Chorale group goes to France - 06/16/04

Sigh... they're going without me...

My choice though - short on $$ and vacation time.

I'm the tall guy in the back. We had a recordist there at St. Ambrose, so some audio clips may follow.

Bon voyage, my homies.

They're playing my song!

Got to do a wedding today with the cantor from my old church, at another church. Of course, we did a couple of my songs, cos we always do. But she told me that my replacement at St. C's scheduled my Pentecost Sequence for today/ tomorrow.

What was odd, was that I didn't remember writing one. I wrote a song based on the Easter Sequence, but the Pentecost Sequence wasn't ringing a bell.

I went home and checked my files - sure enough, I had deconstructed Divinum Mysterium, borrowed some existing lyrics, and assembled a nice little piece of music. COMPLETELY forgot about it!

Also, this could probably only happen in small towns:
The cantor and I ran the music program together in Dryden from 1997-2002;
She was secretary at the church (where we had the wedding) in Allenton until recently;
The pastor in Allenton is also pastor of the church in Capac, where my wife and mother-in-law now attend; and
My wife is waitressing for the wedding reception at the banquet hall in Imlay City tonight.

One more piece of news - Happy Silver Jubilee to my pastor, Fr. John Markham. He's been at St. Elizabeth's for 38 years!!! A bishop is coming tomorrow, not sure which one. Hope he's not expecting a Pentecost Sequence from us - apparently, if it ain't Gospel, we don't touch it...

I know, it's been forever.

Here's something. Report card finally showed up:

Class Voice: A
Chorale: A
Organ: B+

Definitely a mercy B+, there. I played terribly at juries and master class. Prof said I'd overcome so much that semester - meaning my hearing loss and vertigo - that he thought the grade was appropriate. Still sounds like a pity grade to me.

In other news, the newly reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners should help dispel any thoughts that humans are innately good. Wonder what kind of support the war would have had if we had announced ahead of time that we'd be humiliating naked prisoners on camera. Nope - we always pretend we're above evil, and always act surprised when we get caught, and pass it off as a few bad apples. Remember My Lai? Awful hard to hold the moral high ground when there's photographic evidence to the contrary.

Score one for the USCCB, who could easily say "told you so" right now.

A draft translation of the new Mass in English

Well, here it is. Still preliminary. These are all jpegs, about 60kb per page, so for those of you on dialup looking for song texts:

Page 4: Kyrie (only the priest's part is changed)
Page 5: Gloria (significant changes)
Page 14: Sanctus (the hosts are back!)
Page 17: Anamnesis (only 3 instead of 4)
Page 25: Doxology/Amen (largely unchanged)
Page 37: Pater Noster (unchanged)
Page 39: Agnus Dei (grammar alert!!!)

Creed's somewhere between 8 and 13.

I'm reserving comment, though I spoke to this before. Maybe after I've had time to chew them over for a while...

Blogfasting

Last year I gave up the web for my last week of Lent - I tried a progressive fast, and "progress" eventually took me there.

THIS year I had no intention of doing that again - giving up meat and sweets instead, that's aplenty. But due to my change in work locale, I've got NO web access, except when I'm home. There (uh, here, I mean), it's dialup, and I'm pretty darn busy. So you won't see much of me while I'm gigging in the glass house that Pete built. But it's not my health this time, just my circumstance.

Happy Holy Week, everyone!

All Things Must Pass

Six and one half years on my current project. Today's the last day.

When I interviewed, they warned me it might last more than a year. I grudgingly accepted. Now that I've been here roughly quintuple my intended stay, I wish it were continuing.

Actually, it is continuing, but only at about 1/4 - 1/3 its prior levels, and I'm one of the "casualties". It's not really as negative as that, because assignments are supposed to be of a finite duration. But these are uncertain economic times, and you never know where the next gig is coming from. And I got real comfy here. I'll especially miss the friends I made here. But many of them are leaving too, or have left already.

So starting tomorrow, I'll be reporting here:
>
rather than that nondescript set of office buildings behind the Speedway Station in South Lansing where i've been showing up for the last eighty months, more or less. 52 mile drive instead of 107 (one way!!!). Still about an hour and a half, but maybe less wear-n-tear on the Alero --- a 2001, already up to 108,000 miles.

Man Confesses After Seeing 'The Passion'

Huh. God moves in mysterious ways.

Works for me.

Humble bishop inspired others:

"'I'm Ken, and I'll be your servant.' "

Requiescat In Pacem, Bishop Untener. Your influence went far beyond the borders of your diocese. Without seeing you, we love you.

May the angels welcome you to paradise.

The Trouble With Catholic Social Teaching by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

The salutary process by which the free market leads to an ever-higher standard of living occurs without having to threaten violence against anyone or to confiscate anyone’s wealth by force. It certainly occurs very much in spite of destructive and ill-considered campaigns for a "living wage" – carried out, all too often, in the name of Catholic social teaching – which utterly fail to understand how this process occurs and which only make it more expensive to hire people in the first place.

I mostly disagree - Woods is battling a few straw men of his own making here - but an interesting read nonetheless. Thanks to Mark Owen for the link.

Happy Birthday, J. S. Bach!



319 today. You rock my world, man.

RIP, Sydney Carter:

"Lord of the Dance" composer dies at 88.

"I did not think the churches would like it at all. I thought many people would find it pretty far flown, probably heretical and anyway dubiously Christian. But in fact people did sing it and, unknown to me, it touched a chord. . ."

My late sister's favorite hymn - we sang it through choked-back tears at her funeral - and one of mine as well. St. Cornelius parish also took to it fondly. It was an Easter season staple there. Old Fr. Dunn remarked more than once, "You sang that like a bunch of Protestants!" It was meant as a compliment, he explained. Good thing, I'm not sure the pew choir was exactly pleased, at least until they got the explanation.

BTW, this has virtually nothing to do with Michael Flatley or clogging. He just borrowed the song title for his revue, and set a dance to its tune (Shaker Song). Sad that generations of non-churchgoers won't know the hymn, but only the show.

MATINS OF THE RESURRECTION - The Schola Cantorum of Saint Peter the Apostle, J. Michael Thompson, director.

A CD of Byzantine Chant for Easter from my pal JMT and his choir.

Includes:
Troparion, Tone 2,6;
Invocation and Troparion with Verses;
Tone 5 podoben (Christos Voskrese);
Litany of Peace;
Resurrection Canon, Ode 1, Ode 3;
Hypakoje (Tone 4 samopodoben 'Predvarivsija';
Resurrection Canon, Ode 4, Ode 5, Ode 6;
Kontakion and Oikos, Tone 8;
Sticheron, Tone 6;
Resurrection Canon, Ode 7, Ode 8, Ode 9;
Exapostilarion, (samopodoben, 'Plotiju');
The Praises, Tone 1;
The Paschal Stichera;
Litany of Supplication;
Litany of Fervent Supplication;
Paschal Dismissal

And watch for his new CD, now released, but not on the web page yet - "Annunciation of the Theotokos: Vespers and Matins"

Also recorded by the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter the Apostle, this gives the moveable parts of the services of Vespers and Matins for Mar. 25, sung in harmonized prostopinije, including the entire Canon of the feast. This is a dialogue between the Archangel Gabriel and the Theotokos (i.e., Mary). The services contain many melodies which would only be heard on this feast.

The only place you can purchase it is the Byzantine Seminary Press.

Byzantine Seminary Press
3643 Perrysville Avenue
P.O. Box 7626
Pittsburgh, PA 15214

If you haven't heard the St. Peter Schola before, you're missing a real treat. Highly recommended.

"Abraham", by Bruce Feiler - Harper Collins Publishers

I had the privilege of singing at the 30th annual Livonia (MI) Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast with my college chorale this morning. We sang twice, four songs all together:

Kyrie - Hassler
Alleluia - Thomson
Abide With Me - arr. Hogan
Ain't That Good News - trad (Tuskegee arrangement)

Plans for a fifth tune, Moses Hogan's arrangement of "I Can Tell the World", were scrapped - probably for time considerations, but there's been some question about the way we're performing it - we ignore the score's "swing all 16th notes" directive up front, ostensibly because Mr. Hogan has anecdotally instructed that it be sung straight - but a fellow chorale member has sung this song WITH Hogan - and they swung it. In fact, he quoted Hogan as specifically chewing out a member who wasn't swinging the beat properly - "What are you, a robot?" LOL.

Whatever - I have this, perhaps unfair, perception of conservatory types as just not getting it. Our director commented that Hogan was very precise, and "would have written in triple time if he wanted triplets." NO NO NO NO!!!! Swing is not triplets, at least not in its best form. A "shuffle", a specialized form of swing used in blues, particularly blues rock, DOES use triplets. But most forms of swing stop short of a full triplet, where the first (16th, in this case) note gets 66 2/3 % of the beat it subdivides, and the second note gets the remaining 33 1/3 %. Most true swing ranges from ~ 60/40 to ~ 65/35 --- later versions (Miles Davis, Ahmad Jamal) being less pronounced than earlier versions (Duke Ellington, and Count Basie in particular).

So you don't write it in triple time because it's NOT in triple time, unless the conductor (or rhythm section in a combo setting) chooses to do a shuffle. But nobody in choral music circles seems to understand this. Can you feel my frustration? Anyhow, kind of glad we skipped it.

I linked our guest speaker above. He's been actively working for a meeting of the minds among the various "Children of Abraham" - Christians, Moslems, and Jews, and offered some great insights into how we got ourselves into the mess we did. His "Abraham Initiative", a ground level program designed to institute interfaith dialog, is an inspiration. I bought a few copies of his book, I'm hoping my Pakistani Moslem friend and I will get a chance to both read it before we part ways at the end of the month, as our work project draws to a close and our respective companies send us both elsewhere.

The Rising Tide of Uncollected Wisdom

Everyone welcome Jerry to the blogosphere! It's always a kick to see my non-blogging compadres fire up their weblogs for the first time. Jerry's an organist from Southern Cali, with a serious technical bent, and strong on RC theology and liturgy issues as well - I've learned a lot from him.

Not sure what's up with the formatting - his code looks okay. Maybe a Radio Userland thing?

Gather Comprehensive Hymnal, Second Edition

The Short of It:

If you liked the green book, you'll like the red book. If you didn't, you won't.

Seems like a bit more hymnody than before, but nothing approaching the (optimal, IMO) blend found in RitualSong. It also appears to be lighter on OCP content this time, and I was surprised to find that psalm paraphrases still abound in the psalm section. Given the anticipated directives of Liturgiam Authenticam, I was expecting to see the paraphrases moved in with the hymns, and only exact NAB text remaining in this section.

My new parish uses nothing in the pews, and only "Lead Me Guide Me" for the choir. That's unlikely to change. I will soon begin subbing at a second parish - this one uses the green hymnals. Not sure yet if they're planning a change.

Yahoo! News - Church Nixes Good Friday Fenway Hot Dogs

Maybe Fenway oughta serve fishsticks??? Just a thought...

Helen Hull Hitchcock - Roman Missal Translation Update - Bishops Receive ICEL Missal

Ignoring the usual Adoremus spin, this is pretty interesting. My first read of the acclamations found little to which I would object. I'll read it through a few more times before commenting. As to Adoremus' comments - they're nothing if not predictable.

The most valid criticism I've seen of Vox Clara / Liturgiam Authenticam is that it seems to confuse translation with transliteration. But I understand the concern that anything less than transliteration allows the translator to add his own view. Holy Spirit, Guide Us!!!

The Virgil Fox Legacy:

Virgil Fox Masterclass Series!!! Wowy wow wow wow!

These sound files are the only available audio presentations of Virgil Fox Masterclasses, to our knowledge. They were recorded on a consumer reel-to-reel tape recorder of 1969 vintage, and so exhibit the quality expected from this era. The most important aspect of these tapes is being able to hear Virgil talking to a group assembled in his parlor, and hearing his anecdotes, performing tips, and other timeless — and educational — comments.

The recordings — about twenty-eight, in 45-minute installments — will be added to this website, one each month.

Man, do I want to hear these!!!

eBay item 3902169115 (Ends Mar-14-04 20:30:00 PST) - IM SO TOUGH I VACATION IN DETROIT T-shirt

Only three days, folks, no bids yet, hurry up!!!

Graytail Adventures

Updated my other site. It needed it. Not so sure about this one, so it keeps its admittedly generic look and feel for now.

I really SHOULD find another Cecilia pic, though - the card pic is pretty widely traveled.