May God’s peace and blessings be with the members of the Red Army Choir, the Alexandrov Ensemble, who died in the airplane crash over the Black Sea on Christmas Day. They were doing their duty: flying to a Russian military base in Syria to sing for the troops on deployment there.
One of my friends, who I think still reads these posts, does similar work as a musician in the U.S. military. It is important work, and not sufficiently respected in parts of the civilian musical world. Well, all of the military musicians of our country, and other countries, have my respect for what it is worth.
There are several video tributes to the Alexandrov Ensemble on YouTube. Here is a brief one, from what I think is a Russian television network. They are singing a patriotic song, "The Red Army is the strongest” with video of what I suppose is a May Day military parade in Moscow, followed by what is probably a folksong, “The Road.” Lest some find it jingoistic, it is simply part of what such an ensemble does, much like the Army band playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" at a White House event, or the military band playing the National Anthem in front of Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Christmas Message last weekend.
For a fuller sense of the choir’s work, here is their final concert, at the Bolshoi Theatre with instrumental ensemble and folk dancers. This is very fine choral singing, as one would find from equivalent U.S. choirs. Listen especially to the somewhat quieter songs starting at about 13’50” into the recording; it is a good way to remember these choristers.
It is my hope that President Trump might find a way to build peace between our nation and Russia. We have much in common, and many common interests in the world.
However that turns out, I hope that I might meet some of these choristers someday on the other side of Jordan, and that perhaps we might all sing together at the last, all of our divisions put aside forever.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Angels and the Song
In his discussion of the birth of Christ, Benedict XVI quotes St. Luke 2:12-14, the angels appearing to the shepherds. Of these verses he writes:
In another context, I wrote elsewhere that the angels help us sing; it works both ways, for we help them sing, too. Without our very human song – and, for that matter, the songs of birds, the great whales, and all other forms of song from every living creature in its proper manner – it would be incomplete, the “glory of the great joy” would be diminished.
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I love this little book by the Holy Father, Pope Benedict, the third of three volumes he wrote on Jesus of Nazareth.
On another topic which arose here in a previous essay concerning the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Benedict writes of the Virgin Birth. After discussion of the “extensive exegetical debate” (p. 46) concerning Isaiah 7:14 and St. Matthew 1:22-23, he concludes:
According to the evangelist, the angels “said” this [v. 12]. But Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is actually song, in which all the glory of the great joy that they proclaim becomes tangibly present. And so, from that moment, the angels’ song of praise has never gone silent. It continues down the centuries in constantly new forms and it resounds ever anew at the celebration of Jesus’ birth. It is only natural that simple believers would then hear the shepherds singing too, and to this day they join in their caroling on the Holy Night, proclaiming in song the great joy that, from then until the end of time, is bestowed on all people. (Joseph Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI], Jesus of Nazareth: the Infancy Narratives, p. 73-74)“The speech of angels is actually song…” what a wonderful description!
In another context, I wrote elsewhere that the angels help us sing; it works both ways, for we help them sing, too. Without our very human song – and, for that matter, the songs of birds, the great whales, and all other forms of song from every living creature in its proper manner – it would be incomplete, the “glory of the great joy” would be diminished.
----------
I love this little book by the Holy Father, Pope Benedict, the third of three volumes he wrote on Jesus of Nazareth.
On another topic which arose here in a previous essay concerning the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Benedict writes of the Virgin Birth. After discussion of the “extensive exegetical debate” (p. 46) concerning Isaiah 7:14 and St. Matthew 1:22-23, he concludes:
Is what we profess in the Creed true, then?—“I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God… [who] by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary?”
The answer is an unequivocal yes. Karl Barth pointed out that there are two moments in the story of Jesus when God intervenes directly in the material world: the virgin birth and the resurrection from the tomb, in which Jesus did not remain, nor see corruption. These two moments are a scandal to the modern spirit. God is “allowed” to act in ideas and thoughts, in the spiritual domain—but not in the material. That is shocking. He does not belong there. But that is precisely the point: God is God and he does not operate merely on the level of ideas….
Naturally we may not ascribe to God anything nonsensical or irrational, or anything that contradicts his creation. But here we are not dealing with the irrational or contradictory, but precisely with the positive—with God’s creative power, embracing the whole of being. In that sense these two moments—the virgin birth and the real resurrection from the tomb—are the cornerstones of faith. If God does not also have power over matter, then he simply is not God. But he does have this power, and through the conception and resurrection of Jesus Christ he has ushered in a new creation. So as the Creator he is also our Redeemer. Hence the conception and birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary is a fundamental element of our faith and a radiant sign of hope. (ibid., p. 56-57)
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Chronicles of Advent, Part Two
Thursday: a Sabbath of Rest
From my arrival home on Wednesday, shortly after midnight, to arising on Friday morning at 3:30 is a bit more than twenty-seven hours. I sleep for twenty-three of them, arising only for two meals and the Daily Office.
It is not enough.
But it is a start, and I am grateful that on the Sabbath, there is no shame in sleeping all day. It is harder every December to get through it. And it is to some degree my own fault. Last week, I desecrated the Sabbath by working; I had to cover for the rehearsal of a children’s choir for its concert, staying until they were done and securing the church, and in turn I stayed up late for said concert on Friday, around 10 pm before I left for home. I did have a day off on Monday, but as I wrote in the previous essay, it was entirely devoted to errands, grocery shopping, and cooking – and again a late night, so that I could serve a proper dinner to my wife when she completed a hard shift at her job.
It is never a good idea to desecrate the Sabbath.
Friday: Crunch time
I am in the darkened church by 6:30; it is not at all clear to me how I can squeeze in sufficient practice today and tomorrow.
I hesitate; there is no time for the piano. Not with all of that Bach staring me in the face. But I remove the cover from the Steinway, raise the lid, and begin. Just twenty minutes today, but it is good that I begin in this manner; as it did on Wednesday, it sets the spiritual context for the day’s work. And it is time to be working toward tomorrow’s early service.
Some years, there is time for a short piano prelude before the 5 pm Christmas Eve, the service with the largest attendance of the year in this parish, with youth choir and children’s pageant. Some years, I am scrambling around until the last moment and there is no prelude. And in any event, no one listens; it is typically a large, talkative crowd. For the years in which I have played, I have never prepared anything. This year, I will give at least a little thought to it:
D major, the dominant of the opening hymn, and based on it – “O come, all ye faithful,” Adeste fidelis. I make a beginning… then comes Stille Nacht – still with wrong notes in the tune. As a coda, a quiet first line of Antioch, “Joy to the world.” I am in tears.
Over to the organ. I work on the Bach Variations until the 10:00 pageant rehearsal, and for another hour in the afternoon before the 3:00 liturgical rehearsal. It is not enough.
Christmas Eve: Something old, something new
Very likely, Old Bach could improvise two-voice counterpoint as easily as most of us play scales. He could surely weave it around a chorale tune in the pedals. Probably, he could improvise something like the First Variation: the chorale in the pedals, a delightful little canon at the octave in the manuals.
But even Bach probably could not improvise something like the Fifth Variation – an augmentation canon. The two voices begin together and are identical, except one goes half the speed of the other, and of course the chorale is there, too, in the pedals.
I wrote somewhere that in his mature organ works, there is hardly any virtuosity for its own sake. But he was proud of his contrapuntal skill – rightfully, for no one before or since has matched it. In this sense, the Fifth Variation, quiet and beautiful as it is, is a place where Bach is showing off.
But when he was young, Bach reveled in his keyboard virtuosity. I am learning his youthful setting of “In dulci jubilo” (BWV 729), written when he was at Arnstadt and in his late teens or early twenties. It is an interesting pairing with the Variations, which were written near the end of his life; “In dulci jubilo” is exuberant, full of energy and delight.
It will be even more interesting if I can actually play it. I fingered it last Sunday after the youth caroling, and worked on it at the piano at odd moments through the week; its first proper workout at the organ is today, 2:30 pm on Christmas Eve. I work at it a little too long, and the choristers are arriving for their 4:15 rehearsal before I have set up the choir room for them.
There is time for a piano prelude, almost ten minutes of it; I play, not well at all. At least no one is listening, so far as I can tell. The liturgy goes well; the youth choir does very well, especially with their two movements from the Ceremony of Carols (though afterwards, a parishioner compares us unfavorably with the recording he listens to every year by a well-known British boy choir. He is right; we are not at that level. But we are here, and that other choir isn't.) I put things away, and it is back on the bench; a second workout on “In dulci jubilo,” plus the hymnody for the Midnight Mass, and the fourth and fifth Variations.
And it is time for another service; the adult choristers begin arriving for their 10 pm rehearsal. Many years we barely can field a choir for Midnight Mass so I have learned to select easy music for the service; this year, there are fifteen choristers.
Jean was at the earlier service, singing with the youth choir and assisting; she returns for the late service and turns pages for the Bach Variations. There are places that do not go well, but it is not for lack of preparation – the mistakes are “new” ones, all of them at places that had been trouble-free all week, and the difficult Third Variation goes very well. The mistakes are possibly from fatigue, for I have been on the bench a long time today, since 8:00 this morning with two half-hour breaks for meals. That is too much to expect to be fresh and play well at the end of it.
But the choir sings well, the hymnody goes well, and the “In dulci jubilo” postlude mostly goes well – in that case, the one place where I went astray was indeed due to lack of preparation.
And it is done; Advent is over.
If the Lord wills, I hope to play the “In dulci jubilo” again, perhaps next Christmas. And I would love to play the Canonic Variations again; I had hoped that this second playing, two years after the first, would be better than it turned out. It is great music, some of the best that we have from this greatest of composers, and I do not think that it is often played, especially with the congregational singing of the chorale. It was good to live with it this week.
Afterword: Know the Tune
Bach is always a teacher. Even in the most abstract of his late works -- and the Canonic Variations belong in this group, alongside the Musical Offering and the Art of Fugue -- he is always pointing the way, for those who somehow make it this far up the path. Beethoven, for one; it would be hard to imagine the Grosse Fugue for string quartet, or for that matter the great fugal passages from the Ode to Joy and certain passages in the late piano sonatas, without Bach's Art of Fugue.
The context of the Variations as they come to us in Bach's revision is what we now call the Leipzig Chorales, his last exploration of how an organist (or any musician) is to approach the Tunes of the church. Many of the chorales are set multiple times, as if to say "here is one way to play this Tune, and here is another" (for example, Komm, heiliger Geist, with two very different settings at the beginning of the collection).
Or in the terms I have used in this blog: Know the Tune.
We are now far beyond the levels I am exploring in my work, such as the basics of simply controlling the notes in Stille Nacht, or struggling to put one's ideas into a form. And, I think, even beyond T. Monk's advice to play the Tune for two hours without losing the groove, though I think he was pointing in the same direction as Bach in this matter.
Perhaps Bach is saying "This is how to use the contrapuntal tools to reach the theological center of the Tune." In the first Variation, it is still a child's tune, which is how Luther conceived it, writing the hymn for his children. Thus, we have such stanzas as the one I quoted the other day:
And, with these Variations, we are almost at the end. In the Leipzig Chorales, they are the next-to-last item, following seventeen large-scale chorale preludes. After the Variations, only one remains: Vor deinen Thron tret' ich.
Soli Deo gloria.
From my arrival home on Wednesday, shortly after midnight, to arising on Friday morning at 3:30 is a bit more than twenty-seven hours. I sleep for twenty-three of them, arising only for two meals and the Daily Office.
It is not enough.
But it is a start, and I am grateful that on the Sabbath, there is no shame in sleeping all day. It is harder every December to get through it. And it is to some degree my own fault. Last week, I desecrated the Sabbath by working; I had to cover for the rehearsal of a children’s choir for its concert, staying until they were done and securing the church, and in turn I stayed up late for said concert on Friday, around 10 pm before I left for home. I did have a day off on Monday, but as I wrote in the previous essay, it was entirely devoted to errands, grocery shopping, and cooking – and again a late night, so that I could serve a proper dinner to my wife when she completed a hard shift at her job.
It is never a good idea to desecrate the Sabbath.
Friday: Crunch time
I am in the darkened church by 6:30; it is not at all clear to me how I can squeeze in sufficient practice today and tomorrow.
I hesitate; there is no time for the piano. Not with all of that Bach staring me in the face. But I remove the cover from the Steinway, raise the lid, and begin. Just twenty minutes today, but it is good that I begin in this manner; as it did on Wednesday, it sets the spiritual context for the day’s work. And it is time to be working toward tomorrow’s early service.
Some years, there is time for a short piano prelude before the 5 pm Christmas Eve, the service with the largest attendance of the year in this parish, with youth choir and children’s pageant. Some years, I am scrambling around until the last moment and there is no prelude. And in any event, no one listens; it is typically a large, talkative crowd. For the years in which I have played, I have never prepared anything. This year, I will give at least a little thought to it:
D major, the dominant of the opening hymn, and based on it – “O come, all ye faithful,” Adeste fidelis. I make a beginning… then comes Stille Nacht – still with wrong notes in the tune. As a coda, a quiet first line of Antioch, “Joy to the world.” I am in tears.
Over to the organ. I work on the Bach Variations until the 10:00 pageant rehearsal, and for another hour in the afternoon before the 3:00 liturgical rehearsal. It is not enough.
Christmas Eve: Something old, something new
Very likely, Old Bach could improvise two-voice counterpoint as easily as most of us play scales. He could surely weave it around a chorale tune in the pedals. Probably, he could improvise something like the First Variation: the chorale in the pedals, a delightful little canon at the octave in the manuals.
But even Bach probably could not improvise something like the Fifth Variation – an augmentation canon. The two voices begin together and are identical, except one goes half the speed of the other, and of course the chorale is there, too, in the pedals.
I wrote somewhere that in his mature organ works, there is hardly any virtuosity for its own sake. But he was proud of his contrapuntal skill – rightfully, for no one before or since has matched it. In this sense, the Fifth Variation, quiet and beautiful as it is, is a place where Bach is showing off.
But when he was young, Bach reveled in his keyboard virtuosity. I am learning his youthful setting of “In dulci jubilo” (BWV 729), written when he was at Arnstadt and in his late teens or early twenties. It is an interesting pairing with the Variations, which were written near the end of his life; “In dulci jubilo” is exuberant, full of energy and delight.
It will be even more interesting if I can actually play it. I fingered it last Sunday after the youth caroling, and worked on it at the piano at odd moments through the week; its first proper workout at the organ is today, 2:30 pm on Christmas Eve. I work at it a little too long, and the choristers are arriving for their 4:15 rehearsal before I have set up the choir room for them.
There is time for a piano prelude, almost ten minutes of it; I play, not well at all. At least no one is listening, so far as I can tell. The liturgy goes well; the youth choir does very well, especially with their two movements from the Ceremony of Carols (though afterwards, a parishioner compares us unfavorably with the recording he listens to every year by a well-known British boy choir. He is right; we are not at that level. But we are here, and that other choir isn't.) I put things away, and it is back on the bench; a second workout on “In dulci jubilo,” plus the hymnody for the Midnight Mass, and the fourth and fifth Variations.
And it is time for another service; the adult choristers begin arriving for their 10 pm rehearsal. Many years we barely can field a choir for Midnight Mass so I have learned to select easy music for the service; this year, there are fifteen choristers.
Jean was at the earlier service, singing with the youth choir and assisting; she returns for the late service and turns pages for the Bach Variations. There are places that do not go well, but it is not for lack of preparation – the mistakes are “new” ones, all of them at places that had been trouble-free all week, and the difficult Third Variation goes very well. The mistakes are possibly from fatigue, for I have been on the bench a long time today, since 8:00 this morning with two half-hour breaks for meals. That is too much to expect to be fresh and play well at the end of it.
But the choir sings well, the hymnody goes well, and the “In dulci jubilo” postlude mostly goes well – in that case, the one place where I went astray was indeed due to lack of preparation.
And it is done; Advent is over.
If the Lord wills, I hope to play the “In dulci jubilo” again, perhaps next Christmas. And I would love to play the Canonic Variations again; I had hoped that this second playing, two years after the first, would be better than it turned out. It is great music, some of the best that we have from this greatest of composers, and I do not think that it is often played, especially with the congregational singing of the chorale. It was good to live with it this week.
O dearest Jesus, holy child,
Prepare a bed, soft, undefiled,
A holy shrine, within my heart,
That you and I need never part.
My heart for very joy now leaps;
My voice no longer silence keeps;
I too must join the angel-throng
To sing with joy his cradle-song:
Afterword: Know the Tune
Bach is always a teacher. Even in the most abstract of his late works -- and the Canonic Variations belong in this group, alongside the Musical Offering and the Art of Fugue -- he is always pointing the way, for those who somehow make it this far up the path. Beethoven, for one; it would be hard to imagine the Grosse Fugue for string quartet, or for that matter the great fugal passages from the Ode to Joy and certain passages in the late piano sonatas, without Bach's Art of Fugue.
The context of the Variations as they come to us in Bach's revision is what we now call the Leipzig Chorales, his last exploration of how an organist (or any musician) is to approach the Tunes of the church. Many of the chorales are set multiple times, as if to say "here is one way to play this Tune, and here is another" (for example, Komm, heiliger Geist, with two very different settings at the beginning of the collection).
Or in the terms I have used in this blog: Know the Tune.
We are now far beyond the levels I am exploring in my work, such as the basics of simply controlling the notes in Stille Nacht, or struggling to put one's ideas into a form. And, I think, even beyond T. Monk's advice to play the Tune for two hours without losing the groove, though I think he was pointing in the same direction as Bach in this matter.
Perhaps Bach is saying "This is how to use the contrapuntal tools to reach the theological center of the Tune." In the first Variation, it is still a child's tune, which is how Luther conceived it, writing the hymn for his children. Thus, we have such stanzas as the one I quoted the other day:
Look, look, dear friends, look over there!By the Fourth and Fifth Variations in the arrangement in which Bach put them in this final version, we are much deeper into the theology of the Incarnation -- yet, still with childlike innocence.
What lies within that manger bare?
Who is that lovely little one?
The baby Jesus, God’s dear Son.
And, with these Variations, we are almost at the end. In the Leipzig Chorales, they are the next-to-last item, following seventeen large-scale chorale preludes. After the Variations, only one remains: Vor deinen Thron tret' ich.
Soli Deo gloria.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Chronicles of Advent
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
And so it is; on this day, we sing. Days later as I write this, it rings in my heart.
Like the rest of Messiah, this aria and chorus are amazing. My opinion is that Handel wrote this piece in a burst of what was genuinely Divine Inspiration – how else could it have come into being, and in the breakneck speed in which he wrote it? The deeper one studies it, the more miraculous it is.
And the little recitative that begins it, the Scriptural tie to this day… less than thirty seconds, and absolutely perfect, right down to the tag line at the end: “God with us,” then the V-I cadence. We struggled with this in rehearsal, and had to sing it several times in the warmup; in the service, it was perfect. As with all that we sing, I want these words, this music, to take root in the hearts of our choristers.
I worried about the text. I could envision one of our twelve-year old boys raising his hand in rehearsal and asking “What is a virgin?” I asked my fellow-laborer in Christ (Nora) what to do; she was not encouraging. In essence, she advised me to dodge the question. Tell them to ask their parents at home, then call the parents of the child who raised the issue and tell them.
It did not come up. In a way, I wish it had, though I do not know how I could have addressed it in a rehearsal.
The virginity of St. Mary is one of the great Secrets of God, equal in stature to the other one: the bodily Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Both are thoroughly attested by Scripture, part of the central bedrock of Christian belief in all times and places -- until recently. The first is perhaps more scandalous than the last. It is so thoroughly unscientific. It is a rehash of legends from pagan mythology. It is, like the Resurrection, a pious fable tacked on generations later to suit the needs of the emerging church.
Or so they say.
And, like the Resurrection, it is absolutely true, whether the liberal theologians and clergy like it or not. Without it, there is no Incarnation; he is not Emmanuel, God with us, but just another teacher -- exactly as Gabriel explains to St. Mary at the Annunciation: "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (St. Luke 1:35). For something that is as readily knowable as these doctrines, it is amazing how they remain a secret. Without faith, they are as invisible as if they were buried on the back side of the moon.
Our young people are not going to hear about this doctrine in our parish, and probably not anywhere in the Episcopal Church, where neither Virgin Birth nor Resurrection are widely believed. But perhaps they will someday remember singing this little recitative and wonder what it means.
Tuesday: Bulletin Crazy Day
As expected, much of today is committed to the service bulletins for the coming weekend. The day is further complicated by the Christmas luncheon for staff and volunteers – close to two hours. Many of the volunteers are retired, and perfectly happy to while away the afternoon. I am chomping at the bit, restlessly longing to get onto the bench and to my proper duty. But there is more bulletin work, and (of course) more e-mails. And I am tired, worn out from a Monday filled with errands, grocery shopping, cooking and dishwashing.
I finally get around to practice around 3 pm, and I had to postpone my young student’s lesson to another day in order to get any practicing at all. I begin with piano improvisation, working with the chorale Es ist ein Ros’. That goes well enough, so I try Stille Nacht. And I discover that I do not Know the Tune. Worse still, others are at work in the church, hearing me mangle it. I cannot control the third phrase of this wide-ranging tune and repeatedly miss notes in any key other than B flat major, even playing it in unison. It is thoroughly embarrassing; I have been a church musician for upwards of forty years and I cannot play “Silent Night?”
The people who are at work move on to one of their tasks: testing the sound system. One of the clergy has complained about the wireless microphone. It is clear that my attempts at music are disturbing them as they test it and that they likewise think that they are disturbing me, so I close the lid, replace the cover, and bow out.
Some time later, my friend John comes downstairs and tells me that they are done. I go to the organ, and make a beginning with the Third Variation on Vom Himmel hoch. It is the hardest part of the set: "Some canonic variations on the Christmas hymn" as Bach calls it. And it was for this that I cancelled H’s lesson; I knew that if I did not make a start on it today, I could not play it on Saturday night.
I do a First Workout of the latter half of the variation, ninety minutes on about two and a half pages. It is a start.
[I wrote about the Canonic Variations here, when I played them two years ago, and my recording is here.]
The Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle
I am determined to learn Stille Nacht, and give it a good forty minutes at the piano, first thing after I hang up my overcoat, playing it right up until Matins. As I described the other day in “Knowing the Tune,” it continues to be ugly for quite a while, with many times that I cannot even keep the groove going for all of the wrong notes in the tune – and then, about twenty minutes into my work, it suddenly becomes very good indeed. I wish I had recorded it.
From that: straight into Matins, the church still in semidarkness on this shortest day of the year. It is all I can do to sing the appointed Psalms – the twenty-third, the one hundred and twenty-first (“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills…”). How is it that St. Thomas rates these loveliest of Psalms for the Matins of his Feast? And the lessons from the end of Job and the beginning of First Peter? Oh beloved Thomas, Apostle to India, friend of those who long for it to be true: pray for us.
Please, dear Lord: may this work that we do, even when it is the stumbling over the simplest of things like a beginner, be “found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
One of my street friends comes in and listens for a while. He prays for me after I pray for him: “Help Cassie to play well this week and make good music.” I treasure this support, for God listens to the prayers of the poor. The prayers of people like me – perhaps not so much.
The choral rehearsals go well. The youth choir is singing two movements from “Ceremony of Carols,” and they have the potential to be quite good. We conclude the rehearsal with our annual rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which grows more memorable every year.
More than half of the adult choir rehearsal is devoted to first beginnings on music for the spring, including a set of Responses for the May evensong; Kenneth Leighton, and it will take us that long to learn them. But we are ready for Christmas Eve; the choir sounds terrific.
[to be continued]
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son; and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14 and St. Matthew 1:23)When I was planning the choir season and saw this for the First Lesson and Gospel of this day, my heart leaped. We can sing the Handel! Recitative and Aria from Messiah, “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.” And for what is probably the only year, the alto aria fits the youth choir to perfection. Our three young men are more tenors now than altos, but they can still sing in this range, along with the trebles. We can bring in a violinist (Leonardo Perez, a doctoral student at the university who is a delight to work with), and two young men of our parish on violoncello and bass for the continuo line, along with my friend Jean at the organ. The adult choir can join for the SATB ending.
And so it is; on this day, we sing. Days later as I write this, it rings in my heart.
Like the rest of Messiah, this aria and chorus are amazing. My opinion is that Handel wrote this piece in a burst of what was genuinely Divine Inspiration – how else could it have come into being, and in the breakneck speed in which he wrote it? The deeper one studies it, the more miraculous it is.
And the little recitative that begins it, the Scriptural tie to this day… less than thirty seconds, and absolutely perfect, right down to the tag line at the end: “God with us,” then the V-I cadence. We struggled with this in rehearsal, and had to sing it several times in the warmup; in the service, it was perfect. As with all that we sing, I want these words, this music, to take root in the hearts of our choristers.
I worried about the text. I could envision one of our twelve-year old boys raising his hand in rehearsal and asking “What is a virgin?” I asked my fellow-laborer in Christ (Nora) what to do; she was not encouraging. In essence, she advised me to dodge the question. Tell them to ask their parents at home, then call the parents of the child who raised the issue and tell them.
It did not come up. In a way, I wish it had, though I do not know how I could have addressed it in a rehearsal.
The virginity of St. Mary is one of the great Secrets of God, equal in stature to the other one: the bodily Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Both are thoroughly attested by Scripture, part of the central bedrock of Christian belief in all times and places -- until recently. The first is perhaps more scandalous than the last. It is so thoroughly unscientific. It is a rehash of legends from pagan mythology. It is, like the Resurrection, a pious fable tacked on generations later to suit the needs of the emerging church.
Or so they say.
And, like the Resurrection, it is absolutely true, whether the liberal theologians and clergy like it or not. Without it, there is no Incarnation; he is not Emmanuel, God with us, but just another teacher -- exactly as Gabriel explains to St. Mary at the Annunciation: "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (St. Luke 1:35). For something that is as readily knowable as these doctrines, it is amazing how they remain a secret. Without faith, they are as invisible as if they were buried on the back side of the moon.
Our young people are not going to hear about this doctrine in our parish, and probably not anywhere in the Episcopal Church, where neither Virgin Birth nor Resurrection are widely believed. But perhaps they will someday remember singing this little recitative and wonder what it means.
Tuesday: Bulletin Crazy Day
As expected, much of today is committed to the service bulletins for the coming weekend. The day is further complicated by the Christmas luncheon for staff and volunteers – close to two hours. Many of the volunteers are retired, and perfectly happy to while away the afternoon. I am chomping at the bit, restlessly longing to get onto the bench and to my proper duty. But there is more bulletin work, and (of course) more e-mails. And I am tired, worn out from a Monday filled with errands, grocery shopping, cooking and dishwashing.
I finally get around to practice around 3 pm, and I had to postpone my young student’s lesson to another day in order to get any practicing at all. I begin with piano improvisation, working with the chorale Es ist ein Ros’. That goes well enough, so I try Stille Nacht. And I discover that I do not Know the Tune. Worse still, others are at work in the church, hearing me mangle it. I cannot control the third phrase of this wide-ranging tune and repeatedly miss notes in any key other than B flat major, even playing it in unison. It is thoroughly embarrassing; I have been a church musician for upwards of forty years and I cannot play “Silent Night?”
The people who are at work move on to one of their tasks: testing the sound system. One of the clergy has complained about the wireless microphone. It is clear that my attempts at music are disturbing them as they test it and that they likewise think that they are disturbing me, so I close the lid, replace the cover, and bow out.
Some time later, my friend John comes downstairs and tells me that they are done. I go to the organ, and make a beginning with the Third Variation on Vom Himmel hoch. It is the hardest part of the set: "Some canonic variations on the Christmas hymn" as Bach calls it. And it was for this that I cancelled H’s lesson; I knew that if I did not make a start on it today, I could not play it on Saturday night.
I do a First Workout of the latter half of the variation, ninety minutes on about two and a half pages. It is a start.
[I wrote about the Canonic Variations here, when I played them two years ago, and my recording is here.]
The Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle
I am determined to learn Stille Nacht, and give it a good forty minutes at the piano, first thing after I hang up my overcoat, playing it right up until Matins. As I described the other day in “Knowing the Tune,” it continues to be ugly for quite a while, with many times that I cannot even keep the groove going for all of the wrong notes in the tune – and then, about twenty minutes into my work, it suddenly becomes very good indeed. I wish I had recorded it.
From that: straight into Matins, the church still in semidarkness on this shortest day of the year. It is all I can do to sing the appointed Psalms – the twenty-third, the one hundred and twenty-first (“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills…”). How is it that St. Thomas rates these loveliest of Psalms for the Matins of his Feast? And the lessons from the end of Job and the beginning of First Peter? Oh beloved Thomas, Apostle to India, friend of those who long for it to be true: pray for us.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…The part that struck me today was from verses six and seven:
… though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ…Making hash of Stille Nacht is not much for “manifold temptations,” nor even Bulletin Crazy Day in its semiannual appearance (we have a reprise early in Holy Week). But, small as these things are, they are indeed this week a trial of my faith. They are what Pressfield calls “Resistance,” for on a day like yesterday when I barely make it to the piano and then sound horrible when I do, it would be very easy to quit. Or when I tangle with the Third Variation, and find it every bit as challenging as I remember from two years ago – the thought arises “Why am I doing this?”
Please, dear Lord: may this work that we do, even when it is the stumbling over the simplest of things like a beginner, be “found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
How glad we’ll be to find it so!I work hard at the organ today, all of it on the Variations. It goes well, but by the end of the day I have worked through only two of the five variations. It leaves a lot of work for Friday and Saturday.
Then with the shepherds let us go
To see what God for us has done
In sending us his own dear Son.
One of my street friends comes in and listens for a while. He prays for me after I pray for him: “Help Cassie to play well this week and make good music.” I treasure this support, for God listens to the prayers of the poor. The prayers of people like me – perhaps not so much.
The choral rehearsals go well. The youth choir is singing two movements from “Ceremony of Carols,” and they have the potential to be quite good. We conclude the rehearsal with our annual rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which grows more memorable every year.
More than half of the adult choir rehearsal is devoted to first beginnings on music for the spring, including a set of Responses for the May evensong; Kenneth Leighton, and it will take us that long to learn them. But we are ready for Christmas Eve; the choir sounds terrific.
Look, look, dear friends, look over there!
What lies within that manger bare?
Who is that lovely little one?
The baby Jesus, God’s dear Son.
Welcome to earth, O noble Guest,
Through whom this sinful world is blest!
You turned not from our needs away!
How can our thanks such love repay?
[to be continued]
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Veni Emmanuel
As mentioned in the previous essay, I have been working on some of the concepts in the Mike Garson masterclass, and giving it higher priority – not so much more time from the week, but better time, first thing in the day when I am fresh. I had been feeling a little “stuck” in my improvisatory work, and I think that this work has gotten me out of the ditch.
Here is this morning’s improvisation. It is based on the three songs from the service, mostly the first:
- O come, O come, Emmanuel (Veni Emmanuel)
- Mary, when the angel’s word (Tempus adest floridum)
- Creator of the stars of night (Conditor Alme)
Garson talks about his “now” music, where he has no preconception before he starts playing. I am trying to move a little in that direction, and to be less concerned about formal structure. But not entirely unconcerned, and neither is Garson; I think that he is trusting his subconscious to keep the unity of the piece. I am not there yet.
For one thing, I think it important to begin and end in the home key, in this case B minor/major. In between, I planned to go to the relative major (D) for “Tempus adest floridum” (best known as the tune for “Good King Wenceslaus,” but here with a modern text), and did so, having played around some during the week on a transition into it from the plainsong, and out of it.
I did not preconceive a key for “Conditor Alme.” As it happened, it was mostly in G major, moving to C major (about as far from the home key of B as possible). Nor did I plan what to do after that, beyond getting back to tonic.
And I think it turned out pretty well. I can hear many things that showed up during the week’s practice, but I had no idea which of them would show up today, or in what context, and none of it is exactly like anything I did through the week. For those who might be interested, there is a Serious Mistake at 4:16 – having moved in a direction that was a bit unexpected, I tripped over a note and lost the rhythmic “groove” for a moment. Yuck. “You can play any notes, but stay with the groove.”
But one must get past the fear of such things. To paraphrase another master (William Porter, organist) – we miss notes in our repertoire; what’s the difference when we miss them in an improvisation?
The whole thing is rather spacious – lots of long notes, lots of quiet. That comes partly from the two plainsongs, but partly from the day – clear and very cold, the sunshine streaming in the south window, just a handful of people at the service – four, when I started. It felt like the music needed to be gentle, reflective, so I sought to go in that direction.
From 8:45 onward feels like a coda. I did not find the photographs for the YouTube clip until this afternoon, but the coda fits them well. Both photos (from the Hubble Space Telescope) are of the “Creator of the stars of night” in his workshop – they are areas where new stars are being made.
------------
Some of this work with improvisation filters into my hymn accompaniment. Certainly, when it is the same tune (like the three in this one, all played later in the service), I have much more freedom with the accompaniment than I would had I not spent the time to “know the tune.” But it carries over into my organ playing, too. I do not think that I improvise well at the organ (I hope to, someday), but I am getting better at playing the hymns.
These are from last week’s choral service: Five Advent Hymns. Numbers are from the Episcopal Hymnal 1982.
- 65: Prepare the way, O Zion
- “People, look East” (from the supplement Wonder, Love and Praise)
- 72: Hark, the glad sound, the Savior comes
- 60: Creator of the stars of night
- 444: Blest be the God of Israel
They are from the organist’s point of view – that is, the microphone is close to the instrument and one hears much more organ sound than the congregation would hear out in the room. I post them as an example of what I aim to do with the hymns.
I could not have played this way five years ago, perhaps not even one year ago; I would have been tied much closer to the page. And I emphasize that such progress as I am making is not coming from explicit work with the hymn accompaniments; it is carry-over from that half-hour or so at the piano every morning. I do of course practice the hymns, but no more than I have for years, and perhaps a bit less these days.
The final hymn, however, is an important caution to the improviser. It is a “big” English tune, with a fully-written out accompaniment by its composer, Basil Harwood. When presented with such a hymn, the organist should play exactly what is on the page, and that is what I do, perhaps filling in a chord here and there.
There are times when improvisation is not a good idea. Just play the notes.
The photos are of our beloved little Pilcher, taken on a sunny winter day much like today.
Here is this morning’s improvisation. It is based on the three songs from the service, mostly the first:
- O come, O come, Emmanuel (Veni Emmanuel)
- Mary, when the angel’s word (Tempus adest floridum)
- Creator of the stars of night (Conditor Alme)
Garson talks about his “now” music, where he has no preconception before he starts playing. I am trying to move a little in that direction, and to be less concerned about formal structure. But not entirely unconcerned, and neither is Garson; I think that he is trusting his subconscious to keep the unity of the piece. I am not there yet.
For one thing, I think it important to begin and end in the home key, in this case B minor/major. In between, I planned to go to the relative major (D) for “Tempus adest floridum” (best known as the tune for “Good King Wenceslaus,” but here with a modern text), and did so, having played around some during the week on a transition into it from the plainsong, and out of it.
I did not preconceive a key for “Conditor Alme.” As it happened, it was mostly in G major, moving to C major (about as far from the home key of B as possible). Nor did I plan what to do after that, beyond getting back to tonic.
And I think it turned out pretty well. I can hear many things that showed up during the week’s practice, but I had no idea which of them would show up today, or in what context, and none of it is exactly like anything I did through the week. For those who might be interested, there is a Serious Mistake at 4:16 – having moved in a direction that was a bit unexpected, I tripped over a note and lost the rhythmic “groove” for a moment. Yuck. “You can play any notes, but stay with the groove.”
But one must get past the fear of such things. To paraphrase another master (William Porter, organist) – we miss notes in our repertoire; what’s the difference when we miss them in an improvisation?
The whole thing is rather spacious – lots of long notes, lots of quiet. That comes partly from the two plainsongs, but partly from the day – clear and very cold, the sunshine streaming in the south window, just a handful of people at the service – four, when I started. It felt like the music needed to be gentle, reflective, so I sought to go in that direction.
From 8:45 onward feels like a coda. I did not find the photographs for the YouTube clip until this afternoon, but the coda fits them well. Both photos (from the Hubble Space Telescope) are of the “Creator of the stars of night” in his workshop – they are areas where new stars are being made.
------------
Some of this work with improvisation filters into my hymn accompaniment. Certainly, when it is the same tune (like the three in this one, all played later in the service), I have much more freedom with the accompaniment than I would had I not spent the time to “know the tune.” But it carries over into my organ playing, too. I do not think that I improvise well at the organ (I hope to, someday), but I am getting better at playing the hymns.
These are from last week’s choral service: Five Advent Hymns. Numbers are from the Episcopal Hymnal 1982.
- 65: Prepare the way, O Zion
- “People, look East” (from the supplement Wonder, Love and Praise)
- 72: Hark, the glad sound, the Savior comes
- 60: Creator of the stars of night
- 444: Blest be the God of Israel
They are from the organist’s point of view – that is, the microphone is close to the instrument and one hears much more organ sound than the congregation would hear out in the room. I post them as an example of what I aim to do with the hymns.
I could not have played this way five years ago, perhaps not even one year ago; I would have been tied much closer to the page. And I emphasize that such progress as I am making is not coming from explicit work with the hymn accompaniments; it is carry-over from that half-hour or so at the piano every morning. I do of course practice the hymns, but no more than I have for years, and perhaps a bit less these days.
The final hymn, however, is an important caution to the improviser. It is a “big” English tune, with a fully-written out accompaniment by its composer, Basil Harwood. When presented with such a hymn, the organist should play exactly what is on the page, and that is what I do, perhaps filling in a chord here and there.
There are times when improvisation is not a good idea. Just play the notes.
The photos are of our beloved little Pilcher, taken on a sunny winter day much like today.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Know the Tune, revisited
“Know the Tune” is one of the foundations of improvisation, alongside “Speak the Language.”
I continue working with the Mike Garson online masterclass, mentioned a few weeks ago. One of his ideas takes “Know the Tune” to a higher level. He quotes the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk: take one tune. Set the metronome (he suggests setting it to play on beats two and four of the measure, and if you are new to this, set a fairly slow tempo), and play the tune. For two hours. You can play whatever notes may happen; you certainly should vary it, add chords or countermelodies, move it to different keys, whatever occurs to you. But don’t lose the groove; stay with that click. For two hours.
It is often good to take the same tune again the next day: he had one of his students play “Autumn Leaves” in this manner for two weeks, two hours a day. One thinks of the disciplines of the Desert Fathers or the Zen masters.
The virtues are many:
• After two hours, you will definitely know the tune, especially if you have played it in both hands (and the pedals, if you are at the organ), in a variety of keys, and perhaps different modes (such as Minor or Dorian instead of Major).
• You learn to Keep Going, another cardinal virtue of improvisation. It doesn’t have to sound good; it can sound positively awful (you are practicing, after all). But it has got to stay with the groove. You will learn that keeping the rhythm going is more important than what notes you play. You will learn, also, to take “wrong” notes (even in the tune) and turn them into “right” notes by what follows – it is probably an unexpected dissonance, so you can resolve it, use it as a pivot into an unexpected new key, repeat it so that it becomes an “ornament” to the tune or part of the form, or even an essential motive. A first step is to see if you can repeat it, make it a “variation” instead of a “mistake.”
• Most of all, as Garson explains, you will use up all of your “licks” in the first twenty minutes or so. Then there will be a while where it is not so good. And after that… you will begin to play as you never have before. You will find sonorities, approaches to the tune, that would not have occurred to you.
• And, best of all, it is fun. The only “pressure” is to stay with the groove; otherwise, anything goes.
Upon reflection, this is much of what I did when I was beginning to improvise at the organ and had finally gotten beyond harmonizing scales. I would sit at the organ on Fridays and Saturdays and play around with the Tune for a long time, very often an hour and sometimes two. And the “good” stuff wouldn’t start happening until well along into that time, exactly as Garson says. I would try to remember what I did (a tape recorder or similar device helps, and a pencil with some staff paper) and use it as the basis for Sunday’s improvisation.
Nowadays, it goes more quickly, especially if I have already worked with the Tune. This happens more and more with the middle service improvisations, for I have made it around the liturgical year a couple of times with improvising a prelude every Sunday. But in some respects it is even more important with a Tune that I know well; I have to get all of the stuff that I have already done with it out of my system in order to find something new to say about it. The ultimate example for this (as with almost anything else musical) is Bach; consider the chorales that he set multiple times for the organ, and how differently he approached it the second (or third, or fourth) time.
I have been working at the piano in this manner, with adaptation to my circumstances, for a couple of weeks.
For one thing, my encounter with the Yamaha and Casio hybrid pianos had already caused me to change my work day, putting higher value on playing the Steinway in the church. I go upstairs, take the cover off the piano, raise the lid, say the prayer, and play for at least a half-hour, no matter how much other work I must do. Not two hours; I cannot justify that. But a half hour at the least, sometimes forty-five minutes or so. Before, if I had a lot of organ practicing and other work to do, I would often go many days without playing the piano, then scramble to catch up on Friday and Saturday. And I would just push the piano cover back, leaving the lid down, because I was always in a hurry.
No. For the time that remains to me, I am going to enjoy playing this piano. I am going to luxuriate in the visual beauty of the strings and plate and soundboard, the immediacy of the sound, the fabulous acoustic, the surroundings, the divine Presence in the tabernacle, its candle flickering.
I think that this attitude helps my music. It makes me more aware that it is all Gift.
It is not to be despised, or taken for granted.
----------
I begin with the unison tune, in the key that I intend for Sunday’s improvisation – typically a fifth above the key of the first hymn. I use the same one or two or three tunes all week, the ones that will be in the Sunday service. I sing along with the solfege syllables, especially if I am less familiar with the tune. As the Tune attains a comfort level, I add things, let it take me where it wants to go.
I do not often use the metronome, because I want to have the opportunity to change tempo between variations. But I do keep the “groove” – the meter and rhythm and general feel - going. And I do not stop; if it is one tune, I aim for it to be a continuous set of variations. There might be what sounds like a stop – a whole note chord, perhaps several whole notes tied. Or rests. But underneath these long notes and rests, the pulse continues. Thus, when the music moves on, it continues to feel like the same composition.
If my intent is to work with multiple tunes, I might move to the second tune in the dominant or other related key, as if I were building a sonata form, and I might continue in that manner, with development of one or both tunes and a recapitulation – and then, if there is time, continue with more variations. If a two-tune improvisation is my goal, it often seems to work better to work with just one tune the first day, the second tune the second day (so that it is thoroughly worked out and “known”), and both tunes from then on.
When it is time to stop, I make my best effort to bring the piece to a convincing conclusion, for that is something I must practice doing. If the first attempt is not so good, I might stretch it on into a little coda so that I can make another attempt.
There is a final benefit: Later in the day, I will hopefully make it over to the Pilcher. I open its fallboard, sit down, turn on the music lamp, say another prayer, and dig into my work on the repertoire and the hymns, often challenging, hard work that pushes me to the limit.
And I find that this, too, is Gift. It is not to be despised, or taken for granted.
-----------
Footnote: Here (again) is the link to the Mike Garson masterclass.
I have now listened to the four parts – roughly two hours – twice through, parts of it more than that. I may share a few more ideas in future essays, but I do not want to say too much; it is his work, copyrighted, and I hope he makes some money on it.
In one sense, there is hardly anything in it that is practical. Mostly, he sits at his piano and talks, occasionally demonstrating things. There is not much “nuts and bolts” information about jazz scales, or harmonies, or anything that one might expect in a master class: “I teach by inspiration,” he says in one of the videos. But there is a lot that has made me think about my playing, and I consider this all the more valuable, more so than any amount of “nuts and bolts,” and more applicable to what I do, which differs in important ways from what he does.
And there are nuggets of pure gold, such as the one I have here described from Mr. Monk. There is excellent advice on Slow Practice and working on details, one measure or a half measure at a time. There is a lot about the spiritual nature of what we are doing, of listening to the Higher Self, and seeking to find that in one’s students. And healing: for oneself, other people, and the world.
I will not work in this manner forever; there is much else that I should do, such as contrapuntal work, additional work with forms, and technical development – things like scales, arpeggios, exercises drawn from repertoire.
And imitation of the masters: that must wait for another essay.
[Added Feb. 2017: Here is a later essay, related to this one, and a YouTube example of a practice session using the ideas described above.]
I continue working with the Mike Garson online masterclass, mentioned a few weeks ago. One of his ideas takes “Know the Tune” to a higher level. He quotes the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk: take one tune. Set the metronome (he suggests setting it to play on beats two and four of the measure, and if you are new to this, set a fairly slow tempo), and play the tune. For two hours. You can play whatever notes may happen; you certainly should vary it, add chords or countermelodies, move it to different keys, whatever occurs to you. But don’t lose the groove; stay with that click. For two hours.
It is often good to take the same tune again the next day: he had one of his students play “Autumn Leaves” in this manner for two weeks, two hours a day. One thinks of the disciplines of the Desert Fathers or the Zen masters.
The virtues are many:
• After two hours, you will definitely know the tune, especially if you have played it in both hands (and the pedals, if you are at the organ), in a variety of keys, and perhaps different modes (such as Minor or Dorian instead of Major).
• You learn to Keep Going, another cardinal virtue of improvisation. It doesn’t have to sound good; it can sound positively awful (you are practicing, after all). But it has got to stay with the groove. You will learn that keeping the rhythm going is more important than what notes you play. You will learn, also, to take “wrong” notes (even in the tune) and turn them into “right” notes by what follows – it is probably an unexpected dissonance, so you can resolve it, use it as a pivot into an unexpected new key, repeat it so that it becomes an “ornament” to the tune or part of the form, or even an essential motive. A first step is to see if you can repeat it, make it a “variation” instead of a “mistake.”
• Most of all, as Garson explains, you will use up all of your “licks” in the first twenty minutes or so. Then there will be a while where it is not so good. And after that… you will begin to play as you never have before. You will find sonorities, approaches to the tune, that would not have occurred to you.
• And, best of all, it is fun. The only “pressure” is to stay with the groove; otherwise, anything goes.
Upon reflection, this is much of what I did when I was beginning to improvise at the organ and had finally gotten beyond harmonizing scales. I would sit at the organ on Fridays and Saturdays and play around with the Tune for a long time, very often an hour and sometimes two. And the “good” stuff wouldn’t start happening until well along into that time, exactly as Garson says. I would try to remember what I did (a tape recorder or similar device helps, and a pencil with some staff paper) and use it as the basis for Sunday’s improvisation.
Nowadays, it goes more quickly, especially if I have already worked with the Tune. This happens more and more with the middle service improvisations, for I have made it around the liturgical year a couple of times with improvising a prelude every Sunday. But in some respects it is even more important with a Tune that I know well; I have to get all of the stuff that I have already done with it out of my system in order to find something new to say about it. The ultimate example for this (as with almost anything else musical) is Bach; consider the chorales that he set multiple times for the organ, and how differently he approached it the second (or third, or fourth) time.
I have been working at the piano in this manner, with adaptation to my circumstances, for a couple of weeks.
For one thing, my encounter with the Yamaha and Casio hybrid pianos had already caused me to change my work day, putting higher value on playing the Steinway in the church. I go upstairs, take the cover off the piano, raise the lid, say the prayer, and play for at least a half-hour, no matter how much other work I must do. Not two hours; I cannot justify that. But a half hour at the least, sometimes forty-five minutes or so. Before, if I had a lot of organ practicing and other work to do, I would often go many days without playing the piano, then scramble to catch up on Friday and Saturday. And I would just push the piano cover back, leaving the lid down, because I was always in a hurry.
No. For the time that remains to me, I am going to enjoy playing this piano. I am going to luxuriate in the visual beauty of the strings and plate and soundboard, the immediacy of the sound, the fabulous acoustic, the surroundings, the divine Presence in the tabernacle, its candle flickering.
I think that this attitude helps my music. It makes me more aware that it is all Gift.
It is not to be despised, or taken for granted.
----------
I begin with the unison tune, in the key that I intend for Sunday’s improvisation – typically a fifth above the key of the first hymn. I use the same one or two or three tunes all week, the ones that will be in the Sunday service. I sing along with the solfege syllables, especially if I am less familiar with the tune. As the Tune attains a comfort level, I add things, let it take me where it wants to go.
I do not often use the metronome, because I want to have the opportunity to change tempo between variations. But I do keep the “groove” – the meter and rhythm and general feel - going. And I do not stop; if it is one tune, I aim for it to be a continuous set of variations. There might be what sounds like a stop – a whole note chord, perhaps several whole notes tied. Or rests. But underneath these long notes and rests, the pulse continues. Thus, when the music moves on, it continues to feel like the same composition.
If my intent is to work with multiple tunes, I might move to the second tune in the dominant or other related key, as if I were building a sonata form, and I might continue in that manner, with development of one or both tunes and a recapitulation – and then, if there is time, continue with more variations. If a two-tune improvisation is my goal, it often seems to work better to work with just one tune the first day, the second tune the second day (so that it is thoroughly worked out and “known”), and both tunes from then on.
When it is time to stop, I make my best effort to bring the piece to a convincing conclusion, for that is something I must practice doing. If the first attempt is not so good, I might stretch it on into a little coda so that I can make another attempt.
There is a final benefit: Later in the day, I will hopefully make it over to the Pilcher. I open its fallboard, sit down, turn on the music lamp, say another prayer, and dig into my work on the repertoire and the hymns, often challenging, hard work that pushes me to the limit.
And I find that this, too, is Gift. It is not to be despised, or taken for granted.
-----------
Footnote: Here (again) is the link to the Mike Garson masterclass.
I have now listened to the four parts – roughly two hours – twice through, parts of it more than that. I may share a few more ideas in future essays, but I do not want to say too much; it is his work, copyrighted, and I hope he makes some money on it.
In one sense, there is hardly anything in it that is practical. Mostly, he sits at his piano and talks, occasionally demonstrating things. There is not much “nuts and bolts” information about jazz scales, or harmonies, or anything that one might expect in a master class: “I teach by inspiration,” he says in one of the videos. But there is a lot that has made me think about my playing, and I consider this all the more valuable, more so than any amount of “nuts and bolts,” and more applicable to what I do, which differs in important ways from what he does.
And there are nuggets of pure gold, such as the one I have here described from Mr. Monk. There is excellent advice on Slow Practice and working on details, one measure or a half measure at a time. There is a lot about the spiritual nature of what we are doing, of listening to the Higher Self, and seeking to find that in one’s students. And healing: for oneself, other people, and the world.
I will not work in this manner forever; there is much else that I should do, such as contrapuntal work, additional work with forms, and technical development – things like scales, arpeggios, exercises drawn from repertoire.
And imitation of the masters: that must wait for another essay.
[Added Feb. 2017: Here is a later essay, related to this one, and a YouTube example of a practice session using the ideas described above.]
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
The Feast of Nicholas
December 6, 2016
As it says in the Episcopal “Lesser Feasts and Fasts,” little is known for sure about St. Nicholas. He was a bishop; he was tortured and imprisoned for his faith during the persecution of Diocletian. He was perhaps at the Council of Nicaea.
But the many legends about him surely have some basis in fact. It seems clear that he was a friend of sailors, and of the poor. And most of all, children. He is their patron saint, and thus the Patron of the Royal School of Church Music. For those who have earned an RSCM Ribbon, the guy on the medal is Nicholas, dressed as a bishop.
On this Feast of Nicholas, I was visited by the two men that I have helped for years, about an hour apart. One of them needed fuel for his “new” car (a beat-up wreck of an old rusted-out Plymouth). He asked for $5; to his surprise, I rode with him to the gas station and treated him to a full tank.
The other showed up with a young friend, perhaps in her twenties or thirties. I have heard of this person for several years, and had not until now met her. She was very cautious and did not speak for a good twenty minutes; she listened to the other two of us talk. She wandered over to the youth choir bulletin board and finally spoke; in a quiet voice she asked me about the Lent Madness bracket chart from last spring, there on the board, and the “trading cards” for the previous winners of the Golden Halo, starting with C. S. Lewis. She seemed comfortable with the idea of Saints, but not comfortable at all about being inside a church building. I can’t blame her; churches are often thoroughly unfriendly to those who live on the edge, as I suspect she does. And it is not unknown for churches and those who work in them to do positive harm to people, harm that is sufficient to scare them away from church for the rest of their life.
I think that Nicholas would be a friend to people like these. I am honored that on this day, I was granted opportunity to do the same.
Both of my friends expressed concern for this country and its future. With each of them, we talked about that for a good while. They are both convicted felons and in this state will never be permitted to vote. But they still care, and their premonition is like mine; we are in for some hard times. Perhaps not right away, and definitely not just because of the election of Mr. Trump – the three of us agree that Mrs. Clinton would have been just as bad if not worse. But sooner rather than later. One of them views it through apocalyptic lenses; the End is near, and the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The other is just scared, worried about what it will be like for a poor old veteran in bad health – a sailor, no less, veteran of the U.S. Navy - in and out of drug addiction and sometimes out on the street. Like my other friend, he also spoke of the Day of Doom: "When He comes, I don't look forward to standing before him. I've got a lot to answer for." I quoted the verse from Malachi: "For who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth?" - there is not a one of us who can do anything except fall on our knees before Him when He sits on the throne of judgement.
It struck me afterwards that I was able to speak freely with them on these topics, in a manner in which I cannot with the church people, where I feel that I am walking on eggshells when politics comes up, to say nothing of eschatology. It struck me also that these two men (and the young lady) have a much better idea what “hard times” can be like than I do, or most of my middle-class friends. And they are worried.
Nicholas, pray for us.
As it says in the Episcopal “Lesser Feasts and Fasts,” little is known for sure about St. Nicholas. He was a bishop; he was tortured and imprisoned for his faith during the persecution of Diocletian. He was perhaps at the Council of Nicaea.
But the many legends about him surely have some basis in fact. It seems clear that he was a friend of sailors, and of the poor. And most of all, children. He is their patron saint, and thus the Patron of the Royal School of Church Music. For those who have earned an RSCM Ribbon, the guy on the medal is Nicholas, dressed as a bishop.
On this Feast of Nicholas, I was visited by the two men that I have helped for years, about an hour apart. One of them needed fuel for his “new” car (a beat-up wreck of an old rusted-out Plymouth). He asked for $5; to his surprise, I rode with him to the gas station and treated him to a full tank.
The other showed up with a young friend, perhaps in her twenties or thirties. I have heard of this person for several years, and had not until now met her. She was very cautious and did not speak for a good twenty minutes; she listened to the other two of us talk. She wandered over to the youth choir bulletin board and finally spoke; in a quiet voice she asked me about the Lent Madness bracket chart from last spring, there on the board, and the “trading cards” for the previous winners of the Golden Halo, starting with C. S. Lewis. She seemed comfortable with the idea of Saints, but not comfortable at all about being inside a church building. I can’t blame her; churches are often thoroughly unfriendly to those who live on the edge, as I suspect she does. And it is not unknown for churches and those who work in them to do positive harm to people, harm that is sufficient to scare them away from church for the rest of their life.
I think that Nicholas would be a friend to people like these. I am honored that on this day, I was granted opportunity to do the same.
Both of my friends expressed concern for this country and its future. With each of them, we talked about that for a good while. They are both convicted felons and in this state will never be permitted to vote. But they still care, and their premonition is like mine; we are in for some hard times. Perhaps not right away, and definitely not just because of the election of Mr. Trump – the three of us agree that Mrs. Clinton would have been just as bad if not worse. But sooner rather than later. One of them views it through apocalyptic lenses; the End is near, and the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The other is just scared, worried about what it will be like for a poor old veteran in bad health – a sailor, no less, veteran of the U.S. Navy - in and out of drug addiction and sometimes out on the street. Like my other friend, he also spoke of the Day of Doom: "When He comes, I don't look forward to standing before him. I've got a lot to answer for." I quoted the verse from Malachi: "For who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth?" - there is not a one of us who can do anything except fall on our knees before Him when He sits on the throne of judgement.
It struck me afterwards that I was able to speak freely with them on these topics, in a manner in which I cannot with the church people, where I feel that I am walking on eggshells when politics comes up, to say nothing of eschatology. It struck me also that these two men (and the young lady) have a much better idea what “hard times” can be like than I do, or most of my middle-class friends. And they are worried.
Nicholas, pray for us.
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