For me the web is the worlds biggest reference library and interesting conversation. If you can think of it, chances are there’s more on it on the web.

Of course one has to use one’s brains. It’s a changing environment. I am most frustrated not by what is missing but by what is blocked to the average user. I think access is the first step in connecting on the web. If you restrict access, my guess is you lose readers/listeners/viewers.

The NYT and I have a little story like that. For years I subscribed to the NYT. Recently I thought I wanted to try what it would be like to be paperless. So I switched my subscription to the library where my wife works. That way I could see what it would be like to only have online access and at the same time give patrons access to the NYT. The director and I have a difference of opinion about the NYT. I think it is a basic ingredient of a good library. She doesn’t. But she was kind enough to allow me to donate my copy to her library.

After a year or so, I realized that accessing the NYT online was working for me. So I told the director that I was going to have to stop donating the paper. I called the NYT and tried to switch my subscription to a paid online subscription. The operators could not help me easily. I had to wait until my cancellation went through and then resubscribe.

The problem is that when I tried to resubscribe using my same email address, it wouldn’t let me go paperless. It would only let me resubscribe to the same set-up I had been using, that is receiving the hard copy of the paper and getting access online access at the same time.

I didn’t go back to that. Instead I have been availing myself of reading the NYT (and tons of other news sites) online.

Now I read that next year the NYT is going to start restricting online access like the Wall Street Journal (this is the paper my library director believes in and reads). I keep feeling slightly guilty for not paying for the content of the NYT which is something I value very much (like when I can’t afford to pledge to NPR) I have even come close to picking up the phone and calling the NYT and finding out if they have gotten a bit more sophisticated and would allow me to easily subscribe online (only online). I will probably do this before they go restricted, but if not I will attempt to become an online subscriber then.

All of this is to say that many seem to approach the potential of distributing content information and soliciting intelligent and helpful commentary online with a great deal of misunderstanding and confusion.

This also brings me to today’s links I want to share.

First of all there’s Derek Sivers. This man founded CD Baby which is a good example of how to make sense of distribution and connection online.

He recently sold the business (I mentioned him yesterday) and simplified his life. His online presence is fascinating and instructive. I have bookmarked his blog (link to http://sivers.org/blog)

This morning I woke up thinking about his description of his first epiphany around music and learning ( http://sivers.org/kimo) He tells how he answered an ad that promised to teach him music basics quickly. The person he meets has a huge impact on his life and teaches him quickly. I woke up thinking about the actual first lesson in which the teacher, Kimo Williams, taught Derek the jazz tritone substitution chords.

I have my reservations about jazz. I think it is mostly music of the past. For me music of the past is important but I think that it’s not to be emphasized over music of the present. I think a balance is important. I see young minds entranced with jazz and I am impressed with the evolving pedagogy of teaching jazz. But I have to ask the question about what it means in this moment besides preserving and commenting on it (like Hesse’s Glass Bead Game which is actually sort of a symbol of academic sterility).

But I am fascinated by how any music works. And that’s what Kimo points the young Derek to.

So this morning I got up and played my jazz tritone substition chord progression in all keys probably much like Kimo Williams showed Derek Sivers in that first formative lesson.

I also liked Sivers blog entry, “Valuable to Others or Only to You” http://sivers.org/starving-artist

He puts out some real wisdom here and gives two viable options to people who see themselves as starving artists.

Besides Sivers here are a few more quick links

In the new New York, Anil Gawande, a surgeon who writes brilliantly, discusses end of life care issues. I later found out that he is the same man pushing the checklist that if followed by hospitals saves lives with common sense. Links: Letting Go: What should medicine do when it can’t save your life? & link to a pdf of a hospital check list

good paragraph from the article:

“The simple view is that medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, its most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And, in a war that you cannot win, you don’t want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don’t want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knew how to fight for territory when he could and how to surrender when he couldn’t, someone who understood that the damage is greatest if all you do is fight to the bitter end.”

Just for giggles, here’s a link to a bitterly sexist condescending article in Woman’s Day mag about being a Husband Whisperer.

And, Susan Tomes is a musician who is a writer and blogs. I read her pretty regularly: http://www.susantomes.com/

I had a busy productive day yesterday. Met with  my boss Jen at 8:30 for our first meeting in a while since she’s been on vacation.  Every time I meet with her I remember how lucky I am to have her for a boss. Her calm presence and easy-going sense of humor are a godsend. And she does value my contribution.  What a difference a decent boss makes to the gig!

After that I drove to Zeeland and rehearsed with Roman the drummer and Nate the bass player. I had in mind working on some refinements in how we play together. This is tricky because once again I am attempting collaboration in a tricky arena. These two men are young and are probably more used to older people basically teaching and directing them. They seem to be just beginning to understand what they themselves actually have to contribute artistically.

I would say that this worked pretty well yesterday with these two.  In our rehearsal as I underlined how much I valued their skills I mentioned the idea that bass players and drummers often can create exciting music if they listen closely to each other and play in “ensemble.” “Ensemble” is kind of classical music talk for finding each other in the music with precision and grace. I talked this way because both of these musicians are classically trained.

Roman is pursuing a career in Music Therapy and starts at GRCC in the fall. A very interesting choice.  We had a good conversation around the power music has in people’s lives. Nate mentioned that he is arranging the Elton John tune, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” for orchestra. I had to confess that I was a bar musician when this song came out and I and another singer did the male/female duet at several gigs. Both of these people are a bit younger that I was thinking they were: Nate is fifteen (this means he was probably fourteen when he played with me last time at Lemonjellos!) and Roman is seventeen.

I found working them yesterday to be informative and exciting. And I greatly enjoyed having lunch with them, especially the conversation. God is good!

After lunch I met with my three string players: Amy on violin, Laurie on viola and Dawn on cello.  We went over the string parts for the songs for next Thursday’s gig. They found an error in the tempo markings in “Dead Man’s Pants.” (At one point I double timed without marking it in the score. Easy to fix. And I am grateful that they helped me figure it out.)

I can feel the positive energy gathering around this upcoming gig and I am curious how it will come off.  The process of learning music and working towards its performance is for me most of the satisfaction. In the performance itself I try to put myself in a space of positive communicative energy. This means I am less distracted or even concerned by imperfections. In my experience (both as a listener and performer)  imperfections are always present in a live performance. They are part of the territory.

Recently I sat next to the sound booth at a performance of the Grand Rapids symphony with the vocal group Spectrum. They did an excellent Motown cover show. I was especially impressed with their drummer and bass player and mentioned them as an example of playing together to Roman and Nate. There seemed to be two  sound engineers for the symphony’s mix board and one for Spectrum.

I have been thinking quite a bit about how recording (and also live mixing) has shaped the last hundred years and continues to shape how we all think and perceive music.

The Motown show started off with a symphonic piece beginning in the brass.  The mikes were not working. So as a listener you could hear the actual distant sounds of the high brass. All three sound people were scrambling around and yelling at each other. It actually took them several pieces into the night before I had the sense that the mix was under control. It’s a complicated thing mixing for that many musicians even when you know what you’re doing.

I found this oddly reassuring. Imperfections exist in this kind of situation. I recalled that when I played with the symphony we did an afternoon concert in a school auditorium. I had to play the organ part (to Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra) on a synth. The sound was coming through the mix board and the PA in the room. I had a little volume knob myself that I could control but I told the sound man I would rely on him to balance me with the orchestra. My fear was that I could quickly drown them out or misbalance from my vantage.

We had no sound check. We had no balance run through or anything. We  just went in cold and performed.

The sound guy did not turn me up as promised. Consequently there were some sections where the conductor looked at me oddly because he couldn’t hear me. I was not sure enough of the actual balance to turn up.

Later I wondered if they held me responsible for this inability to balance properly without a soundcheck or feedback of hearing what I was I doing. I suspect they figured I screwed it up and the sound guy at the very least stayed quiet about it.

Anyway, they never asked me back to do any more fill-in as an organ and harpsichord substitute player (this is what I was doing with the GR symphony). This is probably unrelated but one never knows.

So today I’m taking a bit of down time. It’s been an intense week and next week will be busy, but the intensity is actual lessening a bit as my performance nears.  I will certainly bear down on practicing, but that is sheer pleasure. As I hope the final rehearsal and performance will be. They usually are a time of culmination of the process and thereby a different atmosphere. Amy the violinist  mentioned yesterday that she was feeling a slight sense of sadness that soon preparation for this gig will be over.  She has mentioned that she has enjoyed doing some of my (ahem) unusual compositions.

I have noticed that the support I am receiving back from these musicians is very satisfying to me. Nate the bass player was mentioning songs of mine that he really likes. That he especially likes the words.  It made me smile to hear him say how he likes my song, “Moneyland,” because it “sticks it to the man.” (he said it sarcastically of course…. but still I was flattered).

I received a very interesting email from a man named Derek Sivers which sort of relates here.  He is the founder of CD Baby which is an organization I have always admired. He has recently sold this business and simplified his life in an admirable way (read the very interesting reasons why http://sivers.org/trust ) The email seemed to be a customized mass mailing his new projects with links.

Very interesting stuff:
MusicThoughts: inspiring quotes about music
http://musicthoughts.com/c/3fCLW

MuckWork: assistants to do your dirty work
http://muckwork.com/c/3fCLW

Derek Sivers: my personal site, with articles
http://sivers.org/c/3fCLW

SongTest: a free, open song contest
http://songtest.com/c/3fCLW

I followed the link to why he sold CD Baby and found some excellent blog entries. I like this guy’s style quite a bit….  He has lots of good insight and advice on what’s possible in music and life.  I will probably check all of this out further.  He has me thinking about getting rid of stuff in my life (as he and his wife apparently did) and also feeling pretty good about how I approach my music and my life……

I settled down to pick organ music for this Sunday at the computer. Usually I just use the hymnal software to determine the hymn tune names. This is necessary because we use four Episcopalian volumes of hymns. Then I consult the card index to my organ music which I have built up over the years. This usually tells me what pieces I have based on the tunes. I discovered that last Sunday was the end of my current planning and that there were no hymns picked for this Sunday. Yikes!

I was due to pick up my Mom to take her to the shrink and to lunch in about 35 minutes. I quickly chose hymns. Actually there’s no “quickly” about it. I use an index that is cross related to the church year. This is an excellent resource and usually has some good choices. I also consult the online lectionary to make sure I can see correlations between the texts and the readings.

I picked hymns and emailed them off to my boss and the church secretary who assembles the weekly bulletin. I also copy this info to the assistant priest because he preaches occasionally and I find it courteous to let him know what hymns I am recommending to be used.

It’s a recommendation because the final authority and choices are up to my boss.  She usually but not always goes with my recommendations.

After spending several hours with Mom I stopped by the church to figure out what to play for the prelude and postlude.

As I chose the hymns I racked my brains on what I might use for the organ music. The closing hymn I chose was “God of grace and God of glory” (Hymn tune: CWM RHONDDA).

Without even consulting my home-made index, I remembered that Paul Manz has written a goofy piece on this tune in which the recurring accompaniment melody to the tune is based on Handel’s Hallelujah chorus. I think it’s funny and a light choice.

Before I had heard this piece, I watched a deceptive organist tell a hiring committee that was interviewing him that he had made it up himself. At the time I thought it was kind of clever but dopey.

I was shocked when I later saw the piece on the page. Wow. People are so deceptive sometimes.

Anyway, I spent most of my prep time searching for this volume. Usually my music is in order by composer but often I neglect to refile stuff. It took me quite a bit of shuffling and filing to finally locate this volume at the bottom of a stack.

So I’m playing this as the postlude Sunday.

The sequence hymn for Sunday I recommended is  “All my hope on God is founded” (Hymn tune: MICHAEL). The tune was composed by Herbert Howells so I thought maybe I could find a little piece by him for the prelude. Success!  I chose “Dalby’s Fancy” a lovely little piece he wrote specifically to be performed on a small organ in Aberdeen.

These correlations are usually lost on most parishioners unless I bother to write a little article for the bulletin. I have been resisting this since I have failed to engage my otherwise pretty wonderful rector in a discussion of the professional nature (and therefore commiserate remuneration) of my work. It just seems like over-functioning even though as I sit here I am wondering what my reference books have to say about the hymn choices I emailed.

That’s how I started writing the article in the first place. I realized that I was curious myself about the background of the hymns even beyond their textual relationship to the readings.

And then after a few articles parishioners began telling me how much they appreciated them. A lot of parishioners. Ironically this seems to be one of the things I do that gets the most comments.

I definitely have some other tasks to do this morning but I am once again tempted to check out the history of Sunday’s hymns.

I spent some time last night with Laurie the singing viola player. It was an interesting session in which I once again sort of tested and stretched someone’s concept of me and my work. Laurie sings in the choir at church and is a talented soprano. She knows me from my work there and had never attended one of my composition gigs. So even though she had the scores in advance, I know it was a different experience for her. I think she is going to help with the vocals but I’m not sure she will carry any one song by herself.

As I rehearse my songs and compositions and prepare for this performance I am once again proud of my work. Even though I haven’t found an outlet for it other than this web site, I still persist in thinking I have done some good writing.

Here’s some lyrics I will be singing next Thursday, if you’re curious.

from the song “Lucas Blinks”

Stefan gets home from work a little early.
He talks out loud though there’s no one there.
He needs someone to keep him company.
The man has so much to share.

He searched for truth and by God he found it.
Before that he wandered around like he was lost.
He dug a hole for his soul to drown it.
Now he spends time thinking of the cost.

“Tiny Lies”

Tiny lies that I see in your eyes
make it hard to conceal
What it takes to compromise
What it takes not to reveal.
That it’s never the right time,
seems it’s never the right rhyme.

Tiny lies that you see in my eyes
make it hard to conceal
what it takes for me to realize
what it takes not to reveal
that it’s always the right time
that now is the only time

Recently I was chatting with a friend. I mentioned that I believe all we have is the “now.” She took this to mean I think that I was saying something nihilistic. When in fact I was thinking more about Augustine’s concept of time and eternity. For some reason I think it was Augustine, but I also factor in a heaping amount of Christian mysticism. The idea is that all of eternity is present in the “now.” This differs from thinking of time in a linear manner. Somehow to me it relates to the fact that living is something we always do  in the present. That’s more like what I thinking about with my comment and in this song.

Spent the whole day practicing yesterday the way I imagine a performance oriented musician might.  In other words, practicing eight hours a day conjures up in  my mind practicing then taking a break, then practicing some more, continuing in that kind of a pattern.

I had planned to finalize scores for my little upcoming gig, but I spent the day practicing instead. I think I will have time before the rehearsals this week to put together a performance book for myself and make sure all players have the scores they need.

I have to turn my thoughts to church and Mom a bit today. I need to pick some easy prelude/postlude music for this Sunday and get Mom back and forth to the shrink. I’m still planning to work hard on my gig stuff in between.

I have been thinking lately about my level of skill as a performer.

This is a bit tricky. I am a pretty good player. The magic of recording has such impact on all of our perceptions around musical skill. Historically this has improved musical execution in a startlingly way but it’s a bit of trade-off as it creates a high, some would say unrealistically high, expectation of perfection.  Also, it often seems to me that many of my colleagues and other musicians I know play much better than I do.  I know that live performances are a different animal from the recordings I hear and inevitably contain the human element of some flawed playing but nevertheless I think we all are affected by this. I am happy with the continuing improvement of my playing skills but also keenly aware of my shortcomings.

I spent a good deal of time with Mendelssohn yesterday strengthening the weak sections. I know if I am able to continue rehearsing in this manner it is likely I will give a good performance of the D minor piano trio movement I have scheduled for the gig.

I also worked quite a bit on  my singing.

This is something I haven’t done too much of even though many of my songs and pieces were written to be sung and I am my own primary performer of my work. My voice is aging of course as is my whole body. I like my voice but realize it’s a bit of an eccentric sound and seek to make it more pleasant to listen to and also to enunciate the words in a clear intentional manner.

Anyway, I keep fussing about with stuff for the upcoming August gig. I think it will pay off.

Along these same lines I think about the way I have chosen to spend my musical life.  My father and grandfather were both outsiders of sorts but they were also principled and spent their lives pursuing their own sense of purpose in their field of church. I guess I sort of am the same with my music.

It is a contemporary axiom that in our time perceptions often trump content. Though I try to more or less quietly lead with content the noise of how others perceive me often drowns out this intention. This is slightly disheartening sometimes but for the most part I am happy with the way I have lived my life so far especially in regards to my work.

This is probably just my chronic melancholy stirring. Heh.

I stopped by and said hi to Jonathan Fegel at the music store yesterday.

He buried his brother last week. That was the funeral I attended. Jonathan has been a friend for a while. Our orbits have ceased to cross much since he has settled down into a relationship and made some babies. I miss him but understand how life ebbs and flows. I stopped by to show him a little support as he learns how to live with the death of his brother. He looked a bit subdued as I watched him sell guitars and wait on customers. But when we had a chance to shoot the shit he seemed to perk up a bit. I hope I cheered him up. That was the intention.

I also wanted to tell him why I didn’t ask him to play on this year’s gig. He has worked with me musically since he was in high school. But the last time we played together I got the impression that my work was a bit rough for him in the execution due mostly to my ignoring the mix of the performance and concentrating on the energy.

Yesterday he told me that it wasn’t only that. Something was happening in him,  he said. Hard to tell what’s going on with that. Probably none of  my business really. But I told him I was available for talking and playing if he had time and/or inclination. I don’t think he’s up for much right now anyway.

Before falling asleep last night I read the short story “The Dredgeman’s Revelation” by Karen Russell in the July 26th New Yorker (link to entire story online)

I think this is an example of pretty fine writing. I enjoyed it.  But be warned. It’s not a happy story. It’s about an orphan whose life is so miserable that being a dredgeman in the bayou is a pleasure.

I also finished off  The Nobody’s Album by Carolyn Parkhust.

I think I was attracted to the main character. She is a writer who is working her way back into the life of her son after they are estranged by her work and the death of her husband (his father) and daughter (his sister).  There was just enough plot to keep me connected (a murder) but I think really it was the writing that I enjoyed. Nothing deep, but it didn’t strike me as contrived at all, very natural.

Recommended.

Church went pretty well yesterday. My boss was back on the scene and that was a nice surprise. She has been on vacation.  My friend, Jordan VanHemert, came and played a Bach flute sonata on his soprano sax for the prelude and postlude.  I accompanied him on the piano. It came off pretty nicely.

We also sang, “Just a little talk with Jesus,” as an offertory hymn which was kind of fun.

I’m still processing seeing my two friends, Michelle and Jane, on Saturday. Michelle gave me a copy of her book, “The Church Musician’s Soul Survival Manual: A Guide for Pastoral Musicians And Those Close to Them.” It seems to be self-published.  The copy she gave me was in loose sheets with three holes punched in most of the pages.

I read the entire thing yesterday. It was interesting to see what she wrote. She describes her own life story and uses her experiences as illustrations throughout. That was pretty interesting and brought me more up to speed with what’s going with her than I was.

Today I have to do some serious practicing and prepping for the Aug 5th gig. I am thinking of trimming the list down a bit more. I meet with Laurie Van Ark tomorrow. She is going to play viola and I have asked her to consider singing a few of my songs. We will be finalizing that then.

I plan to call Nate Walker the bass player and Roman Tcharchinski the drummer and attempt to schedule a rehearsal sometime this week with them.

I am driving to Middleville on Wednesday to meet with the two Sax players (Bill Bier and Jordan VanHemert). Thursday I rehearse with the strings. So things are shaping up pretty well.

I have been talking to Ray Hinkle about recording this gig. It’s still sort of up in the air, but if there are recordings I will post them here.

I am pretty tired today. Sundays do me in.

Yesterday, Eileen and I hosted a visit from two friends from our past.

Jane O’Keefe who was a friend and fellow student when I was in grad school at Notre Dame and

Michelle Rego who attended Notre Dame but became my friend after I moved to West Michigan.

It was a delight to have these two people in my house. Both are excellent musicians and are still laboring away in the trenches of excellence in Church Music for the Roman Catholic church.

I astonished myself a bit as I found myself drawn to my old role of cheer leader.  The Roman Catholics have moved further and further away from the vision that drew me in originally. This vision for me was the Vatican II renewal.

I think Michelle was actually the first person to receive the interdisciplinary degree in Music and Liturgy degree from ND. This is the degree I also received and I believe so did Jane. Jane mentioned that when we were involved with the program at Notre Dame it was as though we were on the “cusp” of something positive and good for the Church. Since then (1987 or so), all three of us witnessed the gradual change that Jane pointed out culminated in the recent declaration from the Vatican that insultingly equated pedophilia with women priests.

Michelle and Jane are still working for the Catholics and serve with an annual conference at Notre Dame (called Summer Song – link) which is attempting to keep the small candle of positive energy burning in the face of such dire negative energy.

Jane has some disturbing insights for me regarding the history (devolution?) of this idealism and the bad behavior of people we respect at Notre Dame.

Despite our mutual commiseration it was wonderful to spend time with these people and I’m hoping to rekindle my connection to both of them even though Michelle is living in Florida and Jane is in Massachusetts. Jane mentioned that she is not far from Keene, NH, where my brother recently located. Her husband, Randy, is also a colleague and I would love to see them in their natural habitat Boston. Maybe Eileen and I will connect when we go and visit my brother Mark.

In a fascinating bit of synchronicity,  the BBC has recently begun running a radio dramatization of Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game or Magister Ludi).

I listened to it during the night. This novel had a huge impact on my life as a musician. I was thoroughly under its influence when I first started studying music at the college level in the late 70s(Ohio Wesleyan  U in Delaware, Ohio). I literally took on some of the silly stuff of the novel which idealizes and critiques the  ivory tower nature of academia.

Now at this stage of my life, after having sat in my little house in Holland Michigan with two old friends discussing the state of our field, being reminded of the story of Joseph Knecht (the Magister Ludi in the novel) brought me full circle.

This circle moves from the misguided but stubborn idealism of the beginning of my real study of music in Ohio through what I have learned in the ensuing decades about people and music to where I am now.

I am particularly interested in the idea of “play” and “playfulness” and how it relates to having a good life. Hesse’s game is a construct of beautiful but useless connections of information.  It takes on a new significance for me when I think of it more clearly as playfulness and less as his parable of the perils of the separation of learning from society.

Hesse uses the Christian church to symbolize historical and hence chaotic challenge to ivory tower learning. This feels pretty dang ironic to me.  The beauty of Hesse’s idea of a “Glass Bead Game” is that it draws connections between disciplines and excites in me the idea of the fascinating coherence and interconnectedness in human knowledge and art. From my vantage point and experience both academia and religion are pursuing the chimera of simplistic and ill informed solutions to the challenges they are presented with in our time.  Both are run from the beautiful chaos of living and human playfulness. If they are not running they are at least oblivious, but I think it’s stronger than that.

This is probably not all that new but it is sort of a new insight for me.  My conversation last night with my two friends and Eileen has me thinking about the real life applications of idealism, learning and even (godhelpme) current spiritualities.

Heady stuff for early Sunday morning. Heh. But as the Firesign Theater slogan goes: “Living in the future is a lot like having bees live in your head.”

So yesterday was another good day. But I took it easy a bit more.  I did some relaxing and got in some good solid rehearsal on piano.

I also hooked up my new little amp and practiced some of my upcoming gig stuff singing in a mike. This is very helpful and allows me to work on my vocal sound. Something I need to do. At this point, I will concentrate on preparing my part of this performance on vocals, piano and so forth.

Next week I will work with three separate groups of musicians for the Aug 5 gig. The bass player and drummer agreed to meet again but we haven’t set a date.

Wednesday I will drive to Camp Manitou-Lin in Middleville and rehearse the saxophones.

The alto sax player, Bill Bier, is having his summer band camp for his high schoolers. Jordan is a counselor. Bill said they could meet with me for about an hour so that should work.

On Thursday Laurie the violist has agreed to join our weekly trio rehearsal so we can rehearse all of the string parts together.

Laurie also is a singer and I have asked her to consider singing a few of the songs that there is no viola part for. She said she would talk to me after church Sunday about a time we could meet and discuss this.

Interestingly, even though I have set it as a personal goal to have my harpsichord ready for this gig, the harpsichord is becoming less and less important to it.

Amy the violinist told me this week she didn’t think she had time to work up a baroque violin solo. I started out hoping this would be baroque trio sonata. But first he oboist backed out. So I asked Amy and Dawn to consider playing a solo. We kicked this around for a while. Dawn is willing to do something with harpsichord, but after some consideration I think it would be much cooler if she played a movement from one of the lovely Bach unaccompanied cello suites. These are such great pieces it’s hard for me not to program one. She agreed.

So I went from thinking I would use the harpsichord in a trio sonata (which involves four musicians – violin, oboe, harpsichord, cello in this case)

to an unaccompanied cello suite movement.

So the harpsichord is not needed.

The only other thing I was thinking of using the harpsichord on was a prelude and fugue from the Well Tempered Clavier of Bach. I have been rehearsing one but I think it might simplify things a lot to simply omit the harpsichord this time.

If I do that I lose one of my classical pieces (the prelude and fugue).  I’m still pondering. The gig is only about a week and half away so I can’t start a big project like the Mendelssohn trio.

In the meantime, my friend Ray has been looking over my plans and offering ideas and suggestions. (He often reads this blog. Hi, Ray!) He has taken on the recording aspect of this gig and is also critiquing my arrangements and compositions. I am glad to get Ray involved. It adds another dimension to this little project.  It was especially nice to see him in the flesh for the first time in decades this week.  Before that my only contact with him was through the internet and once on the phone.  I joked with him that being able to hug him in person helped me believe he was actually a real person and not a figment of my cyber experience. Heh.

This little project has helped me have a good summer. It has spurred me on to compose my piece, “Dead Man’s Pants.” This has helped me understand myself as a composer better and reinvigorated my compositional life. It has motivated me to get working on my harpsichord even though it looks like I’m not going to specifically need it this August. And finally it has allowed me to connect a diverse interesting group of people whom I’m pretty sure will help me put on an interesting and unique performance.

Pretty good summer for this old guy!

Today I am hosting a couple of colleagues from grad school.  I went to school with Jane O’Keefe and subsequently became friends with Michelle Rego who took her masters from Notre Dame right before I got there. Michelle and I did many musical projects locally here until she moved away. She is an amazing energetic kick ass musician. Jane is also excellent and I have many fond memories of her friendship in grad school.

I am thinking of roasting shrimp on the grill (even though it’s raining) and then serving it with local fresh fruits and veggies. This will entail some work. So as soon as Eileen wakes we’re off to the farmer’s market. Plus I promised Eileen last night that we would try to make the house a bit less of a disaster. Ahem.  Hey, it could happen.

We went and heard a Motown type concert last night.

Spectrum (pictured above) performed outdoors with the Grand Rapids orchestra. It was a gas. They sang well. We sat right next to the mix boards and I was more keenly aware of sound reproduction things than usual. The drums and bass were mixed well. This provided the needed Motown mix. But there were problems with the balance and miking all night. It didn’t really distract because it was subtle (except for the beginning when the orchestra brass began playing “Grand and Rapid” a little composition by local composer Dave Wells.

It was odd as the sound transformed from real to electronic as the engineers scrambled to get the mikes working properly. One aspect of miked orchestral music in this kind of outdoor environment is that the listener totally loses a sense of the music originating in different spaces across the stage. For me that is part of orchestral sound. But it was less odd during the Motown numbers. I guess there is less expectation of the sense of the human and real that comes from true directional experience in this kind of music.

Anyway, the mistake at the beginning got me thinking about how we perceive live music through electronic devices.

The music was great. I love the old Motown and they even did a James Brown. He’s one of my favorites.  Lots of Temptations and great old Boomer songs. I had a great time.

I jumped out of bed yesterday and immediately began working on finishing prepared gig books for my bass player and drummer.

This entailed final edits and printing up their parts.  The rehearsal was scheduled for 9:30. Of course my printer ran out of ink on the last piece and I didn’t have time to change ink cartridges.

So I gathered music scores and equipment (guitar, banjo, amp) and headed out so I would be late.

Of course when I arrived I was the first one there. I probably had time to change ink cartridges and print up that last piece (my cover arrangement of Bob Dylan’s “Tombstone Blues”).

Everyone did finally arrive and we had a good rehearsal. Jordan V. the sax guy brought along an amp and a mike. I was thinking of buying it so I would have a way to amplify my voice (thinking mostly of rehearsals like the one we had yesterday with sax, bass, drums and myself singing and playing). Unfortunately his microphone did not fit with his amplifier (different plug ins). But we plugged it into the amp that Nate the bass player was using (along with the electric piano they had there for me to use).  The sound was sufficient for rehearsal.

Nate and Jordan were exhausted from a late rehearsal the night before.  Nate especially was low on energy. But they all played well. It was so refreshing to work with a good drummer (Roman).

After this rehearsal, I changed clothes there and proceeded to a funeral.

My friend, Jonathon Fegel, was burying his brother. Mike died last week from an accidental mixing up of prescription drugs and homeopathic herbal sleep drugs. I have been a friend of the family for years due to my musical connection with Jonathon. Jonathon starting mixing for me when he was in high school and eventually we collaborated quite a bit on music together. Recently we have wandered out of each other’s orbit. But I discovered that his brother had died when I was looking at amps at the music store where he works. The clerks know that Jonathon and I are friends and mentioned the funeral to me. I immediately knew I wanted to be present for Jonathon and his parents.

Eileen reminded me last night dinner that Mike and his dad, Larry, drove out to hear one of my rare performances of my music. They were part of a very small audience (4 people not counting me and Eileen) and helped make the evening an enjoyable one for me. Mike was a musician and writer.

The funeral was held at the Holland Fish and Game club in Zeeland. I spent the entire service holding my breath because I forgot to turn off my cell phone.

I went directly from the funeral to the music store where Jonathon works and bought an amp and mike I had looked at the night before.

While I was getting out of the car, my cell did go off. My old friend Ray Hinkle was sitting at my house waiting to meet me. He agreed to wait a few minutes while I made my purchase.

The guy who waited on me (and who cut me a decent deal for the amp and mike: $250) had just returned from the same funeral. He  agreed with me when I said  if instead of waiting to have the funeral meal after the lengthy prayer which included many fond reminiscences shared by many people there,  they had done prayer and then broke out the food and shared memories while people ate. But I’m afraid that was the liturgist in me making that observation. I’m hoping that the funeral did whatever it could to support these people in their grief and such tweaking  would not make much difference I’m sure.

During the funeral and as I arrived back at my house, it was raining. Despite my worry about my cell disrupting I was able to enjoy the juxtaposition of the rain with the memorial service. The room where the funeral was  held had huge windows that looked out over a little pond and the rain created a lovely sheen over the whole scene.

I began unloading my equipment when I got home  and ended up soaked.  Ray had driven down to Hope College to look for a building he had done trim work for. He came back and we were united for the first time in thirty some years.  It was very moving to me to see him again. He told me I look better in person than I do in my pictures on Facebook and my blog. Heh. He also asked me about the inflection I mean when I write “Heh.” (I told him it was sort of a emoticon  and then made a small chuckle).

Ray is interested in helping me record my upcoming gig.  So we chatted until the musicians arrived for my afternoon rehearsal. Dawn the cello player and Amy the violinist had agreed to meet my house for rehearsal. We usually rehearse on Thursdays at the church, but yesterday a film company was using the church as a set for movie. I have no idea what movie. But we decided it would be better to rehearse elsewhere.

I took them through the string parts for “Fade to Black” and “Dead Man’s Pants.” Then we rehearsed the Mendelssohn trio movement we will play at the August gig. I have to admit by the time we hit Mendelssohn I was beginning to feel pretty exhausted.  Amy and Dawn’s energy remained positive and it was a worthwhile rehearsal despite my drooping. It is such a pleasure to work with good musicians.

Ray eavesdropped on our rehearsal to help him get a sense of what he will be recording. After rehearsal he and I zipped up to Lemonjellos so he could see the room and PA we would be using that evening.

Back to the house. Ray waited until Eileen came home (she was due in minutes by this time) so he could see her too.  The three of us chatted for a bit. I was really needing to crash by this time. I invited Ray to have supper with us at the pub, but he decided to head home.

Eileen and I had a lovely meal at the pub. My two martinis helped me calm down a bit. I still ran into Bill Bier (pronounced BUYer)  the other sax player who was having a meal with his family. He is a band director and plays a helluva alto. Next week is his annual summer band camp and he let me know last night that I am welcome to drive up as I requested and rehearse with him and Jordan. Jordan is an instructor for him at this camp. So that’s now on the docket.

Eileen and I came home and rotted our brains with TV. I was still trying to relax.

We watched “Bonfire of Vanities.” I remembering reading Tom Wolfe’s novel on which this movie is based so vividly that at first I thought I had also seen the movie.

But as it unfolded the story was familiar but the images were cartoony and all wrong. Weird.

So today promises to be much less hectic. I have to get over to my Mom’s apartment and see why she having problems with her computer. I hope it’s something simple enough for me to fix (it often is). Do the bills, probably grocery shop.

Tonight Eileen and I are planning to go hear a Grand Rapids Symphony pops concert called “Motown’s Greatest Hits.” Dawn the cellist who plays in this symphony gave me complimentary tickets yesterday. This should be an chance for Eileen and I to have another relaxing evening together.

This morning I skipped my morning blogging and went right to working on the drum part for “Dead Man’s Pants.” Yesterday I got hold of Roman the Drummer and Nate the Bass Player.  They agreed to a rehearsal tomorrow. Whew. The drums, bass and myself will hold together many of the pieces on my upcoming gig. These guys are good players, but I would like to tighten it up for this gig a bit. The only way to do this is to rehearse with them. So I’m very grateful for tomorrow’s rehearsal.

Roman the Drummer explained to me what he would like in the drum parts. He is a literate musicians so I can write out stuff. But at the same time the drum part is largely improvised at the drummer’s discretion. As I prepared the scores for the other instruments I didn’t bother writing out drum parts except in a few cases. So prepping the part for him now is taking a bit of time. Especially on “Dead Man’s Pants.”

But I just finished it and emailed it to him. So that’s good.

I am also making gig books for these two players. I print out their parts and put them in three ring binders in the order of the performance. I often do this kind of thing for myself. It saves all kinds of bother and worry. I’m not planning to do this for the other five musicians (2 saxes and 3 strings). But I think it might be helpful to have it for tomorrow’s rehearsal.

I emailed the part to Roman the Drummer anyway because it’s kind of involved and I think it’s only professional to give him a glance before rehearsal.

I am now done with my Cecchetti Ballet Dance camp.  I had two classes yesterday and they went well. I was late for the first one. But I think the teacher started a minute or two early, since I was just timing it to get there right on time. I, of course, apologized.  My maxim: “To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late.”

I am thinking of taking the money from this and adding it to the money from a recent wedding and shopping for a practice PA or a mic. Rehearsing with instruments can drown out the voice. I would like to be able to practice with a bit of vocal amplification. Thinking of stopping by the local music and store and seeing what they have on hand.  It would be good to have it for tomorrow’s run through with Roman the Drummer and Nate the Bass Player.

That’s exactly the kind of situation where a bit of amplification for the singer (me) would help. I am planning to take my acoustic with a pick up and little amp. Maybe I’ll buy a practice mic and use that amp. We’ll see.

Soon I will be able to get back to working on the harpsichord. I have high hopes I will have it working in time for the August gig. If not then, soon after that anyway.

This afternoon I have to drive up above the lake and give my piano student his lesson. Then a rehearsal with Jordan the sax player. We will be working on Sunday’s music as well as other stuff.  I am looking forward to working on the Bach sonata with him today.

I’ll close with what I think is sort of a telling anecdote from my Dad’s writings. It’s from his little bio of his older brother David.

“David was coming of age. In his teenage years, he could hardly wait to get behind the wheel of the family Chevrolet.

It was about this time that David’s mother [SJ note: This would be my Dad’s Mother, my Grandmother, Dorothy Jenkins]  decided she was going to learn to drive the family car. She began studying how the stick shift coordinated with the clutch and accelerator. There was no driver’s education available back then, and one learned however one could. Father [SJ note: Ben Jenkins] was not altogether patient nor in sympathy with what she wanted to do. And of course, David was in competition for learning the skills his mother was trying to master. He appointed himself as adviser to his mother’s new venture, critic of every mistake she made.

The learning proceeded painfully for mother, but finally when our father was out of town traveling by train, she decided the time had come to demonstrate her prowess. She believed she had about mastered the Chevy. It was her goal to drive the car to meet Ben at the railroad station. Consequently on the day of Dad’s return she put the three of us boys in the car and drove us all down to the station.

Once in town, the traffic panicked mother. Amid the insensitive laughter of all three boys, she lost her coordination in shifting gears. She was utterly embarrassed. The car proceed down the street through traffic, bucking and leaping like a wild bronco. Somehow, with a face red with humiliation, she met the train and Dad drove us home.

That was the last time our mother tried to drive an automobile.

Paul Jenkins, Family Pacesetter: stories of David Benjamin Jenkins

I find this little story sort of sad. Stupid automobiles are such an American symbol of freedom and independence. I have known other women of my grandmother’s generation who were held prisoner by the fact that they weren’t drivers.  Sigh.

Woke up feeling a bit stunned this morning. Although yesterday was a very productive day for me I think my brain and body missed having a day off after Sunday.

I worked on scores in the morning as planned. Had an excellent rehearsal with Jordan VanHemert. I’m afraid I was a bit on the enthusiastic side, as we rehearsed and discussed music. He agreed to play at Grace on Sunday. That will be cool. We will do the Bach sonata we have been looking at. It sounds great. I called the piano tuner and left a message for him asking him to tune the Grace piano. As I said yesterday, it’s in bad shape.

Also reached out to several musicians who have said they will play on Aug 5th.

People are busy. I  only heard back from Laurie the singer/violist. It’s on my list to try and contact all of these people again today.

I have my last two ballet classes to play for today.

One at 9 Am and one at 3 PM. I never regret saying yes to these people. It is so inspiring to me to be in a room with such sheer determination,  enthusiasm and skills shared by so many people. Of course there are always one or two people who look sorry they are there. But this is probably inevitable. And god help them if they get caught looking less than 100% connected to what is happening. I always learn something from this experience. Very cool.

Jordan and I covered a lot of bases yesterday in our time together.  He was interested in playing through my Sonatina. It has been quite a while since I have played the keyboard part. I thought some of the dolce sections actually sounded nicer on the soprano sax than the original oboe version.

We had an in depth rehearsal of the Bach sonata. We are evolving some collaborative stuff. I keep thinking about how to allow myself and other musicians to get closer to the music without being too directive.  Jordan has been doing some listening to other players play this music and he has many insights about tempo and phrasing.  When I mentioned to him that I take liberties sometimes with the tempo, he simply said that it would help him if I could point those out. Which I did. I also observed that my best comment on what I think about the music is found in the playing of it. I think I said we have our best conversations as we play.

This is my experience with my piano trio as well. We try to articulate what we are thinking about what we are doing. This sometimes leads us into unproductive discussions about tempo and consistency.  These are unproductive not in an argumentative way, but that they might get us thinking about aspects of what we are doing as we play instead of concentrating on doing it.

It’s a weird distinction. Musicians must move back and forth between conscious preparation of musical material to allowing the music to speak through them. As I consciously prepare a piece of music,  I will address various technical aspects of it. I will isolate fingering problems, scale difficulties, passages that need to be learned more thoroughly. Also it definitely helps at this stage to flip on the metronome and see how consistent tempos are.

But the mind shifts when working to allow the music to speak. My technique is never where I want it. I can hear all my foibles and inadequacies very clearly. I sometimes think that the art of performance is to keep refining these foibles and inadequacies until they become less and less perceptible to the listener. But I doubt if they are ever totally gone. My theory is that a small aspects of these very limitations when diminished sufficiently to not distort the music are part of what make my playing human and attractive.

This is probably heresy. But toujours gai, archie, toujours gai. As I disdain the inadequate aspects of my playing, I value the experience of music deeply.

And as always I learn from other musicians when I play with them.

A letter writer in yesterday’s NYT had this telling phrase in his letter:

‘education is all about change (self-transformation) and … change can come only with new knowledge (learning) and its application in evaluating our system of beliefs and ideology (leading to mental evolution).” Michael Hadjiargyrou
(link to page of letters this person letter appears on)

I like that. Learning is all about change.

Change is about new input of some sort and the implications of the new. In the best cases, this can lead to insights. Insights that often provoke or point to needed change.

I quoted and linked this in on Facebook yesterday. But I didn’t link the excellent article by Brent Staples the letter writer was responding to. It is also worth a read. (link to “Cutting and Pasting a Senior Thesis by (Insert Name)” by Brent Staples)NYT July 12, 2010

I took my camera to church and to a cookout with Eileen’s brothers and sisters yesterday.

I put up pictures on Facebook (church pics link, fam pics link). But not the two above. I obviously had help with the church pics. John Shea took the ones of me. He also showed me how to turn the flash off my camera and get better pics.  Cool.

I used organ for the entire church service yesterday.

The piano is out of tune.

I would like to use Jordan V. on some cool Bach flute sonatas played on the soprano sax next week. He and I are meeting today to rehearse, so I will find out if this works for him.

I played okay yesterday.

The congregational response was pretty tepid especially on the rousing closing South African closing hymn, “Halleluyah, we sing your praises.” I had to smile when after mumbling the closing hymn, the congregational energy surged loudly as people enthusiastically greeted each other immediately after the final blessing. It’s such a conundrum to get that particular energy in their shared prayer.  And of course my delicate little postlude was sort of lost in this energy. There also seemed to be some shouting during the prelude. It is interesting how people don’t seem to notice there is music going on and that their shouting is competition with it. I guess the prelude got a little too loud for them to have a conversation. This was in the back of the church and probably was between people who were greeting and preparing to lead the service.

We had a wandering visitor who sat in about ten different places during the course of the service. He left the room several times as well both going into the coffee area and slipping out the back side door. At one point he was standing in the back with a cup of coffee (which he left on the piano of course). Church services are by nature public and all are welcome, so this kind of behavior does occur once in a while. I see it as a kind of test of the community. We passed. People greeted this guy during the peace and we gave him our visitor mug.

I have spent my professional life trying to convince people they can pray with their bodies and voices.  With varying degrees of success. Heh.

I think I have the usual church musician monday blues this morning.

This morning I want to finish score prep for the Aug 5th gig. I think I have nailed down the playlist (link to page on upcoming gigs). The biggest project was “Come Creator” and I have that basically done. I just need to tidy it up and extract the parts.  I also want to finish “sweetner” string parts for my song, “So Many People,” and write out a sax riff for “Tombstone Blues” by Bob Dylan.

I would dearly like to get hold of a crappy little PA for rehearsals. Dealing with this many musicians, the vocals get lost in rehearsal without it. Unfortunately, this involves more monetary outlay. I played a wedding Saturday and I should get a check this week from my dance camp and I’m giving a piano lesson. This might all add up to enough bucks to buy something used or very small.

Last night we didn’t turn on the AC to sleep. First time in a while. It’s a bit cooler in Michigan today. Very pleasant this morning.  Here’s a picture of one Eileen’s lovely flowers she has growing in front of our house. Couldn’t resist taking it at the end of my walk home from church yesterday.

I sort of redeem myself in my own eyes with my morning class at ballet dance camp yesterday. I was able to come up with improvs that were not so banal but at the same time provide the regular 32 measures of 4 measure phrases needed for the exercises.

My second class was canceled so I went and practiced organ and then came home and worked on scores for my upcoming gig. The process of preparing tunes for this gig is almost done. Whew. The biggest job left is adapting my instrumental piece, “Come Creator,” for the new ensemble.

I also am beginning to entertain the hope that the harpsichord will be in some sort of playing condition by Aug 5th as well. I am ready to begin serious work on the jacks soon.

The wedding was interesting for me.

When I got there, the organ wouldn’t start up easily. And once after it was going it just shut down. I called the janitor to give him a heads up. He was on his way to the wedding anyway. After he arrived we couldn’t figure it out.  Anyway, thankfully it didn’t act up again.

I did something unusual for me which is to do the entire wedding on the organ.

Usually I put some piano in the prelude with some lovely Mozart and Bach. But yesterday I had today’s prelude and postlude ready.  They are a bit lengthy and very pleasant to listen to (I think) so they fit the bill nicely for organ prelude music for a wedding.

They are “Fantasy on an Irish Ballad” and “Pastorale on Morning Has Broken,” both by Andrew Clarke.

I have worked on them for the past two weeks preparing them for this morning’s Eucharist at Grace.  They are happy little things with plenty of cool chords and tricky organ parts. I played them pretty well yesterday.

And apparently I was in a mood because freed up from the confines of the 32 measures of four measure phrases, I came up with some fun pre-service improvs. It was a good thing because as often happens we started late so the organist had to keep the music going.

The minister was a kindly old gentleman who forgot to turn on his mic so he was largely inaudible over the AC. The congregation was patient however and the energy remained very positive. I think that’s the goal. Good energy around the hopeful beginning of a marriage.

I stopped off at the grocery store on the way home and picked up some plums and some other stuff to make a recipe that had caught my eye this week.

Ceviche is a seafood dish that does not involve cooking. The citrus in it “de-natures the proteins.” Interesting article about linked here. If you click on the pic you can link to the NYT recipe I used. As you can see I made home made salsa to go with it (fresh tomatoes, onions, cukes, roasted garlic, cilantro, pablano peppers, salt, and cayenne pepper). Served with sesame seed blue tortilla chips and beer. Mmmmm. The Ceviche didn’t appeal to Eileen so she made herself some egg salad. It was excellent, however. The scallops were very tender and melted in your mouth. The texture of plums and the taste of the tarragon and limes rounds off this dish nicely in my opinion.  Knowing that Eileen would not go for it, I made a half batch.

Spent most of the day working on the harpsichord as planned. I moved 20 strings closer to their jacks.

This is necessary so that the quills (or plectrum) can be “voiced” well and function properly.

I learned to be very careful with the drill since on the second hole, I broke the very very small bit. They came in a two pack and I managed to learn how not to do that again. By the afternoon I was getting much better at the whole process. I now feel confident if I discover a string needs moving I can easily do so.

Before starting I called Zuckermann and asked them about this step. They encourage you to call and ask for help. The person on the phone said that the distance between the jack and the string was the important thing to look for. I was concerned because moving the strings to do so looked so radical. Most of the strings needed to be moved a good 1/8th of an inch. This leaves them a bit off kilter looking, but the Zuckermann guy said that was not a problem.

He encouraged me to eye the distance off a jack with a quill installed. This was a good idea and helped considerably. He also said I should make sure the guides for the jack were allowing it to be exactly vertical. I purchased a tiny Combination Square to double check this and did some adjusting before beginning on the strings yesterday.

After working on the harpsichord, I rushed off to practice organ and then get groceries. Eileen called and reported that she had taken a fall at work and was not hurt but was bruised badly enough for an ER trip. I bought ice and a gel ice pack for her leg at the grocery store.

By the time Eileen came home, I had ordered a pizza and was treadmilling away.  We ate pizza and watched “The Informant.” I don’t know what to think of this movie. It’s about a crooked biologist who embezzles millions from people. It’s very confusing because initially you can’t tell whether he is lying or if he is a true informant. The music tips off the viewers that something is up. It’s a bit on the flippant side (Marvin Hamlisch of the Scott Joplin revival did the music).  I guess the movie is mildly entertaining. But I’m not that big a movie person.

Today I have two dance classes to play for before lunch and then a wedding this afternoon.

I had tremendous difficulty scanning in photographs yesterday. The default setting on my creaky old printer seemed to make huge files which took forever to scan and then didn’t work well with Piccassa. Sheesh. Finally I adjusted the settings down and managed to get  enough scanned in to put up pictures of my Jenkins grandparents and parents.

Today I really need to get some work done on the harpsichord. I have been delaying adjusting the strings position. It involves moving little pegs which means removing them from the old position, filling in the hole with a gluey toothpick, drilling a new spot and putting in a tiny nail that guides the string a bit closer to the jack. It looks like I need to move several of the strings. The instructions say this is probable. I hope I don’t fuck it up too badly.

Yesterday I rehearsed “Dead Man’s Pants,” the first movement of Mendelsson’s D minor trio and “Fade to Black” with my two string players. They remain supportive and enthusiastic about the upcoming gig. I decided that in spite of my previous resolve to do a coffee house gig without guitar (I just haven’t been playing my guitar much in the last couple of years), I decided that my song, “Naked Boy,” really needs it. I keep preparing scores. I think the score prep left is relatively easy. The biggest project is probably adapting my “Come, Creator” piece for this ensemble. And it’s much easier than the two I have sent off to the musicians.

My trio is  rehearsing at my house next week. My church is apparently being rented out to a movie production company and will be filming there next Thursday.

I read about 130 pages in Carolyn Parkhurst’s novel, The Nobodies Album, last night before falling asleep. I am really enjoying it. I like the voice of the narrator. She is a writer who has just finished a book in which she presents alternate endings to seven novels she has written. As she delivers the manuscript to her NY publisher, she sees the headline that her estranged son the rock star has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend. Plot ensues.

Parkhurst cleverly weaves self conscious writer type prose about writing with the story of the writers life and the actual last chapters from the fictional novels both unrevised and revised. It all cleverly ties together.

I relate to the way her family members are either dead or want little to do with her. Also her struggling cynical tone.

Well enough for today. I have to get moving.

I snuck over yesterday morning before Eileen left for work and got some organ practice in. I was so impressed with the videos of the group playing French Baroque music (one of which I posted yesterday), that I pulled down a bunch of music by Leclair, the composer, from the free online sheet music site I use (link to IMSLP).

Leclair is roughly contemporary to Francois Couperin and Bach. I guess I haven’t heard of him because he is largely a string composer. All of the music on IMSLP was for strings. A lot of it was for two violins and continuo which I found yesterday do quite nicely on the organ as trios. Not sure I would schedule them for use at church as organ pieces. I like them, but I think listeners would appreciate them more on strings or other instruments than the organ.

I rushed over to where I thought I was scheduled to accompany my first ballet dance camp class and discovered that I had been misinformed. One of the other pianists was scheduled. Relieved I came home and continued working on arrangements for my upcoming Aug gig.

Midday I met with a last minute groom picking out music for his wedding Saturday. I was bemused that he was wearing one of those blue tooth phone apparatuses. I do think they look silly.  He kept hearing a carrillon like recessional. He wasn’t totally satisfied after I played him several and ended up asking me to do two: the Bell Symphony of Purcell that is sometimes used at weddings and a G major prelude for organ by Bach. Both of descending lines that sound vaguely bell like.

Back to working on scores at home. Then treadmilled before going to my second attempt to play for a dance class. This time I was expected. I do enjoy doing this once a year. Sometimes a teacher will talk to me about doing more work locally for dance classes. I always give them my number and sound interested. So far no one ever follows up. Some years ago the director of the camp told me I could make my living doing what was I doing.

It’s really quite simple. It helps to know some French and something about ballet. I picked up the latter by doing these classes. I watch the teacher give the instructions for the exercise, listening to what she/he is saying and also watching their bodies to get an idea of what kind of music would help the students dance the exercise.

It’s important to improvise in strict four measure phrases. I think of it something like marching band.  My first few years I used classical music with some improvising. This is actually not quite as good as improvising and keeping an eye on the instructor as she/he continues to talk while the students go through the moves.

I say it’s helpful to know French because the classical ballet moves all have French names like échappé and plié. These two words litterally mean “escape” and “bent” but have specific meanings in ballet which I have picked up through observing.

One of the reasons I enjoy doing this is the discipline and etiquette that is traditional in ballet classes. It does my old heart good to see a room full of young people working diligently with their minds and bodies.

At the end of each class there is slow warm down called a reverence. It is a rehearsal of bows and includes touchingly a turn to the pianist with a bow. Cool stuff.

Here’s a couple more stories from my Dad’s 1989 Chronology he wrote.

1928

Benjamin A. Jenkins [SJ note: my father Paul’s father]  and family continued to live in Oak Grove, Louisiana, where he pastored the First Church of God… Dad was introduced as the “factory-made” preacher at the camp meeting in Louisiana since he was the first Anderson graduate [to serve in the area], a put-down he did not forget for the rest of his life…. Dad was also introduced to the Ku Klux Klan when one night a group of Klansmen fully clad in white hooded robes, entered the Sunday evening service, paraded to the front row, where they sat throughout the remainder of the service. It was a silent reminder to the Yankee preacher that he was in the South and would be expected to submit to the Southern ways … One of the Southern ways Dad had to accept was the pianist, a mother who nursed her four year old song as she played the piano. The child stood at the piano bench, nursing from her breast as she played [and] accompanied the congregational singing.

Paul Jenkins, The Jenkins Chronology

Ironic to be branded as “factory-made” and I wonder if it really bothered my grandfather as much as Dad thought it did.

1961

I held revival meetings in Hamilton, Ohio; Athens, Tennessee; Erlanger, Kentucky; and Yazoo City, Mississippi.

[SJ note: revivals were nightly services which lasted about a  week featuring a guest preacher… earlier Dad writes: “The call for revivals increased. The Church of God has a for a long time held young pastors in great esteem and being young, I was in much demand. I held meetings in Hickory, North Carolina; Meridian and Jackson, Mississippi; Danvill e and Madisonville, Kentucky; and Welch, West Virginia.”]

It was in Yazoo City that I felt the strong racism of the Southern white when the man with whom I stayed very boldly shared his hatred of the Negroes and [described] his friends raping a black woman. He thought it was funny. I nearly choked to think that a Christian could have such blind spots in values and thinking. (And he was a lay leader in the church there).

Paul Jenkins, The Jenkins Chronology

I had a heck of a time finding and scanning the family pictures in today’s post. I can’t find most of my pictures of Benjamin and Dorothy. They are here somewhere. Anyway, fighting my silly antiquated equipment (scanner and computer) took up too much of my morning. Onward.

Yesterday as I was waiting for my Mom in the Dollar Store, I moseyed on over to “Bibles for Mexico.” If you don’t recognize it, “Bibles for Mexico” is the Reformed Church answer to Salvation Army. It’s a Thrift Shop.

I was on the lookout for a new teapot (having destroyed my old one). There were two teapots, but the people who work there had priced them both at ten dollars. Sheesh. I can get a new one for twelve.

Anyway I spied the amplifier and speakers in the pic above. Twenty dollars and the 8-track doesn’t work (Do any of the old ones in Thrift Shops actually work?), but the FM Radio did. I reasoned that if the radio was working it was a reasonable possibility the Phono jack would work. I blew up my last little amplifier and haven’t had a way to listen to my turntable for quite a while.

So I bought it.

At the end of the day yesterday I decided to try it out. It needed a preamp to work properly so I spent a small amount of time poking around trying to find my Radio Shack preamp from years ago. Lo and behold I found it! And even more Lo and Behold! the damn thing works. How nice.

I listened to a bit of Bernstein’s Mass,

Joni Mitchell

and an anthology of tunes that my parents owned when I was young called “60 Years of Music America Loves Best.”

I don’t own the actual record my parents used to play. But I have purchased copies a couple of times (again in Thrift Shops).

It interested me to note the variety of music on this record from my youth. I remember aurally almost every cut. Last night I listened to the side that begins with “Ritual Fire Dance” by De Falla played by Artur Rubinstein.

The next cut is Eddy Arnold singing “I’m sending you a big bouquet of roses.” Then Mario Lanza’s strong tenor voice on “Be My Love.”

What occurs to me is how I was inundated by such a wide variety of music as a child. Hymns at church.  But also interesting recordings I remember. My babysitter gave my Mom and Dad a recording of Charlie Parker thus introducing my ears to one of the geniuses of the 20th century.

I still own this particular record. It’s in rough shape but still playable.

I remember listening to Midsummernight’s Dream by Mendelssohn on a promo record distributed by a pharmaceutical company.

And I remember the first time I listened closely to a recording of Bach’s two and three part inventions. That was in W. Virginia under the tutelage of my cousin, Jerry Reveal.

I revel in my eclecticism at this point in my life. And I’m thankful that I am able to listen and appreciate such a wide variety of cool music.

Yesterday a “friend” on Facebook posted a phenomenal video of some early music. I love the sound of these instruments and this music.

Yesterday I mentioned the unpublished books my Dad wrote about the family. These were largely written in the 90s when Dad was in his late sixties. But before that(1989)  he seems to have first written a family chronology for his Uncle Connie and Aunt Ethel Roeder. Uncle Connie (Conrad) was brother to Dad’s Mom, Dorothy. Dorothy had two brothers and seven sisters.  Like Dad’s Dad she was the eldest sibling.

Interestingly this was much more conversational in tone. Dad was a published writer and was used to tightening up his prose and being quite self-conscious of his writing technique. This is obvious throughout the books I mentioned yesterday. But this earlier one is actually more interesting to me because Dad is less self conscious about his writing and more involved with the actual content.

Here are the first of excerpts I thought I would put up on the blog.

Moving out of the South

“The day that we arrived in Flint, Michigan was [the day of] President Kennedy’s assassination [Nov 23, 1963]…

Steve was thirteen and entering Junior High School. Mark was five and finishing up two years of  Day Care and Kindergarten. The family was in for some new adventures…

The big sadness of our move to Michigan was the loss of very dear friends in Greeneville. We were to discover the contrast between the very affectionate Tennessee people and the more cool but stimulating people of the cosmopolitan General Motors city of Flint. The people of Greeneville could not understand our move, and I was really unable to put into words the changes that were taking place in me.

The racism we had hope[d] to escape was in many ways even worse in the north than in the south. Few of the people in the church had even met a black person, and those who had moved to Michigan from the south had carried with them some of the worse kinds of racism. We began to see that racism was neither a northern or a southern problem. It was a human problem!”

Paul Jenkins, The Jenkins Chronology [unpub]

After Dad died I received a phone message from Maxine Humphreys.  She was one of those “very dear friends”” who did indeed remain constant in their affection and connection with my parents throughout their life. She was a colorful local radio announcer. Sort of a newsy gossipy type. I was friends with her sons and they all attended my Dad’s church in Greeneville. I have a memory of going to the radio station early one morning with her and her sons and waking up several radio people who had slept on the floor of the studio rather than stay at home and get up early to come to work.

Dad struggled with the idea of racism his whole life. He lived out his beliefs in Flint when he was part of a minister’s organization that was so concerned about police brutality (very racist) that they stationed a minister in the elevator that ran between the parking lot where the police cars arrived and the rooms where the suspects were charged and questioned.

It was in this elevator that most beatings were thought to take place. It was at this point in his life that Dad became one of the first ministers of his denomination (Church of God) to wear a collar. He wanted people to know he was a cleric so they would be less likely to attack him at demonstrations or in that elevator.

Dad was raised by his mother and father to treat all people fairly.

“[W]hile my mother was away in Baltimore, Dad brought in an elderly black lady to help with the housework. It was to be one of my first encounters with the southern ‘race barrier.’ Dad had baked some beans–an unusual event in itself–and when we sat down to eat, he invied the black lady (we called her a ‘colored’ lady then) to join us at the table. She was terribly embarrassed and vehemently declined. A colored lady to sit down with white folks? It just wasn’t done! She ate her beans on the back porch and we ate our in the kitchen. It was confusing to a fourteen-year-old boy raised to ignore race or color.

Paul Jenkins, The Jenkins Chronology [unpub]

The year this happened was 1943. Dad’s family was living in Roanoke, Virginia.

Dad later describes this incident in Flint in 1964.

“Immediately upon arriving in Flint, Michigan I was involved in a building program. The Church building in its last expansion had been left incomplete, and the congregation was of a mind to complete what they had started. It was no problem to lead them into a $115,000 building completion program, and the spirit of that experience was one of the most pleasant ones I had while I pastored West Court Street Church.

In the process of funding the building program, it surfaced that the church had borrowed $75,000 from a local millionaire. He was known only to the Church Treasurer and the Pastor (the Board knew the loan had been received, but not who had loaned the money to the Church). I had to approach the gentleman about our expansion program, intending to seek additional building funds.

I was confronted with an extreme right wing capitalist who  blatantly tried to use the church’s indebtedness to his advantage. He wanted assurance that I would be opposing Lyndon Johnson in the upcoming election before he would talk funding. He was pushing for Barry Goldwater.

I let him know that we would find our funding elsewhere and went to the First Federal Savings and Loan where we got the loan to complete the building program.

Paul Jenkins, The Jenkins Chronology [unpub]

My brother Mark who is ably carrying on the Jenkins ministerial tradition leaves Detroit for his new pastorate in New Hampshire today. I can’t help but be reminded of the many stories I have been reading in my Dad’s books about his father’s family’s moves across the Eastern and Southern United States to serve churches.

More Paul Jenkins stories to come in future blogs, I think.

I was not so invisible at church yesterday.

Several people sought me out and talked to me about stuff.

First one person poured her heart out to me about very private stuff.  Then several people complimented me on the music for the day.

The opening hymn was one of those  fluffy Christian poppy songs called “Circle the table.” My bass player showed up, so I felt able to do it on banjo. I thought about Cat Stevens as I did it.

Heh.  Just after playing through the Arvo Pärt organ piece which was very quiet, I walked up to the front of the church and told the congregation that the opening hymn might not be too familiar to them, so I was going to sing the first verse through once and then we could repeat it together.

At the coffee hour a woman sought me out and thanked me for doing it that way. She said she found it helpful.

I spent a good deal of time with Beethoven on the piano yesterday afternoon.

Reading up on Sonata Theory inspires me to look at the pieces they mention and think about other pieces that I know and love. In his Opus 10, no 3 Sonata in D minor, he has a slow movement that I find beautiful and interesting.  Beethoven apparently commented that this movement required a subtle adjustment in tempo every few measures to fit the music. In addition, in the book I am reading (Elements of Sonata Theory by Hepokoski & Darcy), this movement is cited as an example of a slow Sonata form movement complete with exposition, development and recap. Who knew? Once again I learn that one needs one’s brains as one rehearses.

I also rehearsed some of the challenging piano music I am planning to perform soon.

This would be the Decruck saxophone sonata and the Mendelssohn piano trio in D minor, first movement. I don’t often have this kind of energy on Sunday afternoon but I did yesterday.

Today is Eileen’s 58th birthday.

As I write this she has not risen for the day. I have her presents wrapped and scattered all over the kitchen table, including an old fashioned watering can and a long handled square tipped shovel. Such a romantic.

I read my Dad’s little book he was writing about his brother Jonny all the way through yesterday.

Jonny is the only living brother of the three of them(Dad, Dave and Jonny). I don’t think I have read Dad’s book on him before. My copy seems to be an unfinished draft with many notes in Dad’s handwriting and a questionnaire that  might possible have answers written in by my uncle Jonny.

I always find insights into my Dad and my family of origin and myself when I read these books of Dad’s.

He wrote several in his last years.

Our People – the story of his and Mom’s families
Thru Many Dangers, Toils and Snares: Chronology and memoirs – his own story
Family Pacesetter: stories of David Benjamin Jenkins – his oldest brother’s story
The Middler and I: stories of Jonathan Robert Jenkins – my uncle Jonnie’s story

Not exactly sure if he finished Uncle Jonnie’s book. My copy has lots of notes and breaks off after the third chapter. There is an outline for five more chapters including a summary. I should like to read this if there exists a copy. But I’m pretty sure that he didn’t finish it.

I hadn’t thought about the reaction of his brothers and their families to Dad’s project while he was doing it. Now I suspect they weren’t a hundred per cent happy about the whole deal. I remember seeing my Uncle Dave’s wife, Marge, receiving her copy of Dave’s story the day of his funeral. She was gracious but reserved about it. At least that’s the way I remember it.  And it may have been on a previous visit instead of the day of Dave’s funeral.

Uncle Dave died in full blown dementia. His dementia was one of those post-op by-pass dementias that results from a procedure of stopping blood to the brain during the operation (if I understand this correctly). A procedure they no longer do. He and my Aunt Marge were born on the exact same day. I remember their 80th birthday vividly because much of the extended family gathered for it. Dave was the center of attention, but I was fascinated to meet my cousins again as adults. I have two cousins, both first born males of my uncles, who were born the same year as me (1951). This is also the year my grandfather’s father  (My dad’s dad called Granpap) died. My two cousins, Fred and Allan, were born with minutes of each other. Silly Jenkins trivia I guess.

Anyway at my Uncle Dave’s 80th (it was really mostly his party), it was fascinating to see copies of myself standing around doing what I do: observing, feeling misgivings and out of place, and loving the extended family. And of course we all looked like middle aged versions of our dads, the three brothers.

We met at a motel in Ohio. I remember after all the family input I couldn’t sleep and went over to the truck stop nearby to get batteries or something for my CD player in the middle of the night. A trucker walked in and we exchanged greetings. When I asked him how he was doing, he grinned and said, “Just another day in paradise.”

Yup.

Finished reading The Informer by Akimitsu Takagi last night. It’s not a bad summer escape read. Although sometimes the translation reminds me of overdubbed Japanese movies, the plot did suck me in and is sort of clever. It’s a industrial espionage mystery novel.

Spent the day yesterday doing domestic stuff: Farmers Market, Grocery store, cleaned kitchen (again), laundry.

I think I was taking a bit of hiatus from the harpsichord and working on the Aug 5th gig.

I grilled hamburgers and portabello mushrooms for Eileen and me for lunch.

My dreams have been very vivid lately and last night was no exception.

I had a dream that reminded me of Anthony Burgess’s description of dreaming that this dead wife had not died, but had returned to life and wondered who this new woman was in Burgess’s life.

In my case, my father was back.

It was like we had a made a mistake and somehow he hadn’t died. My first reaction was to hug him and tell him I missed him. But quickly he began to be a problem. In my dream, my Mom and Dad lived near me. They had been staying at my house where I could keep an eye on them (not unlike what actually happened). But we would go back over to Mom’s house occasionally. Now that Dad was back from the dead he wanted to return to living alone with Mom in their house. I could see the stubborn look on his face when someone precipitously mentioned returning to my house for the night. I pulled them aside and explained that if Mom lived alone with Dad she would have another breakdown. The anxiety in the dream was a return of the real life anxiety I experienced around Dad’s unpredictable misbehavior. Interestingly I remember that in the dream part of the time my Mom spoke with an aristocratic English accent. I had the BBC playing as I slept and I can only guess that I was incorporating a voice from the real life radio into my dream. I remember in the dream wondering about Mom’s voice and thinking that she usually talked differently. Heh.

I have been thinking about being invisible lately.

I guess I’m anticipating today’s church service. I notice that often at church people act like I’m not in the room. No biggie. I experience this quite often. It’s probably a result of my own personality and stage of life.

I tend to think that having relationships with people means having direct contact with them. I notice that direct contact with me is sometimes uncomfortable for people. This is probably due to an array of reasons.

The cultural part reminds me of my Dad. Men don’t do intimacy. Older people don’t matter. Myths of our time. Recently a woman explained to me how it was no wonder a wedding was being planned badly, the planning was left to the groom. I was so taken aback that I couldn’t come up with a response.

So I have a slight inkling what Ellison describes in his wonderful novel, “The Invisible Man:

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

Yesterday Eileen and I walked down for a nice leisurely breakfast at LemonjellOs. Then we came back and spent the rest of the day putting strings on the harpsichord.

Eileen also reglued one of the keys where I pointed out to her some damage that has been causing it to wiggle loosely. It’s the one missing in this pic.

After that we walked down the local pub and had drinks and starters sitting outside and relaxing and enjoying the lovely weather.

The next step is to adjust the nut pins (little nails that guide and dampen the string near the keyboard, you can see them in the pic above) so that the strings will be a good distance from the jacks. This is a bit tricky because the jacks are not installed yet, but I think I can do this. I also may need to rewrap a couple of strings which are wrapped too low on the pin itself. After that we attack the jacks themselves. This feels like we are well on the way to having this done by Aug 5th, the date of my little fall gig.

Speaking of this gig, I had two musicians back out yesterday.  It’s a mother/daughter team, the oboist and the xylophone/glockenspiel player.

The mother, Debbie Coyle, is the religious ed director at the church I work at. She is a fine oboe player who has relatively recently returned to active oboe playing. Now she is a bit overwhelmed with the combination of her church work and oboe playing. I encouraged her to drop out if there was any discomfort or undue pressure coming to her from my little gig. One of the main points in my mind is to gather a specific cross section of musicians for a bit of mutual fun playing. So she finally succumbed and emailed me this is what she needed to do. Her daughter has not spoken directly to me so I’m not sure why she doesn’t want to play without her mom. I am a bit scary I know and the part is difficult. So it goes.

On the upside, my friend, Jordan VanHemert, read about Debbie dropping out and offered to play my oboe sonatina on his soprano sax.

Frabjous day! This actually is more interesting to me than hearing this 1976 composition of mine on oboe once again. I contacted Jennifer Wolfe, the pianist, and she agreed to do it with Jordan on sax instead of Debbie on oboe. That will be fun.  Thanks goes to Jordan and Jennifer for being flexible and helpful!

I’m happy to report that my daughter Sarah has a new part-time job as a graphics designer at Blitz Advertising (link to site).

She will be reducing her hours working at the local pub. She happily pointed out that Blitz is located where Fenchurch church thought of the answer to life the universe and everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books and movies. If you don’t remember, the answer is “42.”

Also happily the other daughter, Elizabeth, has rejoined Facebook.

She quit under an organized protest to FB’s bad privacy policy. I am selfishly glad she is back because FB does keep me connected better to her and others.