MIT News: “Research deciphers ‘deja-vu’ brain mechanism.”

According to this recent article, some scientists think that deja-vu takes place in the hippocampus and is related to how this area learns and remembers.

Apparently, we have different kinds of memory working in our brains. The Amygdala stores memories associated with emotional responses.  This little part of the brain is a giant of an influence on how we color our cognitive memories. Memory goes through a consolidation. So if you learn something, you remember it with a different part of your brain. As the memory becomes part of your mental terrain, the memory pattern itself consolidates. This involves other parts of the brain. The Amgydala can change the way your remember something that you have learned with a cool head.

This little notion of brain science helps me think about how brilliant minds (like people on the supreme court or creationist scientists) can reason and still be obviously subjective.

The BBC has a cool interactive brain map online.

The first chapter of Gore’s “The Assault on Reason” is called “The Politics of Fear.” In it, Gore talks about brains, memory and fear responses. That’s what got me poking around and thinking about this.

Okay, Meijers has been pretty weird to me lately. But, I took my airgranite-recycleable-goofy-liberal-“I believe in global warming” bags (pictured above. Mine are purple.) with me shopping today. And it went okay.

Eileen and I bought four of these at church recently. She keeps one and I use the other three for grocery shopping. At least that was our plan. I have had some pretty bad experiences with clerks at Meijers around bringing my own bags. So, I was stealed today to be polite but insistent.

I recognized the woman who checked me out. She and I have had dealings before. I think she’s probably afraid of me. But anyway when she looked dubious at my bags and said something about not being very good at packing, I offered to bag my own. This seem to give her a feeling of relief and it went fine after that. I have linked in the company that makes these. They sell for 17 dollars US. Our church sells them for 10 dollars. What a bargain!

So far this book is more about the dire situation of our public rhetoric than anything else. Gore is clearer and more to the point than Neil “Entertaining Ourselves to Death” Postman ever was.

He points to many of the problems as symptoms. The problems: extreme partisanship, superficial public debates, money in politics, public apathy, declining citizen participation and other stuff.

He makes an interesting point about the partisanship. While the talk has heated up and the parties are at each other’s throats, at the same time Americans see less difference than ever between them.

Here’s how he says it:

“Excessive partisanship is identified as a source of the problem by Americans of both political parties, and — especially — by the growing number of independents. Those on the Right lament the intrusion of government via taxes and regulation, while those on the Left decry the wholesale abandonment of the government’s prior commitments to public education, health care, science, medical research, assistance to the poor, the young, and the elderly, and the withdrawal from regulating corporate behavior to protect the public interest. Paradoxically, more and more Americans also say they perceive few substantive differences between the two political parties.”

So what does he think the true cause of these symptoms. Basically, TV.

TV has replaced the written word and the coherent public rhetoric. The problem with TV is not just it’s banality but the idea that communication only goes one way. So there is no conversation, only passive observation on the part of the viewer. TV itself is at best entertainment/information and at worst manipulation/bad information but never conversation.

This fascinates me and helps me understand many things about the current environment (actually it’s not just in the USA).

I will read on. So far this is not a vanity issue political book. Gore grew up with politics and TV. His father was a Senator. I heard him say recently that not only is not politicking for the presidency but that he has finally figured out, he’s not that good at politics. To me, this sounds like someone who is actually thinking.

Recently I had a conversation about the way people do not read now. This conversation was mostly about how people get their news. Of course, it’s mostly through the television. I find the television a very poor source of information. I am still one of those Neanderthal newspaper readers. Also, since I grew up with TV myself, I tend to think of it as something that has been made and reflects the views and needs of its makers. People seem to forget that at some level.

Gore thinks that the Internet holds out a possibility for helping resuscitate the public conversation necessary for a civil society. He says maybe TV was a transition from the printed word to the Internet. This feels a bit on the false hope side to me. Maybe because I want so badly for it to be true.

The Senate Committee on  Commerce, Science and Transportation will be having heardings on Tuesday 6/12/07 and Thursday 6/14/07.

They are debating a bill that will tier the internet and sell the new 700 mghz pipe to the highest bidder.

Good-bye to Internet freedom and accesibility.

“Last year, more than 1.5 million Americans contacted Congress and stopped phone and cable company efforts to kill Net Neutrality. Now industry lobbyists are pressuring the Federal Communications Commission to abandon this fundamental Internet freedom.

It’s time the FCC heard from you. The agency has launched a public inquiry into whether it should protect Net Neutrality or let companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast dictate which Web sites you can use. Take action now and help stop the big phone and cable companies again.

In your own words, tell the FCC why you need a free and open Internet. Your story will be sent to the FCC in Washington.”

You can participate in this hearing by “Telling your story”

more from S.O.S. — Save Our Spectrum

“Congress and the Federal Communications Commission face a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring universal, affordable Internet connections to all Americans.

The issue before them is who should control access to the radio spectrum. As part of the digital television (DTV) transition, a prized portion of the public airwaves is being returned to the government. Implementing the right policies could mean more competition, faster service and lower price for consumers.

The FCC is about to auction the exclusive “license” to this spectrum, called the 700 MHz band, to the highest bidder among the big telecommunications companies. But a coalition of public interest groups has filed comments urging the FCC to use this auction to create a much-needed “third pipe” competitor to broadband services offered by phone and cable companies.

At the same time, Congress is considering what to do with “white spaces” — the unused parts of the public airwaves between TV channels that could expand broadband service to underserved areas. Bills pending in the House and Senate would set aside this spectrum for “unlicensed” wireless Internet.”

Last night I started the bio of Brahms I bought to read this summer.

Jan Swafford, the author, is a composer and a musician. He has also written a bio of Charles Ives that sounds pretty interesting.

He tells about his first connection with Brahms’ music. He played trombone in his high school band. The melody of one piece in particular struck him as very beautiful. After the band was done rehearsing and performing the piece, the melody stayed with him for months. Then it finally faded.

His mother dragged him to a Leonard Bernstein concert. On the bill was Copland and Brahms 1st. symphony. When the orchestra arrived at the melody in the last movement of this symphony, Swafford was overwhelmed.

It seems to be both his epiphany/Brahms moment and epiphany/musician/composer moment.

I think it’s cool when people figure this sort of thing out about themselves. I like that Swafford is so enthusiastic (and can write good sentences).

I do wonder about his need (in the introduction) to pit the depth of Brahms against pop music: “After that concert I became not only a devotee of Bernstein and Copland and Brahms. I also discovered what it means to be in love with music. Music and I have had a stormy and frustrating union since, but the love endures. From that night I becaqme a musician, and before long a composer. The wistful, piercing melancholy that overwhelmed me when I listened to Brahms and a good deal of other classical music — a depth of feeling pop music has never approached — only abated a little when I began writing music.”

(N.B. Yes, that’s Paul Simon next to Bernstein.)

I find this startling in a composer. So many composers (myself included) do not think categorically like this. Yesterday I was talking to Jonathon Fegel about genres. We were trying to nail down what Jazz actually is. We failed. We also agreed it wasn’t important.

This morning, I got up and made coffee and played through the second theme of the Brahms Capriccio I had been playing last night (I like to go from a bio to the actual playing of the music…. am playing a Haydn bio sometime soon, also).

This is actually the theme:

(The circled notes don’t mean anything in particular. They were just there in the graphic I found. Sorry it’s blurry at this size.)

I was struck by the fact that while I often love Brahms primary themes, it is often his secondary themes that grab my imagination.

As I was making breakfast for my lovely wife, I put on BBC symphony recording I have (Andrew Davis, conductor) of the Brahms Fourth symphony. When it reached the secondary theme, I realized how much I like this theme as well and also that it is a Tango!

Tango!

Dang pop music. I’m sure Swafford probably has strong feelings about the superiority of classical music. Interestingly, you don’t have to read much of Bernstein’s commentary before you find that this great composer did not think categorically. And judging from Copland’s work (he attempted to write blues), he didn’t either.

This is Copland. Heh.

But I decided I would like to read a Brahms bio by an enthusiast, even if they dismiss much of the music I find meaningful in a secondary clause in the intro. Heh.

My head is still spinning a little from Saturday night’s gig. Seeing all those people from my past left me a bit freaked, I guess. Several of them popped up in my dreams the last two nights.

Yesterday at church, the violinist (whose playing I admire very much) confessed that she felt she was more of a “folk violinist” than the other violinist who occasionally plays at church. They are both fine violinists in my opinion. I responded that it had occured to me that very morning when I was rehearsing a Buxtehude choral prelude that I have little attraction to so much of the organ repertoire, specifically the romantic symphonic organ tradition of Vierne, Widor and others. I told my friend that I think I might a “folk organist.” heh.

I have been rehearsing the numbers that I will probably play on Friday. Trying to memorize the lyrics a bit better. Especially of my new song. Last night I dreamed I was playing a gig with my old friend Ron. We were going to do original songs but we started out with “Norwegian Wood.” Ron was sitting across from me in an interesting framed little stage. Right next to him was a three dimensional sort of display case that had a group of figures who were somehow related to the Beatles song we were playing. It was like a live video presentation. Pretty cool.

Anyway after we finished someone in the audience said, “I’m going to ask you guys to play something that is completely different from that. Do you know any Led Zeppelin?” Ron came over to where I was and began sketching something Led Zeppelinish on the glass behind me (some kind of painting). I told him I thought we should do originals like we had planned.

Also later in this dream, I was with an acquaintance from grad school named Lynn Trapp. We were in the midst of a disaster and were traveling to a college. When we got there, I discovered that the in-college phone system was functioning. Lynn asked me to dial someone on it. I kept getting the wrong number. I think Lynn was like a visiting prof/celebrity type and I was just along for the ride. I handed him the phone and said I can’t get the right number.

I love my dreams. heh. In real life, when I worked with Ron in a bar band I eventually lost interest. Later in life I ascribed this to the fact that we developed song lists based on our understanding of our audience’s taste. Even though both Ron and I wrote tons of songs, we avoided doing original material. In middle age, it’s the original material that interest me the most.

Lynn is a very successful church musician/composer/professor. He is very active in the profession and I see his name and picture frequently in the trade magazine of the American Guild of Organists. I like the way he writes a lot of his stuff and perform it. I haven’t had direct contact with him in years.

In 1987, I moved to the Holland area to work as a full-time church musician for the local Catholics. I worked there for about thirteen years. I quit mostly because I wanted to do some other stuff before I die. Heh.

Last night I saw many people from this phase of my life. It made me realize how unhappy I probably was as musician for this community.  Not that people didn’t treat me well. And of course last night everyone seemed very glad to see me.

It’s just that since then I have concentrated on finding things to do that I find fulfilling. This has been learning more about recording, writing and practicing music more, and doing some adjunct teaching. I think this has changed my mindset to one of asking a bit more out of my life than I did as a Catholic church musician. It’s something I probably couldn’t see at the time.

But now I don’t really want to work with anyone I can’t see clearly as a sympathetic colleague. This thought comes to me clearer as I watch my friend and colleague, Jonathan Fegel, prepare to get the heck of dodge (That would be Holland Michigan).

Jonathan and I were talking yesterday and he mentioned that many of his friends had misinterpreted our relationship as one of father and son. I asked him, who was the father? Heh. Jonathan has taught me a lot and I’m sure he’s learned stuff in the time we have worked together. Much of our collegial connection is because we understand each other’s music. In my case (but probably actually in Jonathan’s too) that is a rarity. I can make music that I think fits a certain situation like church (or the dinner reception last night).

But my midlife crisis led me to ask myself, what would I do if I only did what I wanted to do? What music would I play? What would I write? I am still in the process of answering these questions for myself.

But after trying to politely field many very friendly and civil enquiries last night, I realize that my answers are not easily conveyed to other people since they are so vague and in process.

That’s fine with me. In fact, I prefer the route I am on now.

Driving home last night, I got bored with the radio and put on some of my own recordings. I realized that I am essentially very proud of my work even though it’s shortcomings (especially in the recordings themselves, not the songs) is painfully evident to me.

Oops time to go to work.

Jonathon came over and we talked and rehearsed. As usual I enjoyed it. He asked me to do four or five songs. He’s going to play along. He likes the new song, “Deja vu” and I guess we’re going to do it. He also wants me to play with him on his song, “Everything is Fine.” This is the tune he invited to play on his CD. He also told me he has enough material for 2 new CDs. He is thinking of adding “Bye Bye Blackbird.” We played that for a while today. He requested “Fricking Trains” and “Moneyland.” The others will probably be “Naked Boy” and “So Many People.” It really is an honor to be asked to play on his last gig at Holland. It’s funny, I’m sort of feeling like this might be my last coffee house gig as well. We’ll see. Maybe someone will invite me. So far that has only been Matt from Lemonjellos, bless his heart. The Perfect Cup people invited me once but I don’t think they’ll have me back because of my poor draw. Or maybe they just don’t like the music. That’s fair.

Jonathon gave me a poster. There is supposed to be some yellow behind the sock puppets but I can’t get my scanner to pick it up.

ps Thanks go to Sarah for helping me get the yellow into this poster…

Yesterday I bought a stereo amplifier on EBay for 25.00 plus 17.00 shipping. My plan is to use it with my turntable. Before turning to the Internet, I went to every used-shop I could think of in the area. This includes my first trip to the local pawn shop. I couldn’t find anything that would help me with amplifying my turntable. The pawnshop did have a receiver with an auxilary input but no internal preamp for turntables. It was marked 60.00 which was 20 more than I wanted to pay for it.

Once I get my turntable functional I can listen to some of my old records by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and others.

I also made my busking debut. I carted my electric piano to the park and played for two and a half hours in the designated busking area. There were not very many people around and only a few seemed to notice what I was doing. That was fine with me. I just felt like playing outside. I played piano sonatas by Mozart and Haydn, cuban piano music of Touzet, Bach suite movements and improvised on a few tunes from the Real Book. It was good prep for my dinner music gig this afternoon.

Earlier in the day, I finally broke down and called Jonathon Fegel about our gig next Friday evening. He had just returned from a hiking trip in Colorado with friends. We are getting together today to shoot the shit and practice. One of the reasons I’m not too worried about this gig is that it’s actually Jon’s gig. He has just invited me to play. He also is featuring two of his groups that he plays with: Shoehorn and his other band whose name I can’t think of. Not sure what he wants me to do but I should find out more today.

If you’re local and interested, it’s at Lemonjellos next Friday, June 8 beginning at 8:30. 2 dollar cover.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Recently I mentioned Gunter Grass (the author of “The Flounder”) was a Nazi youth. The reason he has recently become controversial is that he was not just a Nazi youth but actually a member of the infamous SS.

That’s him on the right. He has an article in the new New Yorker about it. I laid in bed last night and read it. It’s a bit serendiptious that the New Yorker would have an article by the author I am reading, but this kind of thing happens to me quite a bit. It’s very much the story of a young recruit on the ground during the fall of the Nazi regime. I think it’s good reading but I like Gunter Grass.

It seems that I can’t record, make pictures and practice on the same day. Yesterday I managed only the first two. I have some upcoming gigs. Tomorrow I have a dinner/reception. A week from today I play at a local coffee house.

In the past, I have practiced intensely for any public performance. Lately, I have been practicing intensely (except for yesterday) but not directing the practicing at specific performances (except for at church).

I admit that I sometimes wonder why I do what I do. I am in love with music.

That’s for sure. And I also like my own music quite a bit.

I’m proud of it for the most part even when I am feeling that portions of what I have written might not strike other listeners as all that good or enjoyable.

My last coffee house gig was pretty barren. There were four people who showed up that weren’t related to me (Eileen was there). The people who owned and worked at the coffee house were friendly enough but seemed determinedly disinterested in what I was doing musically.

It occurs to me that I have zero commercial potential.

So I haven’t said much about this upcoming gig to many people. I’m sure that there will be a crowd because I am playing with Jonathon Fegel and he has a local following. I hope it’s not getting to the point that I’m sort of the old guy eccentric novelty act. Like a Holland Michigan Moonday.

I could do worse, of course. Heh.
On the other hand, I do like the internet and throwing out my work where anyone who cares to can access it. I hate marketing. I hate the way we reduce our lives to commodities.

Eileen says I am brave to throw rough drafts up of recordings. I do find people that take themselves so seriously a bit tedious.

And this last song was all about not taking stuff too seriously. The first verse had some optional nastier versions that I didn’t opt for in the final draft:

It’s probably nothing.
The way people talk.
But I still notice the HATE anyway.

or

I try to remember the TERRIBLE THINGS they have done.

I ended up leaving it a bit softer. At least that’s how I see it.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if listeners like or understand what I am doing. I have to please myself first and I am actually my own harshest critic.

I made a very rough recording of the song I finished yesterday. It’s got some stuff I almost sat down and fixed. Then Eileen called me to remind me that the library has asked me to do some super secret photography work for their summer reading program. So I hurried up and mixed down a recording. It’s called “Deja Vu All Over Again (mp3).”

Lyrics:

It’s probably nothing,
The way people talk.
I still notice anyway.
I try to remember
the things that they’ve done.
Try not to forget the things that they say.

There’s nothing that’s changing.
We’re on the outside again.
Do you have that odd feeling:
Deja vu all over again?
Do you think things are changing?
I’m on the outside again.
Do you have that odd feeling”
Deja vu all over again?

When I need a fix,
I just boot up the web.
Got the whole dang planet in my hand.
Write in my blog.
I click on a tune.
Then crash. Call customer service once again.

Cause nothing is changing.
I’m on hold again.
This is a recording:
Deja vu all over again.
Do you think things are changing?
I’m on hold again.
I got a recording:
Deja vu all over again.

I got a ticket.
I’m standing in line.
I already took off my shoes.
Wand me baby.
You can even kiss me goodby.
Got 21st-century-consumer-citizen blues.

Hey, is this plane moving?
Stuck on the ground again.
Do you have that old feeling:
Deja vu all over again?
Is this plane moving?
Stuck on the ground again.
I’ve got that old feeling:
Deja vu all over again.
Deja vu all over again.
Deja vu all over again.

It looks like I may have finished a rough draft of the song I have been working on.

The working title is “Deja Vu All Over Again.” I have a secret performance at LemonjEllOs coming up.

I was hoping to have a version done by then. I have a recording of it started and will put up an mp3 of it soon.

I find it interesting that I continue to return to the form of the pop/rock song (what I call my bad Paul Simon). I spend so much of my time with “serious” music: Haydn, Jazz, Bach, Brahms, whatever. I don’t really talk to anyone who likes this kind of music. Instead the people I know are familiar with popular styles. I like popular styles as well.

I have been thinking of writing some instrumental pieces this summer. I listened to a couple of movements of my “Suite for Five Instruments” recently and wished that I had a better recording of this piece. I am proud of it. It probably represents an essay on my understanding of musical styles. It’s a hodgepodge of erudition and silliness. Erudite because it follows suite dance movements including a cleve(I think) treatment of the idea of the prelude. I have the piece actually begin with what sounds like typical tuning and have it set-up so that tuning devolves into what sounds like noodling and then gets louder and louder and pops into a dance prelude movement.

It’s kind of a pun on the idea that lutenists developed the free prelude idea to check on the intonation of an upcoming key. There are also some very interesting French harpsichord free prelude pieces by Louie and Francois Couperin that I perform.

Silly because the theme for the slow movement is actually a very slow version of Popeye the Sailor Man.

It’s also just got silly stuff going on in the piece.

But I wrote it years ago and don’t know the requisite musicians to perform it again. That would be an oboist, flutist, guitarist, cellist and me on harpsichord.

I continue to work on my Jazz Piano text. I have a dinner gig on Saturday at which I will play some from the Real Books of the Jazz People. An acquaintance of mine is getting ordained as a Roman Catholic priest Saturday. He hired me to play for his dinner reception.

We used to work side by side at a local Catholic church. I was surprised he called me. Haven’t heard from him for years. It will be a little blast from the past as people I know in the Catholic church will be there and lots older and more successful. heh. Hairy old Steve will be alternating between guitar and piano in the background. I guess I won’t sing. heh.

“Runaway Horses” by Mishima is so serious.

And dark. It’s about seppuku, the ritual suicide. There are a group of young men in the book in love with the notion of ritual death for a a cause. Mishima ties this notion to the beautiful ideas of a Noh play about the ephemeral nature of life. It mixes up things that I love (the transitory nature of worthwhile stuff) and things that disturb (suicide and military S & M overtones). So when I got to the fiction phase of my reading yesterday, I turned instead to “The Flounder” by Gunter Grass.

I started this novel on my trip to China. It was just right for that. It is a witty take on gender stuff and uses the folk tale of the fisherman, the fish and his wife. You remember this one.

In the “Fractured Fairy Tale” the fish was a mermaid. In both, the fish/mermaid is caught by the fisherman and grants wishes to him when released. The wife comes off pretty badly as a greedy woman who keeps wanting more.

Both novels use tranmigration as a theme. Mishima’s main character, Honda (who is not one of the young men transfixed by visions of seppuku) is disturbed by the idea that a young man he meets is the reincarnation of the friend of his youth (Kiyoaki from the first novel, Spring Snow).

Grass’s novel sprawls over the entire centures of humankind, but is told from the personal point of view of the narrator who remembers his various incarnations. He manages to keep shifting from historical scenes of gender strife. Awa, the protypical matriarch from prehistory whose name looks suspiciously like Eve and has three breasts, runs a tight ship with her near neanderthals. One of whom is the narrator in an incarnation. Grass also has the fish (the Flounder of the title) caught by three lesbians who turn him over to feminists in Germany who treat him to a Eichmanesque show trial. This book is definitely a good travel book as well as an temporary antidote for the seriousness of Mishima.

A while back, Grass became controversial when news media began talking about his experiences as a Nazi youth. Ironically, the narrator (who definitely has a Gunter Grass feel) mentions at one point being a member of the Nazi youth. Heh.

Of course I don’t approve of Nazis, but I guess I have no problem with the fact that many Germans had to have been more than complicit with their terrible government (sort of like Americans today in many ways). Plus Grass had to have been young and his writings are definitely coming at life from the left of celebratory humanism not the right of the Nazis.
Of course, it’s just my opinion.

I gave three lessons today. My student, Rudi, who lives in Washington DC half the year is back in town. He is a retiree and continues to amaze me with his energy. After he retired he decided he wanted to study piano and study the pronunciation of French. That was some years ago. Since then I have taught him half the year. He has another teacher in Washington D.C. that teaches him when he’s there. This amazing gentleman celebrated his 70th birthday while studyign at the Sorbonne and living in his son’s empty apartment. What a dude.

My other piano student is an adult beginner. He has been taking lessons from me for several months. I also teach guitar to a gentleman who plays at my church.

I do enjoying teaching. I find it very creative to watch and analyse how students are approaching music. It is satisfying to help them (in the current horrible phrase) connect the dots.

My guitarist has never studied music and has played guitar in church only. He is a stockbroker and a bright guy. But he is having difficulty conceptualizing just how the notes work on the guitar (you can play chords by position and not know anything about notes which is how a lot of guitarists play). But tonight I watched some lights go off in his head when I asked him over to the keyboard and taught him the notes on the keyboard.

I use the hot dog method with people trying to learn notes on the keyboard. This means that the note that nestles between the two black note group can be thought of as a hot DDDDog between the black note buns. This note is D. then I teach the musical alphabet: D,E,F,G and then not H but A and start over. This might sound a bit confusing in prose. I always do it with someone sitting right at the piano. That seems to help.

Anyway, I like teaching.

Eileen and I took a long lovely walk today.

This is a picture of the path we took. It’s a walk by the river for the most part.

It’s an amazingly idylic place and just a block or so from little old downtown Holland.

Click here for more pics.

It’s beautiful outside today. I made pancakes for Eileen and me for breakfast. I poked around changing a few things on the site. I made the “jupiterjenkins.com” at the top of the site a link so that if you go to a permalink you can always get back to the main site with it. Also added So Many Books to my links. I was pleasantly surprised when the writer of this book blog added me to her site links. I thought I would link back even though I already have it on my RSS feeds on my Google homepage.

Usually these WordPress templates come with a very easy way to add links. When I first started using this particularly theme I messed with it quite a bit and seemed to have deleted that part of the code. Oops. So now when I add a link I have to go into the html and do it by hand. Otherwise I would probably add more since I surf all over the web and have found lots of interesting links. I do usually mention them in my daily blog.

Eileen and I have some serious nothing to do today.

Yesterday after church I was exhausted. It drives me a little crazy that church takes such a toll on me. I played a complete partita on “Veni Creator” by Mary Beth Bennett.

It’s very modern and fun to play. I played five movements (they’re very short) in the prelude and the finale for the postlude. I rehearsed this stuff and played it pretty much as well as I could. That takes energy.

My boss forgot to acknowledge the choir on their last Sunday so I raised my hand during the length announcements and thanked them. She chimed in and the cong applauded (I’m not big on applause).

The choir’s morale was pretty high yesterday. Always nice to end on a good note so to speak. We did an Irish sounding thing with Pentecost words. It had a fiddle obligatto admirably executed by one of the church violinists.

Eileen and I ended the day watching “Manhattan Murder Mystery” on the Netflix stream.

We thought we had seen this Woody Allen movie before but it was all new to me.

Recently we watched “A Touch of Evil” by Orson Welles. I think this is a good movie but I guess I’m kind of a Welles fan.

Last weekend I put up a comment on Mark Helprin’s article in the New York Times called “A Great Idea Lives Forever Shouldn’t Its Copyright?” Today there seven letters in response.

I like these quotes from two of them:

“To publish is to make public. If an author seeks perpetual control over his writings, he should toss them on the fire, lest they be read.”  Nick Sweeny

“Mark Helprin like Samuel Johnson before him, evidently believes that ‘no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.’ And yet this page of letters to the editor — to say nothing of the blogosphere — is filled by the work of those willing to create for no reward except the chance to be heard.” Joseph Bernstein

It’s cool and rainy in Michigan this morning.

I got up and poked around on the web since my New York Times isn’t here yet. Then I read Italo Cavino on Exactitude (from “Six Memos for the Millenium”).

I didn’t finish this essay.

Played through the Haydn sonata I am memorizing while looking at the music.(The picture above is the one on my version of his sonatas.) My old piano teacher suggested this to me. Always keep returning to the page even after you have it memorized. And details do pop up. Not usually note details but dynamics. In this particular sonata I have a bit of trouble remembering which octave to play in sometimes because Haydn shifts stuff around.

Then I worked through the next step in my Jazz Piano book. Chapter seven is over playing rootless left hand chord positions to free up the right hand for improv. Levine asks the student to study (& transpose into all keys) a ii-V-I progression that involves no roots. You’re supposed to listen for the root in your head. I practiced by reaching over and playing the missing root with my right hand (this is another Levine suggestion).

After that I worked through a couple keyboard sonata movements by C.P.E. Bach (that’s him above). C.P.E was apparently a bit influence on the self-taught Haydn. CPE’s sonatas are all over the place. He was very interested in what he thought of as expression in music. I have the two volume Dover set and that’s what I play in from time to time.

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