I find myself in a bit of a struggle with the first movement of the trumpet/organ piece I am writing based largely on African American Spirituals. Recently I changed the spiritual for the first movement from Bye and Bye to Better Be Ready. But I have had several false starts using this tune as well. I now think I may have developed some decent ideas. This experiences caused me to ponder how I find myself thinking about how one can jump start one’s basic creative impulse.
Portrait of Glen, Basquiat
One way i do this is simple improvisation. This can pay off to prime the pump a bit. Improvising has been a life long exploration for me of my own personal aesthetic. It also has been a well spring of ideas and satisfaction that has never run dry. Unlike composing.
Horn Players, Basquiat
Yesterday, I decided to use visual arts to see if it might help me beginning to think more imaginatively about my first movement. I sat down with books of art by two of my favorites: Dubuffet and Basquiat.
This did seem to help and I managed to sketch some interesting basic ideas that might work out in the long run one way or another.
Besides their work, both artists had quotes in the books that I liked.
Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985)
“For a very long time I was too humble … and lacking in confidence and composure; and I suffered cruelly because of this, appearing in my own eyes to be nothing more than the most abject dog turd. It was only at a late stage—when in the end I had resigned myself to living like a dog turd without shame or regret and making the best of the situation—that it dawned on me that everyone else was also a dog turd.”
Jean Dubuffet, Chien, 1960
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)
“People think I’m burning out, but I’m not. Some days I can’t get an idea, and i think, man, I’m just washed up, but it’s just a mood.” Jean-Michel Basquiat
Last time I was at the Detroit Institute of Arts, I asked if they had any Basquiat. Nope. That’s a serious omission, i think.
First of all, thank you to the 13 people who accessed this blog yesterday. Probably you’re not all actually human, but thanks to you all anyway.
I’m feeling the pressure of completing my trumpet/organ piece for Rhonda. I have a good start on movements two and three. But I hit a brick wall with movement one a few days ago. As a result I decided to switch my “B” spiritual, from “Bye and Bye” to “Better be ready.” I like it better anyway. And it’s foreboding in a way that fits my underlying Black Lives Matter theme.
Unlike the other spirituals I’m working with I could only find one setting of “Better be ready.” It’s in the third volume of R. Nathaniel Dett’s charming four volume collection, The Dett Collection of Negro Spirituals.
I own three of them. It interests me that the picture above only has three volumes in it. I haven’t done my research yet, but I wonder if the fourth group is available or if it was ever published.
I know the hymn because we sing it at church. It’s in the Lift Every Voice and Sing II hymnal of the Episcopal Church. There it is the exact same arrangement as in the Dett collection and is credited to him.
I began examining Dett’s collections more closely. Published in 1936 by Schmitt, Hall & McCreary Company out of Minneapolis, each volume has a different prose introduction. I read the one for group three which has “Better be ready” in it. It’s entitled, “The Authenticity of the Spiritual,” and written by Dett, himself. It interested me enough to turn to the introductory essay to the second group, “Understanding the Negro Spiritual,” also by Dett.
It was there that I began to get a feeling for Dett himself. I found this paragraph charming and read it out loud to poor Eileen:
“There are some who having been to a ‘show’, read a Negro novel (probably by a white author), or who have seen a movie in which there were colored people appearing, usually in serio-comic parts,—or who having a colored cook,— feel themselves to have an advantage. Truly, these favored few are really at a disadvantage; for had they approached the music with an altogether open mind, instinct would have guided them, more than likely, along the right path toward the solution of that which is itself elemental. But being blinded or misled by preconceived ideas, they go far astray, not realizing that though they may be enthusiastically in motion, they are not necessarily arriving anywhere” (emphasis added)
Okay, clearly the “favored few” people in this paragraph are white. This reflects the environment Dett lived in (as do we) that the normal person is implicitly white. So I love the last sentence. It drips in my mind with frosty sarcasm and wit. I began to wonder who Nathanial Dett was?
The Groves Dictionary informed me that he had quite a pedigree. He was born in Canada in 1884. He died in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1943. He was the first African American to graduate from Oberlin College with a Bachelors of Music degree. He majored in Composition and Piano. He embarks on a life long career of teaching in traditional Black colleges like “Lane College, Tennessee (1908–11), the Lincoln Institute, Missouri (1911–13), the Hampton Institute, Virginia (1913–32), and Bennett College, North Carolina (1937–42). He continued his studies at the American Conservatory of Music, at Columbia University, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, the University of Pennysylvania, Harvard and with Boulanger at the Fontainebleau school in Paris; his graduate work was rewarded with the MM degree in composition from the Eastman School of Music (1932).
, composing, and continuing to learn.” (Groves Dictionary of Music, 2001)
By now, I was intrigued. I started researching him. His biography was prohibitively expensive at this stage, $150 for a used copy Anne Key Simpson’s Follow Me: The Life and Music of R. Nathaniel Dett. Normally, I would interlibrary loan this, but while the Lakeland Cooperative is back, the more extensive MELCat is not accepting loan requests.
I did find some of Dett’s music on IMSLP. I began perusing them yesterday. By this time, I realized that Dett was a composer with chops. I also had read that he disdained my beloved Jazz and Blues. I get it. But examining his work, he allows the spirit of all three genres: Spirituals, Jazz, and Blues, in the door.
I’m pretty sure the reason Dett isn’t better known is that he was an African American. I’m guessing that he is a good subject for recent scholarship that could off set this. I’m very curious about why his family was in Canada. Canada claims him in wimpy documentary on YouTube.
I can see why.
P.S. I just ordered the fourth volume on AbeBooks. It was about 40 bucks plus 20 for shipping from the U.K. All four volumes are going as a set for $175. I paid .50 a piece for my three, no doubt at a thrift shop.
Today’s streamcast of church went much better than last week’s. I scheduled music by Anne Krentz Organ and Alice Jordan. We sang (or I played as people either sang along at home, read the words, or played with their phone) “Seek ye first” by Karen Lafferty. I almost wrote in my music note about the fact that all the music was by women today. But then i reconsidered. I wouldn’t have done so if all the music had been by men. Maybe it would be better to let stuff speak for itself. The piece by Anne Krentz Organ was based on a Kenyan song and was lots of fun. I sweated a little bit over a registration change but it seemed to go okay today.
I have misgivings about using copyrighted material in this streamcasts. But I gave up and played music this week that might I might possibly need permission to add to a streamcast. Lafferty’s piece is not covered by Rite Song even though it’s in the Hymnal 1982. I messaged her on Facebook asking how to get permission to use her words, but haven’t heard back. She’s probably pretty elderly by now.
Anyway, since I’ve given up on only using out of copyright organ music, I am learning a very cool piece by Carson Cooman, Organ Symphony #3, Portals. I’m preparing two movements to pair soon in an upcoming streamcast: mov 3 “Humble yourself” and mov 5 “Sing Joyfully.” I keep finding myself attracted to Cooman’s writing. Also, I think he liberates me a bit as a composer for organ in the way he mixes up musical languages and usually does so successfully.
I am trying to keep my trumpet organ piece on the front burner. Saturday afternoon I worked several hours on the last movement. Haven’t started the second movement but I have some notes on the first.
I finished two books this afternoon. The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory by Andrew Bacevich and Stoney The Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and The Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
They were worthwhile reads.
Speaking of reading, both of my daughters right now are reading or listening to books I recommended. Sarah is listening to Sodom and Gommroah, Volume 4 of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Elizabeth’s finished reading the preface to Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist.
It makes an old man happy.
Well, that’s all I have time for today. Time to go read and practice. Martini at 5. My life is good.
These times are strange and getting stranger. Unidentified people in uniforms descending on Portland in the name of Trump. These people from the Department of Home security look to be a first, overt wave of actions. The DHS itself has been ransacked, it’s leadership unconfirmed by the gutless Congress.
Between this unfolding madness, the current awakening of discussion around racism in the USA, the pandemic, and oh yes, did I mention the world is quickly getting past the tipping point of global warming, between all this, I feel stuck in the pages of a not very good and overly ambitious sci fi novel.
There. That’s off my chest.
Yesterday Eileen and I attended a cyber conference of the Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance (LEDA). There were the usual technical glitches of Zoom and other interfaces. There were two keynotes which were pretty lame and several break out sessions to choose from. One of these was quite good. It was titled: “Engaging in Anti Racism: Work through White Consciousness Raising.”
It was led by Marlene Kowalski-Braun and Deanna Rolffs. Kowalski-Braun works at Grand Valley State U and Rolffs is a consultant. Mostly I madly googled resources they mentioned while they were presenting.
Here’s my list of links
Phases Racial and Cultural Identity Model and White Racial Identity Model link
Stages of Racial and Cultural identity link to pdf
White privilege by Peggy Mcintosh (1988) link to pdf
The Costs of Racism to White People by Paul Kivel link to pdf
White Fragility author Robin D’Angelo has done synoptic 11 rules pdf
I have to go do the dishes but I wanted to share that I found a National Theater Production of Peter Schaeffer’s Amadeus which is brilliant and probably only available for a week.
I have been finishing books recently. This frees me up to start adding new stuff to my reading. It looks like, I’m going to be on a bit of Hannah Arendt kick for a while. Both Masha Gessen and Ibram X Kendi quoted her in their books which I have finished reading. Arendt has been on my radar for a while.
Her ideas about the “banality of evil” are a basic metaphor that continues to inform my understanding.
In 2011, I purchased a copy of Between Friends The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy edited by Carol Brightman. This is a record of the meeting of two amazing minds, both of which interest me. It’s probably going to go on my current reading stack. I have spent an hour or so with it today.
The Life of the Mind, Arendt’s unfinished volume, is also moving up closer to the front of my current reading. Arendt did not finish it since it was envisioned as having three sections: “thinking,” “willing,” and “judging.” My edition (like the one above) is edited posthumously by Mary McCarthy, another incentive to read their correspondence.
In the introduction to the correspondence, editor Brigthman memorably quotes McCararthy about Arendt: “Thought, for her, was a kind of husbandry, a humanizing of the wilderness of experience.” Wow. I like that.
Another memorable observation comes from Arendt herself in Brightman’s intro: Arendt challenges us to think for ourselves “Not by ourselves—- ‘I always thought that one has got to start thinking as though nobody had thought before, and then start learning from everybody else,’ Arendt once proposed — but for ourselves. Denken ohne Geländer: thinking without a banister, she called it. This was no existential conceit, the banisters are gone.”
“Thinking without a banister.” Again, I like that.
Anyway. I’ve got more, but I’ll desist and take pity on you, dear reader. More new books I’m reading next time.
Okay, I know it’s been a while but my life has been even weirder than the usual Covid crazy stuff. First of all, I went into a bit of a stall and wasn’t able to do much composing until last Friday. I’m not sure what was going on but I found myself unmotivated to keep working on my piece for trumpet and organ. This is tricky because like writing poetry and other stuff, I find that I am working on stuff even when I’m not consciously doing so. Some of that might have been going on since talking to my therapist had the usual effect of raising my spirits a bit, and after the session last Friday I went over to church and did some work on the piece.
I had a weird Sunday. My boss didn’t let me know that she wasn’t going to be there as planned at church to stream the morning service with me. No harm done. But my Subaru went into second gear on Saturday and refused to come out of it. Hence, I couldn’t restart it since I couldn’t get it in Park which is necessary to restart. (Thanks to Jeremy for fucking with this for quite a while trying to solve it.)
Okay. I thought I would just walk to work on Sunday morning which is what I did. Eileen accompanied me and I did my usual streaming bit.
I haven’t been able to hear what Jen and others are doing through the app I am using to stream. This means if I want to hear what is happening I have to hoof it into the other room where Eileen is using her phone to watch the stream. Unfortunately there is a bit of lag and I barely made it back for my parts Sunday which was funny. Plus I’m pretty sure when Jen put me up on the stream to play the prelude I was looking at some music.
Elizabeth arranged for a tour de force World Birthday Zoom party for Eileen in the afternoon. That was amazing. It was good to see all the extended family in Michigan, California, Ohio, and England. After the party I walked back to church alone for a diocesan Ordination service which was a disaster.
I have since found out that Jen was wrestling with the multiple actors and planners to pull this service off as safely and elegantly as possible. Everyone was wearing masks which was good. However distancing wasn’t working very well. Jen had to ask people to move (she told me later) to distance and still late arrivals weren’t always sensitive to distancing.
I had several very weird moments. I don’t need to relive all of them here. The most stark one was I was improvising the postlude (all of the music was improvisations on hymn tunes presumably hymns that the ordinands would have wished we could have sung together) and glanced in my organ rear view mirror to see the entire congregation in masks standing and waiting and watching me play. It was a bit of sci fi moment. Since they were waiting and I had already worked my way through the melody three times, I quickly ended.
Silence.
Masked people standing and staring silently.
I stood up and looked at them.
I gave a little wave.
They began to move a little.
I quit looking.
On my walk home, I found myself remembering a little sentence from one of the the post Vactican II American docs which I shared with Jen today: “good celebrations foster and nourish faith, poor celebrations may weaken and destroy faith”
I felt that what small remnants of faith I have left had been pummeled out of this world by this service.
So Sunday afternoon and all day Monday I was in a bit of a weird funk. But today I had a chance to compare notes with Jen and found out I wasn’t the only one upset with the service.
That helped.
One of the things that Jen and I thought of independently was “why the fuck have communion inside a building in a time of Covid 19?” Jen said she suggested having an outdoor ceremony. No go. Dropping the communion aspect. No go.
In fact, the Bishop who was visiting from Indiana insisted on delivering the host personally to each person bring him into contact with everyone present at least once. Yikes!
Thanks to Son-in-law Jeremy for pointing out both of these things in response to a discussion about receiving communion.
I guess I might as well share that all of the people in the front row at this ceremony had just arrived from Florida. Florida.
Anyway, I’m doing slightly better now after Jen and chatted this morning after staff.
It is surprising how exhausting it is for this 68 year old to do a Sunday morning stream. Eileen went over to church to help me with it. Despite the fact that once again my laptop was not picking up sound from Jen’s stream, everything went pretty well.
Elizabeth whipped up some nice veggie/salmon on the grill for lunch. Eileen had herself a big expensive steak. That was fun.
I read a few pages in Robin D. G. Kelly’s Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original and it is excellent.
I found some interesting book recommendations in the print edition of The New York Times Book Review. Weirdly this section called “Further Reading,” doesn’t seem to be online.
They ask 22 writers and poets to name books that have informed their own views on race and racism. I’m about half way through the article but I’m already madly making notes on some books.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie recommended Richard Gergel’s Unexampled Courage. She describes it being written in “clear and elegant prose.” The author, Richard Gergel, is a judge who “strips legal cases of jargon and presents them at their essence: as human dram.” I’m in.
Speaking of being in, I think I’m going to quit blogging and rest and read and practice. More on these books next time.
I went over to church to prepare for streaming tomorrow. I managed to connect to the wifi but couldn’t raise the internet. I struggled for a good while, restarting my computer a few times and checking stuff. Finally I texted Jen. I used my phone as a a hot spot and tested that connection which worked fine.
I found a fancy new microphone on my bench and wanted to see if that would work. it did. I practiced a bit and did some work on my composition. I was packing up when i received a text from Jen that she had just learned that the internet was shut down for the weekend. “The new access points are in the building but not yet wired which means it’s next Sunday before we’ll get the boost.”
I’m not sure what that means other than no internet tomorrow. She asked if the phone hotspotting would work for me to stream from church tomorrow. I said, sure.
This was a bit discouraging. It did strike me that, of course, I would have internet stuff on the fourth of July when techs are not available. Also, I think that I feel invisible sometimes because I’m basically invisible sometimes.
But toujours gai, Archy.
In the process of working on my new composition, I have been studying jazz harmony. I feel I have a good understanding of classical (white racist?) harmony. I would like to have the same expertise in jazz harmony. It’s not that far away from me. I think much of it is already a part of my own basic compositional and improvisational musical language. As I study I often have the insight that I already use the musical language, I just don’t have the facility of the nomenclature.
But this is certainly not true of all of it and I am enjoying improving these chops as I continue to work on my current composition.
Kelly’s updated paperback version of his bio of Thelonious Monk arrived in the mail yesterday. I bring it up here because Monk’s harmonic language and improvisation have always attracted and intrigued me. This biography looks to be another excellent in-depth exposition of its subject. On the to-read stack it goes, but near the top.
I keep plowing through Kendi’s How to be An Anti-racist and Gessen’s Surviving Autocracy.
Here’s a cool story from the former.
“In my first course with [Professor Ama] Mazama, she lectured on [Philosopher Molefi Kete] Asante’s contention that objectivity was really ‘collective subjectivity.’ She concluded, ‘It is impossible to be objective.’
“It was the sort of simple idea that shifted my view of the world immediately. it made so much sense to me as I recalled the subjective choices I’d made as an aspiring journalist and scholar. if objectivity was dead, though, I needed a replacement. I flung up my hand like an eighth-grader.
“‘Yes?’
‘If we can’t be objective, then what should we strive to do?’ She stared at me as she gathered her words. Not a woman of many words, it did not take long.
‘Just tell the truth. That’s what we should strive to do. Tell the truth.”
My piano trio had its first in person rehearsal yesterday. I went early and measured six feet from the organ on either side. This seemed to work out okay. We are rusty so it wasn’t as fun as usual. But it was good to connect with these two players.
During this period, people who come in the church are to sign in and out, use hand sanitizer on arriving and leaving, and wipe down surfaces.
Today I went over and worked on composition for a while. I’m still trying to put together a three movement piece for trumpet and organ. I have been studying African American Spirituals. My assignment today was to write a little piano sketch on By an’ By. I did that. It was satisfying. Next I want to write sketches on the other tunes I have in mind. Here are the three tunes.
By n’ By Lord I want to be a Christian My Lord what a morning
BLM, get it?
Anyway, I hope I don’t jinx my pieces by discussing it here. Time to go read.
Today was my first day back on the campus of Grace Episcopal Church. I walked over and picked out organ music for the next two Sundays. During this phase we are allowing people to come into the church as long as they sign in and out, sanitize their hands on arriving and leaving, and wipe down surfaces. If the are with other people they must social distance with face masks. I have emailed Jordan and Rhonda that they are now welcome to come and use the building.
I decided to ease back into organ music. I chose some 18th century pieces based on tunes my congregation might recognize rather than the tune of the one hymn we are using in the service. For example, next week I’m playing two pieces by Kauffmann, one based on “Now Thank We All Our God” and the other based on “All Glory Laud and Honor.” I’m planning on writing a little music note about Kauffmann and those two hymn tunes.
I tried to think of something that might give people a bit of pleasure and remind them of what it’s like to hear organ music at church. The time constraint is big on my mind. Less is more on the screen in my opinion.
Having said that here are two a bit longer videos I watched recently.
These were my martini music the last couple of nights. I think the alto in the first has an amazing sound. These are charming recordings in my opinion. I’m planning on listening to more of these recordings for pleasure. I’m not studying the pieces just enjoying these amazing performances.
I finished Pullman’s The Secret Commonwealth. It’s not great writing particularly but it is fun and keeps my attention. I decided to up my game and bit and go back to Le Guin.
She is a superb writer.
My copy of Southall’s book, Blind Tom, The Black Pianist-Composer: Continually Enslaved came in the mail. This is volume three of Southall’s research on this composer. I am very interested in learning more about him. Thomas Wiggins (Blind Tom) lived from 1849 to 1908. He was a classical composer and pianist. I had never heard of him before reading about him in The Black History of The White House by Clarence Lusane.
Lusane says that Southall spent 23 years writing three volumes on Wiggins. I’m almost done with Lusane’s book. I don’t have the other books on Wiggins.
My copy of Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars by Henry Louis Gates Jr. also came in the mail. I wonder what Gates and Martha Nussbaum would think of Racist Music Theory (see yesterday’s blog, Hi Jordan!). I recently picked up Nussbaum’s Cultivating Humanity and discovered I had left at chapter on African American Studies. Nussbaum’s book is from 1997 and Gates’s book is from 1992. Both seem salient.
So my friend, Jordan VanHemert put this link up on Facebook a while back. At the time, I glanced over it and found it confusing and not terribly coherent. Recently, I went back and tried to look at it more closely. I still had difficulty with some of Ewell’s contentions.
I don’t disagree that there a white racist bias in hiring practices. But for me, music theory is the explanation of a musical style works.
One of the key things I’ve come to realize is how important maintaining the myth of race and gender neutrality is to music theory. In fact, once this neutrality is exposed as fallacious, the white-racial and male-gender frames—which I sometimes conflate to the “white-male” frame in this and future blog posts—of music theory will be in serious jeopardy, so it makes perfect sense that music theory’s white-male frame works relentlessly to keep in place the idea that what we do “has nothing to do with race or gender.”
Ewell
It’s hard for me to understand how Ewell is using the phrase, “music theory,” in this assertion. I’m curious how analyzing a style of music is racist. Later Ewell points out the biases of white male theorists like Schenker. Yes, these idiots were racists. But what exactly is racist about Schenderian analysis? I don’t get it.
I found what looks like a better put together article by Ewell: Music Theory and the White Racial Frame published in June of last year. I’m hoping it will explain this stuff more clearly to me than his blog posts linked above or the video of his talk on which they are based.
It troubles me that Ewell cites Kendri whom I find eloquent and coherent about racism and antiracism. But anyway, I’m working on understanding this better.
On a not unrelated note, I decided that I wanted to have a definitive copy of Langston Hughes’ poetry. Today I ordered the three volumes of his works in which this is contained. I was surprised that I only owned a couple books by him and not one collection of his poetry.
This is a cool article in the June Poetry Magazine. Sears is a distinguished American jurist and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. This article is about poems she loves.
I finished writing this poem today. I’m living in a house with people who do not read that much poetry. So, you, dear reader, and the internet get to be the audience. Skip at will.
Untitled
My ghost is slipped inside you.
Its story does not change.
Old solid sighs, cold clotted cloth,
Tales tagged in bone and flesh.
Old voices sing inside me
They teach me who I am.
They bang my brain, beat my blood,
With wonder, words, and song.
Eileen seemed surprised I was writing a poem. I think I do write a poem once or twice a year. I usually post them here. Maybe I should have a page of them online. Maybe not.
I got a little crazy today and sent copies of Masha Gessen’s Surviving Autocracy to a bunch of family members. I will have to let them know I mailed copies to them since there were no gift options for it on Amazon. So they will just get a book out of the blue. I already told Jen I mailed her a copy in an unrelated email (she is honorary fam). I have an appointment to chat with Mark in a bit and I will tell him then. I’ll email the others.
This book came in the mail. It goes on the to read stack. I did finish Klein’s Why We’re Polarized. There were some interesting parts, but his mind and ideas do not impress me like Gessen does. I am hopeful about Rutger Bregman (above)
Spike Lee’s movie is available on Netflix. I have watched it. I like Lee’s work but thought this was a mixed bag. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s review makes some salient critiques. One of them is that while people who are not African American do not get to use the word “nigger” lightly, Lee not being Vietnamese American doesn’t get to use the word “gook”. I do admire Nguyen’s work.
I’ve been working my way through the New Yorker Summer fiction issue. This is a bitter little tale. Hint: The main character, Harvey, fits Harvey Weinstein. And the stolen title is significant and totally intentional.
I went looking for this article because at the bottom of the last page of short story it said: “NEWYORKER.COM Emma Cline on fictionalizing odious men,” which is a better description of the story.
“This song came knocking about a week ago and I had to open the door and let it in. What can I say about what’s been happening, what has happened, and what is continuing to happen, in this country, in the world? There’s too many words and none, all at once. So I let the music speak, as usual. What a thing to mark this 155th anniversary of Juneteenth with that beautiful soul Yo-Yo Ma. Honored to have it out in the world.”
Build a House
You brought me here to build your house, build your house, build your house
You brought me here to build your house and grow your garden fine
I laid the brick and built your house, built your house, built your house
I laid the brick and built your house, raised the plants so high
And when you had the house and land, the house and land, the house and land
And when you had the house and land, then you told me “go.”
I found a place to build my house, build my house, build my house
I found a place to build my house since I couldn’t go back home
You said I couldn’t build a house, build a house, build a house
You said I couldn’t build a house, so you burned it down
So then I traveled far and wide, far and wide, far and wide
And then I traveled far and wide until I found a home
I learned your words and wrote a song, wrote a song, wrote a song
I learned your words and wrote a song to put my story down
But then you came and took my song, took my song, took my song
But then you came and took my song, playing it for your own
I took my bucket, lowered it down, lowered it down, lowered it down
I took my bucket, lowered it down, the well will never run dry.
You brought me here to build a house, build a house, build a house
You brought me here to build a house. I will not be moved.
No, I will not be moved. No, I will not be, I will not be, I will not be moved
I had fun today working online with Dawn Van Ark on the second variation of my cello piece. I love collaborating and don’t often get the chance to do it. She helped me quite a bit and i think we improved the piece.
I will be putting up on my “free mostly original music” page.
This morning as sometimes happens I ended up deep in the rabbit hole of the internet.
I was halfway through Divya Victor’s poem, Locution/Location in the June issue of Poetry magazine and I got swept up both in the poem and in her epigraph written by Hélène Cixous.
Even before finishing Victor’s poem, I had ordered Cixous’s Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing.
\
I read some excerpts on Amazon. I learned that “H” is pronounced “ash” in French. I did not know that. I found that information important when I returned to Victor’s poem and finished reading it.
Cixous is 83 years old. The book is translated from the French which I find fascinating. I thought that 27 bucks was more than I wanted to pay for this book since it’s the kind of book I would want to hold in my hands before paying that amount for it. Instead I found it used on AbeBooks.com. Unfortunately, it’s shipping from the U.K. and won’t be here until August.
But in the meantime I have tons of books that I am reading and want to read.
I’m also interested in Victor. She is an assistant professor of Poetry and Writing at Michigan State.
I’m almost finished with Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein. He mentions the work of
Daniel Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman regarding reformation of the Supreme Court.
They “suggest rebuilding the Supreme Court so it has fifteen justices: each party gets to appoint five, and then the ten partisan judges must unanimously appoint the remaining five. Until all fifteen are agreed upon, the court wouldn’t be able to hear cases.”
It’s an overcast Sunday here in west Michigan. I have been up for a while. I’ve done some Greek and read some poetry. It brings me solace to remember that there are other people who like poetry. In last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, there were two letters pointing out that there was no mention of poetry in the annual Summer Reading issue. One of the letters was in free verse.
Kim Stafford
I have been working my way through books of poetry by the poets, Kim Stafford and Robert Bly. I
Robert Bly
‘m not sure why I have a book of Stafford’s poetry but I remember liking Bly since I was a twenty something or maybe even younger. I drove to Ann Arbor to hear him do a poetry reading at some point.
I lost interest in him during his Iron John phase. That seemed to be sort of an attempt to give men a sense of connection. I’ve never been that interested in the array of stuff that can be identified with masculinity.
Anyway, I’m enjoying getting back to Bly. I think his poetry is quite good, better than Donald Hall but maybe not Jane Kenyon.
I finished a second variation for solo cello on the hymn tune Westmister Abbey yesterday. I gave myself a sort of deadline because I wanted it in the hands of the player for at least a week before she performs it. She left a message last night that it’s doable and she has a suggestion about changing a note. This is exactly the response I was hoping for: she can do it and improve it.
I’m still not entirely happy with it. But I can tell that her suggestion doesn’t address my misgivings which occur early in the piece. She told me the measure number where the note is that she suggest changing and it’s later in the piece.
I found another poem in the June issue of Poetry Magazine that I like.
My copy of this book came recently. I am disappointed. None of the melodies I would like to use in a composition are in this book. I have spent the last hour or so researching Negro Spirituals online. Surely there has been a ton of research around this topic. I already have a good collection of resources, but I’m still poking around online. I miss being able to request a book from another library, but I have downloaded some recent articles on the topic to read and browse.
I’m on chapter 9 of Kendri’s How to Be an Anti-racist. It builds a more clear platform about the topic than his Stamped from the Beginning which I have also read. Also, he very artfully frames his ideas and tells his own life story in relation to them. Very clever.
His distinction between Behavioral Racist and Behavioral Antiracist helped me thinking about music and race.
In the past few decades there has been some serious discussion about whether people who are not African American can play Jazz (or Blues or Gospel). This has struck me as a very weak contention from the beginning. I can easily list off many non-African American jazz musicians.
I think the question is about integrity and cultural appropriation. Since I can play and a little Jazz, blues, and gospel, I look at this as a player and composer.
I’m working on a composition that might possibly include Negro Spirituals,
Kendri is clear. Behavioral Racism is “making individuals responsible for the perceived behavior of racial groups and making racial groups responsible for the behavior of individuals.”
You can see how this might apply to cultural appropriation. Culture is very different from race. I think about over arching American cultural which encompasses a wide variety of behavior. Eclecticism is part of my basic understanding of American culture. Mixing up stuff is basic to many musical genres I am interested in. It’s clear to me when I am appropriating and when I am dipping into a mix not to mention my own memory and experience.
For what it’s worth, here is Kendri’s definition of a Behavioral Antiracisit: “One who is making racial group behavior fictional and individual behavior real.”
Oddly enough sitting outside early this morning, doing Greek, reading a bit of Homer and then a lot of Dante was what my poor impoverished soul needed. Ah.
I head from Chris Janowiak. That’s the name of the musician who watched me as a kid at Our Lady of the Lake and got inspired. I was talking to Jeremy about this experience. A reaction that I didn’t initially share with Chris was that I remembered him well as a young man. I knew he was a friend of Jon Fegel and heard him play with one of Fege’s bands. I remember that he was a bit standoffish. I interpreted that to me that he wasn’t impressed enough with me to connect. It seemed a bit odd but not that big a deal.
Jeremy said that it would be good information for Chris to know that. It might help him avoid that kind of misperception about younger musicians looking up to him but being so shy and intimidated to be at ease.
Anyway, Chris reached out to me a second time, conversationally DMing me on Facebooger. I responded and included this information in my response.
What the heck.
I’m a hug fan of the National Constitution Center. Last night Eileen and I listened to this podcast before falling asleep. Albright is very cool, intelligent, perceptive, and interesting. Jes sayin.
I also think a lot of Dave Chappelle’s work. This is a good balance to the Albright video. My daughter, Elizabeth, remarked that Chappelle looked old. Hmmm.
I’m working on a new composition. It’s requiring researching dozens of Negro Spirituals. I ordered what I hope is a copy of one the earliest collections of them.
My friend, Rhonda, asked me to write a trumpet/organ piece. At first, I was researching folk songs in Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads.
Then I realized that I wanted to use Negro Spirituals instead of fishing around in the 6 volume collection of Child Ballad tunes I have.
I pulled all my collections of spirituals and began considering versions of melodies I love. I even found some new ones.
At this point, I’m hoping I can sort of channel Charles Ives and switch from his Beethovian abstract treatment to something more like a neo classical concerto treatment with motives and melodies of African American Spirituals intertwined.
I hope I don’t jinx my work by blogging about it. But not very many people are stopping by these days on my blog and I don’t think it’s going to do that for me. I’m approaching this work much more systematically than anything I have written in a while.
Watching what might be a bit of awakening around racism in my country helps me see that I would like to make some art around that idea.
Plus my copy of Gates’ Stony the Road came in the mail last night. I’m more than three quarters done reading the ebook. I also had a library copy for a while and like many of Gates’ books, it is a beautiful book.
I’m using up valuable reading and practicing time so here are some links and I’m outta here.
I knew when I saw that Dr. Barber was giving the homily yesterday at the National Cathedral that I would check it out. It is a marvelous piece of oratory and I strongly recommend it.
I have Robert Altar’s three volume translation of the Hebrew Bible. It is, of course, an overwhelming work to read. I have been reading Genesis in three translations, his, the Norton English Study Bible, and R. Crumb’s illustrated version.
I like it that R. Crumb used Alter’s translation as an acknowledged source for most o fhis own prose.
It’s slow going reading multiple translations, but it’s also how I’m reading Dante. I was amused when this weekend the Old Testament reading was one I had just read in this manner. Just gettin’ in the to the word, like my crazy Christian friends used to say.
I find that Alter’s explanatory prose is what interests me the most, so that’s why I ordered The Art of Bible Translation. Translating is something that I think about quite a bit. I’m living with a translator right now, my son-in-law, Jeremy. He has a web site at which offers Chinese Law translations.
Plus, a lot of what I read, I read in translation: Dante, Cervantes, Homer, to mention just a few.
Michael Eric Dyson got me thinking about Martha C. Nussbaum again when he mentioned her in his NYTBR By the Book interview. I picked up my copy of Cultivating Humanity by her and was bemused to see that I left off at the chapter on African American Studies in American Universities. I read in that this morning.
Elizabeth had this great idea. We recently received notice from the city that our yard needed mowing. We often get one of these around Tulip time. But this year, it came a bit later than that time (Tulip Time was canceled due to the Covid 19 pandemic). Elizabeth met the person when she stopped to leave her notice. Elizabeth said the person was very nice about it, almost apologetic.
It seems to be a different person each time. In the past, I have thought of it as educating these people about indigenous gardens. So far, they have always stopped short of making Eileen get rid of her raggedy (wonderful) collection of indigenous plants.
Elizabeth mowed the lawn, by the way.
Then she decided to put up signs. I think she also is registering us as an official butterfly sanctuary or garden. That’s still in process. But she did get the sign above and proceeded to label plants in the front yard. Cool.
Purple Cone Flower
Michigan Rose
Black Eyed Susan
Sweet Pea
Butterfly Weed
Tomorrow is Eileen’s and my 45th wedding anniversary. We decided to order some flowers. I like to surprise her with flowers, but surprises are harder with Covid 19 restrictions. She doesn’t mind not being surprised at all. We decided together to order daisies and roses. The daisies are because that was the flowers we had at our wedding. The roses are just cool.
So they should be delivered sometime to day.
My connection with my therapist didn’t work as well the second time. For some reason, our images and sounds were sputtering. We did most of it over the phone. I have been in an odd mental place. Racism is something I think a lot about, so the recent police riots have been very troubling to me. But, I didn’t have that much to talk to Dr. Birky about yesterday.
Despite that and the fact that we were on the phone, I noticed that my mood lifted a bit afterward. There is value in being listened to, I guess.
This came across my Twitter feed with the fact that before the 70s we did Phase I testing on prisoners, now we do it on poor people. I haven’t read it yet but plan to look it over. I do like the New York Review of Books.
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