My Lenten discipline is to set aside an hour each day to sit and listen to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus 1999 recording of Dvorak's Stabat Mater, Op 58. Robert Shaw conducting. Fabulous soloists: Christine Goerke , Marietta Simpson, Stanford Olsen, & Nathan Berg.
And there I am in the middle of the alto section - third row near the tenors -- right in the midst of this divine music.
And when I put on my headphones it all resonates in my head.

Divine present music: Every note, every text, every crescendo and dramatic cadence. It's not merely an imprinted part of me, it is more than memory. I am part of this immortal music.

After the fire

End of the world, part deux

There we were, minding our own business - enjoying the hot summer Sunday afternoon in the high desert of New Mexico - I looked out my bedroom window to see the first plume of fire on the hillside.

By Tuesday night, the fire had grown to this:

Then the video "fly-over" shows the aftermath.

We are fine. We are safe. We have seen earthquake, wind and fire. We have heard the still small voice of God, and we are changed.

Homage to Milton Babbit

I never cared much for Milton Babbitt’s music. It seemed like a complex mathematical system – completely serial: from pitch order to register to dynamics to notes to rhythms, but where was the music? We learned the systems, and while I understood the technique, it just seemed bloodless and hyper-academic.

Then, 35 years ago, in the first semester of my graduate studies, Milton Babbitt came to speak to our 20th century music class. He brought a recent example of one of his piano pieces in which he used the serial technique he called “semi-combinatoriality”… basically showing how hexachord were permutations of other hexachords. That was the secret to his compositional system. He explained the system, and at the same time – he admired it.

Then it struck me how much he clearly enjoyed the sonic universe he had created: After he explained the way he’d composed his piece, he played a recording of the work. And within a matter of measures he smiled – grinned actually – he swayed with the rhythm, he glowed with pride and pleasure at this 3 minute piece he had made. I realized the joy he derived both from the success of his mathematical system displayed in sound and the emotional thrill of hearing the music he had created.

After our hearing, one of the skeptics in the class asked Dr. Babbitt, “Do you like that?” and in that moment I learned two points of wisdom that changed my life: He said, “The first hearing is always the hardest. You have to teach you ears the ‘language’ and give it the opportunity to appreciate and enjoy it.” And “yes. That’s the most important part of composing in any system: it’s your voice – you have to like it. You owe that to yourself first.”

Several years later, Milton Babbitt was the keynote speaker at my doctoral commencement. I did not have the opportunity then to thank him for the wisdom he brought to my seminar, years before. But I often thought of that day, especially when I write my music. Thank you Dr Babbitt…. You were a great teacher.

The Daily News

Every morning – after I’ve read my email and played a few games of computer solitaire – I take the dogs for a walk. Actually, “walk” is kind of a misnomer; it’s more like a “smell”.

This is a bonding exercise for our little pack: sharing the smells on the morning walk and I am merely there to witness their daily ritual. In their own language they chuckle and gasp at the various smells along the route. They stop at the juniper bush in front and see who’s been by. Each one takes a sniff, and then we move on: “nothing new here… just bunny-poo”. A little further down the road, “Sparky’s already been here.” And “The River of Fur (three New Foundlands) has been by…” Then “Over here! Somebody had chicken for dinner last night!” “Uh-oh, Scruffy’s people forgot to pick up his shit again… Oh, that’s old shit.”

Everybody checks it out. Each smell. Gabi studies it in depth, with special interest in rabbit shit and bird droppings. Grreta will smell up one side of a blade of grass and down the other side to identify whoever left their “mark” – and she refuses to move on until she is finished. Bindi is dedicated to the hunt – and when he finds “evidence”, more often just eats it… but not until it’s been thoroughly examined by Gabi and Grreta.

And then! Together they huddle over the scene of a great disaster! Wait, wait! A coyote has been this way! Here is genuine coyote-shit! Red and mottled with bits of bone all in a great, tantalizing pile, right in the middle of the road!!. Grreta takes charge: she smells, she looks around, she reports to the others, they all hover and smell and discuss the pile of shit. Then Gabi goes about 10 feet away, up in the dirt! She’s found the ground all stirred up in a circle and… wait! Rabbit blood! Something happened here! The others join her. This smell is slightly older than the coyote-shit, but … yes, they are related! Same coyote! It’s a killing field – definitely! That Coyote has caught, slain and eaten a rabbit. It appears by the thorough cleanup of the site that the Coyote has a great deal of experience killing and eating rabbits. It is “His Nature”! And what about the rabbit? Are there more? Gabi looks under the pinon tree and in the usual rabbit dens… nothing new there. Grreta looks up in the far distance for signs of the Coyote: could He be walking across the arroyo now? She has spotted them before, and someday she dreams of catching one in the act.

And Bindi? He scruffs the dirt where the rabbit was slain, and then with a flying leap: he rolls in it.

How like in real life.

Mother's Day

We gathered around her sickbed – my two younger brothers and I. And we watched as our mere presence began to revive her. First, she got color in her cheeks. There was a clear, bright sparkle returning to her eyes. There was a brown bruise mark near her left eye that she’d gotten when she fainted six weeks ago, when she fell head-first and hit the pavement. We watched as her wounds began to fade. She was weak and tired, from a month of pneumonia and we watched as she began to perk up, respond to our meager jokes with a smile – she gets it. She had no appetite, she said. And we coaxed her into eating. Ice cream was the essential ingredient – one quarter of a turkey sandwich and a whole scoop of ice cream – and we watched as her energy level began to rise.

We worked hard to be attentive, but not hovering; to engage but not over-tire her; we gave her all of our attention without expecting any return. It was our turn. We were just there: Rob would go out to the patio for a cigarette but he was sure to remain in sight; he texted his wife who was 600 miles away – he is both places at once. Mark checked his email on my laptop, and conversed at the same time with that easy, hearty laugh he is the master of joviality. I ran down to the dining room to get her a cup of orange juice, or fixed the CD player and put some music on, I was generally puttering and being present at the same time. Late at night, I laid on the couch and listened for her gentle old-lady snore to signal that she was sleeping and then I slept.

I thought about the delicate balance of dignity and the quality of life. Eighty-nine years old and facing the end like a wall. What she wants is to get back to normal. This IS the New Normal: nobody thinks beyond the moment when we all return home to our lives and she continues to recuperate. The New Normal is an apartment in an old “independent seniors” facility. Normal is everyone who knows her who waits while she dredges up their name and tries to be polite and honest at the same time.

She wonders if it’s worth the effort. Maybe she does it for us - her kids? For the sake of her friends? For the memory of Dad? For one more dish of ice cream? One more game of bridge? And a constant prayer… “surrounded by the love of God” ? And all she wants is for us all to be together again - her “three good kids.”

We all did the best we could.

Let Evening Come

Text & Time In The Music

All right, all right - I've had it!

I know the answer, and I've been waiting for somebody to ask me the question - but I can't stand it any more. Sitting through HOURs - months! - of rehearsals; being yelled at by punk-baby conductors who "...can't understand why your diction isn't clear! ... can't understand what we're singing!... yadda, yadda, yadda!" This is Basic Brow-beating 101. And they just don't get it! Somebody print this up and put it on his piano!

Diction is a property of time.

It is not a matter of how you pronounce it but when.

In the rhythm of the text everything happens in precise sequential moments in time, together, all the same way. Just as unison vowel color results in a beautiful choral tone, so does rhythmically articulated consonants result in crystal clear text.

All the time people tell me - "I've never been very good with rhythm" And I tell them, I was never very good with rhythm, UNTIL I learned how to count-sing.

So the task - as a choral musician begins to learn the music is as follows:
1. Count-sing ( eewww ...we hate count-singing! we just wanna sing the music)
Why? - because count-singing gives the pitches a metric context in time.
Repeat after me: "count-singing gives the pitches a metric context in time."

It's about accents, and weight within the measure. It's about tapping your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. It's about reading music without having to think of anything but the count. It's about finding and maintaining a consistent tempo in an ensemble. It's about multiple parts all singing the same words: "One-e-&-uh, Two-e-&-uh, Tee-e-&-uh." It's about articulating something together for clarity.

Robert Shaw said, "It's harder to sing in time than in tune." (p.2 of my autographed score of the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten)