Forgetting that yesterday was supposed to be sort of a day off after Sunday, I filled up my newly emptied Monday with lots of activity.

I spent my personal music allowance by ordering music by Nico Muhly, Rachel Lauren, James Woodman and Böhm. Today I will put in for reimbursement for this purchase and for the cost of my replacement jacks. This ordering business took up quite a bit of time. it was not helped by the fact that Sheetmusicplus.com insisted that I log in and when I did it erased my order my order of 12 titles. Sheesh.

Then Eileen and I began work on the harpsichord. The first thing that happened was our used drill failed. We decided to go to the hardware and purchase a drill and a tool to cut the jacks to size.

Not only did we need a drill to fit the bit for the sander thingo, we also had decided we needed to move a nut pin a bit to the right to free up the string better from one jack. This involved a very tiny bit so we needed the drill to do both. Fortunately the man at Ace Hardware was very helpful and recommended the drill above. It was only $35 but works excellently. We moved the nut pin.

As per the instructions that came with the refurbishing kit, we glued a toothpick in the old hole. You can see that these three pins are now more evenly distant from each other. God knows why they middle pin was so far off.

We splurged and spent $22 on an instrument that will do the trick for cutting the jacks (above). We then proceeded to cut the end jacks pictured below on either side.

This was a long and tricky process involving sanding one jack too short (again!!!). I now have only one extra jack. Eileen was invaluable in this process. She suggested we use her cutting board to line up the jacks. This morning I got up and laid then out.

Eileen is more confident than I about proceeding now. I was very discouraged at how tricky it was just to get the jack to the approximate length so that the plectrum is just below the string. The next step will be to cut the other jacks to draw a line across the jacks and cut them to the approximate length, number them, and then begin to put the old tongues in them.

Before ordering music, I went through a few months of AGO magazines looking for music to buy. In the September issue I ran across this little article.

Rhonda had told me she was going to do this, but I don’t always read the magazines carefully (or frankly open them up), so I was surprised to see this. Pretty cool.

Also this:

Joy is the organist who preceded me at Grace. She died not long after this picture was taken. Good job, Rhonda!

I also spent a good deal of time picking out anthems yesterday. I added a second anthem for this Sunday which will be Lessons and Carols. Then I looked at the anthems that St. James Press had put together specifically for the two Sundays after Christmas. I asked the choir last Wednesday if anyone would be interested in singing these Sundays. I got enough hands to proceed. St. James Press has designed very easy and highly lectionary related anthems. I pulled them down and plan to hand out at least one of them tomorrow night.

In his book, How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to Its History, Culture, and Heart, Robert Greenberg has a funny parody rationalizing putting music history into historical periods.

To periodize or not to periodize? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged academes by periodizing (and thus to blaspheme through generalization) or to address large-scale stylistic trends without prevarication; ’tis a fardel to bear, and bear it we shall. For such utile aids are not to be scorned, but embraced lest even greater misunderstanding be our lot. O Baroque! O Classical! O Romantic! Though the thorns of despised love be your reward,, we will invoke you even as we curse you, for, like our knees, thou art poorly made, but we cannot walk without you.

from How to Listen to Great Music by Robert Greenberg p. 37 

I’m still reading Becoming Madison: The Extraordinary Origins of the Least Likely Founding Father by Michael Signer. A fascinating section I was reading this morning describes Madison’s excellent critique of the Socratic method.

He says that the Socratic method is “captitious and insidious.” “Captious” didn’t come up in the OED. A little poking around on the web leads me to believe it means “Excessively ready to find fault.” Important to know it means that. Madison goes on that one should “not so much confute” an opponent’s argument as “show the superior advantage” and the “Honour and Justice of your own opinion.”

I am a reader of Plato and enjoy the Socratic dialogues but have never thought of how cruel Socrates is to his listeners, tricking them into bad arguments.

Madison’s ideas are much healthier in my opinion.

He was writing this as a student evolving his own method which I mentioned yesterday.

All Politicians Lie. Some Lie More Than Others. – The New York Times

I love the website Politifact. This is written by the editor of the website, Angie Drobnic Holan. I think the existence of websites like this are a small ray of hope in the current insane climate of US politics and public discussion.

Review: I’m With Her, Three Americana Virtuosos – The New York Times

I love the fact that reading this online I could click on a link and hear this group.