This is nuts. A fanatic shot and killed
the Punjab social welfare minister
of India. The New York Times described
the shooter as “a fanatic
opposed to women in politics.”

Reuters India story

This morning
I played
through a
couple of movements
of Hindemith’s
First
Piano
Sonata.
This evening, I am playing a movement from his first organ sonata (I think it’s the first one) for a postlude.

I guess I just have his sound on the mind.

Also.
received
a book of poetry
in the mail
yesterday by
Sesshu Foster (right)
City Terrace:
Field Manual.

(excerpt.)

I really like this guy’s writing. He also wrote Atomic Axteca.

I have been keeping written journals for over thirty years. Not consistently. But I often turn to the page to write out my thoughts. It helps me process them.

I see blogs in a similar way. Since they are immediately public, I try to write only what seems appropriate. I still turn to my private journal for complete freedom of expression.

Also, I see blogs are sort of verbal busking. What I mean by that is that I throw out my ideas (sometimes recordings or poems or what-not) into the big soup of the Internet. If people run across them, they are welcome to them. If they want to respond, I am glad to hear their responses.

This last part is one of the reasons I am using this format for my blog now.

… Our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people. Even the simple act which we describe as “seeing someone we know” is to some extent an intellectual process. We pack the physical outline of the person we see with all the notions we have already formed about him, and in the total picture of him which we compose in our minds those notions have certainly become the principle place. In the end they come to fill out completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice as if it were no more than a transparent envelope, that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is these notions which we recognize to which we listen.”

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

Aha! I’m at school and have turned in my mid-term grades!

It’s very helpful to keep a running tally of student’s points. To do mid-terms, all I have to do is figure the scale and fill in the grades. Hah!

Now I wait eleven minutes then I drive home.

Thank you, YouTube, he said saracastically. They have removed the perfect little scene from Don Giovanni that I used with my class last term due to “terms of use violation.”

This just drives me nuts.

In order to protect their little DVD they pulled a three minute excerpt that would help me show my students how sexy and interesting the aria “La Ci Darem La Mano” can be. Consequently, this group of fifty
students will be one hair less
likely to support opera in the
future. Don Juan is sung by
Rodney Gilfry (shown on the right).

His web site has a zillion photos of himself.
And buying the DVD and showing them the excerpt is a pain because I would have to queue it up just so…. and of course buy it out of my deep adjunct pockets (more sarcasm).

Wow! I hope it’s not inappropriate for me to express amazement that every student in my Music Ap class handed in their first concert report on time.
Usually someone manages to hand it in late.

I do enjoy reading people’s comments about concerts.

It never fails that two people will express completely opposite reactions to the same experience (e.g. one person will say they liked a certain piece this most… another person says this was the worst piece on the concert…).

Also some of the students’ observations about performers are astute and would benefit the musicians if they could hear them. One guest Jazz performer apparently breathes very loudly and distracting throughout his performance (many comments on this)…. and it always interests me when students find things too long.

I believe that often we musicians are not as attuned to the audience as we could be in this regard. Granted some ideas take a while to develope and demand a great deal from listeners. But most of the music I hear and play doesn’t actually fall in this category.

Often when audiences are restless a musician just doesn’t know how to keep the listener interested, when to stop or how to say what he/she wants to say in a reasonable length of time for the modern sensibility.

One of the Sticky Idea brothers has developed an approach to textbooks called Thinkwell.

This is from the Thinkwell FAQ entitled “Tell me in 58 words how it works”:
Students buy the Thinkwell package at the bookstore and register into your personalized Thinkwell website. Instead of reading a textbook, students watch 10-minute video lectures on CD-ROMs and then complete online exercises at your website. Armed with the feedback of how well students have comprehended the topics, you are able to conduct your class time accordingly

Unfortunately, they don’t have any music books and I don’t think it’s set-up so you can design the whole thing yourself.

Not sure how I feel about not having students read.

It’s like lectures. I sometimes have difficulty inspiring class participation (especially without a gimmick or activity). Then I just talk. It crosses my mind that this kind of delivery could be put on a DVD or an online video.

But still I resist. I think it has something to do with being in the room with people even if they are not saying words. They still communicate with you. There is an energy (or lack thereof) in the room.

And I guess I feel pretty strongly that people need to keep their reading skills. Reading enables pondering and integrating subtle understanding that is not engendered by good videos and visual presentations. At least that’s my opinion. Of course, I could be just the victim of my own limitations regarding words and ideas.

Last night, I sat at a table and listened to a family reminisce
about their memories of themselves as family. As I listened, I thought a lot about Proust. He has some strong ideas about how we experience life stronger in memory than in the actual experience. By processing an event, we can actually come more in contact with it and understand it and even feel it more clearly. In the quick moment of experiencing it we are too busy to get it all. As I listened to the conversation last night, it was so interesting to hear what people proposed as a memory and then worked back and forth in terms of what each of them remembered. In some little ways this conversation seemed to help them shape their own understandings.

Sarah J. mentioned that in Explorer my pics from Stan’s Cafe performance group were covering up some of my text.
So here’s the comments that go with the picture of the piece of rice in the hand:

So…there’s a performance group named Stan’s Cafe that does this show called all the people in the world. They make mounds of rice with each grain representing one person. Each mound represents a specific statistic, like all the people who live in gated communities (8.5 million) or all the people who live in the Americas (16 tons worth of rice). Cool Idea.

Maybe it would be better if I put pics in separate entries. I have been trying to use more visuals in order not to be tooo boring… heh.

Was listening to an interview with Chip and Dan Heath about their book, Made to Stick. (Subtitle: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die)

They caught my attention when they started describing the “curse of knowledge.” Essentially (or what I got from the interview) was if you know too much about something it makes it hard to put yourself in the position of knowing little about something and trying to understand it.

They have a little demo where people are given a song to tap out and other people have to listen and figure out the song. They point out how hard is if you are just the listener and conversely how much information is usually in your head when you tap (the sounds of the song, the instruments, even a specific singer).

Looking at their site, they seem to be one of those business self-help cottage industries. (Actually one of them is a professor in the Business Department of Standford Grad school… this figures). Looking at their pictures they seem so young and assured to me.

I watch my ideas not stick to people all the time. I’m sort of to the point where I think it’s unhelpful when I barrage people with a bunch of ideas (barrage is how my brain often works…. but I feel okay about barraging on my blog… heh) so I try not to talk about them too much unless asked.

So it interests me…. knowing what helps ideas stick….

This book seems a bit reductive. But what isn’t these days?

They come up with six handy ways to make ideas stick.

I’ll write them here to help me think about them.

From the online excerpt:

Principle One: Simplicity
Principle Two: Unexpectedness
Principle Three: Concreteness
Principle Four:Credibility
Principle Five:Emotions
Principle Six: Stories

I was talking recently with another church musician who is deciding to become clergy. This notion confuses me. I wonder why people are attracted to the priesthood from the point of view of the musician. It must be something in them that is dormant and they have denied and are finally coming to grips with.
I find that I have so many misgivings about church that the idea of fastening myself more clearly and directly to the notion of Christianity is something I don’t entertain for an instant.

I also suspect that I have had a skewed experience of church leadership. And it is interesting the number of priests I have known that have ended up in scandal. Quite a few really.

Listening to: Lyle Lovitt – “I Love Everybody”

I think I wore myself out yesterday. This morning, Eileen and I walked to church and when we got there my fatigue suddenly hit me. I did my stuff and all was well. But I could tell that I was tired.

Today is my grandson’s birthday so we webcammed the whole fam over there. They seem to be in good spirits.

Read the New York Times for a bit then finished grading Thursday’s quizzes from my class. recorded these grades.

We actually have a social engagement this evening. A parishioner has invited us to his house. It should be fine. His daughter is also an Episcopalian church musician and will be there.

7:47 AM

I had a very busy day yesterday. I got up around 5:45. Despite my ongoing cold, I took a shower and washed my hair. Eileen and I jumped in the car and began our journey to Montcalm Michigan for the Solo and Ensemble Festival.

I was happy but a bit surprised to have Eileen along to keep me company. The roads between Holland and 131 were nasty. At first I tried to drive pretty fast but after seeing several cars in ditches, I slowed down. I decided it would be better to be late and be alive and apologize, then stuck in some ditch or worse.
I played for four students. The cellist played a Haydn cello concerto movement. He played very well. At our last rehearsal he seemed more interested in talking to friends on the cell phone than rehearsing.

The flute player played the first movement of the Poulenc flute sonata. As the judge pointed out, this is less a flute solo than a duet for flute and piano. We were just about to go into the judge’s room when the flute player discovered she had left the judge’s copy on her bedroom dresser. After a flurry of activity, we made a copy of the piano part (the judge must judge from an original copy not a photocopy and the flute player was playing from a photocopy but I was using the original).

The performance did not really reflect our ability to play together. The player was rattled. She had told me she tends to get nervous in performances but is okay in rehearsals. I was playing from newly made photocopies and managed to screw up pages a couple of times. The flutist actually plays this piece pretty well (it is a major work). But as she predicted she was terrified.

Her mom was also a bundle of anxiety. Hmmm.

Next I played for my last minute violist. That is, he called me on Thursday I think. He was playing a transcription of Bach’s first Sonata in G major for viola da gamba. The accompaniment is a running two part texture and was not exactly sight readable for this pianist.

This player is also a dancer. He and I discussed the way movement affects sound. He ended up playing the piece quite well and I didn’t shame myself too bad on it. I wish I had had more time to prepare.

The last player was a ninth grader who played a concerto movement by a composer named Rieder. Apparently this was a piece written especially for first and second position on the violin. In rehearsal this kid played the hell out of it. But he got a bit rattled in performance and jumped in on two major entrances. His whole family (Mom, Dad, three younger sisters) came to support him. That might have contributed to his being rattled. But hey he’s only in ninth grade for God’s sake.

Before I left, I heard that the first three players all received a superior (1) rating on their performance. That’s what seemed important to them and I guess that makes sense.

I was happy because three out of the four actually have paid me. (One of them is supposed to pay me at rehearsal tomorrow night.)

I came home and updated the church music web site. Then went over to church and worked all afternoon sorting music looking for some instrument parts for Lent. Also, practiced organ.

Came home exhausted and had two martinis and read my new copy of “The Making of Americans” by Stein.

This morning I found those instrumental parts on my computer. The file was mis-labeled S129 instead of S130. I bet they are at church as well in the S129 file.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Montcalm Michigan to accompany four students at the Solo and Ensemble festival.

I am planning to grade papers while I wait around to play.

My friend, John Adams, dropped by from some tea and conversation. He is living in Grand Rapids for a few months.

Good Grief. The entire “In Search of Lost Time” is online.

My “Memoirs” of Duc de Saint-Simon
came in the mail yesterday.
This has been on my list
for quite a long time.

Duc de Saint-Simon kept
an extensive private journal
regarding the court of Louis XIV.
I ran across this in Proust.
His characters are always quoting
Saint-Simon about this or
that.

After reading the introduction, I find that Proust based sections of In Search of Lost Time on Saint-Simon’s prose.

That’s Proust there.
I am listening to the
first volume of this
on my MP3 player.
I have read this book
several times and it
never fails to
amaze me.

Proust even based
his outrageous
de Charlus character
on Saint-Simon’s
description of a
certain Cardinal.
I think it was a
Cardinal. Anyway
de Charlus is
hilarious. He is an very old gay guy whose actions are endearing, eccentric and initially inexplicable. Great character of literature.

Here’s a pic of the
Duc
de
Saint-
Simon.

I like

the

pic

on

the

front

cover

of

the

book better…….

I am listening to Anonymous 4 sing about the end of the world (in the year 1000). It’s funny how soothing the sound is and how terrible the actual meaning of the pieces on their CD: 1000 A Mass for the End of Time.

The Beginning Oxford Chinese
Dictionary I bought has
exercises in it. This is a great
dictionary. The first set of
exercises ask you to look
at a character and determine
which part of it is the radical.
Radicals are little bits of
characters by which
they are classified. Once
you determine the correct
radical, you see a list of
characters that contain it grouped by the number of strokes it takes to make the character. The character is followed by the pinyin pronunciation which you can look up and find the meaning.

There were eleven and I missed one. Cool.

Hey
Gipsy Kings
have
a
new
Cd.
Life

is

Good.

I love these guys.

Started out the day like this:

Tired and fuzzy. Made a quiz for my college class. Had a conversation with my boss at church. Discussed Hannah Arendt and “the banality of evil” with her. Picked out four or five more choral anthems. Met with a flute player and gave a piano lesson. Eileen came home and we did take out. Now I look this: