A mighty Fortress, and an old Church

Here is my improvisation on “Ein feste Burg” (A mighty Fortress) from this morning’s service, with annotations to give an idea of what goes on as a person improvises.

First part: the Tune, G major. In the second time through (an octave lower, the second phrase of the tune, at the 53 second mark), I played a clunker of a note in the right hand accompaniment. To make it work, I continued in that “mode” by playing it again several more times. This is something that happens a lot in my playing, and I think in the work of most improvisers.

1’26” mark: Move to the Dominant (D major). Sometimes the best way is to just go there without transition, and that is what I do. Still going according to plan.

1’54” mark: Repeat the end of the tune as transition into:
2’19” mark: Contrasting section – tune in A dorian, slow. Most often when I am “learning” the tunes through the week, I try them out in various modes (like this); sometimes it is quite interesting and makes it into my Sunday playing.

3’48” mark: Development, building up with the goal of returning to Tonic.
4’08” mark: Uh-oh… I almost slip into “Sine Nomine” (For all the saints!) I get it turned back into the final phrase of the tune I am supposed to be playing.

4’24” mark: Tonic (G major). Tune in left-hand octaves, long notes. If this were an organ improvisation, it would be on the pedals with the big reeds, a toccata. In essence, this section is Species Counterpoint, four notes against one. I try to keep the right hand figuration related to the final phrase of the tune.

5’35” mark: Big arrival on the last note of the tune; the piece is done. Unfortunately, it is still two minutes before the hour. I carry on with cadential material to about the 6’00” mark. Still ninety seconds too early.

What to do? I cannot keep pounding away like this; I have already done it probably four bars beyond what was fitting. Nothing to do but taper it down.

6’15” mark: A key point in bringing it down; slow the motion by half, from eighth notes to quarters, combined with a ritard. The material is still based on the final phrase of the tune – which is one of the most memorable phrases in all of music, and essential to the character of the tune.

6”32” mark: the first Rest in the entire piece. About time! Most improvisations (definitely most of mine) are characterized by too much sound, not enough silence. For some reason, it is very hard to introduce Rests into the texture.

In retrospect, this passage could be viewed as a fulfillment of the slow section in A dorian, now in the home key of G major. This certainly was not a conscious thought at the time. I think that a lot of subconscious work goes into an improvisation, and it often leads to good results. One must have a plan – as I did, except for the coda from 6’00” onward – but there is always more to it than what one intended.

7’00” mark: Time to wrap it up – the B section, playfully (to escape from all that seriousness from about the 2 minute mark onward).

7’30” mark: Done! Final cadence (possibly too cute; I’m not sure if this works or not). Right on the stroke of 9:00 am, just like it is supposed to be.
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Last Sunday, we had a Jazz Eucharist. One of our church members, John Rapson, is a jazzman and composer; he and two of his students played all of the music for the service. John wrote parts for me, as well. Here is one of the pieces from the service, “Maz-Tan Elaborated,” in honor of the percussionist, Maziar Aghvami. He is from Iran, a graduate student in (I think) engineering, and Rapson’s piece is based on a sample of Iranian music that Maziar sent him.

I post it here as an example of the pipe organ in a jazz context, where I think it can be very effective. Note that this YouTube clip is NOT public; it is “unlisted.” I am only the least of the players in the ensemble, and it is not for me to post it into a more public form. Listen to it from the link, but please don’t share it.

For much of the piece, I am doubling the saxophone, sometimes an octave higher. In one passage (starting at about the 3’30” mark), he and I trade off four-bar improvisations. This is common for jazz players; not so much for church organists.

The photos in the YouTube clip are of St. Thaddeus Church (Qara Kelisa), in Iran. Locals claim that the oldest part of the church was built in 68 A.D. by St. Thaddeus, one of the Twelve, and is the oldest surviving church structure in the world.

There is a stunning night-time photo of the church in the Wikipedia article that I did not see until I had made the clip; here it is.

Some thoughts on Counterpoint, and a website

There is a fine website devoted to organ improvisation: www.organimprovisation.com

It is curated by Glenn Osborne, a fellow graduate of Westminster Choir College, and (from his audio/video clips) highly skilled in this discipline.

His current blog essay (May 27, 2016) describes his visit to WCC for an alumni reunion and their impressive graduation ceremonies, with a suggestion – practicing improvisations with a metronome to ensure a steady beat and tempo, just as the organist at WCC used the metronome [in live performance!] to control tempo during the long entrance procession.

I need such work as this.

Osborne’s focus this spring has been Counterpoint. Like me, he places high value on the classic treatise Gradus ad Parnassum (J. J. Fux).

Often, he puts a twist on it, such as this (from April 11, 2016: “Introducing Dissonance,” with my comments)

I don’t necessarily remember where I got the idea, but one of the foundational ideas of the instruction I received in improvisation was that there are no wrong notes when improvising. [Cassi’s comment: I first heard this from Gerre Hancock, and in general it is true. But not always.] Why then do some notes sound wrong? … I believe the simple answer is that these wrong notes make a change in the level of dissonance. [Cassi again: this is an essential concept for making an improvisation sound like a unified piece – establish a level of dissonance, anything from pure Common Practice to late Romantic chromaticism, or any number of twentieth century models. Then maintain that style throughout the piece, using slight changes in the level of dissonance to help delineate the form. A chord or progression of chords that is outside of the given style will sound (and be) "wrong."]
……………
The study of counterpoint introduces dissonance in a very systematic and controlled way. First species allows no dissonance. In the language of Palestrina, this limits us to thirds, fifths and sixths using notes within the mode. If we wish to develop a more modern sound, what if we did first species using only seconds, fourths, and sevenths?

What a terrific idea! Treat any intervals, such as the seconds, fourths and sevenths that he mentions, as the “consonant” intervals, with thirds, sixths, octaves as “dissonance.” For practice purposes, of course: there are good reasons why in Real Music it is the other way around, with unisons, fifths, thirds and sixths as consonances. But such work would increase one’s control of dissonance in a non-traditional tonal context.

One could spend a lot of time working in this manner, and it opens lots of related possibilities. As Mr. Osborne writes elsewhere, Fux works within the traditional church modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian). But there is no reason the tools of Species Counterpoint could not be applied within any other harmonic context – Messiaen’s Modes of Limited Transposition, for example.

Later in this essay, Osborne writes:

In my first days as a student, I spent an entire year (or two) on two voice counterpoint working slowly through the levels of dissonance and species.

So did I. I was not formally a student by then, but I was seeking a path and found the going equally slow. As I have written elsewhere, I never made it past two-voice counterpoint. I hope I can make further progress someday.

From the Gradus (as quoted by Osborne in his essay for April 4, 2016):

Aloysius [the fictional Teacher in the dialogues] – But are you not aware that this study is like an immense ocean, not to be exhausted even in the lifetime of a Nestor? You are indeed taking on a heavy task, a burden greater than Aetna.

This is both a challenge and a joy. With music, as probably with any worthwhile human pursuit, there is no end to it. There is no point where one can look back and say “I have mastered this.”

The best we can hope for is to say: “I am making progress.”

"I don't have time" is, however, not a valid excuse, though I say it often enough to myself and others. The limits to our time are one of God's more subtle gifts; they force us to make choices. That, in turn, demonstrates what is important to us. If you will, God "puts us to the test" in this manner, to see how we will use the time He gives us. (from this essay)

Bernie Sanders, revisited

It has been a long campaign.
When Senator Sanders announced his bid for the Presidency more than a year ago, I wrote this:

I have, once or twice, spoken well of former senator H. Clinton in these pages. In my opinion, she did good work as secretary of state [I would no longer characterize what she did to the people of Libya and Syria as "good work"] and in some of the other gigs on her resume (the United Nations, U.S. Senate, First Lady). And there was a time when I really liked her husband. I voted for him twice, with enthusiasm.

But since those days, in my opinion Bill and Hillary have sold out to the Wall Street bankers. There is probably not a better political mind on this earth than Bill C.'s, and perhaps the two of them recognize that H. cannot be elected without large piles of corporate money.

Since announcing her candidacy, Hillary has sounded like a progressive. In my humble opinion, she is lying. As president, she will be no more progressive than President Obama. For all his talk of "hope" and "change," he likewise has been a subservient tool of Wall Street.

But Bernie Sanders? He is the real thing.

It is not, in truth, altogether “done.” Ms. Clinton still needs all of her “superdelegates” to fulfill their pledges to vote for her at the Democratic Convention next month, for without them – that is, the smug, comfortable political establishment – she does not have enough delegates to be nominated. I would be surprised if Senator Sanders can get any of them to come over to his side.

The Sanders campaign has sent daily e-mails to their financial supporters – the millions of people who have given small contributions, on average less than $30. From today’s e-mail, following last night’s results:

You ask anyone running for office what they hate most about it, and I guarantee that virtually every single candidate will say that it's raising money.

The way that you have helped me run for president is absolutely unprecedented. I get to talk to voters, while my opponent has to talk to donors.

The candidates we're endorsing for other races are seeing similar results. We funded state legislative candidates' entire campaigns through one email. We completely transformed several congressional races because of your generosity….

What we are proving… is that it is possible to take back our country from the billionaire class. It is possible to stop millionaires and billionaires from buying our democracy. And we can do it $27 at a time.

I have supported some of these candidates with small donations, alongside my financial support for Bernie Sanders. I think that this may be the direction that Sanders wants to take the progressive movement that he has kickstarted.

Our state, Iowa, had a primary election yesterday. Not for president -- that was all done at the Caucuses -- but for the U.S. Senate and Congressional seats, and local offices. For the three open seats on the county Board of Supervisors, there was a “Sanders slate” – three candidates who had been Sanders precinct captains in February. Two of them were elected as the Democratic nominees.

It is a start.


I do hereby pledge that I will never vote for Hillary Clinton.
Not even if Sanders calls on his supporters to do so.
Not even if my vote were the deciding vote that gave the election to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump strikes a responsive chord in me, with his scorn for political correctness and establishment politics. But I do not sense that this responsive chord is of the Spirit; quite otherwise, when one considers some of his views.

I will consider voting for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein. She appears to be a good and honorable person, and my political views align with the Greens, more so than with the Democrats (especially as they are nowadays).

Most likely, I will write in “Bernie Sanders.”
I think a lot of people will do that.

I was bitterly angry this morning as I read the news reports, especially Sanders’ loss in California, and the gloating commentaries in the mainstream media. A lot of Sanders supporters are angry. Many of them were already alienated from the political process, but saw this as one last chance to have a voice in the manner in which America is governed.

And then I looked across to the photo of Robert E. Lee that is on my desk, a photo taken after he had suffered a defeat far worse and more final.

I think it is the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the Country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony. It is particularly incumbent upon those charged with the instruction of the young to set them an example. (from a letter to the trustees of Washington College, where Mr. Lee was serving as President after the War)

And I looked at a quote on a magnet attached to my filing cabinet, from another great leader whose cause fell to defeat and whose people continue to suffer from it:

Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children (Sitting Bull, 1877)

Wednesday morning is one of the times appointed for the Great Litany. Thus, I sang it at the end of Matins, as is my custom. This day, I appended the Supplication (BCP p. 154), which is “for use… especially in times of war, or of national anxiety, or of disaster.”

I do not think that this is going to end well.

We humbly beseech thee, O Father, mercifully to look upon our infirmities; and, for the glory of thy Name, turn from us all those evils that we most justly have deserved; and grant that in all our troubles we may put our whole trust and confidence in thy mercy, and evermore serve thee in holiness and pureness of living, to thy honor and glory; through our only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p. 155)