Unlike my last post, where I wasn’t sure where the end of August had gone, I know quite well where the first part of September has gone. Like schools, the church year actually begins as September is reached. Liturgically the church year may start with Advent, but meetings, choir rehearsals–did I mention meetings?–all pile up in a joyous heap. Add to the mix the sobering results of Katrina and some rather poor communication, if not mismanagement, and life has been filled to the brim (and then there are all those other places in the world as well). I’ve had some minor creative adventures anyway…

• The Chancel Choir at John Knox Pres in Dublin CA sang the introit I’d written for them on Be Thou My Vision, which I wrote about in my last post. They did very well. There were some nice expressive moments. We had 26 in the choir which, considering an average Sunday congregation of 180, is very impressive (10 percent of the average attendance is a good rule of thumb–JKPC is definitely ahead of the curve).
• My Called By God, in a TTBB transcription from the original SATB setting, was performed at Lafayette-Orinda Pres. Church. I wrote the piece (a setting of LOPC’s mission statement–not poetic, but with some universal elements that set well to music and resonated within me–both then and now) two years ago in anticipation of beginning my position as organist at LOPC. It’s been sung twice before, which does my composer’s heart good: second and third performances are not always easy to come by! It was nice to know I could be topical even in my absence.
• My cousin Michael Moreskine is in Norway for the year, playing organ and directing a choir or two toward the north of the country. He and I have shared compositions, and he’s played several of my pieces, including a variation set on Bunessan (known by many as Morning Has Broken) for organ and cello (a wonderful combination I wouldn’t have thought of if Michael hadn’t shown me what the two instruments could do together). He also liked a duet I wrote called Gospel 3:16, a setting of a paraphrase of John 3:16. He had some modifications in mind, most of which I ignored (composer’s prerogative, I guess–although his ideas were good). He tried the piece out with a Norwegian group he’s conducting, and they liked it. So I spent some time this weekend creating an SATB version. I hope to comment on the piece and on the process of transcription in another post. As a tease: you have to be willing to give up cherished things in order to create a piece that is as idiomatic for the new ensemble as the old setting was for its own ensemble. (Composers HATE to throw notes away once they’ve been put into a pleasing order–but pruning is just as important in musical composition as it is in gardening).

That’s music to my ears…

Well, it’s September 1 and I don’t know where the last couple of weeks of August went. I’ve written a couple of small compositions, but that didn’t take long. I’ve started settling in to my new church position, leading up to my first choir rehearsal last night. I’d already met several times with the contemporary group; both offer some wonderful possibilities. So, as a composer, what else was I supposed to do but write a piece of music for each ensemble?

The Praise Team won’t probably start on the piece I wrote for them for another few weeks, so I’ll hold off on saying much more about that piece, other than that it has been a while since I’ve written for guitars and voices. It was fun, and initially easier than my more traditionally-based writing. But I keep tweaking things, working for a smoother chord progression, developing an arrangement of what is otherwise a pretty standard chorus/verse alternation. As is typical of this sort of writing, the piece won’t really assume any final form until after the group has made it its own.

For the Chancel Choir I wrote a short piece setting Be Thou My Vision, usually sung to the hymn tune Slane. I decided to do this because I came across a neat organ piece on the tune by Eric Thiman (1900-1975), an English composer. Even though I’m playing a small, Baroque-oriented organ, this piece retains a nice combination of intimacy and grandeur that I just plain like. One of our musical groups usually does an introit or musical call to worship directly after the prelude, so the idea of following Thiman’s piece with some sort of choral setting captured my imagination.

Finding the right way to start the piece was a problem, however. Thiman’s piece provided a perfect intro (if you can have a 4-minute intro to a 1-minute piece!), ending simply and quietly. I envisioned the choir starting from almost nothing and then growing in texture and loudness. But the hymn tune harmonization is so well done that finding my own paraphrase wasn’t working. I finally got the idea of moving the first couple of notes of the second measure up, rather than following the contour of the tune. An hour later, the piece was done.

It was great hearing the piece at rehearsal. The choir picked it up easily, even with a very spare accompaniment underneath. After going through the tune for a verse, the piece moves into a canonic treatment of my modification of the opening line. The organ provides a low pedal tone under the canon, with a descending 4-measure chord progression (that just means that there is a sense of motion, but also a sense of calm as the chord pattern repeats and the pedal tone holds things together in the background).

It may have been a little brave–or foolhardy–to write and program a new piece for a group I’d never rehearsed, but a look at the choir library gave me an idea of their ability. I’m quite pleased, and hope to be able to share this piece with some of my colleagues. I’m all charged up with summer’s end, and looking forward to a productive, musical fall.

While I was traveling to the wedding (see previous post) I read much of Terry Gross’ All I Did Was Ask, a fascinating compendium of interviews she’s done over the years on NPR’s Fresh Air. (For more info on the book, there’s a Weekend Edition interview here.) I was particularly taken with a comment jazz bassist Charlie Haden made in his interview.

He said that a bass player should

lift everything up and make it deeper and more full-sounding…in order to inspire the other musicians to play better than they’ve ever played before.

I think the whole interview is worth reading (ok–the whole book). I resonated with his comment because it encapsulates what I try to do as a church musician and accompanist. Collaboration is fun. I’d much rather do that than do a lot of solo performance, even though it takes more preparation to produce an effective ensemble. Even as a composer–although I’m obviously responding to some sort of creative urge over which I have little control (well, I have some control over what I write, but not that I write)–I follow the principle of inspiring other musicians and the audience to become better. Occasionally I succeed.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve given more thought about what I do. I try not to do so while I’m playing, since that distracts me from actually making music. While a bass physically can make things “deeper and more full-sounding” simply because it plays in a lower register than most instruments, I think Charlie Haden is referring to more than the mere notes. There’s an element of musicianship that permeates the music; without the musicianship (which operates in multiple dimensions: time, timbre, vertical, horizontal, sound, silence) there’s just noise.

His interview was thought-provoking, as were many others in the book. It makes me think of a book by, if I’m remembering correctly, Johnny Cash’s daughter. ‘Scuse me. It’s around here somewhere…

Things have been on hold for a while (thus the title) as we hosted my father-in-law and then flew from California to Pennsylvania for our son’s wedding (we felt like we were herding cats with both Dads in tow–I can only imagine what they thought of us!). Dementia adds an element of uncertainty and…excitement…to the voyage. But we survived just fine and Jeremy and Amanda’s wedding was wonderful.

It was a delight to get to know the new other side of the family, and to see the obvious delight that the happy couple took in each other. While the music selected for procession and recession weren’t anything unusual, I quite enjoyed Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring for the bride: it added a serene and stately touch just right for the late afternoon ceremony. Joyful, Joyful made an appropriately up and, ok, joyful way to send the wedding party out.

I primarily served as the bemused father of the groom:

• write checks for the rehearsal dinner
• play golf with the guys the morning of the ceremony–score was totally unremarkable [let’s just say I know how the guys at the PGA Championship felt as they slogged their way through humidity you could almost cut with a knife!]
• follow the mother of the groom into the church during the seating of the families
• have a good if somewhat unobtrusive time at the reception–I did work the room a bit, meeting a bunch of nice people)

I did have the opportunity to play Reflected Joy 2 during the unity candle ceremony. It was hard to focus on the music because I really wanted to see what Amanda and Jeremy were doing. A number of people had positive comments; I enjoyed being able to offer the couple a somewhat different gift from the others they will get.

Having written the two movements, I hope to add three more to make a suite: a new opening piece, one between the two I’ve already written, and a closing piece. I’ve set myself an interesting task, since I mention both Jesu, Joy and Joyful, Joyful. Do I focus more on the latter, since the former got good play in these two pieces? Can I find some common elements? Will there be any sense of development, or should each piece be a potential stand-alone character piece? Stay tuned…

It’s been a quiet week for me, speaking musically. A couple of good, but short, practice sessions. No composition projects going on. But it’s not been a dull week. There’s been some rallentando here, accelerando there.

I’ve been in planning mode with my new church position, both as we look toward the upcoming Sunday and as we look toward an exciting Fall. I’ve been helping out Marianne at The Yarn Boutique as well, with the well-deserved vacation of one of her employees. So I haven’t heard any music that particularly excites me this week, nor written any, for that matter!

Tempo rubato: stolen time. It’s almost like a vacation, but it feels a little stolen, since I would rather be writing and playing, rather than orchestrating skeins of yarn (a not unpleasurable task, but not my cup of hot chocolate).

There was an article in a local newspaper yesterday about local organist Keenen Boswell, who, although still in his teens, is already a seasoned performer. I’ve heard him, and enjoyed the experience. It’s good to see local media spending time on an outstanding local performer–and in the classical genre, even!

In my browsing this morning I came accross in the wings, the blog of Heather Heise, a SF Bay Area pianist. Rather enjoyable. I like her sensibility and sense of humor. It’ll be fun to explore her posts.

Tempo rubato: not wasted time–just borrowed. I might as well enjoy it because it will be paid back, and not too far away in the future. I play a wedding tomorrow, church on Sunday (first service at my new church), next week family as we (with my Dad and father-in-law) head to son Jeremy’s wedding with Amanda. Upon return, a quick plunge into the pool of Fall counterpoint which refuses to wait for Labor Day and September.

In retrospect, I will miss tempo rubato.

I’d mentioned earlier about my version of All Things Bright and Beautiful (actually the tune Royal Oak) which I had intended to play in worship. At that time I was filling in at First Congregational Church in Berkeley CA. I ended up doing my organ variations rather than the piano piece I spent time on. I played my organ variations (totally separate from the piano piece) again this morning, as part of my swan song at Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church–partly because the registration I used calls for the zimbelstern (high-pitched bells) near the end–it gives the music a bit of a music-box effect.
The first variation features a canon at the octave in the manuals over a simple 2-voice pedal part. I don’t yet have any soundclips to accompany my score excerpts, but I’ll add them later (it’s hard to get a good recording while everyone is talking while I’m playing).

The second variation is more dramatic, with the first part of the hymn tune disguised but strongly influencing the melodic material.

The verse portion of the tune is set in contrasting fashion: repeated bass notes, sustained left-hand chords, right hand playing with fragments of the tune.

After a return to the beginning of the variation, the piece moves with a very slight break into variation 3.

It has its own intro, which returns between phrases of the tune (ok–it’s a ritornello).

I had an 8′ Principal in mind for the left-hand melody of variation 3. It works beautifully in Vaughan Williams’ Rhosymedre. I wanted the same effect here.The right-hand material reappears in the following variation, as the hands switch material.

Variation 4 is the loudest, following directly on the heels of the previous variation, almost as thought it’s the second half of a variation rather than a variation in its own right. Unlike previous variations, this one doesn’t return to the refrain, but heads right into variation 5 (this is part of my feeling it as a second half rather than a separate variation).

This final variation is softer: sustain notes or slow-moving lines in the left hand; repeated 16ths in the right hand; melody in the pedal on a 4′ stop. I also added the zimbelstern, since I had one on the instrument for which I wrote the piece (I may work out a handbell choir part at my new position). The piece returns to a quiet, reflective mood and prepares the congregation (those who are listening!) for worship.

I’m enjoying the process of getting ready for my new church position. I’ve also appreciated hearing from members of my soon to be former church (well, I’ll still be a member, so it’s not that former!). There’s sadness in leaving–things left undone, potentials not reached–even as there are joys–events that went well, friendships made and strengthened, special times shared. And there’s the anticipation of things to come, knowing that I am better for the last two years, even as I hope to share my gifts more fully.

Following up on a comment DanW made to my last post, I’m going to repost the score excerpts of Reflected Joy 2, accompanied by links to mp3s. Hey! Given that my blog is pretty new, and the only people who have commented are my daughter and son-in-law (thanks y’all; check’s in the mail…), I’m darn well going to listen to 50% of my audience! (OK–others have been by, but they’ve not left much of a footprint…)

First excerpt and accompanying mp3. I’m not pleased with the sound quality of the mp3s: a wav file was made directly from my Finale score (so the performance is not very musical, IMHO), loaded into Audacity (a very nice sound editor for the money…i.e. free). After a little processing (normalizing, adding a little room presence) clips corresponding to the score excerpts were saved. I think the files are too big. It’ll be interesting to see how they download and play. Comments, anyone?

Here’s the second excerpt: and its mp3. For something a little different, listen to the whole piece in mp3 (a little over 2 minutes).

Well, I’m not perplexed about my new position. It’s now official: I’m the Music Director/Organist at John Knox Presbyterian Church in Dublin CA. The congregation is wonderful and there is great potential for growth. The “perplexed” in the title refers to my latest composition project. It’s not over yet! I thought I had the piece for Amanda and Jeremy’s wedding, but then I wrote another one! I’ll have to pick one for the ceremony, but I’m well on the way to creating the suite of pieces I thought about in a previous post (two pieces finished; a good start on a third; can another one be far away?).

Like the previous Reflected Joy, this piece is based on themes from my son Jeremy’s upcoming wedding to Amanda Riegle. The flavor of Jesu, Joy is quite evident, as you can see in the first excerpt. The Beethoven Ode to Joy presence is quite subtle at the beginning, with the first hints coming in the left hand 7 measures in. There’s a much stronger statement towards the end of the piece in the treble clef–I know, I know: the right hand has a little juggling to do, but it IS playable! Although nobody would call this a neo-Baroque piece, it flows more gracefully than its companion work largely because of the 12/8 time signature and the three-measure open-ended phrases.

While I like the impressionistic flavor of one of the motives of the previous piece, as well as the dramatic shifts as now you see, now you don’t see the Beethoven, the flowing character of this piece may be more appropriate for the ceremony. About halfway through there’s an interesting juxtaposition of keys, as the piece moves from G major to E-flat to C to D in successive phrases. Originally I’d had the piece return to its starting key, but the V-I progression was out of character since none of the other key changes were modulations as much as voice leading.

What a delightful dilemma: do I play the first piece I finished, or this one, or write another? All while packing up boxes of music and books to move to my new position, finishing my Mom’s estate, turning our “camping out” chez Dad into a more livable arrangement–and more. Life is wonderfully full.

OK. I’m officially excited. They’ve offered me the position; we’re ironing out some details. And I may have Jeremy and Amanda’s piece done, at least to the point where I play it on piano, seeing if I can break it and then fix it (kind of a Quality Control approach). If you read on you’ll notice that the excerpt I showed in my last post isn’t part of this piece…because I started over. I often do that–a couple of false starts plus a job offer gets my creative energy flowing…[I won’t drop my previous idea: it will have hints of Jesu, Joy–see below–and will probably lead to my writing a third or fourth piece so I can postnuptually offer Suite Joy to A & J]

So I noticed that the happy couple had picked Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring and Ode to Joy for walking in and walking out music. Even though I was writing an interlude sort of piece I wanted it to have some sort of liturgical connection by relating my piece to one of their choices. I developed three ideas–short motifs–and knitted them into the musical fabric (slightly too subtle reference to Marianne’s knitting her “Mother of the Groom” dress). The first motive is based on the first three notes of Ode to Joy. There may be a reference to the running eighth notes of Jesu in the accompanying material, but that was unintentional. This motive is immediately varied (up an octave, expanded, softer), setting the context for similar developments of the other motivic material that followed. A second, contrasting idea functions more as punctuation.

I wanted the piece to be improvisatory in feeling; people like music with a Romantic or Impressionist flavor; a nice arpeggio seemed to fill the bill. Did I mention the title? Reflected Joy seemed appropriate on a number of levels: the word “joy” in the music they chose; my piece being a reflection or meditation on their choices; the joy that we feel at their joy in each other.

As I returned to the hymn tune I decided I didn’t want to just go back to my first idea; the thought of Impressionism made me think more chromatically and led to the development of the third motive, which gets a (to me) surprisingly large amount of play in the piece. It’s developed the most, it leads to a couple climax points, and allows for some quite satisfactory expressive playing.

Did I mention how much fun I was having writing this piece? It occured to me at some point–about a minute into this two-minute piece–that I hadn’t actually stated more than three or four notes of the theme (Ode to Joy) so I decided to refer more clearly to it, even though I was putting it in musical parentheses. It’s softer than surrounding material, presented over a relatively static pattern, so that it’s actually a break in the action, and not the main idea.

At some point all this joy has to end. Translation: I was getting tired and was ready to call it a night and get some sleep. In addition, the piece had reached the 2-minute mark; it was in danger of becoming a musical elephant in the liturgical china shop, so it was time to end, which I did with a final reference to the end of Ode to Joy as it’s usually done in hymnals…with a slight contemporary flavor. (Note that the lower stave is initially in treble clef). I’ve made a MIDI file of the score which will give you an idea of the piece until I get around to making a recording.

I visited my daughter Delara’s blog today (link on sidebar). It’s a great way to find out what’s going on in her life. It’s interesting that her latest post deals with life changes, particularly since I’m at one of those turning-points (albeit not a major one). In my last post I spoke about needing to get started on a piece of music for my son Jeremy’s upcoming wedding. I’ve written about 30 seconds–the stuff’s ok, but probably won’t survive, at least without major changes.

I was wondering why I hadn’t written more, and I realized that I’m still dealing with leaving a church position (I’m a church musician, if you’re tuning in in mid-stream) earlier than I had planned with all of the unsettled feelings and unfinished business that goes with such an interruption. But as challenging as that all is, it represents a turning-point. Something new and exciting is coming.

I’ve interviewed for a new position. Even though the church is much smaller, the position fits me much better; it will be a good fit for everyone. I have a second interview shortly. It looks as though they’re interested in me and I in them–I’m getting excited. So even though there’s unfinished business and a sense of loss, at the same time there’s renewed energy and a sense of growth.

So it’s no wonder I haven’t done much with Jeremy and Amanda’s music. There hasn’t been a lot of extra energy left for creativity. But the nice thing about turning corners is that your energy and creativity turn the corner too. And it’s none too soon: the wedding is less than a month away! Let’s see: what can I do with