I woke up this morning with song ideas buzzing in my head. It’s been a while since this has happened to me. Of course, nothing will necessarily come from incipent ideas, but at least I’m having ideas.

This evening, it looks like I will be performing with my friend Jordan at Barnes and Noble.

It’s unclear exactly what we are doing there. Jordan said something about us not being able to play without an audition. So I asked him if tonight was an audition for another gig. He wasn’t sure. But whothehell. We may connect with a bass player today. I have told Jordan that I will be as supportive and available as I can for him this summer for gigs. He has given me a list of pretty traditional Jazz tunes he has in mind for tonight (Autumn Leaves, Sonny Rollins’s Oreo).

I find his choices puzzling but have told him that I want him in the drivers seat for these kinds of gigs. This means I try not to second guess him immediately as he forges  his way.

Interestingly we were discussing how he would like to perform “Dear Lord” by John Coltrane this week. He said something that has been said to me before decades ago, that he knew I didn’t like doing it like the original but he wanted me to. Hmmmm.

I think it’s important for a strong young artists like Jordan to express himself not only with his considerable technique and improv but with the choices he puts before listening audiences. On the other hand, I don’t plan to remain entirely silent as I acquiesce.

I have ambivalence about what Jazz means to listeners. I recall that we pretty much nailed the tune, “Chromazone,” when we performed at the coffee house last time. It’s a tough engaging funk tune. But I got the feeling it was leaving our audience in the dust. If that happens with that tune, how can a performer take an audience with him back into historical Jazz and standards? I don’t know what the answer is.

On another musical front, I gave my student, Rudi, his first piano lesson of the season yesterday. This is extremely good for me as it pulls me back into the academic arena of standard piano repertoire. Rudi played Schumann’s Romanze op. 28 no. 2 for me and also Fauré’s Barcarolle in A minor op. 104. Though I really don’t know either piece, I was able to help Rudi think about the compositional and pianistic technical questions posed by each piece.

Rudi is in a typical open student stance to my comments and is an intelligent thinker and player (He is 79). I find it satisfying and ironic that he seems to give me musical credibility that I find sorely lacking in most other areas of my life. I hasten to add that this is largely of my own doing. I tend to isolate myself from other musicians in this area. I like to think this is partly caused by the fact that  I speak a dBifferent aesthetic (if not ethical and logical) musical language from them. But I do know that I don’t repent of my stance or my situation.  But I do notice when people treat me more by how they see my appearance than my abilities or musical contributions.

There are startling exceptions to this of course. Rudi is one. Jordan and Jonathon are others.

The Grand Rapids Cathedral dude is another.

On the cooking front, I made a delicious (if I do say so) pesto/mushroom quiche yesterday. And an interesting  sweet potato/carrot/garbanzo bean casserole.

Had the weirdest day yesterday. I had a ton of tasks to do for my Mom. I was sort of dreading calling people and trying to get stuff done. But I did a ton of stuff and it felt like a weight off my back. So the rest of the day went very nicely.

It’s odd that sometimes I just seem to revitalize. It feels distinctly like a gift from somewhere and completely unearned or uncaused. I used to call it being in the grips of an unreasonable optimism. It’s probably a chemical imbalance. Heh.

I waded back into Enderby last night and finished “Inside Enderby” the first of three volumes. I do like Anthony Burgess.

Also plugging away on The Gift by Lewis Hyde. Good stuff.

I rehearsed a bit with my friend Jordan. He didn’t seem to be much in the mood to play. I’m hoping he will call me back for a rematch this week, but I guess we’ll see. I played through a ton of Scarlatti and Beethoven.  Good stuff and rewarding to play through.

If not, I have plans to do stuff around the house. Like continue to organize the place. And god forbid compose.

Got up this morning and used the weird oven my Mom gave me to bake quiche.

It’s a combination microwave/half-time oven. I tried to use the half-time feature this morning but it seemed to end up taking just about as long as a preheated conventional oven. The pie is cooling and I’m waiting for Eileen to come down and eat some.

I originally had some misgivings about the idea of an online encyclopedia to which everyone contributed. Recently, I heard someone on the radio beating up on Wiki, saying it was only good for things like popular culture.

Then after just a little thinking about how many errors I routinely run across in scholarly publications, I realized that Wiki was just like everything else: let the buyer beware. Let the reader use her brains! Don’t accept it just because it’s in print.

Right.

Case in point.

This morning I used three editions of Scarlatti to examine (admitedly belatedly) the sonata I performed Sunday. I now own the complete Longo edition of these works (some 550 pieces in many volumes). I am still playing my way through the first volume and recently ran across one I really like a lot.

So when I knew that I couldn’t do an organ prelude this past Sunday, I scheduled the Scarlatti sonata.

I did mean to look at other editions before performing but then life got complicated and I arrived at the college music library ten minutes too late. Dang.

I did manage to get over there yesterday and checked out the appropriate volume of the Kirkpatrick facsimile edition and the Kenneth Gilbert edition.

This morning as I began looking at the sonata in the three editions, I made the discovery that all three editions differ. The sonata I played is both of the important manuscripts from which most modern editions are derived. Apparently these manuscripts differ. At one point a line is a third higher in one than in the other.

The most important things I need to change about how I play this piece were added editorial by Longo…. reflecting the practice of the time which was to correct the great composers. He put in a tie that doesn’t work at all and is none of the other manuscripts.

Musing on these differences led me in two directions.First how the idea of a definitive version of a piece according to the intention of the composer is an ephemeral concept and probably not that important in most cases. When you add the fact that few performers make it through a piece without messing up something. (I know. I know. There are the perfect performers out there who rarely hit a wrong note or vary a tempo. I think they play this way largely because of the influence of recording on performance practice which causes players to value accuracy over interesting interpretation…. but maybe that’s just because I make so many mistakes myself. Ahem.)

So what is the concept of a piece of music? Is it floating in an ideal way as a shadow in some Platonic music cave? What if music is something you do? If you do it a bit differently what has happened to the music? Is it destroyed?

I had a theory prof at Wayne State who was sure this was the case. Music is not plastic he used to say to be twisted into the various shapes interpreters will.

Maybe he’s right. But for me, I like music so much that it is the doing of it that brings me the most satisfaction. Of course I strive for accuracy, but what I strive most for is to the let music come through me.

I’m hoping for a bit of a day off today. I don’t really feel like I have completely recovered from our England trip. I was just getting over the jet lag when I came down with the achey shakey flu. Then Eileen’s Dad died. Yesterday we drove to Chicago and deposited my lovely daughter, Sarah, at O’Hare.

So it looks like today nothing is really planned. I’ll need to check on my Mom at the hospital but that’s really my only task.

Yesterday I did the service entirely without the organ. Afterwards I once again had several unsoliticited compliments.

Two from visitors. One guy liked the way I do “Here I am.” Actually as I was doing it it crossed my mind how the GIA executive editor once wrote me in a letter how I do this style of music (Catholic folk stuff) wrong. I “overplay” it. Indeed this visitor said he thought I did it more like a march. I told him that I tried to design an accompaniment for congregational singing. Also that I have done a brass arrangement which was indeed like the “trio” of a march.

The other visitor said he was a life long Episcopalian who hadn’t been to church  in a while. He said that the music was more like a “broadway” musical and that he liked it.

I pointed out that usually I mix up using the organ and the piano but that the organ was out of commission.

The former organist said that she enjoyed my Scarlatti. I played one of his sonatas and decided as I was performing it do the repeats. I guess this was a mistake because when I neared the end of the second section for the second time, someone moving near the piano distracted me and I struck a wrong chord. Damn! Oh well.

Another parishioner said she liked the recorder. I did the closing hymn with guitars and recorder. It was the German chorale, Allein Gott. Even though this tune is actually based on a tenth century Gregorian chant, I made it sound like a medieval dance with a drone on one guitar and having the other guitar double the melody with the soprano recorder.

I find it interesting that I am feeling so burned out about the choir program at my church and that I do receive weekly compliments that make me blush. I suppose the people who hate what I am doing don’t talk to me about it.  From listening to the chairperson of the Worship Commission a few months ago, there are definitely people in the congregation who find me difficult to take.

But of course that’s true of many people in this provincial religioius town.

Anyway, I keep thinking about doing some composing. I have been invited to a composer get together this Friday in Grand Rapids. The guy convening the discussion is my friend, Nick Palmer, who is currently the Roman Catholic Cathedral guy. I really like him and he is a top notch composer. So I’m glad that he keeps including me even though I’m not sure how hot I am to trot about writing church music right now.

But it would be good discipline to do something. I was even (Godhelpme) thinking of writing a fugue this morning for practice. My counterpoint teacher said some discouraging things to me about my ability to write a fugue in the style of Bach. It’s so easy to remember the negative things people say to you, I guess.  On the other hand, the same dude offered me a teaching assistantship in theory at Southern Methodone University where he was going to head up the theory department so he must have thought I had some skills.

I haven’t done the treadmill yet this morning. Waiting for my beautiful wife to leave for a doctor’s appointment first.

As I was on my treadmill this morning, I was reading The Gift:Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World  by Lewis Hyde. I recently ordered my own copy of this book after reading the library’s copy for a while. re-reading the first chapter, I had a bit of an insight involving an old poem of mine.

Hyde talks about a “widening” of the ego. From self, to relationship, to larger community. 

If the ego widens … it really does change its nature and become something we would no longer call ego. There is a consciousness in which we act as part of things larger even than the race. When I picture this, I always think of the end of “Song of Myself” where Whitman dissolves into the air”

Whitman writes;

I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.

When I was younger I overheard a friend of mine muse that if I kept writing poetry it had to get better. This left me wondering how bad my poetry was. Little did I know that this was a feeling I would re-visit throughout my life. I like my music and poetry and think it’s worthwhile. But at the same time, I am willing to grant my own subjectiveness and bias. I think of the great flutist, Jean PIerre Rampal, lingering in the wings of a church where applause was forbidden. When he was asked to play an encore, he wryly refused saying, maybe they didn’t like it. 

Once I showed a poem to a composer/professor I knew. This professor and I had a weird relationship. I think in retrospect I may have intimidated him. At the time, I felt he had all the cards of life: composing, a teaching job, skills. He agreed to teach me the (now defunct) art of music calligraphy but stipulated that he would not take me as a composition student. 

When I showed him the poem, I remember the look on his face or at least my impression of his reaction. He seemed to see in my poem a revealing of my own little egotistic needs. Here’s the poem:

SOUND LONGING

                         When I was
A child I wanted to be a river
Calm as a falling pebble.
On my shores trees turn in
Simple wavering dance,
Hesitating in the palm
of a river child.
                            Unsatisfied
I asked dripping lovers to be
Liquid. O the many and same
Asked into my head until
Light went dead within
Tremorous calm.
                        Now balanced
On the skin of my lover I am
Lost in danger of simple desire:

I want to be a tremor of the air
Inside greed ears of trees.
I want to be an instant on the arms
Of all, sound in the sky that
Comes and goes like a single breath.
Old river longing grown into
A hopeless scheme drawn from
The still night, neither expected nor
Doubted.
Feb 1974

I like to think I was trying to capture more what Hyde and Whitman had in mind than my composer prof. 

Yesterday was the memorial service for my wife’s father, Clyde. Whew. Everything went fine, but I am tiring of these sorts of events.

It is nice to see everyone. And I am enjoying having my lovely daughters around. In fact we four (Eileen, Elizabeth, Sarah and me) had a very nice little supper together last night. 

I am writing this entry from the Emergency Room of Holland Hospital. Earlier today I received a phone call from the place where my Mom lives saying that the nurse felt she (my Mom) should be taken to the ER for evaluation due to symptoms she has been complaining of.

Sure enough, Mom has pneumonia and is being admitted for a two day stay. She is fatigued and having trouble breathing. They have already given her two kinds of antibiotics. I think she is pretty comfortable for someone suffering from pneumonia.

In the meantime, I have been sitting here working on paperwork for the internimable application to medicaid on behalf of my Mom (and deceased Father). I also did a bit of Greek. And uploaded photos from yesterday to Facebook. 

“Nothing in this world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy. We can none of us step into the same river twice, but the river flows on and the other river we step into is cool and refreshing too.

from The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham

I have been neglecting my blog, but not by design.  The last couple of mornings, by the time I get my coffee and treadmill time in, I have to immediately start doing other things.

Tuesday, after exercising, I continued transcribing Vaughn Williams’s “Six Studies in English Folk Song for Cello and Piano” for saxophone. By the time my friend Jordan arrived, I had four of them done. He and I managed to find about fifty minutes to practice. He had decided to bring his soprano sax and we read through Astor PIazolla’s “Histoire du Tango.” It was fun. I still have two “Studies” to finish transcribing and we’ll get to them sometime, I’m sure. 

The quote at the beginng is from a book I read on vacation. Or I should say re-read. I love Maugham, especially in the first person. I have several passages underlined from this last reading. The one at the beginning of this entry is one that is meaningful to me. I feel more and more that life is to be savored and enjoyed even as it ebbs. 

By this I mean immersing one’s self in the stuff of life which for me is loving those I love and making music and readinging and listening and eating good food and whatever…..

Rudy Rucker was recently a guest blogger on one of my favorite web sites: Boing Boing. He mentioned his recent publication of a sci fi novel and it turns out he has written many of them. I discovered the local library owns several of  his books and checked out “Postsingular” by him.  Very cool. Here’s what he says about the plot:

Postsingular takes on the question of what will happen after the Singularity—what will happen after computers become as smart as humans and nanotechnology takes on the power of magic?…

 

a congenial breed of quantum-computing nanomachines called orphids [is developed by characters in the book].

The orphids coat the planet, one or two per square millimeter, and now everyone is on-line all the time, and everything is visible in the orphidnet. Artificial life forms emerge in the orphidnet, and they pyramid together into a superhuman planetary mind. People can mentally access this mind and feel like geniuses—with the catch that when they come down they can’t really remember what they saw. And this new kind of high is addictive.

 

It reminded me of a recent comment made to me by an elderly gentlemen when I expressed puzzlement about his not being able to find some information readily available on the web: “I am not addicted to the web.”

Hmmmm. I think maybe I am.

Anyway, I am enjoying this book. It is the first of two books on this story and I look forward to reading them both.

Monday I went to practice organ and was unable to get the instrument to even turn on. It was some time before I realized that the organ was scheduled to be releathered at the first of June. Oh yeah. Now I remember.

This necessitated changing my organ prelude and postlude to piano pieces.

No problem there. I simply scheduled a Domenico Scarlatti sonata that has recently caught my fancy (Sonata in B minor, K87) and then took advantage of this opportunity and scheduled “La Trece” by Renee Touzet.

Touzet is a Cuban American composer who caught my fancy a few years ago when I read about him in a piano magazine. He wrote a great number of piano pieces based on Cuban dance rhythms and (bonus) caught the eye of Ricky (BabaLOO) Ricardo who made him his piano player.

I had fun running his music down which seemed to be mostly available at a music store in Miami he used to frequent when he was alive. 

I like the music quite abit and I especially like the one I have scheduled for Sunday’s postlude. 

While I was practicing it, my wife (and important critic) wandered in and said, “This is a one of the good ones.” True.

Speaking of trade mags, last night I read a delightful letter in the June issue of the AGO (American Guild of Organists) Journal. Recently there have been a series of letters in the magazine deploring the dissonant music that so many musicians (organists especially of course) schedule for public performance. I had barely realized I was following this discussion from month to month. It sounded like the background noise of my own arguments with people in my head.

I think this discussion had so influenced my own prejudices to the point that I was genuinely surprised when my old organ teacher (whom Eileen and I ran into at the International Airport in Detroit) not only thought that Messiaen’s Pentecost Mass for Organ was his masterpiece (presumably for organ) but sang the cool Lark theme of it to me. For some reason I expected him to lean away from Messiaen and more toward the tonal. 

Also locally I seem to be unable to connect well with other organists and college types. 

All this contributes to my own assumption that my tastes are not the tastes of many if not most people who are as trained as I am or even better trained. 

Anyway this letter seems to be from a high school student respectively disagreeing with his conservative elders. And lo and behold he mentioned Messiaen several times as an example of music “quite accessible to human emotion.” Be still my heart. Cool beans.

Also in this issue, I found out that Schirmer apparently allows people to access their catalogue via free subscription including downloading copies of music for examination. I haven’t tried yet. It probably has a catch like proving your not some schmuck like me unaffiliated with a college or publishing house. But still it’s worth a  try. Schirmer on Demand.

I continue to be baffled at the popularity of shows like “American Idol.” I have friends and family who regularly watch and enjoy this show in particular. The phoniness and the cruelty seems not to register to them. Maybe I’m overly sensitive and speaking from a point of view that is suspicious of the U.S. culture of celebrity.

Recently visiting the U.K. I suspected that in England there seems to be something in addition to the pervasive culture of celebrity and consuming. In the United States, not so much. 

Yesterday I read a quote “This American Idol” in the NYT that seemed true:

“This show is all about manipulating the eagerness for celebrity among vulnerable, often desperate people,” David Wilson, a professor at Birmingham City University who briefly worked as a psychologist on “Big Brother” several years ago, wrote in The Daily Mail. “The more tears, humiliation, conflict and embarrassment, the more the public loves it.” link to NYT article

It’s interesting that this is on my mind because I have to report that yesterday’s Pentecost service seems to have gone very well despite my ongoing personal lack of balance and perspective. 

I pretty much killed the prelude which was an easy little piece based on the opening hymn.

Eileen said she didn’t notice which only makes me think it wasn’t too obvious, but still I thought to myself, “This is an inauspicious beginning to a tough service.”

The first cool moment came when I dropped out of the 3rd and 4th stanza of the sequence hymn, “Breathe on me Breath of God.” The congregation (albeit with the choir’s strong support) continued to sing lustily in four parts without the organ. Very nice.

For traveling music after the gospel, I played a section of my postlude on flutes. I thought that since Messiaen was thinking of Pentecost and wind anyway, that I would use his notes and do them on a flute stop. I definitely liked the way it sounded at that point in the service. 

The anthem organ accompaniment was a bit challenging. Although it was a relief to just have to play the organ and watch the guest conductor, the writing and page turns kept me on my toes. The conductor did a great job and I thought the anthem came off well providing a nice artistic pictorial piece that described the Pentecost story. 

I did the two communion hymns and the closing hymn at the piano. At the end of communion I improvised quite a bit using motives from the folky second hymn. The closing hymn was “There’s a sweet sweet spirit” and I played sort of a gospel style piano accompaniment to it. 

Then I lept up and ran to the organ and played the Messiaen piece I have been working on for weeks. I made a false start by neglecting to put the crescendo pedal on as I had previously planned. When I realized my mistake I chose a spot and simply started over. No harm done.

After the service I had many comments. Several people listened closely to the postlude. One woman who is a professional musician said several paragraphs of compliments about my improvisations. Another young mother said that she was sorry she couldn’t “cheer” after my communion improvs. I’m serious. That’s what she said. 

It does gratify (if not embarrass) me to receive such laudatory comments.

Which brings me back around I guess to our culture of celebrity here in the U.S.

I enjoy the community I work for. I enjoy doing a job well and that people seem to notice. But I’m uncomfortable with the idea that my music is mostly about me and not something bigger. I guess the compliments do not mean that listeners aren’t focused on the music as they experience it. Hopefully they are. But in this climate of emphasis on the “magic” of the performer, I do hope that this is the primary connection and that they then feel a need to express their approbation to me so that I know they did hear the music. 

I have come to the conclusion that one of the things I do enjoy about church work is that the most important music is the music the entire community makes together: the hymns, the canticles… I know that making music is a basic intrinsic thing to the enjoyment and fulfilment of living. To relegate it soley to the specialist is a mistake and diminishes its importance as far as I’m concerned.  Certainly we need the cosmic reach of the great minds in art. But at the same time I think we also need each and every artistic voice that is inside of each of us no matter how clumsy or inept. 

In fact it is often the unrefined that attracts me. 

Anyway, end of sermon. 

It’s been another tough week. My wife’s dad died on Wednesday evening. She is handling it fine I think. This means another trip for my daughters to come and do the other granpa funeral. My son has wisely opted to send condolences but skip the expensive trip. My in-laws got the weird idea that I should officiate at my father-in-laws funeral. This is very puzzling. I declined. I told my wife if she wanted me to do it of course I would. 

Today is my last choir Sunday. My boss called last night. She’s been away for the last few days so we needed to touch base briefly before tomorrow. I have mixed feelings about this morning. I have asked a parishioner with good conducting skills to conduct today’s Pentecost anthem. I did this so that I could play the organ part which of course has lots of Holy Spirit fast notes in it (It’s by Carson Cooman and is not that great but it does the trick for Pentecost and is an SAB anthem). This has entailed quite a bit of prep this week despite illness and other stuff like moving my Mom’s belongings from one room to another at the place she is living. 

Yesterday I practiced morning and evening. I am looking forward to just playing the organ today. I feel like I have pretty much failed as a choir director this year. It probably was an impossible year between the typical difficulties of getting people to show up at rehearsal and dealing with the stuff in my private life like my Dad dieing and my Mom having difficulties coping. 

I do enjoy church work. But I don’t necessarily relate strongly to the church stuff personally. And it’s hard to deal with the usual church pathologies when my own private life is so full of the pathology of caring for my parents. This week one of the people who takes care of the altar told me she was glad I was the musician for the church. People do say stuff like this to me quite often and it does help me to hear it. I like working with the community more than I like working with some of the people in the choir. I am also realizing that I myself am not all that mentally healthy at this point. 

Anyway, the music is what keeps me going. That and my lovely wife and adult children. Speaking of, I am hoping my daughters will allow me to pick them up at the airport in Chicago this week. That would be fun. My wife’s family has always sort of kept her and consequently me and my kids at arms length. I have tried to repair this over the years but it has always failed. So this event will be an interesting one. My daughter Sarah said that this family is a bit of mystery to her and if she failed to be at her granpa’s funeral she would feel even less connected to them. I requested that if any parts of the mystery evaporate as a consequence of the event that she share with me. Heh. I know I’m pretty mystified at my wife’s parents’ behavior over the years. 

Well I have to get ready to go play.

[I like this poem by Duffy. I heard her read it recently on BBC. She is the new English Poet Laurete and although I found the struggles and scandal surrounding this competition distasteful I am glad I got to hear her read this poem.  

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

(from Mean Time [Anvil, 1994])

It took me a while to figure out I was sick yesterday. On Wednesday night my body ached.  I thought that maybe I had used a bunch of muscles on Wednesday that I hadn’t realized I had. My body aches were very bad Wednesday night. Then Thursday morning I got up and exercised then took a shower. It was then I realized that my body was hurting in a flu/cold way not a sore muscle way. Sheesh.

I think it’s weird it took me so long to figure out I was sick. I am oddly determined these days to do some stuff like practice, compose and reorganize my house in a major way. I think this determination might contribute to me ignoring signals from my own body until it becomes obvious.

Anyway, this meant that I missed my choir’s last rehearsal last night. I am aware my sick body was avoiding an onerous task (dealing once again with my silly choir). I am pretty sure that I will not continue doing church work in quite the same way next fall. I have been talking to my boss about it. We meet on Monday just before she takes off for a vacation. I have been talking to her about trying to open a conversation with the choristers, musicians and interested parishioners this summer somehow. Maybe I’ll schedule a public discussion for interested people with her and I moderating and call it “The Future of the Music Program at Grace.” Or maybe not. Who knows. I am pretty much fed up with church and people who do not want to attend rehearsals with any sort of consistency. It may be as simple as deciding that if choristers miss the rehearsal before a Sunday, they cannot sing that Sunday. And fearlessly canceling a Sunday anthem on thursday evening when it doesn’t sound good. This year there was at least one Sunday when I thought I should have canceled the anthem for the day. Again with the determined silly Steve just pushing ahead despite obstacles.

I talked to my friend Jonathon this week and he is interested in helping me work on recordings this summer. That is good.

Also I was looking on my web site server, Bluhost, and discovered they have free web building interfaces that look pretty good to me. I would like to build a URL that makes my music available in recordings and sheet music. I actually had this before WordPress weirdly locked me out of my previous web site. 

But life is good.

Whew! Jet lag is a real thing I guess. I am still trying to get back into a cycle of sleeping and eating. 

My head has been buzzing ever since my vacation. 

During vacation, I read a play by Shakespeare (As you like it) and a novel by Somerset Maugham (The Razor’s Edge). I would like to say that I loafed around and did this reading. But in fact I did it on the plane rides. 

I wonder if it’s usual  return from restorative vacation with your head buzzing with new stuff to do. I am planning to majorly re-organize my house: put booksheles upstairs, change my present ridiculously crowded library into a Steve workroom with computer and keyboard. I also have some good ideas about where to take my job next fall. Tomorrow evening is the last rehearsal of the season and I want to do some chalk talk temperature taking and ferretting out new solutions to the problems of having a very small choir whose weekly rehearsal barely resembles its Sunday morning appearances. heh.

I spent a good hour yesterday rehearsing the Sortie from Messiaen’s “Pentecost Mass” for organ. I badly want to perform it Sunday. I am thinking of writing a little bulletin note about it explaining the fact that it far from dreary…. that Messiaen intended it to be an ecstatic utterance (good phrase that) of the wind of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (“Le vent de l’Esprit”).

I also practiced my Greek during vacation. Came home and pulled out my texts and starting working on this again. I know it’s ironic, but due to recently being exposed to some brain science via John Medina’s “Brain Rules” and NPR, I have been encouraged to put my aging brain back in the language gear. These sources say that not only can an old brain learn a language, it’s actually good for it. Cool.

I bought a ton of books in England this time. We ended up bring home an extra suitcase full of them and a few other choice items. 

Eileen bought a Roald Dahl Cookbook at the Roald Dahl Museum in the village where Sarah and Matthew live. This morning I made “Olivana” which Dahl describes as a “gorgeous, smooth, soft syrupy paste.” It’s simple, really. One just adds a drop or two of olive oil to mashed bananas. Mmmm good.

Both today and yesterday I got up and did my mile on the treadmill. This morning I listened to the first three movements of Vauhan Williams’ “Sea Symphony.” For some reason I have had  a jones for Vaughan Williams recently. I liked to think this was intensified by wandering the sea shores in Cornwall. In this symphony Vaughan Williams sets adaptations of Whitman’s poems: “Song of the Exposition,” “Song for all Seas, all Ships,” “On the Beach at Night Alone,” “After the Sea-ship“, and “Passage to India.”

I also have been glancing at the score online (pdf). 

This made great music to walk to. I also recommend the poems. Of course I like poetry.

I have been thinking quite a bit about my general attitude toward my work. I have about concluded that I am still basically the kid I was about music: a misfit/outsider who is attracted to music and poetry and struggling with his own need to appear more complex and talented than he is. I think I haved down the last part quite a bit. Oddly enough I think if I did do the “look at me and how much I know” thing I used to do as a kid that I would have better “success” with stuff like getting my music heard and successfully leading choirs. Heh.

 Speaking of getting my music heard, another buzzing idea is that I am hoping to completely redesign my web site this summer. I am thinking of trying to build another URL from scratch using a fake “Dreamweaver” type software (hopefully shareware or cheap). On that site I will try to make my own music and poetry accessible to listeners and readers. I am planning to continue blogging on this WordPress site because I like the idea that random readers can leave comments. (This is despite some readers complaining they can’t get my comments section to work. Heh. Hi Cheryl!)

I continue to ponder the conundrum of being a composer whose music has such a narrow appeal to audiences. It does occur to me that my music is not that attractive to others.  On the other hand, I believe in my work and understand that an important part of composing is airing out the pieces to breathing listeners. I am beginning to agree with Cory Doctorow who says that his problem is not people stealing his work but his own obscurity. Doctorow is a helluva lot less obscure than yours truly. 

Anyway. My Mom just called and I have to get in the car and take her to Meijer’s because her ride didn’t work out.  

One last thing about my “narrow” appeal to listeners. I think at best a small number of people like the music that I like and write. I do think I have a small audience. But living in such a provincial part of a country that focuses on the culture of celebrity to the expense of many of the kinds of musics and poetry and books I like underscores the fact that I am fishing in a small pond which is vastly understocked with people who can appreciate my work. Hence my interest in the Internet. In addition to building a web site around my work, I would then start doing some fishing for listeners on other music sharing web sites.

This is just part of the buzzing brain of jupe today. No time to add pics. Sorry. More later.

(N.B. the following blog entry has been corrected to reflect the fact that the author was confused about the musical, “The Pirates of Penzance,” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean,” the recent movie starring Johnny Depp) 

I was basically incommunicado all the while I was in Cornwall.

Even though the woman we were renting the cottage from mentioned wifi, it was such a hassle to get on that mostly I just tried to down load the NY Times to read.  I am guessing that foot deep stone walls do not help wifi reception. But it is kind of cool that they had wifi in such a rustic setting. 

We had to position our laptops just right in one window so that it would receive the weak wifi setting from the landlords.

While we were in Cornwall, we visited Penzance which was not far from our cottage. It took me a while to realize this was the Penzance of “Pirates of Penzance.”

The Johnny Depp movie on Pirates hasn’t really interested me all that much. The locals keep reference to the musical to a minimum in their advertising. I think I noticed it once or twice in the names of pubs or shops. That is of course when I realized the connection.

We played pool at a pub in Penzance our first night. Actually I just watched and Sarah, Matthew and Eileen took turns playing. 

The next day we drove to St. Ives. On the way we stopped at some ruins.

This area is full of large meadows with scruffy huge grass and interesting wild flowers.

I think they are mostly “moors” which as far as I can determine means that they have peat scattered about in the heather and such. Although everything looks desolate, this land has had humans on it for thousands of years. This means ruins can date back at a bewildering number of possible points in time. Our first ruins looked to me to probably have last been used during the the 18th or 17th centure. 

I have been reading in Wilkie Collins’ “Rambles Beyond Railways or notes in Cornwall taken afoot.” This is one of the many books I have in my mobipocket reader on my netbook.

He mentions witnessing copper mines in Cornwall. 

All about us monstrous wheels were turning slowly; machinery was clanking and groaning in the hoarsest discords; invisible waters were pouring onward with a rushing sound; high above our heads, on skeleton platforms, iron chains clattered fast and fiercely over iron pulleys, and huge steam pumps puffed and gasped, and slowly raised and depressed their heavy black beams of wood. Far beneath the embankment on which we stood, men, women, and children were breaking and washing ore in a perfect marsh of copper-coloured mud and copper-coloured water. We had penetrated to the very centre of the noise, the bustle, and the population on the surface of a great mine.

I couldn’t help but wonder if our ruins were the remains of something along that line.

From there to St. Ives. I should mention the roads. The road back to our cottage started out narrow and became more and more narrow as we proceeded. The brush on either side formed a pretty solid embankment. Matthew made an entire video of the ride which he threatens to put up on YouTube. I hope that he does. Sarah’s love of driving came out in these whirlwind twisting little roads. 

Meeting another vehicle entails a bit of silent negotiation as to whom can pull to the side in the frequent small areas provided. 

Even the main roads throughout Cornwall are sometimes small and charming. 

At St. Ives we mostly shopped. I liked the looks of this little bakery and pulled out the camera and took some pics.

It occurs to me that this kind of blogging might be more fun after we get back. So more later, I guess.

Sunday morning, Eileen and I made our way to the local Anglican church. I went along to spend some time with my lovely wife and also maybe check out the organ for possible practicing. I emailed the organist a week or so ago and had not received any response. 

It was good for me to attend an English parish Eucharist, I think. My previous impression was that the churches in England are either dieing or in the throes of charismatic renewal. This church seems to be more of an English equivalent of my parish back home. The hymn books had only words but no music. I assumed this was a cost cutting measure. Not only was there the traditonal choir and organ accompaniment, there was also a piano, 3 violins, clarinet, flute and trumpet. And the congregation sang heartily even chiming in on the Gloria and Sanctus despite the obvious choral nature of the settings. 

People from the local charity mission (called the Tea Warehouse) were the featured guests and arrived late. One of them stood and gave an interesting thank you and information talk about their work. His was an interesting story of post traumatic syndrome (although he did not refer to it by that name). He had served in Northern Ireland and came home very unhappy and disturbed by what he had witnessed and done there.  He began drinking heavily and ended up estranged from his wife and children and on the streets. The Tea Warehouse and the church was part of his rehabilitation. 

He arrived just in time to rescue the congregation from the preacher’s imprecation that we turn to each other and (without mentioning names) speak about something in our lives that had required us to overcome our own feelings of anger and hurt. The relief was palpable. Or maybe that was my own subjective response.

There were also many children present. 

I did manage to connect with the organist afterwards (after he played a hoary old Boelmann postlude). He was more than happy to allow me to practice there.

Which is what I did yesterday morning.

After practicing on Monday, Sarah drove Eileen and me to Straford von Avon. Matthew remained home to get some work done and possibly pop in to London to witness his hero Brian May show up at the long running Queen musical, “We Will Rock You.”

Stratford von Avon was of course touristy but fun. We stopped just out of the city to visit Ann Hathaway’s home. This turned out to be a good strategy because it was not as glitzy as Shakespeare’s birthplace in town.  Anne Hathaway was William’s wife. The building and garden were delightful. Interestingly, the place had been owned and staffed by a descendent of Anne until near the end of the 19th century or so. Mary Baker was the last one and seemed to be quite a character. 

The docent was quite entertaining and regaled us with humor, history  and interesting if dubious etymologies. For an example of slightly suspect etymology, he mentioned the term “upper crust” when showing us how the bread ovens worked. He told us the term came from the fact that the bread was cooked right on hot stones. The burnt bottom was given to servants and children while the “upper crust” was reserved for the master of the house. 

When I checked on this on my newly purchased, “Dictionary of Idioms and Their Origins” by Linda and Roger Havell, I discovered that these authors say that this phrase was coined by a Canadian judge, Thomas Haliburton, in the 19th century. Hmmm. Who knows? But the 18th century is a ways from the 17th century which was the time of the building we were in. 

The birthplace was the most jarring. Before we were granted entrance we had to watch an awful video that showered us with quotes of Shakespeare in the mouths of movie actors mostly while clips and photographs went by in a dramatic wide screen Disney display. After this stopped, the doors automatically opened and we had to suffer several more of these. There seemed to be no way to skip the presentations and go right to the buildling. Sarah remarked that it was weird to expect everyone to have to view this stuff before they could go to the building especially considering that people coming would include scholars and people primarily interested in Shakespeare in a literary way.

The final shrine was what was left of the building where Shakespeare spent his last years and died. The actual wing of the building is no longer there. Again a witty docent informed us that we were looking at where the building was not through the window of the remaining wing. Later he mentioned that they plant a “knot garden” which seems to be a garden of hedges and flowers in the shapes of ropes tied in knots. Get it? not the building, the knot garden?

Anyway, it has been an adult ambition of mine to visit the birthplace of Shakespeare before I die and that has now happened. He and Bach have been huge influences on my life and I always wanted to at least come to Stratford-von-Avon and see what it was like. 

This is one of two places I want to visit. The other is Leipzig and see where Bach spent much of his adult life. Maybe another trip, eh?

We had a nice train ride into London yesterday from Great Missenden. We headed for Tate Great Britain where Sarah used to work. We stopped briefly at a student art supplies shop so Matthew and Sarah could purchase materials for a project they are working on for Eileen’s library garden. Then into the gallery.

We were hoping to see a show that Sarah had prepared the captions and explanations for but it had been changed. We did see some examples of the work she did there. This was a large caption board. 

The current show just finishing up was on Van Dyke. More interesting to me was the collection display connecting Turner to Rothko.

There were some fascinating watercolors by Turner that plainly showed the reason Rothko remarked (from the placards) that “this man Turner, he learned a lot from me.” Heh.

But you can see his point however jocularly and arrogantly made:

At the Tate Britian shop I picked up a new title I wasn’t aware of by John Berger.

Eileen and I also purchased fancy Tate umbrellas as the day looked like imminent rain.

From Tate Britain we went to Charing Cross via a quick sandwich from the shops around Tralfagar Square which we ate on the steps there. 

I was hoping to find some grundgy used book shops on Charing Cross. I should have known better. Even though the bookshops we went to were a bit dowdy, there were obviously not that obscure.

I did spend some time in the basement at Any Amount of Books (pictured above) looking at their cheap books (everything on these shelves is a pound). I found a New Testament Greek Grammar which I perversely purchased.

Since reading John Medina and listening to other commentators on brain science I have been thinking about the possibily of reattacking Greek. The brain science says that not only do older brains (like mine) have the capacity to learn language, it can actually be good for them causing new synaptic connections in the head. Cool beans. I haven’t lost the idea of reading homer in the original. But first there’s the dang alphabet to reacquaint myself with. Hence the cheap grammar.

I also picked up a book on Music in Mind and Culture for four pounds at Henry Pourds Books.

Beethoven’s Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture by William L. Benzon seems to be a 21st examination of how brain science works with music. Very cool. 

On Cecil Court we found many more bookstores. One shop called Travis & Emory specialized in music books.  I was in pig heaven even though we needed to move on rather quickly. Ironically I purchased several bound music scores which seemed to be from a library collection from the “Free Library of Philadelphia.” So I will be taking bound scores of organ music by Anton Heiller, Anthony Newman and Ernst Pepping home to the states where they came from.

We had dinner at a lovely vegetarian restaurant. Then on to the theater, as they say. 

I’m still processing “Waiting for Godot” which was the play we saw.

Interestingly, Patrick Stewart who played Di-di (Vladmir) was not as strong as Ian McKellan as Go-go (Estragon). I do think this might be due to the fact that he had the more difficult role. The whole play is online here. 

As when I saw “Krapps Last Tape” on the west end of London, I found certain passages deeply moving and poignant. I think Stewart’s problem is the problem of the play which is that it is comic but also philisophic. His role especially. But he gave this speech very well:

 

VLADIMIR:

Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot? That Pozzo passed, with his carrier, and that he spoke to us? Probably. But in all that what truth will there be?
(Estragon, having struggled with his boots in vain, is dozing off again. Vladimir looks at him.) He’ll know nothing. He’ll tell me about the blows he received and I’ll give him a carrot. (Pause.) Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. (He listens.) But habit is a great deadener. (He looks again at Estragon.) At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. (Pause.) I can’t go on! (Pause.) What have I said?

He goes feverishly to and fro, halts finally at extreme left, broods.

A good time was had by all, I believe.

 It is telling that one of the standard subjects of Chinese poetry was visiting a remote monastery: they were good places to visit, but would the poet really want to live there? If he did, who would see his poetry? link

Interesting question which reminds me of the way I live in Holland Michigan.  I grapple with the notion that music needs listeners. I have written many pieces that remain essentially unheard. This drives me to seek venues like the street and the coffee shop in addition to playing in church.  The public performance completes my act of loving music. But it is only a small part of the time I spend with what I love.

I like many of the poems in this review. It interested me that the reviewer (and presumably the editor/translator of the book) talked about Ezra Pound’s take on Chinese poetry. Although he wasn’t my first exposure to Chinese poetry, his “translations” were formative on my understanding of it and remain in my memory as examples of poems I like. 

Here’s a poem I like from this review:

Everyone who glimpses Cold Mountain

starts complaining about insane winds,

 

about a look human eyes can’t endure

and a shape nothing but tattered robes.

 

They can’t fathom these words of mine.

Theirs I won’t even mention. I just tell

 

all those busy people bustling around:

Come face Cold Mountain for a change.

So I am standing in line, my netbook and shoes are in the gray tray to go through the security assembly line thing and my cell phone goes off. It’s my Mom’s lawyer. He says he has some new information from social secuirty. I ask if he could call me back in ten minutes because he has caught me at the airport in security. I did phone him on Monday tell him I was leaving the country on Wednesday. Anyway he said he would. But instead in ten minutes his secretary calls me and tells me he has forgotten his cell phone, left the office and could I please call him in the morning. I point out that I am leaving the country as I had previously let them know on Monday. Of course the secretary had no idea what was going on. I gave her my brother’s phone number in Garden City.

I only bring this up because it was a bit like being followed by the stress of my life right to the airport. Fun stuff.

Later Eileen and I are placidly sitting and who walks by but my organ teacher from my grad school, Craig Cramer.

He’s on his way to Frankfurt for concerts and an organ tour. He hugs us and sits down for a very pleasant chat.  Go figure.

So anyway, we are in Great Missendin, UK and I seemed to have missed Wednesday night.

Hmmm. Got on the plane 9 PM Newark time arrived in the UK 9AM local time. I did sleep some on the plane. Eileen is exhausted but I think she managed to get some sleep as well. We lucked out and got upgraded to some pretty nice steats so I think that made the 7 hour flight a bit more pleasant. On the British Air interactive entertainment computer thingo I listened to the BBC live recording of Vaughan Williams 8th symphony one and a half times. Just enough to make me realize I am in the mood for V. Williams right now. Makes sense being in Merry Old UK and all. I managed to get some sleep as well.

After having made sure my netbook would have lots of power I barely turned it on during the flight. Instead I got engrossed in Somerset Maughan’s The Razor’s Edge.  

I didn’t take time to blog this morning. I’m getting ready to leave for England tomorrow. I have been dealing with feelings of being overwhelmed and sort of numb. Classic need a vacation stuff, no doubt. Instead of blogging this morning, I prepared the bulletin information for the two Sundays I will be gone. 

Despite the feelings of mental suffocation and depression, I have continued to do things that I know are good for my soul… like read and practice.

Today I spent over an hour and a half with my friend, Jordan, reading through some pretty cool sax stuff. I really like the way he plays sax.  It was both pleasure and challenge. We will return to this after I get back. He has chosen some very challenging pieces for us to work on this summer like “Prelude, Cadence et Finale” by A. Desenclos (whom I have never head of before today) and “Concertino da Camera” by Ibert. 

I also spent a quick moment on the Messiaen piece I am working on. I grabbed some time right after an emergency dentist visit. The dentist’s office is right by my church. Last night a filling fell out of my front tooth and my dentist was kind enough to find time for me today to fix it. He told me it actually needs a crown and then didn’t charge me for his work. What a guy.

Ran across this article in the Atlantic today (it was mentioned by David Brooks in his NYT’s column): “What makes us happy” by Joshua Wolfe Shenk. I can’t say it any better than the blurb on the site:

Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant

There is also a video of Vaillant talking on the page. Interesting food for thought.

Explain to me why the New York Times reader takes forever to load when Manybooks.net can download the entire War and Peace in under 20 seconds to my computer. This is why newspapers and music distributors are dieing, they are unable to effectively transform themselves in a radically changing environment. 

Well that’s off my chest. 

Ran across the above site. If you click on the pic, it will take you to a 20 minute video that teaches about the futile chain of production and waste in our world. I watched about half of it and thought it was cool.

Mondays continue to be the day that the backwash of silly stuff like my own lack of abilities and others’ behaviors runs through my head. This is not pleasant. 

My wife could not muster attending church yesterday. I told her later it was a good day to miss because the many of the people in the choir were anxious and grumpy and oblivious.

Anxiety seems to turn down people’s ability to pay attention. I also had several people who have missed many rehearsals come in and ask obvious questions that I have answered over and over. I also have people who will ignore the fact that I am the director and trying to do stuff that requires a bit of completion before I can address their concerns. But this is all the usual stuff. What’s different is that I have lost patience in the midst of my own burn out and stress. Hopefully it wasn’t the controlling factor yesterday. But I know it was showing. 

I came out of the stressful pregame and didn’t play the prelude piece, “Rhosymedre”  by V. Williams, as well as I can and have on other occassions. But the rest of my playing was pretty good. I do like playing hymns. I think its a matter of something I can do but am not totally drawn to.  The anthem (Tree of Life by V. Williams) went pretty well. My pregame rehearsal helped it I am sure. But I am not happy with the blend of the choir. People skip rehearsals and then sing loud on sunday morning. It could be worse because they don’t sound as bad as your usual church choir. But there is no sense of over all choral sound to my ear. 

The postlude was the musical highlight of the day for me. It was the first time I had performed “Bryn Calafaria” by V. Williams and it is a lovely piece really. Of course it was a bit hard to hear because I refuse to completely over register it on my small little organ. But it was still nice.

I came home and made a Mother’s day meal for my wife and Mom. I cleverly used a bunch of food we had to take from Mom’s old apartment. This is good because she had a lot of easily prepared stuff like frozen corn, frozen chicken cordon bleu (for her and Eileen), and weird microwave brownies. I also made rice and had my own veggie fast food: a pouch of red bean curry. The best food was the potato salad I had made earlier in the morning before going to church.

My Mom’s ride to church didn’t show so she called me and I took her to the Presbyterian church.

I asked her to say hi to God for me because I didn’t think he was talking to me much these days. Today I have to run my Mom to the doctor and attend a Worship Commission meetingat church. I am thinking of driving to Grand Rapids and buying an electric adaptor for our England vacation. 

I am sincerely hoping I can stay plugged in to the Internet while we are there.

One person this week responded to my comment that he could find the lectionary online that he was not addicted to the internet. I cheerfully replied that I was. I found this extremely ironic because the man is a retired professor. I guess he has opted not to utilize the enormous online resources.

Ever since purchasing my silly little treadmill I have gotten up early and walked for 30 minutes not including a 5 minute warm up and a 5 minute warm down. No heart attack so far.

I did manage to practice the difficult Messiaen piece I am planning for Pentecost yesterday.

Also have another meeting with my friend Jordan tomorrow. Nice to have a bit of sanity planned. 

Of course I get on the plane Wednesday to get the heck out of Dodge. I’m still a bit too numb to look forward to it yet, but I know it will be good.

I am planning to do some ascerbic reading on my vacation. Pondering reading some Irvine Welsh or Martin Amis. Who knows?

I have liked this story for ages…

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” 

I heard this with the punch as “What the fuck is water?”

I think DFW precedes the following quote with the story…. 

“It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness — awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: ‘This is water, this is water.’ It is unimaginably hard to . . . stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.”

David Foster Wallace