It made a long day for us, but it was good to see fam. I have an 8:30 class this morning and I am feeling the fatigue.

Eileen has the day off so she is still resting.

I broke down and ordered some more used music from my old teacher, Craig Cramer, yesterday. He sends out a monthly list of used music he offers for sale. Eileen and I realized yesterday that this list is “Craig’s List.”

Tomorrow I will be 61 years old. I’m feeling pretty grateful to alive at this point.

I only have a few measures left on the string quartet transcription I am doing. Then all that’s left is to go through and mark dynamics and tempo changes. I will be glad to get that off my plate.

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‘How Music Works,’ by David Byrne – NYTimes.com

Dwight Garner pretty much pans Byrne’s new book. It’s on my non-fiction reading list to read next after The English Hymn by Watson. My brother and his wife gave me a copy for my birthday. Despite Garner’s take, I look forward to it.

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DAVID BYRNE AND ST. VINCENT – NYTimes.com

Speaking of Byrne his new album looks interesting.

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Dylan Says Slavery Still Stains United States – NYTimes.com

Great quote in this piece.

When asked “to respond to people who have criticized him as failing to cite the sources for some of his lyrics, Mr. Dylan, apparently not in the most cheerful mood, replied that they ‘can rot in hell.’”

Dylan abides.

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After an attempt at laying down and resting, I got up and worked on the string quartet transcription which is just about done now.

I walked over to church for our first Wednesday evening of meal, prayer, programs and rehearsal. From my point of view this combining of community building/social, education and music rehearsals worked well for the Childrens Choir. I had three more kids for a grand total of five. One child was under the requested age span (He was in 2nd grade and in the materials promoting this event we have repeatedly said the Kids’ Choir was open to third through sixth graders). He was definitely smart enough to be in Kids’ Choir but his behavior was typical 2nd grade: fidgety, wild fluctuations in concentration, and limited reading ability.

He did however respond to me when I kept urging him to rise to the challenge of being a chorister (one of many new words I taught the kids last night). I had fun showing them Bach as the Composer of the Month. I played the F minor Prelude from WTCII on the piano for them. We also spent time learning the first four phrases of the soprano part of Bach’s cantata 139, mov 1, in German. I had a information sheet with Bach’s picture on it for them to take home which we read over together. Next week I will use some of this information and make a little worksheet where they can fill in the blanks with words like “Baroque” and “violin.” Easy enough to make up in the age of word processing.

I had a “Cracking the Code” worksheet for them. I was surprised at how difficult this was for some kids. I listed off 8 notes on the staff and then asked them to fill in note names below to make several words.

I introduced them to sight singing and a host of other singing techniques.

I hope they come back next week.

Disappointingly I had no new adults in the Chamber Choir. One woman who has been with us a couple years quit. I think the Wednesday night rehearsal might have been why.

Having said that, these people are troopers. We worked hard on the upcoming music some of which is pretty devastatingly beautiful, in my opinion.

Specifically the Bach cantata movement and the Christus Factus Est by Bruckner. I previously embedded YouTube videos of both in a post last week.