I only five more days of ballet classes. Possibly less, if any are canceled last minute. I still enjoy the work, but am ready for some time off.

Caroline Shaw,this year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize in music, earned her living after getting a masters in music “accompanying ballet and modern dance classes on piano, violin and percussion…” (Caroline Shaw, Award-Winning Composer – NYTimes.com)

I listened to the recording of this piece.

I like that Shaw doesn’t think of herself as anything but a musician.

I also like this piece quite a bit (both the live performance above and the studio recording which is on Spotify).

Her comments and descriptions in the above link are illuminating. She sounds like someone I would want to know and work with. I don’t say that too often about musicians.

I was surprised to open the pages of my new New Yorker and find two poets I have been reading in it. I rarely seem to like the poems the  New Yorker publishes. For a few years I submitted poems myself. I hope it’s not just jealousy. In fact, I was thinking as read Michael Robbins and Anne Carson’s poem in this issue, that it could be a sort of lack of poetical context. Reading entire books of poetry one gets a larger rhythm going than just one poem. The poetry is sort of in dialog with itself.

One poem on a page in a magazine has to sort of wing it alone so to speak. Just burst into your head and do its work. I usually read the first couple of lines and see if it draws me in at all. I do the same with the New Yorker ficition. Occasionally I am drawn in.

I find Robbins work to resonate with phrases from popular culture that twist into new meanings. I like that. Ann Carson I am still trying to figure out. I’m about halfway through her Decreations. It’s not one of her major works I gather. But I am finding an occasional burst of light in it.

*****

The Finding – U.S. Engaged in Torture – NYTimes.com

Letters in response to this story.

*****

‘The Dispensable Nation,’ by Vali Nasr – NYTimes.com

Review of a new book that critiques Obama’s foreign policy.

*****

Of Judges and Judging – NYTimes.com

Linda Greenhouse is supposedly retired. She has taught me a lot about the Supreme Court with her reporting. She’s always worth reading.

*****

The Art of Filippo Minelli – NYTimes.com

He paints words outside, words that resonate out of context.

*****

How the Pre-Penicillin Era Could Help Combat Antibiotic Resistance – NYTimes.com

History of meds. Probably holds future promise after exhausting antibiotics usefulness.

*****

Coelacanth DNA May Tell How Fish Learned to Walk – NYTimes.com

I love this shit.

*****

Digital Public Library of America

online as of yesterday.

*****

I’m listening to the rain pouring down in the early morning darkness in Western Michigan. I love the rain. I wrote a poem as a young man which basically addresses the rain as muse.

here is the torn day, rain
broken like red small leaves
under my feet

my last lover has to be you
I find you everywhere
and sleep beside you

every word or sound I have made
was really made for you
I think you know that

mute one silent with sound
you are on my hands

someone tried to steal you
to make you faithful

you are the only one
I never asked to be faithful

you are my last friend
who knows me now

sticking your sounds
on the leaves
you are all around me

*****

Thus it has been for me all my life. My body and mind relaxes when it rains. I love to walk in it.

I purchased a Kindle book this morning by Christopher Small: Music of the Common Tongue: Survival and Celebration in African American Music.

He mentioned it in Musicking and I was intrigued. Apparently it’s basic idea is that the most important music of the Western tradition in the 20th century is African American. I’m not sure about what is most important, but this body of music is an extremely important and influential one for me.

Last night in my Kids Choir rehearsal, I had them sing “Go Down Moses.”

We have been talking about hymnody, words versus tunes. I have been trying to get my three kids to think about who wrote the words to a hymn and where did the tune come from.’

Last night I learned that my kids were only beginning to learn about slavery in America. But their imaginations quickly fired up and drew on their lessons and described vividly what it’s like to be someone’s property.

We talked about the relationship of the story of Moses and the Israelite slaves to the American slaves brought from Africa.

They liked singing the song I think.

Music of the Common Tongue was cheapest as a Kindle book. Usually I can pick up a cheap used edition of a book on Amazon. But in this case $12.71 (the Kindle price) was cheaper than any of the used ones available.

Yesterday was my penultimate crazy Wednesday. One more and I will be done with have both an 8:30 AM class to play for and an evening full of church and rehearsals.

I only had five singers at the adult choir rehearsal. It is discouraging how thinly people commit themselves these days. Or maybe I should say how far they spread themselves over commitments, since most every person missing was honoring a different commitment like symphony orchestras or other important things.

It takes energy to pull together a small group and have them leave feeling like their time was spent in a worthwhile fashion. I hope I accomplished that last  night. I know I tried.

I did find time to make a few videos of myself playing organ. These can be helpful if humiliating. Here’s one.

I put this up on the Grace Music Ministry Facebook page yesterday. It is my prelude for Sunday. Most of the notes are there I think. I also think that it helps to hear a piece a few times if  you’re going to hear a live performance. My hope is that some of the church Faceboookers might listen and then be more prepared to hear it more clearly Sunday. Or not.

Also I am meeting tomorrow with my friend Rhonda for her thoughts on this piece. She has played some CPE Bach, maybe even this one, so I am hoping she will  answer a couple questions and critique my playing.

I have a long but pleasurable and rather easy day ahead of me. Two ballet classes, a trio rehearsal, some organ rehearsal, then date night with my lovely wife.

Need I say it? My life is good.

*****

Getting this up a bit late today. Ah well.

Last Sunday we did a soprano descant I composed the day before. The hymntune was Sursum Corda. The text in the Hymnal 1982 was “Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest.” From a cursory glance both of these (tune and text) were in the Hymnal 1940 but were not paired.  I think the hymn tune melody is an example of the simple elegance sometimes achieved in the Anglican tradition. And I was happy with my little descant.

I have put up a Jpeg of it here. If you read this and want a PDF, let me know.

I keep composing.

I don’t  mean to necessarily. I have ideas but no real time to work on them. And then I was rehearsing this hymn and I heard a lovely little descant that was not too high and would match the tune nicely.

I chose music for a week from Sunday yesterday. I am planing to play a couple of movements from Clerambault’s suite on the second tone.

“Recit de Nazard” for the prelude.

“Basse de cromorne” for the postlude.

I played the entire suite on an undergrad recital. I do like the music.

*****

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens: Scientific American

This is the best article I have read on this subject. It asks some very astute questions and cites some cool studies.

I also find it kind of hilarious that it will not display a single page to be read. Flipping between frames  doesn’t allow me to refer back into an article, something I do regularly.

*****

For the Elderly, Diseases That Overlap – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com

This has some fun moving pictures that illustrate the statistics.

*****

What a Fighter Jet Could Buy 60 Years After Eisenhower’s Chance for Peace Speech – NYTimes.com

Guns or butter. I think Eisenhower had an opinion that would not be popular now.

*****

Dr. King’s Righteous Fury – NYTimes.com

This makes King’s voice more clear and sheds some of the silly nostalgia that has been building around his leadership.

*****

U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes – NYTimes.com

Sooprise. Sooprise. Torture really is evil. My country really did it. Time to change the rules back.

*****

Hunger Striking at Guantánamo Bay – NYTimes.com

Speaking of evil. Terrible things being done to people like incarceration without possibility of trial.

*****

Avoiding Emergency Rooms – NYTimes.com

The greatest country in the world has no clue about health care.

*****

Live Music Soothes Premature Babies, a New Study Finds – NYTimes.com

Yay live music!

*****

Judge holds self in contempt for his smartphone | Michigan Radio

For some reason this makes me think of James Brown.

” Sometimes I feel so nice, good Lord! I jump back, I wanna kiss myself! I’ve got soul, huh, and I’m super bad, HEY!”

*****

Planet Pyongyang – Newsweek and The Daily Beast

Some warnings about North Korea you don’t hear so much.

*****

Turkish Pianist Sentenced for Twitter Postings – NYTimes.com

This makes me crazy.

*****

I was surprised yesterday when I read that CPE Bach (Johann Sebastian’s sons) composed many of his piano sonatas as a young man under the watchful eye of his father. I know that JS Bach was aware of the turn of music to the clearer and lighter pre-gallant music style. You can even see this in some of his works as he occasionally steps away from counterpoint and introduces beautiful homophonic based melodies.

I own five volumes of CPE’s keyboard sonatas (I guess its six counting the organ book I just bought).

Two of these are the Dover collections.

Like all Dover books these are reprints of older editions. The sonatas have been rearranged chronologically. They are drawn from Le Trésor des pianistes (volumes XII and XIII) by Aristide and Louis Farrenc (1861-1874).

The first volume is mostly of sonatas written before the death of his father. Yesterday I played five of CPE’s six so called “Prussian Sonatas.”

It fascinates me to think of father and son composing away in such wonderful yet different compositional voices.

I have three volumes edited by Eiji Hashimoto.

They are grouped into three volumes originally published in CPE’s lifetime in 1760, 1761, 1763.

I compared these more scholarly editions by Hashimoto to the first volume of my Dover CPE and found no overlap. This is a lot of music. When I purchased the Hashimoto editions, I’m sure I played through most of this material.

CPE is an important figure in music if for no other reason than his wonderful Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. In this volume he is quite articulate about how music should be performed on keyboards. He does talk about his father. It’s not always clear how applicable all his comments are since they are sometimes vague or seemingly contradictory.

I remember when I first read this book thinking about the fact that I was pretty sure Glenn Gould read this. Gould’s interpretations are hardly in the historical fashion. But I do see influence of sources like CPE’s rather lengthy tome on his interpretation.

The Langlais edition of the organ sonatas I purchased is not that scholarly. But it is a practical performing edition and I am finding the music quite delightful.

I’m learning a movement to perform this Sunday as the prelude.

The”Prussian” sonatas I played through yesterday are dedicated to Frederick the Great who was CPE’s boss and was himself a flute player.

Published in 1740 the year Frederick ascended to the throne of Prussia, they appear two year after CPE had arrived in Berlin to join the august company of musicians in the young Frederick’s court.

Here’s a famous painting done in 1857 (many years later) of Frederick playing with his musicians. CPE is seated at the harpsichord. He had arrived two years earlier as I say to join Quantz, CH and JG Graun, Franz and Johann Benda. All these men were name brand musicians at the time. Quantz and/or the Grauns probably got him the gig. He was young and had only the Bach name going for him. I mean besides his considerable talent which I like to speculate he began to display in the lovely “Prussian” sonata group published a couple years later.

An interesting note from The New Grove Bach Family indicates that the young CPE was not paid as much as his confreres. “A budget list of 1744-5 in Frederick’s hand shows … 300 thalers (for CPE), as against 2000 each for Quantz and CH Graun, 1200 for JG Graun, and 800 for Franz Benda.”

The New Grove Bach Family goes on to point out that “In the same, season, the leading castrato received 3000 thalers.”

The castrati were the Justin Biebers of the time.

*****

For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about whether people find life challenging or comforting. Working in church work, I do see people approaching the community seeking comfort more than food for thought.

Take the gospel yesterday. It was the story of Jesus asking Peter three times if he, Peter, loved him. He does this after the ressurection echoing Peter’s three denials of him before his death.

At  one point I taught myself a little Greek. I was interested in Homer but the only learning tools I could find at first taught New Testament Greek.

Reading this story in the Greek in which it was written, I was surprised that Jesus and Peter are using different verbs in this exchange. Jesus is asking Peter if he “agape”s him. Peter replies, Lord you know I ‘phileo” you.

Agape is a complex word. I associate it with God love. The way a god would love his creation or his creation would love him. It is also sometimes defined as selfless love.

Phileo on the other hand is clearer. Affection, friendship, brother and sisterhood seem to be covered by its usage.

Then there’s eros. It covers the physical expressions of love. It seems to me to be deeper than the way Western society usually thinks of sex. It can also indicate a connection to life. For me I think of the potency of meaning when I think of sexuality and eros.

In the Bible story, Jesus switches verbs in his third question from agape to phileo. Peter is troubled but still responds with the phileo verb.

*****

Dan Gilbert’s Quest to Remake Downtown Detroit – NYTimes.com

I lived in Detroit for a few years. It’s demise continues to fascinate me.

*****

Tensions Turn Violent at Guantánamo Prison – NYTimes.com

I find it frustrating that the USA has turned its back on so many of its founding principles (like speedy just trials).

*****

Apparently some classical music radio station dumped a bunch of records at Salvation Army. I was at the one on James street if you’re local and interested. There must be thousands of records for sale.

I picked up about twenty or so on Friday.

Eileen had the day off and wanted me to do some clothes shopping. Recently I had a woman give me twenty dollars on the street. She handed it to me wrapped in a note, so I didn’t realize she was doing so at the time. Eileen (and Rhonda) seem to think that I looked like a homeless person to this woman. Eileen ascribed some of this to my ragged winter coat.

So anyway we went shopping and at one point were at the Salvation Army.

I was amazed at the recordings that were for sale.

The records above are ones I purchased that I chose randomly to google and put up some pics of.

Yesterday I was wondering just how many Glenn Gould recordings I already own, since I have been thinking of him. I pulled out this one from my collection.

I put it on the turntable while I was doing bills. I was shocked when I heard it and realized how much influence  Gould’s aesthetic has had on me. Not that I can play like he does, but his understanding of the music, especially Bach, has been a prism through which I see much of Bach’s work.

This particular recording was one I chose to use to help my kids move from one living space to a new one. As the move approached I played the Bach record frequently. It’s a happy little thing and Gould plays it with exuberance.

Then when we moved to the new digs, I continue to play it. I was hoping it would provide some aural comfort in midst of the chaos of being uprooted. At any rate, it is a recording I love.

Serendiptiously yesterday I arrived at the section of the book, Reinventing Bach, where Paul Elie describes how Bernstein and Gould met and collaborated on this very recording.

*****

Rights Groups Question Legality of Targeted Killing – NYTimes.com

I was glad to see this happening. Not sure it will make a difference, but I do believe that drones raining down and killing people is immoral.

*****

What the Brain Can Tell Us About Art – NYTimes.com

An author and scientist shares his historical and philosophical understanding.

*****

Tell the Truth About the Arms Trade Treaty – NYTimes.com

This UN stuff keeps happening. I think it might be under the radar in TVland USA.

*****

Remarks by the First Lady at the Joint Luncheon Meeting: Working Together to Address Youth Violence in Chicago | The White House

Michelle Obama puts her political cred on the line. Rush Limbaugh does not approve. But I do.

*****

United Arab Emirates’ Laws Ensnare a Doctor – NYTimes.com

This is a scary story. The UAE tried this doctor in absentia. He didn’t know it and got busted passing through the country.Yikes.

*****

In his book Musicking Christopher Small writes an “Interlude” entitled “Socially Constructed Meanings.” Christopher Small extends his idea of music as a verb to music as inter-relationships.

“If we think of music primarily as action rather than as thing and about the action as concerned with relationships, then we see that whatever meaning a musical work has lies in the relationships that are brought into existence when the piece is performed.”

He goes on to say that the “relationships are of two kinds: those between the sounds… and those between the participants.”

It’s good to remember that Small’s notion of participant in music is much larger than the trio of composer, performer and listener. It includes those who make the instruments, set up chairs, made the building in which the piece is performed, in short any person with any conceivable connection.

Small sees relationships both sound and interpersonal as “dramatic, which is to say, they articulate tensions and relaxations, climaxes and resolutions, developments and variations” in which sound parallels human relationships.

This all quickly falls under a rubric of story telling.

So Small sees music not as the most abstract of the arts but as a very concrete expression of human relationships and story.

It’s probably important to recall that Small is not speaking just from a Western tradition point of view. He enlarges his thinking to any music done by any human beings and then circles back around to observe, understand and comment on how we think about and do music in the West.

When Glenn Gould wrote an interview with himself for High Fidelity magazine in 1974 (!), his imaginary interviewer (g.g.) asks him this question:

“g,g, … you’ve been quoted as saying that your involvement with recording—with media in general, indeed—represents an involvement with the future.

“G.G. That’s correct…”

“g.g. and you’ve also said that, conversely, the concert hall, the recital stage, the opera house, or whatever, represent the past—an aspect of your own past in particular, perhaps, as well as, in more general term’s, music’s past.”

G.G.That’s true…”

I hope that we in the West are breaking out of a confinement of music to the experts and the concert hall. I hope that we return it (or at least significant portions of it) to the messy context of the real lives of people. A lot of this has already happened since so many of us access most of the music we hear via recordings.

Small sees this coming. Indeed, he could conceive of his web of music as verb “as the most concrete and least mediated of artistic activities… brought into existence by all those who are taking part, even if the only person who appears to be taking part is a jogger with a Walkman or a solitary flute player in the African night.”

Eileen made her public debut this morning as narrator for “Peter and the Wolf.”

She and Rhonda did it for a kindergarten class this morning.

They flashed pictures from a book on one screen as Eileen read the narration and Rhonda played the piece on the organ.

Rhonda was visible at the organ on a second screen.

Beforehand they had the kids walk go up into the organ area and walk past as Rhonda played an exciting piece by Ian Farrington.

The kids pretty much stayed with them. And seemed to like it quite a bit.

Eileen and Rhonda are a good combination. Eileen is excellent at reading to kids. Rhonda is a virtuoso organist. It’s great being married to a celebrity and having a virtuoso for a colleague.

*****

Happiness, Beyond the Data – NYTimes.com

This is a blog for contemporary philosophy. According to Gary Gutting, the writer of this article four things are necessary for happiness: One must be free of suffering (have food, health a place to sleep), have fulfilling work, have pleasures including the pleasure of experiencing beauty, and most importantly have the happiness of human love. No wonder my life is so good.

*****

Israeli Court Rules for Women at Western Wall – NYTimes.com

Amazing. I didn’t think this would work out like this when they were arrested.

*****

Damaged by Hurricane Sandy, Verizon’s Jazz-Age Frescoes Glow Again – NYTimes.com

I put this link up on Facebook too. I think the Frescoes are very cool.

*****

Rand Paul Goes to Howard – NYTimes.com

Charles Blow lists off why Republicans have no purchase on African American voters. Good list.

*****

In China, Feudal Answers for Modern Problems – NYTimes.com

China turns back to some older useful Chinese concepts.

China Law Translate | Wen Zhou Official dies suddenly while under ‘double designation’

My son-in-law is involved with this site. Here’s a pretty amazing disturbing story. Disturbing for the content. Amazing that it was released.

*****

Dark Lightning Zaps Airline Passengers : Discovery News

*****

I had to play for a  ballet class yesterday where the teacher was being auditioned for a post in the dance department. At least that’s what they told me beforehand. When I arrived there was a woman I have been working with on Friday mornings all semester. I told her I had to play in her room this morning for an audition. She told me she was the person auditioning. Surprising.

Before too long we were immersed in a class and professors were lined  up in chairs taking notes. Unsurprisingly the teacher being auditioned remained calm and graceful under pressure. But it was evident she was under pressure. There was a palpable something in the air, as she taught. I think the students were rooting for her as was I.

This kind of pressure is not unusual in the professional arts. I think it can be brutal. I have seen it do damage to artistic people.

It seems very far from Christopher Small’s thinking about musicking for example. That art can be a verb and can be owned by everyone is something that gets lost when human beings start being kind of creepy to each other.

One of the reasons I like church music is that I am part of a large group of humans making art together. Part of the art is singing. Part of it is ritual. My personal faith is very weak to non existent having been beaten by a lifetime around Christians. Christians are just people and can be as bad or as good as anyone.

After the class one of the profs with whom I do not work regularly asked me about a certain piece of music I had played. I had to confess that I couldn’t call it back. I had just made it up in the moment. He was complimentary about it.

At Notre Dame I learned to at least behave with some kind of grace under pressure. The atmosphere there was also very brutal. Mostly in the profs not the students. Each week I would play for the Sunday service. Many of my professors were sitting below in the church. They judged harshly. Sometimes I would be performing their compositions. It was a tough gig.

At the end of my degree program I found out that most of the teachers thought I wouldn’t graduate, that I wasn’t good enough. This was not helpful to learn.

I did graduate and I did so with the usual academic accolades.

I also learned I think to look in other places for beauty and art.

Especially in the people I meet, no matter their station or supposed expertise or lack thereof.

*****

Hollande’s Camel, a Gift From Mali, Becomes Tagine – NYTimes.com

Mali gives the president of France a baby camel. He gave it to a local family. They ate it.

*****

How Exercise May Help Memory – NYTimes.com

Read this while treadmilling.

*****

Disturbing Pablo Neruda’s Rest – NYTimes.com

Some interesting facts about other people whose graves have been disturbed.

*****

Political Introspection – NYTimes.com

Conversation between David Brooks and Gail Collins.

This day is getting off to a weird start. I got up and glanced out the window and didn’t see Eileen’s rent-a-car (her mini is being repaired). I actually went outside and walked around in case I was missing it in a morning stupor. No car.

Eileen had a late rehearsal last night and I was asleep by the time she was done.

I went upstairs and asked her where her car was. She had locked her keys in it at the church where her rehearsal was. Ah. Thank you to Rhonda for driving her home.

I came downstairs and tried to pick up the cat for his stupid morning hug. He scrambled out of my arms. Very unusual. Then I noticed urine all over the bathroom floor. Nice.

Good morning.

I finished Rachal Maddow’s Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. It’s impressive. As I was reading it and beginning to understand that Maddow has brains and insights, I tried to watch her  TV show. Yikes! I guess she has to act like that if she wants to be a TV personality. I couldn’t make it ten minutes into her shows. Too trivial and polemical.

The book however is not like that. It is chatty in an annoying TV way. But what it is saying is factually based and well researched.

Basically, she notes that we are addicted to war. She outlines the gradual expansion of the executive beginning with Lyndon Johnson. At the same time she shows how people in our government have  made legal what should be illegal (committing our country to armed conflict without public discussion much less approval among other things).

She ends with coherent concrete suggestions (that will of course be ignored).

It is a sad story of the “drift” of a good country into one unmoored.

Recommended.

*****

CourseSmart E-Textbooks Track Students’ Progress for Teachers – NYTimes.com

Just like your Kindle and other ebooks can remember where you are in the book, now your profs can see if you actually opened the dang online book.

Easy work arounds:  hire someone to flip through your etext and click the expected links.

*****

Chile Exhumes Pablo Neruda in Inquiry – NYTimes.com

Could this poet have been murdered? Stay tuned.

*****

How Raymond Davis Helped Turn Pakistan Against the United States – NYTimes.com

Oh my. People seem to think they live in a bad movie.

Only in reality, people actually get killed. Long sad story about more American incompetence.

*****

American Conservative Union Fighting Spending Cuts – NYTimes.com

That’s right. The ACU thinks we sh9uld NOT cut military and infrastructure.

See the Maddow book above.

*****

I’ve begun reading the New York Times online a bit differently. For several years I have started with the “Today’s Paper” section and simply read down the long page.

This works out pretty well. There are little paragraphs under each link to an article which explain the article.

But after a few of those, there are simply the headlines and the writer. Often these headlines (in the way of old newspaper writing) are enigmatic. They try to be catchy. Originally they would be right above the prose, so one could quickly scan from the headline to the first paragraph and figure out what the article was about.

Now when I use the “Today’s Paper” portal, I will click and read enough to find out if it’s something I want to read. Often it isn’t.

On Sunday, Margaret Sullivan, the “public editor” or ombudsman of the New York Times answered reader questions about how to read the New York Times online or on their device.

I learned that the designers recommend beginning not with the “Today’s Paper Section” but the Homepage.

I have been reading the New York Times online for several years. I consciously moved away from the paper edition gradually. I had a disagreement with a local librarian that the New York Times was a basic feature of any real library. She refused to put it on her shelves. But she accepted my donation. So for a year or so, in an experiment, I donated the paper edition to the library and read it online. I did this also because at that time there was no provision for just having an online subscription. It was only an added feature to having a paper subscription.

But before too long, the NYT got hip and allowed one to subscribe just online. So I ended up doing that. I still do this.

After reading Sunday’s article by Margaret Sullivan (with information both from users and designers of the online edition), I thought I would give the Home Page another try.

And I’m finding it superior. Most of the articles on it and the subsequent section portals it leads to (International, World, Technology, etc.) have a synopsis of the content under the headline. Very helpful.

In addition instead of a list of the articles in print, it prioritizes articles and online only content much more coherently.

Cool.

*****

‘Nuntii Latini,’ News Broadcast in Finland, Unites Fans of Latin – NYTimes.com

Broadcasting in classical Latin. Makes me wish I was fluent in Latin.

*****

Les Blank, Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 77 – NYTimes.com

This guy made the very cool films, “Gap Toothed Women,” and “Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers.”

*****

Targeted Killing Comes to Define War on Terror – NYTimes.com

“Since Mr. Obama took office, the C.I.A. and military have killed about 3,000 people in counterterrorist strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, mostly using drones.”

*****

Closing the Door on Hackers – NYTimes.com

“Too much of the debate begins and ends with the perpetrators and the victims of cyberattacks, and not enough is focused on the real problem: the insecure software or technology that allows such attacks to succeed. Instead of focusing solely on employees who accidentally open e-mails, we should also be pressuring software makers to make significant investments in their products’ security.”

*****

Anxiety and Avoidance – NYTimes.com

Some common sense and some brain science.

*****

Hugh McCracken, a Studio Musician in High Demand, Dies at 70 – NYTimes.com

Paul McCartney asked McCracken to be in the original group, Wings. He declined. He’s survived by his mother as well as the rest of  his extended family. His mother!

****

It’s almost 4 PM here in Holland Michigan. I usually write in the morning, but my brother and my sister-in-law were visiting so I skipped it this morning.

I am beginning to think I have a bit of my groove back after Easter and Hope College exhaustion. My class was thankfully canceled this morning. Eileen broke the upstairs bathroom sink drain last night (she was trying to fix it). So Mark, Leigh and I waited for the plumber while she went off and practiced “Peter and the Wolfe.” This is a bit of role reversal. Her leaving to do music. But I quite like it.

Sunday night Leigh, Mark, Eileen and I had a nice meal out together at the CityVu Bistro.

Today Mark convinced Mom to get out of her room and have lunch with us. She was in the mood for a burger and wanted to pick up some food from Wendys and go to our house and eat it. So that’s what we did. Eileen had to be at work around noon so she couldn’t join us for this.

In a few minutes I will make Eileen and me sandwiches and take food over for her lunch break.

It’s been a very relaxing day for me.

******

Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Who Reforged Britain, Dies – NYTimes.com

This obit in today’s NYT is one of the reasons I like reading the NYT. It provides a thorough over view of Thatcher’s life in politics and government. Helpful to review even though I was aware of her throughout most of her public life.

*****

A Passion for Reading – NYTimes.com

The Real Deal – NYTimes.com

These are a couple of letters to the editors link. In the first one the letter writer says what I often think —- that we are risking the loss of passion for learning as an end in and of itself. In the second link, Deborah Tannen writes to the NYT and has some salient insights (I admire her and have read books by her).

*****

Q. and A.: Tracy Thompson on ‘The New Mind of the South’ – NYTimes.com

Having lived in the South I found this interview fascinating.

*****

Can We Get Hillary Without the Foolery? – NYTimes.com

I read Maureen Dowd but don’t often link her in. This is one of her better efforts.

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Edith Schaeffer, 98, Dies – Defined Christian Values – NYTimes.com

I am reading a book by the son of this woman so I was surprised to see her obit.

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Jermey Denk the concert pianist has a lovely article in the April 8th edition of the New Yorker. I would link it in but it’s locked away in their subscriber only section (stupid stupid stupid).

It’s called “Every Good Boy Does Fine.” You might recognize from where he took his title.

It begins with his parents bringing him a little black notebook he kept as a piano student. It is filled with comments and memories about his study with William Leland, a teacher who seems to have taught him well early in his career.

The book is a record apparently quite extensive of his study with Leland. Leland sounds like a character. He improvises the prized “stars” piano students often receive by hand: “… sometimes the stars were beaming with pride, sporting halos or crowns; sometimes they had sidelong glances, to reflected mitigated success; some stars were amputees, and limped on crutches…” Leland not only writes his own comments (“Practicing a passage is not just repetition but really concentrating and burning every detail into your nervous system.”) but also jots down memorable words from his young student: “Quote of the Week” — “It’s amazing what you can do when you go slower.” The words in the book ring so strongly in Denk’s memory that he writes “It took me weeks to silence the voice [in the book] and play normally again.”

Denk’s charming and informative article moves quickly to his undergraduate experience at Oberlin where he eventually is exposed to György Sebők a prof visiting from Indiana U. This begins a huge influence on Denk’s life which he writes about eloquently.

The part that sticks in my mind is Denk’s description of Sebők’s unusual habit of sketching out harmony on a second piano while a student performed for the class. He adds “chords quietly from time to time, to enunciate a higher rhythm of events…. It was unforgettable, this demonstration of poetry of structure… ” Denk comments that later he would be listening to performances and wish “that Sebők would come onstage and start playing those chords, so that the performers would stop producing sausage-string phrases and give us ones that know their surrounds.”

This morning I continued reading in Christopher Small’s Musicking. I am beginning to understand Small as speaking from a conservative point of view, more accurately working toward breaking free of a conservative conventional point of view, that I as a musician have never really shared or bought into.

His treatment of harmony reveals both his insights and limitations.

He quotes Dryden:

“From harmony, heavenly harmony,
The universal frame began,”

as evidence of the “controlling power of the chordal progressions of tonal harmony.” I believe he is under the academic mis-perception that harmony is the main way musical tension and resolution is created. There is so much more to it than this and I’m sure Small perceived this. But his argument reduces music to types that “delay gratification” by using harmony to create “variation,” “surprises,” and “forward motion.” By this I think he means a lot of classical music that symphony orchestras play. But music that uses simpler more predictable chords (He mentions blues and jazz) arouse only the security of predictability and and with this predictability renounce variation, surprise, forward motion, etc.

I disagree with this notion. One only has to think of the wonderful performances of blues musicians and jazz musicians one loves to know that their artistic statement is complete even under this kind of scrutiny.

Small himself goes on to say that the classical composers who supposedly renounce 19th century harmony manage to create music which is varied, surprises, moves forward, climaxes, creates resolution, but through means other than harmonic ones.

This makes his observations seem a bit one dimensional to me. But I guess they make sense if you have been educated solely in the classical tradition (as Small was I’m pretty sure) and are trying to break free of these blinders.

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UN Passes Historic Arms Trade Treaty To Media Silence | Blog | Media Matters for America

This article points out the dearth of media coverage on this. NYT seems to be the only major source that covered it.

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‘Otherwise – Queer Scholarship Into Song,’ at Dixon Place – NYTimes.com

Charming article about doing academic research reporting to the tune of “Girl from Ipanema.” Recommended. Made me smile more than once.

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A New Era in Political Corruption – NYTimes.com

“We have a system that only catches morons,” sighed a member of the State Legislature

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Hunger Strike at Guantánamo Bay – NYTimes.com

“a collective act of despair”

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In Many Capital Cases, Less Culpable Defendants Receive Death Penalty – NYTimes.com

“It’s a total mystery who is going to face the death penalty and who is not.”

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The title of today’s post is the first line in John Ashbery’s poem, “Quick Question.”

Quick Question is also the title of the book of poetry in which it is found. It reminds me of how I think about music performance and universities.  I believe it might be changing slightly, mostly in the students. But the odd way in which musicians (professors) focus on their careers, the parameters of their daily lives and not music itself echoes the idea that a museum is more sterile than what spawned the marvelous creations it houses.

Another quote pops to mind from this morning’s reading:

“I could beginne againe to court and praise,
And in that pleasure lengthen the short dayes
Of my lifes lease; like Painters that do take
Delight, not in made worke, but whiles they make;”

John Donne, “Elegie: The Expostulation”

Music and probably all art is about the doing of it, the action of it. Scaffolds of pretentious clutter that hide the beauty and fun notwithstanding, for me, music is a door to meaning which opens up a meaningful life. It is a holy ritual.

“Ritual, of course, is action; it is something that people do. Its meaning lies not in the created objects that are worn, or exhibited, or eaten, or performed, or otherwise used, but in the acts of creating, wearing, exhibiing, eating, performing, and using.” Christopher Small, Musicking p. 107 or location 2363 Kindle book.

Christopher Small understands this.

“Properly understood, then, all art is performance art, which is to say that it is first and foremost activity.” Christopher Small, Musicking p. 108 or location 2392 Kindle book.

He also tends to think of musical performances in terms of social relationships. This is especially significant when thinking about music that is improvised by individuals or groups.

As I think about this I wonder about the significance of the shifting ways humans are experiencing music via recordings. It boggles my little pea brain. I await my books by and about Glenn Gould to continue thinking about this.

In the meantime, I want to mention that I have had many nice compliments from learned musicians lately. I was accosted at New Holland Brewery by a parishioner who is a musician. He thanked me for playing the Widor Toccata. I thanked him for listening to it. There’s a social relationship, eh?

A woman leaned across the table and said that she wanted to make sure that she took this opportunity to say how well I had played the Widor on Easter Sunday morning. She also is a degreed musician.

Since most local music profs keep their distance from me, it is nice to have some non-professors who are also trained musicians notice my work.

I write about it here to balance my usual bitching and self pity.

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A Brief History of Applause, the ‘Big Data’ of the Ancient World – Megan Garber – The Atlantic

Just what it says. Emphasis on ancient Rome.

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After God: What can atheists learn from believers?

bookmarked to read as are the rest of the links below

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madness and civilization – bookforum.com / current issue

Cabinet is a magazine I have never heard of. This is a description of it and a recent mock trial of it.

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The bitter fool by David Yezzi – The New Criterion

Satire replacing the absence of poetic impulse?

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The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue by Denis Donoghue – The New Criterion

Another poetry link. I had to bookmark it because it echoes a diction exercise I have long used with children’s choirs: “Lips, teeth, tip of the tongue; lips teeth tip of the tongue; lipsteethtipofthetongue.”

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I have been visiting the college library book sale daily. In addition to many functional organ pieces and collections, I have found some fun old books and music.

My old desktop computer and scanner are moving so slowly that I don’t have time to scan in a few of the covers, but they are wonderful to hold and look at.

I was reminded of Christopher Small’s comment about music scores.

“A score, of course, is not a musical work. It is not even the representation of it. It is a set of coded instructions that, when properly carried out, will enable performers not only to make sounds in a specific combination, called a musical work, but also to repeat that combination as many times as they desire.”

“We hear the sounds, which means that we perceive the aural images that form in our minds as the result of certain concrete physical events, namely, vibrations of the air as they impinge on our ears, and we perceive their aural characteristics. What we do not hear is the relationships between them.

Relationships are mental, not physical, events.”

“If a musical work exists in the relationships between the sounds as performers make them and as hearers hear them (performers, of course, are hearers also), then it exists only in performance.”

Small doesn’t talk about recording in his discussion very much. He is concentrating on critiquing the current thinking at the end of the last century (He was writing in 1998). But he does specifically address the reification of music.

“Music is not a thing at all but an activity, something people do.”

I have long thought this way myself.

Anyway my writing is being cut short this morning by the speed of my computer (slooooow) so I will close here.

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Hendrik Hertzberg: Winning the Semantic War Over “Entitlements” : The New Yorker

There is some excellent writing in this article. Example:

“When it comes to Washington’s current (and to all appearances permanent) fiscal fracas, the semantic weeds are as high as an elephant’s eye and higher than a donkey’s. ”

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“Mindfulness Improves Reading Ability, Working Memory, and Task-Focus, say UC Santa Barbara Researchers ” – UC Santa Barbara News Release

Bookmarked to read.

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In his book, Musicking: The meanings of performance and listening, Christopher Small has an “interlude” on “The Mother of All Arts.” By this he means, primarily, ritual. He puts this chapter after several chapters in which he painstakingly analyzes a symphony concert from the lens of what is actually going on.

His relentless honesty and scrutiny elicits observations that ring true to me and also remind me of my understandings of liturgy and ritual.

Writing in 1998, Small’s description of music as ritual in the modern classical world is a last look at what I think is now in flux, the world of how people listen to and make music.

I experienced this older ritual a couple of nights ago when I went to the string quartet concert. Even though I see this kind of stiff etiquette filled experience as vestigial evidence of past practices, there were to me aspects of the future present also. First of all, the event was preceded by a little speech by a man who was obviously involved with development (fund raising). By standing up and talking through a mike (I always think of them as ritual talking sticks, heh), he set the tone of patronage, reminding everyone of the underlying power of money to make things happen in their lives and the life of the arts.

The audience was much less formally dressed than it would have been even twenty years ago. The string quartet itself was arranged a bit differently. The cellist was seated on an elevated platform which he brought him closer to the playing field of the other three string players who all stood for the entire performance. It made me think of three soloists in a concerto. Indeed all four men were very expressive and played immersed in their music like soloists.

Their playing as ensemble was however seamless.

I would boil all this down to my favorite phrase: both ritual and music are something that one “does.” They are activity. As such they are complex. By doing music and/or ritual, a language of meaning is created that cannot be done in any other way.

In recent history there has been an unusual ossification of music as an artifact. Whether this is the squiggles on the page that the musicologist/theorist squints at as he or she conjures the “true” intention of the dead revered composer or as object to be purchased and consumed in one way or another, the meaning of music has drifted from action to “thing.”

Glenn Gould seems to have seen the future coming and jumped up and embraced it. I have recently been watching the movie, “Thirty Four Short Films of Glenn Gould.” It has reawakened in my an appreciation of his work in a new way. I have always enjoyed the recordings of his playing, even the nonBach ones.

But now I find that his life was intertwined with the state music has arrived at in the early 21st century. This situation is not easy to talk about because we are in the midst of it. But it involves Gould’s romance with the “microphone.” His deliberate isolation from the performance situation at the end of his life that is combined with an intense relationship to creating recordings.

I have more to say about this but see that I’m over my usual word count.

I have ordered several books by and about Gould including a copy of the screen play of the movie.

I probably will be commenting in this space as I think more about this stuff.

It is taking me more time to recuperate from Easter. Part of this is aging I am sure. I do find that I need more rest to come up with bursts of energy I use to do my stuff. I remember my father commenting about this when he was my age.

In spite of this life is good.

Last night Eileen and I heard the Emerson String Quartet perform three quartets, Mozart’s K. 499, Shostakovich’s Op. 133 and Beethoven’s Opus 59, no. 1.

I found the performance pretty amazing. Probably one of the best live performances I have heard in recent years. Consummate musicianship, technically excellent and complete engagement in the music they were playing, these four men gave Holland a performance like we were a world class venue. As my friend Rhonda who sat with Eileen and me said, they didn’t “phone it in.”

Mozart is always charming for me. And I love Shostakovich. Though I didn’t know this quartet it was loads of fun to listen to.

I recognized the Beethoven immediately.

I had thought that the Emerson Quartet was the first recording I have (and still have) of Bartok’s string quartets on vinyl. I came home and checked and this recording is by the Fine Arts String Quartet.

I do own a recording of these by the Emerson Quartet. But it’s on CD.

Mystery solved.

The last movement of the Beethoven got me thinking. I got up this morning and started working on understanding just what Beethoven was up to compositionally in this piece. It’s called “Thème Russ: Allegro” which I assume means something like “Russian Theme.” It has a couple very lively themes and one lyrical one. I thought that maybe it was in a dance form and I missed it. But my first response to it on paper this morning is that it is a subtle sonata allegro form. Beethoven is always rewarding to pick apart in this way.

Earlier in the day I forced myself to go to the college library and look at the book sale. I bought several pieces of organ music all of which are now laying on the organ at work. I also bought books.

Speaking of Emerson, the book on the right is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Reading: A Guide for Source-Hunters and Scholars To the One Thousand volumes Which He Withdrew from Libraries by Kenneth Walter Cameron. How cool is that?

I’m running out of time again since I have an 8:30 class. But you can see that my life is good.

Eileen and I had a relaxing meal before last night’s concert. Note martini for Steve. I am spoiled.

Sitting and waiting for my friend Rhonda to arrive at her church last night I figured out at least one way I could read the New York Times on my phone. I successfully logged in on my phones internet browser app.

The NYT have phone apps. But I have only found Iphone apps so far. None for the operating system of my phone (Windows).

So now I can read the NYT on my phone. But I can’t keep it on during a flight nor usually have free wifi over which to read it, so I guess I will continue my practice of reading a hard copy on an airplane.

Eileen pointed out that I could do this also on my Kindle. But both require an active wifi connection.

It looks like Windows phone apps are gaining a bit of traction in the market. This is good since it means there will continue to be apps available for it which makes it more useful to users.

I am finding it useful.

After Rhonda arrived, we chatted and I listened to several pieces she is planning to play on an upcoming recital (at which Eileen will do some narration of pieces).

When I found myself interested in one of the composers she is performing of whom I had not heard, I used my phone to take a pic.

There was some nice writing in this piece. And it showed off Rhonda’s considerable technique as well.

He has his own website of course. You can click on the pic below to go to it.

I plan to check him out.

Earlier in the day, Jordan VanHemert, an old friend of mine stopped in to say hi. He is pursuing a masters in improvisation at U of M. His description of his experiences are very encouraging to me. If I understand correctly, he is being instructed in general improvisation not just jazz. This includes group improv not based on traditional harmonic jazz structures as well playing with ensembles that do more conventional stuff.

I like to see barriers of style fall away. Mostly because in my experience they are often artificial.

After chatting with Jordan I picked up my Mom and drove her to a doctor’s appointment. The doctor was her psychiatrist. She was anxious about the standard competency questions she knew he would ask and kept asking me the date so she could remember when he asked.

I happened to be in the room when he did this. She got most of the questions (what month is it? what floor of this building are you on? in what city are we currently located?) However she did miss “what day of the week is it?” and was surprised when I told her on the drive home it wasn’t 2012 but was actually 2013.

I assured that she had passed the test, but I’m not sure she believed me.

I am still fatigued today from my Easter marathon.

I have a full schedule today. But this evening Eileen and I have tickets to hear the Emerson String Quartet. That should be relaxing.

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Dangerous Minds | The Catherine Wheel: David Byrne’s criminally underrated funk opera masterpiece

I didn’t know Byrne had written a funk opera. It’s on Spotify.

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News for the Consumer Class | Working-Class Perspectives

This is a brief analysis and history of how newspapers stopped covering citizen and labor issues and started covering consumer news.

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Sundown in America – NYTimes.com

This very dire look at the USA by David Stockman (Reagan’s famous budget director) seems to be going viral. I have seen references to it in several places online. He makes sense but it’s frightening.

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Maple Syrup Takes Turn Toward Technology – NYTimes.com

Some surprising facts about Vermont Maple Syrup.

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Egypt Orders Arrest of Satirist for Skits on Islam and Morsi – NYTimes.com

Free speech for me but not for thee (the title of a Nat Hentoff tirade of a book).

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When I mentioned to Eileen that my boss’s visiting Dad had commented that my Widor sounded very clean (He also said it was always good go hear “Charles”…. ???? Ooooo. Charles Marie Widor) Eileen said that it sounded cleaner on Sunday morning than it had on Saturday evening at the Vigil. Off hand remarks like this are often helpful as they usually are made with candor (this is true in Eileen’s case most if not all of the time). I admit to finding it satisfying to hear since I have spent the last week playing through this worn old warhorse very slowly on flutes. I came to realize that if played with the metronome marking in my part the staccatos would be lost in any sort of  acoustic with reverberation. I played it a tad under tempo and allowed my week of work to take care of the very quick staccatos. Apparently this worked.

I admit I didn’t do much research on the correct tempo for this piece. On Facebook, a fellow musician referred admiringly to his assitant’s performance of it as “not too fast.” I hope mine wasn’t as well. And I would love to have a hotshot assistant to pawn off my postlude on big feasts like Easter.

As it is the choral anthem for Easter Sunday morning looked very challenging to me to learn on the organ and play and conduct.

Especially the ending:

However, with a little practice it turned out not to be hard. Even that little pedal trill didn’t stop my conducting. I did have to put both hands on the manuals for most of the final measure, but still it came out fine.

After church, Eileen and I dashed off to her Mom’s house for the annual Hatch Easter egg hunt.

I love having a phone to take pictures with.

Well, I’m out of time and have to get ready to go play ballet class. Only three more weeks or so of this. Looking forward to a break from it. But I do like it.

I’m not quite as tired as I was yesterday morning. I got up made coffee and pulled out my James Dickey Poems 1957-1967

I find that I turn to certain poems and pieces of music at the same times every year. I usually read this poem around Easter. My copy of Dickey is like the one above but more more worn, since I have had it since the 70s. Anyway, here’s the poem. I put it up on Facebook as well (on the Grace Music Ministry Group page)

SLEEPING OUT AT EASTER

All dark is now no more.
The forest is drawing a light.
All Presences change into trees.
One eye opens slowly without me.
My sight is the same as the sun’s,
For this is the grave of the king,
When the earth turns, waking a choir.
All dark is now no more.

Birds speak, their voices beyond them.
A light has told them their song.
My animal eyes become human
As the Word rises out of the darkness
Where my right hand, buried beneath me,
Hoveringly tingles, with grasping
The source of all song at the root.
Birds sing, their voices beyond them.

Put down those seeds in your hand.
These trees have not yet been planted.
A light should come round the world,
Yet my army blanket is dark,
That shall sparkle with dew in the sun.
My magical shepherd’s cloak
Is not yet alive on my flesh.
Put down those seeds in your hand.

In your palm is the secret of waking.
Unclasp your purple-nailed fingers
And the woods and the sunlight together
Shall spring, and make good the world.
The sounds in the air shall find bodies,
And a feather shall drift from the pine-top
You shall feel, with your long-buried hand.
In your palm is the secret of waking,

For the king’s grave turns him to light.
A woman shall look through the window
And see me here, huddled and blazing.
My child, mouth open, still sleeping,
Hears the song in the egg of a bird.
The sun shall have told him that song
Of a father returning from darkness,
For the king’s grave turns you to light.

All dark is now no more.
In your palm is the secret of waking.
Put down those seeds in your hand;
All Presences change into trees.
A feather shall drift from the pine-top.
The sun shall have told you this song,
For this is the grave of the king;
For the king’s grave turns you to light.

—James Dickey

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Hollande’s TV Appearance Criticized – NYTimes.com

“On a stage set that looked as if it came from a game show, Mr. Hollande, a Socialist, responded to questions”

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Mahmoud Abbas Pardons Palestinian Journalist – NYTimes.com

This is a follow up to a previous post link. Convicted of a Facebook insult, now the dude is pardoned. Good, but better not to be charged.

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Government Fights for Use of Spy Tool That Spoofs Cell Towers | Threat Level | Wired.com

Our government uses secret tools, eh?

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Right-Wing Media Hype NPR’s Myth-Filled Disability Report | Blog | Media Matters for America

The right suddenly loves NPR.

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China’s Glass Ceiling – By Geoff Dyer | Foreign Policy

Analysis of limitations of China’s rise to power.

*****

Androids in Amazonia: recording an endangered language

Anecdotal description of taking cell phones into the bush. I watched one of the videos as well.

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A Thirsty Oil-Drinking Monster, Animated From Online Maps | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

I thought this was cool.

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Entire library journal editorial board resigns, citing ‘crisis of conscience’ after death of Aaron Swartz | The Verge

Yikes.

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