Yesterday I mentioned that I thought Gregorian chant should be accompanied lightly. I usually do a minimal amount of accompanying, keeping it much simpler than most of the harmonizations one sees.
I had to laugh last night when I realized I was asking my drummer to add sounds to the Veni Creator when we sing it. Oops.
Except I think it will be cool. Years ago I wrote a little setting of the Veni Sancte Spiritus melody which utilized a contraption I had made of flimsy wood with as many wind chimes on it I could get hold of. Same idea. Holy Spirit. Wind.
I asked Brian Coyle the drummer guy to begin with wind chimes before I introduce the melody and key. Insert wry comment here about my own lack of consistency.
I’m pretty happy about having Brian and his wife Debbie on oboe playing along on the Sufjan Stevens tune the Barons have requested for their ordination. I quite like getting husband and wife together to make music. I also love having a drum kit for certain styles. I wish I had someone to play regularly for them on Sundays.
I was also pleasantly surprised Sunday when a parishioner told me I had inspired him to read Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain by sharing a little post about it on Facebooger.
I tried not to act to excited to find someone at coffee hour actually talking about something that interested me.
Later this dude told me that a prof from Hope had warned him about how difficult Mann can be. I just shrugged and quoted an old friend to him: “In order to love Mann, you have to love bullshit.” I will be interested to see if this common reader likes Mann despite having been warned by a stupid stupid academic. Sometimes these people make me crazy.
My collection of JACT (Joint Association of Classical Teachers) new edition of Greek Texts is now complete. The World of Athens: an Introduction to Classical Athenian Culture arrived in the mail yesterday.
So now I own and use this book,
a book of Greek texts to study,
a book of grammar and an independent study guide.
Plus a pronunciation CD.
All of these cross connect and cross refer. I started doing the background reading yesterday. I have also started over at the beginning of the texts for the third time in order to deepen my understanding of Greek grammar and the way the words change to reflect meaning (morphology I guess they call it).
Rev. Dr. William Barber II on Today’s Protest Movements – NYTimes.com
I believe we are living in an increasingly uncivilized country. We have abandoned the ideal of democracy and traded striving for a representative government and any sense of public morality for profit and fear and misinformation.
The Talk: After Ferguson, a Shaded Conversation About Race – NYTimes.com
The talk is interrupted when the kid wants to know why he shouldn’t just tell people he’s white since he’s light skinned.
Our Unrealistic Hopes for Presidents – NYTimes.com
Though this article leaves out a bit one (presidents are not kings and cannot just make shit happen), it gets a lot right including this quote from Chris Rock.
In a recent interview, he (Rock) described how George W. Bush adapted to this new political environment, saying Mr. Bush “only served the people who voted for him.”
“He literally operated like a cable network,” he added, while Mr. Obama is “a network guy.” He explained: “He’s trying to get everybody
I am constantly amazed how partisans on both right and left operate in an echo chamber which omits the other person’s right to be an American either implicitly or even explicitly. Sad stuff.