Child of the Moon

Julianna loves books. She loves music. And especially, she adores reading books that can be sung. When Alex was little(r), I used to scour the section of the children’s stacks for books on trains and emergency vehicles. Nowadays, I scour the poetry section for songs I know.

One of her favorites is called Child of the Moon. Jeanne Cotter is a versatile lady—singer, pianist, composer, songwriter, and retreat presenter—whom we got to know long before we had children. It was her retreat for composers that gave me the last skills I needed to “break in” and get music accepted by GIA and WLP. And it was on the first day of her retreat that I found out that after three long, barren years, there was life growing inside my womb.

Before I left Minnesota that week, I bought Child of the Moon. Alex loved it for a while, and insisted on naming each and every animal on every page. And now, it’s Julianna’s turn.

Recently, Julianna “spoke” her first “word.” It emerged while reading that book. “When all the world is sound asleep, the… what is that, Julianna? Can you say mmmmmmmmmoon?”

“Mmmmmah,” she said. The sound went like a lightning bolt through my veins—after all, she’d never, not even once, consented to imitate a sound we asked her to make. The world went crazy for a minute—shrieking, clapping, hugging, kissing. Julianna was in Heaven.

Since then, she has begun to anticipate the actions I do: rocking back and forth like Grandma’s wooden chair, tumbling into sleep’s embrace, holding her near. My heart warms every time I sing it to her and see the clear language comprehension. There’s not a single animal in the book that my almost three-year-old can recognize, much less sign—they’re all forest animals, not livestock—yet she sits by herself and flips the pages endlessly. And I love singing it to her. Last night, Alex was singing along with me at the top of his lungs from the bathroom.

It makes me want to give Jeanne a big hug.

Published in: on December 22, 2009 at 6:45 am  Comments (2)  
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7 Quick Takes Friday–the Christmas Carol edition

1. The local “Christmas station” plays a sometimes-delightful, often appalling mix of cheesy ’80s pop stars (think Hall & Oates “Jingle Bell Rock”), some great Mannheim Steamroller, and several versions of Feliz Navidad and Chestnuts Roasting—but virtually ZERO religious content. This got me thinking about the kids at school. When we would plan our Christmas Mass, and I’d ask them to pick songs, they kept having trouble coming up with sacred songs. Their brains defaulted to “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus is Coming To Town.” Why is that, I ask myself? Last year I taught Alex “Away in a Manger,” but this year he’s all about “Rudolph” (see #2) and “Jingle Bells.” Upon further reflection, I came to the conclusion that these songs are easy to learn because they don’t require deep thought to understand, and they’re short. The truly great sacred carols are dense in theology, and the language requires plumbing the depths (see #7).

2. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Alex has been learning this for his school concert, and after singing the intro a dozen times for him, it suddenly occurred to me: You know (fill in the blank x 8…) –But DO YOU KNOW the most FAMOUS reindeer of all?????

(Uh…as a matter of fact, no, I knew the eight nobody ever heard of except in a little poem, but I never heard of the famous one, the one that has his own TV special!)

3. Joy to the World. (Liturgy geek alert!) Look through the words to this hymn. What do you NOT see included? Hint: Angels, babies, shepherds, or Magi. This is actually a hymn for the feast of Christ the King. I think this is why it is my favorite Christmas carol of all time. And if it wasn’t so fundamentally tied to Christmas, it would be a spectacular hymn for ten or twelve different Sundays throughout the liturgical year.

4. White Christmas. Every child knows it’s supposed to be snowy at Christmas. But living in Missouri, I have, at length and at last, bowed to the inevitable: white Christmases are few and far between. It’s just not in the climate where I live. In fact, it’s been two years since we had a white anything here. You know that big blizzard that buried the entire middle of the country this week? We got…a dusting. About enough to look like a weak frost. Why is that Christmas and snow have become synonymous? After more reflection, I realized it is because the traditions of American Christmas came from New England, and in New England, y’all do get snow at Christmas. And every other part of the winter.

5. Last year I arranged “I Heard the Bells” for our contemporary group. This was my introduction to the name Johnny Marks. Chances are, you haven’t heard the name either—but it turns out that this Jewish man, who earned a Bronze Star in World War II, wrote a ton of those easy carols that kids learn. He wrote practically the whole score for Rudolph, including Rudolph, A Holly Jolly Christmas, and Silver and Gold, plus Run Rudolph Run, one setting of I Heard the Bells and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.

6. Did you know that there are at least three different tunes for Away in a Manger, and that in the UK, they use a different tune for It Came Upon a Midnight Clear? (This I discovered in looking for choral links for #7.)

7. I used to get annoyed by the archaic language in Christmas carols. At what other time of year would we consent to sing the word “hark”? Especially with an exclamation point after it? You’d get laughed at! But a month post 9/11, I was working on the music schedule for the Christmas season at church, and I actually read the words to “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear,” and I dissolved into tears. Go read them. Listen to them. And see if it doesn’t strike to the heart of life on Earth…then, now, and forevermore.

Published in: on December 11, 2009 at 11:04 am  Comments (3)  
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Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (Thursday Motherhood Moment)

Motherhood Moments

Precious moments. We’ve all had them—those moments that make your heart catch every time you remember them. No matter how often you revisit them, they never get stale or lose their power. Tender or funny, poignant or inspiring, they fortify us against toddler tantrums and pubescent (and pre-school) power struggles.

Leave a comment sharing your moment—or, if you’re feeling ambitious enough to write a whole post (or want to link from your own blog), email me and I’ll use your story as the moment of the day.

***

As recently as two years ago, we would never have attempted any such thing…but yesterday, our Advent calendar told us to pack up the family and go see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

I spent the whole day trying to get all the necessities done to get us there. There wasn’t enough time for me to think, What happens if the kids self-destruct?…until we were sitting in the balcony of Jesse Auditorium at 7:05p.m., no sign of the band, and the natives started getting restless. Alex trying to tickle parts of my anatomy that he didn’t have any business touching. Nicholas arching his back and fussing. You know. Piddly stuff like that.

I was just beginning to worry when the lights went out and the music began. It was loud. It was exciting. Nicholas froze. Alex sat up straight. And Julianna did a “Yay for the band!” yell and clapped her hands. Christian and I traded smiles and a kiss in the back row of the auditorium.

Advent Calendar: 2. Boring, stressful December: 0.

It’s been a long time since I enjoyed a concert that much. You expect a touring band to be tight, to execute flawlessly, to look relaxed on stage. You might even expect them to appear to have fun. But these guys took all of those expectations and kicked up the intensity by several exponents. I could have watched Dirk Shumaker on bass and Josh Levy on piano all night. Their fingers were so fluid, so relaxed, and the joy of playing music for a living just radiated off of them. I get tired of playing the same two hundred songs for Mass. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to keep up your enthusiasm for playing the same set 5-7 times a week, months on end. To say it was fabulous is a huge understatement. By the end of the evening, ridiculous as it sounds, I felt like I knew these guys—like they were guys I would have hung out with, played music with, in college and grad school.

The kids loved it, too. Julianna was hysterical. For once, she got enough music to satisfy her; it was virtually nonstop for an hour and 45 minutes. She yelled, she clapped, she danced in Daddy’s arms; it was Heaven for her. Alex had the binoculars and amused himself watching the horn players, the drummer, Scotty up front, the lighting guys behind us—and singing “Frosty the Snowman” with the band.

Mesmerized as I was, I didn’t notice when Nicholas’s body relaxed back against my chest, but four songs into the set, I realized he hadn’t moved a muscle since the guys took the stage. “Christian,” I hissed. “Is he asleep?”

Christian glanced over and shook his head, grinning. And a few minutes later, Nicholas joined Julianna in “dancing.”

Nicholas and Julianna’s first concert. We’ll never be able to match it again.

Published in: on December 3, 2009 at 2:25 pm  Comments (3)  
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The Image and the Hope

 

image and hope cover

This summer, GIA released  The Image and the Hope, a CD of flute pieces from the GIA catalogue, including two pieces  (“Morning Mist” and “Falling Snow”) from my collection, “Times and Seasons.” Dominic Trumfio is a wonderful flutist, and he and Kelly Dobbs-Mickus did a great job with this CD. It’s a beautiful recording, from top to bottom. It’s gratifying–and humbling–to have my music included.

When I set out to write pieces for flute and piano, it was because Christian’s piano students were always playing pop songs and Disney and Broadway, and I knew there wasn’t a comparable repertoire for flute. I wanted to give my students something to play that was in a little more of a popular style, to counterbalance the endless mind-numbing exercises that fill up the beginner and intermediate flute books. Eventually it went beyond that. The pieces aren’t really “popular,” they’re just pretty. They make nice preludes and post-Communion pieces at church, and they’re good for weddings, too. But using them ourselves is one thing; hearing someone else play them–even hearing from people who have played from the collection–is quite a thrill. It reassures me that all the balancing I do to make time to write is actually worthwhile.

Published in: on August 10, 2009 at 8:11 am  Leave a Comment  
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Inspiration, Insomnia

I had forgotten.

The creative process is a consuming one in any form. I tend to get my brain wound up, and then, even if my entire being is crying out for rest, I can’t get to sleep. It can happen after critique group, it can happen when I have a new article assignment or an idea for a blog post—even after scrapbooking. But nothing fuels my insomnia quite like writing music.

Writing music winds my soul into a tightly-coiled spring. I get music stuck in my head anyway—for days and days on end. When I’m working on something new, it’s weeks and weeks. Words and melodies rocket in circles in my head, preventing me from dropping off to sleep. They percolate so persistently in the background that even after I do fall asleep, they crouch in readiness, waiting for a change in sleep state—and then the music starts up again, like an alarm clock. I wake up, and the problem I haven’t yet solved sets my blood instantly to boiling again.

Even the obsession of prose writing, which is a pretty consuming fire in its own right, seems mild by comparison. I’ve been blessed to find writing gigs on topics I really care about, so those projects can keep me up at night, too. But for the most part, I’ve learned to overcome that obstacle to rest. Not so with music.

Caught as I have been in a long musical dry spell, I had forgotten all this. I’ve been puzzling about it this week, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it happens to me because the function is different. Magazines are read and discarded; a blog post is read but not usually revisited. Even a novel doesn’t usually warrant a second reading, unless it’s Austen or Tolkein or Rowling. But music—at least, music for worship—is meant to be experienced again and again, working its way down to the very core of those who sing it—until it takes on a life of its own—until it no longer belongs to me, but to the people of God.

It’s a humbling, overwhelming thing, to feel called to write this music. And hard. At least, words are hard for me. The music itself is pure joy. Even in music school I was a freak. I never minded theory, and after I started writing I became a theory nut. Fresh, unexpected chord progressions, voice leading, part writing—I glory in that stuff. I’ll stick my fingers in and dig in to it like Julianna does to her applesauce.

In the week since returning from NPM convention energized and inspired, with all the creative floodgates open, I’ve had a lot of trouble sleeping. Combined with Julianna waking up whining for water and Nicholas wanting to eat in the middle of the night, I am one tired mama. But even so, I’m grateful. Dry spells are good for puncturing my pride when it gets over-inflated. They remind me that inSpiration is a gift, not a right, and that the music isn’t mine. It comes from outside me, flows through me, and is given in turn to others, in the hope of making the world a better place.

Published in: on July 19, 2009 at 12:37 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Reflections on Text and Style

July 7, 2009: I began the day with “O God Beyond All Praising” and ended it with “Rockin’ the Runway,” which is essentially Contemporary Christian/Praise & Worship. In the middle I worked on my own hymn text, so while I stood at the concert tonight singing, I was also analyzing the texts.

Many of these songwriters—unlike me—are quite prolific. I envy them that; I love writing songs, but I wrestle constantly with text. For communal worship, I don’t want to speak in the first person, nor do I want to use the wagging finger “you.” And these days I insist on the syllables matching from verse to verse. I try to console my frustration by focusing on Stravinsky’s philosophy: the greater the limitation, the greater the art.

But the songwriters I heard tonight follow a totally different set of rules, and their music works for worship, too. The rules for CCM are a lot more relaxed, more tied to the spoken language. There’s something visceral about this music, the beat and the riffs and the way the words live so close to the heart, like the prayers you breathe and feel, but can’t find the words to say. These writers say them for us. Hymn texts are very elevated; they raise our sights—P&W grabs us right where we are. Detractors of either style of music could use this paragraph as ammunition, but the simple fact is that both styles are powerful, and prayerful, and I love them both—and everything in between.

For hundreds of years, the music of the Church was art music—medieval motets, the incredibly dense textures of the Renaissance, the long, drawn-out, (unusable) high Masses of the masters, and so on. Composers used popular tunes—drinking songs, even—as the basis for their sacred music, but not in their original form; they were always altered to suit the liturgy.

In the post-Vatican II world, popular styles have again been lifted from the culture and adapted for sacred use. In my lifetime we have traveled from the much-derided folk style through the music of the Jesuits, to the Haas/Haugen era, and beyond. The “new” music is P&W and Contemporary Christian. That all this has happened and continues to happen in less than 35 years illustrates just how rapidly the changes are occurring. Unstoppable, by the way, and thank God for that. There’s room for all musical styles in worship.

But I’m writing this at 12:27 a.m. and I am totally shot…must get Nicholas to go to sleep…must sleep… sleep…sleep…

Published in: on July 13, 2009 at 7:09 am  Leave a Comment  
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An NPM Convention Journal

This will be considerably longer and less polished than my usual but I’m not taking the time to do exhaustive revisions. I spent this week in Chicago at the NPM (pastoral music) convention, which was in Rosemont, out by O’Hare airport. Here are the scattered reflections of a week…

Day One: Sunday, July 5

12:38 p.m. I put Alex and Julianna in the car with hugs and kisses, drank in the feel of Christian’s arms around me, and swallowed my weepiness as I walked away from ¾ of my family. An hour later, I was preparing to leave with Justin and Laura when I realized that I didn’t have the diaper bag. After all the (rushed) careful planning, I still managed to leave something important behind.

But I have my flute and my NEO and Nicholas, and I am Chicago bound.

Day Two: Monday July 6th

Discovered more things I forgot/lost in transit from So. Illinois to Chicago.

Nicholas is the hit of the convention. And he’s showing new skills: grabbing hair, name tag, shirt…squealing at everyone who adores him—which is everyone…including a med student named Sung, Joe Mattingly, and Marty Haugen.

The main topic on everyone’s lips is the lack of economical food choices. I can’t help thinking that people who go to conventions tend to spend too much money because somebody else generally has to pay for it, and that’s why convention centers/hotels/restaurants without nearby competition get away with charging so much. I must shake my head, while I make do with a $5 muffin for breakfast.

Thought for the day: “Here in this life, all symphonies must remain unfinished.” Karl Rahner

10:00p.m., totally shot. Played from Times & Seasons (and three other works) at the GIA booth tonight with Kate Cuddy. Lots of fun. Diane Hennessy ran Nicholas around the exhibit hall on her scooter. He was crabby. This is my first convention attending as a composer; it’s refreshing to spend the whole day focused on that, rather than feeling obliged to attend things more directly applicable to being a liturgy director.

Day Three: Tuesday, July 7th

The air traffic pattern switched overnight, and when Nicholas woke me up at 6a.m., I heard the roar of jet liners taking off over the hotel. I had to call Alex to tell him about it. And I got a “walking in the woods” story about Thomas taking a dangerous curve, in the bargain.

Still finding things I’ve lost since Southern Illinois. I swear there’s a black hole somewhere in my suitcase.

8:00a.m. Today is T shirt day. I’m relieved to discover that I am not the only person who didn’t want to spend $15 for another T shirt I wouldn’t wear. I was afraid I’d be lime green flotsam in a sea of fire orange.

7:37p.m. I changed one dirty diaper during the plenum address (which was really good today), three during the GIA showcase, and another during the composers’ forum; fended off three major phlegm-y spitups before he finally nailed my shirt. But Nicholas was so happy and smiley all day (he is really hamming it up for everyone) that it wasn’t until dirty diapers number six and seven that I realized the kid is sick. Now I have to send my brother-in-law to Walgreen’s for more diapers, because it doesn’t look like I have enough to get me home on Friday. Ah, the adventure.

Ate lunch with WLP today. I sat at a table with editors, singers, composers and the owner. (I didn’t know there was one.) Ed Bolduc reminds me of my cousin Chris. I was the newbie in the room so I got introduced all around. It was a good lunch…the best meal I’ve had so far…and all the more enjoyable because I didn’t have to pay for it. Considering the $8 I spent on fruit and a danish this morning (no drink) and the $19 I spent for dinner (which was extremely ordinary), that’s no small perk.

This evening I’ve retreated to my room for some down time. Of course, I’m spending it working on a hymn text that’s been the bane of my existence since mid-January, when I woke up in the middle of the night with a tune and the first two words. Fleshing out that inspiration is a pain in the ***. Two years ago, I sent a text to WLP and got a great rejection, saying “We can’t use this, but send us more!” I groaned, b/c I knew how many months and sheets of paper I spent to get that text put together. Well, this one is even harder. The last one I finished. This one I think I’m going to have to abandon.

But coming to NPM is firing the composing neurons. I have three things in process now, one of them brand new today.

Sometime past midnight: I was supposed to go to a party given by GIA tonight. I was really looking forward to it. But when I found the place, I began seeing people walking toward it…dressed up. Now, NPM is a very casual convention. So it never occurred to me that this event might be anything other than casual. I have nothing remotely resembling dress clothes in my suitcase. Heck, I spend most of my life in my old slobby T shirts and too-big shorts, because I know I’m going to get spit up on. So for me, wearing nice casual shirts and only partially-stained shorts, with white socks and tennis shoes, is dressing up!

Needless to say, I didn’t go to the party. This convention is turning into quite an educational experience for me.  :)

Day Four: Wednesday, July 8th

Attended rehearsal for the WLP showcase this morning. It was a choir full of composers, and I found myself tongue-tied. Can you believe that? Me? Speechless? What’s up with that?

What’s up with it, I’m sorry to admit, is that I’m still starstruck. Over time I’ve progressed from making a complete idiot of myself any time I encounter a liturgical composer, to simply having nothing to say. Maybe now that the ice is broken, I can start to act like a normal human being and actually get to know these people, who are after all colleagues, not rock stars.

I guess I just have a horror of looking like the self-centered unpublished composer who’s trying to weasel her way in, and spends every moment ingratiating myself, trying to sink claws into someone and use them as a scratching post on the way up the ladder of publication. In other words, I want to talk about OTHER THINGS. Make friends. But all appearances to the contrary, I am essentially an introvert.

1:45 p.m., mid-OCP showcase. Nicholas sleeping peacefully through the joyful noise of contemporary song, until the first organ piece starts, and then his face twists up and he begins to whimper in his sleep. He-hehee. Do I have another drummer on my hands?

7p.m. Went outside my comfort zone today. I had the opportunity to mention another flute collection in progress to my editor, and I took it, and he told me to send it. Yessss! On the down side…plugged duct. Yech!

Thought for the day: “What you do daily, you can do dully, unless you do it deeply.” Abbot Gregory Polan, OSB.

Day Five: July 9

2:20p.m. What is it with my children and exploding diapers in downtown Chicago?

7:50 p.m., Orchestra Hall, downtown Chicago. I left Nicholas asleep on the shoulder of my new friend Monica and went downstairs to the bathroom. On the way, three people said, “I didn’t recognize you without your baby!”

This hall is spectacular, by the way. Can’t wait till next spring, when we come back to Chicago to celebrate our 10th anniversary.

9:45 p.m. Last week I had bad headaches several days in a row, so when I packed vitamins and beadryl (my emergency sleep aid) into a Gerber bowl for my trip, I dumped a bunch of Tylenol and ibuprofin in, too. I’m a walking pharmacy. ;) Fortunately I haven’t had to use most of it, but going downtown for nine hours, amid traffic and pollution, I decided to be cautious. Good thing, because I got a headache almost right away. But I had my trusty Tylenol gel caps. But after walking around downtown for two hours I was overcome by irresistible sleepiness. On the bus I conked out while we transitioned to Orchestra hall. I couldn’t figure it out… till I got back to the hotel and was taking my Lecithin, and I processed what I had actually picked up out of my bowl. Not acetamenophen, but Benadryl. Two of them. No wonder I couldn’t stay awake!

Day Six: Friday, July 10th

8:57a.m. I’m getting very good at spotting nooks and crannies where I can nurse without having to use the nursing cover, which we both detest. Today I found a cubby behind a wall labeled “phones,” but of course, there are no phones anymore.

Nicholas and I are both quite ready to be home.

 9:45a.m. Since I reflected on texts the other night, I’ve been thinking that maybe I’m putting *too many* restrictions on myself. There are hymn text writers out there who are spectacular at what they do; I am not one of them. I often brainstorm something and immediately say, “No,not that…no, not good enough…” Perhaps by trying to hold out for that kind of polish, I’m actually telling God “no.” Yesterday morning I had a flash of a new song. It was far too busy a day to take any time to sit in a quiet place and work, but it’s playing around in the back of my mind, and I’m trying not to impose such a stern filter. We’ll see how it goes.

This convention has been great for opening the creative floodgates. I have a ton of music to work on now. Yay God!

Thought for the day: “We are kin under the skin.” Msgr. Ray East.

5:05 p.m. I am not a good solo traveler.Christian is our caretaker in getting from point A to point B. I am OK getting around Lambert St. Louis because I’ve been there dozens of times. But I was very skittery about O’Hare today, from getting on the hotel shuttle, all the way through check-in and security (security is really intimidating!) and up till I arrived at the gate.

The line was really long, so I did self check, and then I went to the X ray machine for bags. I was very polite: “Is this the place where I drop off my bag?”

And the guy got snooty with me! “Do I LOOK like an agent?” he said. “You have to go over there!”

Well, fine, be that way. I guess most people who go through airports know what they’re doing, but still it seems to me that someone who is clueless, but polite, ought to be treated with courtesy.

Sitting in the back of the Mo-X bus…and it is very, very bouncy. Ugh, not looking forward to traversing I 70 here! But at least then we’ll be home.

The young guy in front of me just asked me, “How old is your baby, ma’am?”

Ma’am?

How nice, for him to be so respectful, but apparently I look older than I think I do! Have I ever mentioned that HS and college kids think I’m old, and adults think I’m a pup? This week people kept asking me if Nicholas was my only one: he must be, they said, because you’re far too young to have more.

Ummm…Okay. Thanks….I think?

Published in: on July 11, 2009 at 9:11 am  Leave a Comment  
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The Muscle That Is Exercised

Several years ago, a liturgical songwriter I admire made the comment that he hardly ever wrote any music anymore. This is a man whose gift with words, and his music in general, are really powerful, and it made me sad, wondering what caused his dry spell.

That was before Alex was born. At that time, I practiced flute a little, and I spent an hour a day writing music before I allowed myself to work on my novel. Inspiration struck at all times and in all forms, those days. I had to keep scratch paper, a pencil and a pen with me to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Every child and every developmental stage increases the amount of attention and time that I spend mothering—which is as it should be. But the final result is that pieces of me that I once considered immovable have now been laid almost completely aside. Flute practicing, for instance. I play at church, and a little during lessons, but that’s about it these days. And writing music. I’ve spent so much time and energy on prose the last three years—because I’ve had obligations to meet, to editors and critique groups—that I’ve had to let the rest of it slide in order to meet my obligations as a wife and mother.

I miss playing flute. While I was warming up for a wedding a few weeks ago, I was horrified to discover that I could not play B to C# without hitting C natural in the middle. My pinchers simply refused to coordinate with each other. I must have sat there for fifteen minutes going back and forth, B-C#-B-C#, driving my husband and everyone in the wedding party, who were taking pictures, berserk.

Even more acutely, I miss writing music. As much as I love prose, writing music is still the most fulfilling part of my creative bug—the one that makes my heart swell and my throat constrict. But inspiration strikes rarely these days.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, and I realized: the creative muscle you exercise is the one that produces.

The solution, however, is not as simple as the problem would suggest.

The inspiration for prose comes from day to day life—from parenting three little ones, one with Down syndrome, and all the challenges and triumphs thereof. Musical inspiration, on the other hand, comes in the quiet, comes through a well-nourished reflective life, and there’s precious little that that when parenting little ones. And it’s not like I can just find quiet and poof, there’s music. Sometimes there are long, frustrating “quiet” periods in which I spend time but accomplish nothing. That doesn’t happen to me with prose, probably because I have so many projects underway at a time—but that assurance of productivity is why, with my limited time, I’ve focused my efforts there.

Once again, I’m navel-gazing. It might be a waste of time, except that I’m self-analyzing surrounded by a jungle gym covered with netting, foam wrappers and bungee cords…and approximately six gazillion kids, all screaming at the top of their lungs. So this is as good a use of time as any. Well…it might be better use of time to go climb around in the jungle gym with Alex. Hmm…

Hmmmmmmmmm….

Besides, while I was writing I came up with a strategy for spending some time at the piano this afternoon. So there!

Published in: on June 30, 2009 at 9:01 am  Leave a Comment  
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An Afternoon at the Missouri Theatre

Yesterday, I took Alex and Nicholas to a children’s concert by the Missouri Symphony Orchestra. It was a multimedia presentation of “The Planets,” which is one of my all-time favorite orchestral works, and the concert was at the Missouri Theatre. I’m trying to introduce the kids to classical music early enough that they take it for granted, so I look for these kinds of opportunities.

It was a pretty good concert, even for pops, and it was good to be back in the old hall now that they’ve finished the renovation. Between U. Phil and SWE, I spent a fair amount of time there in college—I even played the Griffes Poem (sorry, can’t link that one; all I can find quickly is the arrangement for fl/pno) on that stage—and I’ve always loved that theater. I used to imagine how it would look if they could replace the water-stained curtains and repair the crumbling plaster. Well, they did. I was afraid they would change everything, but basically the auditorium looks the same, just repaired. It’s a cool old building, and there’s much more to it than I ever realized, whole corridors that’ve been hiding behind walls for years. For those who’ve read Beggar’s Queen, you know I’m all about hidden passages. :)

But I digress.

They projected stars on the ceiling and started in the dark with the opening from Also Sprach Zarathustra, more popularly known as the 2001: Space Odyssey theme. The lights came up on stage slowly and then, on that final sunrise chord, burst into full power to reveal Kirk Trevor, the conductor…wearing a Star Trek: Next Gen uniform. Of course he turned around and introduced himself as “Captain Kirk.” Personally, I thought he looked more like Q.

Anyway, the Planets section was really enjoyable, with commentary between movements on the makeup of each planet. I didn’t know that Mercury is cooler than Venus, for instance, or that most of what we see of Jupiter is atmosphere. Alex just liked the pictures they projected on the screen. I think, though I’m not positive, that they did some cuts in the music. In other circumstances that would annoy me, but I had a 4 year old and a 3 month old with me, so that worked just fine.

Nicholas managed to sleep through Zarathustra but the first big moment in Mars, his whole body jerked, and his eyes popped open. He then spent the rest of the concert wiggling. At one point, he started guffawing—which is a supremely cute sound, but one that you really have to coax out of him, so you can imagine I was startled to hear it when I was focused on the stage. I pulled my head back and saw that he was staring up over my shoulder. When I turned around, I saw one of the theater staff women making googly eyes at him.

All in all, a good couple of hours, which I really needed, because I was in a really foul mood most of the weekend. Lack of sleep will do that to you.

Published in: on June 29, 2009 at 10:12 am  Leave a Comment  
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The Player Piano

When I was a little girl, my grandparents had a player piano in the basement of their split foyer on Epperson Street. We were far too small to run the foot pump, and Grandma was very particular about putting the rolls in herself, so the whole experience took on a mystique. I don’t remember a thing about the music itself—only that I thought watching the keys move on their own was the coolest thing ever.

When Grandma and Grandpa moved away, first to Kansas City and then to Detroit, the player piano departed my consciousness for twenty-five years. They must have had it, but I don’t remember seeing it again. After Grandpa died, Grandma moved back to the St. Louis area, but the piano was beyond salvation. She found a used one and had it fixed and moved into her condo.

I wrote music at that piano during the weeks I stayed with Grandma before Alex’s birth. Christian has practiced on it during three C-section stays. And yet for some reason, the fact that it’s a player just wasn’t in our consciousness until this weekend, when Grandma opened it up to entertain her great grandchildren. She sat on the bench with Alex at her side and Julianna on her lap and stuck in “Frosty the Snowman.” And suddenly this boisterous music boomed through the house.

By the end of the weekend, Alex knew everything there was to know about that player piano. He was running the foot pedals, flipping the lever to rewind the roll, and taking the rolls out himself. All we had to do was put the roll in and adjust the tempo.

Seven years of studying music gave me a whole new appreciation for what I was hearing. The rolls were recorded by one man, but they must have been done in two parts, because it was definitely a four-hand arrangement. So instead of sounding like a piano playing a song, it has the texture of an orchestra: bass, accompaniment, melody and obbligato. It’s a lot richer. We were listening to “Chim Chiminee,” and while the song goes on in the lower two thirds of the piano, the right hand takes off on this blisteringly fast set of cascading arpeggios. In the middle of “Take Me Out To the Ballgame” you get these ascending rolls—Chopin superimposed on a distinctly un-classical song. It was delightfully sophisticated. To the untrained ear it just sounds like good music, but unlike 95% of popular music now, the music was arranged to exercise the mind, not just be “ear candy.”

Don’t get me wrong, I like popular music. But it’s very rare to find pop music—country, rock, whatever—that delights the trained ear. Enjoyment lies in the words: word plays, puns, unexpected rhymes, beautiful poetry. But it was wonderful to listen to popular music that wakes up my musical brain.

It also occurred to me that without my children, I would never have had this experience. Adults don’t play. We have abig “stupid” filter on our brains, which prevents us from doing anything that makes us feel self-conscious. That filter frequently gets turned off when we’re with our kids—so we’ll spin a polka around the beer garden at Grant’s Farm, as long as we’re dancing with Julianna. But that filter tends to act upon things that aren’t embarrassing, too—things we classify as “waste of time.” That’s the only explanation I can come up with for ignoring the player piano for twenty years.

And of course, it wasn’t a waste of time at all. We had an unforgettable family experience, something special by which the kids will remember their great-Grandma…and that’s the best part of all.

Published in: on June 16, 2009 at 5:33 am  Comments (1)  
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