October 4th was the start of my 11th year as organist of Faith church. How did I celebrate? Some bombastic organ voluntary?
Actually I didn't play anything. At the 10:30 service, since it was World Communion Sunday, the choir director programmed a lively choral opening piece. When she asked about doing it at the start of the service, I said that I had had a failure of imagination this year and hadn't found anything I particularly wanted to play for that Sunday anyway, and it would be interesting to open the service by way of the choir instead of an organ piece for a change. So I got to sit on my hands and listen.
The choir anthem also happened to be unaccompanied, so aside from the hymns I had a pretty light week. As for anniversaries, I've got another one coming up soon anyhow.
That brings us up to last week. Our new pastors have given us a sheet with sermon information--topics and scripture lessons--for the entire semester. Jealous? This, however, does not mean it isn't subject to change.
On Monday, in fact, the lead pastor sent out an email to that effect. Since I am in the middle of preparation for an organ recital, I was rather proud of the fact that I had not only found suitable pieces for the voluntary and offertory, but had managed to record them for my internet audience on Friday. I was well ahead of the game. I felt a little bit like the guy in the parable of Jesus who build bigger barns to store all of his grain and congratulates himself on his success, which is ironic, considering that is the scripture being used at the end of the revised series a few weeks from now. Woe unto him!
The scripture that I had used as a reference for the week's musical selections, however, was now gone completely--not simply moved to another week--so now I have a nicely pre-recorded set of pieces for use some day in another context.
Monday morning, then, consisted of a few minutes of grumbling, several more minutes of scrambling, a sudden moment of inspiration, when I realized that a piece I had practiced and recorded this summer for the topic of prayer (which I had then assumed might be of use some time in January) would furnish a nice opening voluntary. Then I remembered another musical 'prayer' by Cesar Franck and found a Youtube video with such a piece. Within a half hour I had found it on IMSLP and downloaded and printed it; even practiced it once at home on the piano. It is from a collection called L'organist, which contains many short and simple pieces, of which this is one, and required next to no practice. There is another Franck piece called "Prayer" which I had been thinking of, his opus 20, longer and not extremely difficult, but far less simple, but again, I've got a recital to think about, and I did not want to spend very much time on music for church this week until I feel comfortable with the recital program, only three weeks away.
This is life in the church. It is often a scramble, and requires quick preparation. That unfortunately can mean loss of quality, since quantity and quality are often enemies (I still love Arthur Loesser's phrase about one piano composer having "all the fecundity of a low-grade organism"). I have never allowed the weekly need for new music, for topical music, or the working rhythms of collegues to force only music requiring little or no effort (and let's hear it for pastors who put out the week's liturgy and service information no later than Monday, not to mention a blueprint of the entire semester in advance!). There are various ways to keep standards high and survive the inevitable twists and turns and rapid adjustments necessary to serve in a church. It also helps when you've got flexible and communicative colleagues, willing to do what it takes to have an effective service. This week we managed a last minute inclusion of a very effective benediction response by calling an "audible"--there were several quick "team meetings" with everyone concerned and we figured out how and where to put the new piece right before the service began. Those occasions often turn out to be my favorite memories of worship at Faith, how we all came together and unselfishly made something happen that made the worship better. Those are times I can be proud, not of my own efforts, but of everyone around me.
Showing posts with label this week at church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label this week at church. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2015
Friday, January 31, 2014
Making Connections
One of the difficulties I've always found with liturgy is that it tends to be very local. One short musical response followed by a prayer or a reading, then another short musical response. In the best of situations those responses have something to do with one another, the elements coalesce, the service itself seems to be about something, to have a particular mood, message, occasion, reason for being, but at other times, the service wanders, shifts gears constantly, not sure whether to celebrate or beat its breast, proclaim, meditate, confess, or try to do them all in no particular order.
This is because, in the long running battle of form with function, form has always dominated the church service. All the same elements in the same order, week after week, because that's the way we are supposed to do it, or we like it that way, or it is just easier not to have to make new decisions, or we think God likes it that way, or something.
There are ways, though, myriad ways, to draw connections between the elements, between themes and ideas and positions. Ways to play the opening hymn or the prayer response differently from week to week so that it seems meant not only for the long procession of worship occasions past present and future but on this one occasion particularly intended for this one.
The last couple of weeks I've been doing that with the transition to the doxology. Between the offertory and the closing hymn in our service sits the celebratory doxology. It is always loud, always majestic, and sometimes of a completely different character than the offertory that immediately precedes it. I submit for your ears the offertory I played on Baptism of the Lord Sunday this year. It's five and a half minutes--if you are in a hurry you can just listen to enough of it to get the idea.
Right. Now, as soon as that ends, it is time for the doxology, which, at our 10:30 service, sounds like this:
If you have difficulty imagining how those two things fit together, that makes two of us. So here is what I did about it. After the offertory concluded, I played this (or something like it) as an introduction to the doxology:
That last phrase it designed to get people to stand up, and it works.
The following week we had a classical guitar solo for the offertory. The musical selection was the lute suite in E major. Since our soloist needed a little time to move his equipment back, I made a longer introduction to cover the sound and give him the necessary time. Also, I hoped, to preserve the character of what we'd just heard and move it into the doxology. What I actually played was improvised at the service, and it was more inspired than what I dashed off for the microphone late last night. But it was something like this:
That also meant I took the doxology up a half step. I hope the sopranos in the choir didn't mind. I didn't ask!
The net effect of this is, I hope, to help the service to flow better from one moment to the next, and also to say that in the long parade of weekly services, THIS day matters enough to get the elements to cooperate with one another and make one effective statement out of, to build on the enthusiasm, or the introspection, of a particular moment in time, and not to simply break into it with our regularly scheduled bits of stuff we have to do every week whether it derails the effect or not.
This is something over which I could write many a blog (and perhaps will one day). It is not intended to subvert the liturgy but to enhance it. And of course it requires imagination and improvisational skills, and much practice in making quick decisions, taking risks (often I have not planned this out ahead of time) and trusting that somehow things will go well. Better than well, one hopes. But then, there is always next week. In a curious way, for a learning musician, church is an excellent laboratory in this respect. On the other hand, every experiment matters. Which is why you live and learn, and yet why I so often will not leave well enough alone.
Because it isn't "well enough."
Friday, January 17, 2014
The World is My Parish (part two)
Last week I spent quite a few words on my attempts to understand a piece of music that I was playing in church. Your take away on all that could have been a) I think too much, or b) I struggle with musical issues just like you do. I'd prefer B, though I have always been aware that people don't have patience for lengthy discussions of what appear to them to be minor points. On top of all that, I never actually posted a recording of the piece itself which I had promised! So here it is.
[listen to Flowing Water by an unknown Chinese composer]
It is, I think, very beautiful, and you might be wondering what all the fuss was about. I had mentioned that I didn't feel like the piece cohered very well in some places. Given that many people don't listen for the connection between musical moments, only things like the beauty of the sound and the interest an idea has for them at that very moment, a number of you wouldn't have shared my apprehension. But I found it worth the discussion. And, I should report, that part of the reason you might feel reasonably satisfied with the piece's construction is that I figured things out. During the recording session, on the third and last take, I felt as I was playing a passage on the last page that bothered me the most, that my ears had finally understood how to play it so that it made sense. In essence, the first phrase and the second phrase had to be understood as near repetitions of one another with richer harmonies on the end of the second phrase. (the section starts at 4:10) For some reason, probably in all the details, I hadn't heard it before, and the harmonies, while interesting in and of themselves, (with a kind of Lisztian revelation) stuck out too much. But when my ears found their focus, the harmonies seemed to rhyme with the ones that came before. And I didn't need to suspend my assumptions about harmonic progressions, either.
I'll give you an example of what I mean. Suppose we are listening to a baseball game. The score was 5 to 2 with the home team winning. Now the visiting team scores a run. The score is now 5 to 3, and the announcer, to my mind, should emphasize the 3 because that is how the score has changed. Sometimes an announcer puts the emphasis on the 5 and it bugs me because the 5 is the thing that is still the same and it is not important. A person just walking into the room assumes that the home team has just scored and that a moment ago it was 4 to 3 or something like that. Or suppose you are reading this blog aloud. Halfway through the last paragraph, I began a sentence "...I should report, that part of the reason..." and if, because of the comma, perhaps, you emphasized the world THAT instead of the word PART, you would be temporarily confused about the sense of what I wrote. That's what I mean. A good pianist has to parse the musical contents in a way that cannot be accounted for by simply following the expression and tempo marks on the page anymore than I can (or would want to) tell you exactly how to read this text.
I've written about this before. What made it interesting this time around was that I was dealing with music from a very different culture. People naturally tend to assume that when they don't understand something it is the fault of the material, not themselves, but I was considering whether the impasse was the result of cultural considerations I would not be able to grasp with my intractably Western ears, or simply because I hadn't understood the piece yet, or if the composer was at fault. I turned out that the bulk of the issue resolved itself given enough time and play-throughs to hear that structure. There is still one place where the composer tried to do something really ambitious, namely modulate through about three keys in the same downward run (1:40-1:154) and I don't think that really works and I'm blaming that on the composer. But otherwise, the music and I seem to understand each other.
The larger issue, however, is the most important. It is easy for someone to claim that "the world is my parish" or to sing "the world to Christ we bring" and assume that what that means is that the rest of the world needs what we're selling, culturally, spiritual, economically, technologically, linguistically, and every other way you can think of and that we have nothing to learn from them. It is easy to remain mired in our little bit of the woods, doing the same old same old, and thinking that's the way it is and the way it ought to be--for everybody else, too. It is harder to engage with the unfamiliar and to try to understand it, which is one good reason that I try to choose music that reflects a broad range of times and places.
I've mentioned before that I come across a lot of vitriol about professional musicians in the church--often complaints that they are just snobby know-it-alls with oversized egos and that things would be a lot better if amateurs where running things. One of the best reasons I can think of for having a "so-called expert" in the church, besides the observation that things usually run more smoothly if there is someone who really knows what they are doing at the keyboard, is that sometimes that "so-called expert," with his or her broad knowledge of music and practices, is the only one keeping the congregation from singing the same favorite five hymns every Sunday. It is not easy to do battle with natural human prejudice and practices of exclusion. But this is one way to try--a little bit of understanding at a time.
[listen to Flowing Water by an unknown Chinese composer]
It is, I think, very beautiful, and you might be wondering what all the fuss was about. I had mentioned that I didn't feel like the piece cohered very well in some places. Given that many people don't listen for the connection between musical moments, only things like the beauty of the sound and the interest an idea has for them at that very moment, a number of you wouldn't have shared my apprehension. But I found it worth the discussion. And, I should report, that part of the reason you might feel reasonably satisfied with the piece's construction is that I figured things out. During the recording session, on the third and last take, I felt as I was playing a passage on the last page that bothered me the most, that my ears had finally understood how to play it so that it made sense. In essence, the first phrase and the second phrase had to be understood as near repetitions of one another with richer harmonies on the end of the second phrase. (the section starts at 4:10) For some reason, probably in all the details, I hadn't heard it before, and the harmonies, while interesting in and of themselves, (with a kind of Lisztian revelation) stuck out too much. But when my ears found their focus, the harmonies seemed to rhyme with the ones that came before. And I didn't need to suspend my assumptions about harmonic progressions, either.
I'll give you an example of what I mean. Suppose we are listening to a baseball game. The score was 5 to 2 with the home team winning. Now the visiting team scores a run. The score is now 5 to 3, and the announcer, to my mind, should emphasize the 3 because that is how the score has changed. Sometimes an announcer puts the emphasis on the 5 and it bugs me because the 5 is the thing that is still the same and it is not important. A person just walking into the room assumes that the home team has just scored and that a moment ago it was 4 to 3 or something like that. Or suppose you are reading this blog aloud. Halfway through the last paragraph, I began a sentence "...I should report, that part of the reason..." and if, because of the comma, perhaps, you emphasized the world THAT instead of the word PART, you would be temporarily confused about the sense of what I wrote. That's what I mean. A good pianist has to parse the musical contents in a way that cannot be accounted for by simply following the expression and tempo marks on the page anymore than I can (or would want to) tell you exactly how to read this text.
I've written about this before. What made it interesting this time around was that I was dealing with music from a very different culture. People naturally tend to assume that when they don't understand something it is the fault of the material, not themselves, but I was considering whether the impasse was the result of cultural considerations I would not be able to grasp with my intractably Western ears, or simply because I hadn't understood the piece yet, or if the composer was at fault. I turned out that the bulk of the issue resolved itself given enough time and play-throughs to hear that structure. There is still one place where the composer tried to do something really ambitious, namely modulate through about three keys in the same downward run (1:40-1:154) and I don't think that really works and I'm blaming that on the composer. But otherwise, the music and I seem to understand each other.
The larger issue, however, is the most important. It is easy for someone to claim that "the world is my parish" or to sing "the world to Christ we bring" and assume that what that means is that the rest of the world needs what we're selling, culturally, spiritual, economically, technologically, linguistically, and every other way you can think of and that we have nothing to learn from them. It is easy to remain mired in our little bit of the woods, doing the same old same old, and thinking that's the way it is and the way it ought to be--for everybody else, too. It is harder to engage with the unfamiliar and to try to understand it, which is one good reason that I try to choose music that reflects a broad range of times and places.
I've mentioned before that I come across a lot of vitriol about professional musicians in the church--often complaints that they are just snobby know-it-alls with oversized egos and that things would be a lot better if amateurs where running things. One of the best reasons I can think of for having a "so-called expert" in the church, besides the observation that things usually run more smoothly if there is someone who really knows what they are doing at the keyboard, is that sometimes that "so-called expert," with his or her broad knowledge of music and practices, is the only one keeping the congregation from singing the same favorite five hymns every Sunday. It is not easy to do battle with natural human prejudice and practices of exclusion. But this is one way to try--a little bit of understanding at a time.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Meditating on the Trinity
Last week, for Trinity Sunday, I played a couple of golden oldies by Michael Praetorius on a hymn prescribed for the day. These pieces are a long way from what I played last week--about 400 years older, and more subdued. I don't recall any compliments on the music after the service, either. They weren't meant to be impressive, but reflective.
Praetorius: O Blessed Light of the Trinity
Some of that will, of course, owe to the interpretation, which I will admit was probably not historically correct. The reason for that has to do with the construction of the organ. In the beginning, in the days of the Roman Empire, when the pipe organ was just starting out (it dates back to the 3rd century B. C.) it would have been small and portable, with only one bank of pipes, and probably would have sounded a lot like the piece you've just heard. But by the Middle Ages, builders were expanding the organ. In an age when large and unwieldy armor was in and Giorgio Armani was out (or, more correctly, not "in" yet), organ builders attached several ranks of pipes together and provided no way for the organist to chose to play some but not others, thus stopping the air flow to some groups of pipes and being able to change the sound of the organ at will. This is called "blockwerk"--everything together in one great block. It was all or nothing, which meant the instrument was loud all the time. Pretty subtle.
Later on, organ builders began liberating these ranks for one another. I'm not very informed about this history and am not sure when it occurred in each country and to what extent, though I suspect Mr. Praetorius had an organ that was capable of such tonal variations. He championed the idea of "polychoral" performances, which basically meant contrasting ensembles, both in choral performance and when writing for organ. Apparently this was still something of a innovation in his day because he attended a conference of organists from all over the German states in which he expressed this idea: it was a chance to discuss all the latest ideas with his colleagues, and this was apparently the hot compositional item of the day.
Whether Praetorius himself would have performed the piece the way I have (a recording I stumbled across on the internet recently takes a much more "blockwerk" approach, and is five times louder) it seemed to me, using the resources I have to draw upon, that this simple registration,which uses only an 8 foot flute stop, lends itself well to a contemplative, mystical quality.
But just like last week, when I mentioned the irony of celebrating Pentecost with a Babbel of languages, I'm not wholly comfortable with this idea, either. And the problem, for me, is the context.
A year or so ago, driving through the Midwest, I was listening to a Catholic radio station. The fellow on the radio was complaining about how the church had taken a wrong turn during the 60s and 70s. All of these radical troublemakers, he said, stirring things up trying to get equal rights for this group and that group, and talking about social justice and all of that rot, instead of just concentrating on those good old core doctrines. Somebody called in to defend some of that social action and he told them basically that they should just knock it off and "meditate on the Trinity." Now, it does seem like it is possible to care about the plight of your neighbor, to seek justice in the world, and to meditate on the Trinity. But here, as far too often, the two were very pointedly set in opposition to one another. Meditation was supposed to be a substitute for action. Don't complain about anything, people, leave the driving to us. Contemplate the majesty of God while another factory in a poor county collapses and kills hundreds of people because somebody didn't want to be bothered building it up to code because it would cut into their profit margin (which seems a little short-sighted now that production has stalled). Don't say anything, just read your Bible and think about Divine mysteries. And if your neighbor gets unsafe water and inadequate food, or doesn't get a voice in his or her government, or a decent wage, or the same legal rights as everyone else, or is treated like the enemy because they don't practice the dominant religion or have the wrong complexion, just...calm down and think about how terrific God is. And stop bothering us about that other stuff.
For some reason, I don't think the Trinity would be all that impressed.
Last week our pastor spoke about Memorial Day, and spent quite a lot of time advocating for peace, and not the "gee I wish we had some" variety, but the kind you have to really work for, the kind you have to wage, just as you wage war. If I'd known that a few days earlier I might have been able to cobble together some peace music (I have a few ideas under the topic in my "church music ideas" document). But one can't always plan too far ahead, and at the moment we don't really know what he is going to talk about from one week to the next, so I noted that it was Trinity Sunday and planned accordingly. So while he was crying out for peace, there I was meditating. On the Trinity.
I hope it helped some people. It bugged me, because I couldn't help noting the juxtaposition I outlined above, the one where doctrine is a substitute for living like an actual Christian instead of being a "healing teaching."
"Peace, peace!," cried Jeremiah. "But there is no peace!"
No there isn't, Virginia. But we can pretend.
Praetorius: O Blessed Light of the Trinity, verse two: This morning, God, We Praise You
Praetorius: O Blessed Light of the Trinity
Some of that will, of course, owe to the interpretation, which I will admit was probably not historically correct. The reason for that has to do with the construction of the organ. In the beginning, in the days of the Roman Empire, when the pipe organ was just starting out (it dates back to the 3rd century B. C.) it would have been small and portable, with only one bank of pipes, and probably would have sounded a lot like the piece you've just heard. But by the Middle Ages, builders were expanding the organ. In an age when large and unwieldy armor was in and Giorgio Armani was out (or, more correctly, not "in" yet), organ builders attached several ranks of pipes together and provided no way for the organist to chose to play some but not others, thus stopping the air flow to some groups of pipes and being able to change the sound of the organ at will. This is called "blockwerk"--everything together in one great block. It was all or nothing, which meant the instrument was loud all the time. Pretty subtle.
Later on, organ builders began liberating these ranks for one another. I'm not very informed about this history and am not sure when it occurred in each country and to what extent, though I suspect Mr. Praetorius had an organ that was capable of such tonal variations. He championed the idea of "polychoral" performances, which basically meant contrasting ensembles, both in choral performance and when writing for organ. Apparently this was still something of a innovation in his day because he attended a conference of organists from all over the German states in which he expressed this idea: it was a chance to discuss all the latest ideas with his colleagues, and this was apparently the hot compositional item of the day.
Whether Praetorius himself would have performed the piece the way I have (a recording I stumbled across on the internet recently takes a much more "blockwerk" approach, and is five times louder) it seemed to me, using the resources I have to draw upon, that this simple registration,which uses only an 8 foot flute stop, lends itself well to a contemplative, mystical quality.
But just like last week, when I mentioned the irony of celebrating Pentecost with a Babbel of languages, I'm not wholly comfortable with this idea, either. And the problem, for me, is the context.
A year or so ago, driving through the Midwest, I was listening to a Catholic radio station. The fellow on the radio was complaining about how the church had taken a wrong turn during the 60s and 70s. All of these radical troublemakers, he said, stirring things up trying to get equal rights for this group and that group, and talking about social justice and all of that rot, instead of just concentrating on those good old core doctrines. Somebody called in to defend some of that social action and he told them basically that they should just knock it off and "meditate on the Trinity." Now, it does seem like it is possible to care about the plight of your neighbor, to seek justice in the world, and to meditate on the Trinity. But here, as far too often, the two were very pointedly set in opposition to one another. Meditation was supposed to be a substitute for action. Don't complain about anything, people, leave the driving to us. Contemplate the majesty of God while another factory in a poor county collapses and kills hundreds of people because somebody didn't want to be bothered building it up to code because it would cut into their profit margin (which seems a little short-sighted now that production has stalled). Don't say anything, just read your Bible and think about Divine mysteries. And if your neighbor gets unsafe water and inadequate food, or doesn't get a voice in his or her government, or a decent wage, or the same legal rights as everyone else, or is treated like the enemy because they don't practice the dominant religion or have the wrong complexion, just...calm down and think about how terrific God is. And stop bothering us about that other stuff.
For some reason, I don't think the Trinity would be all that impressed.
Last week our pastor spoke about Memorial Day, and spent quite a lot of time advocating for peace, and not the "gee I wish we had some" variety, but the kind you have to really work for, the kind you have to wage, just as you wage war. If I'd known that a few days earlier I might have been able to cobble together some peace music (I have a few ideas under the topic in my "church music ideas" document). But one can't always plan too far ahead, and at the moment we don't really know what he is going to talk about from one week to the next, so I noted that it was Trinity Sunday and planned accordingly. So while he was crying out for peace, there I was meditating. On the Trinity.
I hope it helped some people. It bugged me, because I couldn't help noting the juxtaposition I outlined above, the one where doctrine is a substitute for living like an actual Christian instead of being a "healing teaching."
"Peace, peace!," cried Jeremiah. "But there is no peace!"
No there isn't, Virginia. But we can pretend.
Praetorius: O Blessed Light of the Trinity, verse two: This morning, God, We Praise You
Friday, May 24, 2013
Methodist Flash Mobs and other theoretical impossibilities
This past Sunday something truly unusual, revolutionary, perhaps unique in the history of humankind occurred at a Methodist church in Illinois. Think I'm overselling a bit?
It was this: planned...Methodist....chaos.
Methodists don't do planned chaos very well. Unplanned chaos, sure, we're great at that. We can make chit-chat loud and long and fail to pay attention to the proceedings--in fact, the funny thing about the way our service opened on Sunday was how long it took for our pastor to get attention to make the morning announcements. There was festivity in the air. Lots of people in their flame-colored attire, negotiating flame-colored streamers on the backs of the pews and, probably, loudly observing the strangeness of all of this to their neighbors.
It was when the announcements were over that the chaos happened. At the words "turn and greet your neighbor" some persons began greeting one another in different languages. Then a few more joined in. There were the usual handful of volunteers, some speaking German, some Italian, some Spanish--I think we had at least one Asiatic language in there, and sign language--and additionally, the choir had fanned out into the congregation and about two dozen of them were adding their voices to the din, which kept getting louder, and LOUDER.
About a minute into this sanctified fracas came a voice. One soprano intoning the ancient pentecost hymn "Come, Creator Spirit." When she finished there came a thunderous chord from the organ and the opening voluntary began. At that point the flash mob was over and the choir gathered at the back of the church in order to process forward during the singing of the introit. They sang the heck out of it, by the way. I'd like to think the mood created by the flash mob and the ensuing organ music helped them to do that.
We've been doing some variation on the languages of Pentecost for a few years now. The story of a roaring wind, tongues of fire, the disciples suddenly speaking the gospel in different languages lends itself to some kind of dramatic commemoration and, as Methodists, we have a committee that tries to do creative things in worship. It is a sub-committee of another committee, naturally, and I think even those members are answerable to another committee. But this sub-committee, RuacH, from the Greek word for Spirit, is, I would imagine, a fairly unusual thing for a church to have. We gather every couple of months on average to explore the themes for the upcoming seasons of the year and the new sermon series and find ways to incorporate poetry, drama, liturgical dance and so on into those worship services. In past years on Pentecost we've had people stand up front and deliver the gospel message in different languages one at a time, politely waiting until the person ahead of them is finished. Even the rushing wind sound is done solo. It's all very orderly, which is how Methodists like it. That's how we got our name.
So getting folks to all speak at once, or to talk over each other, and to do it loudly, and ON PURPOSE, was like breaking through the fourth wall of Methodism (no, not the Wesleyan Quadrilateral). I don't know if it's ever happened before, and, like a naturalist, I feel compelled to document it. Plus, it was pretty cool.
Of course, afterward, someone said to me that she would have preferred people do the languages one at a time, and I told her we'd probably do that again next year. And, as unexpected as the whole flash mob thing was supposed to be, the pastor kind of tipped everybody off by explaining it in the church email days before, and instructing everyone not to politely sit down until the organ came in. (We had decided to dispense with the usual Pavlovian chimes and go directly to the organ voluntary.) Look, for a Methodist over fifty, that's about as close to a real flash mob as anyone is going to get! Don't knock it.
One other thing: I was meditating on the irony of the whole Pentecost celebration while putting my notes (/strategy) to the flashmobbers together, thinking about how at the original event everyone was astounded to be actually able to understand the disciples, because in this bustling metropolis of a thousand tongues the gospel was suddenly being shared in all of them, and how, in our sanctuary, it was highly unlikely that any of us would understand most of these languages. In other words, the celebration sort of reversed the event being celebrated. And then I got an advance copy of the bulletin, complete with a prayer of confession which contained the line "We continue the divisions of Babel, speaking in tongues that confound rather than clarify, hurt rather than heal, separate rather than unite."
True, confusion gets a pretty universally bad rap in the church, but besides taking at least one holyday in the church year and un-domesticating it a little bit, bringing back some of the wildness and awesomeness, I think a bit of off-balanced unexpectedness is not such a bad thing always. We in the church are so good at doing things the same way, getting comfortable with ourselves and our methods, that we seldom grow our skills of adaptation and understanding. How can we minister to the stranger in our midst if we don't know what their needs are? And how can we know that, or even empathize with that, if we don't understand them? And how can we understand something outside of ourselves if we don't try to come to terms with something or someone that we don't already understand? Knowing what we like and liking what we know is a good way to avoid growth; it leads to stagnation. They way forward involves learning to know the unknown; Karl Barth even referred to God as "wholly other." (I'd like to find out what that means sometime when I have a couple thousand free hours to read "Church Dogmatics.")
And effort indeed needs to be made to that end. Maybe on the first Pentecost the Spirit gave everyone the ability to speak in new languages just magically, but everyone since who has gone out to spread the gospel in other languages has had to take the trouble to learn them. And always there is at first a sense of floundering around in the new and the unaccustomed. But they get the hang of it.
So maybe getting people outside of the tranquil expectations of the orderly, not just by preaching about it, but by throwing them a little off balance during a worship service, isn't such a bad thing.
In any case, for a few moments on a Sunday morning, something slightly unusual happened within the confines of a Methodist church, the full effects of which are not yet known. We are forming a committee to study it.
It was this: planned...Methodist....chaos.
Methodists don't do planned chaos very well. Unplanned chaos, sure, we're great at that. We can make chit-chat loud and long and fail to pay attention to the proceedings--in fact, the funny thing about the way our service opened on Sunday was how long it took for our pastor to get attention to make the morning announcements. There was festivity in the air. Lots of people in their flame-colored attire, negotiating flame-colored streamers on the backs of the pews and, probably, loudly observing the strangeness of all of this to their neighbors.
It was when the announcements were over that the chaos happened. At the words "turn and greet your neighbor" some persons began greeting one another in different languages. Then a few more joined in. There were the usual handful of volunteers, some speaking German, some Italian, some Spanish--I think we had at least one Asiatic language in there, and sign language--and additionally, the choir had fanned out into the congregation and about two dozen of them were adding their voices to the din, which kept getting louder, and LOUDER.
About a minute into this sanctified fracas came a voice. One soprano intoning the ancient pentecost hymn "Come, Creator Spirit." When she finished there came a thunderous chord from the organ and the opening voluntary began. At that point the flash mob was over and the choir gathered at the back of the church in order to process forward during the singing of the introit. They sang the heck out of it, by the way. I'd like to think the mood created by the flash mob and the ensuing organ music helped them to do that.
We've been doing some variation on the languages of Pentecost for a few years now. The story of a roaring wind, tongues of fire, the disciples suddenly speaking the gospel in different languages lends itself to some kind of dramatic commemoration and, as Methodists, we have a committee that tries to do creative things in worship. It is a sub-committee of another committee, naturally, and I think even those members are answerable to another committee. But this sub-committee, RuacH, from the Greek word for Spirit, is, I would imagine, a fairly unusual thing for a church to have. We gather every couple of months on average to explore the themes for the upcoming seasons of the year and the new sermon series and find ways to incorporate poetry, drama, liturgical dance and so on into those worship services. In past years on Pentecost we've had people stand up front and deliver the gospel message in different languages one at a time, politely waiting until the person ahead of them is finished. Even the rushing wind sound is done solo. It's all very orderly, which is how Methodists like it. That's how we got our name.
So getting folks to all speak at once, or to talk over each other, and to do it loudly, and ON PURPOSE, was like breaking through the fourth wall of Methodism (no, not the Wesleyan Quadrilateral). I don't know if it's ever happened before, and, like a naturalist, I feel compelled to document it. Plus, it was pretty cool.
Of course, afterward, someone said to me that she would have preferred people do the languages one at a time, and I told her we'd probably do that again next year. And, as unexpected as the whole flash mob thing was supposed to be, the pastor kind of tipped everybody off by explaining it in the church email days before, and instructing everyone not to politely sit down until the organ came in. (We had decided to dispense with the usual Pavlovian chimes and go directly to the organ voluntary.) Look, for a Methodist over fifty, that's about as close to a real flash mob as anyone is going to get! Don't knock it.
One other thing: I was meditating on the irony of the whole Pentecost celebration while putting my notes (/strategy) to the flashmobbers together, thinking about how at the original event everyone was astounded to be actually able to understand the disciples, because in this bustling metropolis of a thousand tongues the gospel was suddenly being shared in all of them, and how, in our sanctuary, it was highly unlikely that any of us would understand most of these languages. In other words, the celebration sort of reversed the event being celebrated. And then I got an advance copy of the bulletin, complete with a prayer of confession which contained the line "We continue the divisions of Babel, speaking in tongues that confound rather than clarify, hurt rather than heal, separate rather than unite."
True, confusion gets a pretty universally bad rap in the church, but besides taking at least one holyday in the church year and un-domesticating it a little bit, bringing back some of the wildness and awesomeness, I think a bit of off-balanced unexpectedness is not such a bad thing always. We in the church are so good at doing things the same way, getting comfortable with ourselves and our methods, that we seldom grow our skills of adaptation and understanding. How can we minister to the stranger in our midst if we don't know what their needs are? And how can we know that, or even empathize with that, if we don't understand them? And how can we understand something outside of ourselves if we don't try to come to terms with something or someone that we don't already understand? Knowing what we like and liking what we know is a good way to avoid growth; it leads to stagnation. They way forward involves learning to know the unknown; Karl Barth even referred to God as "wholly other." (I'd like to find out what that means sometime when I have a couple thousand free hours to read "Church Dogmatics.")
And effort indeed needs to be made to that end. Maybe on the first Pentecost the Spirit gave everyone the ability to speak in new languages just magically, but everyone since who has gone out to spread the gospel in other languages has had to take the trouble to learn them. And always there is at first a sense of floundering around in the new and the unaccustomed. But they get the hang of it.
So maybe getting people outside of the tranquil expectations of the orderly, not just by preaching about it, but by throwing them a little off balance during a worship service, isn't such a bad thing.
In any case, for a few moments on a Sunday morning, something slightly unusual happened within the confines of a Methodist church, the full effects of which are not yet known. We are forming a committee to study it.
Friday, May 17, 2013
A Grand old hymn for Pentecost
One of the exciting things this year on Pianonoise is that I am able to bring you music by living composers. Where last year many of the pieces that I played during church services were listed by title and then festooned with the ubiquitous copyright symbol, which, if you clicked on it, would explain that I couldn't legally post the music, this year there have been some changes in that department. It isn't because I've decided to go rogue: I have this bizarre idea that breaking the law is still breaking the law even though I probably wouldn't get caught. And since apparently 95% of music downloads on the web are illegal few of you seem to agree with me. But in situations where the copyright is owned by a small company and/or the composer, I have written to them asking permission to record and post their music. So far I've posted the music of three composers, and I hope that's just the start.
This is important to me because, while you would expect a catalogue of interesting piano and organ music to be weighted toward the past, it is, I think, necessary to include the present as well. Classically trained musicians can find all sorts of wonderful and effective music in past centuries, where our homework has already been done for us in sorting out the composers with the most to say musically, but it is a mistake to assume that today's composers aren't making interesting contributions. These composers have to make a living somehow, though, and unfortunately that sometimes leads to a wall of copyright protection administered by a forbiddingly large company which seems to have no awareness of the existence of the internet (they often insist on doing everything by snail mail). Thus far my efforts to obtain permission in these cases has resulted in being roundly ignored.
But in those cases where I've been able to talk to the composer directly, they have all been gracious enough to permit me to post their works simply by linking to their own websites. I wouldn't mind it a bit if listening to one of my recordings led to increased sales or web traffic (hint, hint). At any rate, this past year I've met several interesting persons online and been enriched by the musical experiences they've brought me.
One of these persons is named Vidas Pinkevicius. Vidas lives in Vilnius, Lithuania, which happens to be where a friend of mine from graduate school grew up so I sort of feel like I know the place (from stories) even though I've never actually been there. Vidas has a blog dedicated to helping organists learn to play the organ better. An organist at the university, and apparently a church in town which has an organ that dates back to 1776 and is currently in need of restoration (naturally enough, Vidas is leading the charge), he keeps himself very busy promoting the art of the organ in Lithuania, playing a series of concerts, creating all kinds of resources in the form of teaching editions of organ scores, videos, and blogs, and answering scores of emails. After I downloaded his score for the piece that I'm playing this Pentecost Sunday, I emailed him that I had some concerns over the score's legibility in some spots (if you've ever fought with a software music scoring program you'll know why) and some other minor issues. Vidas got back to me within hours with an improved score! Vidas can make me tired just thinking about his industry.
This is the second year I've managed to play a work written in the past two years for Pentecost. Last year I found a particularly jazzy arrangement on Youtube; unfortunately the composer never got back to me when I left a comment on his channel asking if I could have a copy of the score; I never made a recording of it since I had no authorization. That didn't stop me from playing it in church, however! (worship service exemption, if you are wondering) I simply listened to the video and took dictation. Unfortunately, the composer has recently removed the video (as well as hundreds more--I think he was concerned with the sound quality and is effectively starting his channel over again).
On that occasion the entire congregation processed (or danced) their way into the church with colored streamers while the organ played. This year we are planning a kind of "flash mob" to occur during the passing of the peace right after the opening announcements--people will be greeted in different languages. The hubbub is supposed to increase while one choir member intones the plainchant "Veni Creator Spiritus" on which the organ piece is based, at which point I will interrupt the proceedings with a loud chord. That's the plan, anyhow.
Here is the music. It turned out to be trickier than I thought it would be--it took about a week and a half to learn. It is also nearly a minute faster than the composer's own rendition (see below for a link), and, now that I've given it a week to slumber and have come back to it a few days before the service, I think I played it too fast--particularly the opening, which needs more grandeur. In truth, I was a bit worried that the sectionalized nature of the piece might not hang together well if I didn't give it a sense of forward propulsion. That is why it is necessary to spend time with music, and allow time for your ideas to change, something that both blogging and a week to week church schedule don't really encourage. When there's time--probably in a week or two--I'll make a second recording, which more accurately reflects how I am likely to play it in church this weekend.
In the meantime, I have to run off to another rehearsal. This week I'm playing a bit of Handel on the grand organ at the University. We'll see how that turns out!
Veni Creator Spiritus by Vidas Pinkevicius (2010)
Vidas' blog is at
www.organduo.it
the score of this piece, and a video of the composer playing it, can be found at
www.organduo/veni-creator-spiritus.html
This is important to me because, while you would expect a catalogue of interesting piano and organ music to be weighted toward the past, it is, I think, necessary to include the present as well. Classically trained musicians can find all sorts of wonderful and effective music in past centuries, where our homework has already been done for us in sorting out the composers with the most to say musically, but it is a mistake to assume that today's composers aren't making interesting contributions. These composers have to make a living somehow, though, and unfortunately that sometimes leads to a wall of copyright protection administered by a forbiddingly large company which seems to have no awareness of the existence of the internet (they often insist on doing everything by snail mail). Thus far my efforts to obtain permission in these cases has resulted in being roundly ignored.
But in those cases where I've been able to talk to the composer directly, they have all been gracious enough to permit me to post their works simply by linking to their own websites. I wouldn't mind it a bit if listening to one of my recordings led to increased sales or web traffic (hint, hint). At any rate, this past year I've met several interesting persons online and been enriched by the musical experiences they've brought me.
One of these persons is named Vidas Pinkevicius. Vidas lives in Vilnius, Lithuania, which happens to be where a friend of mine from graduate school grew up so I sort of feel like I know the place (from stories) even though I've never actually been there. Vidas has a blog dedicated to helping organists learn to play the organ better. An organist at the university, and apparently a church in town which has an organ that dates back to 1776 and is currently in need of restoration (naturally enough, Vidas is leading the charge), he keeps himself very busy promoting the art of the organ in Lithuania, playing a series of concerts, creating all kinds of resources in the form of teaching editions of organ scores, videos, and blogs, and answering scores of emails. After I downloaded his score for the piece that I'm playing this Pentecost Sunday, I emailed him that I had some concerns over the score's legibility in some spots (if you've ever fought with a software music scoring program you'll know why) and some other minor issues. Vidas got back to me within hours with an improved score! Vidas can make me tired just thinking about his industry.
This is the second year I've managed to play a work written in the past two years for Pentecost. Last year I found a particularly jazzy arrangement on Youtube; unfortunately the composer never got back to me when I left a comment on his channel asking if I could have a copy of the score; I never made a recording of it since I had no authorization. That didn't stop me from playing it in church, however! (worship service exemption, if you are wondering) I simply listened to the video and took dictation. Unfortunately, the composer has recently removed the video (as well as hundreds more--I think he was concerned with the sound quality and is effectively starting his channel over again).
On that occasion the entire congregation processed (or danced) their way into the church with colored streamers while the organ played. This year we are planning a kind of "flash mob" to occur during the passing of the peace right after the opening announcements--people will be greeted in different languages. The hubbub is supposed to increase while one choir member intones the plainchant "Veni Creator Spiritus" on which the organ piece is based, at which point I will interrupt the proceedings with a loud chord. That's the plan, anyhow.
Here is the music. It turned out to be trickier than I thought it would be--it took about a week and a half to learn. It is also nearly a minute faster than the composer's own rendition (see below for a link), and, now that I've given it a week to slumber and have come back to it a few days before the service, I think I played it too fast--particularly the opening, which needs more grandeur. In truth, I was a bit worried that the sectionalized nature of the piece might not hang together well if I didn't give it a sense of forward propulsion. That is why it is necessary to spend time with music, and allow time for your ideas to change, something that both blogging and a week to week church schedule don't really encourage. When there's time--probably in a week or two--I'll make a second recording, which more accurately reflects how I am likely to play it in church this weekend.
In the meantime, I have to run off to another rehearsal. This week I'm playing a bit of Handel on the grand organ at the University. We'll see how that turns out!
Veni Creator Spiritus by Vidas Pinkevicius (2010)
Vidas' blog is at
www.organduo.it
the score of this piece, and a video of the composer playing it, can be found at
www.organduo/veni-creator-spiritus.html
Friday, May 3, 2013
Time! Time!
Some elements from services at Faith this weekend:
EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"
EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"
STAGE MANAGER: "No.
Saints and poets maybe...they do some.”
--"Our Town" by Thornton Wilder, Act III
Wondrous Gift by Evelyn Stell*
Prayer of Confession:
Gracious God, we confess our slowness to embrace the gift of life you offer. You offer springtime to our souls, but we prefer the winter of coldness and indifference. We continue in guilt and self-doubt, rather than rejoicing in knowing your love for us. We forget that we have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. Afraid to die, we cannot fully live. Forgive us our coldness, self-doubt, forgetfulness and fear, we pray. Amen.
----
Evelyn Stell's music (posted with permission) is available from Fagusmusic.com. Her blog is at www.forthinpraise.co.uk
--"Our Town" by Thornton Wilder, Act III
Wondrous Gift by Evelyn Stell*
Prayer of Confession:
Gracious God, we confess our slowness to embrace the gift of life you offer. You offer springtime to our souls, but we prefer the winter of coldness and indifference. We continue in guilt and self-doubt, rather than rejoicing in knowing your love for us. We forget that we have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. Afraid to die, we cannot fully live. Forgive us our coldness, self-doubt, forgetfulness and fear, we pray. Amen.
----
Evelyn Stell's music (posted with permission) is available from Fagusmusic.com. Her blog is at www.forthinpraise.co.uk
Friday, April 26, 2013
Seriously. This is what I am playing in church this weekend.
The church secretary called me yesterday morning to inform me that I was playing the prelude, the offertory, and the postlude at Sunday's service and to ask if I wanted to list anything in the bulletin.
Uh, oh, I thought.
Now ordinarily there would have been nothing odd about that. As the church musician (organist and pianist/keyboard player), I provide those three pieces nearly every week at our "traditional" services (save for the rare occasion when somebody else takes one of the slots). But this week we aren't having our usual slate of four services. Instead, there is only one, taking place in our Worship and Life Center, which is home to our contemporary service, and has a grand piano but no organ. It's time for our annual Children's Musical and Confirmation service, when our teens join the church. I'll be around to play a song with the band, and a hymn or two, but our children's choir director is playing the piano for the musical, so it is practically like having a week off. At least, that's what I thought was going to happen. For the last couple of years there has been so much music in supply from the kids that they sing the offertory as well, as part of the musical. Change of plans this year, apparently.
Hmm. Could I think about it for an hour and get back to her?
At which point my wife, wanting to be helpful, asked if I had anything under my fingers from the concert I am planning to give this summer. Not yet, I told her. Besides, I can't think of anything that would be even vaguely appropriate for church.
But then a light bulb went on. You are going to think this is a really bizarre idea for a Sunday morning offertory, but I think I'll just let you listen to it first and then do my explaining.
[listen]
It's a piece called "The Banjo" by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a pianist from New Orleans who lived from 1829 to 1859, and toured the United States during the Civil War. If you are wondering why on earth it would make sense to play it in church, here's why:
The kids are doing a musical called "Down By the Creek Bank." Most of the pieces sound like they were written for banjo, even though they'll be played on a piano. The folks in this musical would use words like "crick" and "holler" (as in "down by the")--it is an evocation of the Appalachians or the Ozarks or someplace in the southeastern United States. The offertory has been placed right after the musical ends.
In other words, I chose the offertory as I was thinking about the nature of the musical and the tradition from which it, broadly speaking, sprang. This is second nature to me, being used to doing this, but I know it is not for many organists: this idea that whatever music you select for a service should somehow belong to the particular service for which it was intended, should somehow match it, in spirit, mood, style, tradition, or whatever. You may think that on this occasion it lead me to a rather bizarre conclusion, but I want to stress how important this idea is.
Besides being a useful discipline (meaning that I don't just play whatever I feel like playing on a given Sunday) it also sends a signal to the other persons in charge of worship that you are taking your cue from their efforts as well. Every pastor I have worked with has at some point been pleasantly surprised to discover that what I choose to play frequently has something to do with the sermon topic or the scripture.
Sometimes that means I go outside accepted norms with regard to church repertoire, which isn't hard to do because somebody's tradition or personal inclination has outlawed practically anything (even music itself, in some cases), or because liturgical instrumental music has usually been pretty narrow in focus, i.e. organists don't think they can get away with much (with reason). Within my own tradition, the rules seem comparatively lax, although people are free to complain about anything they wish, such as playing the piano one week instead of the organ (God's chosen instrument, apparently), or not basing your selections on familiar hymns (these days that's called "diluting your brand"). In our educated university town, however, people seem to be relatively tolerant of a wide range of music. Including gospel and jazz, and--Oliver Messaien. Were I to behave as befits my training, and as many of my colleagues would like to behave if their congregations would let them, I could almost get away with, although I know it would not be the majority taste, playing major classical repertoire every week, scouring the canon of great literature as if on a parallel lectionary schedule. But I think that misses something. For one thing, it is too autonomous. A cycle of Beethoven sonatas would be great (that has been suggested to me, before, by the way) but it kind of misses the larger picture. I can do that in concert, where there isn't anything else, no message, no presenters, no participation, to think about. Or to engage, collaborate with. To cause me to do something I wouldn't have done otherwise.
And then there is this...Paul wrote, right before that endlessly read scripture about love in the 13th chapter of Corinthians that he wanted to "show [us] a more excellent way" which was an attempt to get the members of the church in Corinth to stop going at each other and get along for a change. Love, it turns out, starts with an attempt to actually get along with people, even to recognize and affirm their contributions, their ideas, their tastes, their standards of value. It does not insist on its own way. Which is why I let the service, the contributions of others, have a say in what I play, rather than sticking to the classical organ or piano repertoire I was taught to value. It may be great music. But it isn't the only music. And my way isn't the only way. My classical canon can get stretched a little. I don't have to play everything on the organ. Everything doesn't have to have been written in the 17th century by some fellow named Bach. And maybe--perish the thought--it really is ok to let people tap their toes to an offertory some of the time. And even more radical, maybe it wouldn't cause almighty wrath to come crashing down on our heads if we actually had a banjo in church. As it is, we'll be getting it second-hand.
There is, finally, something about this selection that might be even more important, particularly if it doesn't sound like church for many of us. It is this: music is a cultural product. Though we claim to worship a creator of everything around us, most faith traditions are pretty exclusive about what they think belongs in a worship service. Some will make arguments relating to quality (including the composer of the present selection, who might have been as shocked as anyone to find his piece in a church bulletin). These arguments are fraught with human relations peril. Often that music which is "quality" just happens to be music from one particular culture, for instance, all dead white European men. Now, I play healthy quantities of Bach and Buxtehude and plan to keep on doing it. And I find the music of high quality as well as spiritual uplift. But shouldn't we be careful about excluding music that doesn't fit our supposedly objective sense of quality? I think of so many people from the Evangelical tradition who have been quite disdainful of rock music, gospel, syncopation, back beats--all things they claim have no place before God, and all things which just happen to have come into our musical vocabulary by way of African Americans. It would be unfair to say (as some do) that any discussion of musical quality whatsoever is snooty or even racist. But I think as human beings with a long history of treating each other pretty poorly we can never be free of this evil possibility. Excluding music is also excluding people.
And so, even though I never would have thought of a piece like this for church before, on this day and in this place, it seems a good match. Besides being a day to celebrate the entrance of several of our teenagers into membership in the church, and the songful contributions of our children, there is also an evocation of the rural southeast, and the culture of a people who are our neighbors from several states over. Is it ok to go on mission trips to build houses for them but not to allow them or their music in our church?
I'll grant you that the children's musical isn't exactly great art. And it's cheesy. But it's a children's musical--what else would it be? The kids enjoy it, and it helps them contribute to our community. And if it happens to stretch our boundaries a little, maybe that's not the worst thing that's ever happened in a church. To which my little offertory says "I support that. I agree with that. Yeah that."
Or in liturgical terms, AMEN.
Uh, oh, I thought.
Now ordinarily there would have been nothing odd about that. As the church musician (organist and pianist/keyboard player), I provide those three pieces nearly every week at our "traditional" services (save for the rare occasion when somebody else takes one of the slots). But this week we aren't having our usual slate of four services. Instead, there is only one, taking place in our Worship and Life Center, which is home to our contemporary service, and has a grand piano but no organ. It's time for our annual Children's Musical and Confirmation service, when our teens join the church. I'll be around to play a song with the band, and a hymn or two, but our children's choir director is playing the piano for the musical, so it is practically like having a week off. At least, that's what I thought was going to happen. For the last couple of years there has been so much music in supply from the kids that they sing the offertory as well, as part of the musical. Change of plans this year, apparently.
Hmm. Could I think about it for an hour and get back to her?
At which point my wife, wanting to be helpful, asked if I had anything under my fingers from the concert I am planning to give this summer. Not yet, I told her. Besides, I can't think of anything that would be even vaguely appropriate for church.
But then a light bulb went on. You are going to think this is a really bizarre idea for a Sunday morning offertory, but I think I'll just let you listen to it first and then do my explaining.
[listen]
It's a piece called "The Banjo" by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a pianist from New Orleans who lived from 1829 to 1859, and toured the United States during the Civil War. If you are wondering why on earth it would make sense to play it in church, here's why:
The kids are doing a musical called "Down By the Creek Bank." Most of the pieces sound like they were written for banjo, even though they'll be played on a piano. The folks in this musical would use words like "crick" and "holler" (as in "down by the")--it is an evocation of the Appalachians or the Ozarks or someplace in the southeastern United States. The offertory has been placed right after the musical ends.
In other words, I chose the offertory as I was thinking about the nature of the musical and the tradition from which it, broadly speaking, sprang. This is second nature to me, being used to doing this, but I know it is not for many organists: this idea that whatever music you select for a service should somehow belong to the particular service for which it was intended, should somehow match it, in spirit, mood, style, tradition, or whatever. You may think that on this occasion it lead me to a rather bizarre conclusion, but I want to stress how important this idea is.
Besides being a useful discipline (meaning that I don't just play whatever I feel like playing on a given Sunday) it also sends a signal to the other persons in charge of worship that you are taking your cue from their efforts as well. Every pastor I have worked with has at some point been pleasantly surprised to discover that what I choose to play frequently has something to do with the sermon topic or the scripture.
Sometimes that means I go outside accepted norms with regard to church repertoire, which isn't hard to do because somebody's tradition or personal inclination has outlawed practically anything (even music itself, in some cases), or because liturgical instrumental music has usually been pretty narrow in focus, i.e. organists don't think they can get away with much (with reason). Within my own tradition, the rules seem comparatively lax, although people are free to complain about anything they wish, such as playing the piano one week instead of the organ (God's chosen instrument, apparently), or not basing your selections on familiar hymns (these days that's called "diluting your brand"). In our educated university town, however, people seem to be relatively tolerant of a wide range of music. Including gospel and jazz, and--Oliver Messaien. Were I to behave as befits my training, and as many of my colleagues would like to behave if their congregations would let them, I could almost get away with, although I know it would not be the majority taste, playing major classical repertoire every week, scouring the canon of great literature as if on a parallel lectionary schedule. But I think that misses something. For one thing, it is too autonomous. A cycle of Beethoven sonatas would be great (that has been suggested to me, before, by the way) but it kind of misses the larger picture. I can do that in concert, where there isn't anything else, no message, no presenters, no participation, to think about. Or to engage, collaborate with. To cause me to do something I wouldn't have done otherwise.
And then there is this...Paul wrote, right before that endlessly read scripture about love in the 13th chapter of Corinthians that he wanted to "show [us] a more excellent way" which was an attempt to get the members of the church in Corinth to stop going at each other and get along for a change. Love, it turns out, starts with an attempt to actually get along with people, even to recognize and affirm their contributions, their ideas, their tastes, their standards of value. It does not insist on its own way. Which is why I let the service, the contributions of others, have a say in what I play, rather than sticking to the classical organ or piano repertoire I was taught to value. It may be great music. But it isn't the only music. And my way isn't the only way. My classical canon can get stretched a little. I don't have to play everything on the organ. Everything doesn't have to have been written in the 17th century by some fellow named Bach. And maybe--perish the thought--it really is ok to let people tap their toes to an offertory some of the time. And even more radical, maybe it wouldn't cause almighty wrath to come crashing down on our heads if we actually had a banjo in church. As it is, we'll be getting it second-hand.
There is, finally, something about this selection that might be even more important, particularly if it doesn't sound like church for many of us. It is this: music is a cultural product. Though we claim to worship a creator of everything around us, most faith traditions are pretty exclusive about what they think belongs in a worship service. Some will make arguments relating to quality (including the composer of the present selection, who might have been as shocked as anyone to find his piece in a church bulletin). These arguments are fraught with human relations peril. Often that music which is "quality" just happens to be music from one particular culture, for instance, all dead white European men. Now, I play healthy quantities of Bach and Buxtehude and plan to keep on doing it. And I find the music of high quality as well as spiritual uplift. But shouldn't we be careful about excluding music that doesn't fit our supposedly objective sense of quality? I think of so many people from the Evangelical tradition who have been quite disdainful of rock music, gospel, syncopation, back beats--all things they claim have no place before God, and all things which just happen to have come into our musical vocabulary by way of African Americans. It would be unfair to say (as some do) that any discussion of musical quality whatsoever is snooty or even racist. But I think as human beings with a long history of treating each other pretty poorly we can never be free of this evil possibility. Excluding music is also excluding people.
And so, even though I never would have thought of a piece like this for church before, on this day and in this place, it seems a good match. Besides being a day to celebrate the entrance of several of our teenagers into membership in the church, and the songful contributions of our children, there is also an evocation of the rural southeast, and the culture of a people who are our neighbors from several states over. Is it ok to go on mission trips to build houses for them but not to allow them or their music in our church?
I'll grant you that the children's musical isn't exactly great art. And it's cheesy. But it's a children's musical--what else would it be? The kids enjoy it, and it helps them contribute to our community. And if it happens to stretch our boundaries a little, maybe that's not the worst thing that's ever happened in a church. To which my little offertory says "I support that. I agree with that. Yeah that."
Or in liturgical terms, AMEN.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Bored in Church?
We had barely gotten back from San Francisco (the hard way) when I discovered some correspondence sitting in my email inbox. Our pastor is preaching a sermon series on "The Witness of the Prairie Poets" which refers to poems by some of Illinois' most revered poets. And interesting idea, and this week turns out to be quite an event.
One of the poems, "General William Booth Goes to Heaven" is supposed to be accompanied by a bass drum, flute, tambourine and banjos. No one seriously thought we'd get a bass drum in our sanctuary on short notice--I like the idea of it, though. Probably Charles Ives would have liked the idea, too. He set the poem to music, as a solo song for male voice and piano. A member of our choir made some attempts to get a well respected voice professor at our university to sing it, but he's out of town for the next couple of Sundays.
Instead, two gentlemen are reciting the poem, and the choir is helping out with some portions by singing the refrain to "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" I decided to track down Ives' piece and interpolate bits of it during the recitation, which will occur during the sermon. I'm also playing the "Dead March" from "Saul" by Handel, which was played at the actual funeral of William Booth, who, if you are wondering, founded the Salvation Army.
Besides that poem, we have another, "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight," also by Vachel Lindsay, our poet for the week, and it has given rise to the anthem, a stirring rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," which was borrowed by another of our choir members on short notice from our community choir. We are also singing "God of the Ages" and "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood"--two more unusual selections for this congregation. Not that we don't cover a lot of ground anyway: there is a good bit of variety in our repertoire, and one Sunday might very well not be much like another at our church. This one will be particularly festive, and particularly 19th century American.
In addition to all that, a woman from our congregation, now in her nineties, who has been playing the piano for our church since she joined it practically at the church's inception over fifty years ago, is joining me for three piano/organ duets. Fortunately, we chose a fanfarish rendition of a hymn to open the service, even before we knew the contents of the rest. Things worked out fairly well in that regard.
I predict I will be very tired when all this is over (twice).
There is an alternative to that, which is not to work any harder than necessary; not to track down (difficult) pieces at the university library at the last minute, or to protest fatigue from travel harrangues, and just keep things as simple as possible. But that would be dull.
We are the choices we make. One choice I tend to make over and over is not to take the simplest way out. Frankly, one reason for that is I hate being bored, and, whatever you can say about giving all your energy to something is that it is seldom boring. There is something about Sunday mornings at Faith that usually isn't. Sometimes it is in overcoming an emergency where someone got sick and we've got to cover, or the amount of last minute coordination that is virtually always necessary for a multitude of reasons. Or trying to employ multiple and opposite skills: sightreading, improvising, and playing concert quality music on the organ are just three of them. One involves meticulous planning; the other two involve no planning at all, but can be further subdivided into one requiring the eye and the other the ear. Or it may be that each week is somehow different than all other weeks. THIS is the day the Lord has made. Sure, he made yesterday, too, but that isn't the point now, is it?
Anyhow, this week is decidedly a group effort, even more than most weeks. We have a lot of folks who have stepped up to employ their talents, tossing around emails all week to plan the best way to do that. If I'd been doing all the planning I probably wouldn't have thought of half of it.
It's certainly going to fun.
Hold my tongue--fun? in church?
Forget I said that.
Make it, piously joyful instead. That'll make it past the censors!
Anyway, it adds up to the same thing.
One of the poems, "General William Booth Goes to Heaven" is supposed to be accompanied by a bass drum, flute, tambourine and banjos. No one seriously thought we'd get a bass drum in our sanctuary on short notice--I like the idea of it, though. Probably Charles Ives would have liked the idea, too. He set the poem to music, as a solo song for male voice and piano. A member of our choir made some attempts to get a well respected voice professor at our university to sing it, but he's out of town for the next couple of Sundays.
Instead, two gentlemen are reciting the poem, and the choir is helping out with some portions by singing the refrain to "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" I decided to track down Ives' piece and interpolate bits of it during the recitation, which will occur during the sermon. I'm also playing the "Dead March" from "Saul" by Handel, which was played at the actual funeral of William Booth, who, if you are wondering, founded the Salvation Army.
Besides that poem, we have another, "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight," also by Vachel Lindsay, our poet for the week, and it has given rise to the anthem, a stirring rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," which was borrowed by another of our choir members on short notice from our community choir. We are also singing "God of the Ages" and "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood"--two more unusual selections for this congregation. Not that we don't cover a lot of ground anyway: there is a good bit of variety in our repertoire, and one Sunday might very well not be much like another at our church. This one will be particularly festive, and particularly 19th century American.
In addition to all that, a woman from our congregation, now in her nineties, who has been playing the piano for our church since she joined it practically at the church's inception over fifty years ago, is joining me for three piano/organ duets. Fortunately, we chose a fanfarish rendition of a hymn to open the service, even before we knew the contents of the rest. Things worked out fairly well in that regard.
I predict I will be very tired when all this is over (twice).
There is an alternative to that, which is not to work any harder than necessary; not to track down (difficult) pieces at the university library at the last minute, or to protest fatigue from travel harrangues, and just keep things as simple as possible. But that would be dull.
We are the choices we make. One choice I tend to make over and over is not to take the simplest way out. Frankly, one reason for that is I hate being bored, and, whatever you can say about giving all your energy to something is that it is seldom boring. There is something about Sunday mornings at Faith that usually isn't. Sometimes it is in overcoming an emergency where someone got sick and we've got to cover, or the amount of last minute coordination that is virtually always necessary for a multitude of reasons. Or trying to employ multiple and opposite skills: sightreading, improvising, and playing concert quality music on the organ are just three of them. One involves meticulous planning; the other two involve no planning at all, but can be further subdivided into one requiring the eye and the other the ear. Or it may be that each week is somehow different than all other weeks. THIS is the day the Lord has made. Sure, he made yesterday, too, but that isn't the point now, is it?
Anyhow, this week is decidedly a group effort, even more than most weeks. We have a lot of folks who have stepped up to employ their talents, tossing around emails all week to plan the best way to do that. If I'd been doing all the planning I probably wouldn't have thought of half of it.
It's certainly going to fun.
Hold my tongue--fun? in church?
Forget I said that.
Make it, piously joyful instead. That'll make it past the censors!
Anyway, it adds up to the same thing.
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