Oops…. This entry from Monday didn’t get published. So here it is.

I want to keep this brief this morning because I want to do some more reading before leaving for work. The Classical Revolution: Thoughts on New Music in the 21st Century by John Bortslap is fascinating me.

Bortslap comes from such a different place than I do despite the fact that we share an obsession with music. He redefines music in a much more limited sense. Music that doesn’t elevate and fit into his notion of canonical works is not music at all. Rather he calls it sonic art. Which seems to be a loose catch all term including popular music and contemporary composers whose work he feels is tendentious. This apparently includes most composers after Britten and Shostakovich and even some of the work of name brands like Mahler and Richard Strauss.

Anyway, in a weird way, Bortslap’s ideas are fascinating to me and I want to use some of my blogging time for more reading this morning.

Yesterday at church I had a couple of amusing bad moments.

I have been working hard at preparing the ending section of Hindemith’s first organ sonata to use as a prelude yesterday. It came off pretty well if a bit under the metronome marking. Unfortunately the day before I noticed that I hadn’t set a preset for my postlude. I accidentally put it on the same preset I had set up for the quiet ending of Hindemith. So when I hit it as I came to the ending suddenly the organ boomed out and I had to take a moment and remember what stops were supposed to be playing. Oops.

Also we sang a peppy number yesterday by Donna Peña for our sequence hymn: “Digo ‘si,’ Señor.” The congregation is supposed to echo this phrase as the choir sings verses. I played through the refrain first, then the choir sang its line then instead of people singing the refrain there was silence. Oops. I need to think that one out a bit better as participation didn’t increase that much through out the piece.