I skipped blogging yesterday. The Mark, Leigh, Ben, and Tony crew went and saw Mom and then came home for a quick lunch and got away close to noon. They were evacuating before a huge snow storm front that showed up on the radar.
It was fun having them around.
I haven’t been over to church since Sunday. The music I am playing is mostly for manuals. I have scheduled Pierre Dandrieu’s variations on “Chanson de St. Jacques.” I wish I knew more about the original melody. There are many variations in this set. I put it in the bulletin that I would be playing “excerpts” from them. This allows me to pick and choose right up to the last minute which variations I will play. I think three variations for the prelude and three more for the postlude is about right. They don’t last a minute each, even with repeats.
Eileen and I walked over to Evergreen Commons and treadmilled yesterday. The season has really slowed down my own exercising and dieting. Typical I guess.
Today Evergreen Commons is closed for the upcoming New Year holiday. I need to go to church and file all the Christmas music and register the Dandrieu. I am thinking it would be good exercise to walk over to church today.
The edition of Dandrieu I found online to play from doesn’t do much in the way of suggested registration the way the old edition I was using does. The suggestions are editorial additions anyway. This morning I got up and found my copies of notes about French organ registration. Ray Ferguson gave his students invaluable pages of photocopies of research about this subject. Although the information is in French, this hardly matters since the vocab is so specialized, it is still extremely helpful.
I am planning to use this material to double check my decisions on registering Sunday’s organ music. I had a couple of notes go dead on me last Saturday. I worked around them for Sunday’s services. I’m hoping they are better today. I suspect bits of dust from the recent rafter cleaning despite having warned them the organ needed TLC in that kind of environment.
I hope that Ron, the handy parishioner, and I don’t have to address this. It would mean someone (Ron probably) crawling up and trying to find out if dust is blocking some reed pipes. Ron is no spring chicken. I worry about him climbing around up there. I worry about me climbing around up there.
Harriet Tubman’s Hymnal – The New York Times
After reading this article I pulled out my own copy of Gospel Hymns Consolidated, Embracing Numbers 1,2,3 and 4, without duplicates for use in Gospel Meetings and other religious services.
It’s surprising how many of these old hymns are in my brain. The copyright on this particular edition is 1883. That’s about two decades after the civil war.
NYTimes: The End of Trump and the End of Days
I have found the hysteria and ad hominem attacks on the left this past year leave me cold even though I sympathize with the anti-Trump point of view.
NYTimes: Inside of a Dog
Normally, feature articles about pets don’t interest me. But I admire Jennifer Finney Boyle immensely and would even read an article about her dogs with pleasure.
NYTimes: Why Self-Compassion Beats Self-Confidence
I have thought a bit about self-compassion. I phrase it to myself that I would easily forgive in others things that are had for me to forgive in myself. Then I try to forgive myself or at least be more fair to myself. Trying to be self aware is a bitch.
If you need someone to climb around up there who isn’t “old”, I’ll volunteer.
Happy to help out, and I”m back in town now. So just let me know.
Welcome back! Thank you for the offer. My parishioner, Ron Brown, worked pretty closely with Martin and Marcus and is inclined towards this sort of tinkering in a very expertise way. He has been invaluable, but I will remember your offer, ‘youngun’!