More Theory Thoughts

One thing I learned from Dr. Falby, and a point that I should always stress with my students, is that music is multi-layered and full of meaningful intricacies. To put this in more poetic terms, great music of genius is, as he said once in Lasker, "saturated with glory."

This saturation with glory makes analysis (that is, pursuing consciousness of all that is happening in the music) complicated. But exploring the layers and intricacies can also be a worshipful activity as we are exercising our abilities to think, to discern, to imagine, and to celebrate wonders.

In this way, our creative work mirrors God's way of creating since the universe of which we are a part is, itself, multi-layered and full of fantastic intricacies.

I am reminded as I write that not only can music be incredibly rich in its internal organization, it also intersects with our lives and other disciplines in an amazingly diverse number of ways from dance, to math, to biology, to history, and religion to the deeply personal and spiritual . . .

Festival Reflections 2009

Lasker Summer Music Festival 2009 came to a fine conclusion last night.

Every year, participating in the Festival gives me new direction and perspective for the year ahead. Meeting with encouraging and challenging musicians for these few days, performing and discussing how our faith and art relate, and gathering with the intention of sharing and discovering - these things always refresh and redirect me.

This year, I leave the Festival knowing I did some good and elegant playing, and also being reminded that one needs to think seriously about the results one wants in performance and structure practice according to that goal. One ought to ask "What is a reasonable amount of practice given my goal?" For musicians to mature, we need to know how much time needs to be put in to get the desired results.

Dr. Falby presented a probing talk on the experience and meaning of the goosebumps often brought about by listening to music. This refreshed our sense of purpose as deliverers of goosebumps since the musical moment connects the listener with some sense of the transcendent. This talk also provided a framework for the Festival audience members to process and discuss their experiences of the performances.

There were many musical highlights. In fact, the performers provided such a variety of interesting works that items which would have normally stood out as unique became part of the extraordinary fabric.

The work/performance that seemed to create the greatest impression was Paula Pressnell and Ariel Dechosa's performance of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy on two pianos. Before the performance, we may have had questions about the effectiveness of the piece without orchestra or chorus. But the immediate strong response of the audience, as well as their continued discussion of the performance show that:

1. the work can work as a two-piano piece - it becomes a different type of piece, but very effective

2. the work has some innate goodness that is not dependent upon the timbre or size of the performance forces, and

3. of course, the performance was brilliant!

Other personal highlights include Ariel's masterful handling of Prokofief 6th Sonata,
the fun of playing Erik Satie's Sports et Divertissements with Ken Wolfskill's witty narration,
also having fun playing my own Maritime Suite with Kathy,
Josiah Antill presenting and playing his own music so well,
Jim Guthrie's fiddle playing,
Jeremy McEntire's supreme musicianship playing Gluck and Guthrie,
Kathy and Ariel's exquisite performance of Strauss's Allerseelen,
improvisatory work with Tracee, Jeff, Kathy, and Jeremy (Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy" was a major goosebump experience for me),
our own little revival of Billings's Chester with offstage horn,
Jeff's very refined version of the second of the Liszt Petrarch Sonnets and of course, the superb quality of the high D flat he sang in it . . .
so I liked everything!

It was also a very eventful few days in Lasker beyond these musical
experiences. The air conditioner stopped working in the fellowship hall, so we migrated to Agnes's house for one evening. Beautiful new landscaping was dedicated at the church, and the Methodist church on the outskirts of town had its closing services and ceremony on Sunday.

Playing/Living Joyfully

Yesterday while practicing, I started wondering about what makes for joyful playing.

Here are some factors that seem to be part of it at times:

a sense of leaping in many phrases

lively articulation

having a sense of moving forward across the barline

and particularly applying that sense of forward momentum through the more thorny sections of a work


This morning, it occured to me that joyful living might share those aspects:

leaping into whatever day or activity is ahead with energy

clearly articulating what it is you are trying to do

staying in motion and moving ahead, especially in rough times


This is another nice example of what Dr. Falby says - everything I know, I know from music.

Chaos Theory

I learned a bit about chaos theory at lunch with my friend Robert Johns a couple of weeks ago. Two ideas immediately related to music in my way of thinking.

1. Chaos theory suggests that seemingly random or chaotic phenomena may be based on some extremely organized and intricate order. This is illustrated by many 20th century musical works, expecially works in the realm of serialism. Such works often sound totally unorganized to listeners on the first hearing, but many of these works are among the most tightly organized in every parameter of music from pitch and rhythm to timbre and register.

2. Chaos theory suggests that tiny bits of change at one point in a process may bring about radical large-scale change at some later point. My mentor, Dr. Vern Falby, often described tracking the tonality of a piece of music as being similar to tracking a bear through the forest. A broken twig here and a twisted branch there are the tiny signs that point the way to the bear. A sharp here or a flat there are the initial signs that the music is moving into a new key.