The improv workshop went fine. I have some misgivings about it not being quite orthodox American Guild of Organist presentation. But it was a public meeting and the local conservatives were invited and didn’t show.
By conservative I mean musicians who might subscribe to a more classical approach to organ improvisation. I tried to make it clear last night that my opinions and information are colored by a bias that is inclusive of musical styles, not exclusive.
I was especially happy that people talked. We got started late and I tried to quit at the scheduled time anyway. They stayed another fifteen minutes talking to each other. I hope some members left feeling better about their skills and inspired to improve their improvising.
I came home and finished watching the Netflix special on Keith Richards. Here’s a trailer.
I like this quite a bit. It helped me think about my own understanding of American genius. I mentioned this documentary last night to the AGO people.
So yesterday took quite a bit out of me and today is my most strenuous work day. I hope I survive okay. My blood pressure has been trending up. Eileen was in a funk when I came home due to the fact that she couldn’t get the new NCIS episode to work. She tried unsuccessfully to pay for using the CBS channel. I found some streaming channels for her but they looked a bit dodgy.
Today I have two classes, a meeting with my boss and the evening choir rehearsal. Last Wednesday, I rested in bed for an hour in the afternoon to build energy for the evening. I haven’t been able to treadmill for two days in a row due to stuff I had to do. Today will probably be my third day in a row.
I have been trying to get my church up to speed with copyright reporting. My boss is a bit confused about my recommendations (garnered from my younger, smarter, better looking brother, Thank you, Mark!). I asked if we could subscribe to both OneLicense and the RiteSeries online. We have the OneLicense subscription now. Yesterday she re-upped our software subscription thinking I believe that’s what I have been bugging her about. I’ll try again today in our meeting to clarify that if we subscribe to the first two we should be able to very easily get legal with copyrights for the stuff we publish in our bulletin.
I’m feeling a bit deflated this morning. It’s typical for me after doing something like I did last night. One difference is that I find it satisfying to encourage and cheerlead people who are themselves trying to serve others.
Five people filled out the evaluation forms I provided. Four of them were highly positive and rated all my areas 10 out of 10 (was it helpful? informative? clearly organized? useful?). The fifth pointed out that I used terms they found unfamiliar and gave me a 4 out of 10 rating in organization, 6 in informative and helpful and 5 in useful. I wonder if this is the member who mentioned jokingly that I wasn’t very organized and I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
I guess there’s a difference between being organized and giving the appearance of organization. I’ll try to be more obvious next time, but I don’t think this comment was too justified. I followed my outline, moved quickly and quizzed members and got them talking.
But feed back is always helpful.
Unfortunately, no one filled in the “ideas for future programs”slot in the evals.
Here are pdfs of all the handouts last night.
All of the books on the biblio were laying out on a table.
George W. Bush Made Retroactive N.S.A. ‘Fix’ After Hospital Room Showdown –
This sounds like a suspicious move by Bush as president.