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.