I was thinking this morning that I have connections to people from many times and areas in my life on Facebook. Beginning with my high school, which I guess is not all that unusual. But I also have some from each of the universities I attended: Ohio Wesleyan, Wayne State and Notre Dame.  Colleagues since graduate school.

People from the Lutheran church I worked for a while. People from the church I work at now. Strangely no people from the Roman Catholic church where I worked for the longest locally here in Holland.

Quite a group of people I met as high school students here in Holland. Most if not of all of these are musicians. Several are musician I accompanied for Solo and Ensemble Festival.

I have at least one student from my teaching stint at Grand Valley State University.

Then there is family and extended family.  There are one or two I can’t place. Ahem. But most of my currently 135 friends on Facebook are easy for me to figure out how I am connected to them.

This contradicts the notion that I have had for a while that I am a bit of a hermit. I notice that Eileen and I have had a bit more social contact with people this summer. Interesting. I know I now value this thing much higher than I used. At least I’m more conscious of it.

I exhausted myself yesterday preparing blueberries and pesto for freezing.

I froze ten pounds of blueberries and about 5 cups of pesto (which was made from ten bunches of basil)

I also finished playing through Bach’s Goldberg Variations yesterday.

There are thirty variations. Bach suggested that one begin and end with the aria which is the theme. This makes a neat 32 sections.

Very musical number since the theme and (logically) most of the variations are made up of 32 measures representing four phrases of 8 measures.

Variations  3, 9, 21, 30 have 16 measures. And interestingly variation 16 which has its own 16 measure a la breve (cut time) “overture” then continues on with  32 measures of a 3/8 variation.

Bach liked numbers. Can you tell?

I’m not sure I have ever sat down and played straight through these before.  As I played through them, I observed Bach’s written repeats and repeated each section.

I guess in the last decade or so, I have consciously read all the way through works. I have played through both volumes of the Well Tempered Clavier of Bach. All of Hadyn’s piano sonatas. I am working my way through Scarlatti’s 500 Essercizi.  I just checked and I’m up to number 157 in volume four. I know I have played through the first half of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. I think I have also played through the second. But starting especially with Beethoven I have to take some of these very very slowly in order to play them since with Beethoven the keyboard technique starts to get quite involved.

At least it’s “involved” for me.

This all began years ago when I purchased my harpsichord kit. In the instructional manual, it suggested several volumes of harpsichord music one might want to own. One of these was the Dover edition of Bach’s suites and  inventions.

This volume also contains the Goldberg Variations. It is forty years later and I just finished playing through the Goldbergs using my second copy of this same edition.

When I first got the book,  much of the music was beyond me. I was mostly self taught at that point. Later I studied pieces found in this book (mostly but not all in better editions).

Recently it has occurred to me that many listeners aren’t too impressed with my playing abilities.

Granted comparing my playing to the people on most classical recordings is laughable.

I have a good solid under graduate piano technique. My harpsichord and organ technique is more advanced. This accurately reflects my years of study. Although my piano technique has improved quite a bit in my fifties. Practice is what does it.

But still I’m not the player that many pianists are. This is okay with me because I continue to improve. I know that I am among my own harshest critics, probably numero uno.  And I do see myself more as a composer and improviser than a piano technical wunderkind or even wunderoldguy.

Interestingly, Gyrogy Sebok, the renowned Hungarian pianist and pedagogist is quoted in Gyorgy Sebok: Words from a Master saying “Music is the cure for technique.”

However I think he was directing this thought to people who think a lot more about their piano technique than I do. They probably have more and actually block their playing a bit with too much thinking about it.

I read about this book on Susan Tomes excellent piano blog (link) and promptly ordered my own copy. I love books like this. It’s sort of like eavesdropping on a piano master class.

Susan Tomes has a blog worth reading. She is a pianist and writer. http://www.susantomes.com/

“What are you reading?” asked the banker, “What’s it about?”

“I hate to tell you it’s about the way money talk has so distorted public rhetoric since the 80s, that not only can’t we work at solving our societal problems we no longer have the language to talk to each other about them.”

Ill fairs the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village,

This couplet graces the cover of Tony Judt’s book, Ill Fares the Land. It was the book the banker was asking me about.

In it’s opening passage, Judt maintains that “pursuit of material self-interest” … “now constitutes whatever remains of our collective sense of purpose. We know what things cost, but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them.”

I find this sort of reasoning extremely attractive. Due probably in part to my own moral formation in the difficult simple words of the Christ of the first four books of the New Testament, I feel that any group of humans can be judged by how they provide for the weakest, how they address those of their group who are hungry and have no place to live. Even more importantly I feel that I am judged by how I live in accordance with these ideas.

It seems as though many people I listen to or hear expressing personal opinions on radio and tv live in an echo chamber of rumor and confusion. I make a point of paying attention to people I don’t agree with. I notice that over and over in the midst of conversation I hear ideas that are untrue repeated in good faith as though they were fact.

To me, this is the essence of self-examination: to bring one’s reason to bear on one’s beliefs and actions. We all have distorted ideas about our lives. We live within the prison of our own thoughts and language which themselves contain distortion.  It is the honest attempt to overcome our own quick judgments and misapprehensions that requires our constant attention.

I am reminded of a teacher I knew as a teenager. He said there was more truth and news in poetry than in the newspapers. Again I’m afraid I bought this simple difficult idea. I even extend it to my beloved art of music and sound.

But at the same time I do pay attention.

Right now I find so much of what passes for information dissemination and even sometimes conversation is posturing.  It reminds me so much of the story of the emperor with no clothes.

We all basically know that people who are standing in front of tv cameras and radio microphones are often repeating clever empty emotional diatribes. They create an echo chamber of nonsense where the truth does not obtain only the rumor and half truth. But we forget and act like what we are hearing and reading is real like the invisible clothes of the emperor in the story.

I have to remind myself silently that there are such things as true facts. A fact is either false or true. The relativism that the left and academia is sometimes accused of has permeated all sides of bad rhetorical conversation. And it is worth asking if something is wrong or right even if it is difficult to find an answer.

This brings me back to Judt and the banker.

He and I proceeded to dance into a tricky conversation about money and government in which we both believed we were being honest but careful. On the one hand even though he was speaking for the side of life that I myself do not give much credibility I tried to assume his good faith and honesty. He on his part seemed to be attempting to hear my words in a similar way even though it was obvious that we are coming at life a bit differently.

The way we live now (to borrow one of Judt’s chapter titles which is also the title of one of Anthony Trollope’s last novels)  is to react fast and angry to so many layers of misinformation and outright lies that it makes it difficult to have honest civil conversations, either in private or public.

As Judt work is maintaining we must learn to reach over these divides and ask the honest moral questions together as a society even if there are no easy answers.

Began this day reading and rereading Dylan Thomas’s “Author’s Prologue” to his Collected Poems. (link to poem)

I have read this poem many times. Each time phrases and images leap out at me off the page with beauty and strength. Dylan Thomas is really the poet who has led me through life. I have been reading him since my teens.

This time I was struck by the biblical metaphor of the poet as Noah who is building an ark of his work :

Look:
I build my bellowing ark
To the best of my love
As the flood begins,
Out of the fountainhead
Of fear rage red, manalive,

“Fountainhead of fear” is a good description of the United States right now.  People are afraid. My work (music, poetry) is my ark in the face of the fear nowhere near as artful as Thomas’s but still very precious to me.

Thomas continues later:

who
Hears, there, this fox light, my flood ship’
Clangour as I hew and smite
(A clash of anvils for me
Hubbub and fiddle, this tune
On a tongued puffball)
But animals thick as thieves

For me, Thomas is the Bach of words. This poem (apparently his last) in all its loveliness like a Bach fugue or canon exhibits this beauty in the midst of very strict structure. The first line of 102 rhymes with the last, the second with next to last and so on. One can only perceive this audibly as one approaches the center couplet.

Over the wound asleep
Sheep white hollow farms
To Wales in my  arms.
Hoo, there, in castle keep,

As a younger man, the structure dazzled me. At this point in my life, I see it as a liberating self-imposed discipline.

Last week in my lesson with my 80+ year old student, we agreed what a privilege it is to spend time in the presence of the master composers as we rehearse and perform their work. The same obtains with poets like Dylan Thomas.

I can’t help but hear Paul Simon singing:

I knew a man, his brain’s so small,
He couldn’t think of nothing at all,
Not the same as you and me.
He doesn’t dig poetry.
He’s so unhip that when you say Dylan,
He thinks you mean Dylan Thomas,
Whoever he was….

The man aint got no culture

From “A Simple Desultory Phillippic” by Paul Simon

[link to entire song lyric]

I’ve been too busy to blog. Also fighting some depression.

My brother asked me to help with the hymns he will insert in his installation service bulletin. He sent me the texts with several tunes his musician said the congregation would know. Asked for my recommendations.

I recommended some to him.  Then he said go ahead and put the tunes together with the words and make copies for the installation bulletin. This I just finished doing.

A “friend” on Facebook posted a “repost” about the Mosque being built near the World Trade Center site in New York. It was a typical fuck you to Muslims and how could they think of doing this… called it immoral… said they were planning to “inaugurate it” on the anniversary of Sept. 11.

I felt like I had to respond. So I said something like: FWI I find this offensive. It is intolerant and ill informed. This discussion is being enflamed by people not interested in the morality but in power and money and is just the sort of thing that is damaging our country right now.

I think she took her repost down after responding that she was sorry, she didn’t know. Presumably she didn’t know the one thing was false. Sheesh.

I think it’s important to respond civilly to people who are making outrageous comments on these social networking sites.

I think I have alienated people doing this. But not responding feels very much like being a good German and tacitly being complicit with the Nazis. And of course responding in anger feels like I am transforming into that which I abhor.  Tricky.

My trio rehearsal was canceled for today.  The only appointment I have is to go give a piano lesson later. I went to the dentist this morning. We discussed implants.  My teeth are in bad shape and I have gaps. (I know, I know, this is more than you, gentle reader, need or want to know) Implants are expensive. $4500 per. I am a candidate for three at the most. I also need two crowns ($2K each). I am seriously thinking of at least one implant. I have to visit a specialist who will determine if I am a candidate for this surgery. Bone structure, over all health and all that.

My dentist took an xray today and said that I looked like a possible candidate. I have an appointment with the specialist next month. Yikes.

I finished off Sara Miles’ book, Jesus Freaks, yesterday.

I don’t quite know what I think about reading this kind of spiritual book. I am, of course, doing it for work. But personally I found her first book only good in parts. This one was not as good as the first. She has the enthusiasm of the late convert and she is devastatingly honest. Both admirable. But Christians can make me so tired.

I think I am in sort of a low grade melancholy these days.  It’s probably good old self pity. Mostly I enjoy my life a great deal. I can’t avoid noticing that my values are so different from other people’s. But I do find people that I can agree with. My wife. My daughters. And people like Martha Nussbaum and Tony Judt.

I realized I am reading a book by each of these last two writers and they are confronting two faces of the same evil: a preoccupation with economics as the basic metaphor for life.

Nussbaum is addressing education

and Judt societal governance.

But from a critical eye on the overwhelmingly negative  impact monetary considerations have in their area. Nussbaum says we have quit teaching the arts and critical thinking because the reason to be educated is not to be a learner but to be an earner of money. Judt simply says that we not only cannot solve our societal problems of poverty, hunger and health care right now. We cannot even coherently talk about them. He wants to return to the language of what is fair, what is just.

Thank God for these two.

I dreamed I was editing recordings. All of the equipment was crammed into a beat up old car. I spent a good amount of my dream hooking up different pieces of equipment. I looked up and the sky was lit up with the purples and beautiful light that comes at dawn or dusk. I asked someone standing near me if night or day was coming. They laughed and said day.

I went into the house.  People were leaving as if from a party. I noticed my father wandering around in pajamas. This quite disturbed me. Not that he was in pajamas but that he was even present. “Begone!” I said to him. He quickly darted around the corner. “Gone, gone, gone, yes my sins are gone!” I sang to him to him.  This is part of an old Christian camp song. It seemed to work. He began to shrink into his pajamas like the wicked witch of the west in the movie of Wizard of Oz. It was then that I noticed there were two of him.

Sure enough both of them were shrinking into pajamas. They had been wearing different patterned pajamas.

I turned and Eileen seemed to be just arriving. It was then that I noticed her foot was in a cast. I immediately set about helping her with it. Then I woke up.

I did work on recordings yesterday. Added another recording to the gig page [August 5th Lemonjellos gig link]

Three books by the recently deceased Tony Judt arrived via interlibrary loan for me yesterday.

As in many cases, he came to my attention via his death. I read his essay, “Hannah Arendt and Evil” while I treadmilled yesterday (It’s in Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century. I put on the Band and it all seemed to fit together nicely.

Hannah Arendt intrigued me with her idea of the “banality” of evil.

While I have difficulty believing in a supreme being in quite the way most people claim to,  evil seems real to me. The fact that it can be expressed in the ordinary or “banal” also seems exactly right.

Some excellent thoughts from Judt’s essay:

“In various essays and later in The Human Condition and The Life of the Mind she [Arendt] argues that evil comes from a simple failure to think.”

“They [intellectuals affected & uprooted by the two World Wars such as Milosz and Camus] were all ‘chance survivors of a deluge,’ as she [Arendt] put it in a 1947 dedication to Jaspers, and wherever they ended up, in New York, Paris, or Rome, they were constrained, like Camus’s Sisyphus, to push the boulder of memory and understanding up thee thankless hill of public forgetting for the rest of their lives.”

Judt quotes Arendt: “she reflected that ‘even good and, at bottom, worthy people have, in our time, the most extraordinary fear about making judgments [Jupe note: she is referring her to what is sometimes called “cultural relativism”] This confusion about judgment can go hand in hand with fine and strong intelligence, just as good judgment can be found in those not remarkable for their intelligence’ “

Wow. Evil coming from a failure to think is a concept that draws me in quickly. I spend a good of time rubbing shoulders with people who seem non-reflective about who they are and the context of their own lives. I’m not sure this is so, but   I do know that it possibly represents not “evil people” but it suggests to me a deep and frightening abyss of negativity or the blank  absence of  embracing living as both frightening and engaging.  This abyss of apathy or blindness could easily be labeled “evil”.

And the idea of “pushing the boulder of memory and understanding up the thankless hill of public forgetting” also rings a bell in my life. I am constantly seeking context, both historical and person, that can help me understand.

The contrast between my own feeble quest for understanding and “public forgetting” does remind one of Sisyphus and Camus. And the metaphor of pushing a boulder seems to fit nicely my own interior struggle to make sense of much of life in the light of obtuseness and confusion in those around me.

But that’s just me.

Anyway, I like Judt. I started his masterwork, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 19445, just for giggles. It is a huge book and is talking about making historical since of most of the time I have been alive. I have some sense of history but these more recent times can be very confusing to me. I am hoping I can hang in there with this book long enough to learn a few things.

I’m still plugging away on Nussbaum’s Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Yesterday I read a passage where she quotes the Indian educator Tagore’s story, “The Parrot’s Training.”  Here’s a link to a decent translation of this story.

It begins:

“ONCE UPON A time there was a bird. It was ignorant. It sang all right, but never recited scriptures. It hopped pretty frequently, but lacked manners.

Said the Raja to himself: ‘Ignorance is costly in the long run. For fools consume as much food as their betters, and yet give nothing in return.’

He called his nephews to his presence and told them that the bird must have a sound schooling.

So they make a golden cage for the bird in which it eventually dies.

Nussbaum says this:

“Tagore hated every school he ever attended, and he left them all as quickly as possible. What he hated was rote learning and the treatment of the pupil as a passive vessel of received cultural values.”

Nussbaum is building an argument for the necessity of the literate imagination and cultivated critical thinking that grows out of the arts and philosophy. She is along with many others myself included troubled by the dominance of economic metaphor and thought in public rhetoric and the new educational theories.

On another note, I did spend quite a bit of time with Couperin and Bach at the keyboard yesterday. Finished playing the 3 part inventions and moved on to reading through the Goldberg Variations once again. This music is wonderful. I hate to sound quite so goofy and positive but it really is a privilege to be able to bask in it.

I do love the fact that the IMSLP web site has so many of the original editions of great composers like Couperin and Handel online for the perusing and copying. http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page

This is the kind of thing that I am thinking of when I start getting all enthusiastic about the Internet.

Yesterday I was playing in Brahms’s wonderful edition of Couperin that one can purchase from Dover. He retains Couperin’s own notes. Once in a while Couperin will refer to a page of his text, The Art of Harpsichord Playing (orginally L’art de toucher le Clavecin). Of course the modern edition that retains the French side by side with an English translation is not paginated like the original. But there it sits online. [link to its page on IMSLP] So I was able to look up the original page and find it in my edition. Cool beans.

Began my musical day with Bach’s F minor three part invention or sinfonia. This is such a lovely work in my opinion. I have been playing my way through the 2 and 3 part inventions like I do once in a while. I finished the evening last night playing through this one a couple of times. Then, I returned to it this morning. The motives in this are of the “sighing” affect. In this case it is a three note figure that can (with a little imagination) bring to mind a sigh as it skips up slightly from the first to second note then “sighs” back to the note in-between them.

This combined with minor and chromatic harmonies make it virtually certain that Bach heard this little study piece as a profound expression of longing, maybe even sorrow.  At least that’s how it seems to me.

Finished off playing the rest of these this morning. What excellent wonderful music! What a privilege to bask in this beauty and invention!

Okay, I get a little out of control about Bach. He has been with me most of my life. I’m not that great a player but I am a lover of music especially Bach’s and I love playing it.

So I figured out the CPE Bach thing. It just took a little reading in William Newman’s The Sonata in the Classic Era. He lists off CPE’s published Sonatas. The Sechs Sonaten fur Clavier mit veranderten Reprisen is the title of the first of three volumes that were published. The second two are referred to by their title of Fortsezung von Sechs Sonaten furs Clavier. Fortsezung seems to mean “continuation” or even “installment.” However it is only the first volume in which CPE does some interesting stuff with the themes by varying them when he repeats them.

I have played entire through the third volume (It came in the mail first) and can see that CPE is thinking form. This looks ahead to the work of the next generation (Mozart and Haydn) while still retaining his own flavor (that sort of in between stuff between his dad and the Classic composers).

It’s kind of cool music. But I do think it has drawn me back into the Baroque as well as reminded me of the Classical Period to follow.

Hence the playing through of the Bach. I am also thinking seriously of hitting Francois Couperin as well. I love this music.

I have been “friending” people like crazy from church and the local college this summer. The result is I have several teens and preteens on my friend list. Now I no longer feel as free to say “fuck” on Facebook. This probably pleases a couple of the more prudish adults who are my “friends’ there.

So when I ran across these lovely observations Christopher Hitchens’ memoir, Hitch 22, I realized I would only be able to share it here:

“I had expected the newly elected Labour government to withhold British support for this foul war [jupe note: Vietnam] (and the amazingly coarse and thuggish-looking American president who was prosecuting it)[jupe note: Nixon], and when this expectation was disappointed I began, along with many, many of my contemporaries, to experience a furious disillusionment with ‘conventional’ politics. A bit young to be so cynical and so superior, you may think. My reply is that you should fucking well have been there, and felt it for yourself.

Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, A Memoir

Hitchens of course transforms from a Marxist to whatever he is now (some kind of Atheist Neo-con Ex-pat living in the USA? Naw that’s not quite it.) Anyway his memoir is very interesting to me. He is bright and battered. I find his anger at Christianity pretty reasonable.. . and his description of his education seems sad to me as well as interesting.

Hey but what do I know?

I seem to be struggling with usual Monday morning self-doubt and melancholy.

Ah well. Even then,  my life remains good. I’m now sitting in the downtown coffee shop (Lemonjellos) that has allowed me to perform my music. I am across from my wife and I’m online.

Good stuff.

So I have been doing some thinking about good old CPE.

His book, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, has been on my shelf and in my hands ever since I started thinking about the actual performance practices of historical music.

But recently I ran across mention of  his Sechs sonaten furs clavier mit veranderten Reprisen. They sounded interesting so I interlibrary loaned a fancy copy of them. I liked them so much I decided to purchase them. I was willing to shell out the 50 bucks for the fancy edition. But, Sheetmusicplus.com told me it would take 4-5 weeks to get it in stock. Screw that. Instead I found a three volume edition from the 80s priced at about 10 bucks a volume. Cheaper and quicker.

Volume 3 arrived yesterday. Now I am confused. I can’t find the varied repetitions that were so obvious in the first few I looked at. Hmmm. But the music is quite delightful. I own the Dover volumes of CPE but the pieces in them have never really turned me on. They are too “jerky” for me for the most part. In them, CPE quickly moves from one idea and emotion to another in ways that don’t make sense to or attract me.

But these pieces are different. More unified. And he is obviously working his way toward the sonata form of Mozart, Haydn and even Beethoven.  I also wonder about the fact that there are actually about 18 sonatas in this volume even though the title of the work is Six Sonatas. Anyway, the second volume has arrived and I am hoping for the first one soon. I think when I have all the music I can do a little detective work and try and figure out what he is doing compositionally.

I’ll close today’s blog with a new pic I found on a friends blog.

I liked it so I’m using a cropped down version for my facebook profile pic for a while. Thanks for taking this, Jonny (link to his blog).

Spent over an hour with  my Mom’s bankers yesterday morning. We went through copious paperwork to remove my deceased father’s name off all assets.  I had dropped off a death certificate months ago, but apparently it takes a lot more than that to get these things in motion. This is due to the fact that investing and banking involves dealing with multiple institutions who hold the paper for various investments. But I think this is now cleared up.

Also had discussion with the bankers around moving my Mom’s money from a brokerage account to something less volatile.  I later emailed the fam the options and hopefully we will make a decision in the next few days about this.

Sigh.

I spent the rest of the day running around doing stuff.

Had to make two trips to my Mom’s place to get her signature on three different documents. Grocery shopped. Met with the person who is subbing for me while I visit my fam in California. Did both my Mom’s bills and Eileen’s and my bills. Managed to treadmill and grab some Chinese take out for Eileen and me. I had just sat down for the first time yesterday sipping a martini when Eileen arrived home from work. Whew.

I was amused recently speaking with an acquaintance. He and I see the world so differently. He believes in a Charismatic Christian way and at the same time is a remorseless believer in money. In the same conversation we disagreed about the afterlife and whether one should die broke or make sure one’s progeny are not pissed at you for getting rid of your money.

I of course am skeptical about the afterlife and also believe it is a good accomplishment to die with as few possessions as possible.

It interests me immensely that other people can hold the opposite convictions so strongly. My conversation partner (whom I am not naming on purpose) is part of a large rich family that routinely passes on money and property as part of the family legacy. So I guess it makes sense when you have received much of what you have as a gift from the group to return it when you’re done with it.

As for the afterlife question, I see that historically this idea has not helped Christianity live out what seems to me to be radical ideas that Jesus is talking about in the gospels. It makes sense to me that one would develop hope in something better if one’s life is miserable. This is Christianity historically in bad times. But in the USA right now, many of us have a very very good life. Also I really like St. Augustine’s idea of eternity is found in a mystical way in the present moment.

The fact is that no one knows what happens when one dies, but we do know that we have been given the gift of life. It seems like a good idea to me to try to live in the moment with integrity and compassion.

Jes sayin

I was thinking of my Mom’s father this morning. He was a hardscrabble W. Virginian who started out at the absolute bottom of the heap there and ended up making a good life for himself and the woman he loved. But he was a bit of a carouser as a young man. The family story is that he would go drinking and driving around with buddies in the perilous West Virginian mountains.

When I knew him, he was deeply religious though very reticent.  I was thinking of what he said to me once, “I’ve had my fun.” I wonder if he got religious as sort of a preparation for death or if he just calmed down or what. I wish I had had a chance to ask him this question.

Anyway, he was the kind of man that I think it was a privilege to know at all.

My favorite story about him was when he was dieing in the hospital. My grandmother seem to be taking the whole thing pretty personal and as usual was dominating the conversation and the moment.

Pop Jim who was in pain and if I remember correctly was receiving oxygen, looked up from behind his wife at the rest of us smiling slightly. He shook his head and made a little gesture with his hand as though it were a talking puppet as if to say “talk, talk, talk.”

Calm and witty to the end.

Started yesterday with a nice chat with my boss. I hate to sound so Pollyanna but what a pleasure it is to work for a sane boss.

I have continued working on recordings. I am posting them all on the Aug 5th gig page (link). But I will put each new one in posts so if anyone is reading and is interested they can track my progress.

The recording of Naked Boy is only an excerpt. This is partly because the recording was not too good at the beginning, but also because the ensemble wasn’t exactly together until about half way through the piece. In this excerpt the balance is still bad even though I have mixed it down a bit. Too much back-up vocal and too much snare drum. But it gives you an idea of what went on in this piece.

Link to mp3 of excerpt of performance of Naked Boy on Aug 5th at Lemonjellos

In yesterday’s post, I forgot to mention another book I have used in learning about recording:

I got up this morning and drafted a letter that I am planning to send to every member of my church. I am hoping it will be sort of a declaration of my philosophy and mention some new ideas I am going to try out. I will email it to my boss for her first critique. Eileen is reading it as I write.  Planning to do quite a bit of rewrite as I prepare this.

Today I meet with my Mom’s bankers to ask some questions about her dwindling Mutual Fund investment. Of course the market went haywire this week. It seems whenever I pay attention to my Mom’s money, the market goes bad. Yikes.

Later I meet with the person who will substitute for me at Grace church while I am in California. That should be fun.

Started reading The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan last night.

My grandson loves these so I thought I would see what they are all about. It is written in Young Adult style and so far seems to be pretty good.

I don’t get to talk to many people who are nine or ten years old, so I’m not that aware of this. But it looks like a bit of a craze.

And then there’s the movie that came out this past February.

I like the idea that the magic in the book represents the real history of Greek Gods. Very cool.

I’m planning to see my grandson at the end of this month when we fly away. I will be interested to learn more about what he likes about these books.

Spent some time attempting to edit the recordings from my recent gig last night.  I’m using a shareware software (Audacity) to do this. It seems like a good fit for my level of skills and understanding. In fact I’m in a bit over my head. I have done some reading and learning about the producing and editing process of recordings. It is an art. I have a couple of friends (Ray Hinkle and Jonathan Fegel) who know some things about this art.

But I’m working on this by myself right now. Ray has mentioned he may re-mix some of this stuff.  He has all the recordings (and my awful Zoom machine we used to make them..  ugh). He has passed them on to me. I would like to share some of this if anyone who reads this blog would like to hear what went on last Thursday.

I’m thinking mostly of my adult children, but really anyone.

The first piece we played was Secret Dakota Ring’s  “Fade to Black.” I don’t have permission to arrange and record it, so I am omitting this recording from online sharing. Link to video and free download of this song at the band’s website. I think it’s a great song and it worked well as an opener for us despite mixing problems.

The second piece was “Naked Boy.” There were some real problems with this one. The drummer could not hear my rhythm guitar which really set the beat and style for the piece. The back-up singer’s mike was way too loud. At one point I turned my back to the audience and faced the drummer behind me. After that things came together better.

The recording is problematic as well.  All of the recordings I have listened to so far are completely clipped. Which is to say they were recorded so loud that there is distortion in the recording. This is not too hard to edit. But there were only a few mikes picking up sound. So one cannot hear the bass well. Also the saxes (who really played pretty well all evening) were not miked so they are faint to inaudible at times.

I worked on Naked Boy and then gave up for the time being and moved on to the Mendelssohn Piano Trio. I split the recording into two parts. One is the listener’s guide I attempted by talking to the audience and having the trio play some themes.

The other is the piece itself.

Here are links to the mp3s:

explanation.mp3

trio.mp3

The sound of the violin and the cello were problematic. They were both miked and the piano is not. The timbre of the strings does not reflect at all what I heard that evening. It is strident and almost whiny in sound. I managed to find some ways to downplay this aspect of the recording, I think. If you think it sounds bad now, I should put up a bit of the unedited recording and you will see how I have improved it.

Interestingly, in both Naked Boy and the Mendelssohn trio, my own execution is not as bad as I remember it.  I have been thinking about my own competencies as a performer lately.  I compare myself with musicians who are only performers and have studied one instrument for six years in school and find myself approaching my instruments differently.  I am happy with my continual improvement technically on piano and organ.  Since around 2001, I have had much more time to practice these instruments and I can play them better.

I also think that I play with “heart.” That I can make convincing sounds in my performance. This is a goal. I can hear it on the Mendelssohn recording despite the inferior nature of the recording.

Which brings me to another unfair comparison I am sometimes tempted to make. Which is to compare my performing and recordings with professionally produced recordings.

The recordings themselves are always the result of the process as much as the performing skills of the musicians involved. By this I mean, that professional recordings are usually (unless they are live and that’s another story) a hodgepodge of many many separate takes. Errors are edited out. Errors that will occur in almost every live performance.

Improvements are made that are not present in the original sounds.  Also the classical musicians who make recordings are some of the finest who have ever lived. The level of competency at playing classically has in part skyrocketed in response to the development of recording. Again the response of music to recording is another story. But quite interesting and documented by some very fine books.

The classic one is Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music by Michael Chanan.

It was written in 1995. More recent is Mark Katz’s 2004 history:  Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music.

I have read both of these. They are a wealth of information. Finally, U of Albany prof, Albin J. Zak has written several books that inform the discussion of recording and recent history of music. I have read about half of The Poetics of Rock: Cutting Tracks, Making Records by him.

Besides many conversations and experiences with my friend, Jonathan Fegel, I have also done some reading in recording. Again there are fine books out there. The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook by Bobby Owsinski is one.

It is a compilation of discussions of mixing with many expert engineers.

All of these books were sitting on my shelf and I just walked over and made a stack as I referred to them.

Well, enough. I have to stop. I meet with my boss today at 8:30, then take Mom to the doctor. Ray is coming over at 1 to take measurements to help Eileen and me figure out how we can fix up the house a bit. I have to give a piano lesson at 2.  Full day. I would like to do a little mixing of recordings before I leave for work….

Some days I feel so numb that I don’t have much to write about. Hard to believe that talkative and exuberant jupe sometimes just wants to crawl in a hole. But it’s true.

My doctor’s appointment went well yesterday. Blood Pressure okay. Doctor satisfied with my exercise and diet approach.

Had lunch with lovely Mom and took her to shrink.

Managed to pick out prelude and postlude for Sunday sometime in there.

I am feeling a bit unmoored since my gig. The recordings have been a bit disconcerting to listen to. Still haven’t listened to them all the way through. They seem like evidence of my mediocrity as a performer. Like I need evidence.

But not as a writer. I still believe in my work, even though I can’t see much beyond occasionally performing it. It is a herculean task to get it from the page to sound.  Meanwhile I concentrate (weirdly) on making up stuff (composing). I have already been thinking of more things I want to write.

I got up this morning and wrote an article for Sunday’s bulletin about the hymns. This is a task I have been avoiding. It seems like I am drawn into my work at church and end up giving far too much to a part cheap valium 1000 time situation.  One of the things I am comfortable omitting is this little weekly article.

But judging from the way people talk to me about the music at church, most of the coherence in my musical choices are missed.  Making these connections explicit is what I do in the article (today’s sequence hymn is based on this passage in the gospel…. blah, blah, blah).

So I can choose between doing my work well and communicating with my community or only doing as much as I feel like the community is able to pay me to do. Fuck. I hate this choice.

I am playing my way (once again) through Bach’s 2 and 3 part inventions. These pieces are pretty wonderful in my book. I took an edition along yesterday and read it while waiting for my Mom. Reading introductions and taking the time to look at footnotes in pieces I know pretty well usually helps me understand them better.

I have a planning meeting today at church. Feeling a bit goofy since I haven’t really done much planning, but I guess this meeting is mostly about calendar.

Looks like it’s going to get sweltering again here today.  I turn on the AC at the last possible moment.  Right now it’s pretty cool.

Got up and made coffee, since Eileen mentioned that one can drink black coffee during a blood test fast. However, my own online reading contradicts this so I’m not have the coffee until after my morning doctor’s appointment.

Eileen and I watched a couple of authors on Book TV (C-Span) on Sunday.

I interlibrary loaned their books yesterday.

Probably won’t read them, but they will be fun to look at.  John Ross’s War on the Run: The Epic Story of Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America’s First Frontier sounded much more interesting than the title makes it sound. Rogers is a very interesting character who was arrested twice for spying and was responsible for the capture of Nathan Hale.  And I’ve always had a soft spot for the “Lost Colony of Roanoke,” so A Kingdom Strange by James Horn also sounds interesting.

Also reading “Performance, Analysis, and Musical Imagining” by Charles Fisk in College Music Symposium: Journal of the College Music Society, volume thirty-six 1996. I picked up several volumes of this journal at a sale somewhere. I like to read in scholarly journals. Usually the copies I get hold of are pristine. Hmmmm. I suspect few people outside of academia actually read this things. But I have actually subscribed to scholarly journals over the years and find them pretty interesting. Fisk uses Schumann piano pieces (which I teach and learn) to illustrate the connection between analysis and performance.

This is a vexing question for me. So far his insights are a bit nebulous, but still I do wonder about this question.

Read several chapters in Nussbaum’s Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities while treadmilling yesterday.

She makes a good critique of the international trend to base education on economic outcomes. She points out that economic indicators ignore a lot of the basic quality of life in societies.

“Never mind about distribution and social equality, never mind about the preconditions of stable democracy, never mind about the quality of race and gender relations, never mind about the improvement of other aspects of a human being’s quality of life that are not well linked to economic growth. (Empirical studies have by now shown that political liberty, health, and education are poorly correlated with growth)

Martha Nussbaum, Not For Profit

She goes on to point out that South Africa in the time of its most repressive regime showed up at the top of lists of countries who were thriving economically.

She outlines what is needed in education to keep democracy working: the imagining that comes from study of the arts and the teaching of critical thinking and decision making.  She stresses that imagination allows us to think ourselves into understanding those who are outside of our immediate experience. Good stuff.

Finished off reading a few more pages of Christopher Hitchens’ memoir, Hitch 22.

I find myself attracted to literate writers educated in the UK. Hitchens and the late Tony Judt were both young Marxists whose thought changed. Hitchens moves toward the conservative. Even though I abhor what is usually called conservative and find it an advocate of radical change more than conserving anything, I am interested in what these two writers have to say.

Judt wrote for the New York Review of Books which thankfully puts articles online so they may be read. (link to Judt’s article, “Meritocrats”)

Watching Google dance around tiered access reminds of the last days of free Napster. Grab access while you can afford it, I guess.

So just in case anyone who looks at my blog missed it, I am posting this youtube video from my gig last week.  Thanks again to Mary Benedict for posting this video.

It’s very weird to see one’s self in a video.

Kind of embarrassing. But I am proud of my writing and the only way my tunes get heard is if I play and sing them. This is not my first choice. But it is my only choice.

As I have pointed out before the chord progression for the verse of this song is identical to Gillian Welch’s “Look at Miss Ohio.”

It’s not a unique chord progression, but “Look at Miss Ohio” was on my playlist when I wrote my own song. I didn’t steal consciously. But it does seem to be lifted from the other song. Ahem.  My friend, Jonathan Fegel, convinced me not to trash the song entirely.  So I continue to perform it.

Church was a bit odd yesterday.  I walked over in the pouring rain. I love rain. I arrived soaked even though I used an umbrella. After rehearsing my bass player and rhythm player, I sat down to play Bach’s Wachet Auf as a prelude. I should have written an article explaining why I did organ music on the hymn, “Sleepers Wake.” It seemed obvious to me, but at coffee afterwards, one of the more connected parishioners told me that she was sure there was a reason I was doing Advent music in August.

I’m not sure she understood why, however. FWIW the gospel reading yesterday has this passage in it:

“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. from Luke 12

So the image of waiting for the Bridegroom is present in the hymn. Whippy skippy. That’s the deal.

Anyway, the piece that Bach pulled from his own cantata and arranged for organ based on the hymn, “Sleepers Wake,” is not all that easy for me. It’s not terribly hard but requires some prep for this player. In between working on my gig last week, I did rehearse this piece. Yesterday I started out and things immediately began going wrong. Yikes! The beginning is the easy part of this piece. When I got to the tricky sections, I was amused that they went without a hitch. Figures.

The congregation was not in the mood to sing at all. Not only did they not sing familiar hymns, I couldn’t pull them in on the lovely African American slave song, “Better be ready.” As my boss said afterwards, “I guess they weren’t ready.”

In the afternoon, I received a phone call from my bud Ray Hinkle who was working on trying to get my digital recorder to work. He used it to record my rehearsal and performance last week. After a bit of chatting we figured out a few things he could do to make the dang thing work. It was a miracle. I tend to relearn all the little techie things it takes to get hardware and software to do what I want it to do in a kind of intuitive way. I am lousy at remembering just what I do to make things work. Yesterday I was trying to do this from a remote location. I was amazed when we figured it out.

Ray got to work and sent me the recordings after I had turned in last night. I see them this morning and haven’t had the courage yet to listen to them. I will share soon, if anyone is interested.

Eileen and I dropped in on my Mom yesterday. She seemed to be in the mood for company so Eileen hung around while I went home and treadmilled (and chatted with Ray on the phone). When I picked her up, we took advantage of Holland’s new lack of blue laws and went and bought gin (martini fixings for me and squirt for Eileen). I haven’t been keeping gin in the house, so it was a bit unusual for us.  We came home and relaxed and had drinks. Life is good.

This week I have a lot of things on the schedule. Paramount is getting my church planning off the ground. Also I have multiple doctors appointments (one for myself and two for my Mom).

I think I am beginning to recover from last week’s gig. Whew.

Yesterday, Eileen and I drove to Mears, Michigan for the annual Hatch get-together.

I was still a bit punchy from the gig this week.  Fortunately, this event is very low key for me.

After eating, I picked up the camera and starting taking pictures.  By the time I got around to it, several of the people I would have photographed had already left.

But I did get some good shots.

Later after getting home and treadmilling I put up family pics on Facebook.

I thought I would include some of the ones I liked here, including ones that didn’t make the cut for Facebook.

Eileen’s Mom is doing well. She seemed to be having a good time. Above she is giving Eileen little scrubber things she makes. Eileen then gives them to me to use. Heh.

Eileen and her sister Nancy tried to look at pics on Nancy’s laptop.

Meanwhile, I do like taking pictures.

Yesterday I was in a daze for most of the day.  Spent quite a bit of time with Scarlatti keyboard Essercizi (sonatas). Some time back I purchased the complete eleven volume edition of these pieces from my my former teacher, Craig Cramer.  His handwritten  notes are all over each piece. So that’s fun.  And these pieces have long been favorites of mine. They are charming and unique and I love to play through them.

After a performance such as last Thursday night, it feels like all of my nerves are on the outside of my body. I basically want to crawl in a hole somewhere. I think this is the introvert in me to whom I have done violence with my public performance. At any rate it wasn’t just emotional, I was exhausted and sore.

But I’m feeling much better today.

It looks like there might be recordings from this gig. My friend Ray Hinkle was trying to cover the bases on making a record of our rehearsal and performance.  His hands were tied by my poor equipment and the amateur mix of the sound people at Lemonjellos. Nevertheless I have trepidation about as well as interest in  these recordings.

My fears come from their accurate reflection of my own poor performance. I shudder to think about many moments of my playing and especially singing Thursday night. This is still the hangover of the experience. But of course I am egotistically intrigued as well. And I would love to have something to share with people who weren’t present for these events.

Watch this space for further developments as Ray and I examine the recordings and make them available.

I managed to pick hymns for two Sundays yesterday in my post gig haze. Also dragged myself to the church, unloaded some borrowed stands and rehearsed Sunday’s prelude and postlude.

Daughter Elizabeth called last night to touch base. It’s always  great to hear her voice and reports about how life is going for her.

Today we’re off to the annual Hatch family reunion. Life goes on.

Here’s a few links:

My quasi-son-in-law Jeremy (Elizabeth’s partner) shared the link to a viral video of a concerned brother of an attempted rape victim who expresses himself in such pure musical hip-hop language that subsequent mixes are a gas.

Link to original TV report

Link to hilarious mash-up/mix.

Must read link: Hiroshima and the Outrage by Kenzaburo Oe Oped NYT

online streams of BBC Proms (an annual music festival in the UK) recordings (All highly recommended)…..link to just one of them with Mozart piano concerto, Ligetti and Ravel

It’s been an intense couple of days for me culminating in last night’s performance. This morning I feel drained and exhausted. Wednesday night’s rehearsal with the musicians who played for me was fun and satisfying. So was the performance last night.

This morning I’m feeling like I should have publicized this performance better. Attendance was low as usual (the door was $3 a head and we made $60. I’m pretty sure the owner threw in some extra bucks. He offered to pay for the piano rental which was around $150 but I wouldn’t let him). The playing was good and the energy was high and the small audience present was enthusiastic and engaged.

It was satisfying to air out this music in public. My piano trio played for the first time in public. The piano that the piano tuner rented me was much better than last time. In fact, I wish that the piano at church was as good as this piano.  The piano tuner himself showed up and seemed surprised and pleased by what we played.

I pushed the timing because I was afraid I would not have time for everything. As it was we finished very early. If I had known what time it was I would have called an intermission.  But I couldn’t see a clock so I just kept pounding out the tunes.

It did help me tremendously to have several pieces where I didn’t play. My oboe sonatina sounded very cool on piano and sax as ably played by the illustrious Jennifer Wolfe and Jordan VanHemert.  It was gratifying to have my friend Dawn play a Bach unaccompanied cello suite movement for us. These pieces were back to back in the second half and I did find myself getting my second wind while they played.

The high point for me had to be rehearsing and conducting my little piece, “Dead Man’s Pants.” The audience (and musicians) insisted that I tell the story behind this piece last night. I only explained the title. (I was even wearing pants of the dead man who was my father) There was a lot in this piece that I couldn’t talk about quickly and easily.

It was actually a bit of a composite of sketches from the past year. The “Dead Man’s Pants” theme; the “Small Rain” trio theme, the “Tiny Lies” banjo song with string accompaniment and last but not the least the concluding jerky little tune, “You must be the animal.”

With one serious rehearsal before the performance this piece was just difficult enough that all the players had to focus a bit to get through it and play it well. It really helped that the pianist, Jennifer Wolfe,  was solid as a rock in her playing and understanding of the piece.

The sound people that Lemonjellos insists on providing continue to be a bit uneducated in their understanding of miking and mixing. This always detracts a bit. This has frustrated more than one of the people who have helped me with trying to reproduce the sound well. Last night was no exception and found us scrambling to help them come up with enough mikes and making it through mixing the evening.  As it was, I suspect (but do not know) that the mix was acceptable from the audience point of view. The musicians themselves however could not hear each other. This is not unusual but nevertheless is always a challenge.

Playing at this local club does bring home to me that good music in and of itself does not seem to be enough to draw people in.  Good presentation (sound reproduction) and publicity remain critical and two of my failings. Though my style as a person and music is to lead with content it is often trumped by misperceptions, especially in this little W. Michigan town.  But I do find it satisfying that I connect with those who choose to play with me and listen to my work. Once again I realize that I do music primarily to live in the moment of doing it.

Some of my lyrics from last night:

You must be the animal with the human face.
You must be the animal with the human face.
You must be the human with the animal face.

I keep counting the ways, the ways we went wrong.
Troubles today can’t be healed by a song.

For some reason I sing anyway.

After two days of time free of appointments, I plunge into two days of activities today. I have church stuff all day. I meet with the boss and the children’s choir director (who is also performing in my gig this week) today. Also there is a joint meeting of the Pastoral Council and the Worship Committee. This evening is a rehearsal with all players (hopefully) for tomorrow night. Tomorrow I have a morning meeting with my boss, an afternoon rehearsal with the trio and an evening performance. Right now everything looks pretty good for all this stuff.

I have been spending the necessary time with piano part of the Mendelssohn trio to do everything I can to be prepared for tomorrow night. Also rehearsing my other parts (mostly playing and singing) as well. I am planning on working on the Mendelssohn this morning before my meeting. I also went over saxophone parts and re-issued what I hope are parts adjusted to reflect the ranges of the alto and tenor saxophone. If I have time I want to go over the rest of these parts before this evening.

In the meantime I have been reading.

This is the assigned reading for today’s combined Church committee meetings. I’m not quite done with it, but I think I have the  gist of the book. Sara Miles is a writer of clear prose that has discovered  radical Christianity late in life. This is her second book about her experience.

I’m sort of enjoying it but would never read it unless assigned to do so.  I am conscientiously marking passages I think might be pertinent to my community’s understanding of radical Christianity.  I’m a bit leery of just how far idealism will drag us in.  My church has established a once a month food distribution. Sara Mile’s first book, Take this Bread, probably helped with this.

But at my last meeting with my boss, I rehearsed a litany of how our worship still falls short of serving this community in this time and this place. Stuff like body posture in worship, parsimonious distribution of Eucharist, and other perfunctory mistakes that take us further from being real together. I know it breaks her heart. But she is in the driver’s seat and wisely moves slowly. Sometimes it’s so slow that I have to adjust my attitude in order to be constructive. That’s what I told her last week. I have had an attitude adjustment. We’ll see how effective it has been after today’s two meetings. Ahem.

This is Nussbaum’s latest. I interlibrary-loaned it. I read the first chapter last night. She is a philosopher I have read in the past.

I went and pulled this off the shelf and discovered I quit reading about half way through. I do that sometimes.

Basically Nussbaum advocates the thoroughly educated, critical thinking citizen as basic to the function of democracy and the living of life in general. I couldn’t agree more. She teaches at the University of Chicago.

I have been reading in my Classics of Western Spirituality edition of selected writings of St. John of the Cross. I have read several books in this series including the one by and about George Herbert and the one on Quaker Spirituality.

Somehow my spiritual side has become more obviously active lately. I think that as an artist (musician, poet, whatever) I am never far from this stuff. Sometimes the many forms brain-dead Christianity takes leads to me to renounce Christianity and faith in God just to clear my own thinking of the garbage in the public discourse.

But I have never renounced the basic radical stuff. In fact it is constituent to my understanding of myself.

I have been drawn back to San Juan de la Cruz and Thomas Merton because I have been wondering about the “dark night of the soul” as a path to meaning in life. Specifically my own life.

This leads me to my last book for the day.

Christopher Hitchens is one of several public atheist types that attract me. I’m attracted to them through the lens of the madness of being alive at this time in history and also the lens of writers I have read and learned from like Merton, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard.

This is Hitchen’s autobiography and so far I love the prose and the stories. His politics is one I sometimes find reactionary but still interesting. Any friend and colleague of  the late Edward Said and Martin Amis can’t be all bad.

I do find that many English writers seem to be more erudite and literate than American writers. This attracts me.

I abhor the kind of nationalism that enshrines one country or tribe over others. But I do believe strongly in citizenship as a privilege and duty.

If one believes in the common society and one knows what a privilege it is to be living in America right now (as I do in both cases), it doesn’t seem like too much to ask to do a little poking around and decide who or what you should vote vote and then get off your butt and go do it..

Just my opinion of course.

I had a good day yesterday. I did practice Mendelssohn on and off all day. I learn something everyday about my piano technique and the music I am rehearsing.

In face I have already put in a few enlightening minutes this morning on a passage in this piece.

I probably spent more time and energy cleaning house. I went out and bought three more bookshelves. Made a trip to the local thrift shop to drop off stuff.

After supper with Eileen I came home and went entirely through my playing portions of my Thursday gig. I like to do this when the gig is coming up. It not only rehearses the piece but rehearses the stamina and memory.

Then I treadmilled. All in all another good day.

Ray asked about St. John of the Cross’s use of the word “nothing.”  I think my own understanding of the gratuitous nature of being alive and finding joy in life and music (the arts) that is lived in the moment is influenced if not originally formed by Christian mystical thinking.

Just this last Sunday the readings were a passage I like quite a bit. It’s the story of the man who tore down his barns to build bigger barns. Jesus tells his disciples has just told his disciples to guard against greed and that life is more than possessions.

The man who built bigger barns says to his soul:

And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

This is the end of the reading from Sunday but the 12th chapter of Luke goes on:

He said to (his) disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life and what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Notice the ravens: they do not sow or reap;

they have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them. How much more important are you than birds! Can any of you by worrying add a moment to your lifespan? If even the smallest things are beyond your control, why are you anxious about the rest? Notice how the flowers grow.

They do not toil or spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass in the field that grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?As for you, do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not worry anymore.All the nations of the world seek for these things, and your Father knows that you need them.Instead, seek his kingdom, and these other things will be given you besides. Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.Sell your belongings and give alms. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

I can’t believe I’m putting up Bible verses on my blog, but I think that my whole life philosophy (one that can easily understand and partially embrace the “nothing” of St. John of the Cross) grows largely out of naively hearing the stories like the one above and then retaining this most radical idea: “Don’t worry. Don’t worry about things that really don’t matter. And as the saying goes, most of it doesn’t matter.

Here endeth the lesson.

Recently I ran across the phrase, “The dark night of the soul.” It was being used to refer to being forlorn and alone and forsaken. Then finding a way back to yourself and life. Sort of the quintessential conversion experience. This is the conversion experience I find easiest to believe. The experience of the reformed addict or grief stricken person (to name a couple of examples).

I realized that I didn’t understand this phrase in this way. And that the reason was the Spanish mystic, San Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross).

So I pulled out an old Classics of Western Spirituality edition of St. John of the Cross and began reading. I remembered reading some of his poetry and essays in my past. And I also remembered a different understanding of the phrase, “dark night of the soul.” One that finds not nihilism in the dark night, but a mystical redemption.

Sure enough there it was. The “dark night” seems to be an embrace of the monastic renunciation of not only life’s details and cares but also an embrace of nothingness that ends in an “ascent of the soul” to use San Juan’s phrase translated into English.  Completely different from latter day nihilism.

I don’t think I was aware of St. John’s actual connection to St. Theresa of Avila who is another mystic I have read. I also think that I found similar stuff in the writings of my hero, Thomas Merton.

San Juan de la Cruz used to give novices copies of his picture of the “ascent of Mont Carmel.” There you can clearly see his positive embrace of nothingness.

Lower right hand corner: “To reach satisfaction in all desire satisfaction in nothing. To come to the knowledge of all desire the knowledge of nothing.. ” and so on. In the center you can read a series: “nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing and even on the Mount nothing.”

This sounds very Zen to me.

For years I pursued a sort of lay monastic spirituality. I prayed my office and read many books including Merton and much of St. Benedict’s work.  I’m not exactly sure how this stopped, but stop it did.

I guess I began to realize that I needed to connect to life in a different way.  A more honest way.

But the lessons I learned from my years of praying the psalms and reading the saints is still in my soul however sheepish I am about Christianity and its mindless current incarnations.

I retain as much of its wisdom as I can while ducking out on the usual verbalizations. This is how I became closer to atheism.

Truly I think I am agnostic.  This is probably as close as I can get to belief.

Also like San Jan de la Cruz I didn’t renounce this stuff. Rather I lived through it. Now somehow it’s part of me.

I realize this when I read this recently in Merton:

-“The monk is not defined by his task, his usefulness. In a certain sense he is supposed to be ‘useless’ because his mission is not to DO this or that job but to BE a man of God. He does not live in order to exercise a specific function: his business is life itself.  This means that monasticism aims at the cultivation of a certain quality of life, a level of awareness, a depth of consciousness, an area of transcendence and adoration….”

Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action

I know that I think much more about being than doing and more about doing than reflecting. I think this is something I learned from the mystics, Christian and otherwise.

It frustrates and amuses me to see myself drawn back into a conscious relationship with Christianity.

I think I am a “generalist,” “a jack of all trades, master of none.” I am interested in the “big picture” and like to brainstorm ideas that connect stuff in ways I haven’t thought of.

I am thinking about this because once again I am putting myself on the line with a bit of classical performance this week. I am a trained organist, harpsichordist and pianist. Of these three I have had the least formal training on piano.

I trace my training to the two or three years I spent with Richard Strasburg at Ohio Weslyan. I moved there with my first wife and son to study composition. I studied piano to make the entrance exams.

Strasburg was a student of Rosina Lhevinne. His pedagogy was impeccable and engaging. I have spent the many years since applying what he taught me in those few years. I have had much more training on organ and harpsichord.

So of course this week I am playing a piano part to the Mendelssohn trio that has been challenging to learn.

Last year I gave an organ recital that stretched me, learning new material that wasn’t easy for me.

I like doing this. I like taking the risk and reaching for an exciting performance.

And I have loved working with two good string players.  My trio meets about once a week and we have developed a good beginning at ensemble. It’s time to air it.

This kind of performing is a lot like walking a tight rope for me.

I can do it. But I have to keep my balance and focus. My teacher, Craig Cramer, who is a world renowned performer, told me once that every time he plays in public he “goes up against the wall.”

He has tons more technique than I do, but I do the same thing especially with difficult (for me) classical music.

I said I was a generalist. By this I mean that I love doing music in many ways. I love composing. I love improvising. I love the Baroque harpsichord literature and can probably play this stuff better than anything else I do.  I love piano music and play through and rehearse it constantly. I love playing the organ. I don’t love all the literature that most classical organists love. I mostly like th organ music of tthe Baroque, pre-Baroque and some of the music written in the last 5 or 6 decades (with an emphasis on dissonant music and more recent new and original music).

I also enjoy church work. I could take it or leave it, but it has provided me with a living in my life. I am interested in hymnody and I passionately love spirituals and gospel.

I compare this to musicians I have known who seem to have a highly specialized approach to their love of music and any one area of my many interests could (and does) provide them with enough for a lifetime.

But like I say, I’m a generalist. And I like being a generalist. I like the insights that hit me from this perspective. Like the relationship of jazz theory pedagogy to the many incarnations of classical music theory pedagogy.

Being a generalist is common (I think) in composers. When I examine historical music (mostly but not all classical), I can see the wide influences that are present in the works of master composers like Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart.

It’s like the novelists who attract me. They bring a wide perspective and sense of the world and living to the story. This enlarges me as I read it and I gain perspective and satisfaction and am challenged.

But enough about me. Ahem.