A Conservative Cellist?

My own playing? Well, it’s better than it was yesterday.

Three cheers for Mona Charen in her endeavors to learn to play the cello. Bravo! Cello Notes – Mona Charen http://m.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2013/02/19/cello-notes-n1515082?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

 

Blogging project complete?

So, for my avid few readers, you may have noticed that I skipped a number of entries in this recent blogging project. We went on vacation and between planning for vacation, going on vacation, and recovering from vacation I haven’t been able to keep up with this ambitious project (not to mention its hard to do from my phone). I may try and go back and update those posts so that I can say that I’ve actually completed the project. On the other hand, that may take me some time.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed reading the posts from Andrew, Christian, and Haley. I hope you check them out, too.

 

30 Songs in 30 Days, Day 29: A Song From Your Childhood

The Tide is High by Blondie

Don’t ask why. I just remember listening to it in the car driving around the streets of Brattleboro.

 

30 Songs in 30 Days, Day 24: A Song You Want Played at Your Funeral

Salvation is Created, Pavel Chesnokov

My first experience with this work was with a band arrangement of this work and it was very moving. Not even knowing the text of the song, the title says enough: salvation is created. What better way to enter into eternal life than knowing that you have been saved.

I found a mixed choir performing it here:

Not even knowing the text of the song, the title says enough. Salvation is created.

Posted from WordPress for Android

 

30 Songs in 30 Days, Day 10: A Song That Makes You Fall Asleep

Pretty much anything by Enya.

Yeah, I used to like listening to her. Now, her music kind of lulls me into a coma-like stupor.

So…a random video:

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Other folks participating in this blogging challenge:

Andrew: The Armchair Squid

Christian: Stay on Target

Haley: Haley Says “Hello” To You

 

30 Songs in 30 Days, Day 9: A Song You Can Dance To

This one is fun. However, choosing one is not fun. I enjoy dancing to music from Prokofiev to Lady Gaga (sorry, no link). But for the purpose of choosing just one, this song is the one I think of when you mention dance to music:

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Other folks participating in this blogging challenge:

Andrew: The Armchair Squid

Christian: Stay on Target

Haley: Haley Says “Hello” To You

 

30 Songs in 30 Days, Day 5: A Song That Reminds You of Someone

This is a tough one. I have a whole list of songs to choose from and they all remind me of my wife, Meredith. Before her brain surgeries Meredith was an amazing singer. (Well, she is still an amazing singer, but for different reasons.) She was singing alto when we first met, but as she developed her skills she moved into a soprano range. Watching her, or should I say listening to her, mature in her singing skills was nothing short of awe inspiring. Despite having an obvious bias, I think that she could have “made it” as a singer on a much bigger stage than Rutland, Vermont. What kept her back? She didn’t want to “make it” in that way. Sure, she had desire to be good and constantly homing her skill, even through two pregnancies and while rearing two vibrant children, but she knew that the world of professional singing is an unforgiving, demanding, and often cruel place. She didn’t want that. She wanted her family to be happy and at peace and trying to make it in the professional singing world was just not in her temperament.

Anyway, that’s a long intro to days song, which I think I will do as a list of songs that make me think of my beautiful wife, Meredith.

The first song I heard her sing: Annie’s Song, by John Denver (also played at our wedding as solo piano)

Our first opera aria: Nessun Dorma from Turandot, by Puccini (arranged for big band and used as our first dance at our wedding)

Songs that she sang at a recital in 2003:
Laurie’s Song from The Tender Land by Aaron Copland (she sang this one at my request)
Summertime from Porgy and Bess by Gershwin
O mio babbino, caro from Gianni Schicchi by Puccini
Habanera from Carmen by Bizet

With all of those songs, it will be impossible for me not to think of my wife and the amazing singer she was and the amazing person she is.

 

30 Songs in 30 Days, Day 4: A Song That Makes You Sad

It seems like I’ll start each of these posts with some sort of disclaimer (as though my three faithful readers will notice that I originally published them without anything in them). Today’s disclaimer is like the first, all of these posts were “pre-published” as a way to make sure that I got all of the headings correct and that I would actually have a deadline to force me to get them done. Unfortunately, using my phone as my blogging device has its challenges, not the least of which is typing, and I am not able to include videos very easily.

As for a song that makes me sad…

Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber.

It makes me sad in a good way, if that’s possible. When my grandfather, Richard Mock, died in April of 2000 I remember taking out a never-before-played-record (yes, the vinyl kind) of the Barber piece and playing it in the middle school band room while I waited for my students to arrive. Thankfully, they weren’t there that day and I was able to sit still and let the ten incredible intense minutes of the swelling melody just wash over and through my grief at the loss of such a huge figure in my life.

As the music releases into an incredible pianissimo, so too my grief faded and was replaced by relief. Not relief that my grandfather was gone, but that my grief was worked out. The music didn’t heal me, but it took me through my grief in a way that allowed me to heal.

 

30 Songs in 30 Days, Day 2: Your Least Favorite Song

This is a tough one, because if I don’t like a song, then I don’t listen to it. And if I haven’t listened to it, then it is hard for me to remember what songs I didn’t like. Oh well.

So, of the songs that I can think of that have earned my ire I will choose…

…anything that is unnecessarily – or over-the-top – vulgar, raunchy, or otherwise inappropriate.

Chalk that up to being a Christian, a dad, a grown up, a prude…take your pick. I cringe even at the most thinly veiled references to illicit sex and drug use. But the pop music of the last two decades have been particularly offensive in this regard because the references have ceased to be thinly veiled and have moved to the barely veiled if not out right overt.

I conduct a popular music unit with my sixth grade students starting at its early beginnings with Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong, etc., and by the time I get to today’s music I struggle to find music that is actually appropriate to play for the kids. Ironically, its the kids themselves who inform me as to what is popular and the songs they suggest as their favorites are pretty high on the sex/drug reference meter. What stuns and appalls me is that these kids not only listen to this stuff, but that it is available over federally approved airwaves and that their parents don’t seem to care what it is that they listen to.

Call me what you will, but it seems to me more valuable to spend our time celebrating what is noble, honorable, pure, and lovely.

P.S. I debated about whether to put a list of songs that fit into the “high debasement” category, but decided against promoting music that I would encourage you not to listen to.

P.P.S. I don’t usually pay careful attention to the lyrics of the song. So, if your Hypocrite Alarm goes off with another selection that I make, feel free to point out to me the incongruity of my choice and I will either explain my preference for the song or I will admit that I am not perfect (and nor is my “filter” for selecting music).

 

30 Songs in 30 Days, No. 1: Your Favorite Song

Well, this is embarrassing. I scheduled this post for publication about two months ago thinking that by this time I would have been able to write about my favorite song. Whoops.

Anyway, I’ve always hated picking favorites but for the purpose of this exercise I will. Without fanfare or much explanation…

Eileen, by Dexy’s Midnight Runners