6:20 AM and I’m happy as a pig in shit sitting here in the early morning darkness listening to thunder crash and echo outside my open window. I started the morning indexing and researching music for my Hymn Tune index. I do enjoy this work. I don’t just record information, I also double check dubious information such as how composers refer to unfamiliar hymn tunes and consequently their origin. This used to be a bit slower before the internet. Now I just google and judiciously evaluate results. Very helpful.
I started another project yesterday. I was playing through one of the Counterpuncti from Bach’s Art of Fugue. I use Czerny’s over edited edition because it was a cheap way to purchase a keyboard reduction.
Anyway, I was thinking about my piano trio. I realized that I could transcribe Counterpunctus 9 easily for violin, piano and cello. I would give the soprano line to the violin, of course. The piano would take voice 2 & 3 (right hand and left hand), the cello voice 4. This would make this wonderful music a lot easier to play and probably more interesting to listen to.
I managed to get 90 out of 131 measures transcribed yesterday.
Here’s the Canadian Brass playing it.
I do love this piece. I used it back when I briefly taught Music Appreciation. I used the Swingle Singers recording which I love but could not find on YouTube.
I managed to finish filing all of my organ music yesterday in one file (except for the volumes I am indexing). That’s a big piece. Next I plan to file as much of the choral music laying around the choir room as possible. Some of it hasn’t been filed for 3 or 4 years! Then on to serious planning for the fall.
Eileen and I went and saw Harry Potter yesterday. I do like spending time with my wife. I find it more and more difficult to suspend my disbelief as I get older. This is of course necessary for dramas to be effective. I kept wondering how they needed to make these older actors (the three main characters) look young and even similar ages. The actor who plays Harry has a baby face and that makes it a bit easier with him. And the woman is pretty easy to portray as younger than she is. But the guy who plays Ron. His age and maturity come through the camera despite the magic of Hollywood.
Also I usually think about the music. What’s happening musically? Are the instruments recorded live or digital? Stuff like that.
I think the Harry Potter books are basically Young Adult market directed. I read about five of them before stopping from sheer boredom. A blessing on them for those that like them,however!
Back to work (after adding pics and doing the links below)
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Father of Man Killed in Unrest Helps Calm Tense English City – NYTimes.com
There are still some sane people in the world. This is a moving story of a man who led the calming down of a mob despite his own personal grief.
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U.S. Troops Fire on Afghan Police, Survivors Say – NYTimes.com
This doesn’t sound good. I bookmarked it so I could return to this initial report when more accurate reports surface.
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‘Corporations Are People,’ Romney Tells Iowa Hecklers Angry Over His Tax Policy – NYTimes.com
This is my fundamental disagreement with lobbying and PACs. Corporations are more like governments than people. They need to be reined in and made accountable like governments. Of course that’s just my weak kneed immature sixties hippy musician opinion. Heh.
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On Jim Jones’s Agenda, a Prequel to Sept. 11 – NYTimes.com
Frightening new info on the Jim Jones saga. Does it never end?
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We Want Cake, Too – NYTimes.com
I found this intelligent and personal commentary by a transgendered person very informative and moving. But of course I’m just a weak kneed yada yada…. you know the drill.
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Turning the Wrong Page – NYTimes.com
I do think it was a big mistake to curtail the page program in the House of Representatives but one in line with the current philosophy of cutting back on governmental functional services like education and health services.
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Romney is correct. These public and private corporations would not exist without people. It is easy to demonize a faceless entity “corporation”, but these are usually publicly owned. Most people if they have any assets at all (even assets in a local bank) own some sort of financial instrument issued by a corporation. No corporation pays taxes. They simply pass the tax along to the consumer. FICA tax 15.3%,employees pay about half out of their net income, medicare tax which is 2.5%, personal income tax are all collected by corporations/employers and paid to the U.S. government. This amounts to about $200 Billion per month. Additionally, without businesses voluntarily doing this, the government would not get a cent. It seems to me that the problem is about fair treatment for all individuals. The current tax system and especially the ones that we have had by progressives will punish those who do make a lot of money. Of course a simple solution would be to eliminate deductions and create a tax that is the same for all. This would eliminate the social tinkering of the tax code creating lots of deductions etc which will be used by people to shelter income. For example, if everyone (and I mean everyone)pays 10% of income to the government. There would be no need for complex tax forms, huge IRS collection issues, depreciation schedules etc.. All of which creates a lack of understanding by the public. Complex analysis of a simple comment.
You and Mitt are unconvincing to me because you do not seem to address some of the problematic aspects of corporations and banks, one of which which is public accountability.
An institution is not a person. It does not feel emotions. It does not reason. Institutions do take on lives of their own. But they center around their purpose (ultimately to perpetuate themselves – see the institutions of church, college and government which are also not persons by the way even though they are made up of people).
Business organizations have at their base not the welfare of the communities they are housed in, but profit motive of the individuals involved. Profit motive + lack of accountability seems to have gotten us into a situation where the rich get richer and hoard capital and build their gated communities and the poor and middle class are left to their own devices, worldwide, outside the jurisdiction and protection of their governments (see the recent U.K. riots).
I find economic explanations such as you make, not complex, but actually simplistic because they do not factor in important things to me about being alive and being human.