Easter Day 2013

I wish I could write about this week, this weekend.
I have tried, sitting here at the computer for the last hour as I ate my dinner.

I would like to write about the Great Vigil, and its hour-long telling of the Stories in semi-darkness with candlelight, of God looking at all He had made and seeing that it was Very Good, of the dove returning to Noah in the evening with an olive leaf in its beak, or of Abraham and his son, his only son whom he loved, and how God himself provided a Lamb for the offering. Or of the Children of Israel seeing the Egyptians dead on the seashore.

Watching a young family in the front row, it hit me how this service ought to work: their little girl was drifting off to sleep as one Story followed another, one Psalm after another. This is perhaps as it ought to be for a child, awakening later when all of a sudden it is Easter, all is alight, and the organ and congregation are roaring away as loud as they can go. If the child comes back the next year, and the next, these stories will eventually be woven into her soul. She will know in her bones that this is a night like no other.

In this service, the Gospel takes its place among these Stories, and feels very much at home in their context. As it is presented in the Lectionary, St. Luke's account of the Resurrection is to me the least satisfactory. With St. Matthew, we have the angel sitting on the stone after rolling it away (one of my favorite scenes); St. Mark has its raw unfinished urgency; St. John is as much about Mary Magdalene as it is about Jesus, and has the first-person account of the author himself looking inside the tomb and believing (20:8). But St. Luke? The pericope ends with St. Peter going home, puzzled (24:12). This is frustratingly incomplete, and misses what I think is St. Luke's point (24:36-39). One must read the entire chapter in which he builds up to this, the appearance of Our Lord in the upper room. On Easter Day (and at the Vigil, in the Revised Common Lectionary), we should, in my opinion. We spent ten minutes with Genesis 1; can we not do the same with Luke 24?

But all this is insufficient.

I could write of my own shortcomings. With the organ recital coming up on Wednesday, I practiced all day Saturday, and found that by the time of the Vigil, I could barely stand up. I had planned to stay at the conductor's stand throughout the Office of Readings, and I simply could not; I had to sit down during the Lessons. I should have had the nap that I normally take on Holy Saturday.

I could write of the choir, and its fine singing, and its patience with all that plainsong -- not just the psalms for the Vigil, but large quantities of chant for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

But I am tired, and I must go home.
And I must be back at the church tomorrow morning; there is another week of church bulletins to get out the door, and the Widor to play on Wednesday. Three days from now. And choir rehearsals that afternoon, and another Sunday after that, with Choral Evensong. I should write about that, too, and how I have tried to prepare the music for that weekend alongside this week's music and the Widor. I think I am on the right track with it.

Last night, I wanted the strength of the Story, of the great overarching Story that includes all of them that we heard at the Vigil, from the beginning of the cosmos to the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ and his continuing presence among us in Bread and Wine, to carry me through the next year. I saw as soon as the very next service, Easter Matins, that it need not; there is Manna at every stage of this journey.

When I am weak, He is strong.

Ye choirs of new Jerusalem

We are singing this standard of the Anglican repertoire for the Great Vigil of Easter.
We will not sound like this recording by the choir of New College, Oxford.

From the February issue of The American Organist, the "UK Report," a regular (and very fine) column by Sarah MacDonald, writing about English choirs and Vibrato (pp. 66-67):

Since both age and technique are known to play a crucial role in the distinction between a natural vibrato and an undesirable warble, it is necessary to consider the normal make-up of an English choir's soprano section to ascertain why the latter is not perceived in the sound. In the majority of England's best-known choirs, the soprano sections consist of young, individually trained singers: boys or girls in cathedral choirs; those in their late teens/early 20s in mixed Oxbridge choirs; and young professionals in the best-known specialist choirs.

In our adult parish choir, we currently have one female singer who is (I think) in her early twenties, and another who is perhaps a bit over thirty. The others are well beyond that, as are nearly all of the men. So far as I know, none of them have had professional training as choral singers.

James Jordan in his book "The Musician's Soul" (G.I.A. Publications, Chicago, 1999) has a chapter on "Mimetics and Envy... The Major Obstacle for the Creative Artist" (chapter eight, pp. 96-122). Jordan lists the forms that Envy takes for musicians, and at the top of the list: "The perfect sound" (p. 109). The conductor perhaps has a sound like that of the New College choir in his head from listening to recordings, and when the parish choir does not sound that way in rehearsal, it can get ugly, as Jordan describes. The director might take it out on the choir in anger, belittlement of the choristers, scapegoating (picking out one person on whom to blame the deficiency of the sound or lack of musicianship). Or he might take it out on himself through self-mutilation of various sorts. I have done all of these things, and still do.

Rather than envying the sound of another choir, one must be entirely present with the singers that are before you in the rehearsal room, just as they are. Through everything that happens in the rehearsal and in the services, one must help them sing a little better, know a little more about music, the liturgy, themselves, and the Lord whom we serve. One must love them.

This is not easy.

Love, care, humbleness, and selflessness must be a constant during rehearsal... First and foremost, you will love yourself and your gifts, recognizing and accepting your musical limitations with love. You also, at all times will be humble and selfless, and place your own ego in a place that does not infect or interact with the music-making process... You will constantly self-empty, love, and care for others. This self-emptying process is known as kenosis. (Jordan, p. 116)

Kenosis is, of course, the path to which our Lord called us when he said "Take up your cross, and follow me." It is the path of Conversion of Life, a path which, if followed to the end, leads to sanctity. And above all, it is the path that He walked (Philippians 2:5-8).

So, what do I discover when I set foot on that path in connection with "Ye choirs of new Jerusalem?" I discover that despite what I might think at first, we shall sing it well, very differently from the New College choir, and in some ways better. The reason is precisely that we are not vigorous well-trained young elite choral singers like the New College group. They do a very fine job of the piece, but these young people have not seen as much of life as the singers of our parish choir. When our choir is at its best, when they connect with what they are singing, one hears their decades of life experience in the sound. One hears their love of the Lord, a love that for most of them is strong and mature. One hears their struggles, their limitations, and one hears the grace of God present in their -- our, for I must include myself -- our weakness.

I must help them reach that point when they sing, a place for them as well as their conductor of kenosis, of union with Christ.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

It applies to organists, too. One might detect a hint of Envy in my essay from Sunday, wherein I wished that I could play like Daniel Roth (or, in the background of that, play an instrument like the Cavaille-Coll at Saint-Sulpice). Yes, I can and should (and do) admire him, and I can be spurred to work harder, and learn from him. But I must in the end play like myself, not like an imitation of him, or of any other musician, and I must do it at the considerably more modest pipe organ to which God has called me. The same kenosis is required at the organ bench as in the choral rehearsal, making myself small so that the Music may be large, and that which it serves.

Joseph and his Lady

a short story for the Feast of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I wrote this in 2008 for my old LiveJournal page. In that year, with an early Easter, both today's Feast and that of the Annunciation were moved until after the Octave of Easter, and the two feasts were back to back. This will not happen again until 2035.

Today is, however, during Lent, as is usual for this Feast. We said the Stations of the Cross a little while ago, as we do on the Tuesdays of Lent. Joseph did not live to see that darkest of days, or what ensued. But perhaps he knew, from the Angel's words, that something like this would come. "And thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins" (St. Matthew 1:21). Not "be the Messiah and kick out the Romans," not "Sit on the throne of his father David," though he will do that in due time, as the Angel had told Mary; No: Joseph's message was that this child would "save his people from their sins." And "without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22; cf Leviticus 17:11). Joseph knew this.

------------------------------------
Joseph and his Lady

"Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife....”

“It must be after midnight,” thought Joseph, wide awake on the sleeping mat. “And I used to sleep like a rock. Not any more.” Worry and fear . . . anger, too, at first, when Mary arrived back from her cousin's. Then, the dreams . . . “Fear not,” the angel had said. “Easy for him to say,” Joseph thought.

Tomorrow they had to start for Bethlehem. “Too many soldiers,” he thought. “They will be everywhere, with the taxes and all. And she is almost due. How will she make it there and back?” Baby or not, there was no choice. They had enough time to take the journey as gently as could be done, which was not saying much; it was a hard and long road. Joseph was worried. Why had God trusted him with something this important?

Mary jerked in her sleep. “Probably the baby kicking,” Joseph thought. He lay his hand on her belly; still sleeping, she put her hand on his. If he understood rightly, all the promises of God were wrapped up in this little child, not yet born. One suspicious soldier, one stroke of the sword, and it would all be over. Wasn't God taking too much of a chance by doing it this way, making this child, this Jesus of his, so vulnerable, and entrusting him to a teenaged girl and a carpenter?

Joseph had no doubt that Mary was up to the task. She had been in his home as his wife for about six weeks now. Every day, he saw what a marvel she was. He loved her: the way she smiled at him over breakfast, the way she sang to herself as she worked, the way she made jokes about having to go draw water by herself at noon to avoid the other women. For anyone with eyes to see, she was filled with grace; there was no other way to describe it. “But me? Plain old Joseph? How do I fit in to what's going on?”

“It is well that no one knows about this,” he thought. Joachim and Anna? Mary had tried to explain it to them, and Joseph had told them of his dream in hopes of backing her story. They were relieved that Joseph remained willing to take Mary as wife, but it was obvious that they did not believe. From what Mary said, her cousin Elizabeth and Zachariah knew, and had reasons of their own to believe that God was at work. But that was all. So far as the rest of the world was concerned, Joseph and Mary were no more than a scandal, with the child's murky parentage a juicy bit of gossip.

He snuggled closer to his wife. Her hair smelled of olives and sunshine. “Let it remain a secret,” he thought. “God is doing a mighty thing, right in front of everyone, and no one realizes it. That may be enough to get us through this in one piece.”

Recital time (or "Why on earth did I suggest this?")

I am scheduled to play the Symphonie Romane of Charles Marie Widor as the final installment of the Lenten concert series at the local Congregational Church (for those of you who are local, it is Wednesday, April 3, at noon). This is not a Lenten piece; it is an Easter piece, based on the Easter Gradual chant Haec dies. If I am ever to play it at a liturgically appropriate time, this is it: the Wednesday of Easter Week. It seemed like a good idea last fall when I suggested it to B.D., the organizer of the series.

There are, however, other things to do between now and then.

As anyone could have told me would happen, I did not get any work done on the piece in the fall. Or in January. Or in February (though I did work out the fingerings that month, in bits and pieces over several weeks around other tasks). I finally began the First Workout on March 8, and completed my preliminary work at the piano yesterday morning. Tomorrow morning I take it to the church to work out registrations, and then (because of rehearsals for other concerts in the series) I have no further time over there until Holy Week. That should be interesting.

I played the Symphonie Romane once before, back in about 1990. That was the one concert of my career that was broadcast on the regional public radio station and reviewed in a newspaper (the reviewer panned it, more because of a Daniel Pinkham piece and what he called a "cheesy" arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon for flute and organ. He hardly mentioned the Widor). But in those days, I did not write in the fingerings.

This time, I did. I then gave the long fourth movement (the hardest) a thorough First Workout at the piano, which took two days and about eight hours, then a second workout the next day (four hours). My experience seems to indicate that this second workout is almost as important as the first, and best done as soon as possible in order to more firmly establish the musical lines and the fingerings in the mind and body. The drawback is that, by the time I did two workouts on each of the four movements, it has now been a long time since I have so much as looked at the fourth movement. I hope that it has stayed with me.

Why the piano? I learned this lesson from the Liszt piece that I played last year. With nineteenth and twentieth century scores that are pianistic, it is effective to do some work on them at the piano. It strengthens the fingers and builds security in a way that playing them at the organ does not (especially an electric-action organ such as the one on which I will be playing it).

It has been a delight to live with the Widor intensively these past nine days, working on the upright piano in the choir room or (sometimes) on our beloved Steinway L up in the church. I just hope I can get it ready in the time that remains, hardly more than a fortnight.


Here is a link from the fine website "Organs of Paris" to information about the Church of Saint-Sulpice and its organ, where Widor was organist for sixty-four years (!). It is one of the finest instruments anywhere, a five-manual Cavaille-Coll still in essentially original condition. Widor was "seduced" by this instrument (his words), which was only eight years old when he began playing at the church, and it shaped all of his composition for the organ.

And here is a YouTube demonstration of the instrument with an improvisation by one of its two current organists, Daniel Roth:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

One can see why Widor was seduced.
(One also sees how we get "organists' posture," as I noted in a recent essay! On a five-manual instrument, it is a long reach up to the top keyboards.)

Notice that there is no combination action, such as modern electrified instruments have. When Mr. Roth wishes to change the registration, he has to find a free hand. In this demonstration, he is always looking about for the next set of stops to pull or retire, and of course always thinking ahead. I can hardly imagine how the great blind organists such as Louis Vierne were able to manage at such organ consoles, which they most certainly did. I love the buildup in parts 3 and 4 from soft strings to full organ and back down.

Would that I could play like that!

As I have perhaps mentioned, I have attended exactly one national convention of the American Guild of Organists: the Detroit convention of 1986 wherein Messiaen's Livre du Saint Sacrement received its first performance. At that same convention, the week featured a series of masterclasses in improvisation. I wished to learn the art (I still do have that wish), and ended up in Daniel Roth's class. Many of the others in the class have since gone on to be world-class organists and improvisers, and already had considerable background. Not me; I was a rank beginner, entirely over my head -- so over my head that I learned very little that week. But Mr. Roth was gentle with me, the lowliest dunce in the class. When I played for him (stumbling all over an attempt at a simple A-B-A andante), he gave me good beginning advice and directed me to Marcel Dupré's book for further study. I am grateful to him for that.

St. Gregory the Great

Today is the Feast of St. Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome from 590 until his death on this day in the year 604. He is important to me because during his tenure, he saw to it that the then-amorphous body of Latin liturgical plainsong was organized into the structure that survives today in those places where the Proper Chants of the Mass are sung [this is the traditional view (for example, see here); many scholars disagree, arguing that the codification of the Chants happened about a century later.]. Also, he is partly responsible for the Sunday Lectionary and the Collects of the Day. When Charlemagne asked Pope Adrian in the 780's to send him a copy of the Roman service book, what arrived was the Gregorian Sacramentary, which was then used throughout the Holy Roman Empire and beyond. It is said that Gregory "collected the Sacramentary of Gelasius in one book, leaving out much, changing little, adding something." (John the Deacon, 8th c., in his "Life of Gregory;" quoted from Wikipedia s.v. "Sacramentary")

As one of the greatest of the Pontiffs, it is fitting to invoke his prayers as the College of Cardinals sit in conclave to select a successor to Benedict XVI.

I am thankful that Gregory saw fit to send missionaries to the English people. For all its faults (and there were many) the Roman Christianity that spread from Canterbury tied Britain into the larger Christian world.

Here is an English translation of the Gradual, prepared by Bruce E. Ford. It happens that we are singing a number of the Holy Week chants from this book this season. The document is a 415 page PDF file.

Here is a medieval drawing of Gregory with the Holy Spirit singing the chant in his ear as he writes it in a chant book.

And here is a painting of him by Rubens.

St. Gregory left the Church in better shape than he found it. May we seek to do the same.

The Blue Psalm Book, and a Hill of Difficulty

The nine Old Testament Lessons of the Great Vigil of Easter (BCP p. 288-91) should be read in semi-darkness, recounting the mighty Acts of God in preparing the way of salvation. Each Lesson is followed by a Psalm or Canticle, silence, and a Collect.

When I came to my first Easter at my current parish, I devoted many hours to compiling the Psalmody for the Vigil into a blue folder for the choristers, using the fine resource of plainsong Gradual Psalms then published by the Episcopal Church Publishing House and based on the Lectionary printed in the Book of Common Prayer. I thought that this would keep the choir from having to shuffle loose pages while holding a candle, and save confusion for years to come. I have called this resource the Blue Psalm Book.

We used these books for perhaps two years until a new Rector was hired, who replaced most of the Psalmody with hymns. We were permitted to sing one Psalm at the Vigil, no more, and the Nine Lessons were reduced to five.

He has now retired. The Interim Priest, a thoroughly fine clergyman, has encouraged me to restore the Psalmody to the Vigil, and we are reading seven Lessons as a step toward the proper Nine.

But I learned this week – after distributing the Blue Psalm Book on Wednesday and explaining to the choir what we planned for the Vigil – that the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music has other ideas.

They have, with the blessing of General Convention, replaced the BCP Lectionary with the Revised Common Lectionary. It was optional for some years and became mandatory as of Advent 2010. But they did not tie up the loose end of rewriting the Holy Week services elsewhere in the Prayerbook. The SCLM now “recommends” that we use the RCL lessons for the services of Holy Week, with the clear intent that this will become mandatory as soon as possible, pursuant to Resolution A-059 at the 2012 Convention, noted in the linked media release.

Most of the Lessons are essentially the same, but several of the Psalms have changed entirely. When I sat down this afternoon to work on the bulletin for the Great Vigil and encountered this, it was a hard moment. I do not have to start from scratch, for there is a resource available with the RCL Gradual Psalms, prepared by Bruce E. Ford and published on CD-ROM by Church Publishing. I thought about printing only the Psalms that have changed and having the choristers slip them into place in their books. Then I thought about one of our older altos, and how confused she would become over this.

There is no way around it; we must scrap the old Blue Psalm Books and start over. This evening after I finished the bulletin (a five-hour job), I printed twenty-five copies of the sixteen pages of Psalmody from the CD-ROM.

I am sad about this. I am worried, too. In the Sunday Eucharistic propers, the RCL often includes lengthy selections from the Psalter. In my opinion, this is not appropriate for the Eucharist. And for the Vigil? We now have to do all of Psalm 19 after one of the Lessons, and Psalms 42 and 43 combined after another, and most of Psalm 136 after another (I am glad that they at least skipped over the part about Sihon King of the Amorites and Og the King of Bashan). Sixteen pages of Psalmody. I worry that the choir will balk; I worry that the congregation will balk, especially in this first year when we are attempting to restore the Liturgy to the manner in which it is outlined in the Book of Common Prayer. Do they not consider that people are actually going to sing all of this stuff, and how long it will take? Perhaps not; I do not think that many Episcopal choirs still sing the Psalms at the Eucharist, or at the Great Vigil.

But obedience to the duly constituted Authority of the Church (I hesitate to call the SCLM a “magisterium”) is part of my Duty. Murmuring and backbiting are Not Appropriate.


This afternoon and evening have thus been a Hill of Difficulty for me (I have been reading The Pilgrim's Progress this fortnight). But I must consider two things: First, our work as choir and clergy and congregation this Easter is akin to that of godly Hezekiah and the Levites in his charge, who cleansed the Temple of filth and observed the Passover: “for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem” (II Chronicles 30:26). One of the mottos I hang by my computer is II Chronicles 29:11 – “My sons, be not now negligent: for the LORD hath chosen you to stand before him [Hebrew: “before his Face”], to serve him [“to perform the service of the Sanctuary”], and that ye should minister unto him [I would translate perhaps as “belong to him as ministers”] and burn incense [i.e., the offering of Prayer and Song].” Today is a day when I need that admonition, and the reminder of what an honor it is to participate in the restoration of the Great Vigil, the most important liturgy of the year (to say nothing of the ongoing Levitical ministry of Music in the House of the Lord to which the Lord has called me). I must not shy away from the work this involves.

The second thing: our Music this morning was good. The youth choir sang at the early service – most of them arriving on time at 8:00 am on the morning of Time Change, a dark and rainy morning no less. The 8:45 congregation sang the Taize song “Jesus, remember me” with a beautiful light transparent sound. And at the late service, the adult choir did a splendid job on the Psalm appointed, a long passage from Psalm 32.

I have not been playing Preludes during Lent. But today the adult discussion group met in the Church, and (as is their custom) ran over time, almost up to the 11:00 service time. There were a few worshippers in the church, trying to focus and pray and prepare, while the last people from the discussion group (most of whom had attended the earlier 8:45 service) stood around continuing their discussions. I sensed that I had to play something to give them a hint to move their discussion outside to the Narthex, and help provide a gateway into the upcoming Eucharist for the little handful of worshippers. Thus, I improvised, partly on our Anthem (see below), and partly on the opening hymn, “God of the Sparrow.” It turned out better than it should have, as I had not prepared.

For a postlude, I played the Bach Fugue on a Theme of Corelli, BWV 579. It is a remarkable piece, which I think fit the quiet sense of this Fourth Sunday in Lent and its Lessons very well. I am linking to a performance of this by Ton Koopman, a fine organist, but I played it in a much quieter manner, and disagree with his more outgoing interpretation. Still, Mr. Koopman's performance can give you a sense of the piece.

But the best part of the morning was the choir's singing of the Vaughan Williams song “He that is down need fear no fall.” Again, I cannot find a YouTube version that does justice to it, so I will close simply by giving the text from John Bunyan, which (in the Pilgrim's Progress) the Shepherd Boy sings in the Valley of Humiliation.

He that is down need fear no fall,
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his Guide.

I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much;
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because Thou savest such.

Fullness to such a burden is,
That go on pilgrimage;
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.

Stand up straight

[As some of you know, I had a blog on LiveJournal before I moved here to Blogger. Some of the essays from those days might be worth reprinting, as I mostly have a different group of readers nowadays. Thus, here is one from 2008:]



“Stand up straight.”

Great advice, but how do you do it? Consistently, and not just when someone reminds you to? How do you do it when our culture and educational system conspire to take the excellent posture that most young children have, and turn it into round-shouldered, stooped-over adulthood?

I blame my bad posture on several factors.

-- I am nearsighted, and spent my early years reading intensively with my “nose in the book,” almost literally – without glasses, I have to hold the page about four inches in front of my face to read it. One can either hold the book up, or slump over it on the desk or table. I did the latter, until getting eyeglasses around age ten.

-- I am tall; that means that fixtures such as kitchen counters and work tables are almost always a little too low for comfort. It is easier to slump a little bit and get down to the level of the counter rather than reach a little further; the un-slumped distance to the counter is a bit further than comfortable visual focus, as well. It also means that when one talks with Short People, one feels uncomfortably tall and tends to slump a little closer to their level. I suspect the opposite is equally true, for one more often sees Short People with excellent posture than Tall People.

-- I am lazy and un-physical by nature: a bookworm and music geek, most certainly not an athlete.

-- Finally, I am an Organist. “Organists' Posture” is notorious. At first, it comes partly from slumping back to see if your feet are in the right place. If one plays a three-manual instrument, as I did for many years, the reach up to the top keyboard tends to make one slump into it. Finally, one's feet are not firmly planted; generally, they aren't planted at all. This leads to a variety of compensatory adjustments of the torso, most of them bad.



Some years ago, Mrs. C. got tired of nagging me to Stand Up Straight. She learned that there was a teacher of the Alexander Technique in town, and told me “It's either him or the chiropractor in a few years.”

The teacher was based in Richmond, and travelled around the Commonwealth of Virginia and East Tennessee, teaching lessons in various small towns once a month. That is not an ideal way to learn the Technique, but it was all that was available. I worked with him for several years, and it changed my life. I am sure that long before now, probably before I was fifty, I would have been in chronic back pain, like a great many people of my age.

The Alexander Technique boils down to three things:

Neck free
Head forward and up
Back lengthen and widen

By mentally encouraging your body in these ways, the spinal alignment improves over time in a natural and balanced way. Similar work can (and should) be done with other bodily parts, such as arms and hands, jaw and facial muscles (especially for singers and actors). But “Neck free, Head forward and up, Back lengthen and widen” are the keys.

During an Alexander lesson, the practitioner puts you on a table and does some gentle adjusting, to help the body get the feel of proper alignment. I had the good fortune to have one lesson at my church, where we spent the whole hour with me on the organ bench and he helped me find better ways of approaching the instrument physically. One learns the Alexander lay-down exercise, which is a way of helping the body remember good alignment. While laying on the floor, one goes through the mental process: Neck free, Head forward and up, Back lengthen and widen. It is invaluable.

All in all, my Alexander training was a Good Thing, and I recommend it to others, and not just musicians. I think it can help just about anyone, unless their posture is already so perfect that they don't need it.

But for me, Alexander was insufficient. I had heard mention of Pilates, and took notice when the current RSCM curriculum, “Voice for Life,” recommended it for singers in their teacher's manual. About a year and a half ago [that is, sometime in 2005], I happened on a Pilates book on a clearance table at a bookstore, and bought a copy. Since then, I have attempted to teach myself Pilates from the book, I think with success. Around here, Pilates training is too pricey for me to afford. Also, Pilates has the image of being a “girl” thing, or for men who are “sissy.” Real Men don't do Pilates, or yoga, or Tai Chi, or any such thing. They lift weights, or do martial arts, or compete in triathalons.

I could add that many of the Real Men that I have known are more likely to be sprawled on the couch, swilling Budweiser by the sixpack and playing online computer games. They are likely to be overweight, hypertensive, diabetic, and afflicted with back and joint problems by their mid-fifties. Pilates would do them a world of good.

The ingredient that was missing for me from Alexander, as I learned once I started Pilates, was sufficient strength in the core muscles of the torso to maintain good posture, and to maintain stability in the abdomen and shoulder girdle while doing things like playing the organ. Pilates is a way of developing that, as well as working on flexibility in the lower back and hips, which I badly needed.

On the other hand, Pilates, in my opinion, lacks sufficient awareness of the alignment of the neck and head. “Neck free, Head forward and up” help make it possible to do the Pilates exercises in a healthier way than I think would happen without that awareness. It does for me, at least.

Practitioners of both Pilates and the Alexander Technique sometimes tend to imply that their respective disciplines are complete cure-alls. They are not. But they are, I think, important parts of an all-around regimen of physical fitness, one that includes aerobic work, strength exercises, and stretching, along with good diet and getting enough sleep.

I am a better organist, thanks to Mr. Pilates and Mr. Alexander. I am more aware of my physical alignment as I play, and more in control of how I am playing. I am healthier, too.

Indeed, a word of thanksgiving is in order. At age fifty-something, I am the healthiest and strongest that I have been in my life. This is mostly because the first half of my life was completely wasted in these matters and I was thus starting at a very low level. Nonetheless, my basic fitness and health are good. None of this is my own doing; it is a gift from the One who made us. The time will come when these things are gone; they could disappear in a moment. But so long as we can, we ought to keep the body he has given us in proper order as best we can, and use it to be about our Father's business.

That relates to an aspect of exercise that sometimes troubles me: it seems terribly self-indulgent to spend hours out of the week doing Pilates, or bicycling, or lifting weights (yes, I do a bit of that), or otherwise pampering myself, while there is work to be done. Exercise can, I think, become self-indulgence. It then becomes part of the broad way that leads to death. If you wind too much of yourself up into your body's health and fitness, you will despair when it decays with age or sickness or accident.

Nonetheless, exercise is part of what we ought to do as stewards of what God has provided. In moderation, it is a worthwhile use of our time.

[Thus ended the essay. At the distance of five years, I would add these points:
- Both Pilates and the Alexander Technique remain important to me. Their benefits have continued to grow. They have made me a better singer and (hopefully) choral conductor as well as organist
- Now that my age is more like "almost sixty," I am neither as healthy nor as strong as I was in 2008. But I remain in basically good health, for which I am grateful. And, as I said before, it could all disappear in a moment. "Memento mori," one of our young choristers (age eleven, or thereabouts) wrote on the whiteboard last Wednesday. "I'm learning Latin," she said.]