I was due to pick up my Mom to take her to the shrink and to lunch in about 35 minutes. I quickly chose hymns. Actually there’s no “quickly” about it. I use an index that is cross related to the church year. This is an excellent resource and usually has some good choices. I also consult the online lectionary to make sure I can see correlations between the texts and the readings.

I picked hymns and emailed them off to my boss and the church secretary who assembles the weekly bulletin. I also copy this info to the assistant priest because he preaches occasionally and I find it courteous to let him know what hymns I am recommending to be used.

It’s a recommendation because the final authority and choices are up to my boss.  She usually but not always goes with my recommendations.

After spending several hours with Mom I stopped by the church to figure out what to play for the prelude and postlude.

As I chose the hymns I racked my brains on what I might use for the organ music. The closing hymn I chose was “God of grace and God of glory” (Hymn tune: CWM RHONDDA).

Without even consulting my home-made index, I remembered that Paul Manz has written a goofy piece on this tune in which the recurring accompaniment melody to the tune is based on Handel’s Hallelujah chorus. I think it’s funny and a light choice.

Before I had heard this piece, I watched a deceptive organist tell a hiring committee that was interviewing him that he had made it up himself. At the time I thought it was kind of clever but dopey.

I was shocked when I later saw the piece on the page. Wow. People are so deceptive sometimes.

Anyway, I spent most of my prep time searching for this volume. Usually my music is in order by composer but often I neglect to refile stuff. It took me quite a bit of shuffling and filing to finally locate this volume at the bottom of a stack.

So I’m playing this as the postlude Sunday.

The sequence hymn for Sunday I recommended is  ”All my hope on God is founded” (Hymn tune: MICHAEL). The tune was composed by Herbert Howells so I thought maybe I could find a little piece by him for the prelude. Success!  I chose “Dalby’s Fancy” a lovely little piece he wrote specifically to be performed on a small organ in Aberdeen.

These correlations are usually lost on most parishioners unless I bother to write a little article for the bulletin. I have been resisting this since I have failed to engage my otherwise pretty wonderful rector in a discussion of the professional nature (and therefore commiserate remuneration) of my work. It just seems like over-functioning even though as I sit here I am wondering what my reference books have to say about the hymn choices I emailed.

That’s how I started writing the article in the first place. I realized that I was curious myself about the background of the hymns even beyond their textual relationship to the readings.

And then after a few articles parishioners began telling me how much they appreciated them. A lot of parishioners. Ironically this seems to be one of the things I do that gets the most comments.

I definitely have some other tasks to do this morning but I am once again tempted to check out the history of Sunday’s hymns.

I spent some time last night with Laurie the singing viola player. It was an interesting session in which I once again sort of tested and stretched someone’s concept of me and my work. Laurie sings in the choir at church and is a talented soprano. She knows me from my work there and had never attended one of my composition gigs. So even though she had the scores in advance, I know it was a different experience for her. I think she is going to help with the vocals but I’m not sure she will carry any one song by herself.

As I rehearse my songs and compositions and prepare for this performance I am once again proud of my work. Even though I haven’t found an outlet for it other than this web site, I still persist in thinking I have done some good writing.

Here’s some lyrics I will be singing next Thursday, if you’re curious.

from the song “Lucas Blinks”

Stefan gets home from work a little early.
He talks out loud though there’s no one there.
He needs someone to keep him company.
The man has so much to share.

He searched for truth and by God he found it.
Before that he wandered around like he was lost.
He dug a hole for his soul to drown it.
Now he spends time thinking of the cost.

“Tiny Lies”

Tiny lies that I see in your eyes
make it hard to conceal
What it takes to compromise
What it takes not to reveal.
That it’s never the right time,
seems it’s never the right rhyme.

Tiny lies that you see in my eyes
make it hard to conceal
what it takes for me to realize
what it takes not to reveal
that it’s always the right time
that now is the only time

Recently I was chatting with a friend. I mentioned that I believe all we have is the “now.” She took this to mean I think that I was saying something nihilistic. When in fact I was thinking more about Augustine’s concept of time and eternity. For some reason I think it was Augustine, but I also factor in a heaping amount of Christian mysticism. The idea is that all of eternity is present in the “now.” This differs from thinking of time in a linear manner. Somehow to me it relates to the fact that living is something we always do  in the present. That’s more like what I thinking about with my comment and in this song.

I had planned to finalize scores for my little upcoming gig, but I spent the day practicing instead. I think I will have time before the rehearsals this week to put together a performance book for myself and make sure all players have the scores they need.

I have to turn my thoughts to church and Mom a bit today. I need to pick some easy prelude/postlude music for this Sunday and get Mom back and forth to the shrink. I’m still planning to work hard on my gig stuff in between.

I have been thinking lately about my level of skill as a performer.

This is a bit tricky. I am a pretty good player. The magic of recording has such impact on all of our perceptions around musical skill. Historically this has improved musical execution in a startlingly way but it’s a bit of trade-off as it creates a high, some would say unrealistically high, expectation of perfection.  Also, it often seems to me that many of my colleagues and other musicians I know play much better than I do.  I know that live performances are a different animal from the recordings I hear and inevitably contain the human element of some flawed playing but nevertheless I think we all are affected by this. I am happy with the continuing improvement of my playing skills but also keenly aware of my shortcomings.

I spent a good deal of time with Mendelssohn yesterday strengthening the weak sections. I know if I am able to continue rehearsing in this manner it is likely I will give a good performance of the D minor piano trio movement I have scheduled for the gig.

I also worked quite a bit on  my singing.

This is something I haven’t done too much of even though many of my songs and pieces were written to be sung and I am my own primary performer of my work. My voice is aging of course as is my whole body. I like my voice but realize it’s a bit of an eccentric sound and seek to make it more pleasant to listen to and also to enunciate the words in a clear intentional manner.

If you stutter, it sometimes helps to "sing it."

Anyway, I keep fussing about with stuff for the upcoming August gig. I think it will pay off.

Along these same lines I think about the way I have chosen to spend my musical life.  My father and grandfather were both outsiders of sorts but they were also principled and spent their lives pursuing their own sense of purpose in their field of church. I guess I sort of am the same with my music.

It is a contemporary axiom that in our time perceptions often trump content. Though I try to more or less quietly lead with content the noise of how others perceive me often drowns out this intention. This is slightly disheartening sometimes but for the most part I am happy with the way I have lived my life so far especially in regards to my work.

This is probably just my chronic melancholy stirring. Heh.

I stopped by and said hi to Jonathan Fegel at the music store yesterday.

He buried his brother last week. That was the funeral I attended. Jonathan has been a friend for a while. Our orbits have ceased to cross much since he has settled down into a relationship and made some babies. I miss him but understand how life ebbs and flows. I stopped by to show him a little support as he learns how to live with the death of his brother. He looked a bit subdued as I watched him sell guitars and wait on customers. But when we had a chance to shoot the shit he seemed to perk up a bit. I hope I cheered him up. That was the intention.

I also wanted to tell him why I didn’t ask him to play on this year’s gig. He has worked with me musically since he was in high school. But the last time we played together I got the impression that my work was a bit rough for him in the execution due mostly to my ignoring the mix of the performance and concentrating on the energy.

Yesterday he told me that it wasn’t only that. Something was happening in him,  he said. Hard to tell what’s going on with that. Probably none of  my business really. But I told him I was available for talking and playing if he had time and/or inclination. I don’t think he’s up for much right now anyway.

Before falling asleep last night I read the short story “The Dredgeman’s Revelation” by Karen Russell in the July 26th New Yorker (link to entire story online)

Dredge from the 1700s “Print shows a man manipulating a large floating device with pulleys and a scoop attached, driven by horse-power, for dredging around docks and in rivers.”

I think this is an example of pretty fine writing. I enjoyed it.  But be warned. It’s not a happy story. It’s about an orphan whose life is so miserable that being a dredgeman in the bayou is a pleasure.

I also finished off  The Nobody’s Album by Carolyn Parkhust.

I think I was attracted to the main character. She is a writer who is working her way back into the life of her son after they are estranged by her work and the death of her husband (his father) and daughter (his sister).  There was just enough plot to keep me connected (a murder) but I think really it was the writing that I enjoyed. Nothing deep, but it didn’t strike me as contrived at all, very natural.

Recommended.