Jefcoat and Galilee

We attended a fun Murfreesboro event - Porkfest:

20+ Eastern NC Barbecue caterers preparing their food in "Pork Alley"

A classic car show on our street

and admission to the Jefcoat Museum.

The Jefcoat is a treasure almost in our backyard!
From a musical standpoint, it houses a whole floor of square grands (including a Broadwood which was one of Beethoven's preferred brands,) pump organs, player pianos, music boxes, a cimbalom, a very ornate Erard harp, various bells, early phonographs and radios - many of which are still in working order. I anticipate a field trip for my Music History class.

In addition to the musical collection, there is a wealth of Americana - a kind of miniature Smithsonian (17,000 objects all on display at the Jefcoat vs. 136 million owned by the Smithsonian's museums - I looked this up because I was curious and because the numbers are amazing at both places.) At the Jefcoat there are all sorts of washing mashines, butter churns, ice cream mixers, a hunting room full of mounted animals, guns, and traps, etc. etc. etc.

After seeing all of this, I drove to Pasadena, MD to play a concert at Galilee Lutheran Church. The people there are always warm and Joel Borelli does a great job of enthusiastically promoting whatever he's presenting. It's a gift he has, and I appreciate it.

One thing I learned from the recital relates to Ravel Sonatine. I wasn't feeling that my performance had the type of clarity I like, but Joel commented positively on the clarity afterwards. While I didn't feel like my playing was as clear as I wanted, I was keeping most of the piece pretty quiet - which is how Ravel marked a lot of it anyway! It seems that keeping most of the dynamics pretty low helps with the clarity. (Note to self: Read and follow the score!)

Another thing that sunk in with me about the program I've been playing is that the works by Schumann and Prokofief (Papillons and movements from Romeo and Juliet) go together nicely and that seems to be the case because both works demonstrate their composer's mastery of musical characterization. To play them realy well, it might be a good idea to think more like an actor than a musician and seek to become each of the characters depicted.

Trinity Sunday

It's another beautiful morning here in Murfreesboro. The quiet, cool, early summer mormings have begun.

I note that this is my 100th blog post since starting this blog in March 2005. I've enjoyed doing this as a hobby and as a way of connecting with people. Thanks to Martin Tiller, my friend who started blogging and got me interested. Also, thanks to Jeff Prillaman who took up blogging around the same time.

While I'm thanking folks -
This summer I hope to get a lot of composing done. As I find myself getting more comfortable in my composer skin, I have been reflecting about the people who have helped with that transformation.

Stefan Waligur, a composer Kathy and I met a few years ago in D.C., shared a CD of his work with us. The work is clear, worshipful, and can incoroprate musicians of all levels. I found the style very moving and liberating to me as a composer. The first thing I wrote that I felt really good about was my Christmas cantata which was influenced by Stefan's work.

James M. Guthrie, my colleague here at Chowan, is the other influence I am deeply appreciating. Dr. Guthrie is a superb composer - gifted and highly skilled. His great gift to me has been simply recognizing me as a composer, which frees me to produce without becoming entangled in judging my own output.

Tomorrow night I have a concert. Yesterday I found myself not knowing quite where I was technically or musically with the music I'm playing. On the eve of Trinity Sunday, I am reminded that symbolic practice is very helpful in such a situation. By "symbolic practice" I mean structuring one's practice time using meaningful numbers (such as thre)e from the Christian tradition.

I've known the works I'm playing for some time, but some sections don't feel totally secure at the moment. Trusting that three (or seven or twelve {rarely twelve!}) focused repetitions of these passages will reconnect me with my history of work with this music is very useful in keeping my practice realistic and keeping me on a good plane emotionally!

This morning I also returned to another practice I gravitate to from time to time: praying through my repertoire. Here I ask what I want the audience to get from each portion of each work, and pray for that to come to pass. This approach teaches me a lot about the music, and it helps me to make music with a consciousness of God.

Music for Pentecost

Today I played a short organ prelude I composed based on the chant "Veni Creator Spiritus." It was organized into several layers moving at different rates. Between the pentatonic qualities of the chant and a few dotted notes I added, the overall feeling was vaguely early American!

For postlude I played the last movement of Ravel's Sonatine on piano. This piece sounds like a rushing wind, and the harmonies seem to suggest the supernatural in a traditional church context. After the service, it dawned on me that it's also a good piece to play when Pentecost and Mother's Day coincide as it has been suggested that falling fourths, such as those that permeate the melody of this work, symbolize Ravel's relationship with his mother.

Nice Weekend

Saturday was a very nice unplanned day here in Murfreesboro. I went to the Farmers Market for the first time, and we bought some very good tomatoes and strawberries and looked at some art by local artists. We took Sophie for a long walk, and in the evening, we went to the grand opening of our new Mexican restaurant, Los Amigos, where we ate outside under an umbrella in the cool evening weather.

That day we also learned the story of one of the handsome homes in town that was built by a family that owned a basket factory and helped their employees make it through the Great Depression.

It was also a very musical weekend. Saturday night we heard an excellent Viginia Symphony concert in Newport News that included a work by Schreker. Sunday we had brass and children's choir with Orff instruments at church, and in the afternoon, I attended Paula Pressnell's studio recital. It's always inspiring to hear the results of all the piano practice that young people are doing. In the evening, we celebrated Ascension Sunday with an Italian buffet accompanied by James M. Guthrie's work, Ascension, at our house.

Juxtaposition

Now that the school year has come to a close, there is a little time for blogging again.

Chowan ends the academic year with an interdisciplinary symposium that involves faculty from all disciplines in exploring a single topic. This year, that topic was the environment. In addition to this forum, there is also a symposium of student research and other special events. This gives the end of the year an exciting flavor and energy that are decidedly scholarly and informative.

The culminating event of this year's symposium (as well as the music department's year) was a performance of parts I and II of Haydn's Creation. This involved the student choir and neighborhood chorus, members of the Meherrin Chamber Orchestra and Virginia Symphony, and soloists Lori Parker (an excellent soprano who happens to be married to our conductor,) Walter Swan (a vibrant singer who taught here in past years,) and my good friend, tenor Jeff Prillaman. Kathy, my wife, was in the horn section. I played viola, and another good friend from Richmond, Jeremy McEntire, played flute.

I list all that information about these personal connections because the personal connectedness of this performance is part of what made it very special. Many people who have known each other, worked together, or taught and studied with each other, worked independently for awhile, then came together to create a rich tapestry of musical and spiritual energy.

Now for the juxtaposition part. During the intermission of this sublime work about the creation of the world, more details started to arrive about the tornadoes in nearby Suffolk, VA. One person onstage received a phone call with the number 200 in it, and it wasn't totally clear if that 200 referred to deaths or injuries. Fortunately, it only referred to injuries.



Here's a bit of musical trivia from my experience. Haydn sets words about the creation of insects with a little text painting from the violas. I almost didn't play the section as I thought the professionals next to me would do it very well and that I might mar their efforts. But I decided that it was such a quintessential viola moment that I should play it for experience's sake. I did, and I think it was okay. In fact, Jeff was impressed by this "swarm" for the first time in our performance.

CMS, CBF, AGO

It has been a busy few weeks.

Jeff Prillaman and I presented a lecture-performance on Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets at the College Music Society meeting in Gettysburg. Here are some of the ideas we shared:

Liszt resonated personally with Petrarch's struggle between the spirit and the flesh.

Liszt puts the performers in the appropriate dramatic moods through the technical demands of the music.

The sonnets are constructed of a series of styles ranging from art song to Bel Canto to Verismo. Such a demanding progression of vocal requirements is similar to the sequences of technical demands he puts on pianists in works like the Dante Sonata or Mephisto Waltz.


We heard many excellent presentations at the conference including presentations on piano music from China, Haiti, and works by the Russian jazz-influenced composer, Kapustin. A personal favorite of mine was on the strategic use of bands on the battlefields of the American Civil War.

On the way home, I played at Woodland Heights Baptist Church where Kathy and I worked in Richmond, and in the aternoon I played on a concert with friends from the Talent Developing Studio at Slash Christian Church. Slash is the oldest wooden church in Virginia.

Last night, Kathy and I drove to Raleigh for part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina meeting. There I learned about the Winston Salem-based Institute for Dismantling Racism. I took part in a fascinating discussion of the use of arts in missions work led by Jonathan and Tina Bailey who are artistic missionaries in Indonesia. They discussed the complexities of creating new Christian expressions within traditional styles such as gamelan and shadow puppetry. I also attended a presentation on the history of Chowan University given by our president, Dr. White. I learned many interesting things there including some facts about the recent restoration of the MacDowell Columns building. The massive columns on the portico are made of cypress and had around 35 layers of paint on them before they were scraped and repainted.

Today I played a concert for the Northeastern North Carolina Chapter of the American Guild of Organists at Roanoke Bible College in Elizabeth City. I had not been on that campus before and was impressed by the facility in which I played. It housed a nice chapel with a good older Baldwin, a gym, and a library. The building is situated right next to the water where there are swings, geese, and ducks.

I've felt a little frustrated practicing lately, but I've pushed through it each time and kept practicing. I felt like it paid off today as the memorized works held together better than in the previous performances. Also, my frustration pushed me to connect on a deeper level with the Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet pieces I've been playing. I played them more personally today and with more focus on the various characters from the play as they are expressed in the music. I had been trying to do less with time and more with color, which is what my best Russian-trained friend tells me is most stylistically appropriate. I appreciated that and agree with that, but I allowed myself a little more rhythmic freedom today, and I believe the pieces really came to life in a way they hadn't before for me.

Maybe frustration in practice is sometimes a sign that the opportunity for better playing and a deeper personal connection is at hand if only we don't give up.

As an encore I played my recently composed Ragtime Etude. The piece is a little bitonal and I think the bitonality of the last page keeps any one pitch from sounding like a strong tonic. I think that may be a compositional problem I need to solve. As Dr. Benjamin often told us, most composing is editing!

Easter

We're enjoying a beautiful spring here in Murfreesboro.

Last week was Easter and also a special day for me as it was my first Sunday as the official organist/music associate at the First Baptist Church of Ahoskie. For offertory and postlude I played Handel: I Know That My Redeemer Liveth and Palestrina: The Strife is O'er.

I'm still reflecting a bit on the nice spring break we had. On our trip to Raleigh, we visited the state capitol building. As a native North Carolinian, I was very inspired by our time there. Three things I found especially stirring were plaques commemorating the Edenton Tea Party (I graduated from high school in Edenton and some of my ancestors lived there,) and the Halifax Resolves, and the monument to the North Carolinians who were presidents of the U.S.

Kathy's family was here this weekend, and we visited a local store that is typical of many of the things we love about Murfreesboro - The Woolery. The Woolery is owned and run by a couple who moved from Syracuse, NY in search of better weather. In their store we saw all sorts of spinning wheels and looms. They also sell every imaginable sort of book relevant to topics from knitting patterns for your dog's neck warmer to a work called Making the Most of Your Llama to several reference books on the various Tartan plaids. There is also a section of used books on a variety of topics as well as a whole shelf of literature in French!

Da Capo Concert and Masterclass

Over the weekend, I played a concert and taught a masterclass in Richmond, sponsored by the Da Capo Institute.

As I turned 36 a week earlier and I was also on spring break, the occasion proved to be a good time for reflection on my musical life.

Right before the concert, I had a feeling I'd never had before, and that was that having to play from memory is somehow undignified - as if art music required some sort of parlor trick.

After performing, I realized that I am more comfortable performing James M. Guthrie's Intermezzo and Fugue than Schumann's Papillons. From a techical standpoint, the Guthrie is a lot harder to play. But it fits me better tempermentally, or at least my current way of playing it does.

That evening, I had a good long talk with my good friend and musical collaborator, Jeff Prillaman. We shared our autobiographies as performers. Out of that came at least two solid bits of pianistic wisdom for me to remember:

Different works as well as different eras in one's life require different performance approaches. When I was a lot younger, I used a method acting approach to most of what I played. Then I came to trust the music more. Now I am trusting the music and my talent. Ultimately, I would do well to keep my music-making focused on my theme of integration - particularly the integration of my art and faith. I believe there are many ways in which one might make music so as to honor God - and I ought to pursue them more intentionally .

The other point also deals with difference and that is that different pianos can be radically different and one can't do everything one wants to with a piece on every piano. This ought to be taken into consideration when one evaluates one's performance goals and efforts.

Chowan Pianofest

We held our first annual Chowan Pianofest at the beginning of March, and it was an inspiring few days around town for musicians.

Richard Becker who teaches at the University of Richmond was our guest pianist. Richard inaugerated this new fest with a brilliant recital which was, as Kathy described it, an event. While the music may or may not have been about something outside itself, it was an event of importance in and of itself - like a sunset or the Grand Canyon.

He played two Beethoven sonatas, probably as well as they can be played. The second half consisted of a group of Debussy preludes and a Chopin group concluding with the First Ballade.

On the following morning, Richard worked with seven local students in a masterclass where he expounded on the work of the pianist: to express what's on the page and to be responsible for the progress through music that occurs in performance. He helped our students relate more closely to the piano and its technical demands and possibilities. He also helped students recognize their talent through sensitive and open listening and encouraging comments.

That eveing, I performed a solo recital. The program is posted here I think the Intermezzo and Fugue of James M. Guthrie really made the program. Guthrie is a colleague of mine that I've mentioned before. I was also intrigued by comments indicating that the Friar Laurence movement of the Prokofief was a special favorite for some audience members. I revisited passages of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet the afternoon of the concert and realized how significant a character Friar Laurence was, and also what a genuinely good fellow he was. (And as always, I am amazed at Shakespeare's ability to create what seem like real people - many of whom also happen to speak in verse a lot of the time!) I find his conversations with the young Romeo very moving because of his understanding and his caring. I think we'd all do well to have a Friar Laurence in our lives.

I used the Friar Laurence movement as an organ postlude at church the next day, and I thought it worked quite well. I added a little chime on the last two chords.

My colleague, Paula Pressnell, played a lovely recital the next day showing off her terrific clear and even technique in a couple of classical works. (She doen't show off, though. She's quite humble.) The second half included Brahms rhapsodies which struck me as not very rhapsodic because what seems like a big exposition repeat at the beginning of the B minor Rhapsody! Paula ended our weekend of piano music with a sparkly Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody.

Hearing the three of us on the same piano and in the same hall reminded me of the amazing variety of sounds and affects that can be created with a piano by different hands and temperments.

I'm already looking forward to next year.

Eugene Onegin

We saw Virginia Opera's production of Tchaikowsky's Eugene Onegin last week.

Early on, I was struck by the Mozartean clarity of the ensembles and the almost instrumental nature of some of the vocal writing.

I think some of the best music in the opera conveys sentiments that we seldom hear in opera - domestic sentiments such as the two elderly sisters singing about how habit had replaced joy for them or the scene in which one of the sisters is helping her young charge get ready for bed.

Finally, Pushkin's plot seems a lot like Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice only with a sad ending. Normally, I think about how much life in the past was like living today when I go to the opera. But at Onegin I felt like my society is quite different from the one portrayed onstage. I haven't engaged in class-oriented cultured social dancing or dueling over my honor in a long, long time.

Learning

I've been learning old and new lessons the last several weeks -


Faure studied with Saint-Seans. I think that explains the various piano figurations in the A major Sonata for violin and piano.


Most musicians go through at least two stages if they stick with it long enough:

stage one - you think everything always comes out fine in your performances regardless of your preparation - and you're wrong!

stage two - you think your perfromance didn't sound very good, but when you listen to the recording you discover you were wrong!


Now for something really basic: you need to practice every day if you want accomplish anything.

Tired!

One of the challenging tensions of being a musician is that it reminds you, pretty much on a daily basis, that you are both spirit and flesh.

Music is an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual endeavor.

At the same time, it's physical.

The combination complicates one's life, but I think it keeps you aware that you really are living!

Today I'm facing some fatigue that's standing in the way of me feeling up to par musically. My hands are arms are tired and I'm not reading as well as I normally do. Those things make me feel uncertain at the piano. And because I'm tired, my mind leaps from topic to topic instead of staying on the task at hand.

Work, other responsibilities, changes in schedule, over-practicing - all these things can contribute to a musician being tired.

I almost forgot - bad nutrition, lack of exercise and rest also play a role!

Also, clicking the mouse and staring at the computer screen.

So, I'm going home to take a nap and then do very little until rehearsing tomorrow night.

Recent Highlights

Two highlights of the year so far:

An inspiring weekend working with young students at the Talent Developing Studio in Hanvor, VA. Working on music with these hard-working students reminded me that it's really refreshing and joyful to start with musical ideas and then work on technique to fit those ideas. My tendency is to start with technique in my own work, in spite of my own very wise teacher's admonitions to start with music!

Great art makes us feel things - it challenges whatever numbness we might have. It also gives us a fresh perspective. Tonight I had both experiences as I watched and listened to my colleague's works Windows, Doors, and Metal. The images used in these works were beautiful and suggested many forms and ideas. The music was compelling at times and hypnotic at others. Thank you Dr. Guthrie!

Christmas at Chowan

A little article about Christmas at Chowan

Christmas in Venice

We spent the Sunday after Christmas at Venice Presbyterian Church in Venice, FL.

The service was a service of lessons and carols. We were told that the basic format goes back to Archbishop Benson who chose the readings and so forth back in 1880. Also, the service of lessons and carols has been broadcast on BBC from Cambridge every year since 1928. (This reminds me that I read somewhere that Handel’s Messiah has been performed somewhere every year since it was composed.)

One phrase on the bulletin from Venice Presbyterian refers to the “joy-filled traditional worship style for which VPC is known.” The service we attended perfectly exemplified that statement.

I’ll highlight some of the elements that made the service especially rich for me:

After the reading about the expulsion of humanity from the Garden of Eden, the organist played a setting of a very old and seldom heard hymn, “Through Adam’s Fall All Men Are Cursed.” This gave a sense of connection back through centuries of religious tradition.

Another musical highlight was a piano solo presented by the pastor. He played his well-crafted interpretation with seriousness and sincerity. The trajectory of each phrase was beautifully calibrated to fit into its overall context. His rendering was also characterized by striking shifts of color and very well-projected soft playing.

Just a little later, the choir sang an arrangement of “He is Born, the Divine Christ Child.” In addition to their good blend, the choir added depth to the service at this point with a verse or so in French.

Throughout the service, readers, many of whom were members of the church’s pastoral staff , read passages of prophecy or the details of Christ’s birth from Luke and Matthew. Each reader’s tone matched the respective reading like a glove. One conveyed the sweetness of the manger scene, another, the profound beauty of the coming of Christ, and yet another, the world of the Wise Men.

Regarding these readers, I appreciated being able to match the names in the order of service with the names of the pastoral staff on the back of the bulletin. Coming to the church as a visitor, it gave me a good sense of the warmth and range of some of the folks who minister in the church.

Two of the congregational hymns were “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “We Three Kings.” I thought the organist gave each of these just the right flavor. For the second verse of “Angels” his registration was very reedy and he played a little staccato. This underscored the hardy ways of the shepherds. And throughout “Kings” he maintained a sense of the gait of dromedaries throughout, thus carrying the congregation along on the journey of the Wise Men.

Two surprises (at least to me) were saved for close to the end of the service. The final congregational hymn was “In Bethlehem a Babe Was Born.” This was a new carol to me, and it did a great job of summarizing all the ground that we have covered in the service. The hymn went on to call for contemporary action regarding the ancient message we had been hearing. I also liked it because of a rarely-heard iii chord at the end of the penultimate line that harmonizes the word "forlorn."

The other surprise was the choir’s spirited singing of an anthem entitled “Rejoice with Exceeding Great Joy” by D. Johnson (same arranger as for “He is Born” mentioned above.) This piece was a combination of Bizet’s “Farandole,” “We Three Kings,” and “The First Noel” with quite a few glissandi thrown into the mix. But the great thing about it was the joyful and attitude of the singers! Trumpets and drums couldn’t have added any more life to the scene. The fact that the joy was deeply felt and conveyed with so little inhibition made me notice it and participate in it.
It was during that piece that I really understood the phrase from the bulletin about “joy-filled traditional worship style.”

Finally, after having such a good and uplifting time in the church, we were reminded through a thoughtful benediction and a Bonhoeffer quotation that the world outside the church’s doors is hurting and that we are called to make the joy of Christ’s Kingdom a reality in our world today. The service was bookended by this type of thought - the pastor’s prayer at the beginning provided that same sort of understanding of the context of our worship. We visited the Venice Presbyterian once before and heard the same type of message then as well.

We were very grateful for this Christmastide experience .

Something New for New Year's

Dr. Guthrie e-mailed me this interesting link:

Continuum Fingerboard

Reminsicent of this.

Christmas Cards from Murfreesboro

For any friends who might be reading my blog around Christmas, I'm including a few pictures of our warm and charming surroundings here in Murfreesboro.






This little Christmas tour starts with a scene just outside town.





This is the home of one of our local merchants who sells spinning wheels, looms, and so forth. The children at this house study piano with Kathy.





Here is one of the majestic old homes in the historic district all decked out for Christmas.






The Murfreesboro Historical Association presents a Christmas tour every year, and this year's tour explored some of Murfreesboro's international connections. Thus, the flag of Scotland.





This last photo is the steeple of the Methodist church across the street surrounded by lots of mistletoe. My friend and colleague, James M. Guthrie, is the organist and choir master, and I play there on occasion.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Great Christmas Music in NC

Last week, our church (First Baptist of Ahoskie) held a church-wide party and concert that included mostly lighter selections performed by all the different musical groups in the church. Kathy coordinated most of this music. One creative item was a sing-along accompanied by handbells.

The other two items that really caught my attention were songs I've known for many years but had either never thought much about or have a new take on this year.

"Silver Bells" was the first of these songs. The text in combination with the musical style perfectly situate the song between urban and rural life.

The second song was "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I had been thinking this song was about the most depressing Christmas song, second only to "Shake Me I Rattle." It has always seemed sappy, sentimental, and maudlin to me.

This year, I'm hearing it differently.

The song is really about community and belonging.

Now that both of my parents have passed on, the song has taken on a new depth for me. As I was hearing it in the context of our church - in the context of Christian community - I realized that these people are my community and family now, and may very well be for many years to come. I'm new here, but the time is right for me to grow into this community, to connect, to know and to be known.

Freshmen Devotionals

Last week was our last week of classes and our final devotional was as follows.

Musicians get very busy at Christmastime. There are extra concerts, church services, parties, etc., all of which require music.

Often we hear the complaint that the busy-ness and commercialism take us away from real devotion to Christ at Christmastime.

While the busy-ness of the Christmas season may distract us fom whatever routine of quiet time we may have, I think a healthier and more joyful approach to the situation might be to recognize that all the busy-ness, whether sacred or secular, is a reverberation of Christ coming into the world so many years ago.

Thus, as we go about the myriad of things we have to do in this season, we can engage in each of them worshipfully and joyfully as we remain mindful of Christ's coming that created this cultural rhythm that has endured for centuries.

Freshmen Devotionals

This is the devotional thought I shared with my freshmen music theory class the Monday after Thanksgiving.


There are several things that make our class hard, not least among them:

Meeting at 8 A.M.

Not all of us find theory a natural fit for our way of processing information

And did I mention meeting at 8 A.M.?

These things and others could contribute to us not feeling so grateful at times.



One of my mother's favoerite Bible verses to quote was Psalm 118:24 -

"This is the day the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."


I have often understood this to mean that God has made the day. God has given me time to live. I should be grateful for that time. By itself, the verse seems to say nothing about what I'm experiencing during that time, but that we should rejoice because God has made the time.

I don't think that's really what the verse means in the context of the psalm. Still, I think it is a good thought, and I am more joyful when I think that way. I'm more mindful of God when I have that mindset.

In its context, the verse refers to a day in which God has saved the writer, and we can also be grateful that God is in time with us, redeeming and saving.

Freshmen Devotionals

Our most recent devotional was based on the following reading from John Wesley's sermon entitled "God's Approbation of His Works."

Such was the state of the creation, according to the scanty ideas which we can now form concerning it, when its great Author, surveying the whole system at one view, pronounced it "very good." It was good in the highest degree whereof it was capable, and without any mixture of evil. Every part was exactly suited to the others, and conducive to the good of the whole. There was "a golden chain" (to use the expression of Plato) "let down from the throne of God;" an exactly connected series of beings, from the highest to the lowest; from dead earth, through fossils, vegatables, animals, to man, created in the image of God, and designed to know, to love, and enjoy his Creator to all eternity.


This passage paints a picture for me of how God created us to be:

without any mixture of evil

functioning at our very best

performing our role which is important for all of creation


These three themes could be foundational to a Christian approach to artistic or student work. We need to have a pure devotion to our work. We express that devotion by striving to do our very best. The health of the whole community depends on us doing the best with our part.

Freshmen Devotionals

Today we compared two Genesis passages.

In the first, God created light.
In the second, humanity was told that survival would involve work.

The comparison reminds us that God is different from us in that God speaks and creation happens. There doesn't seem to be a planning or working stage involved. On the other hand, humanity has to work to get from an idea to a product.

As performing artists, we enjoy the moment before the public. But the life of a musician is really much more about daily work that is for our ears only. We should be grounded in that fact and seek to find some fulfillment in that daily toil.

Theory Fun

1.

In my Music Fundamentals class, we have been studying how to generate intervals above and below specific notes. I taught the students that for ascending intervals, they can use an ascending major scale as a starting point. For instance, if they need to determine a major third above G, all they need to do is consult the G major scale and note that the third note of the scale is B. All of the intervals from the tonic up to any other note in a major scale are major, except for scale degrees 4 and 5, which are perfect. Minor intervals are then generated by lowering the top notes of these major intervals a half step.

One of my students started asking questions about generating descending intervals and whether or not some sort of scale could be helpful. After thinking about this a little, we realized (something that is actually pretty obvious but I hadn't thought through before) all the intervals from the top tonic down to any other note in a major scale are minor, except for scale degrees 4 and 5, which are perfect! Thus, a descending major scale can be used as a template for determining descending intervals.

2.

I have one adult student outside the University. She plays for church services, and the focus of our lessons is for her to learn how to enhance her hymn accompaniments through improvisation.

An important skill to develop towards that end is the ability to quickly understand what chords and chord progressions are in the hymn at hand.

As we were analyzing chords in a hymn, we came upon a cadential six-four chord. As many of you know, the naming of that chord is controversial. Some call it "I six-four" since the pitches in the chord are those of a second inversion I chord. Some call it "V six-four" because it has a strong dominant feeling. The problem with calling it that, though, is that in the standard system for labeling chords with Roman and Arabic Numbers for roots and inversions, respectively, it is assumed that all the chords are stacks of thirds. Thus, the bass note of a cadential six-four chord couldn't really be the root of the chord since the distance from that pitch to the next chord member is a fourth and not a third. In addition to that problem, there is already a chord that is labeled "V six-four" without being inconsistent with labeling principles. The bass of that chord starts on scale degree 2, not 5. The phrase "Dominant six-four" is a little better, but it can still be a little confusing as "V" and "dominant" are synonymous when referring to scale degrees and chords (most of the time.) The phrase "cadential six-four" seems to be the clearest description of the chord's funtion and its inversion.

Now for the good part! I asked my student if the chord sounded like it had a tonic, dominant, or pre-dominant function. She accidentally but very accurately referred to it as "Tominant" - tonic pitches with rather dominant function.

Father

My father would have turned 78 yesterday. That means he passed away a little over eight years ago. It's very hard to believe it's been that long.



Last night at choir practice we were rehearsing the old American tune "Hark! I Hear the Harps Eternal." Kathy said we are to sing it on All Saints Day.

Part of the text of "Hark! I Hear..." is:
"Souls have crossed before me saintly
to the land of perfect rest
and I hear them singing faintly
in the mansions of the blest."

That first line made me think of my father. Over the years, my mother highlighted his integrity in conversations with me by commenting on aspects of his personality:
"He doesn't have an ulterior bone in his body."
"One thing your father can't stand for is people being mistreated."



My father loved music, especially the music of the church. The song "It Is No Secret" by Stuart Hamblin played a crucial role in his call to ministry. One of his favorite hymns was "When Morning Guilds the Skies." He chose that as a congregational hymn for many of the worship services he planned.

He grew up in the heyday of the big bands. He really knew the history and output of Benny Goodman and Harry James. He also loved the crooners like Dick Haymes. He even wrote and recorded a ballad on a couple of occasions. It's called "The Moonlight and You" and it sounds a little Glenn Miller-esque. I have the 45s.



In terms of classical music, certain works that I played really captured his imagination:

Debussy . . .la cathedral engloutie

Paganini-Liszt E Major Etude

Ginastera Sonata, First Movement

Liszt Dante Sonata


He liked the image of me as a happy young musician playing the opening theme of Kabalevsky's Youth Concerto.

Debussy First Arabesque was a bit of theme for us - a little bit nostalgic - as it was theme music for a short segement about astronomy that appeared on Saturday TV. After I went away to college, he would sometimes hear it and think of how he and I had often looked at the stars together when I was still living at home.

He also identified deeply and personally with the beginning of Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto. In those opening bars he heard the struggle of a hero and his family facing the stormy opposition of the world and fate.



The second movement of Beethoven Sonata Op. 111 conjures up in my mind my father on his hospital bed in our living room during his last summer. During his mostly unconscious last days it was as though his soul was lingering in the room - not necessarily in his body - maybe up near the ceiling. It is that sensibilty that I hear in the Beethoven: sad, beautiful, questioning, floating, and all about the essence of human identity and existence.



Dad and I were good friends.
Maybe I'll learn Op. 111 for him one of these years.

Freshmen Devotionals

More on music as a family -

Although we may not always feel like it, family members are often the most likely people to "get" us. When things don't work out the way we hoped, when we're irritable, or when we desperately want to be loved, our families (at their best) somehow seem to understand us better than anyone. We may not always feel like that's the case, but when we're far away from them and feeling lonely, we realize it's true.

Sadly, not all families have that sort of connection, but I think it is usually a natural good of being in a family.

Music can provide us a similar connection. Sometimes we encounter musical moods that resonate with our own moods - moods we had previously thought were unique to us. Then we know we are not alone. Others have travelled the same path.

At different times, music can move us from our own conflicted moods to more open and joyful ways of thinking and feeling - just like a good talk with somebody from home.

Olga Kern

Last week, several of us from Murfreesboro drove down to Greenville to hear Olga Kern play a concert at East Carolina University.

In Chopin's Third Piano Sonata she created a beautiful calming effect as she released the intensity of the sound and tempo beginning with and moving into the second theme.

The second half of the concert included Rachmaninoff Second Sonata and Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 with a cadenza by Rachmaninoff. This got me wondering about the Liszt-Rachmaninoff connection. Rachmaninoff studied wuth Siloti, who was a Liszt student.

As I was researching that connection, I came across information regarding Rachmaninoff's burial. He was buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, NY where many other famous people are buried including Anne Bancroft, Tommy Dorsey, Lou Gehrig, Ruth Laredo, Robert Merrill, and Ayn Rand.

Back to Olga Kern, her encores were all Russian, and included probably one of the very best performances we are likely to hear of Rachmaninoff's C sharp minor Prelude, which we most often hear played by high school (or younger) pianists.

Freshmen Devotionals

Most recently, we considered the fact that in Genesis, God is depicted declaring what was accomplished on each day of creation to be good.

Artists, musicians, and poets have typically found inspiration in the created order. The goodness of experiencing nature grounds and heals us. God made nature beautiful, and there doesn't seem to be in reason why it had to be so. In every moment, millions of special, seemingly one-time events happen that can touch us if we are paying attention: the flight of a butterfly, the play of the sunlight, a gentle breeze.

At Chowan, we are blessed to be in an environment in which we have instant access to the beuaty of nature just outside our walls.

Freshmen Devotionals

Today, we continued to explore the ways in which music provides us a family.

Ideally, family and friends are people who will never abandon us. Unfortunately, that's not always the case.

David Dubal once told my class that music will never abandon us. I think this is true in virtually everyone's case. We develop a relationship with music from childhood, and that relationship continues and deepens, if we nurture it, for as long as we live. Family and friends may forsake us, but music will still be with us providing memory, catharsis, and a vehicle for expression. This is one way in which music is a great gift to humanity.

Two New Testament examples:

Paul and Silas had music as their companion in jail.

Jesus, in his most dire hour, quoted a psalm. On the cross, he remembered the words of scripture and found expression in a song.

From Baltimore to Murfreesboro

Night before last, I drove back from Baltimore to Murfreesboro after spending three days in the William Garrison Collaborative Piano Competition. One of many wonderful aspects of the experience was the renewed sense of purpose and belonging here in Murfreesboro. This is home to me now, and as always, I was happy when I drove up the hill and around the curve to see the Murfreesboro skyline (a few street lights across a field.) A startled deer leapt from the roadside, across the ditch, and ran to dark woods.


I learned or re-learned lots of important lessons this weekend.

1. It is very good to view music-making in a broader context than the music itself. Jeff had chosen a set of sacred songs to include in our repertoire for the competition, and the judges chose several of those songs for us to perform. That allowed us to witness to our beliefs and to worship on Sunday morning at the same time we were performing for the judges.

2. Competitions that pit voices against instruments put judges in a tricky bind. Vocal and instrumental music are clearly different genres, are hard to compare and contrast, and many musicians tend to specialize in one or the other.

3. Playing in the competition confirmed, yet again, the importance of balance. From a technical standpoint, I ideally approach the instrument in such a way as to be active, but not to waste energy. That wasted energy can create tension and playing problems. I felt our performances had balance in another way. We maintained technical control while also engaging all of the passion within us to perform. Often, one of these can interfere with the other.

4. Unknowns create tension. Not trying out the instrument in the hall before playing, not knowing who the judges are, not knowing which works they will request to hear: all of these things made the semi-final round very tense.

5. Regarding our repertoire, we learned that the second of Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets probably stands alone the best of the three.

6. The esoteric experience of playing for judges gave new life to my belief in the importance of performancing and the appropriateness of joy and freedom being part of performing in a normal public setting.

7. When you work hard applying all you've been taught, and when you know you've executed your plans well while managing yourself in relation to your environment, then you can have a sense of achievement and pride in your accomplishment that doesn't require affirmation from others.


Things I really liked about the weekend:

Spending three days with my good friend Jeff

Showing him around Baltimore

Seeing the renovations at Peabody

Being warmly welcomed by Mr. Shirley-Quirk and Dr. Falby at Peabody

Hearing Alan Walker's speech and Petri's Ricordanza recording

Visiting with other competitors and Peabody graduates, ushers, Liszt Society officers

Attending Mass

Staying at Ariel and Vivien's home

Thinking of my parents while on a breezy morning walk in the Dechosa's beautiful neighborhood

Ariel's prayers for us that encouraged us to boldly witness

Realizing the quality of colleagues I have at Chowan

Returning home to where I belong

Freshmen Devotionals

Today we read Gensis 1:1-5 - God bringing order to chaos.

The idea that the basis of creativity is the bringing of order goes against the commonly encountered stereotype of artists being disorderly, wild, irrational, etc.

Music students can also make creative works of their lives as they fashion well-ordered ways of working, resting, thinking, and so forth.

Vision

Night before last was my first performance at Chowan. My friend Jeff Prillaman (tenor) joined me for this recital. It went well, and we had a great audience. Also, we continued to experiment on stage with out interpretations and came up with a few new ideas through that spontaneity.

My main post-recital reflection relates to planning.

One of my father's favorite Bible verses was Proverbs 29:18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." It actually continues, "but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." But most often, we hear the first half quoted alone. When you read the entire proverb, it seems that the vision needed comes from God's law.

The name of the newsletter of my father's home church in Durham was "The Vision." When he had the opportunity later in life to name his own church's paper, he named it "The Vision," too.

So I've always had those words in my mind.

For a while, I paraphrased the verse as my own musical slogan "Where there is no plan, the music perishes." That was during the period after I realized that a totally spontaneous and emotional approach to interpretation is extremely problematic. I saw that I needed a vision - a plan - for performing.

I now believe the music doesn't need the interpretative plan to survive, except in extreme cases. The plan is more for me.

Having a specific plan for each passage of each work in a performance provides the performer many valuable things. First of all, you are provided with a narrow and clear path through the performance, and that protects you from many of the distractions - internal and external - that might compromise the focus and meaning of the performance. Second, you are provided a clear way to gauge your success when evaluating the performance afterwards.

Thinking on this issue of planning has brought me to a new thought about the nature of spontaneity. I wonder what the difference is between a spontaneous interpretive decision and a planned decision in terms of the listener's experience. When a critic praises spontaneity, on what grounds does he or she make the judgement that what the experience was a spontaneous happening? Sometimes my spontaneous playing has sounded planned to other musicians.

All of this leads me to yet another question, and it is a question about that seemingly illusive characteristic of performers - charisma. I think our culture tends to think of charisma as something the individual performer possesses. As I write, that strikes me as an odd stance in a mostly relativistic culture. Certain performers demonstrate tremendous charisma, but it is completely lost on some listeners. What are we to make of that?

As I understand them, sounds have absolute qualities related to physics. However, those qualities are perceived differently depending upon the makeup and functioning of one's ears. While I think I hear sounds the way they really are, a whale or a dog may hear very different aspects of those same sounds. The differences in perception exist not only between species, but also within the human race. Ears of different ages hear different aspects of sounds, too. These facts pinpoint the reality that the experience of music at the basic level of experiencing sound may vary widely from person to person, in spite of the absolute nature of the qualities of the work experienced. And these differences have nothing to do with personal preference or culture. They are rooted in absolute physical qualities of the hearing mechanism.

The preceding paragraph relates to my question about charisma in that it touches on the fact that perceptions of the same musical event vary widely from person to person, and that fact is built into the nature of things.

I sometimes pray that my music might be coordinated within God's will to touch specific listeners in the contexts of their lives - that musical experiences might work together with other life events to bring about good in lives of listeners. A listener may need to be musically inspired in a particular way at one point in his or her life but not at another. This need for inspiration has nothing to do with me, and the fulfillment of that need also transcends the score or my efforts.

Thus, I wonder if charisma is not a quality possessed by a performer, but a gift of experience that comes to listeners when they need it. Perhaps that was the way the people who invented the word understood the gift they were experiencing, and therefore created a word that means a grace, favor, a divine gift.

Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti passed away this morning.

I was privileged to hear him once at the Met singing Giordano's Andrea Chenier in the mid-90s. I was struck by two things about him during that performance. The first was the richness of his voice that was not apparent from recordings. He wasn't singing especially well that evening, and didn't seem to be in good voice, but the stunning quality of his gift was still overwhelming.

The other thing was more of a surprise. His persona comes across strongly in videos, but it can give the wrong idea. In person onstage, he had great humility. As I experienced his performance, my sense was that he was concentrating on the same work with his voice as all the other singers were doing with their voices - only his voice shone more brightly, even in that cast of international opera stars.

Freshmen Devotionals

On Mondays, I'm sharing a one-minute devotional thought with my first-year music theory class.

There are at least two themes to be developed in this context over the course of the semester:

creativity

music as a family

Our very first devotional referred to our being made in God's image. My friend Paul Scaringi pointed out to me that, at the point in Genesis at which we learn that we were made in God's image, one of the few things we know about God is that God creates. Perhaps being made in God's image means, in part, that we are creative beings, too.

Today's devotional dealt with one of the obvious things about music as a family. Families are groups of people with which we have meaningful relationships. Music provides us with similar groups of people.

It may be that music draws its practicioners closer together than some other disciplines do. Why might this be? In each piece of music we make together, we experience a life story in miniature: beginning, middle, end, with struggles and a climax, etc. Sharing these compressed and intense life experiences with other musicians can create strong emotional ties between us.

Being in music also gives us a group of people known as the audience. Even though we may not always feel like it, most audience members are on our side. They want to see us succeed and are proud when we do well. That's just the way our biological family members ought to root for us in life, even though not everybody's family always does so.

Music Appreciation: Melody, Harmony, Rhythm

The course I have taught the most is Music Appreciation. Ironically, it also tends to be the course with which I struggle the most. This is partly because, as a music major, I never took a Music Appreciation course. Thus, I don't have personal knowledge of the needs of the types of students who do. I think it rarely happens that the instructor for Music Appreciation took such a course since most of us were music majors.

Another of my difficulties with the course is that I'm not convinced that a course in merely appreciating the aspects of a medium is really meaty enough for college. I have also taught the course as a more sociological exploration of the music world, but I'm not sure that's really what the title of the course suggests. Striking a balance between these two seems ideal.

A third issue is that , as I am not always convinced of any particular approach to the course, I struggle to be fully committed to the project.

The good news is that I think I have struck upon an approach this semester that I believe I will find to be more compelling and meaningful. My goal is to equip the students to recognize the universal application of great music.

I have been led to this new approach by the struggle outlined above, and by the fact that I am now teaching in a Christian university in which I feel more at liberty to explore the spiritual aspects of the material I cover.

For the most part, I'm teaching the same basic material that I've usually taught. Only I'm looking for deeper connections and references to provide the students a conceptual framework for relating to the music, and maybe even growing as people through that relationship.

So far, we've studied the basics of musical organization - two trinities:

melody, harmony, and rhythm;

dynamics, timbrer, texture.

(Musical form is a bigger category in my mind.)

We started with rhythm, which is analogous to the human pulse. Thus, it relates to the physical body and to movement. As long as we are living, there is the rhythmic motion of blood pulsing through our veins. There are poignant pauses in music that make me wonder if the music can go on, and if so, how? Miraculously, the music continues, just as we do. The persistence of life is fundamental and good.

Melody has been described as relating to the human soul, and I would suggest that its twists and turns, its risings and fallings, relate to the state of the soul. Melodies move us mysteriously. It is hard to understand (even for people who spend lots of time analyzing music) why melodies affect our emotions the way they do. I don't want to discount this mystery and the fact the melodies seem to speak in a spiritual way that cannot be approached by mind or body. But, I think it is meaningful that the state of the human soul is often described in terms of human posture. We lift our hearts, or we are down-trodden. As melodies make their journeys, theyfollow a paths of posture that may relate to the various states of our souls.

Harmony has been described as musical perspective. That is, a series of chords often creates a sense of depth. For example, when we hear a dominant chord, we know we are one move away from tonic. I say "move" because perspective is based on location. So on a fundamental level, harmony might be understood as somehow relating to location.

Sometimes we musically move from home and back again. Other times, we think we're going to stop off at home, but suddenly find ourselves in the house next door (deceptive resolution.) Still other times, we end up in another town entirely (modulation.)

That's my new model. It's a work in progress and a subtle revision of other peoples' ideas.

A quick review before I develop these ideas a bit more:

rhythm - pulse, the body

melody - the state of the soul

harmony - location

It seems like that accounts for the basic aspects of human existence in musical terms.

This scheme becomes more interesting to me when I consider the intersections of these categories - and I have to consider those intersections as we rarely encounter only one of these aspects in a piece of music.


Melody and harmony:

The really touching and expressive melody notes tend to be dissonant. Dissonance is a term that really makes the most sense in the context of harmony. Maybe those expressive tones are so touching because they show us the freedom of melody being shackled by the constraints of harmony. This might resonate with the pain of our own coming to grips with limitations and boundaries.

Rhythm and melody:

At certain moments in music, rhythm seems to motivate the arrival of some superb melodic event. On the the other hand, rhythm sometimes seems to be excited by the intensity of melody. Here we might sense the body and the soul acting upon each other. The outcome of that interaction in life can be joy or friction. Perhaps it is in this way that the stucture of music can tell us of the relationship of body and soul in the culture that created it.

LSMF: Ecumenical Reflections

Yesterday was the last day of the final session of this year's Lasker Summer Music Festival. During this session, I was struck and inspired by the integrity with which each participant brought his or her own faith to the festival and by the respect which each participant showed for each other's faith journey.

We share common ground - each of us is a musician and each of us is a Christian. As I have reflected on this common ground this afternoon, I have tried to articulate for myself what it seems to be that we all share in the way of faith - how it is that we might all be called Christians.

Each of us has a redemptive relationship with God through Christ, and that relationship is mediated in large part by the community of Christians across space and time, and by the Bible.

I am reminded of the words of Herschel Hobbs who suggests that it is good for Christians to cooperate on projects across denominational lines whenever such projects do not compromise the consciences of any of those Christians. Seeking to better integrate one's faith and artistic work seems to be one of those projects, and I feel blessed to have been able to work on that with my friends who were in Lasker this week. Psalm 133 is how I feel.

Tonight it's raining in Murfreesboro. It's the first serious rain we've had in weeks. On the eve of classes beginning, it's symbolic to me of the past being cleaned away for a fresh start tomorrow, and of the thirsts for knowledge and meaningful work that are to be quenched as the semester unfolds.

Pianist/Organist

Today,I substituted as organist at First Baptist in Ahoskie. It was my idea. I thought it would be a good growing experience and fun - and it was.

I played organ for chapel and church services for a couple of years, but rarely in a situation in which a very high standard of organ playing was really required.

This time was different. Since I'm a pianist and not really an organist, and I'm accustomed to maintaining a certain professional and artistic standard in my music making, I'm acutely aware of the unknowns I face when I come to the organ:

1. First, there are the pedals, which I've never practiced for more than a day or two at a time.

2. Registration - It's exciting that the possibilities for sound variation are virtually limitless on the organ, but choosing appropriate combinations is second nature only for good organists.

3. Dynamcs - It's really not obvious how much sound is enough or too much, and the acoustics and organ console placement often obscure the actual volume level at which you're playing!

To put it in another way, having a good pianist who doesn't practice the organ play for a service on a fine pipe organ is like having a watercolor artist execute his vision as a granite sculpture which, by the way, he has to chisel with his feet.

After several days of practice and many mixed emotions, I came to grips with my lack of technic and the unknown instrument and parameters. How? Practice.

I think one of the most wholesome things a musican can do is to practice. What could be better for us than to work on our musical skills, especially when we are preparing for an actual musical event that makes our practicing into clearly needful work?

A little advice for others not in my shoes (that is, other pianists trying to be organists for a day or two.) This advice will be obvious, but try to find a way to play the Doxology without pedals, if at all possible. Don't let your pride get the best of you. After all, viewed in a broader context - and I think it also must be really wholesome to try to view our musical work in a broader context - this whole project is an invitation to humility.

This week, I also spent some nice time with organists. One is my colleague James M. Guthrie whose knowledge as a performer of Baroque and pre-Baroque music is as good as anyone working in the field. He's a practicer!

Kathy and I also spent some time with a wonderful couple of organists, Carol and Paul Doyan in Scotland Neck. Mr. Doyan has a terrific plan for performing all of the works of Vierne during that composer's anniversary a few years away.

Welcome to Chowan

We've been in Murfreesboro for a little more than a month now and have easily adjusted to how nice life is here!

Just as I left behind some great colleagues at UR, I have some terrific new collegues here who have helped us to feel very much at home.

The town is of historical interest. It's a very old town, Lafayette passed through here, and the inventor of the Gatling gun and Walter Reed lived here.

Last week was the Watermelon Festival which is a family-friendly event complete with free watermelon, a parade, a 5K race, fireworks, and lots of good food.

This website has links to the university, the historical association, and the watermelon festival.

Hulin Music

Please note:

the name of this blog will be changing soon to hulinmusic.blogspot.com.

UR Music Department: An Appreciation

I wrote the following for the Univerity of Richmond Music Department newletter this summer.

In the fall, I will be joining the faculty of Chowan University in Murfreesboro, NC. I’m taking this last opportunity to write for News and Notes to express my appreciation for the colleagues with whom I have been privileged to work these last seven years in the Music Department at UR.


First of all, I shall always be grateful to the faculty members who voted to hire me, thereby giving me a great place to learn and work, not to mention financial security and health coverage, for the better part of a decade!


Next, there are the many individuals who have contributed to my development as a professional and as a person:

Dr. Anderson who has been a model administrator and mentor

Mr. Becker whose remarkable artistic openness and friendship have helped my developing sense of self and value as a pianist

Dr. Riehl whose impeccable musicianship has consistently inspired me to strive for a higher level of music making

Dr. Longobardi whose ability to be nurturing and challenging at the same time sets a goalpost for my own classroom teaching

Dr. Fairtile whose joy in hard work and willingness to support and enhance the faculty’s efforts brightens up any trip to the library

Dr. Cable whose concern during my mother’s final illness was comforting to me

Dr. Pellegrinelli who took the time to be a friend and whose intellect has taught me to think better

Dr. McGraw who knows how to be super-competent and easy-going at the same time

Dr. Broening whose quiet commitment to family, teaching, composing, and Third Practice is amazing

Dr. Kong who leads the way as a musician who is totally invested in the work of department and in the welfare of her colleagues (I’m especially grateful for the many times she has recommended me for pianistic work in Richmond.)

And Kathy Panoff whose behind-the-scenes work and advocacy for the arts are so important

Finally, there are the many adjuncts that do so much of the musical work of the department. I appreciate the camaraderie and performances we have shared that have been both entertaining and enlightening.

Thank you all for many good years – years I will remember dearly.

More Richmond Goodbyes

As I wrote several posts back, many events are rounding off my Richmond experience meaningfully and connecting back to my arrival in town or to my arrival at Woodland Heights.

Yesterday, I turned in my keys at UR, which was a little sad. Then I did some research in the Virginia Baptist Historical Society library on campus. There I ran into Dr. Slatton who took Kathy and me out to lunch after church when we visited River Road Church when we first got into town.

Last night, Kathy and I went to a Richmond Braves game with our friend from the neighborhood, Diane. The Braves lost to the Durham Bulls which is what I think happened at the first game we attended when we first moved to Richmond.

Tomorrow is our last Sunday at Woodland Heights Baptist Church. I'm playing the Mark Hayes arrangement of the Doxology tune. I think that wasthe first thing I played at Woodland Heights.

At Woodland Heights I have tried to develop the idea of a church musician's work being a larger work than a single hymn or the events of a single Sunday. Musical and improvisatory themes or approaches can be developed over a season such as Advent or over years of music ministry. So I think it's appropriate from an artistic standpoint to end my time here as I started it. This encapsulates my presence and praise over these several years in this place.

One problem with this approach is that one seldom knows how long one will be serving in a particular church or what direction the life of the church and its music might go. Thus, long-range artistic planning of this overall work maybe be complicated in terms of consciously inflecting structure. (Maybe this also makes the work more like improvising than composing on both long-range and local levels.) But the ebb and flow of the cycles of the church year provide climaxes and other shapes to be articulated. And I think it makes sense that the liturgical calendar would supercede an individual's trajectory in terms of corporate worship.

Part of the appeal of playing for church services is that the musician gets to return again and again to the same group of listeners. At times I have found this very liberating. It frees the musician to provide what is best suited for the moment and the day without feeling the pressure to try to demonstrate everything you can do one any one occasion. People get to relate to many facets of the musician's gifts over a sustained period of time, and I like to think that gives them a richer experience.

I think I didn't play the printed ending of the Doxology arrangement the first time arond at Woodland Heights. I substituted something a little more calming so as not to disrupt the flow of worship by drawing the congregation into the mood to comment on my playing by applauding. Tomorrow I will probably play the printed ending as it is our farewell Sunday and that might give a sense of resolution from that very first time as well as feeling more complete so as to convey that our work here is done.

More on Spoleto

Lest anyone misread my remarks about serious music in the last post, hearing an orchestra full of brilliant and enthusiastic young performers under the baton of an uncompromising conductor in works like Strauss Till Eulenspiegel and Dukas Sorcerer's Apprentice was great fun. Hearing them make the sounds they were making, and with just the right attitude, was, simply put, a great time.

On another topic, but also fun, I noticed that in both the Verdi Requiem and in Dukas there are moments in which the physical actions demanded of the performers to play their music illustrate what the music is about - a sort of visual onomatopoeia or text painting (which term sounds visual but isn't!)

I've noticed this phenomena in a number of piano pieces such as Liszt's Mazeppa, in which the pianist looks like a galloping horse or a man tied to a running horse as in the piece's story. An even more extreme example might be seen in a live performance of Henry Cowell's Tiger, in which the pianist looks like a tiger pouncing on its prey as the pianist performs violent and unrelenting tone clusters with his or her forearms.

In Verdi, the moment is the playing of the two bass drums during the Dies Irae. The Physical effort required to produce the desired sounds at the precise off-beat times, never fails to give the percussionist the appearance of frantic physicality. I say it in this way because it is not an expression on the face that conveys that mood - I was sitting too far away to see facial expressions. It's the dramatic and rapid movement of the entire body that gives a sense of the wrenching and ultimate drama of judgement being portrayed in the music.

In Dukas, the various seesawing bowings of the violinists and violists picture the rising water of the story unexpectedly and exquisitely.

Serious Music

We returned from Spoleto in Charleston today. Last night we heard a concert that included Mahler Fourth Symphony.



Hearing that concert and another of Verdi Requiem the night before got me thinking about orchestral music and some important points regarding my experience of it.



1. It is serious music. I think this term is often misunderstood in our contemporary culture. The term is not meant to compare the music with other musics in such a way as to say symphonic music is serious and other musics are silly. I think the term means that the nature of classical symphonic repertoire is serious. Its themes involve serious issues of the self, life and death, myth, and ultimate reality. Its modes of developing these themes are also characterized by rigorous rhetoric and imagination. Its greatness is that it is not a smooth presentation calculated for quick response. Instead, it is a complex and profound argument that proceeds with significance. It is plumbing discussion as opposed to the sound bite. It is a sun or a moon that continues to rise in the hours following the concert.



2. It is mysteriously grand. After hearing the Mahler Symphony, I knew that the music was bigger than my thoughts about it, or than any thoughts I've read about it. To really engage with the work is to grapple with Mahler's worldview as best we can know it. But more than this - even when we think we know some ideas the music is about, we are still to digest the eloquent things Mahler is saying about his subjects and the beautiful, multi-faceted way in which he says those things. Even beyond this (or before this), hearing the symphony is a profound human experience in an of itself. The life and richness of its depths become more apparent as we realize that we don't know all that the work is saying.



3. It is needed. So many aesthetic experiences today are packaged in such a way as to narrowly direct our thoughts and shorten our attention span. The symphonic works of Mahler and others challenge us to take a serious look at our selves, our beliefs, and our world. Added to this, the opportunity to hear live symphony performances is only taken advantage of by a small percentage of the population in most American cities with orchestras. And in many parts of the country, live orchestral music may only be available two or three times a year at best. It is a different experience from listening to the orchestra on recording, and I believe more people could feel more rooted if they regularly attended orchestra concerts.



Depth is what I think the symphony has to offer - knowing yourself and the human condition. The symphony may seem foreign, but that may be because of the way our culture has conditioned us, not because of who we are deep inside. Maybe the symphony is boring, but I'm wondering if "boring" is sometimes code for serious, and we just aren't always so well-equipped to deal with the value of serious experiences. It may seem impolitic to suggest that this music lifts people, but its culture and composers may have designed it to do so. The case for such a view has been made from history.

Reviewing Richmond

We have lived in Richmond seven years now and are preparing to move in a month.

Interestingly, I have had several musical opportunities that are helping me to review the work I've done here.

Last week, I was invited back to Collegiate School, a private school where I taught for several years when we first came to town, to provide a yearly evaluation for a number of the piano students. It was an inspiring day filled with bright young people. There were two brothers with great attitudes who played a ragtime duet from memory. There were several students who had not studied more than two or three years who were making great strides and had prepared lots of repertoire. And there was a brilliant student who really grasped and conveyed the exact character of the accents in the classical era work she was playing. That really impressed me. I also enjoyed lunch with my former boss in the fine cafeteria where I used to eat (including the giant bowl of graham crackers that's always available for an easy dessert.)

On the weekend, I accompanied a senior recital at Collegiate which brought back more memories of student recitals, playing for baccalaureate, and gigs across state. One such gig was accompanying a senior in a scholarship competition in Bristol which was a very long drive, especially after the competition.


This Sunday, I had the opportunity to play for Pentecost Sunday service at Grace Baptist Church. Kathy and I were members there for a couple of years. The congregation is very open to creativity and the arts. I played Chopin Revolutionary Etude for the prelude as the piece seems firey and windy - appropriate qualities for Pentecost. Accompanying the congregational singing for the service also gave me an opportunity to encapsulate much of what I have come to view as relevant to the art of hymn playing while living in Richmond in a final service with that church community. This involves some (hopeful tasteful) text painting, a sense of tension and release following both the text and musical sense of the phrases, ideas about tempo change between verses relating to the text, ideas about the relationship of the pianist and the congregation regarding tempo (sometimes I follow, sometimes I push), and the possibility of binding together numerous musical events in a service by incorporating textures or figurations in the hymn accompaniments that appear in the other service music.

Finally, tonight at choir rehearsal we worked on Ken Medema's "To This Altar" which I first learned at Woodland Heights Baptist Church during the last several years with Kathy leading our choir. It's a very moving piece that touches me everytime we rehearse it. Medema describes it in this way:

"It is about bringing our life problems to God's altar for healing."

The text is broad yet somehow specific (maybe I'm saying that it is deeply thought out and felt, and thus has deeply human and universal application.) Whatever my day's experience is, it finds a healing and warming context in this worshipful anthem.

Competition Advice

I'm entering a competition with a singer friend this fall. It has been years since I've entered a competition. Last time, I learned all I needed to know through mail and phone calls. Today, most of the information is available on-line.

There is at least one drawback in our current, seemingly convenient situation. The design of some websites, as in the case of this competition, can make it hard to find out everything you need to know. Ironically, it seems like a lot of energy was put into getting all the information onto this website, only the information a participant needs to know is spread throughout the site instead of being in a single participant-friendly location and format. I've returned to the site again and again to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Thus, my advice to anyone entering a competition in this day and age: you might need to visit multiple pages of a site to get all the information you need. Don't assume you've got it all. Look thoroughly and don't hesitate to e-mail questions to the appropriate folks.

Gottschalk and Gershwin

This week I had the fun of performing excerpts from several Gottschalk works for a documentary on Cuban jazz that should be completed in November. Gottschalk travelled in Cuba and wrote some works that contain quintessential rhythms that have come to be associated with jazz and permeate much of the music we hear today.

In addition to practicing the excerpts, my preparation also included finding shoes and cuff links that looked like something Gottschalk might have worn.

I coached the excerpts with Dr. Mike Davison, one of my colleagues at UR who is an expert regarding Cuban jazz. He suggested that I play more percussively as Cuban music is very percussion-oriented. At the same time, Gottschalk was a 19th century parlor pianist known for his polish and charm. It's interesting to conjecture what type of performance would have amounted to flamboyance , exoticism, and visceral appeal in that world of poetry and highly melodic music.

Sometimes we classical musicians assume that a jazz influence is somehow a sign of primal and raw expression. But I think the composers who incorporated touches of jazz into their concert music were viewing jazz as modern, sophisticated, and suave as often as they were viewing it as being expressively primal or raw. I wonder if some unexamined, inherited prejudice may be at play that robs us of recognizing a wider range of expressiveness in this music.

Last night we went to Richmond Ballet's performance of George Balanchine's Who Cares? based on the music of George Gershwin and premiered by the New York City Ballet in 1970 . The ballet injects the rhetoric and forms of a traditional ballet with the jazzy flirtatiousness and glitz of a 1920's Broadway show -
a prime example of the neoclassical impulse.

Change of Address

This little announcement may be important to those of you who read this blog periodically. I'm thinking of changing its name and address to hulinmusic.blogspot.com.

If you look for the blog in a few weeks and can't find it, try that address.

Rocks Crying Out

Yesterday I listened to my last day of music juries as a member of the University of Richmond faculty. One student who was in my theory class this semester played the first movement of Brahms E minor Cello Sonata. This student, Heather Stebbins, is very bright, and in addition to being a budding cellist, is also a gifted composer.

As I listened to her consistent tone, her variety of vibrato, her unfolding of the details of the score, and noted her grasp of the function of each line she played, I realized that her instrument was singing.

As I am quite accustomed to instrumental music, I often miss the miracle of a performer causing inanimate material stuff to sing. In this performance, wood and strings, metal and bow hair, lifted up their voices in a way that was mysterious, poignant, and longing. I thought of the strangeness of the musical saw - a pedestrian tool that emits an ethereal tone - and I realized that the same extraordinary dynamic exists whenever instruments sing.

Perhaps this is a good part of the creativity of the performer - breathing elegant speech into soul-less materials, much like God breathing life into soil and making humanity.

Maybe instrumental music is inherently worshipful as musicians and instrument makers ornament God's creative work through their endeavors. They cause wood and metal to cry out, just like the stones Jesus said would praise him if the people didn't sing.

Cage: 4'33"

My friend Bill Vickery recently shared with me an article about Cage's 4'33" from the Wall Street Journal. I teach the piece in my classes and here's part of what I teach about this piece.


The piece is deeply artistic in that it is a multi-layered reflection of musical culture and of the composer's thoughts. Cage made no decisions regarding what sounds would be heard during the performance except that the performers wouldn't play or sing anything. This brings up many philosophical questions regarding traditional ideas about composition and performance:

What should the composer control?

What does a performer do?

What is the role of the audience?

How do these ideas shape our expectations and experience of musical events?


In addition to these philosophical questions about the nature of art, there are also religious issues at play. Cage contemplated some sort of silent piece that could have been called "Prayer" years before he wrote 4'33". Also, Cage was involved with Zen Buddhism. Perhaps 4'33" is a secularized invitation to the meditative experience that he encountered in Eastern religion.


Having performed the work on several occasions for my students, I can confirm that the experience is akin to the entrance into meditation. First there is some awkwardness and discomfort at the unusualness of the situtation. Audience members are focused to take in a performance, but the performance involves little action and no traditional musical sound. This awkward stage may include some giggles and restlessness. Soon these give way to a calmer atmosphere, and listeners become aware of everyday sounds that they usually tune out - the ticking of a clock, the bussing of the lights, a car passing. Little by little, it seems that listeners become more personally focused and become aware of their own breathing and so forth. This self-awareness can be very calming, and we rarely achieve that sort of focus and tranquility as a group in our society.


4'33" presents another quandry.

What's the next step for a composer who has written a piece with no notes in it?

Cage continued down his path by writing aleatoric music - music in which chance procedures replace the composer's choice regarding various musical elements. 4'33" is part of that larger movement, and that larger movement also expresses the Buddhist ideal of removal of one's will from the situations one faces in life.

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.

Westminster Choir College Performance

March 16 at 7:00 PM the Westminster Choir of Westminster Choir College will present a concert at Huguenot Road Baptist Church, co-sponsored by the Da Capo Institute.

Admission is free and the concert will be a treat that includes a wide array of music from American spirituals to works by contemporary Estonian composers.

For more information about this performance and other Westminster Choir College-related events in Richmond next week, click here.

Return to Blogging and Schumann's Waldszenen

My mother passed away in July of 2006 after a difficult three months in the hospital. Since that time I haven't really had time or desire to blog. At one point I was pretty sure I'd stop altogether, but I'm back in the mood now.

Two things put me back in the mood. First, my friend Jeff Prillaman designed a new website for the summer music festival with which I work and included the blog address in a prominent location. That got me started thinking that I should not give up on the blog. Second, yesterday I came across the blog of Ben Witherington who is providing what I think is an excellent reponse to the Jesus Tomb book and upcoming film. Dr. Witherington's blog affirmed for me the value of this medium and the quality of work that can take place through it.

Now, on to music.

My pianist friend Samir Vugdalic is working on Schumann's Waldszenen. The set includes movements with titles such as "Friendly Landscape" and "Hunter in Ambush." Thinking of these pieces got me thinking about the changing contexts of classical music. I assume that the people who originally heard and enjoyed these pieces knew a good bit about rural life and hunting from first hand experience. Maybe they were wealthy and hunted for sport, or they were poor and hunted for food. I don't know any of this for sure, but it seems likely that Schumann's first listeners would have at least been more in touch with these aspects of life than the majority of the modern classical audience members who are mostly urbanites.

I'm interested in playing some of these pieces for contemporary rural audiences to see what insights they have into the music and what enjoyment they might have of it.

Another friend, Robert Johns, helped me develop another example of meanings or perceptions of music changing depending upon context. Light shows, electronic sounds, and jarring percussive effects are experienced by many listeners as being completely normal at a rock concert. The same listeners perceive those elements as being unmusical and weird in the context of an avant-garde art music concert. Somehow the avant-garde-ness outweighs the familarity and coolness/neatness of the technological media.

(By the way, these seemingly hypothetical listeners are actually numerous classes of music appreciation students I have taught over the past few years.)

David Esleck Trio at Dogwood Dell

If you're looking for a nice night in Richmond this weekend, I'd recommend David Esleck's jazz trio performance at Dogwood Dell on Sunday (June 25) from 7 to 9 PM. They will be featuring special guests Margaux Lesourd, vocals (Margaux is a University of Richmond student)and William Hobbs on bagpipes.

If you want more information on Esleck's trio, you might want to read my review on this blog of his concert at Dogwood Dell last June.

Westminster Concert Bell Choir

On June 1, I attended a great handbell concert. The performers were the Concert Bell Choir from Westminster Choir College, and there performance was by far the best handbell music-making I've heard. They play the widest range of bells and choir chimes of any ensemble today, and the level of musicianship is very high as most of the players are talented young musicians with good hopes of pursuing careers in music after their fine training at Westminster.

Here are some of what I felt were the highlights of their perfomance.

In Cathy Moklebust's "Five Inscriptions" - During the movement entitled "I Console the Living" there was an accumulation of bell sound that was reminiscence of a comforting caress somehow symphonically applied.

An arrangement by Moklebust of "Greensleeves" featured choir chimes (instruments invented to introduce young children to skills needed for playing handbells) introduced me to new sound experiences - primarily hearing that a wide spectrum of choir chimes played simultaneously and in a flowing figuration can take on the character of a pipe organ's sound as these instruments do not stress the attack on each sound and have a very sustained quality instead.

Next was a performance of Bach's "'Little' Fugue in G minor." Here the musicality of the performers was most brilliantly demonstrated. One of the main difficulties of playing bells really well is that the musical lines are frequently broken up between numerous ringers. Thus, everyone needs to know exactly how his or her bells fit into each phrase. Bach's fugue involves many different lines at the same time, thus increasing the difficulty of a thoughtful and well-executed performance. Certainly thanks to the good guidance of their conductor Kathleen Ebling-Thorne the ringers rose to the occasion.

The climax of the program was Arnold R. Sherman's "Song of Peace." Commissioned after the Oklahoma City bombing, but not completed until after 9/11, this work begins with a dissonant and jagged version of the famous "Dona Nobis Pacem" tune that is often sung as a round. Eventually, this dissonant treatment gives way to the ensemble prayerfully singing the tune as a round as they accompany themselves with the bells. I cannot begin to say how deeply this work and this experience state the problems of, and desires for, peace - problems and desires that flow just below the surface of our day-to-day living.

Two other works illuminated the nature of musical expression - During Julie Stitt's "La Paix" we could see the stately dance of a bass line as the men playing the low bells performed. Similarly, but with a different affect, we could see the coy danciness of a famous jazz melody in the motions and interactions of the ringers as they played Paul Desmond's "Take Five."

All of this repertoire and more can be heard on their new CD entitled "By Request."