Birds Do It - 12 November 2021 - Plague Journal Day 610

Micah 6:8
Psalm 96
Yes, your life matters.

Some of you are still sheltering in place, but fear not: I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

No, not that. I was thinking this morning about music - about composing music with and without words.

I've gone back and forth in my mind as to which is harder, and which is a higher art.

Sometimes I think that since only humans have words to set, then the song is higher than the melody. As the title says above, birds do it. (I once read that if birds could be taught to count they would be the best musicians in the world. Maybe.)
At other times I think that words help in composition - they guide the flow of melodies and the overall structure of the piece, so in a way it's harder to compose pure music than a song.

I've done some of each, but my limited sample doesn't really tell me what I want to know. I'd be interested in your opinion and thinking. Which is a higher art form - music with words or music without words?

As Captain Underpants would say, tra la laaaa!

Keep Calm and Don't Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

Tickling the Ivories - 29 March 2021 - Plague Journal Day 382

Micah 6:8
Psalm 150   Colossians 3:16
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

UPDATES BELOW IN RED

Today is the 88th day of 2021, and thus it is Piano Day. Indeed. (As I recall, it was on the Flintstones that I learned there were 88 keys on a piano keyboard.) At any rate, it was hearing the instrumental monster hit, Alley Cat, by Bent Fabric (seriously, Bent Fabric) that made me ask to take piano lessons as a kid. I checked my sheet music (the same one pictured below), and it turns out that Bent Fabric was the recording artist; the composer was Frank Bjorn. Poor guy only had first names, it appears.

That song is the reason we bought a piano and why I took all those lessons (nine years or so). I still have the sheet music on my piano (not the same one), and I might be able to almost play it semi-competently were I to give it a try. (I did try at lunch time. I both over- and under-estimated my retained abilities. I managed to get through it without being too embarrassed, but not in a way I would want to perform in public. Time to practice.) At any rate, I guess I need to say "Thank you" to Mr. Fabric (and Mr. Bjorn!) for getting me started on my musical journey. I can't imagine what my life would be like without the playing, singing, and writing that all got its start with that catchy little piano tune. It's vastly richer than it would have been, no doubt.

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

 

 

Music and Composition - 04 February 2021 - Plague Journal Day 329

Micah 6:8
Psalm 150
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

I just listened to a recording of a live performance of the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, and it took me back to my University of Michigan days.

I was majoring in pure mathematics, but I've always been a musician as well, so I took a music composition course - one that was open only to non-music majors.
One of the coolest parts of the course was that it met in a classroom in the Bell Tower - until that class, I had had no idea that there were classrooms in that building.

Unfortunately, perhaps, the class was taught by a visiting professor. (Non-music majors don't deserve regular faculty? Visiting faculty don't deserve real music students? I'm not clear on who was being disrespected more - maybe it was equal.) At any rate, the assignments were interesting, and I actually still have (and have used) the score for my final composition in the class. 

What made me think of this after hearing the Bartok? Well, our first assignment was to compose a one-tone piece. Those of us in the class had heard of 12-tone composition, and perhaps you have as well, but none of us had heard of one-tone compositions. A bunch of us stood on the landing outside the classroom after class and talked about it. We decided / realized that is was basically just a rhythm exercise. (Don't you love that rhythm is a two syllable word with no vowels?) "How can I come up with sixteen bars of just rhythm?" worried one student. Another one answered helpfully, "Just go listen to some Bartok. You'll get a bunch of great ideas." And he was right. He also suggested, as I recall, that she listen to some Django Reinhardt for more ideas. And he was right again.

Those were some good times, and I've even given you a link to listen to my 12-tone piece here. (Note that this is the version I used in my novel, "A Rune With a View" as having been composed by the protagonist under the pseudonym, Antonin Lavoris.) The tone row was based on the Fibonacci sequence, but then it goes through all the standard transformations. The piece was originally a trio for trumpet, 'cello, and flute (largely because those were instruments played by my fellow students who were willing to play in class), but I've recast it for strings here. (I also apologize for the less-than-beautiful synthesized string sounds in the video. I may look to upgrade that recording with better sound fonts one of these days.) Each instrument plays exactly the same number of notes, but they enter at different points in the flow - again based on the Fibonacci sequence.Who says mathematics and music don't mix? Certainly not I, nor Harald Ness, Jr. who is quoted here.

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

Art and Faith - 30 January 2021 - Plague Journal Day 324

Micah 6:8
Philippians 4:6-8
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

I attended a very interesting web conversation yesterday around the topic of Art, Faith, and the Church. It was based on the book "Art and Faith" by the speaker, Makoto Fujimura - the subtitle is A Theology of Making. What an exciting conversation it was!
As I noted to the organizers, I can't remember the last time I pulled out pen and paper and took notes from an online discussion (and I took quite a lot, really).

Fujimura was saying that when we Love, we Make - that's his distillation of his book, really. My musings on that phrase took me back to a definition of Love that seems very helpful in a lot of ways. Love can be seen as a will to reality. What I love, I want to be real to me - to be as real to me as I am to myself. That's why when we love people we want to learn about them, we find ourselves thinking of them.
That's why I want to know everything there is to know about Heidi - so she's as real to me as I am to myself. That's why I think of her all the time.

Them, moving on to the subject of making or of creating or of art, it means that what we create - what we're making real - is what we love. We want it to be real to us, so we think about it ... a lot. Another point I made in the conversation is that one way of judging our creations is to ask "where does it point?" If it points to God, then it's definitely worthy. Even if it's a work of less than mediocre craftsmanship, it's still doing what it's supposed to do. If it points to me, or another person, or to the world, it's almost certainly flawed - much as I am. Even if it's a stunning work of the finest craftsmanship, it's not doing what it's supposed to do. (Remember - this was a conversation about the role of creativity and art in the church.)

That brought to mind the line Paul wrote to the Philippians - "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." When our minds are focused on those things, what we create will be as well.
In a similar vein, just before that he tells them that they should "not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." There it is again - living in that peace that passes all understanding keeps our hearts and minds in Christ. When that's where our hearts and minds live, only good works can be made - only the fruit of the Spirit will be found. (Even though I can't write like C.S. Lewis or Charles Williams, nor paint like Van Gogh, nor compose like J.S. Bach, I can still do what I can with what I've been given to the glory of God. Amen.)

S.D.G. indeed

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

Projects Update

from grandteuton.blogspot.com

Well, it's been far too long since I posted anything here.

I don't know if anyone is actually interested, but I have almost completed the first draft of my second novel, and I'm pretty happy with it, really. The good part is that it's pretty well finished and the plot and scenes hang together well; the bad part is that I hate rewriting.
I don't mind revising paragraphs and sentences - I'm pretty well able to accept that the first choice of words that came to my mind isn't necessarily the best.
I don't like wholesale re-writing, however. If I wrote a scene, I generally like it, and I will resist removing it from the finished product. I'm better at adding scenes where things simply don't flow properly, or where I've left out something that the reader needs to know.

I haven't gotten back to the two cookbooks that are in my writing / editing pipeline, but I have at least collected most of what needs to go together, so I'm at the point where I can get things going pretty quickly.

The interesting thing is that November is coming soon, and we all know that's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I really don't think they like to count revisions as writing - that's kind of the antithesis of the "write, write like the wind!" fever of getting 50,000 words done in the course of those 30 days. I have my doubts that I can both revise / rewrite one book while pouring out another 50K words as the basis of another.

I also have to go through a thorough revision of my Mass setting. I seem to have a bunch of projects backing up right now.  Better that than no idea of what else to do, I suppose.

Some Current Projects

(from grandteuton.blogspot.com)

I'm working on a few things right now.  As I've finally gotten my great-great-grandfather's book published to Amazon (as noted here in a recent post), my thoughts are still largely in the literary vein.

• First, it's nearly November, and November brings National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)!  So, it's back to my in progress second novel, which I really plan to finish this year (as I have for the past few).  [I'm also wondering about getting my first novel up on Amazon, but that's something to think about later.]
• Next, apart from that writing, I'm also getting back to the revision of my Mass setting.  I really like much of it, but there are a few movements that just don't quite work yet, and I think I need to revise some of the accompaniment as well.  It's for small mixed  chorus, soloists, and organ.
• I'm also working on a cookbook - well, actually I'm working on two cookbooks right now:

1. I'm scanning and transcribing my Grandma's handwritten recipes from the [handmade!] cookbook her brother made for her as a wedding present; and
2. I'm compiling my favourite  original dishes, along with stories of their creation (or other happy occurrences related to their eating).

• A tedious (but likely useful) project is upgrading our computers to Windows 7 from XP.  The bad part is that it's not a direct upgrage - I have to back up the documents and reinstall all the applications.  The good part is that they should all be happier and run faster (and the disks will be cleaner, too!).  Microsoft seems to have done a good job with the latest version of Windows, and by offering the family pack - 3 users for less than the price of two - they're likely to get a lot of people going legal. (Not that anyone ever installed the same copy of Windows on more than one machine ....)  Well done Steve and company.