BITS OF USELESS INFORMATION

I have to stand on my soap box for this blog post.  Something has bugged me for more years than I can count & I’ve never had a chance to vent.

By the time I took a church music course at university I already had quite a few notches in my belt playing in various churches.  I was exposed to music from high Anglican psalmody and standard United church hymns to gospel tunes with lots of arpeggios.    I didn’t have opportunities to hear the gorgeous music of the Renaissance or some of the lush tunes of the late English Romantics.  Saint John wasn’t exactly a mecca of great liturgical music in the final decades of the 20th century.   But I did experience choirs, many choirs with all types of abilities.

I was eager to discover and learn about the glorious world of sacred choral music.  So I signed up for the church music course at university.  It was for an entire year. From September to December we spent our hours examining in great detail the history of early chant. Pérotin and Léonin, two composers who worked and wrote for Notre Dame Cathedral in the late 12th and 13th centuries were my diet for almost three months.  We didn’t even look at Hildegard von Bingen.  We played drop the needle on LPR.  (Long play records for those young pups who have no idea what I am talking about.) So who wrote it? the prof asked. That’s easy! (Duh. only 2 composers to choose from!) Which chant?  Not hard either once you memorized the various texts.

Do you want to know how many times I have conducted these composers in church?  NONE!  I’ve led chant in many churches where I’ve had to read chant notation.  I’ve improvised accompaniment for all types of plainsong when choristers and congregation needed support or the pitch would descend from d minor into a key that hasn’t been discovered yet.  But NEVER did  Pérotin and Léonin make it in the church bulletin.

The second half of the course was to be devoted to music from the Renaissance to the 20th Century.  I couldn’t wait!  Finally, music I could use. Nope!  We touched briefly on music by Thomas Tallis, like one tune. I think a piece by William Byrd also made its appearance and that was one movement from one of his masses.  Classical church music?  Forget that! We talked about Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis albeit briefly & Franz Joseph Haydn’s masses got a day.  But even these pieces are not really church music that you can programme, except of course in concert. Romantic music got a nod and then 20th century music came up.  Don’t get me wrong.  The concerts that I go to most often and the music that I love is by living composers.  I am interested in what they have to say and how they say it. But the pieces that we studied were not tunes that would ever be sung in any church that I played in or attended.   Gorecki, John Tavener, Arvo Part, even Ruth Watson Henderson and Stephen  Hatfield etc didn’t make the cut in this course.

I’m still standing on my soap box here people,  So a course of church music which I could never use!  I was 20 years old.  What I wanted to know was repertoire that worked in the church year.  What do you do if you gig in an evangelical church?  Who are the composers that are bearable with lyrics that aren’t too trite?  If you are lucky enough to get a good organ and a choir that really has the chops, what are the pieces that work?  What do you do if you have a bass that is tone deaf? An alto that IS deaf?  A soprano that is no where near the note but loves to sing?  What are pieces that work for kids as young as 3 and as old as 16?  How do you work with soloists that are at either end of the spectrum in ability and age?  I now know the answers to many of these questions.  It was through trial and error, reading, listening, asking questions to those that know much more than I do and attending some workshops.  But let’s give our students a bit of help here.  Introduce them to good music!  Put it in a historical context but also give them tools to survive in the reality of today’s church so they can hopefully flourish and build decent music programmes.  For many students, it is their one opportunity to get inspired in a rich repertoire. Teachers, give them a kick-start into their church music journey.

I’ll step down now.  Thank you for letting me vent.

 

 

 

 

Changing Times

Riding the subway the other morning, a woman plopped herself down next to me and proceeded to take out her make-up bag.  She then applied every conceivable potion that Revlon sells from dark circle concealer, to foundation & blush.

When the eye brow teasers were removed from her bag of magic tricks I really became squeamish.   The subway was packed with no vacant seats.  Besides, it was a 45 minute commute.  It took great will power for me not to blurt out that grooming is a personal matter but I had my self censor button firmly pressed. I proceeded to get more steamed as my station neared.  The men didn’t seem to notice or pretended not to.  She was getting a few raised eyebrows from the women who weren’t botoxed & could still grimace, but no one said a thing.  NOT ONE WORD.  Is it because the bar has fallen so low on socially accepted behaviour that no one cares anymore?  Or is it because of my age and the rules & norms that I grew up with are not applicable to a younger demographic?

This brings me to church behaviour because I spend almost as much time in churches as I do on city transit. 

I  always wore a dress to church even on the most bitter Canadian winter days except for one particularly cold morning about 25 years ago.  The wind was howling and it felt like minus 1000 when waiting for the bus to take me to my church gig.  I put on trousers thinking it was the sensible thing to do.  I figured I’d be robed & at the organ bench so who would know?  That Sunday,  the organ broke down (see previous posts on my bad luck with church organs) & I had to make my way to the piano.  I was self-conscious standing in front of everyone in my pants thinking that the congregation would assume I had a first class ticket to hell.

Fast forward a number of years.

One Sunday morning when I wasn’t playing the organ I found myself in a pew supporting a clergy friend of mine.  I was sitting in front of an elderly retired priest who always attended church in full black clericals .  During communion people were  making their way up the aisle to receive the elements.  My head was lowered and I heard an audible gasp &  the words,  “My Lord, saints preserve us!”  I looked up and there were 2 people of ample proportions dressed in lime green exercise tights that were about 3 sizes too small, left nothing to the imagination, and red sweat shirts that hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in quite some time.  I had to stifle a laugh.  Not because of how these people were dressed because frankly, I didn’t care.  The days of wearing dresses and gloves had long passed, but I was amused at the priest’s reaction.  For him, it clearly wasn’t what he had been accustomed to seeing when he had spent his days in the pulpit.

Then there was the choir member whose Sunday morning ritual involved clipping his nails during the sermon.  His wife was the choir director.  Why she didn’t say anything to him, I’ll never know.   But I do know for a fact it drove the clergy crazy.

Now it is all about Social Media.  I listened to a radio documentary fairly recently where ministers of hip churches, especially in Calgary, discussed the benefits of using Twitter in the actual church service.  Their enthusiasm for immediate connection to their congregation could only have been surpassed if they were announcing the Second Coming.     What was interesting to me, was that a few weeks before I heard this radio doc,  I witnessed an elderly woman tearing a strip of a young person for using their IPhone  during the service.    I started to think, do we need to get with the programme and expect our seniors to do the same or have we somehow lost a sense of being still and taking time to be holy?

Check out a few of these articles for various thoughts on this topic.  Please let me know what you think the role Social Media should play in an actual service.

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0065.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/phones-in-church_n_3781132.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57593128-71/one-in-five-americans-use-phones-in-church/

The Impossible Dream – By Not The Church Lady AKA Kelly Galbraith

Most musicians practise hours every day from the time they are children.  Their desire is to make beautiful music and if possible, pay their bills.  All musicians (except one) own their instrument.  They make reeds for it and know what embouchure it needs to make lovely sounds.  Pianists know how much weight they need to use on the keys to produce beauty and string players just how much pressure to apply when tuning.  Alas!  The one musician that doesn’t own their instrument (unless of course they win the lottery and buy their own church), is the organist!  This is what I carry in my purse, a set of keys.  And armed with a list of church entry codes, I can gain access to the kingdom, in this case, a sanctuary to practise.  

Yes, my organ shoes do travel!  Being a musician for hire and a substitute organist for most of my life, I NEVER know what awaits me when I enter the building.  The first obstacle is to figure out how to turn the instrument on.  Believe me when I say, this is not usually obvious.  Sometimes breaker switches need to be reset. Other times, it is a combination of switches and mystical chants that bring it to life.

I played my very first church service when I was probably about 12 or 13 years old.  It was my debut and I was excited and eager to have an opportunity to play music that I had spend hours practising.  This pipe organ was old and in need of repair but it chose THIS very service, packed to the rafters to offer up its swan song.

I started the intro of the opening hymn and a rumble grew to a piercing wail  that could only have had its origins from the depths of Hades and choir of banshees echoed through the church.  Then all of the 8 foot and 4 foot pipes stopped working and only the 16 foot and Mixtures offered their voice.  What does that mean in laypersons’ terms?  It would be the equivalent of Paul Robeson and Tiny Tim singing a duet for 1 hour.

 

At 15 years of age, I played my first wedding.  It was held in a little country church with a pump organ.  The pedals kept sticking  and  the soloist had to crouch down in her finery and manually heave and push those pedals during the processional.  Also the bride had insisted on having the Wedding March as the recessional.  How was I to know that this organ didn’t have enough keys to play the tune?

During high school years, I played an organ whose manufacturer’s claim to fame was building farm equipment…enough said on that.   Another instrument I played kept making rude sounds from the bellows like it had eaten something that disagreed with it and all that was missing was the accompanying smell.

I learned later from my Mt. A professor that when I graduated, they had to repair the University organ. I wore the poor thing out. I loved that chapel organ and kept it company for 9 hours a day learning repertoire from  French Classical, German Baroque, French Romantic and the English school.  I used technique that would serve me well if ever I had the good fortune to play a tracker instrument (considered by many to be the Bentley of organs).

While pursing graduate studies, it was still assumed by teachers and fellow students alike that we would someday play instruments worthy of the masterpieces that we were learning.

Surely you ask, “You have played in well over 100 churches.  There must be some good instruments!”  My friends,  I can count on 1 hand the instruments that made be blush with joy and giggle like a school girl.  Now I view it as a challenge to coax music out of these sick instruments.  Churches don’t have the money or interest to invest thousands, and often hundreds of thousands of dollars into their up keep, especially when in danger of closing.  A good pipe organ can easily set a congregation back one million dollars.

This past Sunday, the organ I was playing died twice in the middle of the service. So much for the hours spent on my Offertory and Postlude I thought as I made my way down to the piano thumbing through the hymn book for tunes to improvise on.

I think the hardest thing for church organists is that they have the ability and desire to make beautiful music but the opportunities just don’t present themselves very often.  A dear friend of mine recently asked me if I thought I would someday make music with an instrument that I loved.  I guess it depends on how long my organ shoes still want to travel.  I am an optimist and of course, I keep looking out my window for flying pigs!

Gory, Gross & Grim

I am a vegetarian and someone who hurls at the first sign of blood so I would not be on your speed dial in a health emergency. My aversion to any and all bloody images is visceral.  As I student I worked for several  years in a fast food  joint. My compadres would rush me out of the kitchen if someone cut their fingers while cleaning chicken guts.  They didn’t want to have to clean up two messes.   This phobia of mine poses a problem as a supply organist as it isn’t my place to make editorial asides on the clergy’s bad hymn choices.  I can and do hold my nose and pound out the ‘insipid ‘In the Garden’ , which I refer to as the Andy song. (And he walks with me.  And he talks with me).  I’ll think of my cheque as I plow through the down right comical ‘A Little Less of Me’ .  (The word ‘me’ occurs 16 times not counting all of the repeats and the ‘I’s’.  Score zilch for God or Jesus.)

Let me be a little kinder let me be a little blinder
To the faults of those about me let me praise a little more
Let me be when I am weary just a little bit more cheery
Think a little more of others and a little less of me
Let me be a little braver when temptation bits me waver
Let me strive a little harder to be all that I should be
Let me be a little meeker with the brother that is weaker
Let me think more of my neighbors and a little less of me
Let me be when I am weary just a little bit more cheery
Let me serve a little better those that I am striving for
Let me be a little meeker with the brother that is weaker
Think a little more of others and a little less of me.

The church hymnal supplement ‘Songs for a Gospel People’  has some truly horrible tunes and lyrics.  The popular  ‘Family of God’ is one such gross out hymn.  “I’m so glad I’m a part of the Family of God,
I’ve been washed in the fountain, cleansed by His blood!”
There it is – ‘washed in the fountain, cleansed by his blood.’  Yes, I know why hymn writers pen these lyrics, atonement and all of that stuff, but it doesn’t  mean I have to like them! I’ve played both of these gory hymns in 3 denominations, ‘There is a Fountain Filled with Blood’  and ‘Are you Washed in the Blood’.  Proving yet again that bad taste crosses all theological chasms. 

 

So clergy friends, if I happen to supply for you one Sunday in the future, please, I beg of you. keep the bloody references for another day.  I need  all of my intestinal fortitude to get through the communion images.

‘

Thank you to my Facebook friends who have offered some of their suggestions!  Let’s get a list going people!  Hymns that should be banned.

Normal

http://www.puritanboard.com/f67/questionable-hymns-54739/

http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/bad-poetry-bad-theology

http://www.christianforums.com/t3120506/

The perils of a wireless mic!

Having spent over 20 years as a radio music producer, I am very aware of the golden rule.  NEVER say anything in front of a mic that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to hear.  ALWAYS assume the mic is on, even if you are in the studio by yourself.    Every faux pas is embellished in the retelling and echoes in the halls of a broadcasting building for decades.

Most churches built from the 1950s to the present day resemble God’s living room.  Flying buttresses and domed apses have given way to auditoriums or less grand buildings where the floors are carpeted and the pews cushioned.  A large video screen is given more prominence than a cross or altar.  Because the acoustics are so poor in many contemporary churches, and the aging congregations are suffering hearing loss, clergy have to equip themselves with wireless mics like the type that pop stars wear.

Most clergy have never been trained in mic usage.  They don’t have a producer on the other side of the glass to double-check their mic to see if it is on or off at the appropriate moment.

One particular Sunday, I was supplying for a congregation that was larger than usual because of confirmation.  There were friends and family members of the confirmation candidates and of course, the bishop was presiding.  During the playing of my fancy pants prelude, I heard voices.  Not the normal din of a congregation that chats away instead of praying or listening, but a full-fledged animated conversation.  My attention was diverted from my Bach to the details of a cocktail party that was being held later in the day.  My heart stopped when I realized it was the bishop and the rector.  Knowing both of them rather well, and their sense of humour and enjoyment of fine scotch, I stopped playing midstream, started a coughing fit so I could run out and boot it down the back stairs with my gown flying behind me.  I think it took all of 15 seconds before I made it to the rector’s study.  As I continued to cough to cover their conversation, I ran up, frisked them, and turned their mics off.     During the procession, I think both the clergy and rector matched their red vestments.

Another Sunday, at yet another church, after the opening hymn, and lighting of the Christ candle, the Youth Pastor started in on his children’s talk.  You know the one, where the conversation is tailored more for the adults and the children are just anxious to escape and work on their crafts.  The Senior Pastor got up from his chair and went out the side door.  About a minute later I heard, and so did everyone else in the sanctuary, the unmistakable sounds of someone taking a whiz and then the toilet flushing.  I have a very loud laugh as anyone who knows me can attest to.  I think I broke something inside trying to hold it together as I was hoping I’d also hear his hands being washed.

So my clergy friends, unless you would rather your organist didn’t launch into Handel’s Water music as the Postlude, ALWAYS check your mics.

Do you have some mic stories you’d like to share.  Feel free to change the name!

Altar Call: How many times can one be saved?

I have been a church musician for over 30 years and much of that time I’ve been sitting on the organ bench as a supply organist.  Because I had a full-time job that I loved, and 2 choirs that offered programming and conducting opportunities, it was the perfect mix.  I could keep my fingers in shape and have various ‘religious’ experiences.  Through the years I have played for pretty much all denominations, from the smells and bells of the high Anglicans to the bible thumping Baptists. I’ve listened to a thousand sermons, if I have heard one.   And the reading from John 14 vs:2   ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions’  has to be true.  Some congregations feel that they will be the only ones in heaven.

One particular Sunday I was supplying at a church where I was very familiar with the personalities of the congregants.  It was an evangelical church with a decent choir and a respectable number of bums in the pews.  The senior pastor was away and a guest minister (whom I shall name) The Rev. Thurston Narcissist, was going to be the homilist.

Before the service began, as was the practice of this church, a prayer was given with the choir to prepare for the service.  Heads were bowed and he began to wax eloquent, not asking but telling God that souls were going to be saved today.  Though my head was bowed, I opened my eyes and caught him re-arranging his pompadour as he was offering up his blessing.  The choir filed out and he took me aside and said, “During the altar call, keep playing ‘Just as I am’.   It gets them every time.”  Being a musician for hire, I do what I am told.

The sermon was long, not theologically very sound, but full of fire and brimstone. The Rev. Narcissist had one of those soft covered bibles, with gold trim on the edges and where Jesus speaks in red.  He made a mighty wallop as he hit the pulpit to emphasize a particular sin that would damn you for all eternity.  Then came the altar call.  I think he was using it as a measure of his success.  The more sinners that walked up the long aisle, the more he could justify his cheque.  I started playing.  After about 2 minutes, still no soul ventured up the aisle.  He took off his jacket, removed his tie, and took his hanky from his breast pocket mopping up a brow that was bathed in sweat.   I glanced in the mirror trying to catch his eye.  How many times could I sustain a theme and variations on this tune.  Finally, *Polly (not her real name) saved the day by getting saved…yet again.  I had played before at this church and witnessed her salvation at least 4 times.   I was happy that this meant that the service was drawing to a close as the deacons came forward to lay their hands on her.  But it did give me pause.  Yes, I believe in conversion experiences, that people can be ‘saved’.  But I am putting it out there.   You can ask forgiveness for your sins, anytime, all the time, but can you be ‘saved more than once?

All thoughts welcome.