What can I say? Yesterday wasn’t too bad. I played a service, did a choir rehearsal and played a show. Usually this would devastate me, but I seem to have a bit more energy lately. Not sure if it was the New York trip (which definitely perked me up) or my persistent daily treadmilling.

Kind of funny that I do the treadmill now. My dead guru, Ed Friedman, used to use “treadmill” as a metaphor to contrast with persistence. Are you persisting in the face of pathology or are you on the treadmill. Hmm. I guess I’m on the treadmill. Heh

Yesterday I was able to point out to the author of a book on group Jazz improv that I saw his book at the Strand in NY recently. He beamed. He confessed that he checks for his book in bookstores but doesn’t usually find it. I told him I didn’t buy it (since I have a signed copy) but left it for the next person.

My work on Saturday was fruitful for yesterday’s choir rehearsal. I taught them some german pronunciation including the pronunciation I want of the umlaut in “flüchtig” We began rehearsing mov 1 of Bach’s BWV 26 ” Ach  wie flüchtig.”

In the pit orchestra yesterday the flute player confessed to being a lapsed Episcopalian and asked questions about the church where I work.  She asked what kind of music we did. When I replied we “do it all,” she said she preferred traditional. Sooprise sooprise.

I did okay as the synth player in the pit yesterday. I only got lost once which is pretty good average. I think there might have been a cut no one told me about. But I might just have turned too many pages and then couldn’t quite figure out where we were at.

I arrived an hour before show time. The director and the bass player ran a number with the cast before the show. I played along. Afterwards, the lanky bass player told me I passed the audition. Good to know.

They are paying fifty bucks a service on this gig and only that much because I wouldn’t come for their lesser offer of a hundred dollars for three shows. Sigh.

I did manage to squeeze in a few minutes on the Messiaen Nativity movement I have scheduled for my organ recital in Dec. But mostly didn’t get to organ rehearsal yesterday.

I will try to do better today. The recital I have scheduled pretty much demands daily rehearsal. I do have an Oklahoma pit orch rehearsal this evening. I sure am busy for someone whose self image is one of a bum without a steady gig. Heh.

Spent a good part of yesterday prepping for today’s choral rehearsal. So far I have heard from two choristers who will be unable to attend. Let’s see. Two out of what, sixteen singers? It’s just impossible to train a group that can’t commit to rehearsals.

I asked the Methodist guy on Thursday how he manages to get his handbell people to come to rehearsals.

He unhelpfully said something about people coming just after work. Oy.

Anyway, I spent several hours finalizing my adaptation of Bach’s “Ach Wie Fluchtig.”

I ended up putting it down a key so the basses don’t have to sing a high E. I also put a translation and german pronunciation guide in the choir copy.

Then I quickly restored the beginning to the version of a Stanford anthem we are doing for All Saints.

The Sewanee Composer project has done a pretty good adaptation of Stanford’s “And I saw another Angel,” Op. 37, no. 1. They dropped the  beginning tenor solo which makes it more functional for church choirs. But for some weird reason they started out in a different time signature than Stanford. Stanford’s original alternates between 4/4 and 3/2 and ends in 4/4. Their adaptation started with 3/2 and ended with 4/4 which is what caused me to look up the original in the first place. I restored the idea of beginning in 4/4 with minimal adjusting.

This morning I am playing “Song” from Ned Rorem’s Organbook I. I have performed this before.

I think it is lovely. But better still it didn’t require much prep. The postlude is anther story. It is “Postlude” (good name, eh?) by Louis Vierne and is from his 24 pieces collection.

I spent quite a bit of prep time on this one.

The Chamber Choir is not singing this morning, the Youth Choir is. But I have asked the Chamber Choir to still rehearse after church.

Hence all my prep yesterday. I also sent email to a violinist and cellist, inviting them to participate on the Bach as well.

Also managed to practice organ.

After church today, I have to get over to the Community Theater for my baptism by fire into the pit experience of their ongoing show, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”  That should be interesting.

Up and treadmilling this morning, I re-read the first several pages of Proust’s “Cities of the Plains (Sodom and Gomorrah). This is a long description of the narrator spying on the character De Charlus who is the important “invert” (gay guy) in the plot.  It paints De Charlus is rather melancholy sympathetic strokes and has a fascinating description of 19th century “gaydar.”

This is kind of  a Proust theme, the spying upon people’s sexuality and even deviance. The deviance I have in mind here is when he watches through the window the lesbian couple and the dominant person makes the other one desecrate the photograph of her dead father. (Did she make her spit on it? Can’t remember).

Anyway, I had a long weird day yesterday.  I taxied my Mom around and that was fine. While she was in the Psychiatrist office I went over my score for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” I am playing synth in the pit orch this Sunday after church. The man I am subbing for kindly took me through the entire score on Thursday. I emailed the director and offered to meet with him as well, but he said he preferred to “live on the edge” and just see me at the performance Sunday. Musicians. Sigh

.

After my Mom’s appointment, I took her to Grand Rapids to pick up her new glasses. We then came back to a little  bar here in Holland where she could have her Friday Clam Chowder. Then to Walgreens and home.

After that I went and practiced organ for a couple of hours. I am working on getting all of the tension out of my rehearsal. It has been creeping up on me in the form of a tense neck. I managed to do some of this.

After this I made the mistake of checking my email. Several messages through me in a turmoil of anxiety. Sigh again. When will I learn?

I came home and did my bills and my Mother’s bills which increased my emotional disturbance. Frustration with myself and software that doesn’t respond. I have inadvertently paid several bills late recently. Very frustrating.

By the time Eileen got home I was still fretting at the computer. I tried to order pizza online. And though I succeeded I seemed to be getting in a worse and worse mood.

I had pizza and a few glasses of wine and Eileen and I turned in.

What a day.

I like a book. I like holding it in my hands. I like tattered old paperbacks with outrageous colorful covers that reek of life lived. I like new  books. I like their smell, their touch: the smooth unread pages. I like books with no pictures just words. I like books with pictures.

I like large new comic books and graphic novels. I like fat books that present a unexplored thick adventure to be had. I like small thin books that allure with mystery and succinctness. I like a book.

But I find that I also like reading my little netbook screen.

It strips the writing of the romance and a lot of the subjectivity. Thereby allowing excellent writing to ring in my inner ear. And of course poor writing to fall flat.

Last night I perused Mobipockets books they have for sale.

The whole proprietary notion of stupid techie people makes me nuts. It’s one of the reasons I am not an ipod guy. The stupid ipod’s inability to interface with other hard and software. It’s obvious to me that this idea of just using the soft and/or hardware of company to access music or books only works to the advantage of the provider not the person listening to music or reading the screen.

So I like the flexibility of software like Mobipockets which allows one to read all sorts of books and texts. Since I do quite a bit of reading on my netbook, it sometimes occurs to me that I would like access to a book or article I am reading on it. I have a routine of using my netbook while I treadmill. And also I love it’s ability to enlarge text, highlight and put notes in Mobipocket docs. And of course it’s portability.

So I am on the look out for cheaper or free versions of stuff I am reading. Kindle books are out because they can only be read on Kindles. I would be willing to occasionally pay for a book say from Amazon buy diazepam online pharmacy that I could read online. But Kindle trundles on worried about DRM (Digital Rights Management) and only allows purchasers to use software that protects it. (to the best of my knowledge, Mobipocket and other free readers do not protect DRM and that’s why they have limited access to new books.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find there are sites online like Mobipocket.com that will sell you books to read on your computer. Of course some of the prices of these books are unreasonably expensive (just like physical books), but still I am planning to buy one some time and see if how it handles DRM. I suspect (and hope) it is stripped of proprietary stuff so that I can share it between my computers and even (gasp) with friends.

This occurred to me recently when I realized how much I have enjoyed reading James Joyce and Henry James on my netbook. Last night I was in the mood for looking at new books and started poking around on Mobipocket for fun. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they have samplers of most of their offerings. I have been interested in reading Obama’s book, Dreams from My Father.

So, I downloaded the first few pages from Mobipocket. Cool. Then I noticed they have these huge omnibuses of things like mysteries and classics.  I then downloaded a sampler of mysteries and discovered that the sampler has quite a few neat features like a complete index and several complete short stories. I quickly began reading the first mystery.

It was a goofy old story called the “Baron’s Quarry” by Egerton Castle.

I quickly realized it was pretty badly written and began searching for a writer I recognized. I landed on Wilkie Collins whose novel “Moonstone” I recently read and enjoyed.

As I read I realized how the simple nature of reading the bland text on a screen reduced the experience to one of such easily discernible quality, good or bad. Interesting. This spawned this little blog on books.

Sorry no pics today. No time, have to treadmill.

Long day yesterday. Went over and said prayers over my Mom’s laptop to get it working again. I continue to admire the fact that my eighty year old mother is hipper about the internet than many other people I know. Hi Mom!

Then off to a staff meeting at church. This was relatively painless this time. I do like my boss. After staff, I met with her for our weekly meeting. As usual we had  wide ranging discussion of our work. It is such a luxury to me to be able to just let my hair down with my boss and say what I think. She seems to value our discussions and better still doesn’t get overwhelmed by my intensity. These sort of people are rare in my life.

I did ask her if we could examine my pay scale in relationship to recommended salaries for church musicians. She told me that  she did examine pay scales when the church made me an offer. I remember just now that I asked for a couple extra thousand at the time. My explicit expressed rationale was my experience of church work is that the musician often didn’t get a raise.

This has actually been borne out. They froze all of our salaries this year. But it was due to the economic downturn.

It occurred to me that it’s very possible that I am one of the least paid people at my parish. I haven’t monitored other people’s salaries. Hell, I don’t even know exactly what I make. I think it’s in the low 20s.

Anyway, my boss readily agreed to at least examine where we are on pay scales.

I hate money and I hate worrying about money. I had a call from the American Education Services yesterday. They left two messages on my machine. I was a bit late with my payment for my younger daughter’s expensive UK education loan that we are covering for her until she gets on her feet. So maybe that’s what that’s about. I’ll call today.

After our meeting my boss went to the Farmers Market, but I chose to come home and grab some lunch before going back for a worship commission meeting.

I’m pretty sure I’m working more than the standard part time 20 hours a week. Organ practice is almost that much in and of itself (2 hours a day is 14 hours a week and sometimes I practice a bit more than that). Then there’s everything else including these meetings.

AGO pay scale for someone with a masters is spread over 28 K to 39 K salary with 10 to 14 K bennies. I don’t think I’m anywhere near that.

After my worship commission meeting, I practiced organ for a couple hours and got home in time to make supper for Eileen and me.

Then off to a grueling 3 hour rehearsal of Oklahoma. It was grueling because for much of the rehearsal we sat on our hands in the pit while they fine tuned the choreography of dance numbers.

This morning I meet with the synth player for the musical “A funny thing happened on the way to the forum.” He is the musician for the local Methodist church. He’s going to train me to sub for him on Sunday, next Friday and next Saturday. It should be okay. Although reading through this score I am finding it more difficult than Oklahoma.

Finished reading “Washington Square” by Henry James last night. I read it on my little computer after downloading the entire book in New York. Actually spent some time in the real Washington Square while we there. It’s a stone’s throw from where my quasi-son-in-law works (NYU).

Spoiler (hah) warning on this book

At first I was annoyed with James description of the father in this story. He’s a self satisfied highly competent New York doctor whose opinion of his daughter is that she is not quite up to the standards of his deceased wife, her mother. Then James introduces this slimey guy who professes love for the daughter just to get the doctor’s money. And there is a busybody aunt who lives with them, equally repelling.

Fortunately, the book seems to be a study in the character development of the daughter who realizes the lame love her father has for her, sees through the suitor eventually and puts the aunt in her place and remains old but gloriously single at the end.

It mostly takes place in house on Washington Square in New York City, hence the title and my interest in this book.

It was nice clear late evening last night. I decided to walk to the AGO  meeting at the college. It was a very pleasant walk.

As I came into the music building, I was pleasantly greeted by a man who graduated from Hope, did some grad work and came back to work at one of the local prestigious Reformed churches in this area. He remembered my name and asked me if I was working at the Episcopal church.

As we were walking down the hall, the organ prof ran around the corner and almost bumped into me.

He looked in a hurry and stared at me. My friend asked him if he was feeling better. He hesitated than said he was and hurried on. I told my friend he was moving pretty quickly and must be feeling better.

In the room where we were to meet, I was surprised how many people I recognized. I figured it would be a new crew. An elderly couple from my  church were seated in the back. They made regular trips to the UK for years and are quite the anglophiles. The subject of the meeting was  Hope college’s annual European trip…. this past May they were in the UK.

A few people seemed to recognize me and cordially greeted me across the room. We settled in for a slide/video presentation prepared by one of the profs who went the tour. It was nicely done. There were visiting members of the Muskegon chapter. Maybe they were thinking of utilizing the presentation at one of their meetings. Who knows?

It was interesting to listen to the two students narrate the slides with occasional asides from the profs who went with them. Always illuminating to hear young people talk about what interests them. Not always the organs, but certainly the architecture, museums and restaurants.

There were videos of them playing the various organs they visited. On one of them I was quite drawn to what turned out to be a movement of Locklair’s Rubrics. I think I will order this music. It’s pretty cool.

The UK class system splashed across the screen several times as the students and profs described gaining entry in to “posh” and forbidden things like the choir rehearsal of Kings College Cambridge’s choir.

After the presentation, I quickly left the room. I feel more than ever like someone who sees the world very differently from the people in this organization and at this college. I wondered idly if the young student who played the Locklair had heard or played any Arvo Part and what he thought of that music. But since the organ prof there is about as good an organist as I have heard in my life and I think  I make him vaguely uncomfortable if he even notices me at all, I feel a bit shut out of any way to connect with these people around the issues of music I love so much. I have to ascribe this feeling mostly to my own view of the world and lack of social skills.

I went up to the prof and thanked him for the evening and walked home in the cool Michigan night. Life is good. I have much to be thankful for.

After having supper with Eileen at the library, I drove to church and proceeded to practice organ for an hour or two.

I seem to be drawn to the organ as an area of music where I can achieve stuff and not be hampered by obstacles like disinterested musicians, lack of listeners or colleagues.

Speaking of colleagues, I am seriously considering attending this evening’s local AGO meeting.

I haven’t attended a meeting for years. I actually served on the board of the Holland chapter years ago. Then when the new organ prof was hired by the local college, I maneuvered the nomination of this dude to the deanship. Then I faded out.

But I thought I would do something paradoxical like attend this evening. The topic is the European organ tour the students took this year. Should be interesting enough.

I also have been receiving distraught emails from the local community theater people who need a last minute pianist for their production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum.”

It’s not clear exactly why they need another pianist. One of their pianists is having a family crisis out of town. But they have more than one. Anyway they offered me 100 bucks for three performances and a rehearsal. I told them I couldn’t do it for that little amount. I would do it for fifty bucks a pop. Received a confused email later that seems to say that they don’t really have time to look for another pianist and could pay that amount, but they’ll get back to me after they’ve checked with some others.

Playing piano for a musical is a huge job. At least it is for me. This would mean several panicked hours of prep at the piano. I need every penny these days but I can’t help but hope this doesn’t pan out.

In the meantime I’m back to the grind at church today.

I have to submit info for the bulletin (hymns, prelude, postlude). Last Sunday after church I received an anonymous note with weird criticisms of my hymn choices. Good grief. Tomorrow I have a staff meeting and a worship commission meeting. When I have all of this, I can’t help but wonder about the small amount of money I am getting paid to do this supposedly part time job. Oh well. I guess I need a gig of some sort and the one that pays most  consistently in my life is (shudder) church music. Plus I’m good at it. Bah.

Today’s online reading so far includes an interesting obituary of a man named Richard Sonnefeldt. Sonnefeldt was an army foot soldier at Dachau who was coraled into interrogating by the famous spook William Donovan due to his language skills. The obit included this interesting observation:

“As we went through the awful recital of crimes over and over, for each of the 21 inmates, hour after hour, I envisioned anew the stacks of pitiful corpses and gagged once again on the smell of assembly-line extermination these men and their cohorts had unleashed,” he wrote in his autobiography. “Their clean hands reached out for the bundles of stapled documents that catalogued their past. Elsewhere they might have easily have been taken for a group of very ordinary men, picked at random from a crowd.” (link to obit)

Also fascinating to read that distinguished physicists actually have a theory about the future sabotaging the particle collider

A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

(link to article)

Also a cool story about musicians who do more than music in Brazil:

Salvador Journal – Musician Changes Tone of Impoverished Village –

Finally an article about the legal view of the justification of students suing for their degree instead of earning it (or at least suing for incredible damages):

a student in osteopathic medicine who, after failing an important rotation, was dismissed because “he didn’t have the basic understanding that he should have as a fourth-year medical student.” The student sued on the grounds that he had been promised a degree by a phrase in a student handbook that described the program he was enrolled in as “a four-year curriculum leading to the DO degree.”

Anyone with the slightest familiarity with the way universities work would know that ‘”leading to” included the qualification “provided that the requirements for graduating were met” — a medical degree is not equivalent to the certificate you get for having completed six weeks of a summer camp — but the courts were persuaded to a more literal (and perverse) reading and awarded the plaintiff a partial tuition reimbursement. But he wanted more and he got it by arguing that he should receive an amount commensurate with the earnings he would have accumulated had the “promised” degree been conferred. Jurors ordered the medical school to pay him $4.3 million dollars.

The Rise and Fall of Academic Abstention – Stanley Fish

So church happened yesterday.

I seem to have more energy for the marathon of pre service rehearsals (instrumentalists, then choir), service itself, then post service choir rehearsal. Even so, I awake on Monday with the usual discouragement, introvert depression. Ah well. This too shall pass. I think that I prepared the choir well for its performance of “O Vos Omnes” by Victoria, utilizing vocaleses suggested by Frauke Haaseman in her invaluable book, “Voice Building for Choirs.”  These seemed to me to help the sound of the choir. I also performed my postlude pretty well. It was a little Bach piece from the Orgelbuchlein (Mit Fried’ und Freud’ BWV 616). I wasn’t as happy with my performance of Healey Willan’s setting of this same tune for the prelude. But enough about that. Here’s some links from yesterday’s surfing:

Open Library seems to be a sort of wiki google books. By that I mean, it’s a collection of digital books and references to other books that can be edited by users. I didn’t explore it too much.

Some articles of interest in yesterday’s  NYT:

Racing Time and Taliban to Rebuild in Pakistan by Sabrina Tavernise and Irfan Ashraf

Tehran Plans to Execute 3 Protesters of Election by Michael Slackman

The first is an in depth look at people trying desperately to survive in Pakistan, the second an example of extreme buy msj valium online uk injustice in Iran.

A third article struck me as difficult to believe: Debate Follows Bills to Remove Clotheslines Bans by Ian Urbina. Apparently communities across the US have rules that you can’t hang your wet clothes up on your own property. But never fear the federal government is going to protect this right soon. Don’t know what’s odder. The local communities ban or the need for such a federal law.

The Daily Beast had the “8 best moments from Sunday Talk shows” complete with what looked like the video snippets (I didn’t click on any of the videos) of such interest as Obama’s Communication Director Anita Dunn saying that when Obama appears on the network “he understands he’s not really going on it as a news network,” but “to debate the opposition.”

The “Litquake” is happening in San Fransisco. Let’s go! A friend recently told me that SF is one place (like NY and Ann Arbor) where she doesn’t feel out of place.

Pakistan has an online english newspaper called The News.

Think Progress points out that while McCain currently criticizes Obama for “muddling through Afghanistan”  he himself is on a 2003 tape saying we should just “muddle through Afghanistan.”

2003 tape link

commentary and link to McCain, Graham, Liebermen op-ed in WSJ.

Now I’m off to treadmill.

I have spent a good deal of my time practicing since returning from New York City.

It feels like I am  rekindling not only my love of music but my general joie de vivre.

I am working on an order for my Dec recital.

I find classical concerts so deadly, especially in terms of how they schedule and order their choices. So I thought I would do something a bit different.

Working order for Dec 6 recital

Toccata in C BWV 564 by J.S. Bach

Mein Weg Hat Gipfel und Wellentäler (1989) by Arvo Pärt

Praeludium in C minor (1837) Op. 37 by Felix Mendelssohn

La Vierge et L’Enfant from La Nativité du Seigneur Neuf Méditations pour Orgue

Fuga in C minor (1836) Op. 37 by Felix Mendelssohn

Sometimes I feel (1984) by William Bolcom
Fuga in C major BWV 564  by J. S. Bach

“Alfred Brendel on retiring from the concert hall and his books of poetry” An Oct 3 London Times article by Richard Morrison. Did you know that Brendel has been writing poetry in his old age?  I can’t wait to get hold of some and read it.

Ran across this fun anecdote in an article/interview with Richard Dawkins:

An old headmaster at his [Dawkin’s] school, called Sanderson, had been enormously enthusiastic about natural history. “And his spirit lived on there. My old biology teacher Ioan Thomas had come to the school specifically because of it. There was one time he came into class and asked: ‘What animal feeds on hydra?’ We didn’t know. He went right around the whole class asking. Everybody was guessing, and then, finally, we said, ‘Sir, Sir, what animal does?’ And he waited and waited, and then he said, ‘I don’t know. And I don’t think Mr Coulson does either.’ He burst into the next room, got Mr Coulson and dragged him out by the arm, and he didn’t know either! It was a wonderful lesson, I never forgot it and neither did anyone else: it’s OK to not know the answer.”
“Richard Dawkins: Strident? Do They Mean Me?” interview by Emma Townshend Independent UK

That story is for my daughter Sarah who sometimes reads this blog and loves stories.

And of course I continue to read Daniel Leech-Wilkenson’s wonderful online scholarly book: “The Changing Sound of Music: Approaches to Studying Recorded Musical Performances.” He is certainly on to something as he seeks to restore the importance of the performer to the essential understanding of what makes a piece of music. Good stuff.

Randomly, here are some links and books I have been looking at.

Indirect Procedures by Pedro de Alcantara is a book I picked up at the Strand when I was in NY. It’s subtitle (since I don’t think you can read it above) is “A Musician’s Guide to the Alexander Technique.”

I have been fascinated by the Alexander Technique since first hearing about it from the writings of Canadian author, Robertson Davies (who is great by the way).  It is described variously as a p osture thing, a philosophical thing and by de Alcantara as a good “use of the self.”

He emphasizes the unity of the idea of the technique and says like all the books that it can’t be learned from a book necessarily.

Today’s Largeheated Boy MP3 blog (which I check pretty regularly) has a free mp3 by Fela Kuti called Zombie (link). If you don’t know Fela Kuti, he was a Nigerian musician full of joy and and energy and  political dissidence that challenged the wrong-doing of his and other governments.

This cut is a short one for him (12 minutes).  He used to say that most Western pop tunes were shorter than the rhythmic intro to most of his songs. Not for the faint of heart. Recommended.  It’s blasting from my speakers right now. Excellent.

Here’s another book I picked up at the Strand. I read it on the flight home. Eco’s take on 21st century stuff is a gas. It’s a collection of essays. The first ones illuminate the idea that we are moving backwards in the 21st century from cold to hot war (his terms are neowar & paleowar), devolving into world wide recurrence of fundamentalism, anti-Semitism  and reading (on the screens of computers). He is by turns funny and thought provoking.  It’s on Google books (link)

Charles Rangel is running as fast as he can away from all kinds of corruption charges. In  a Wednesday NYT op ed piece (link), Gail Collins related this story about the chair of the Ways and Means Committee.

Here’s a Rangel story: During the Democratic convention in Denver in 2008, city police got carried away and unleashed pepper spray at some demonstrators and every innocent bystander in the vicinity. The refugees poured into a hotel lobby, coughing and teary. Some middle-aged women were in particularly bad shape, and their friends wondered whether to call 911 as they bent over, hacking and gasping.

Suddenly, in breezed Rangel. It was a moment in which an important politician could have scored a lot of points just by being slightly solicitous. The Lion took in the scene and boomed: “I’m outta here! I’ll send you cigarettes!”

I interlibrary loaned this book. It’s an interesting attempt to understand the current situation in Europe (with side comments about the differences and similarities to the US situation). Caldwell is an intelligent conservative  (A senior editor at the Weekly Standard). I keep hoping he will get outrageous enough for me to put this book down. So far, he is telling me stuff I don’t know about the 20th century history of movement of people to Europe from non-western places. I’m pretty sure he’s stuck in some thinking I don’t agree with (Save the cultures of Europe from dilution!), but still am gleaning some insights despite his bias.

The Cheneys are starting a consultant firm. Yikes! These people sure see the world differently than I do.  In his Washington Post article, “Cheney’s Daughter Starts Firm of Her Own” (link), Jason Horowitz observes:

The Cheneys have, of course, found time to become something of their own brand — a highly bookable, consistently gruff clan who speak in dour unison when bashing the current president, second-guessing the previous commander in chief and chiding wayward GOP leaders.

I interlibrary loaned Taylor Branch’s new book. I still find Clinton weirdly interesting (much like I find Nixon weirdly interesting). Plus I remember much of this history and it’s interesting to read about it.

Finally a link I file under Civility, continual loss of. “You Lie remark again, with a Republican target” (link) filed by Jennifer Steinhauer in the NYT. It seems that Gov Schwarzenegger dropped by Wili Brown’s (a Democrat) fund raiser and someone yelled at him. Sheesh. The saga continues.

My time in New York seems to have had the desired effect.

I return much more relaxed. It was wonderful spending time with my daughter Elizabeth and her partner, Jeremy. Together with Eileen, we had many fascinating conversations and experiences. The effect on me was very positive.

One big thing I am noticing today as I go about my usual Holland Michigan chores (Farmer’s Market, Grocery store) is how uptight people here seem to me. I’ve often noticed that I don’t fit in so well locally. This is to be expected I guess.

Yesterday waiting for our plane from Cincinnati to Grand Rapids a very thin  elderly woman engaged me in a bit of conversation. She was chatty and our plane was oversold so there was a bit of a lull. She confided that she had just returned from a homecoming gathering at her under graduate college. She said how pleasant it was that the college had not changed because, you know, so many colleges are becoming more liberal. Fortunately hers was still conservative. I made polite sounds. On the inside I thought to myself, welcome back to Western Michigan, Steve. Heh.

My trip to NY had an odd effect of re-affirming my own little corner and style of life in my little town. I saw so many people who were obviously interested in so many different things. The energy was pretty high on the street most of the time.

The Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition was phenomenal. These experiences always leave me refreshed and invigorated. Seeing it at the Whitney was very cool.

This past Sunday Roseanne Cash was interviewed by Diane Solomon for the NYT Sunday Mag. She said something that struck home to me:

DS What led you to settle in Manhattan?
RC You know that saying “We always thought she was kind of weird, but it turns out she’s just a New Yorker.”

link to interview

Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me. I hope so.

We have been having a truly amazing time in New York. Today after breakfast in Brooklyn we took the subway to the Staten Island ferry and ferried back and forth to the island.

Yesterday, we went to Dumbo and saw an incredible puppet show and a very cool art installation.

The puppet show was a Red Arm production on the top floor of an old warehouse.  It was by a group called the Cosmic Bicycle and was based on the works of Edward Lear.

Oops time at the Yippie Museum is up……. onward and upward. I do like New York quite a bit. I like the subways, the people, the buildings.

I am busily preparing to get on a plane tomorrow.

On Monday, I began work on a setting of the new Roman Catholic English version of the Gloria.

My composer group that I meet with in Grand Rapids decided this would be our next assignment. Not necessarily the Gloria  but some new text.

The Catholic music group, The National Pastoral Musicians organization, is sponsoring a contest for new settings. One of our members is planning to enter this contest. We thought it might be fun for all of us if we all did some settings.

I am very disinterested in the Roman Catholic church right now. I think it’s been very good to me in providing me a livelihood for most of my kids’ childhoods. But now it has changed so much and I have changed. No longer a feasible match.

I decided it might be fun to do a Gloria setting in the style of Arvo Part. This I have completed. Since the silly text is copyrighted, I think I will follow the practice of MP3 blogs and post my setting temporarily. So for the curious here are links to my final rough draft: pdf link finale doc link. I think there will be some changes in it before I show it to my composer group, but nothing significant.

This setting is entirely not practical on many levels. It violates my usual goal of congregaional participation. And it is based entirely on the technique of another composer. It’s actually kind of an compositional study to see if I could work out a piece in Part’s style.

Composing this piece has made me want to dig a bit deeper into Part’s music. This I am doing.

I had a list of stuff to do yesterday which I accomplished. I have another list of stuff to do today which include get subaru fan belt fixed, straighten choir area in church, take Mom to lunch with Sarah, take Mom to Kohls, get more cash for Mom from her bank, email mp3s to choir, bring plants in from outside for Eileen, clean kitchen, do laundry….

I still can’t get the vacation vibe going. If you’ve read this far, I should tell you that  my daughter Elizabeth says I will have limited access to the internet, so I figure this blog will be static for about a week.

Yesterday I got up early and read in choral conducting technique books as I treadmilled preparing for my day at church. Having one-stop-shopping (choir rehearsal then service then rehearsal—all on Sunday morning) seems to be working. It has brought two new members and seems to be a time that most of the choristers can make.

It requires me to take a deep breath and plunge in for the day.

I also meet with instrumentalists for last-minute rehearsal of music (hymns) I have asked them to learn.

Yesterday I performed  a prelude and postlude by Krebs (mentioned in previous posts), so that was also on my mind.

Somehow all of this seems to push me farther away from feeling connected to this job. Not sure how it’s all working in my head, but I mentioned it to the boss in our meeting last Thursday. It’s probably just a mild case of burn out or old age.

Eileen and I get on a plane in Grand Rapids on Thursday to fly to New York to visit with daughter Eliz and quasi-son-in-law Jeremy.

I am hoping I can relax during this time and gain a tad more perspective.

Yesterday while I was slaving away at church, Eileen and Sarah went to the Frederick Meijers Garden Sculpture Park.

They got back in the late afternoon.

My Mom has invited Sarah to lunch today. I have a ton of work to do in preparation for being AWOL for a few days…  compose and submit information for the next two Sunday bulletins.

This evening I have one of two rehearsals this week with the Grand Haven High School pit orchestra. They are learning “Olkahoma.”

I have been escaping into James Joyce’s Ulysses. Yesterday I broke out a hard copy (I have been reading it on my netbook).

Upward! Onward! soon to be AWOL!

From the counter at the bottom of this page, it looks like a few people actually do look at this blog from time to time. I haven’t re-embedded google statistics on this version of my website, so I’m not sure about visits here. But no matter. I use this blog as sort of a public daily journal where I can throw out ideas and share music. I do love the tubes of the internets.

This morning I was reading an article on James Joyce (“James Joyce for Ordinary Folks? by Steven Kellman“) when I got the urge to peruse the pages of Ulysses. Unfortunately I was on my treadmill. But fortunately I was on the internet. So I went over to Ebooks and quickly downloaded the entire test to my MobiPocket reader. I spent the rest of my time treadmilling and re-reading the first chapter of Ulysses.

When I re-read a book these days I do often wonder about what in the world I could have made of it when I read it the first time. The beginning of Ulysses now seems pretty clear to me, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten half the references I seem to be getting this morning when I read it years ago. It’s hard not to think that reading is ebbing. I know so few people who read for edification or even deep pleasure. The article on James Joyce mentioned the fact that even rare copies like one recently sold in London or Hemingway’s copy of Ulysses show little evidence that they have been read.

I know that literacy has always had its share of sham and pretence.  Gore Vidal famously quipping that when he was caught out in reviewing his own book anonymously that by doing so he made sure at least one book reviewer had actually read the book he was reviewing.

Last night I read through several Schubert Impromptus on the piano. This morning I listened to a BBC 3 program which compared recordings of Mahler’s Das Lied von Erde followed by a rendition of Beethoven’s 26th piano sonata (the farewell one) on a fortepiano. All of this stuff is part of my world but I do wonder about being so disconnected from what others seem to be interested in.

My family of origin seemed to tell the story of me as reckless, unpredictable and a bit undependable.

(My late father expressing surprise that my bright wife Eileen did not handle our bills, but screwy Steve the musician did) I seem to see myself a bit more as outsider who is interested in useless but fascinating (at least to me) stuff.

The tubes of the internet do provide much connection for me. So I persist.

Yesterday I discovered the answers to questions I have been thinking about Arvo Part in a book about him I have owned for years. Althought this is ironic, I think I am on schedule with understanding because I have spent some time with his music performing and listening to it. Now is the time for me to dig a bit deeper into it.

I think I resisted Paul Hillier’s system of thinking because it seemed so sterile and possibly not relevant. I quit reading it too soon. He keeps bringing in Part’s own understanding of his work and apologizes for developing nomenclature that is shorthand for Part’s deep feelings about his own music. And when he comes up with a phrase like “What we hear might be described as a single moment spread out in time,” I have to admire the depth of his understanding and use of language to describe something so ineffable as Part’s beautiful music.

Skipped a couple of days of blogging. I guess I’ve been busy.

I spoke with my boss the priest yesterday about giving up my predilection to match choral anthems with the readings. (that’s me on the couch) This seems like a whole lot of effort when in fact my higher goal right now is to keep the choir sounding good via attention to vocal coaching.

The reason this is on my mind is that we are experimenting with one-stop-shopping for choir members: all rehearsals and performances on Sunday morning.

I say we are experimenting but I’m pretty sure there will be no turning back from this adaptation to where people put their choir commitment in their lives.

I had two new members Sunday and one very pissed old member. This is not a bad average.

My boss forgot to underline the bulletin announcement about seasonal choirs. There was so much going that day.  I don’t like adding announcements when there are already so many anyway. I think people quit listening.

Anyway, she is thinking of mentioning it this Sunday.  I don’t think the congregation is at all aware of this option. But communicating to church members is pretty complicated these days because people drift in and out so often. People who think of themselves as members often are not present.

This means rethinking communications strategies and getting more sophisticated about web sites and such.

Which my group doesn’t seem to be into…. so fuck it.

I’m feeling goofy because I am getting sucked into church stuff via trying to do liturgical music well again. Oy. I need less church and more music. Which is my strategy. But I hate to give up cleverly chosen anthems that connect to the readings of the day. But so be it. In the meantime I am working hard on organ music. This Sunday I’m doing two pieces by Krebs.

He was a student of Bach. The silly saying is that Krebs (which is German for “crab”) was the best “crab” in the “brook” (Bach means “brook” in German).

It’s interesting to me that Krebs lived until 1780, which means he was composing at the same time as Mozart and Haydn. And where as his compositions do show the “gallant” influence of the classical period, one can easily see Bach’s influence in his writing. I find Krebs compositions quite lovely and interesting.  I played his oboe/organ fantasy (I think it’s a fantasy) on one of my Master’s recitals.

I’m also working on William Bolcom’s chorale prelude on “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” This little composition is cool but is sort of a motherfucker to learn. I have been working on it most of the summer. The difficulty is two-fold: a pedal part that emulates a good solid Motown bass line (the piece is dedicated to Marvin Gaye) and a bewildering array of complex chords in Eb minor. But it’s coming along.

Also learning Arvo Part’s Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentäler for organ. The title means “My way has its peaks and valleys.”  Here’s a good description from Answers.com:

Composed on commission for the 1989 Organ Festival in Parainen, Finland, Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentäler is one of only a handful of compositions for organ by Arvo Pärt. It takes its inspiration from a poem fromEdmond Jabès Livre des Questions, particularly a line that provides the title: “My path has its peaks and its valleys…” The poem compares the ups and downs of living with the rise and fall of the ocean’s waves, a topic that no doubt resonated closely with the composers deep religious convictions.

I realized I am reading three novels all of which have a female hero. The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson,

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

and The Child Garden by Geoff Ryan.

All three seem to be good reads and right up my alley.

I received the Winterson in the snail mail from the Eastern branch of my family as a birthday gift.

Along with Gluck’s new book of poetry, “A Village Life,” and Mike Konopacki and Paul Buhle’s “graphic adaptation” of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of American Empire.”

So lots of good reading ahead of me.

In the meantime I have been doing quite a bit of reading online.  The Wall Street JournalBook Review: ‘Reflections on the Revolution in Europe’ – by Paul Marshal, although reflecting Marshall’s specific understanding of Christianity as a moral system rooted in Christ’s teachings (which is a rather narrow understanding in my opinion), did point me to an excerpt of the book he was reviewing by the same title by Christopher Caldwell which I also read and then interlibrary loaned this morning.

This article and excerpt interest me because they give some background on the current discussion of immigration in Europe. I was especially interested to learn about the Brit Enoch Powell’s early predictions about what would happen if the influx he correctly foresaw would happen.

I found Marshall more narrow than Caldwell but both seem to be speaking from an essentially Western economic chauvinistic point of view.

“The Doers Club” by William KamKwamba and Bryan Mealer is a first person account of using personal ingenuity to upgrade life in Malawi. The article linked is an introduction.

This is his book:

And there was the Guardian article from last Friday about the clash between a Jediist and the Britsh grocery store chain, Tesco. Tesco asked the Jediist to remove his hood but he claimed religious persecution. Very funny. .

Yesterday was interesting. I woke up early and treadmilled and strategized about working with my one-stop-shopping choir.

I had four anthems picked out as possible for yesterday’s service. I had only planned to use two of them at the most. I began working on my SAB version of “Humbly I adore thee” but abandoned it. I also worked a bit on the SATB anthem for the day, “Song of the Shepherd Boy” (link to pdf) by J.F. Brown 1989. This was a lovely anthem and I spent quite a bit of personal prep time on it, but abandoned it because I didn’t have enough men to do it. Instead I switched to a charming little version of “If thou but suffer God to guide thee” which I had adapted and transposed from Zipp’s version of this piece in the SAB Chorale Book. I changed the words to the words that were in the Hymnal 1982 and added two stanzas found in the Lutheran Book of Worship but not in the Hymnal 1982.

I think it was  a bit confusing to the choir that I switched strategies in mid-stream. I tried to explain but it’s a lot coming at choristers for them to get everything I am saying.

We spent the rest of the pre-game learning this anthem as thoroughly and musically as possible.

The performance in the service sounded pretty good to me.  I had left space in the worship at communion for a second choral anthem (The SATB choice would have been O Taste and See by Vaughan Williams, the SAB choice was my version of “Humbly I adore thee” mentioned above).  But we only really had time to prepare the offertory anthem (If Thou but suffer God to guide thee), so instead I stuck in a Bach ornamented chorale prelude that most organists can play at the drop of a hat: “O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sunde gross” BWV 622.

I momentarily considered playing a third Buxtehude organ piece (the prelude and postlude were by him) but since I have had some parishioners complaining that I don’t use enough “traditional/heritage” music (whatever that is) I thought I would do something more recognizable like the Bach.

Besides it is beautiful music and I love playing ornamented chorales like this.

I played this while the choristers took communion and then had my talented volunteer guitar player lead the congregation in “Do Lord, do remember me” while I went up for communion.

At the post game rehearsal I had enough men to rehearse SATB anthems. I began both pre and post game with vocal production exercises and emphasized that beautiful choral sound was my biggest concern.

I managed to help the choir make a decent choral sound both in service and in the rehearsals. I am thinking of abandoning my previous insistence on having the anthem closely related to the readings (like the Brown linked above was) and look for more generally related pieces that contribute art to the service.

After the post game rehearsal I snuck into the last hour of the mission statement/planning meeting. By the end, I had had enough church for one day but felt like I had managed myself pretty well on my first one stop shopping Sunday.  It does make a long day and of course some singers are not happy about that. I made an extra effort to cheer lead and support people emotionally.

That’s just about all I can do.

Still processing the fact that a publisher actually looked at my web site and noticed I was using a copyrighted tune in a composition and took action.

Being a “worm’s eye view” musician means persisting with what you love despite tons of discouragement and more usually being ignored.

Last Saturday after exhausting myself playing 21st century cocktail music, I had to hang around until I could catch the MCs eye, introduce myself and ask if she had a check for me. Of course she didn’t. She promised she would get one for me and went away. I was stuck in the hall with the bridal party and the o so smooth looking dj and felt entirely out of place. I snuck back down to where the piano had been hoping she would find me. When she did, she confessed that no one knew how much to make a check out for and how much was it again?

I have been battling with my choir over the notion that I would prefer people not to skip rehearsals and then come and sing at the performance. I keep pointing out that it’s just my opinion, but people hear it like I’m insisting on having my way.  Plus now all bets are off because we have abandoned the week night rehearsal. This Sunday is our first Sunday morning one stop shopping pregame, service and postgame rehearsal.

I have been struggling to come up with material for this interim time. I have chosen SATB anthems for about six weeks. But it looks like I don’t really have a quorum for SATB so I have been trying to find music that will both motivate and satisfy my dwindling crew.

I spent several hours yesterday working an SAB harmonization of “Humbly I adore thee.” I’m pretty satisfied with it now. I have a meeting with some other composers today in Grand Rapids and am trying to build up my courage to take it with me to show them.

They are all Catholics and will probably find the Episcopalian version of Adoro Te a bit strange.

Haven’t really had much response to the letter I wrote and posted a few blogs back about church music. I suspect that my brother and my brother’s musician probably read it all the way through. My brother’s musician, (Hi Davd!) emailed me a response which was refreshing.

I also copied it to my staff and have had no substantive response. My boss noticed I had emailed it and said so.

From the  worm’s-eye-view, it’s kind of odd to perceive yourself as content oriented and at the same time suspect that you are missing the boat with how people see life: more if something seems a certain way, it is…. Like if you look like a street person (ahem), you are completely ignorant of what real musicians (who look nice) know and do with music. Poor me, eh?

I find it confusing when people (radio announcers, tv people, newspaper writers) use odd movie metaphors when discussing real life.

I keep thinking of the story of someone’s gramma when tv was new who kept thinking that what was happening on tv was real no matter what. Sort of ducking when trains come at her on the screen kind of thing.

We laugh about that, but it seems to have been more true than we knew. Our reptilian brain responds to image at a gut level and god help the rest of your reasoning in balancing it off.

I know that my life is good and I enjoy making music and being with the people I love. It seems so disconnected from how others experience life.

I’m counting the ways
the ways we went wrong
troubles today
can’t be healed by a song
for some reaons I
sing
anyway

from my song, “So Many People” no copyright, no trademark, just a worm’s eye view

Micheal Moore (not the movie maker, but the Customer Care Permissions Adminstrator at Augsburg Fortress) just emailed me and pointed out that I was distributing an organ piece based on a hymn tune for which they own the copyright. He politely asked if I had permission or  if I wanted to obtain permission to use it.

He said it was okay if I wrote a piece and even performed it assuming I was doing it not-for-profit. I wonder, is it not for profit if I perform it at the church where I get paid to play? Anyway, fuck the duck. I just removed it. It wasn’t that good a piece. Nor is that great a tune. Whippy skippy. I can make another piece if I need one. One not based on a hymn tune that someone “owns.”

It’s ironic that this tunes begins exactly like (it probably was a compositional reference) the first five notes of  the German chorale “Aus Tiefer Not” scattered throughout this entry.  I wonder if good old Marty Luther sold his birthright, I mean copyright to some publisher as well.

I find the whole for-profit copyright thing pretty depressing.

I spent the morning arranging Hymn 314 “Humbly I adore thee” for SAB choir.

I’m probably in violation of copyright on the translation on that. In fact, as I understand it, I figure copyright laws are so strict it’s pretty impossible not to violate them sometime. It was never my intention to “steal” anything but apparently that’s how it seems to the people who “own” this series of notes called a hymn tune. As I understand it, photocopying music for page turns is also against the law.  God help me on that one.

The whole thing makes me realize that I’m just living in a different world from so many people.  For me, music is something you do, not something you own. And if you want to sell something, the last thing in the world you should do is shut down people publicizing and using your stuff.  But of course there’s always the possibility they will make 50 P from your product and not report it to you. I’ll probably think twice before I even use this hymn legally in worship again. Also, you can bet your bippy I’ll won’t be buying music or recommending music from Augsburg Fortress real soon.

There’s so much wonderful music out there. And what’s missing can easily be composed.  At least that how it seems to me.  Admittedly I seem to be in a different universe. The one where beauty’s not for sale but for listening, looking, reading, thinking, loving and making.