If I died today, I would have no complaint.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies are new every morning.
Great is Thy faithfulness.
~ garden produce
~ Minnesota Public Radio
I’m thirsty for good music. Solid joy.
Eager to deepen my knowledge of classical music.
I’ve listened to several classical “channels” on Windows Media Player.
But. One ends up hearing the same repertoire over and over.
As if Pachelbel didn’t compose anything but the Canon in D.
This morning I was paralyzed with delight by:
~ Vaughan Williams’ Five Variants of Dives & Lazarus
(New fact: VW’s first name, Ralph, is pronounced Rafe.
Heard it earlier this week, confirmed this morning.)
This music will gnaw into the edges of your soul, then come back with salve.
We sing Psalm 22 to this tune.
Also “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.”
The best way to spend 11 minutes and 99 cents.
I beg you–at least–listen to the preview.
Well. After listening to it three times, I’m quite sure this is
On The List of my Funeral Music.
This music undoes me.
Have you heard of Magnatune.com? There is a wealth of independent music on this site. And get this: you can listen to it for free. I haven’t the time to explore all the details, but I really like what I’ve heard.
I know a handful of independent musicians and the struggle it is for them to get paid for their efforts. So I’m delighted that when I purchase a CD to download, the musician gets 50% of the money I’ve spent.
There is a Free Song-of-the-Day you can download, if you like.
One CD I’m playing often – Dusty Porch by John Williams. Some great acoustic guitar picking, soft and just a touch sassy. Local friends – it sounds like it could be Darrell or Craig playing.
Tomorrow I am playing for a wedding of a young friend of mine. The bride wanted a string trio sound, but struggled to find string players. Finally a violin player was found, who in turn found a cellist who had recently moved to a neighboring town 45 miles away. I fell in love with Virginia, the 85 year old cellist. She knows most of the repertoire by heart, has a beautiful touch on the cello with none of the prickly pride musicians are known for.
Making small talk upon introduction, I mentioned that I had played the cello when I was young.
“And when I got discouraged and wanted to quit the cello, my father would take me out of school, drive me down to Orchestra Hall and I would watch Frank Miller play the cello with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He was so large – just dwarfed the cello – but his playing thrilled and inspired me to keep on.”
A smile rippled across Virginia’s face. “I played with Frank Miller.”
“Get out! You lived in Chicago?”
“Near North Side. We had the same grandmother, musically speaking.”
From the Chicago Tribune on the death of Frank Miller in 1986:
I might become inspired to take up that instrument again. With a teacher like Virginia…
The hymnal I’m most familiar with is the red Trinity Hymnal, the hymnal I used for this post. I learned about meters using the “by-guess-or-by-golly” self-teaching method. Those were the days before you could go here.
C.M. means common meter. The pattern is 8 syllables, 6 syllables, 8 syllables, 6 syllables, or 8.6.8.6. Get your fingers out and start counting the most famous C.M. hymn:
It’s named C.M. because it is so common. Do you remember at camp singing these words to House of the Rising Sun?
S.M. stands for short meter. 6.6.8.6.
L.M. (long meter) has four lines of 8 as seen in Old Hundredth. 8.8.8.8.
D. after any meter means to double that meter, as if you are singing two verses in a row. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear is an example of C.M.D. Sweet Hour of Prayer is in L.M.D. as is St. Patrick’s Breastplate.
C.M. ref. tells you that a refrain is tacked on to the verse.
C.M. rep. repeats the final phrase. 8.6.8.6.(6.)
Can you guess what al. means? You can if I give you examples. All Creatures of Our God and King is L.M. al.; Christ the Lord is Risen Today is 7.7.7.7. al.
Are you with me still?
I know this is obscure and I know you are thinking and why do we care? There was a time when my husband led worship and picked out hymns and praise songs. He is not a musician. He would read the hymn book, find a hymn appropriate with that week’s message, and want to use it. The problem was that no one knew that tune. So we shamelessly substituted tunes. We looked at the meter, went back to the meter index, and found a tune we knew which worked with those words. We swapped words and music like kids swap lunches in school cafeterias.
Although the syllables match, the words and tunes don’t always complement one another. I remember in a surge of sophomoric silliness swapping words and tunes between Greensleeves and I Will Sing of My Redeemer, both 8.7.8.7. ref. Never mind that one is a minor-tuned lullaby and the other a major-keyed Philip Bliss anthem. Don’t worry, I only did it in the privacy of my own home.
If you get your jollies out of this sort of thing, pretty soon the names of tunes become familiar to you. You get around church musicians who toss tune names around like infielders after an easy out.
I’m telling you, there are curiosities abounding: Dam Buster’s March cracks me up. Which dam were they busting when they sang that tune? Many tunes are named after saints, even little known saints like St. Etheldreda. Geography grabs a large segment: countries such as Germany; cities such as Madrid, Jerusalem, and Dumferline; and even streets get their due: State Street and Park Street are two. Some take the names of their composers, Haydn and Mozart, some tunes honor others, Moody and Rutherford.
Foreign languages abound: Latin – Sine Nomine, Lux Prima; German – SCHÜCKE DICH, and Es Ist Ein’ Ros’ Entsprungen [I love speaking these German names] ;Welsh – Ar Hyd Y Nos; French – Quelle Est Cette Odeur Agreable [we are glad the Agreable is in that name]; Swedish – Tryggare Kan Ingen Vara; and Polish – W Zlobie Lezy.
Certain tune names are lovely in their simplicity: Listening, Peace, Sweet Story and Cradle Song.
So there it is. Call me a nerd: I find this great fun.
My friend Tanabu Girl’s last comment has tickled my noggin. Her church (Missouri Synod Lutheran) has new hymnals with a small triangle next to the last verse of hymns when that last verse is a benediction to the Trinity (see the last verse of Only-Begotten as an example). The small triangle is a reminder to stand to sing that verse. How glorious is that?
I love hymnals.
We took a hymnal with us on our honeymoon, I love them that much. I collect hymnals and have a shelf dedicated to my collection, close to the piano. I love to compare renditions, find new verses which we never sing anymore, learn the names of tunes, interchange tunes, and finally play and sing through them.
I’m sad at the thought of hymnals going the way of IBM Selectric typewriters. I grieve at the trend of the modern church to sing off the wall. Precious few choruses match the weight of glory that a hymn has. Praise songs come and go; most have the life span of a mosquito. And even if we sing older hymns off the wall (you know I mean with a projector), we are singing in unison and miss the texture and depth of harmony. We aren’t even aware of what we have lost.
I’m not against new songs. We’re told to sing a new song to the Lord. Most of our new songs, sadly, reflect the shallowness of our culture. I’m thankful for the few which don’t.
But I digress. Hymnals are great devotional tools. It is good to read through them. A phrase may just attach itself to your soul.
A friend used this verse on baby shower invitations:
One of my favorite afternoons in the last five years was spent with a retired Canadian friend, Marjorie. Marjorie grew up in the Anglican church as a child in Jamaica. I had bags of basil plants which needed to be cleaned and trimmed to make pesto. We stood together at the counter snipping leaves while singing to the music of A Vaughan Williams Hymnal
I have my eye on a hymnal which doesn’t yet have a home on my shelf, The New English Hymnal
Do you have a favorite hymnal? Do you remember a hymnal from your childhood?
To begin, you will not find the word awesome on any post I’ve written before this. I only use the word to describe that which inspires awe.
The Lord is so kind. The one hymn I’ve wanted for my funeral since I was 19 years old, Vaughan Williams’ For All the Saints, is now regularly sung by my loved ones and fellow worshipers. If I were to die tonight, I have all the confidence that my wishes to have this song sung at my funeral would be fulfilled. I could not say that ten years ago.
After we had sung Only-Begotten, Word of God Eternal during communion today, I notified my husband that he only has to remember two hymns: For All the Saints and Only-Begotten. This Latin hymn from the ninth century is one of the most potent expressions of worship. The music (click on MIDI for a creepy electronic sound [I’m searching for a better version], print out the music free on Adobe) has a majesty and gravitas that is unparalleled. I am never able to sing through every verse. Lumps, great lumps, arise. The Trinitarian benediction is glorious.
This is Thy temple; here Thy presence holy;
Here may Thy servants, at the mystic banquet,
Humbly adoring, take Thy body broken,
Drink of Thy chalice.
Here in our sickness, healing grace aboundeth,
Light in our blindness, in our toil refreshment:
Sin is forgiven, hope o’er fear prevaileth,
Joy over sorrow.
Hallowed this dwelling where the Lord abideth,
This is none other than the gate of heaven;
Strangers and pilgrims, seeking homes eternal,
Pass through its portals.
Lord, we beseech Thee, as we throng Thy temple,
By Thy past blessings, by Thy present bounty,
Favor Thy children, and with tender mercy
Hear our petitions.
God in three Persons, Father everlasting,
Son co-eternal, ever-blessed Spirit,
Thine be the glory, praise, and adoration,
Now and forever.
Gratefully,
~ Wes King, words for his kids, written on a airplane sick bag
after violent turbulence on a flight
from There Is a God on the CD What Matters Most
We never tire of listening to this exceptional CD. The phrase, nurture your appetite for beauty, goodness and truth, keeps turning over in my mind, gently clanging like the metal rivets and buttons from jeans tumbling in the dryer.
1. We must distinguish beauty from ugliness, goodness from mediocrity, truth from cleverly couched lies. I tend to shy from evaluation – that’s my husband’s department – but nurturing an appetite involves evaluation all the day long. It is good to ask
Why do we love this movie?
Why don’t you like this type of music?
What makes this wonderful?
Where is this weak?
How could this be improved?
What is the point?
What would complement this?
Is this good?
This is one of those inescapable truths. Whenever we feed ourselves and our children – food, words, sounds, images – we are developing appetites. If I raise my family on a routine of chicken nuggets, french fries and pop while I drive in the van, they will not learn to appreciate sitting down together to a crisp green salad, a crusty loaf of bread and Quiche Lorraine. When I buy 20 39¢ hamburgers from McDonalds to scarf down together (which I’m humiliated to admit we did on Sundays coming home from church for, um, years) what kind of appetite am I nurturing?
A steady diet of sitcoms trains the mind to expect quick fixes, shallow character development and short attention spans. This is my beef with Sesame Street type shows. It develops a taste for quick takes, easy images, multiple camera shots, and overstimulation: all directly opposed to the patience required to sit, listen to a book, and form the pictures in your own imagination.
2. We (as parents and as self-monitors) must monitor the inflow and make the decisions. If a child is offered a choice between ice cream and oatmeal, that child will assuredly choose the ice cream. If, whenever there is a lull, we pop a DVD in or turn to a computer game, we are nurturing an appetitie for easy entertainment. Many folks have praised the television writer’s strike because it was the enforced restriction they needed to find better ways to spend their evenings. Carrie’s comments (see below) illustrate how effective complete withdrawal can be.
3. Begin introducing tiny tastes of what is wonderful to your family. Start small. Put on Bach while you are getting ready for a meal. Read a short poem after the meal. Get on your belly on the grass (or the beach) with a toddler and a magnifying glass. Turn over on your back and look for faces (eagles, mountains) in the clouds. Read through the psalms in the Authorized Version. Pick flowers and put them on the table. Teach your son how to make Dutch Babies. Buy postcards of fine art and study them together. Look for the funny things of life and laugh.
These “nurturing appetite” threads are intertwined with the idea of furnishing our minds. This Wendell Berry interview has also been tumbling in the dryer of my mind for over a year.
The country in front of us now falls off steeply toward Cane Run and
the horse barn. Berry says he hunted squirrels here as a boy. As we
begin to descend, I am thinking about boyhood and Berry’s poetry, and I
ask Berry if he agrees that school children should be reintroduced to
the lost institution of memorizing and reciting poems.
“Yes,” he replies, “you’ve got to furnish their minds.”
The idea of poetry as furniture expands within my imagination and for
weeks, I think about a poem committed to memory as an old chest of
drawers in the corner of a child’s room. At first the thing is simply a
place to put clothes. With time, the grown man, or grown woman learns
to see more of it: toolmarks left by the hand of a long-dead craftsman,
a cornice molding around its top in a shape found on ancient Greek
temples. And by gazing at its sturdiness for so many years, he or she
knows something about how to make things that last.
New discovery! Oh People!
This morning our poem was John Anderson, My Jo, a piercing lyrical love song. The speaker is John Anderson’s wife and they are at the end of their life together.
Folks, this isn’t that difficult: my sixteen year old son got it. The hill is a metaphor for what? Sleep is a metaphor for what?
I wasn’t sure what Jo meant, if it was a nickname for John or another word. So I googled it and lo, there appeared a great singer named Eddi Reader. This is the equivalent of discovering Anthony Trollope! It looks like she sings a lot of Burns poems. Contented sigh…..
jo = joy, sweetheart (a favorite word for Scrabble players)
acquent = acquainted
brent = smooth, unwrinkled
beld = bald
pow = pate, head
canty = cheerful
maun = must
John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent;
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bony brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson my Jo.
John Anderson my jo, John,
We clamb the hill the gither;
And mony a canty day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
And hand in hand we’ll go;
And sleep the gither at the foot,
John Anderson my Jo.
This video perfectly illustrates the frame of silence. Perfectly.
A Living Pencil 