an interpretation I like. There might, however, be an interpretation I  can come up with on my little organ that I can stand.

Unfortunately the Pastorale is kind of long. I just checked and Dupre’s recording is 8 minutes and eleven seconds. I probably will take  that long to perform it.  I am beginning to develop a bit of affinity for it. This seems to be more and more important to me: to perform music I can sort of “endorse” artistically and personally.

I just tried to access my online Bookmarks via Diigo.

I just had the not uncommon experience of having an online web  site totally change its initial frame and lock me out. I have been using an online bookmarking system since NYT introduced one years ago. NYT dropped it and passed me on to another online system which did the same thing and passed me on to Diigo. Now Diigo has changed. I can only hope I can access these online bookmarks. Years of recipes, articles and other things.

When I went to access my bookmarks, Diigo had an video they wanted me to watch about their new wonderful (no doubt aspiring social network) services. It didn’t seem to occur to them that users want immediate access to what they have and don’t have time to discover their wonderful new improvements.

Typical.

Yesterday in dance class, the teacher (who was the chair of the department substituting for the regular instructor) decided she wanted to do an exercise using phrases of three measures length instead of the usual four.

At first I didn’t understand. Dancers use language different from musicians. I think three or four in terms of meter or pulse. In other words three means the oom pah pah of the waltz and two is the left ride stride of a march or walk.  It organizes the fundamental unit of the measure.

Dancers think in larger terms. In terms of reference to the moves. It reminds me of marching band. Probably because I remember marching eight steps between yard lines.

Ballet dancers think in eights like that, or sixteens or even fours.

Many if not most western musical phrases are in the same groups of 4, 8 or 16. 4, 8, or 16 what? Measures of oom pah pahs (3/4) or left rights (2/4 or even 4/4).

Of course much interesting music does not fall into these regular patterns.  This is one of the reasons I adore Bartok. His use of irregular rhythmic patterns often derived from folk music from Hungary or surrounding areas.

Anyway improvising in groups of three measures presented a fun little challenge.

I also ran across a good explanation of the history of the cross rhythm of playing fours against fives. Haven’t read the whole thing but this is the kind of thing I think about quite a bit as I learn music that uses these more complex interaction of  meters. Link to Kyle Gann’s music blog post: “Metametrics: a brief history of 5 against 4.”

I had a flattering moment also in class when the instructor turned to me (as they some times do) as she was formulating a series of moves and asked me to play. They usually say “What do you have?” or something vague like that meaning what are you planning for what I am formulating.

I immediately start playing when instructors do this, to help the pace of the class and keep things moving. As I played the instructor moved and murmured the description  of the moves she was planning to give to the students.

After I stopped she asked me what it was that I was playing and that she quite liked it. I said in my goofy voice, “Made it up.”

It’s funny what works in the ballet class. The music doesn’t need to be profound. In fact I think it might help that it’s not complicated. It does benefit however from being delivered musically. I think that might be key. And one of the reasons dancers like live pianists for class.

A melody played with expression and as much beauty of execution as the poor pianist can muster helps remind the dancers of the expression content of the rigorous physical moves they are attempting.

It seems to be another of those rare odd niches in musical life where I just about fit in with my interest in spontaneity, improvisation, composition and gratuitous nature of art.

My daily schedule continues to be nuts. I collapsed in the living room last night after the dress rehearsal for the Grand Haven High School performance of “The Beauty and the Beast” and told Eileen that I didn’t think I could work three part-time jobs permanently.

Ballet, church and pit orchestra is at least one thing too many. Thankfully there are only four performances in the next three days and then I’m done with the musical.

Last night’s rehearsal only went three and half hours.  In the number where the Beast transforms to. human, the smoke machine went crazy and filled the auditorium with an odd gritty smoke. The singers choked. We stopped and they opened windows and doors for a bit, then finished the play.

Later walking to my car I stepped through several kids sitting on chairs trying to get their breath back.

The last thing I heard was the choral director telling someone that if they didn’t respond she was going to call 911. Nice.

I tried to pace myself yesterday because I was so fatigued as to be light-headed in the morning. Today is bit better.

Yesterday was Hindemith’s birthday.

I learned this because I follow Naxos records on Twitter. Couldn’t resist playing a bunch of his music on piano and then listening to CDs of his music back and forth to Grand Haven last night. I do like this composer. I have a recording of Glenn Gould playing the piano sonata that I played through yesterday and enjoyed listening to his interpretation.

I also found a couple of interesting articles via Twitter, one from the left side of politics (the side I more often identify with) and one from the right.

The left side was represented by economist, William Grieder.

He has written an article that constructively criticizes and advices President Obama: link to “Obama Without Tears.”

Tough love from the left.

On the right, I found an interesting article on one of my favorite conservatives (still don’t agree with him but the man is dam literate and can write sentences and isn’t wrong about everything and seems to be pretty civil to me).  link to “Pleasures of reading Christopher Hitchens” by Christopher Caldwell

I have to cut this short because I need to get moving and get to ballet class.

I slept in until 7:20 this morning. My ballet class begins at 8:30 so I only had to time to grab a cup of coffee before heading off for class.

Last night’s rehearsal went for four and half hours. Which is actually shorter than most  of my evening rehearsals last week. I was feeling pretty good all day and didn’t pace myself like I”m going to have to today.

I have two more weeknight rehearsals and then performances begin. It’s going to be a tough schedule, but I was expecting this.

This Sunday at church is Christ the King. It also will be Telemann Sunday.

Amy the violinist and Dawn the cellist in my trio have kindly consented to performing the prelude and postlude with me which are pieces by Telemann. This greatly takes the pressure off having to do these things solo. The choir is singing a little movement by Telemann. Good solid stuff.

I checked yesterday and verified in Spitta’s bio of Bach that Telemann was CPE’s godfather. Cool.

I have been using the Tangos I prepared for ballet class in both my advanced and beginning class.  They’re not called for every time and never more than a couple per class. I purchased mp3s of the group I used as a resource for getting some Tango chops. I like their sound: [link to http://mandragoratango.com/]

I also have been branching out doing new Schubert waltzes in class.  When I first seriously studied piano with Richard Strasburg as teacher, he assigned me some of these waltzes. They are simple and Schubert wrote them to be danced to.  He wrote literally hundreds of them. Some of them are quite charming. I am glad to reel them off for ballet class. Lovely music, really.

After class today, Eileen went to the local college coffee shop (Lemonjellos) to have breakfast but there were not tables. So we opted for Southside Inn. Another local business which appeals to older people. They also have free wifi. I do like being able to connect up in different places.

My $30 phone died. This time I remembered that we had an old nicer Samsung that Eileen used before we upgraded to the silly T Mobile hotspot (this is an option where  you pay the company more money and they give you a phone which will connect to the network via your ISP. We did this because T Mobile has such poor coverage right here in our house.)

Anyway, I felt very high tech when I switched the SIM card from my dead phone to Eileen’s old phone.

I’m sitting in my living room exhausted right now trying to build up some energy to go practice organ.

I got up  yesterday and cut up a fresh pineapple and made biscuits before I walked to church.

I was hoping I could walk out the kink in my leg but this did not happen.

Church went pretty well. I played the Calvin Hampton piece well despite the inattention it received. This doesn’t bother me all that much. It’s a nice gentle rocking piece that when the congregation eventually settled down provided a nice piece of musical wallpaper as people got ready for prayer (“you’re soaking in it” was what the manicurist surprised her customer with in an old commercial when she informed her  that she was soaking in actual bonafide dish detergent guaranteed to soften her nails).

The congregation sang well. The anthem went well. It was one of those easy ones in which the pianist (me) has much more work to do than the singers. It was a bit on the new age Jesus side of the Episcopal practice but whothehell.

I had a moment in the introduction to the closing hymn when I committed the unpardonable error of making a mistake in the actual melody. Very unnerving. Although I played well I never really got my groove back and did not play the Distler as well as I hoped I would even though I repeated the entire short piece just for the fuck of it.

Ah well. Sometimes you eat the ba’r and sometimes the ba’r eats you.

Came home and made pear custard pie.

Eileen seems quite enamored of this recipe. This time I managed to get the “custard” in the pie to set up nicely. This was my second try on this recipe. The first time it was delicious but runny. This time it was delicious and  not runny.

I think I may have accomplished this by carefully measuring the pears (instead of just throwing in what seemed like the correct amount), carefully mixing the wet ingredients including beating the “egg beaters” quite a while before gradually adding sugar and flour. Then instead of pouring the wet mixture over the pears, I made sure the pears had no extra moisture coming from them and folded them gently into the final “custard”  mixture before slipping everything into a freshly made uncooked pie crust.

Something worked. Eileen and I ate half the pie last night.

In between all this I researched tango scores online. I came across a very helpful site from a Minneapolis  group, http://mandragoratango.com/

Like many hard working specialist music groups I have found online, this group is very generous with sharing its playbook and ideas about its speciality, in this case, the tango.

Last week my advanced ballet instructor announced to the class and me that they needed more tango in their lives and I promised to try to “dig up a few more.” I already have one little tango improv I have developed over the years for ballet use.

So I had fun yesterday looking through hundreds of tango scores and listening to several mp3s of Mandragora Tango.  I do like the tango even though I am really just beginning to learn something about the genre. I came up with ten tangos I could probably pull off for today.  There’s no guarantee my instructor will call for them today, but if she does, I’m ready.

For the next three evenings I have  final rehearsals for the Grand Haven High school production of “Beauty and the Beast.” This will probably be a bit arduous, but then come the performances which are actually much less work.

There were still many varieties of local fall veggies and fruit at the farmer’s market yesterday. I succumbed and purchased pears, apples, sweet potatoes, leeks and Brussels Sprouts on the stalk.  Came home, then ran off to practice organ before the afternoon memorial service at church which I thankfully was not scheduled to play.

Today at the Sunday Eucharist I am playing organ music by Calvin Hampton and Hugo Distler for the prelude and postlude. Though both men are dead I think of their music as “fresh” because each writer is so unique.

I am still figuring Hampton out.

The piece by Hampton I am playing is a gentle one with four ideas: a strictly repetitive jumping about of octaves in the pedal, a quiet echoing of the last few notes of the reed theme in soft beautiful stops which interestingly is heard initially even before the theme itself, long notes that provide the cantus-firmus-like long note theme with a reed stop, then a meandering filigree—a descant, I believe Hampton calls it—-which follows a strict rhythm as it wanders all over the flute stop. This rhythm is specifically six quick notes in a sextuplets, then four sixteenths, then two slower triplets over the constant duple bass notes.

All of this goes on four about seven minutes.  It’s called “An Exalted Ritual.” It reminds me of the “minimalist” school and might even be what he had in mind when he wrote it in the eighties.

The piece I am playing by  Distler is based on the tune of the closing hymn, MIT FRUEDEN ZART. Distler’s lovely music is delicately dissonant and always very clearly constructed. He also has a way with rhythms that throws the listener a short distance into unfamiliar and quietly unexpected rhythmic places. I find him a joy to learn and perform.

After practice yesterday, I came home and took the Brussels Sprouts off the stalk.

Sliced them up and cooked them with sliced sauteed leeks. Made rice to serve them over and also made veggie chili dogs. My wife who doesn’t like either vegetable but she says that veggie hot dogs are not easily distinguished from meat ones.

Despite my ongoing exhaustion from a temporarily brutal schedule, I forced myself to treadmill yesterday.

Unfortunately, I had some cramping in my right leg and had to stop a couple times. I finished off at a slower pace than usual. The cramp still hasn’t quite gone away this morning.  Ah, the joys of aging.

A couple of quotes grabbed my attention during Timothy Wu’s segment from this weekend’s On the Media broadcast.

They were quotes from Walter Lippmann. I ran down a reference to their original context in his book, Public Opinion.

Regarding the Lippmann’s opinion that humans are not equipped to be the “informed citizenry” needed by democracy theory, he says that we become reductive when complex “facts exceed our curiosity.”

Also he comments on the role of symbols.

“The making of one general will out of a multitude of general wishes is an art well known to leaders, politicians and steering committees. It consists essentially in the use of symbols which detach emotions after they have been detached from their ideas.”

I found this entire quote via a google search which linked me into a power point slide presentation for a course from Berkeley last year. Here’s a link to the pdf: [pdf of a slide presentation on propaganda]

I was laying in bed dozing when someone began quoting Lippmann beginning with the “facts exceed our curiosity” quote. Suddenly my mind struggled to wakefulness realizing these were interesting ideas.

Although Lippmann was writing in early part of the 20th c. his ideas seem salient to an understanding of dumbing down of discourse.  I also was intrigued by the idea that symbol relates to emotions detached from ideas. Not sure how accurate any of these things are, but certainly food for thought.

Speaking of food, I need to go grocery shopping this morning. I kind of ran out of mental and physical energy yesterday afternoon. I was in the middle of doing my bills when I received a late notice that Turtle Island String Quartet would be presenting a lecture recital in about an hour at Hope College.

I decided to attend.

Later I would figure out that my exposure to this group was at the beginning of its career in the late 80s.  I like that they are a group of composers who play their own music for string quartet. I did wonder a bit about the “freshness” of their music. Their latest CD is “Have you ever been…?”

David Balakrishnan is one of the founding members and did one fourth of the speaking yesterday.  I have been thinking about music in terms of “freshness” lately.  “Fresh music” is sort of how I am thinking of music that takes into account how we listen and think at this point in time.  The Turtle Island Quartet ended their little noon recital yesterday with their rendition of “All Along the Watchtower.” It was a nice arrangement but as an ending piece it seemed to not necessarily engage the restless young crowd already thinking of their next class. I wondered what the music meant to the young musicians who made up most of their audience. I caught a furiously nodding head out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to see who was “digging the groove” it turned out to be someone who looked like a professor not a student.

So Hendrix and Dylan. Hmmm.  I like Hendrix and Dylan. But when Mark Sumers the fantastic cellist answered a question about what music occupies him in his private life it was accompanying his 22 year old son at the piano on jazz tunes and listening to the Beatles on his Ipod.

Again, hmmmmm. Elvis Costello released a fascinating album this week. Next week Bruce Springsteen comes out with a new CD. These are not exactly revolutionary or obscure composers. I wonder why Sumers and The Turtle Island String Quartet aren’t doing what many thoughtful jazzers are doing and using the wonderful improv approach to more contemporary tunes.

In my initial response to Costello’s CD in particular I hear some pretty solid interesting self consciously tuneful melodies that would hold up under some jazz approaches. Not to mention the many recordings you can find of tunes by Radiohead and others.

I have kind of a funny relationship to jazz. David Balakrishnan pointed out that the two younger newer additions to the quartet, Mads Tolling (30 years old) and Jeremy Kittel (26 years old), had both had more academic opportunity to hone their abilities in the area of jazz and improv than the older members, himself and Somers.

I keep wondering just what a systemized (not to say frozen) approach to the wonderful world of jazz as a performer is all about. I know it helps me to learn to play in the style of great jazz pianists. But that is about the technique and the already existing corpus of music. I think that there is a bit of drawback when a style becomes so systematized as to enter the hallowed halls of academically sanctioned recognition.

I heard Balakrishnan using the word jazz to describe his and the quartet’s music.  All four referred to rock and roll, claves rhythms, scottish and irish fiddle music, back beat, comping and so on. I feel more at home in music that struggles for a clear vocab to define itself.  The word Jazz in many contexts seems to have become the term of choice for something that’s not really about 20th century music styles of Morton, Ellington, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and others.

For example in Ann Arbor there is an Episcopal community that has “jazz” services. They do the 20th century jazz thing mentioned above. But they also do almost any other style that occurs to them to put into their worship.

Anyway, I do go on. I need to stop and go do stuff.

So this brutal week is drawing to a close. Last night was only a five hour rehearsal for the musical, “Beauty and the Beast.”

I sometimes talk to musicians about being on the front or the back of the beat.

This is a very subtle or telling choice that professionals can make.

If you think of the sound of most bebop music, it can give you an idea of how musicians playing on the front of the beat.

This means with an insistent relentless energy that invigorates every pulse. If you listen to a good funk beat and pay attention to the bass player, they are usually on the back of the beat.

That means an almost resistant funky approach to going on to the next pulse.

These are two obvious examples.

I realized recently that my ballet instructors often like music that is in the center of the beat or the back of the beat.

If I energize the improvisation they often ask me to “slow down.” Sometimes I do vary in my tempos but rarely. Usually this dance talk for playing carefully, insistently, with an emphasis on the upbeat that is almost like a a hesitation (playing on the back of the beat).

String players do this to, especially in small ensembles but also in orchestras.

It is instructive to me to sit down with my violinist and cellist friends each week and have a musical conversation with them as we play piano trio music in which I experience this beautiful understand of rhythm in classical music.

On the other hand, the band director that conducts the Grand Haven High School student pit orchestra often likes to do rhythm on the front of the beat.

This man is a fine conductor and easily the best high school band director I have seen. His conducting is always clear and seems totally intentional. His sense of tempos and style is one I admire and enjoy playing under.

So I find it interesting that I move in one day (yesterday, since I had a trio rehearsal in the afternoon) from the ballet instructors and string players who are often on the back of the beat to playing under a conductor who is often on the front of the beat. I like the variety and challenge of all three situations.

I wasn’t too happy with my behavior yesterday at church. I went to prepare for my string trio rehearsal and discovered that an audio technician had the sound system in pieces and spread all over the music area. I asked him if he or whoever had scheduled him had mentioned the fact that there was a rehearsal on the church calender from noon to two. He said no. I’m afraid I wasn’t very friendly to him even as I as curtly assured him that we would cooperate and he didn’t have to pack up.

After a couple of conversations with my boss and him I figured out that it was more a miscommunication about making Thursday morning or the whole day available for this man’s  work.

In any event he was very cooperative and cleared off an area for us to rehearse in. While we practiced he  took his lunch and then came back and worked quietly while we practiced.  After the strings left I told him he could make noise while I practiced organ.

I felt pretty creepy even though my frustration was a bit justified. I mentioned to the workman that I was the one who introduced the concept of a master calendar to my community and staff. And that the church had grown from the size where you pretty much count on not conflicting when you scheduled something to one where scheduling was more critical.

Before I finished rehearsing I had chatted him up and thanked him. I even gave him a Butterfinger candy bar from the stash in the church office. Oh well, some days I act more mature than others, I guess.

It has been a marathon of a week for me. Next week we begin final rehearsals then end with performances. Next Saturday I have a matinee and an evening performance. Performances are easier than rehearsals. And shorter. As we finished up last night the choral director congratulated the cast and crew that they had taken a six hour show and reduced it to a workable three hours.

Today all I have is a morning ballet class and some tasks around the house to do like bills and maybe grocery shopping and cleaning. Light day.

I continue to be pretty busy. Yesterday morning before class, my teacher mentioned to me that she had requested me as pianist for two of her classes next semester. For me, this is the highest form of praise: being asked back and to do even more. Very flattering.

It was in this teacher’s class that I felt I had not done well on a couple of exercises last Friday.

My Mom and I went out for lunch yesterday at 8th Street Grille (no martini for Steve in the middle of a busy day).  It is so encouraging to see her old self emerging from this time of distress around my Dad’s illness and death. After lunch she walked two blocks to Kilwins, the fudge store, and bought a bunch of fudge. After that, she wanted to go the the Dollar Store before her eye appointment. She is rockin!

I managed to get some organ rehearsal in before leaving for my rehearsal in Grand Haven. Last night there was no student pit orchestra, just myself at the piano starting and stopping music as the choral director choreographed a pretty complex scene. Thankfully it only took three and half hours, not the five hours these have been running this week.

I feel tired this morning but not as exhausted as I have been.

Amanda my ballet teacher who I will be working with again next semester mentioned to me and the class that next week she wanted to do a bunch of tango moves.

Actually they’re not tango moves, they are classical ballet moves such as grand battement (large beating or kicks).

So I have been printing up a bunch of the tangos on my favorite copyright free music site: http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page

I also have been preparing some Telemann scores to go along with the little Telemann anthem I have scheduled for my choir to sing a week from Sunday on Christ the King. I am going to invite my string players to help me with the prelude and postlude. If they decline, I was thinking of doing the same pieces on the organ: RH playing the violin part, LH playing the keyboard chords and Pedal doing the cello part. This is feasible but requires some preparation. Next week is the performance week for the musical. It will be another brutal schedule week and probably not the best time to pick something for the prelude and postlude that requires a lot of rehearsal.

So this morning I was looking at Telemann scores on http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page when I remembered I own a little book of Telemann fantasias for keyboards. Telemann didn’t write much organ music. That’s why I’m flopping around trying to figure out what to do to match the choral anthem.  (Telemann was the godparent for one of Bach’s children and was much more popular in his lifetime than Bach was. I like to think of them as friends.)

Anyway, these are pretty easy and if my string players aren’t up for another Sunday right away after playing last Sunday, I will choose a prelude and postlude from this book.

Off to go check my tangos. Life is good.

Four hours stretched into five at last night’s rehearsal of Grand Haven High School’s musical, “The Beauty and the Beast.” One nice thing was that for the first hour I was stage right on a baby grand piano working with the choral director and the chorus. Always nice to have a real piano. It’s even not a bad piano. Earlier in the day, I accompanied the leads as they sang for their lunch and funding from the Grand Haven Rotary Club.

I do enjoy working  with young people and good teachers who work at getting inside their heads and helping them learn and have new experiences.

The theater teacher and choral director have recontracted with me for more rehearsal hours this week. Subsequently I am going to begin rehearsing with them and the musical at 5 PM for the next three nights.

I must have looked fairly approachable yesterday because I had two different fathers in two different contexts come up and chat me up about their kids that I had come in contact with as a musician in my roles at local churches and schools. The first was at the Rotary Club after lunch, the second was at Panera as I was grabbing some food to eat on my second drive from Holland to Grand Haven that day.

I like it when I get reports of how what I have done in music has had a bit of an impact on young people that still shows as they mature. The second father reported that his son was going on in music. He seemed mildly curious about how musicians lived. He assumed that music was not my day gig and said it must be hard to devote time and effort in addition to a real job. Heh. I told him I’m pretty much just did music and that musicians often have to work mutliple jobs. I added that I was on my way to work with Grand Haven High School in addition to my church gig.

Last night it was impressive how many young people thanked me personally for my work with the musical. The actors and singers especially expressed appreciation that I was doing some extra hours with them. No doubt they are prompted to these good manners. But still it’s nice to see people being civil.

In between all my music things yesterday, I managed to find a bit of time for organ rehearsal and also to begin a transcription of Corelli Violin trio sonatas for organ trio.

When I began my organ study with Kent McDonald, he had me learn some transcription of the slow movements of these sonatas. I always wondered how the rest of the movements would work on organ. Yesterday I took a look at some online scores of them and began transcribing them for organ. I managed to get two of the four movements of the first one finished.

Corelli seemed to be writing for at least four instruments with these sonatas: two violins, cello and double bass. In places he has composed different parts for the cello and double bass so that the texture changes from three voices to four. The three voice texture is what makes these pieces easy to transcribe and realize on the organ.  Corelli’s change of texture makes it an interesting puzzle for transcription.  I really wont know how successful these are until I print them up and take them to the organ console. This is usually how this stuff works. Then I can make necessary changes to my little edition of these Corelli pieces. If they are any good, no doubt, I will post them here for anyone interested in using them since there are no copyrights involved.

Today I have a bit lighter day: 8:30-9:30 AM ballet class is all I have scheduled besides the evening rehearsal. This is good because I have some other tasks I have to attend to like cleaning the kitchen and submitting the prelude, postlude and libretto for Sunday’s anthem to the church office secretary for Sunday’s bulletin.

I spoke directly to my MWF Ballet II instructor yesterday about the structure of her two opening exercises that never vary. She was quite open to talking me quickly through them. Unfortunately, we still had a bit of a dancer/musician gap in meaning. I was puzzled by her description of the first exercise as one of 4 phrases, two on each side. I think that I misunderstood the use of “side” to mean the second repetition of the exercise when in fact she was telling me of the design that would then be repeated. The second exercise is unusually 9 phrases and I think that’s probably what screwed me up last Friday. Anyway, I paid closer attention, made notes and feel better prepared.

For some reason I was pretty frazzled all morning  yesterday at church. Working with such a variety of personalities and skill levels is challenging. Especially when so many of them are unpredictable to me. It is the nature of the work that leaders have to make room for people’s response. This means reacting as little as possible to people’s behavior while trying to guide them through the music.

So when people show up late, don’t show, walk away in the middle or leave early it is disconcerting to me.

But I kept up a cheerful countenance and led the musicians and the congregation through the music. All in all it went pretty well. I felt it was a bit of a victory to have two high school student instrumentalists play along with  five adult instrumentalists. Three of the adults are professionally trained on their instrument.

After service several choir members skipped the post service rehearsal. But it was a good one anyway. I took the choir through the Advent/Xmas music. I sight read my way through the accompaniments since I had had no time to rehearse them. The Corelli Xmas Cantata (which is actually an adaptation of his Christmas concerto) was a good choice I think for the group for Christmas. I am using the organ accompaniment edition (we own both an edition for organ and choir and for instruments and choir).

I told the choir I was in the mood for a Baroque Italian Christmas.

I have been rehearsing Bach’s organ transcriptions of Vivaldi’s concertos. This is such happy clear music and it seems to be just what the doctor ordered for jupe right now.

Along with big doses of other composers like Calvin Hampton on organ and Beethoven piano sonatas.

Another interesting piece I introduced to the choir yesterday combines two melodies: “Of the father’s love begotten” and “Lo, how a rose.”

I felt like those who chose to attend this rehearsal felt good about this direction. It is difficult to choose music for a small group that is inconsistent in attendance to short after service rehearsals.  My evolving strategy is to choose several easy but interesting pieces and then one or two more challenging (but not too challenging) pieces for them.

After service, Eileen and I went out for lunch. It ended up being a two martini lunch Sunday.

Which was good. We came home and found our cat dead. This was not unexpected. Eileen thought she might have expired while she was preparing to come to church.  Since the cat has been largely immobile and unresponsive for the last 24 hours, it wasn’t easy to tell just exactly when she died. At any rate, she didn’t suffer.

Today I have a day from hell. After my 8:30 Ballet class, I have to drive to Grand Haven to accompany lead actors from the musical as they perform for the local Junior Chamber of Commerce. After that I drive back to Holland to meet with a disgruntled choir member. Then back to Grand Haven for a rehearsal with the chorus from the musical, then a full evening in the pit rehearsing the show.  Not much breathing time in there today. Maybe that’s why I’m up so early. I like to have a bit of time alone. It helps me gather what composure and balance I can muster.

Another busy fruitful yesterday. Eileen offered to help me at church so after hitting the Farmers Market (vendors waving and saying, “See you next year!”…. hmmm guess they’re not coming back), we went to church and worked. We sorted a year’s worth of unsorted choral anthems for an hour (didn’t finish, but found the hymn arrangement I need for today), then I photocopied several anthems and Eileen collated them. Then she helped me set up the music area for  today (2 choirs and instrumentalists plus the baptism partly takes place in the music area as well) I tried to limit her time there to two hours so as to  not take advantage of her good nature but it was a bit over when we adjourned for lunch.

Then she happily got to blowing leaves around with her fancy leaf blower. I went grocery shopping, then back to church for organ practice. Home to treadmill. Whew! Even with the time change it feels early to this tired old guy this morning.

My cat, Mischief, is probably failing. My niece, Emily, keeps offering advice on how to keep a dieing cat alive. I will probably go get baby food today if Mischief is still with us after church. This morning I tried to get her to take some chicken broth and bread. She barely stirred. I felt a little like I got a reprieve this morning because I got up to go to the john last night and noticed she wasn’t quite dead and neglected to pet her. So this morning I got to stroke her a bit so I could feel like I had said good by in a nice way.

I finally have the rest of the year planned for the choir. We will be doing several easy anthems that should allow us more time to work on the 3 choruses from Corelli’s Xmas cantata I would like to do. I also ordered some more interesting contemporary organ compositions from Wayne Leupold’s catalog. Plus a copy of Calvin Hampton’s bio for myself. I am reading an interlibrary loan copy. I rationalize that Hampton did some very interesting programming of organ literature and it would be handy to be able to refer to them.

I am enjoying the book.

I need to stop and collate some Corelli.

Yesterday I was more tired than I realized. After the first two exercises the ballet instructor informed me that these exercises were always the same and would always require the same amount of music. This was the ballet’s world way of admonishing. I had noticed that my music hadn’t quite lined up with the dance. I figured she had given uneven increments of exercise (something teachers sometimes do). But I did notice that I was thinking a bit more about the music itself than the phrase lengths. My mind was exhausted and I suspect I was reverting to that part of my mind that I was using the day before to arrange and compose.

This kind of thinking is much freer. I have been practicing the organ music of Messiaen which is wildly uneven, free and difficult. That’s part of why I love it.  In fact I had been practicing the manual (keyboard) parts to his Nativity suite just before class on the piano.

Ballet exercises are always in phrases of 4 and 8. The look that my excellent instructor gave me with her comment caused me to think that maybe I had fallen into irregular (not too irregular… maybe a six measure phrase here or there) phrasing. I then carefully counted phrases as she gave the instructions for the rest of the class. I detected no irregularity in her exercises and was able to tailor the music carefully to them.

Albeit the music was much more simple and less interesting and creative than I sometimes improvise for class. But in my exhaustion I was sure I had made good clear phrases for the rest of the class.

There. I had now earned my 26 dollars an hour (for the economists who read this).

I had email exchanges with the choir director who is helping with the Grand Haven musical, “Beauty and the Beast.” She asked if I could come an hour early on Monday evening and accompany the chorus rehearsal for the musical. I told her I could come and asked her if it was a paying gig.

I would like to stop right here and observe that I often not only have to work for low pay in my field but that also I have to go begging to get paid for what I have done. At this particular school, an administrator held up my check for months deliberately dragging his feet because he thought I had been paid too much for my work. We’re talking about $1200 here for many hours of work. Eventually I was paid. The following year I asked the school to pay me half way through the process so I would be assured of having my money in a reasonable time after doing the work.

Time and time again I have had to chase down people who owe me small amounts of money which make up an important part of my income. So I try to speak up even though it makes me feel a bit slimy and demeaned.

Hence my comments to the choir director. My pay for my work with the high school comes from the band department. Anything I do for the choir director or the theater teacher is separate. They hire me each year to do other tasks like accompany the auditions and accompany visits to local organizations like the Junior Chamber of Commerce to publicize their musical and help raise funding for it.

Anyway, I emailed back I asking if she would agree to pay me $40 for this service (I felt like I’m at least worth $50 but I was factoring in that they don’t probably have a ton of budget for this sort of thing). She agreed.

They hired me to accompany auditions this year. Again they forgot to pay and did not do so until after repeated promptings. ($100 for playing three separate sessions.  So that’s, what? $34 per session? which were a couple hours long.)

After ballet class, I sat down and did my Mom’s bills and Eileen’s and my bills. Then I treated myself to three hours of uninterrupted rehearsal at the organ.

I began my practice with playing some thorough exercises in improvisation that were developed by the great French organist, Marcel Dupres. These were scales in harmony in all keys. Looking back this might have been a reaction to my morning failure. But maybe not.

I then spent the rest of the time rehearsing the first volume of Messiaen’s Nativity Suite (there are six of them) and a lovely Bach transcription of a Vivaldi concerto.

Considerably refreshed I came home and worked on designing Advent and Xmas for my church music program. This involved reviewing music, choosing anthems, then making a recording of them for my choristers. I was just finishing up around 5 when Eileen got home from work.

Another good rewarding day for jupe.

Today Eileen has promised to help me file a years worth of choral anthems that I haven’t gotten to this fall at church. I also will set up for tomorrow. I am expecting the Youth Choir, the Chamber Choir and several instrumentalists. The church music area is small and inflexible so it takes a bit of cleverness to seat all of these people where they can best do their part.

Once again I’ve had to skip a day posting due to being very busy.  I had a very long talk with my boss  yesterday in which she insisted on hearing my theological criticisms of the church community we both work for. Bless her heart. She said my observations were disturbing but that she values listening to them even if they don’t strike her as accurate. After that I came home and continued working on arrangements for instruments for this Sunday.

Since my Thursday trio rehearsal was canceled (the violinist decided she only had one rehearsal in her for that day and was planning to attend my evening rehearsal at church of instrumentalists) I had more time than I expected so I took a few more pains with the composition for the prelude. I had decided to combine Chaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 opening with the melody to the hymn “For All the Saints.” (Church musicians refer to this melody by its tune name, SINE NOMINE which ironicially is latin for “without a name.”)

This was not a big deal. I also had been sketching how to include  HOLY MANNA to this arrangement. HOLY MANNA is the tune to Sundays closing hymn, “Blessed Feast of Blessed Martyrs.”  This melody is more often associated with the text, “Brethren we have met to worship.”

Mixing up two or more tunes at once is called “quodlibet” one of Bach’s favorite devices. “Quodlibet” literally means “what you like” and is understand in the sense of being a bit playful, another Latin reference…

I spent a good amount of time reharmonizing SINE NOMINE, then making string trio parts for it. I am so proud of these parts that I’m sure they could stand alone. (In other words, they will be played with the rest of the instruments, but if they are heard alone they sound like a decent little piece) I decided to wind down the piece and end it with just the string trio to expose this harmonization a bit.

After doing the harmonization I then fit the melody for HOLY MANNA to it. This involved some rewriting of the melody so that it’s really more of a obbligato part. This all took quite a bit of time. After doing this I realized that the arrangement itself was actually pretty good and warranted further filling out and polishing. But no time.

At the rehearsal my string trio showed up on time. It was really fun to go over this arrangement and the other arrangements I had done for these three players. Eventually a bass player and a very young clarinetist (whom I wasn’t really expecting but had a few simple parts ready in case he just happen to show) also arrived. I ended up dismissing the strings and working with the other two people on their parts.

I had an interesting post rehearsal conversation with the bass player. He has just finished running a congressional campaign for a local Republican. He said that when they took their advertising campaign (which he helped develop and write) to Washington D.C. the political consultants there criticized them for not doing attack ads. He was amused that the “big boys” were so naive about local politics and ethics. The consultants also were confused as to why they didn’t do more Sunday activities.  Pursuing local “conservatives” means having to sort of fit in with the more puritanical notions that Sunday is not a day for anything but the “Lord’s work.”

I didn’t vote for his guy, but I did enjoy chatting with this person involved in the campaign.

In between all my very busy activities lately I have been pondering the question Ray Hinkle posed in a recent comment when he said he wasn’t sure why I  “disliked business.”  This was in reference to my comments about both top candidates for Michigan governor promising to run the state like a business.

First I was surprised by the question. My life has been one of running in the opposite direction of conventional success. I don’t make much money. I have a very modest dwelling. And I have an excellent life.

I guess that having observed businesses for so long and having read many business gurus like Steven Covey, Peter Drucker, and Robert Greenleaf, my impression is that despite these writers the logic of contemporary business is to pursue short-term profits by almost any legal means. So that it helps to me to understand that businesses often act the way they do as organizations because their primary goal and defining motivation is the “bottom line.”

So business thinking can be efficient for that ends. But this also means that I see  a loss of both a sense of civic responsibility and the ability to look at the long term implications of pursuing more lucrative short term solutions.

This explains to me why so many businesses can’t muster good or even mildly workable customer service and are occasionally caught in dishonest if not illegal activities.

In addition to this, I don’t get money and ownership as clear concepts. I am willing to admit that this is sort of a “peter  pan” approach to life, but it is congruent with my values and childhood indoctrination into the sayings of the Christ of the New Testament.

Not a week goes by that this atheist/agnostic doesn’t hear words of Jesus ironically in his head: “Take no thought for the morrow, consider the lilies of the field, they neither sow nor reap….. ” In the story of the man who tore down his barns to build bigger and better barns: “Fool this night your soul is required of you.” In other words, tonight you die and have to answer for who you are and how you have lived.

I think Wendell Berry puts it nicely in his poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

[link to entire poem]

This is not a very important thing to me.  “Bottom line” notions permeate our society right now. I realize that I’m very out of step with these quiet little ideas of mine.  I find that my understandings and motivations about how to live serve me well. I don’t feel like everyone has to see it the way I do. But I do see that for me, life is something to embrace and I have a tendency to try to stand just behind the kid in the crowd eavesdropping and chuckling when he points to the emperor who is actually humorously exposed.

My two and a half hour rehearsal last night turned into three hours. We ended the evening trying to put together a difficult little number that involved multiple tempo changes, speeding up and slowing down. It was the first time we had gone through it. Needless to say it was tough going.

It reminded me of my choir rehearsal Sunday.  I desperately tried to keep Sunday’s after service rehearsal upbeat despite a lot of negative energy flowing from a few people in the choir.

Now I’m madly trying to get arrangements ready for tomorrow evening’s instrumental rehearsal.  My schedule is pretty busy. Yesterday I had an email request from my brother, Mark the priest, asking me to put a couple pieces of music into finished notation.

I do like doing this. But it was a rush job when I’m already scrambling for time and energy to come up with stuff for whoever comes to tomorrow night’s rehearsal.  I had it done in forty precious minutes.

My Mom had a doctor’s appointment in Zeeland yesterday. She also has one today. I have agreed to take her out to lunch (drive her to lunch, actually. she pays).  Plus I have an hour and a half ballet class that begins in an hour.

So not much time to blog.

I insisted on cleaning the kitchen a bit this morning despite all this stuff I need to do.

I came home last night and Eileen was staring moodily at the TV. She was unhappy with the election results.

I find them largely what I expected.

I spoiled my ballot yesterday by voting the wrong way on the Michigan proposal to allow felons to run for office. I voted yes but meant no. In other words a no vote stopped the proposal to prohibit this. Fortunately, they allowed me to redo my ballot.

Of course the proposal passed (meaning that more people voted yes than no).

This morning I have been poking around trying to find the complete breakdown for local election results. In 2008 I found tallies for everything I voted for. So far I haven’t found complete results for all of the things that were on my ballot.

I’m curious how many people in this county voted for state wide races as well as local.

Also Publius the website I used to prepare accidentally omitted a candidate.  Usually something takes me by surprise on the ballot no matter how much I try to prepare.

Well I need to stop and get ready to go do ballet class.  So far very few of the people I voted for yesterday won. This is pretty typical for me. I do have a problem with using business approaches in government. I think business is as much a part of our current problems in the US as the government. Both the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor for Michigan promised to use this approach.  I voted for the Democrat. He lost, of course.

Oops. At breakfast this morning at a local restaurant I accidentally cursed into a silence left by a group of men having a silent prayer. They were very loud previously. The waitress could barely hear our order. Nothing too obnoxious, but still, loud.

I was talking to Eileen about an organ teacher in an Eastern school who was a “motherfucker” to a poor student auditioning. He began hissing and whisper in a stage whisper that the student was taking his Franck too slowly.

I have dozens of anecdotes about musicians like this. I wasn’t talking particularly loudly, but the group next to us got silent into their prayer just as I said “motherfucker” so and so.   Ahem.

Whippy skippy, I guess.

My patience with religious people and institutions is at a low right now.

I am however still interested in Calvin Hampton and the music that he composed and the music he was interested in like Franck.  I’m on page 72 (out of 307) of his biography and am enjoying it.

I’m waiting for Eileen to leave for work, then I’m going to the book sale at Hope and then over to church to practice organ. Trying not to think about the many tasks I need to do this week for my church job (prep for the instr ensemble reh and All Saints celebration, pick out some anthems for the choir for Advent and Xmas).

The ballet department chair called this morning about fifteen minutes before I would normally leave to walk to class to cancel. Cool.

So Eileen and I had a chance to have our breakfast together (hence the incident at the beginning of this post).

I also had a chance to finish my research for tomorrow’s election. I found my record of how I voted in 2008 along with results. Interesting and helpful. Many websites these days to visit for candidates.

My daughter, Sarah, and my son, David, both let me know they had bad dreams about me this week.

I dreamed about my dead Dad last night. We were in an airport and I was wondering out loud if he could get a discount for being dead.

Interesting to me that change seems to be such a driving issue in elections when at the same time one of the most difficult things for us in our daily lives is… ta dah: Change! Check out this very early TV ad. It’s only a minute but if you get to the end you hear:”It’s time for a change.”

1952 marked the first use of TV in presidential campaigns. The other side (the side that lost) ran this ad: I love Adlai, Madly.

I listened to On the Media’s program for this weekend. [link] The first segment features  Steven Dubner from NYT blog Freakonomics who says that the data say that Money in elections is not demonstrably decisive stastiscally. Other commentators on this show refine this a bit. Good show and worth a listen.

I woke up yesterday and played through Chaikowsky’s Autumn from his piano work, The Seasons.  [link to several free mp3s of entire work] This got me to thinking about other seasonal works. I went to this link to find a free mp3 of Vivaldi’s Fall. If you follow the link you will notice that it is incorrectly labeled.  There are two “sommers.” I think it’s the second one.

I also thought of Haydn’s the Seasons but couldn’t find a free mp3 online.  But I did find a Youtube video performance.

Finally, I took some pics of yesterday’s supper.

Then we made Jack-o’-lanterns which we  put outside on the stoop during trick or treating.

I sandwiched in bits of practice yesterday. Waiting for my Mom in Walgreens I managed to drive to my nearby church and  rehearse a bit of Bach and Sunday’s music.

Most of the day was running errands.  As per my instructions from the real estate people I called the utilities for my Mom’s house in Fenton to notify them of the sale yesterday.

In each case, they contradicted the real estate agents that the seller has to notify them (sooprise sooprise). I could have shut them off. But that seemed kind of creepy to the new owners. So I will call again in a week or so.

The triumph of the day for me yesterday was helping my Mom get an absentee ballot.

She gamely went to City Hall and filled out the forms and trundled out with one. This means she can vote easily. According to my research, she could have voted in Michigan without a picture I.D. She would have had to sign an affidavit in the presence of the election monitors that she has no I.D. I figure the people who staff these elections locally probably don’t know that and it would have meant another exhausting experience for Mom for me to accompany her and make sure she could vote next Tuesday.

Anyway, that little dealy is solved.

Apparently there is at least one car going from Holland to the Rally for Sanity in DC today as one of my Facebook “friends” mentioned he was dropping off his brother before they left. I “liked” it on Facdebook.

Yesterday I received my interlibrary loan copy of Calvin Hampton’s biography Calvin Hampton: A Musician Without Borders by Jonathan B. Hall. It is a blank looking white trade size paperback, the cover is covered by the paperwork from the interlibrary loan. It definitely has never been read before. The copyright was 2008 and it seems to represent a post-doctoral complete reworking of Hall’s dissertation.

I have read in it a bit this morning and it is well written and interesting. I haven’t decided if I will try to read this copy or purchase one of my own, yet.

I also have been examining organ music of composers new to me that I have interlibrary loaned.

I am quite enthusiastic about Pamela Decker’s composing judging from her Retablos volume.

I will definitely be purchasing and studying her music although it seems to long for use at church.

Jean Guillou has also caught my attention with his Colloque no. 2 : pour piano et orgue, opus 11 (1964). This work is interesting but again not sure how useful it would be. But I will be on the lookout for his music as well.

I continue to find the daily improvising of music for ballet class interesting. It’s like an essay in thinking about melody in a limited way. Can I make something beautiful but simple enough for dancers to easily know where they are in it? Can I transform the mundane rehearsal melody into something transiently attractive? I especially enjoy the use of silence with a roomful of dancers. By that I mean little holes I leave in the rhythm which seems to assist and encourage them to enter a bit more fully into the music and dance. Very satisfying.

And of course I learn tons from my little fly on the wall position at the keyboard. Yesterday I pricked up my ears (love that phrase) when the teacher asked the class why they dance. She was encouraging them to build connection with the audience into their rehearsal despite its absence in the studio. She was dealing with the question that performance arts need an audience. How is this idea incorporated into preparation of students?

She emphasized a bit of humble “look at me” stuff. This might work for that age and skill level. I tend to think more in terms of energy and an invitation to an emotional conversation with an audience. Maybe this is just how you think of it if you are an obscure church musician whose music is often missed by people in the same room.

I tend to think of my experiences in the coffee shop, recitals and on the street as better examples of connecting with listeners. Maybe this is because I’m more sure they want to be there.

However Donald Hall, Hampton’s biographer, has a nice phrase about church and Hampton’s attitude toward it. He has a childhood memory of Hampton as “gigantic, gentle child, safe and full of fun, acting on the assumption that church is a glorious game that everyone wins.”

He goes on: “It is that child’s Hampton—playful Halloween monster and custodian of the greatest toy every invented—that continues to guide my own search for meaning in a church too much in the control of grown-ups.”

I find this charming and insightful. I agree with him about the grown-ups. Heh.