Theory Thoughts

As I gear up for teaching music theory in my new job at Southeastern, I'm thinking about what a lot of music theory consists of, especially in the early stages of learning - recognizing and labeling musical materials. When I was a student, I thought those activities were pretty mundane and not very theoretical.

While I have come to accept that mastering some basic concepts is a normal and necessary way of entering into a discipline, I also believe there might be more profound and exciting implications to the seemingly simple act of naming things.

As described in Genesis, one of the first things Adam had the opportunity to do was to name the animals. There are many things I really like about that passage:

One is that it sounds like God made all those creatures because God was concerned about what things were good for us and what things were not good for us. It wasn't good for us to be alone. My dog and cat really are helpers and partners of sorts to me at times, mostly by accepting me and by being small, cute, energetic, and random creatures around the house.

I also like the freedom that is part of this Genesis scene. It doesn't seem like God commanded Adam to name the animals, nor does it seem that God caused him to call the animals anything in particular. Instead, I think God and Adam shared a wonderfully relaxed and uncomplicated communion. I imagine them sitting down over coffee and looking at God's portfolio of work. In this pre-fall picture, Adam's behavior is presented as really healthy and whole. He naturally sees, processes, and acts in a good way. It reminds me of the really bright children I worked with at Collegiate School in Richmond who were endlessly curious and had lots of innate learning skills. What's more, they applied those skills with joy as it was naturally fun for them to do so! Maybe those are more layers of what "coming as a child" means.

I'm also really struck by God the creator's desire to see what each aspect of the creation meant to Adam. That's exactly how we human artists are about our creations. We want to know the significance of the things we create in the experience of our fellow human beings. It is through their feedback that we know that we are, indeed, serving. Because of this, it seems to me that creativity is linked to relationship.

Now, back to naming.

I would think that naming took analysis and reflection for Adam, and developing words to represent creatures must have involved some creative fun. Organizing is an important aspect of the creative process as we know it. Sorting the animals by name was a way of bringing order to the human understanding of the world God had created. In this way, Adam was getting to partner with God in creating.

I'm intrigued by the fact that it seems like language already existed when Adam named the animals. I have usually assumed that we humans created language from its foundations. But in Genesis, God had already spoken some pretty involved sentences to Adam before Adam was given the opportunity to name the animals. Also, I had been thinking that language arose from a communication need between humans, but it sounds like Adam was the only one of us around when this naming happened. That seems significant to me because, while the language Adam was creating would be for the use of the race, at its inception, the language was just between him and God.

While naming, it seems that Adam realized his need for someone like himself, and when Eve was brought into being, Adam verbally expressed his need and prayed a prayer of thanks through the act of naming her.

Maybe God left the animals unnamed so that we could fully appropriate the created order to our experience through thought and language. Through the language aspect, we expressed the need for community with other people, and language went on to create a shared human culture once there were other humans with whom to share it. All of this seems to have grown out of relationship with God and the Creation.

So as we continue to see and name patterns and organizations in the both the created worlds of living things and physical phenomena such as sound, I think we are following through on God's invitation to name, organize, and create within our own consciousness. And through that exploration of what God has made, we can discover and develop community.

Moving, Canon, Calling, Peace!?

Our piano was delivered this week - two average-sized guys, a fancy dolly, and a truck with a lift made it possible. I think the lift is really crucial for a smooth move. The piano was mostly in surprisingly good tune for an instrument that spent several weeks riding around who-knows-where on a truck and sitting on its side in warehouses. The company is Modern Piano Moving out of Missouri and their trucks make big loops around the eastern states picking up and delivering pianos several weeks later. Each team delivers from 7 to 10 instruments a day. They also a have a giant logo on the side of their truck that looks like a very long piano with wheels, sort of like a drag racer.

Now, back to our public radio station. I think that what I've been enjoying about it so much during this time of transition is the affirmation of the canon of music that I love and have devoted a lot of time to here in a new place for me. It provides some consistency and resonates with my childhood revelation that, to some extent, music is my family. The fact that this music has stood the test of time, a fact with which I am very familiar and have heard time and again, is now ringing true in my own experience. It is okay and probably very good to be devoted to a canon since it is an inherent aspect of the nature of a canon that the preserved material has been found to be of value by generations. You can trust the music to be strong, dependable, even powerful.

Another thing that has brought me peace during this move, and something that has been pretty much a spiritual bottom-line for me, is the sense of calling to this place, this work, this home, and so forth. When I wake up and am surprised that I am living in Florida, I just remind myself that it's fine because I was called to make this move. When I'm out walking and am tempted to covet someone else's house, I remind myself that everything happened in such a way with our house as you let us know that we are in the house we are suppose to be in. And when I wonder what I should be playing and where, I can look for a sense of calling to repertoire and events, and all will be well.

It occurs to me that the concept of calling, which is so important to many of us, is rarely explored in our popular culture.

Finally, on a really different note, as I was eating an orange a few mornings ago (an orange grown near here, I think, but packaged in New Jersey for some reason) our lovely wooden wind chime, made by disabled veterans and bearing the single word "peace," fell from the ceiling to the floor. I wonder what that means!?

Welcome to Lakeland

We could not have asked for a more beautiful place to live. Tonight we took a long stroll around Lake Mirror and watched various water fowl and an alligator.

While I am really starting to enjoy the beauty of our new home, I also struggle with the emotions that go along with leaving home again and coming to a new place. The music I've been hearing on 89.7 FM WUSF has comforted me: Chopin 2nd Concerto, Weber First Clarinet Concerto, and Ravel Violin Sonata.

Murfreesboro Memories

Tomorrow, the moving truck arrives, and I'll be exchanging "Carolina Moon" for "Moon Over Miami" or at least "Luna over Lakeland." (I made that last title up). "Carolina Moon" was supposedly written on, or near, the s-shaped bridge in Hertford, NC. Hertford was the hometown of some of my ancestors. The last several years, I've been thinking of doing an Earl Wild-styled arrangement of "Carolina Moon." "Moon Over Miami" just happened to be playing as background music in the Human Resources office when I went to do paperwork at Southeastern.

I sense that my system is still a little confused about our move. Normally, when I leave my in-laws in Lake Mary, I go to Interstate 95 and drive back to NC. This time, I'll get on Interstate 4 and go to our place in Lakeland.

I'll miss looking at the Carolina moon through the pine trees in my back yard. I'll miss the silhouette of the water tower over the library. I'll miss walks through campus with Sophie (our beagle). I'll miss Murfreesboro's connection back to Lafayette and his time. And I'll miss long afternoon talks over iced tea with town and college friends.

I really enjoyed my three years living at 212 E. High St. in M'boro. Being there had a great mix of urban and rural that allowed me to enjoy both my Hulin and Harrison heritage. Being in an old-ish house in the region of my ancestors gave Kathy and me a sense of having lived at "the old homeplace," and has provided us with a psychological space to which I am sure we will often return as we interpret ourselves in new contexts.

There's so much newness involved in this move - new job, new church, new house, new neighborhood, new city, new state, new culture. Fortunately, lots of people have reached out to make the transition less intimidating.

We attended College Park Baptist in Orlando this morning. An inspiring report on youth missions was structured around verses of John Bell's "Will You Come and Follow Me." The depth and relevance of this text continues to reveal itself to me. The second verse, in particular, spoke powerfully to my needs today and to my belief in God's call:

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name? . . .
Will you let me answer payer in you and you in me?