Lift Up Your Hearts!

Our choir anthem for Sunday, October 27, 2013:  When in Our Music God Is Glorified (arr. by Mark Hayes, Beckenhorst Press, BP1750). 

I couldn't find a YouTube video, but you can hear it at JWPepper.com:  When in Our Music God Is Glorified.  This was particularly fun because I thought it wasn't going to be.  That is, we only rehearsed it twice, once on Wednesday and once on Sunday, and like most of Mark Hayes' arrangements, it was non-trivial.  Still, as happens unbelieveably often, it all came together in the service.  Not perfect, but I'm learning to tame my inner perfectionist and be pleased with GEIBTP (Good Enough Is Better Than Perfect) in many areas of life.  I don't like feeling unprepared, but when you surf the big wave and succeed, it's thrilling.

It's not the most profound of Christmas anthems, nor the most beautiful, nor at the top of the list of anthems I'd most like to sing.  It's not a Christmas anthem at all, but one for Epiphany.  And I'm pretty sure we'll actually be singing it during Advent, which is when we'll have our Christmas Lessons and Carols service.  Be all that as it may, the fun quotient for this anthem is over the top, and I'm thrilled to be singing it.  Any former Candlelight singers want to join us? 

Rejoice with Exceeding Great Joy (Lanny Wolfe, arr. Derric Johnson, Benson 45757-2018-7)

Our choir anthem for Sunday, October 13, 2013:  When I Think of You (Michael W. Smith, arr. by Gary Rhodes, Word Music, 0 80689 28127 3). 

Since our Cherub Choir was featured, I was hoping to have a video of them to show here, but it hasn't appeared on Facebook yet, so instead you can hear it at JWPepper.com:  When I Think of You.  If you picture a bunch of African kids singing (and dancing), the music makes a lot more sense.

Sunday was also St. Francis Day, with the annual Blessing of the Animals.  This is when I get to brag that we go to a snake-handling church.  Dogs outnumbered every other pet by far, however.  Now picture an outdoor service, with animals everywhere, including two very excitable dogs in the choir, and a bunch of very excitable, very young Cherubs ... no wonder the priest said, as he greeted the newcomers, "It's not like this every Sunday."

Last night the youth choir at our church gave a concert.  The theme was the history of Contemporary Christian Music, a genre rather low on my list of music that I can stomach appreciate.  But with increasing familiarity—and (I cannot say this too often) the fact that I'm now in a church where we sing it at a volume that does not cause me to think more about the pain in my ears than anything else—I'm beginning to like more than a few of these songs. Besides, these are our kids, and deserve support.  I'm continually amazed not only at how good their voices are, but at how many of them have the guts to stand up and sing solos.  Our music director is amazing—the more I see, the less I can buy his argument that he just has great kids to work with.

Be that as it may, I can't say I enjoyed the selection of songs, even though a number were familiar, some from a long way back.  A couple hit home, however.  Blessed Be Your Name always does.  And then there was Heaven Is in My Heart.  My immediate reaction was that I'd never heard of it.  Then again, it sounded so familiar.  Just not quite right.  Finally, it hit me:  Der Himmel Erfüllt Mein Herz.  I had sung it not much more than a month ago, but as far as I was concerned it was a German praise song.  I had no idea there was an English version.  My mind knows how interconnected the world now is; my heart does, too, since we have intimate connections across the ocean.  But my gut is having trouble catching up, apparently:  running unexpectedly into something from another part of my world always astonishes me.

It's funny how the language challenge adds a complexity that makes praise songs far more interesting, at least when you're singing them.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Christopher Wilkins, conductor
Jon Kimura Parker, piano

Ron Nelson:  Savannah River Holiday
Mozart:  Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor
Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben

This is the first time in my memory that Maestro Wilkins hasn't opened the season with a big choral work—a neat device that brings in friends and relatives of the choristers as well as others who don't normally attend orchestral concerts.  Even so, there was a good house for this concert.

It was a good concert, too.  The Orlando Philharmonic has grown a good deal as an orchestra since its early days, and is a pleasure to listen to.  The only reason I'm disappointed is that the "big event" of the evening, the Strauss, left me unexcited.  Oh, it's exciting enough to have so many musicians on the stage—just one short of 100, according to Wilkins—but Ein Heldenleben isn't my favorite of Richard Strauss's works.

Jon Kimura Parker did wonderfully with the Mozart, however, and even granted us a short encore:  Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G major.

The Mozart may have been the best, but my favorite piece was Ron Nelson's Savannah River Holiday.  Nelson wrote the piece in 1953, while he was still an undergraduate at Eastman.  Well, that's what the program notes say; his biography says he received his bachelor's degree in 1952.  I'm still impressed.  Here's a quote from his webpage:  "In 1993, his Passacaglia (Homage on B-A-C-H) made history by winning the "triple crown" of major wind band composition prizes."  I include that because I'm pretty sure at least one of our children played that in band.  At least, I'm sure I've heard it performed live somewhere, and that's the most likely place.

Our choir anthem for Sunday, September 29, 2013:  I Thank You Lord (Joseph M. Martin, Hope Publishing Company, C 5614).  Yikes, it's been more than a week since a real post.

Our choir anthem for Sunday, September 22, 2013:  For the Lord Our God Reigns (Craig Smith, Davit T. Clydesdale; Word Music, 0 80689 25027 9)

Our choir anthems for:

August 8, 2013  And the Father Will Dance (Mark Hayes).  Always one of my favorites.  You know how I often remind you that these are videos I found on YouTube, not our own choir?  Well, this one isn't of our church choir, and it isn't the best recording, but it's a special recording for some of us.  Ignore the extraneous frames at the end.  I didn't notice that Windows Movie Maker had added them until it was already uploaded.  For this purpose, GEIBTP^*.  Bonus points if you can guess the identity of the baby.

UPDATE 10/30/19.  It's pretty consistent that the automated conversion of Flash in old posts to iframe excised a chunck of the post wherever there was more than one video.  I can't recover the text, which at least gave the date for when we sang the anthem in the second video (now appearing first), but here's the missing first video, which goes after "guess the identity of the baby."  

It was in 2002, barely a year after it was written, that I first heard of Blessed Be Your Name by Matt and Beth Redman.

(Dir gehört mein Lob, wenn der Segen in Strömen fließt,
du mir mehr als genügend gibst, dir gehört mein Lob.
Und dir gehöert mein Lob, auch wenn ich mich verloren fühl
in der Wüste und ohne Ziel, dir gehört mein Lob.

Jeder Segen, den du schenkst, wird zum Lob für dich,
und selbst wenn ich im Dunkeln steh, Herr, gilt das für mich.

Jesus, dir gehört all mein Lob, dir gehört mein Lob.
Jesus, dir gehört all mein Lob, deinen Namen preise ich, Herr.

Dir gehört mein Lob, wenn die Sonne am Himmel scheint.,
es "das Leben gut mit mir meint", dir gehört mein Lob.
Und dir gehört mein Lob, wenn der Weg auch nicht einfach ist,
sich mein Lobpreis mit Leiden mischt, dir gehört mein Lob.

Jeder Segen, den du schenkst, wird zum Lob für dich,
und selbst wenn ich im Dunkeln steh, Herr, gilt das für mich.

Jesus, dir gehört all mein Lob, dir gehört mein Lob.
Jesus, dir gehört all mein Lob, deinen Namen preise ich, Herr.

Egal, was du mir gibst, egal, was du mir nimmst,
du bist und bleibst mein Gott, nur dir gehört mein Lob.
Egal, was du mir gibst, egal, was du mir nimmst,
du bist und bleibst mein Gott, nur dir gehört mein Lob.

Jesus, dir gehört all mein Lob, dir gehört mein Lob.
Jesus, dir gehört all mein Lob, deinen Namen preise ich, Herr.
Jesus, dir gehört all mein Lob, dir gehört mein Lob.
Jesus, dir gehört all mein Lob, deinen Namen preise ich, Herr.)

What brings all this to a post, besides the fact that I recently had the opportunity to sing the German version at Janet and Stephan's church in Switzerland, was that at choir reheasal Wednesday (9/11/13), I learned the story behind the song.  You can read about it here.  Matt and Beth Redman flew to the U.S. on September 15, 2001 for a sabbatical, and found themselves immersed in the reaction of the country, the churches, and the people to the shock of the terrorist attacks.  They wrote Blessed Be Your Name a few weeks later, after realizing that the church (especially, I would say, the modern church) has far too few songs to sing in times of deep sorrow.

[N]early everywhere we visited, a worrying question began to arise: Where were the songwriters at such a time as this? Where were the musical poets and prophets to help the people of God find a voice in worship at this tragic time? The truth was, in most places we visited (or led worship in), there was a distinct lack of songs appropriate for this time. As songwriters and lead worshipers, we had a few expressions of hope at our [disposal]; but when it came to expressions of pain and lament, we had very little vocabulary to give voice to our heart cries.... The truth is, the Church of God needs her songs of lament just as much as she needs her songs of victory.

Blessed Be Your Name does an effective job of putting that lament in the context of faith and hope.

UPDATE 10/30/19.  As has happened before, something was excised from this post when Flash was converted to iframe.  I'm not sure what, but I know at least that there was a German version of the song embedded above the German words.  Here it is—not what I originally had, but good enough.

For three weeks our tiny a cappella choir struggled to learn the parts to the Ralph Vaughan Williams (King's Weston) version of At the Name of Jesus. (You can hear it here, if you click on the MIDI link.  I tried to find a YouTube version, but none features the hymnal harmony.)  It's a great harmony, if difficult, and would have been even better (and perhaps easier) if Porter had been there to provide the tenor.

I was looking forward to singing it at church sometime, but yesterday when I checked out the Episcopal Hymnal (1982) I discovered that it has only the melody!  Tragedy!  Travesty!

Maybe someday we'll sing the real version as an anthem, or in an ensemble ... or whenever we next manage to get the whole family together again.  I want to sing it with all four parts!

While I've been here for Daniel's birth, I've had the privilege of joining the family for their noontime and evening family times.  They begin with a general picking up of toys, followed by the meal.  Family devotions, based on those in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, come immediately after lunch, and again in the evening after bedtime preparations and some play time (if the former haven't taken too long).

Two of the most amazing parts of the procedure are individual prayers with the children—Joseph spontaneously started praying for Daniel as he is prayed for by the adults—and singing time.  The latter has been a growth opportunity for me despite all my choir training, because it's done a cappella.  Normally I don't find singing the alto line of hymns to be difficult, but singing without accompaniment is much more of a challenge.  Nonetheless, it's been awesome.  Even our three-part harmony is lovely, and it was really great when Porter was here to add the tenor part to our soprano, alto, and bass.  The kids don't sing with us—yet—but are taking it all in.  Joseph has memorized several of the hymns and can occasionally be heard singing parts of them as he goes about his daily activities.  (We have another grandson who sings or whistles a lot, too.  Recently he was overheard moving seamlessly between Funniculi, Funnicula and Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.)

With all due respect to Sunday School/Children's Church, Vacation Bible School, and the many and varied children's music programs available, I think this integrated family prayer and singing time is an unbeatable foundation for a strong spiritual and musical education.

Not to mention a whole lot of fun.

July 14

Come, Christians, Join to Sing arr. Carlton R. Young

I'm sorry I can't find an example of anyone singing this arrangement, but the link will show you a sample of the sheet music.

July 21

O Great God by Bob Kauflin, arr. Joey Hoelscher

This quotation from an interview with Anne Fine set me to thinking.  (H/T Stephan)

[I] hate the way that we have weeded out the things that I remember made my heart lift in primary school, and were transforming in my secondary education. I mean, we did so much singing when I was at school – folk songs, hymns, we sang everything. But now that seems to have gone, along with the language of the Book of Common Prayer and so much classic poetry. And school days are horrifically long if pretty well everything you are doing lacks colour and style, just for the sake of 'relevance' and 'accessibility'".

Music was a big part of my own elementary school, though not being British we missed out on the BCP.  Music lessons started in grade four (of six) for strings and in fifth for band instruments.  Chorus started at about the same time, and in two of the three schools I experienced, we were singing three-part harmony.  (Occasionally four, as in one school we had a set of older boy twins whose voices had mostly changed.)  These musical activities were optional, but what stands out most in my mind in contrast to today is that nearly every classroom had a piano, and many of the teachers could play it.  (So could some of the students, and we were allowed to use it some ourselves outside of class.)  We sang patriotic songs, folk songs, hymns, Negro spirituals, and children's songs.  And most of these we read out of music books.  Not that we were specifically taught much in the way of reading music, but we were expected to absorb basic skills simply by observing the relationship between the printed notes and what we sang.

I should note that these were not "music magnet schools" but ordinary public elementary schools in a small village/rural school district in the late 1950's and early 60's.

Our own children had a fantastic music teacher in elementary school, there's no doubt about that, and their musical education outside of school was far greater than mine, with the availability of private music lessons, youth orchestras, and excellent church choirs.  And being in the South, their high school chorus still sang the great Western choral music, which had already been all but banned in the schools we'd left behind in the North because it is largely church music.  So I'm not complaining about that.

But something great has been lost in general education if there's no longer daily singing in the classroom, children graduate knowing nothing of the music of the past and without the most basic music-reading skills, and adults would rather attend a concert or plug into an iPod than raise their own voices in song.

I don't think, based on the interview, that I would like Anne Fine's books.  But she's spot on in the quote.  "Relevance" and "accessibility" are two of the dirtiest words in the educationist's vocabulary.

What were your musical experiences in the early school years?  How have they affected your adult life?

I'd rather be with family than almost anywhere, but it's a pity that we only manage to spend Independence Day with the Greater Geneval Award Marching Band about every other year.  This is what we missed two days ago.

I've written more extensively about the band before, so I won't reiterate, but if you ever want to experience the true spirit of American Independence Day, visit Geneva, Florida on July 4th.

I've been told it's a peculiar affliction, but I've always enjoyed listening to beginning Suzuki music students.  There's a warm place in my heart for the Book 1 repertoire, both piano and violin.  I'm not a music teacher of any kind, but recently I had the privilege of introducing my six-year-old grandson to pre-Twinkle and Twinkle on the violin.  He has been taking piano lessons with his other grandmother for a year, and his mother laid the foundations for violin playing with him, so I was able to step in and reap the benefits of a prepared and eager student.

It was glorious.  I can't begin to describe how much fun it was.  He's very responsible with his half-sized violin, and the need to put it away carefully did not deter him in the least from getting it out several times a day, begging me to teach him something new.  He has a good ear and an observant eye, and catches on very quickly.

His excellent violin is a gift from his aunt—it was hers during her Suzuki days—and has only a first finger tape on the fingerboard, she having passed the beginning stages with a smaller size.  When it was time for him to learn a song involving the second and third fingers, I explained that he could use his ear to help him find the right finger placement, or I could put on some additional tapes.  He asked for the tapes.  While I was searching the house for appropriate materials, I suggested he listen to the piece and see what he could figure out on his own.  As I was returning with scissors and tape, I could hear him playing:  playing the whole phrase in perfect tune.

I put the tape away.  He's not always perfect by any means, but if the note is off he's learning to notice and make the correction.  I find this awesome.

I know most people aren't as enamored of beginning violin music as I am, but there are some relatives who might enjoy the following.  The first is a pre-Twinkle piece called See the Pretty Flowers, and the second is the first Twinkle variation.  The videos were made after he had practiced the pieces maybe half a dozen times.

The sad part is that for most of the year we're 1300 miles apart, so teaching him is a rare and special privilege.  It's a relay, and I've handed the baton back to his very capable (though very busy) mother.  Too bad his aunt—who is both a music teacher and a violinist—is almost three times as far away as I am.