One of the main things Sarah will probably help me with is using a more recent version of the software I use to edit this blog.

The band in this video is a local band. Yesterday I had the pleasure of chatting with the guitar player, Craig Avery.

A mutual acquaintance, Dennis Remenschneider, suggested that Craig should study with me. He is the music person at Immanuel Lutheran church in Ludington Michigan as well as one of the founding members of the band, Brena.

He has studied organ briefly before. I enjoyed listening to someone with his perspective. I found it slightly puzzling that he would seek me out, but this was largely at the behest of Remenschneider and the church he is working at, I guess. They offered to foot the bill for his lessons. Dennis idealizes my abilities. I’m afraid he wants me to mentor Craig. Craig seems to be doing church music just fine, but does not have pipe organ skills.

We agreed I would teach him. He is to purchase organ shoes and contact me for our first lesson. I gave him an old copy of Gleason I had laying around and asked him to read a few pages.

It would be fun to an organ student. We’ll see how this plays out.

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Government chief whip Andrew Mitchell resigns – Telegraph

This dude was rude to some workers. Lost his gig.

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Boy Scout Files for First Time Give Glimpse at Years of Abuse – NYTimes.com

No wonder the organization is homophobic. It makes me crazy when pedophilia is equated with homosexuality implicitly (as in the case of this article) or explicitly. Stupid stupid stupid.

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Larry Itliong, Forgotten Filipino Labor Leader – NYTimes.com

Did you know President Obama was recently in Keene, California at the United Farmworker headquarters? He designated the country’s first monument honoring a modern-day Latino. Some interesting little known history in this reporting.

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Suspect in Benghazi Attack Scoffs at U.S. – NYTimes.com

This story is an object lesson in how actors in a situation attempt to shape the reality of its reporting. Ahmed Abu Khattala throws untruths and innuendo into the mix. What a mess.

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Is It Time to Upgrade Your Gadgets? Do the Math – NYTimes.com

Some practical rules of thumb for when to upgrade phone/computer/whatever.

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Questions and Answers on the Benghazi Attack – NYTimes.com

This stuff continues to be distorted by weird reporting. Found this outline helpful.

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‘Ninety Years of Discrimination’ Is Enough, Court Declares – Garrett Epps – The Atlantic

Defense of Marriage Act goes down. Good.

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You will note the penciled in metronome markings. Yesterday Amy, Dawn Van Ark, my piano trio cellist, and I spent a good deal of time thinking about the tempos in this piece in our weekly rehearsal.

The previous week when I had ran through this with violin and oboe, I stopped us and set tempos for each section. This was to expedite reading.

I had thought this week to just let the trio (Deb couldn’t make it) move from section to section. The first rehearsal I had supplied the missing cello part. The second I supplied the missing oboe part.

But Amy had started thinking more specifically about tempos and their relationship in one canzona. After a great deal of discussion and experimentally playing, it became clearer to her and Dawn that these tempos are usually thought of in terms of proportions, i.e. 2:3.

Usually in tempo changes we think of what is common between the two tempos. Maybe the half note equals the half note of the next section. In proportional tempo changes this is a bit trickier, but can be done.

I came home and started poking around trying to find some resource material. My understanding of proportional rhythm in renaissance music dates back to my training in early music and work in early music ensembles. It has been years since I have had a discussion about it. I thought it would be good to research a bit.

Of course the salient article was outside my access.

There was an article in the 1995 edition of Early Music History. I do have access to this journal. But only volumes 29-31 as you can see here.

Access via Hope College is indicated by the little green dots.

The article in question was “Tempo relationships between uple and triple time in the sixteen century” by Ruth L. Deford. If you look closely you can see that I could buy this article for 30 to 40 pounds ($48.45 – $64.60) or rent it for anywhere from 4.49 – 5.99 pounds sterling ($7.25 – $9.67). Conversions are from today’s exchange rates.

So the heck with that. I did find an article in a book on Google books.

It’s not specific to the canzonas, but it might have some information in it. Inter-library-loaned the book which contains it.

In the meantime I found an online brass quartet edition with suggested metronome markings. I tried them out and found them pretty workable. I added one of my own and emailed it to the players as a working metronome solution until further examination.

I think this kind of thing is sort of fun.

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Teacher on Jury Duty Accused of Bringing Heroin to Court – NYTimes.com

Oops.

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In the Debates, Interruption or Interjection? – NYTimes.com

Deborah Tannen is someone whose books I have read. She has an informed and sensible way of looking at certain topics. She wrote this article.

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Scott’s Story and the Election – NYTimes.com

Little drama on the op-ed pages of the NYT. A friend of Kristoff confided in him about his own story about not having health insurance. He gets diagnosed very late with serious prostate cancer. He allows Kristoff to use his story as an example of someone needing health insurance. Kristoff received a lot of response (positive and negative). The man died this Monday.

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