Great Article

I love the Wall Street Journal, and I particularly enjoy it's Arts and Entertainment section. Here is a wonderful article called "In Praise of Infidelity," which explores the question of staying true to the score in musical interpretation.

Sometimes I feel compelled to put more expressive markings in my own arrangements--that I should give some extra guidance to the musicians as to how to phrase a particular passage, or what tempo to choose, or what dynamic to play. On the other hand, I find it frustrating, because I rarely can decide from one moment to the next how exactly it should be played. Plus, I rather enjoy the idea of letting someone give their own interpretation of the notes on the page.

After reading the article, I think I will continue to be sparse in my directions--as Bach was--and allow the musician to come to his own conclusions. (And yes, I am laughing that I just compared myself to Bach!)

They are here!

My sister and I spent the Monday after Christmas recording my Christmas arrangements. Sorry I couldn't get them here before Christmas, but in the spirit of keeping Christmas in your heart at all times, I hope you enjoy them now!

"Performance"

I want to discuss something that I wrestle with often as a Latter Day Saint musician--the issue of "performing" in church. Let me start with a few quotes:

Music for sacrament meetings should be chosen and performed with the intent of promoting worship, rather than bringing attention to the performance itself. (LDS Music Guidelines)

Soloists should remember that music in our worship services is not for demonstration but for worship. Vocal or instrumental numbers should be chosen to facilitate worship, not to provide performance opportunity for artists, no matter how accomplished. Dallin H. Oaks

But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul. 2 Nephi 32:9

What is a "performance," and what makes it wrong in a church meeting? I think I may be splitting hairs on the semantics of the word--Nephi is talking about any act "performed" unto the Lord whereas Dallin H. Oaks is talking about a "show" of sorts. But is the line really so easy to draw?

Here are some things to consider:

1. That most people don't appreciate the time and effort that goes into preparing a musical number. If not for the actual piece on the program, the years developing the talent by soloist and accompanist alike that makes performers able to put a musical presentation together on short notice.

2. That whenever anyone presents a musical number in church, they are going to be evaluated by members of the congregation at some level. My goal when I play in church (or anywhere, for that matter) is to transcend the technic, and communicate something on a spiritual level through my instrument. For this reason, playing in church can be the most nerve-wracking experience. I fear that if I make a mistake, it will jolt the congregation--that if they were transported to another realm, that they will come crashing back down to reality. On the other hand, if I do really well, I fear that the audience will be impressed by my artistry, and fail to be impressed by the Spirit.

Recently, I was asked to prepare some music for a meeting, and I selected one of my own arrangements. It is one of my most difficult arrangements, so I wavered on my decision to play or not play it. In the end, I thought that I would take a risk and perform it, because it represents my testimony, and it comes from my heart. I also justified playing it by thinking that if I played well enough--made it sound easy--that it would glorify God, and not be a demonstration of my musical accomplishments.

I don't know if I succeeded. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Some said they cried because of how they felt. Others said they "didn't know a violin could do that." Was it the Spirit they felt, or did I inadvertently or subconsciously do something to advance my musical career? Did I expose the members of my church to a quality of music they are unaccustomed to, that they would not hear otherwise, and if so, is that wrong or right? Should I have played it safe, and gone with something simpler?

Something else I just thought of, after reading a facebook comment which read, "You were amazing!" My initial response is, "Uh-oh, I'm not supposed to be amazing." But then again, our church isn't known for such exclamations such as, "God is amazing! Jesus is amazing!" So it doesn't necessarily follow that if someone gives me a compliment, that takes away from God's glory. Am I over-analyzing?

Music by Marci

My cousin, Marci, has a gift for poetry and music, and has written several special songs, most of them about significant events or people in her life. I am fortunate to know a lot of those significant people, especially the grandparents that we share. Grandpa Thayne passed away ten years ago, and Grandma followed a few years later, just after my first daughter was born. Grandma, in particular, loved music and tried to attend every concert or recital that she could if one of her 50 grandchildren were participating in it. I know that she and Grandpa are smiling down at all of their posterity-all of whom are remarkably gifted. I am grateful that I belong to such a stellar group of people!


So with that, I just want to plug Marci's music website: musicbymarci.blogspot.com.

AMAZING!

I have always loved Heifetz. Here is a fascinating article about his tours to the troops during WWII. I love him even more now!

Christmas Lullabies

I have always loved Christmas music, but never more so than when I became a mother for the first time to a little boy just 10 days before Christmas. Words like "Holy Infant, so tender and mild," or "Bless all the dear children in thy tender care," touched me profoundly as I would sit and rock my own tender infant.

For the past few weeks, I have been working on Christmas carol arrangements for violin and piano. So far, I've completed (minus those pesky little editing errors I keep finding) What Child Is This, Silent Night, and Coventry Carol/Pat-a-Pan. While I have tried to make each piece unique, one thing most of them have in common is that they are lullabies. Keeping that in mind, I have taken my musical inspiration from my own children.

In What Child Is This, I combine the tune with a simple original melody meant to sound like the music box my baby daughter listens to each night as she goes to sleep. Its "on" button within her reach, we also know when she wakes up, as she presses it to listen to her favorite tunes.

Silent Night begins with the violin accompanying itself with a pulsing rhythm on the lower string, a constant, steady beat similar to that of a rocking chair, or a swing. (I got the idea from one of Bach's solo violin works, the Andante from his A minor Sonata.) I continue the idea of the rocking chair in the second verse as the piano plays the melody along with a simple and repetitive accompaniment and the violin plays a counter-melody, and in the third verse where the violin continues gently swinging across open strings in a new key (the glorious D major) to represent "love's pure light."

Coventry Carol/Pat-a-Pan (I feel I need to call this something else, like a "Medley," except that it's not really a medley, or is it?) is all about "opposition in all things." I decided to imitate some of the old Baroque Sonata movements that alternate slow and fast sections (such as the final movement in the "Devil's Trill Sonata). Coventry Carol and Pat-a-Pan contrast with each other in their meters as well as in their tempos and overall character.

Like Silent Night and What Child Is This, Coventry Carol is a lullaby. But it is not a lullaby to the baby Jesus. It is a lullaby for the "Innocents," the babies killed by King Herod in his tyrannical attempt to prevent Jesus from overthrowing him. At first, I balked at the pairing of this sad song with Pat-a-Pan, a jovial piece which invites children to celebrate Christmas with fife and drum. But the words in the final verse helped me to reconcile the juxtaposition of good and evil: "God and man today become more in tune than fife and drum." While terrible things happen to innocent people, all things will be made right through the Lord Jesus. Jesus himself experienced unbearable suffering to fulfill his mission. To quote another hymn, he was "once forsaken, left alone," but is "now exalted to a throne." And through Him, we can all be reconciled to God in spite of our own shortcomings.

One of the joys of arranging Christmas carols is that they are loved by every denomination, and I hope I will have opportunities to arrange and perform them each Christmas season. One such opportunity will be this coming Saturday, November 28th in Bountiful, Utah at the Cheney Family Christmas Concert.

Update: I will be playing one of my arrangements this Saturday in the Swayne Auditorium at NNU in Nampa during the Una Voce Women's Choir concert. Start time is 7 p.m. (I think).

Keeping Score

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony has a wonderful series of videos called "Keeping Score." They're reminiscent of the musical lectures Leonard Bernstein used to give. I highly recommend them.

PBS featured one of them last night, "Dmitri Shostakovich's 5th Symphony: Music Born of Fear." Though his 5th symphony was written in 1937, I can't think of a more relevant composer in today's political climate than Dmitri Shostakovich, nor a more important piece than his 5th Symphony. It has always been one of my favorite works with its terrifying 1st movement, it's paradoxical Scherzo, the tragic 3rd movement, and the "triumphant" ending.

To summarize the thesis of Michael Tilson Thomas (along with many other musicologists), Shostakovich wrote this piece under great duress. At this time, Soviet propaganda police had declared that art's only purpose was to glorify Stalin and his regime. Should their work in any way be construed as criticism, it earned the artist/composer/ poet/author a one-way ticket to Siberia, if not torture followed by execution. Shostakovich found his name decried in a public newspaper, and having known the fates of many of his friends, collegues and family, including his own sister, he knew that his future (not just as a composer, but as a man) was uncertain at best. Symphony No. 5 was written in such a way as to help him regain favor with Soviet leaders. But what many hear when they listen to this Symphony underneath all the fanfare and patriotism is a hidden message of terror, anguish and recrimination.

During one part of the "Keeping Score" production, Michael Tilson Thomas sits at a table with several musicians in his orchestra who grew up in the Soviet Union, and experienced such suppression first-hand. They understood growing up that they could not speak freely, that what they thought and what they said were two different things. They reminded me of my very dear Chamber music teacher at the University of Utah, the late Mikhail Boguslavsky, "Mischa" to his students.

Mischa studied at the Moscow Conservatory during the Stalin years. He had so many stories about his life, but the one I remember most is the description of how he lost the eyesight in one of his eyes. On March 5, 1953, both the composer Prokofiev and Stalin died. Prokofiev's death was ignored. Stalin's called for a three-day mourning period, and Mischa was in an orchestra slated to play for the various ceremonies. He always said that Stalin was able to reach him, even from the grave, because though he had a serious eye infection at the time, he could not be excused, and his eye was left untreated for the duration of the funeral, resulting in its permanent blindness.

Whenever I hear Shostakovich's 5th symphony, I think about Mischa, and the price he paid for being born at such a time. Shostakovich's parents welcomed the 1917 Revolution, not knowing that they were being "rescued" from one form of tyranny only to be subjected to an even harsher form of government. When I listen to "Shosty 5," it reminds me how important it is not to take our own freedoms for granted.

New Hymn Arrangement--O My Father

When I write musical arrangements, perhaps because I am using a pre-written melody, I feel that I am not really composing, but simply putting a puzzle together. And once I have completed a piece, I feel that every note is in the exact spot it should be in, and that it's not because I was inspired, but because I have solved a riddle. What amazes me, is that given the same tunes, other composer/arrangers will come up with something completely different! However, even knowing that, I feel extremely hesitant about writing popular and oft-arranged hymns.

O My Father is a particularly popular hymn, and I have played many different versions of it, all of them very good. When my father-in-law passed away earlier this week, and my husband Dave and I were asked to play O My Father for his funeral, I had no reason to write my own arrangement, but I felt strongly that I didn't want to play any of those arrangements for Ron, I wanted to play my own.

I can't say that I've ever suffered like a real artist often does to find material in the creative process, but never has an arrangement come so quickly to me--in spite of my general reluctance to tackle any well-loved hymn. You can interpret that in a couple of ways--that either I happen to work well under pressure, or that I had some help from above.

At any rate, I just hope that Ron would approve.

Here is the performance from Ron's funeral with my husband Dave on the piano:

O My Father

Classical music on the side bar

I've included some samples of my classical repertoire in the sidebar. I will keep adding and updating, so keep a look out for new additions!

An Explanation of the Violin and Piano Hymn Arrangements

I was going to try and tell the story of how I decided to write my own hymn arrangements for violin and piano--but there really isn't one. When I was in college, I wrote my first, because I loved the hymn "Lead, Kindly Light." And someone asked me for a duet of "God, Be With You," for a family reunion, so I wrote a short, simple arrangement of that. I submitted the two to the Church Music competition, and received a nicely written rejection for each entry. Maybe that's the reason I decided to write some more--there's nothing like losing a competition to inspire me!

Now having written a few more in the last year, I am thinking about what I should do with them. The primary goal is to put them into the hands of violinists who are looking for something new to play in church--to make them pretty, but not so difficult as to be called "showy."

The plan is to submit the music to an LDS music publisher, and hope they love them and want to print them. It seems to me the best way to get them out there. (I've considered the annual Church competition again, but so far, I have not been able to find the music of many past winners, which indicates to me that this isn't the route to go if I want to make the arrangements readily available to more musicians. Assuming I ever won.)

In the event that the music isn't accepted by a publisher, I will make the music available on this website, so long as I don't infringe upon any copyright laws in doing so.

As part of this project, I recorded myself playing these hymns with the help of my sister, Julianna, and my mom, Judy Call, on the piano; using the facilities at the community college, and my portable digital recorder. Given the short time we had, the recordings aren't perfect, but they're not bad, if I do say so myself.

Choir Arrangements

As Ward Choir director, one of the biggest challenges is finding appropriate music. There are many lovely hymn settings that sound glorious as sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but don't work for small groups.

I'm not old, nor wise, but I have had a lot of music callings throughout my life, and one thing that I think is unique about me is my is familiarity with the hymnbook. I especially like the little gems which are rarely sung, but should be.

Combining my love of obscure hymns with my calling, I have created my first hymn arrangement for church choir. It's actually two hymns that go nicely together: Lord, We Come Before Thee Now, and Saints, Behold How Great Jehovah. Calling it an arrangement is a bit of a stretch, as many parts are taken directly out of the hymn book. But I did a couple of fun things to them so that they are easy to learn, but attractive to perform.

Having been granted permission by the Church's Intellectual Property division, it is available on the side bar--for church or non-commercial use only.