Over the years, I notice that sometimes when I over function other people withdraw. Once I drove across the state to give a piano lesson. Of course, the student didn’t show. Yesterday, after all my preparation of materials for my strings to play through with me, one by one, they withdrew. My violinist canceled because she needed to drive her son to drivers training. My cellist then decided that with her upcoming retirement from her Hope College library job and with people visiting her that discretion was the better part of valor and canceled. My younger violinist didn’t show up at 1.

My two piano trio players offered to find a time today to get together. This would have been our third attempt to meet this week. We usually meet on Thursday, but that didn’t work for them this week. I suggested Friday at 1 PM. Everyone, including my young violinist, instantly agreed. But after people canceling I found rescheduling today a bit onerous so after I showed up at 1 PM with the possibility of meeting with the second violinist (who didn’t show or email me)  I emailed all of them that I would be out of town for a couple of weeks and we would meet after that.

And yes I had music ready for the younger violinist and me to play together using the organ.

It worked out well for me. I was able to spend an hour and half practicing Buxtehude.

In fact, the whole day went very well. I had an excellent meeting with Dr. Birky. Then when I arrived at church to sneak in some practice before lunch, I ran into an organist who had taken me up on visiting and playing. His name is Dick Hoogterp and is a gentle soul.

He was just finishing up. We had a nice chat. He consented to listening to the registration I had chosen for Buxtehude for Sunday and approved. He also marveled at the change in character in the closing hymn Sunday when played in two different keys. After he left I did get a little practice in.

I want to start the July recital with some sort of grabber. I looked through the Organ Demonstrators I own for a piece to begin an introduction to the organ program. Nothing. Then I realized that I have been working on a piece from the Orgelbüchlein for the heck of it. The piece is “In dir ist Freude.”

I like the way this guy plays it. But I think it’s a bit too fast. In this piece, Bach unusually does not quote the entire hymn, only snippets. It struck me yesterday that if we began with the version of this hymn that we sing quite regularly at church I could follow it with this piece. It would make an nice (and short) beginning to an “introduction to the organ.”

Here’s a nice sung version of the hymn I l like in what I believe is Hungarian.

We sing Delores Dufner’s text, “Day of delight, and beauty unbounded,” to this tune every
Easter. She wrote it for this melody. I think the melody and Bach’s setting capture a sense of joy (freude) that might be sort of a little theme for my recitals. Joy. And dance.

After practicing a bit. Eileen and I had lunch together and played a ritual three games of Boggle. Then the 1 PM rehearsal by myself (Ahh). Eileen accompanied me to my eye appointment and drove me home after they had dilated my eyes. I picked out frames which should be ready after we get back from California.

Movie Review – – FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW; A Far-Off Inuit World, in a Dozen Shades of White – NYTimes.com

Vijay Iyer at Ojai, Part II: Shocks to the System | San Francisco Classical Voice

Okay, this guy is the object of my first Google alert request.

This article is a thoughtful treatment of some of his ideas. I especially like the following quote from Iyer.

This is the perspective that guides me as a music maker,” he told us. “Harmony comes from two different countervailing sources, two different perspectives: one is dynamic; the other is more static. One is about vibratory experience; the other is about motion.”

In metaphorical terms, that’s to suggest “simultaneous presence and then the experience of moving together.”

“Those are important metaphors for community and for collective action. I’m not trying to be evasive or mystical by putting it in those terms, but these are very meaningful to me, not only as a pianist but also as an artist and the way they frame some of the work I do.”

And this from Roscoe Mitchell.

“I’ve always been a big supporter of sound and silence,” he said, talking from his home in the East Bay. “My take on silence is that silence is already perfect, so when you interrupt silence you need to interrupt it on its level.”

And this… the music smiled on him!

 “some nights you walk out there and there’s nothing you can do wrong. “You’re great.” And then there are other nights when you’re out there and you’re working all the time. My experience with music is that you work real hard and then all of a sudden music smiles at you and that encourages you to keep working.”

I like this. It might not be your cup of tea, but I suggest hanging in there until the jingle bell player guy dances through the group. It totally makes the piece.

This morning I meet with Dr. Birky my therapist. I look forward to these meetings. Birky is smart and articulate and has a developed sense of irony and humor. It feels a bit self indulgent to pay him to listen to me and comment, but what the hell.

Later I am rehearsing with my usual piano trio string players, Amy and Dawn. I have also invited Margaret, so that means I have 2 violins and 1 cello. This is the number you need for baroque trio sonatas. The trio is between the 2 violins and the continuo which comprises two instruments, one that can make chords like harpsichord or lute and a bass instrument to reinforce the bass line.

I love to play trio sonatas. It seems that it’s just enough instruments to give a rewarding texture and interplay between the three lines. I own several of these, but unfortunately many of the parts for the strings have gotten away from me. Yesterday I spent some time searching online to see if I could find replacement parts. The  music itself is of course out of copyright.

So first I had to go to church and pull all the trio music. Beside the baroque trio sonata I found that I own a set of Frescobaldi canzoni which would fit this group.

I did find some of the missing parts to it online.

I also own two scholarly volumes about the trio sonata.

The one above which concerns trio sonatas in Italy and another volume like this which is about trio sonatas outside of Italy. Though these volumes were published in the 70s, the scholarship is quite high. Each volume has a lengthy essay about its topic followed by scores which illustrate the topic. I was able to find string parts for a “Sonata and Suite” by Dietrich Becker. It looks to be quite charming.

I also found all of Mozart’s Church sonatas online. There are apparently fifteen of them. They are scored for this group. I printed off number 15 in C major and numbered the measures for today’s rehearsal.

I could of course find trio sonatas online to print up but am trying to conserve on paper by first completing sets of music I already have. The silly keyboard part usually uses the most paper and I have keyboard parts to all of my trio sonatas.

We meet today at 1 and I have had corroborating emails from all players. This should be fun.

After this rehearsal I have an appointment to have my eyes checked. I’m pretty sure I need glasses. My far sightedness has been decreasing. The guy who operated on my eye for my torn retina said that I was okay for driving but might need glasses in the future. I think the time has come.

I have noticed that after a plane flight if I have to drive home in the dark it is difficult for me to read road signs. Not good. I will probably ask Eileen to drive next Tuesday when we arrive in California.

In my meeting with Jen yesterday, I showed her how different Sunday’s closing hymn, “Come, Labor On,” sounds in “A flat major” (the written key) and “G major” (transposed down a half step). She was surprised as I was when I discovered this.

It’s not only that “G major” is a bit more in tune. In fact, that’s not how I experience the difference. “A flat major” makes the hymn have a certain character that is difficult to describe. Maybe it’s a bit more aggressive.

In G major it is definitely smoother and feels more gentle.

Jen is intrigued by the ideas of equal and unequal temperament. She has a scientific mind and background. She understood quickly that the difference is a numerical one that can be understood in terms of specific frequencies. She also recognized that Pythagoras developed some of these ideas six hundred years before the Common Era.

I have listened to musicians insist that different keys have different qualities all my life. But I never understood exactly what they were talking about. Being a keyboard player, I have usually made music that is essentially out of tune or as I was describing it to Jen yesterday “out of nature” or “not in nature.”

I’m surprised to find that I can tell the difference in character between theses two keys in this instance. I remember that Kellner, the man whose tuning Pasi uses with some modification, evolved his tuning after studying Bach’s organ music. Presumably, the changes in character are ones that Bach was well aware of. And Bach wrote in all keys but did not subscribe to equal temperament. Instead, the story is told that he used to drive his organ builder friends a bit crazy by transposing pieces into distant key to evoke the “wolf” or the little buzz one gets in one’s head when something is out of tune. Not sure where I read that, but it’s a good story.

I’m planning on playing the closing hymn Sunday in G major. But I don’t think it would hurt to do it in A flat major. The tune was written by T. Tertius Noble, a historically famous and important New York City organist. Since he died in 1953, it’s likely that as a keyboard player he spent his life immersed in the fudged system of equal temperament.

I’m blogging instead of doing Greek first as I usually do. I have been thinking a lot about participles, both in Greek and in English. Unsurprisingly, in Ancient Greek, participles are simpler than in English. In Greek they are adjectives formed from verbs (so far, anyway). But in English they can be adjectives or nouns formed from verbs. I usually think of participles in English as ending in “ing,” but this is not the only way they are formed.

Thus “going” is a participle in English, but so also is “gone.” An obvious adjectival use is “working woman,” but so is “burned toast.” An example of is “good breeding,” “breeding” being the participle.

Since in Greek participles are adjectives they have an 8 fold declension. This means that endings are specific if a noun is used as a subject in the sentence (nominative), the object of the subject (accusative),  in possessive statements or phrases (genitive) and, most confusingly at all for me, indirect objects usually indicated in English with “to” or other prepositions (dative). In each case there is a singular form and a plural form. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds but it is a lot to remember.

Forty two years ago today, Eileen and I walked from the small cabin we were living to a nearby park on Houghton Lake to get married.

I was playing at the Argonaut Bar with a band.

I believe at this point we were playing weekends.

That meant that Eileen and I had a few week days for our honeymoon in Mackinaw Island.

My Dad married us. Eileen’s parents refused to come to the wedding because we were living in sin.

Many friends and family members attended.

Finding Eileen as a life partner was the best thing that ever happened to me.

To this day I enjoy her company and find her charming. Lucky me, eh?

I did end up deciding to perform a prelude and postlude by Buxtehude next Sunday. I chose a love three part setting of the chorale, “Danket Dem Herren.” Here is this first movement and a bit of the second.

Just so you don’t think I’m gettin’ too highfaultin’ here’s a cool visualization of all three parts back to back.

And here is a very cool recording of the second movement on Bendeleons, no less!

Kerala J. Snyder, Buxtehude’s biographer, suggests that it would be charming when performing Buxtehude’s chorale preludes to precede it with a setting from Schiedt’s 1650 collection,Gürlitzer Tabulatur-Buch. I actually own and quite like these little chorale settings. Unfortunately, the melody in this Buxtehude setting doesn’t seem to be in this book. But no matter, I think it will make a nice prelude for Sunday.

And I broke down and scheduled the “Jig Fugue” by Buxtehude as the postlude.

After practicing these a bit, I decided to read through Carl Heine’s “African Tunes for Organ.”

I keep running across African composers who are writing organ music that draws somewhat on the highly developed rhythmic African modes. They are challenging but fun to play. I worked on one yesterday in seven. It’s not too bad until Heine decides the pedal and both hands divide up the seven differently. He suggests using light congas or bongos with this setting. I think it would be fun to learn and perform. I think this is this piece these people are playing in this pic, but I couldn’t find a recording of it online.

Visa Shortage Spurs Vacancies, for Jobs, at a Tourist Getaway – The New York Times

Mackinac Island in the news.

I can tell that I am recovering my energy by observing the arousal of my curiosity about Scarlatti and Buxtehude.

My brother gave me an ecopy of W. Dean Sutcliffe’s 2003 book on Scarlatti. I love Scarlatti’s Essercizi and have almost played my way through them. I purchased a lousy multivolume used edition of them and am on the last volume. My plan is to begin again and play through them all a second time. Recently I have been comparing this old edition to Kenneth Gilbert’s more recent edition. Sutcliffe not only is helping my understanding of Scarlatti, he is helping me learn more about current musicology.

Yesterday, after visiting Mom, I went to church to practice. I was drawn there by the idea of spending some time with the beautiful sounds of the Pasi. This is a new experience for me. I am drawn to music for many reasons. I do like actually playing the music. I like the physicality of it. But I haven’t often had the privilege of playing keyboards with high quality sounds since being in school.  I remember many hours practicing and performing on my teacher’s lovely Martin double harpsichord.

When I helped Our Lady of the Lake purchase a Blüthner grand piano, I was drawn to the beauty of its sounds and subsequently often performed piano literature there.

Also, part of the fun of visiting my brother, Mark, and my sister-in-law, Leigh, is Leigh’s wonderful Steinway baby grand.

And of course I try to help my choir make as beautiful sounds as possible. So the beauty of the sounds themselves is important to me.

I decided to pull out my Buxtehude scores and try some of that on the Pasi yesterday. What a delight! I’ve always imagined that the sounds of Buxtehude were wonderfully mixed into lengthy reverberation in the churches where he played. But yesterday the clarity of the voices in the counterpoint and the sheer beauty of the sounds made the time whiz by despite the usual Sunday afternoon fatigue.

Oddly enough I had a memory attack about his “Jig Fugue.”

I played this piece in Oscoda years ago. I mostly remember practicing it on the old piano in the back of our used book store. I have performed it throughout the years, but it is a different piece on the Pasi.

I was looking over pieces I have done before as well as those I haven’t. I am seriously considering scheduling Buxtehude for the prelude and postlude next Sunday. I’ll figure that out later.

I have learned and performed a lot of music that will now be transformed by being done on the Pasi. And my tastes are such that I won’t have to repeat composers too often, something I try to avoid especially back to back from one Sunday to another.

This morning I ordered two books by Joseph Kerman.

It took me a while to figure out the American title, Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology was what Suttcliffe meant by citing the book Musicology by Kerman. Kerman died in 2014. I discovered him when I taught Music Appreciation at Grand Valley and was assigned his textbook, Listen.

I have several of his books and have found them helpful and interesting. I also ordered his The Art of Fugue: Bach Fugues for Keyboard 1715-1750.

I found used copies of both and spent around 17 dollars (including S and H).

I also delved into Kerala Snyder’s book on Buxtehude this morning.

I have read almost half of this book, but this morning I flipped around and read about what is known about his organ registration and also about his chorale preludes. I spent considerable time these yesterday. Snyder gives lots of helpful information about Buxtehude despite the fact that her book was published in 1987, the year I graduated from grad school.

So I’m feeling like my brains are slowly coming back into working order. Next Sunday is my first choir free Sunday in months. We didn’t take off a Sunday after Easter this year. I’m looking forward to the break.

Having a visiting youth choir directed by my old friend, Bob Hobby, made for a pretty easy Sunday morning for me. The small congregation sang up a storm. We had visitors from the Grand Haven church. But they were very participatory. It’s more fun when that is the case.

Bob’s choir was quite good. They helped out significantly on the John Rutter canticle I scheduled for this morning. They sang two anthems and both were very well done. Nice to hear 12 young people making music together.

I put up some of these pics on Facebook and had several people who went to school with Bob and me at Notre Dame “like” them. Bob is not on Facebook so it was good connecting and exposure for him and young choir.

I had all of them sign our new Pasi guest book. It was fun working with Bob and his singers.

They arrived last night about 4:30 and had made reservations at Eighth Street Grille. Bob called and Eileen and I met them for supper. Then we went to church and prepped for this morning.

After church, they all changed into traveling clothes, jumped in their two vans, and were on their way to Mackinaw Island.

After breakfast Eileen and I headed over to the farmer’s market. We bought lettuce, strawberries, cheese, and chevre. We dropped the stuff off at the house and then went to church.

We are expecting to host a visiting Youth Choir from Trinity English Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This is where my friend from Grad school, Bob Hobby has been working since the late 80s. I’m not sure exactly when they will arrive today. They are taking care of their own housing and eating. Bob just said they wanted to sing at tomorrow’s service. i think they are on there way to somewhere else north of here. Bob did say he wanted to get into the church today so they could rehearse. So, I have already done all my Sunday prep. Eileen filed music from the past season while I prepared at the organ. We went and said hi to my Mom at the nursing home.

Now I’m sort of hanging loose waiting for Bob to contact me.

It’s a beautiful day in Holland, Michigan. I am hopeful that I can continue to do some resting and relaxing since the choir season is over.

Eileen and I are back in Holland. My brother and his wife are such gracious hosts. (Thank you, Mark and Leigh, for the visit!!) It was good to get away. I still need to do more of this, but it was very helpful and relaxing. I’m a bit tired right now, but am planning to go over and practice a bit at church on the Pasi.

So yesterday I discovered that Bach does some interesting word painting in his Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book). Specifically in the one based on the German chorale, O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross (O humankind, your sins bemoan).  I own several copies of Bach’s Little Organ book as many organists do. I recently repurchased the edition by Clark and Peterson since my old one was falling apart from use. It was released at about the same time the Neue Bach Ausgabe (the modern scholarly collected works of Bach) released their version of the Little Organ Book. I heard  Clark and Peterson talk about this edition. At the time they expressed relief that their editorial decisions were borne out by the new scholarly edition. I, personally, love this edition.

But I also love the “Organ Pedagogical Materials” Series from Wayne Leupold publishers. It was in Quentin Faulkner’s edition of Bach’s work in an edition in this series that I learned that In the aforementioned setting of “O humankind, your sins bemoan”  Bach does some cool word painting. This organ piece is often performed very slow and adoringly meditatively. I, myself, have been known to play it at funerals. it is a beautiful piece of music, but I don’t think I understood very well until yesterday.

The mood of the title is a bit somber. However Faulkner (and other schol ars and teachers I now find out) points out that the words for the first stanza of the hymn actually outline what churchy Christian types call “Salvation History” including Christ’s birth and his life and his “atoning sacrifice” on the cross. Bach’s beautiful melody comments on these in an unmistakable way as the German melody and its associated text goes by. For example on the word, geboren, “is born,” there is suddenly several beautiful runs. Anton Heiler maintains that in the inner voices Bach is subtly alluding to a famous Christmas Lutheran Hymn: Vom Himmel Hoch (From Heaven Above).

I actually found this in a footnote in the Clark and Peterson edition. The citation is dated 1965 so these ideas have clearly been around awhile. This brings this piece to life. It also clearly explains the slow section that Bach asks for at the end of the piece. The first stanza of the original hymn ends with “an dem Krueze lange” (“on the cross extended” or “stretched out on the cross”) It’s pretty dam logical to have a slow down in the melody at that point.

This morning I was reading Peter William’s bio of Bach and learned that it was the practice to hand out lyric sheets to congregational members when cantatas were performed in church. I didn’t know that either. Very cool.

I mentioned this guy recently. Vijay Iyer is one of my new heroes. I like his compositions and improvs quite a bit. I like their lack of obvious debts to jazz and their ability to just be good music.  This is a long video (about an hour and half) but there is some very fine playing here by all three musicians.

I’m back on the porch a bit before midday. I practically slept in this morning and didn’t get out of bed until around 7 AM. I just spent some time rehearsing the Mozart Violin sonata accompaniment I played on Sunday. Then I explored more of the sonatas. These pieces are beautiful and amazing. It’s rewarding to just work on the accompaniment.

The preface to the volume I am working from says that Mozart wrote them as a sort “compositional calling card in Vienna” after permanently moving there in 1781. He wanted gigs so he wrote these pieces and imbued them with the spirit of his operas which is saying a lot. These kinds of pieces were called at the time piano sonatas with violin accompaniment. The piano parts are beautiful and exceed the piano sonatas by Mozart (for the most part). I think the piano sonatas were largely learning pieces and are fun. But the piano accompaniment to the violin sonatas is in another world of beauty as far as I’m concerned.

I translated my first Greek sentence by Plato this morning. I continue my second time around on chapter 6, doing the last exercises (chapter tests really). I was saving beginning on chapter 7 for summer vacation. Chapter 7 begins with a slightly dumbed down version of some of the trial of Socrates. This study is a very good way to relax.

I started working on Carson Cooman’s “organ demonstrator,” “Hiker’s Gear,” yesterday at church. It’s kind of goofy but the music is growing on me. Cooman’s composition has a sort of “pop” charm. A visitor on Sunday afternoon at the recital told me she wept when the choir sang his anthem, “If ye love me.” He does get through to listeners well sometimes. I do sort of think of him as a 21st century Gordon Young, but that probably sells Cooman short since he is “composer in residence” at Harvard Memorial Church.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: By the Book – The New York Times

This guy seems to be very educated and articulate. Who knew?

Bob Dylan’s Nobel Lecture on Literature Is About the Mystery of Art – The Atlantic

His lecture is embedded here.

Donald Trump’s Twitter feed welcome change to supporters – Washington Times

Warning. Washington Times is a highly reactionary Trump supporting paper and this article shows that. I read it as part of my ongoing attempt to dilute my own echo chamber a bit. I also sent a friend request to Ted Hayes who is mentioned in this article and described as a black activist, homeless advocate and immigration opponent.

I’m still feeling a bit tired but I am definitely feeling relaxed. It’s good not to have anything on the schedule other than a daily trip into town to practice organ.

A while back I loaded a free app onto my tablet which is a Greek dictionary. Recently I noticed that you can build your own vocab list from it (“favorites” of course). I completed transferring my home made flash cards to it this morning. There are a few words I was drilling with my flashcards that are not in it, but it is so nice to actually read a dictionary definition of words I am working instead of a glossary one or two word description.

It’s set up so that I can use it as a flash card drill, only seeing the word before seeing the definition.

Speaking of apps, before he left, Martin Pasi turned me on to a phone app which will tune in different unequal temperaments. In the process of talking to Martin, reading about unequal temperament and thinking about all of this I realized that it’s actually only a matter of discernible frequencies that make up each of the temperaments and that these can be accurately ascertained.

I figured this out when Martin told me that he had his own combination of a couple of tunings and that he had put the numbers into the application. Of course. Approaching tuning from equal temperament with no instruction other than the introduction to the instructions to assemble my harpsichord kit years ago left me with a fuzzy understanding of tuning.

Martin uses the app with his harpsichord but after setting the unequal temperament on the organ he calibrates the app to the organ and then can use it, I guess.

There is more than the frequencies of course. But thinking about using an unequal temperament on my harpsichord if I ever get it fixed suddenly seems more doable than setting an equal temperament something that I never actually learned to do well.

So. This is cool. One of my choir members recorded the concert on her phone. I haven’t had the courage to listen to it yet, but help yourself. Let me know if you can’t get it to work and I’ll email it to you.

Click here to play or download Sunday’s concert

I’m sitting on my brother’s back porch in Unadilla Michigan. He and his wife are letting Eileen and me visit. In my case, it is for some badly needed rest. However, I have already driven into Chelsea and practiced organ for an hour. A local church lets me do this.

I am exhausted. I had more will than energy to practice.

I am very excited! My brother is letting me read a rough draft of one of his short stories. He has been working on his writing since retiring. I have been looking forward to seeing some of his work. Cool beans!

 Climate Science Meets a Stubborn Obstacle: Students – The New York Times

This is a weirdly written report. I find the stubborn student reprehensible, but she is only a high school student. I think some of the details in this story are a bit invasive on the part of the reporter. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to see such personal stuff the subject of a national newspaper article I wonder how the people described feel about this article.

Here I am again, sitting with my martini at the end of the day blogging.

I played a lot of music today. This was pretty satisfying. I had an email from Rev Jen asking me if I could sneak in at the end of the early service and play something so they could hear the instrument.

I learned that playing cold at that time of the morning might not always be the best idea. I attempted to play my prelude. It didn’t go so good. Even though I had spent some time rehearsing Mozart on the piano in the choir room, I had trouble concentrating.

I learned something from this experience after I nailed the same piece in the prelude to the 11 AM. Warming up is good even for old farty organists.

The Pentecost service went quite well. The choir sang a new Anglican chant for the psalm and the congregation seemed to join in pretty well. During her homily, Rev Jen came to the back and invited the kids to come with her. Then, following up on the first part of her homily given at the front of the church, she asked me to show how the wind blows through, say the trumpet pipes. Then she asked me to show some other ways the wind blows through different pipes.

I improvised silly windy things on “Come Down O Love Divine,” our opening hymn. Then she and the congregation blessed the organ. That was cool.

The choir sang the Tallis well at the 10 AM service. We were scrambling to get the program finished between the service and the recital. Rev Jen helped Eileen and me and we had 75 programs printed off by the time we left.

We just had time to say hi to my Mom at the nursing home, go home and have some lunch, and then I took a shower.

The recital went very well. I tried my hand at commentary. I kept pretending I was Chris Thile who now hosts Prairie Home Companion.

His enthusiasm seems genuine. We had maybe fifty or so people. I had fun and we pretty much nailed all the pieces.

Whew. Now for a little time off.

We took Edison to the vet this morning. We are planning some time away next week. We are monitoring Edison closely these days since the vet thought he had cancer. We discovered this when he was obviously losing weight. One of the things the vet recommends is a cortisone shot which can boost a waining appetite. We have been taking him periodically to do this. Since we are planning to be away we wanted to have the vet look at him and see if he’s lost weight. He hasn’t! This is good news. So no shot for the cat today.

It’s past martini time (5 PM) and I’m blogging as I have my evening martini. I managed to get most everything done today that I needed to. I worked over the Mozart very carefully before lunch. After lunch, I met with my string players and we had a good rehearsal for tomorrow’s recital. Then I rehearsed music for tomorrow morning, the recital and next Sunday at the organ. By this time, Eileen had dropped by and got to work using her skills on the “Publisher” program She was immensely helpful.

But the printer seemed to running out of ink. We were running out of steam at about the same time. The program is in “publisher” waiting for final corrections and printing. It’s possible after all of Eileen’s hard work we won’t have program due to church’s printer being out of ink. But we’ll deal with that tomorrow.

As the NPR News Hour played on our computer last night, I remarked to Eileen that it was really the Bizarro Fox news.

Low on content and high on noise. A bit like Fox news, but calmer with inverted content or at least approach. Being an informed US citizen is a difficult task. And since we have descended into the reality TV world of President Trump and his corrupt cronies (the ones applauding him in the Rose Garden yesterday as he announced withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords), since this is our environment, fact based discussions are hard to find.

But they can be found. I keep flitting back and forth between US news sources, Journalism critiques of these sources and the BBC.

Today’s is Thomas Hardy’s birthday. Years ago I began reading my way through his complete poems. This morning I discovered I was on poem # 803. I do find him a bit like an old easy chair, familiar and comfortable.

I heard about his birthday on today’s Writer’s Almanac. I sometimes wonder why they use such bad poetry for “Here’s a poem for today” section. I listen to this pod cast daily to time my five minute wait before taking my Blood Pressure. I like to learn about anniversaries and birthdays. Sometimes, the poem for the day is good. Usually not.

Speaking of poetry, I impulsively checked out a couple of books yesterday.

Odes by Sharon Olds and The Last Shift by Philip Levine.

I loved Old’s book of poems about her father, The Father. I loved her brutality in those poems. Since then, I have been disappointed in much of her work I have read.  Odes looks pretty good.

I haven’t read much Levine. But he died recently and graduated from Wayne State University when it was Wayne University. I think that’s why he’s on my radar. I had to return two books of poetry I was working my way through by Stephen Dunn and Hayden Carruth. I had renewed them as much as could. When that happens I make a note and then re-check them out at some point.

Steady Jobs, With Pay and Hours That Are Anything But – The New York Times

I know a couple of people personally who are at the mercy of their employers. This seems very unfair to me.

ChurchPublishing.org: A Failure of Nerve, Revised Edition, 10th anniversary edition

This came in my email. I do love Friedman. Not sure I need another copy of this, however.

David Lewiston, Who Recorded Indigenous Music Far and Wide, Dies at 88 – The New York Times

I didn’t know about this guy. I hope to check out some of his recordings online.

John Mace, 97, Voice Coach and Campaigner for Same-Sex Marriage, Dies – The New York Times

This kind of obit, a good story, is one reason I like to read obits.

First, let me acknowledge a creator who had the wherewithal to contact me about my use of his image. In January of 2011, I posted a blog post  which used this image.

I repeat it here because Alfred Laing, it’s owner, said in his email he had no problem with my use of it. I like his attitude. Then he wrote: “I am flattered by it’s spread across the internet since it won an honourable mention at the 2007 Mandelbrot Fractal contest.”

He goes on, “In order to celebrate my new store, I am offering a 55% discount on Spiral Fantasy. However, the discount is also a site wide. The code is “spiral” (no quotes, all small letters). Enter the code in the shopping cart to apply the discount.

“You can find the Spiral Fantasy here.

http://www.art-by-ajil.com/store/art_print_products/spiral-fantasy

“You don’t even have to buy Spiral Fantasy. If you are not interested in a print, maybe you know somebody who does. Please feel free to distribute the discount code.
If you do use the code to actually purchase Spiral Fantasy, drop me a note and your website will go into the hall of fame on my website.”

He signs off: “Art By Ajil
www.art-by-ajil.com
www.facebook.com/inquistve
Store@art-by-ajil.com

Wow. What a great way to approach that!

I had an incredibly busy day yesterday. I set off to get my organ music  and shoes from church and then practice at one of the churches in town that is allowing me to do so. Then I remembered my intention to purchase a guest book for the new organ. I knew that Martin might be leaving as soon as today. I wanted his signature to be the first one in the guest book. So I drove up to Barnes and Noble and bought a nice one and dropped it off at church.

I didn’t have much time left before lunch to practice so I went home. After lunch I had a long fruitful meeting with my boss. She liked the way I described handing the “man on the stairs” incident. We talked about the upcoming recitals and services as well as other things. I do like working for her.

I put in for reimbursement for purchases. This came to over $500. I let that go too long. I gave Eileen a call and we went and saw Mom. Then she came to church and helped me get ready for the evening rehearsal. While she did that, I timed all of the pieces in Sunday’s program. Rev Jen (my boss) and I talked at length about that program. The times came out to just over thirty minutes. From watching me work on the Christmas eve pregame choral and carols half hour, she suggested I add ten minutes to any total of music time. It’s probably a good rule. I would be very glad if Sunday’s recital came in around 40 minutes but would take anything under an hour.

Last night’s rehearsal went well. My people are tired and stressed (which affects their signing, of course), but I felt like the morale was high. We are all looking forward to Sunday.

Why is English so weirdly different from other languages? | Aeon Essays

I didn’t read this, but I did listen to the embedded recording of it.

Tonight we have our last choir rehearsal of the season. It has been a long season for me. We spent many of our Sundays doing Eucharist in the basement allowing the renovation of the acoustics and installation of the organ to take place in the sanctuary. This was an interesting challenge. I ended up putting a lot of effort into making my end of this work. I think i succeeded, but this morning my fatigue is not just physical.

I am grateful to see a little light at the end of the tunnel. I have always had a talent for making full time jobs out of stuff that many people see as trivial. I do this because I enjoy it. But it’s obvious I need a vacation.

This Sunday is shaping up pretty well. For our last Sunday we will sing a Tallis motet that alludes to the Holy Spirit. I have decided not to repeat this motet at the afternoon recital. I have the usual loss of members that occurs at this time of year. So I’m down to 9 singers. I want the last Sunday and the recital to be a good experience for them. I think they could easily rise to doing the Tallis well twice, but I don’t need so much choral music so I have canned several anthems I originally planned to use in the afternoon recital.

For my part, i don’t think Sunday will  have too many huge challenges for me. At this point, it is the Mozart violin sonata movement that will stretch me the most. I have been spending time with it daily. That’s all one can do. I want to get a list of pieces together for my boss to look over. She is excited and engaged at this point. I think she would appreciate giving her input even into the order and choice of material for the recital.

The following Sunday, we will be hosting the Trinity English Lutheran Youth choir at Eucharist. I am expecting them to sing an anthem. I’m not sure exactly what the director who is an old friend of mine I haven’t seen in ages (Bob Hobby) wants to do in the service. Consequently, I have chosen organ music for this service and have been rehearsing it.

We are leaving for some time off next Monday. I have  managed to find someone who will come in a couple times a day and check on Edison. He has been our biggest worry about leaving town. I’m also scrambling to get sub organists for my trip to California and our July 4th Cabin trip.

It’s no wonder I’m looking forward to the end of choir season this year. I have put a lot on my plate and need some time to just do nothing.

Blogging in the afternoon again. Martin Pasi is out of town. This morning I went over to see if the organ was playable. He was working with the wind supply on Monday with the help of a particularly adroit parishioner. He wasn’t sure if he would finish that before today. But the organ was working so I practiced. Before that I submitted the music for this Sunday. You know, the usual Tuesday for Jupe.

However, in the afternoon, my old bud, Jordan VanHemert, saxophonist extraodinaire, dropped by for a chat. We have known each other since he was a high school student. He has played in my coffee house act and at my church. At this point, he is ABD for a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  It’s flattering that he keeps in touch. I do enjoy chatting and playing with him.

We were in my living room talking about the organ and the new acoustic. I said, let’s jump in the car and you can see for yourself. Jordan was blown away both by the acoustic and the organ sounds. It was fun to demonstrate the new organ and talk about the changes with him. Some people wandered in that I didn’t recognize who said they had helped bring the organ in from the truck and hadn’t heard it yet. So I demoed for them too.

Eileen and I are planning a date night tonight. I am really two clicks past being happily burned out. It looks like we will get some away time next week. Visiting my brother and my sister-in-law for some down time.

Why do we hate modern classical music? | Alex Ross | Music | The Guardian

Bookmarked to read. I have read books by this guy. I like how his mind works.

I am truly exhausted this morning, more than usual. I believe yesterday was more of a challenge than anything I will be doing soon (including the upcoming recital next Sunday). The reason for this was changing my registrations (that is, which pipes I will use on the organ) Saturday. I won’t go into the gory details here except to say that Saturday morning I had one set of instructions for myself which i had to change during Pasi’s lunch hour when I got to use the instrument. So, this part of yesterday was extremely under rehearsed.

Pasi has taken away the shutters to the swell box. This meant that I couldn’t use the pipes in them for my postlude because they were too loud. I needed to close that box to make them softer. Instead I devised a strategy of adding a set of pipes (called 2 2/3) that gave a little punch to the sections of the Willan postlude in which he set the lovely melody.

This involved not only pulling this stop for the section and then pushing it in for the interludes. I also chose to take off the coupler which made the keyboard I was using feel lighter. This was definitely an example of catering to my own early stage of playing well on this instrument.

All of this was an addition to an already challenging little piece of music.

I managed to do this well in the postlude yesterday. And again this wekk there were a sizable number of people standing around listening and then applauding after I was done. New stuff.

I also couldn’t resist changing my prelude registration. We sang a hymn tune written by Orlando Gibbon yesterday. I had chosen a little setting by Willan of this tune for the prelude. Since Pasi had the Dulzian stop finished and had remarked to me that he thought it made a nice early music sound, i decided to use it in my prelude. It came off pretty well.

Someone remarked yesterday that playing the organ was a “full body sport.” It certainly feels like it today.