About a couple of months ago I wandered upstairs and took from the philosophy section of the study shelves a very old favourite, Jacques Maritain's Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry, but I only read an initial page or two, then left it in the shelves beside my living room chair until I was truly ready to give it fuller attention, something that could not happen until I was closer, very much closer, to my goal with the music research. Maritain's writing is always a comfortable challenge to the mind, but so was the music research, relying as it did utterly on the intelligent application of the wisdom found in the books of wisdom: "I have ordered all things by measure, number, and weight." And in fact at that point I had actually not yet found the absolute heart of the complete application of measure and numbers as it applies to the keyboard and the fingers that play it. Providential timing wished, I think, for Tim McDaniel to have a real summer holiday. This latest, and I hope, last, major discovery will require the most concentration of any of the study units we so far have come up with, so it is best left for the fall and the energy that returns to a task after a good holiday. Besides, that gives me more time to apply my own concentration to seven distinct three-note patterns, each so close together as to leave plenty of room for mutual confusion.
I have, of course, designed a lot of patterns over the years and decades, especially for the left hand, which is the first and best place to learn this one. That is, it is studied three notes at a time in the left hand, but actually applied by using only two notes in the left while the third note is that of the melody, played by the right hand.
I am quite honestly astounded that such a musical, intriguing, and practical method for learning the essence of harmony and deadly accurate fingering should never have turned up before, in some curious mind other than my own. I can only explain the lack of such common sense to myself by thinking that learning by rote is much more popular with more teachers and students than it has ever been with me. Or perhaps that most people who are happy learning music via letters and/or solfage believe themselves too artistic and creative to bother with grubby old arithmetic, reminding them of long, boring, hours with long division, book keeping, or counting returning salmon. There is something so utterly plebian about plain old numbers.
And yet, once you see and hear them at work within the challenge of learning an instrument, especially an instrument built to provide harmonies, you realize the sheer and utter magic of plain old one, two, three as they unlock the mystery and the great overburden of befuddlement that greets the untutored and probably much frightened beginner.
The fallen minds of men have quite possibly never created a more impenetrable mental jungle than music theory and advice as they can appear to the average beginner. (Now that I can wander blissfully around the summit of the mountain and the forest I have been climbing up and through for so many years I can't really call the directions all those texts attempt to give "instruction". The best title I think they can claim for themselves is advice, and we all have had experience of how much easier it is to give advice rather than really teach.)
But a little concrete improvement, outside these blogs, may be on the way. Now that the world knows that John Paul II, my old spiritual client, is to be canonized in December, Nelson and district seems to be returning to its pre-1982 modus operandi, and Providence has been very busy helping me find useful associates, here and elsewhere. Some very satisfying meetings, formal and informal, and the inspiration for a number of provocative emails.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Easy Runner
I think it's three years since I involved myself in a training schedule based on jog-walking.
Should I invent a new word: jalking? Or jolking? It might make some sense to do so, especially if the essential definition insisted that the jolker had to honestly admit that his schedule included a walking gait any time his oxygen supply felt compromised. Or his mind felt that it was losing its meditative edge and the ordinary buoyancy that usually comes with modestly regulated excercise.
I remember that two years ago I simply did not have much inspiration for getting out on the running routes. Part of my motivation for years had been weight control, and by that time Marianne as cook had well settled into the Ayruvedic routine of the biggest meal at noon followed by a very light supper. The waste line was thus under relatively easy control, and of course, my principle concern was no longer to prove the advantages, to the long term athlete, of nasal breathing, but to get down to the continually elusive secrets of a common sense methods for studying instrumental music. Each little discovery - always so monumental as to make me convinced I had come upon the final solution - seemed much more useful to mankind than any mileage programme I might have in mind.
Yet I did not stop thinking about running, and assumed that some day, probably when the music research was done, I would go back to it.
So I'm back to it, very happily, but probably with more discretion than I've ever had before. I've no interest whatsoever in accumulating mileage or setting some kind of speed record for a senior's age group, in my case under 80. As far as I can see, my prime goal is to use jogging as an aid to balance maintenance and keeping my lower limbs as nimble as possible. This means I feel, so far, none of the over-achiever's usual ambitions. Three trots on the concourse at the Community Complex now, and in each case I'm content with a mere mile. In our building that's basically eight laps, and never did I finish even one lap without a good proportion of walking, until my third outing this Sunday past, when I did manage a single circuit that was all run. I also managed to share some of John Douillard's wisdom with a complex employee. She had never heard of nasal breathing, but was going to try it the next time she was out for a run.
All this was as symbolic as it was enjoyable, because it is such a good sign of the basic music research being done. The numbers have proved themselves over and over again, continually getting me out of jackpots, to the conclusion of a number of assignments. Not only is Tim McDaniel happily reading a tune in three voices, but he is reading it in a delightfully foundational format, a pattern that simply invites logical building of harmonic understanding. Furthermore, circumstances have unearthed a very promising publisher, as well as an experienced and talented graphic designer sympathetic to nature's principles. This pair is indeed to promising that the situation has provoked my first letter to the new Pope, to invite him to stir up the Church to help with the distribution of this information.
And to cap it off, I was moved yesterday, as well as given the insight, to rearrange a Gregorian harmony I found quite unpleasant. The lesson? When harmonizing a melody in Mode One, use a major chord built on the seventh, unless there is a profoundly good reason for some alternative, any time the tune calls for a second or a seventh.
Should I invent a new word: jalking? Or jolking? It might make some sense to do so, especially if the essential definition insisted that the jolker had to honestly admit that his schedule included a walking gait any time his oxygen supply felt compromised. Or his mind felt that it was losing its meditative edge and the ordinary buoyancy that usually comes with modestly regulated excercise.
I remember that two years ago I simply did not have much inspiration for getting out on the running routes. Part of my motivation for years had been weight control, and by that time Marianne as cook had well settled into the Ayruvedic routine of the biggest meal at noon followed by a very light supper. The waste line was thus under relatively easy control, and of course, my principle concern was no longer to prove the advantages, to the long term athlete, of nasal breathing, but to get down to the continually elusive secrets of a common sense methods for studying instrumental music. Each little discovery - always so monumental as to make me convinced I had come upon the final solution - seemed much more useful to mankind than any mileage programme I might have in mind.
Yet I did not stop thinking about running, and assumed that some day, probably when the music research was done, I would go back to it.
So I'm back to it, very happily, but probably with more discretion than I've ever had before. I've no interest whatsoever in accumulating mileage or setting some kind of speed record for a senior's age group, in my case under 80. As far as I can see, my prime goal is to use jogging as an aid to balance maintenance and keeping my lower limbs as nimble as possible. This means I feel, so far, none of the over-achiever's usual ambitions. Three trots on the concourse at the Community Complex now, and in each case I'm content with a mere mile. In our building that's basically eight laps, and never did I finish even one lap without a good proportion of walking, until my third outing this Sunday past, when I did manage a single circuit that was all run. I also managed to share some of John Douillard's wisdom with a complex employee. She had never heard of nasal breathing, but was going to try it the next time she was out for a run.
All this was as symbolic as it was enjoyable, because it is such a good sign of the basic music research being done. The numbers have proved themselves over and over again, continually getting me out of jackpots, to the conclusion of a number of assignments. Not only is Tim McDaniel happily reading a tune in three voices, but he is reading it in a delightfully foundational format, a pattern that simply invites logical building of harmonic understanding. Furthermore, circumstances have unearthed a very promising publisher, as well as an experienced and talented graphic designer sympathetic to nature's principles. This pair is indeed to promising that the situation has provoked my first letter to the new Pope, to invite him to stir up the Church to help with the distribution of this information.
And to cap it off, I was moved yesterday, as well as given the insight, to rearrange a Gregorian harmony I found quite unpleasant. The lesson? When harmonizing a melody in Mode One, use a major chord built on the seventh, unless there is a profoundly good reason for some alternative, any time the tune calls for a second or a seventh.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Gunfight Six
This post almost had a different title: Malbec.
As wine connoisseurs know, Malbec is a wine, although originating in France since before the Middle Ages, that is considered the "flagship" grape of Argentina, which some think produces a better Malbec than France does. I am not a wine conoisseur, of course, but I am happy to have made the acquaintance of a bottle of Malbec recently, and I am, as a writer, profoundly fascinated by the coincidental use of the word "flagship" that is used to honour the vintage by its Argentinian promoters. Every country, every culture, needs images and items of excellence that identify its uniqueness in an inarguable fashion.
Now, as my readers know, I have used the term "flagship" in my most recent post to label a book written by an Argentinian from the nineteenth century, Domingo Sarmiento, who not only wrote, but served his country as president and minister of education, and perhaps even more startling for my purposes, had something to do with introducing Malbec to his homeland. I even used the phrase "flagship novel", I think, to designate his "Facundo", generally considered the first Argentinian attempt at "fiction", the claims for which I initially took in good faith. With a new Pope from Argentina I was concerned to learn more about a culture which I had hitherto not known very much about except that it had been especially prolific at producing dictators, and recently suffered severe financial difficulties.
I was even totally ignorant about Argetinian wine. Chilean we had sampled occasionally, but our main supplies from the sun drenched southern hemisphere have been Cawara, from Australia, as Shawn waxed sympathetic toward a faltering Antipodean wine industry; and then Obikwa, from South Africa, in honour of Father Matthieu, who, though from the Congo, lived and worked in the more southern country for a time. (Father was also almost killed there, when a robber creased his skull with a bullet fired at point blank range.) Both those brands produced a litre-and-a-half bottle of excellent vintage at a modest price.
You can see the path clearly. With a habit of using wine to celebrate events it was only natural, after the papal election, to try something Jorge Bergoglio - whom I doubt for all his concern for the poor is a teetotaler - had probably tasted and was proud of.
My first choice was not Malbec, but a different grape called Dos Cardos - The Thistles - and it was so good that I instantly became interested in Argentina's stature on the world wine stage. So I've learned that the prime wine producing area of that country is Mendoza Province (or State), named after the Spaniard who led the 1536 expedition to search for gold and silver. His party found none of these minerals around Buenos Aires, so it headed north to Paraguay, but not before leaving behind a substantial quantity of breeding stock: cattle, horses, sheep, and goats. Left wild on a virtual ocean of all season grasslands, the pampas, they became the raw material of the bootleg hide industry that eventually led to Argentina becoming the wealthiest country in South America, and the home of the gaucho culture. A friend of mine said she had known how good Argentinian wine was for some time, and also told me Mendoza lay in the same latitude as the wine belt of Chile.
With the introduction of gauchos to these deliberations, the images of weaponry change. Although in the civil wars of Argentina in the earlier part of the nineteenth century there was no shortage of guns, and even cannon, the gauchos as individuals much preferred the knife for duels in small numbers. Have they ever made a movie: Knife Fight on the Buena Vista Hacienda?
I think I have seen only one Argentinian film, a strange film, to me, about some women, and I bailed fairly quickly. Last night we bailed from two films certainly not Argentinian just as fast or even faster, and settled down to thoroughly enjoy Trouble With The Curve, with Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman and a baseball that went like a rocket and was indeed the weapon of choice in its own way. For most of the film, the weapon was a bat, wielded by a big kid whose great natural strength had not undergone the needed element that good coaching so necessarily provides. But in the end it was the ball that won.
In its own way, the film was disarmingly simple, substantially aimed at kids, snarling at racial prejudice, and in Atlanta Braves scout Eastwood, letting out a couple of the secrets pretty well known only to the hitting coaches of the major leagues. For my particular purposes, one of the most useful sport films I've seen. God bless em all, and I think it will be a while before I've thoroughly digested the symbolism.
As wine connoisseurs know, Malbec is a wine, although originating in France since before the Middle Ages, that is considered the "flagship" grape of Argentina, which some think produces a better Malbec than France does. I am not a wine conoisseur, of course, but I am happy to have made the acquaintance of a bottle of Malbec recently, and I am, as a writer, profoundly fascinated by the coincidental use of the word "flagship" that is used to honour the vintage by its Argentinian promoters. Every country, every culture, needs images and items of excellence that identify its uniqueness in an inarguable fashion.
Now, as my readers know, I have used the term "flagship" in my most recent post to label a book written by an Argentinian from the nineteenth century, Domingo Sarmiento, who not only wrote, but served his country as president and minister of education, and perhaps even more startling for my purposes, had something to do with introducing Malbec to his homeland. I even used the phrase "flagship novel", I think, to designate his "Facundo", generally considered the first Argentinian attempt at "fiction", the claims for which I initially took in good faith. With a new Pope from Argentina I was concerned to learn more about a culture which I had hitherto not known very much about except that it had been especially prolific at producing dictators, and recently suffered severe financial difficulties.
I was even totally ignorant about Argetinian wine. Chilean we had sampled occasionally, but our main supplies from the sun drenched southern hemisphere have been Cawara, from Australia, as Shawn waxed sympathetic toward a faltering Antipodean wine industry; and then Obikwa, from South Africa, in honour of Father Matthieu, who, though from the Congo, lived and worked in the more southern country for a time. (Father was also almost killed there, when a robber creased his skull with a bullet fired at point blank range.) Both those brands produced a litre-and-a-half bottle of excellent vintage at a modest price.
You can see the path clearly. With a habit of using wine to celebrate events it was only natural, after the papal election, to try something Jorge Bergoglio - whom I doubt for all his concern for the poor is a teetotaler - had probably tasted and was proud of.
My first choice was not Malbec, but a different grape called Dos Cardos - The Thistles - and it was so good that I instantly became interested in Argentina's stature on the world wine stage. So I've learned that the prime wine producing area of that country is Mendoza Province (or State), named after the Spaniard who led the 1536 expedition to search for gold and silver. His party found none of these minerals around Buenos Aires, so it headed north to Paraguay, but not before leaving behind a substantial quantity of breeding stock: cattle, horses, sheep, and goats. Left wild on a virtual ocean of all season grasslands, the pampas, they became the raw material of the bootleg hide industry that eventually led to Argentina becoming the wealthiest country in South America, and the home of the gaucho culture. A friend of mine said she had known how good Argentinian wine was for some time, and also told me Mendoza lay in the same latitude as the wine belt of Chile.
With the introduction of gauchos to these deliberations, the images of weaponry change. Although in the civil wars of Argentina in the earlier part of the nineteenth century there was no shortage of guns, and even cannon, the gauchos as individuals much preferred the knife for duels in small numbers. Have they ever made a movie: Knife Fight on the Buena Vista Hacienda?
I think I have seen only one Argentinian film, a strange film, to me, about some women, and I bailed fairly quickly. Last night we bailed from two films certainly not Argentinian just as fast or even faster, and settled down to thoroughly enjoy Trouble With The Curve, with Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman and a baseball that went like a rocket and was indeed the weapon of choice in its own way. For most of the film, the weapon was a bat, wielded by a big kid whose great natural strength had not undergone the needed element that good coaching so necessarily provides. But in the end it was the ball that won.
In its own way, the film was disarmingly simple, substantially aimed at kids, snarling at racial prejudice, and in Atlanta Braves scout Eastwood, letting out a couple of the secrets pretty well known only to the hitting coaches of the major leagues. For my particular purposes, one of the most useful sport films I've seen. God bless em all, and I think it will be a while before I've thoroughly digested the symbolism.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Gunfight Five
As I have said before, my computer skills are always a bit wanting. This was never more evident than a few days back when I prematurely punched Gunfight Four into cyber space. It's a short piece, obviously, and perhaps a bit choppy, because I had intended to say more and then, as usual, take some time to edit. But there was a problem either with how Blogger was behaving - it's been odd before - or, more likely, with my understanding of how Blogger was behaving. When did they bring in this "update" thing, and what exactly is it for? In fact I had no idea that I was not in draft, and was actually published, until Marianne was on the machine at the close of the day and told me what had happened. So I got her to let me see how it looked, and decided to let it fly. I wanted to register as soon as possible that I cannot possibly agree with Pope Francis flaunting canon law. Style, as some say Saint Paul has shown, is never more important than substance, especially in such high profile circumstances.
It also turns out that I wanted as much time as possible to think out the next steps after the new pontiff's disturbing decision. Anyone who has taken the time to cruise through these blogs in their entirety should be able to appreciate, should he have any genuine skill in theology whatsoever, that I am not exactly uninformed about the mind of God. The Seventh Mansion has enormous advantages in understanding the true nature of the Mystical Body. Those who participate within the relationship of the Trinity and the Virgin Mary, the angels and the saints, at that level automatically carry more spiritual authority in some areas than even a Pope does, as John Paul II was quick to acknowledge, both privately and officially, and their wrath is not a thing to be trifled with. Ordinarily, their prayers are for the support of ecclesiastical labours, but if those labours turn corrupt, they have no choice but to petition God for punishment and correction of the guilty.
Unquestionably, Francis has given comfort to the enemy. Therefore, his punishment is certain. To Heaven, he is a marked man, in spite of his other virtues. God always chastises those He loves, to make them more loveable, but in my experience such correction is usually private, or, if "public", only among spiritual friends. But a decision like the Pope's over the foot washing, to include females, against the plain law of the Church as well as the example of Christ, suggests to that his spiritual life is not so excellent as to automatically merit the private route. This is a Jesuit, it seems to me, who has not proceeded as thoroughly as he might have through the little book the founder of his order took so many years to perfect. He needs to revisit, and soon, the paragraphs on the discernment of spirits.
Mind you, I didn't like what was done to another canon in the days of John Paul II, when they removed the rule that Leo XIII had introduced, insisting on some minimal studies of Thomas Aquinas. To me, the corner stone of the slippery slope had already been laid, once that happened. After all, if Aquinas was no longer mandatory, then no one was reading that bit in the Summa where he condemns "ridiculous" practices in the liturgy. As nothing could be more ridiculous than altar girls, who actually needed a canon? Eventually, after what's been going on, they'll put one in, but perhaps not until the reign of a an African Pope. Had he not been just too old, I would have prayed for Cardinal Arinze to be the next successor of Peter. He was not afraid to use the term "mortal sin", he would have got rid of altar girls, and he knew what a load of the unprintable the current North American craze for standing after communion is.
Yet, once Jorge Bergoglio was brought out on the balcony and identified, I felt that the crowd would not have been ready, yet, for a black Pontiff, and I was quite content, started reading about Argentina, got out a couple of our Spanish texts, and ordered a copy of Facundo, in translation. The last is Agentina's watershed novel, from the nineteenth century. I'm interested in comparing Sarmiento with Zane Grey and Owen Wister, and also comparing gaucho culture to cowboy.
Then came the news on the foot washing, female, and I realized I had some rather unpleasant work ahead of me. When is the Church going to remember how much Christ loves simple obedience?
It also turns out that I wanted as much time as possible to think out the next steps after the new pontiff's disturbing decision. Anyone who has taken the time to cruise through these blogs in their entirety should be able to appreciate, should he have any genuine skill in theology whatsoever, that I am not exactly uninformed about the mind of God. The Seventh Mansion has enormous advantages in understanding the true nature of the Mystical Body. Those who participate within the relationship of the Trinity and the Virgin Mary, the angels and the saints, at that level automatically carry more spiritual authority in some areas than even a Pope does, as John Paul II was quick to acknowledge, both privately and officially, and their wrath is not a thing to be trifled with. Ordinarily, their prayers are for the support of ecclesiastical labours, but if those labours turn corrupt, they have no choice but to petition God for punishment and correction of the guilty.
Unquestionably, Francis has given comfort to the enemy. Therefore, his punishment is certain. To Heaven, he is a marked man, in spite of his other virtues. God always chastises those He loves, to make them more loveable, but in my experience such correction is usually private, or, if "public", only among spiritual friends. But a decision like the Pope's over the foot washing, to include females, against the plain law of the Church as well as the example of Christ, suggests to that his spiritual life is not so excellent as to automatically merit the private route. This is a Jesuit, it seems to me, who has not proceeded as thoroughly as he might have through the little book the founder of his order took so many years to perfect. He needs to revisit, and soon, the paragraphs on the discernment of spirits.
Mind you, I didn't like what was done to another canon in the days of John Paul II, when they removed the rule that Leo XIII had introduced, insisting on some minimal studies of Thomas Aquinas. To me, the corner stone of the slippery slope had already been laid, once that happened. After all, if Aquinas was no longer mandatory, then no one was reading that bit in the Summa where he condemns "ridiculous" practices in the liturgy. As nothing could be more ridiculous than altar girls, who actually needed a canon? Eventually, after what's been going on, they'll put one in, but perhaps not until the reign of a an African Pope. Had he not been just too old, I would have prayed for Cardinal Arinze to be the next successor of Peter. He was not afraid to use the term "mortal sin", he would have got rid of altar girls, and he knew what a load of the unprintable the current North American craze for standing after communion is.
Yet, once Jorge Bergoglio was brought out on the balcony and identified, I felt that the crowd would not have been ready, yet, for a black Pontiff, and I was quite content, started reading about Argentina, got out a couple of our Spanish texts, and ordered a copy of Facundo, in translation. The last is Agentina's watershed novel, from the nineteenth century. I'm interested in comparing Sarmiento with Zane Grey and Owen Wister, and also comparing gaucho culture to cowboy.
Then came the news on the foot washing, female, and I realized I had some rather unpleasant work ahead of me. When is the Church going to remember how much Christ loves simple obedience?
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Gunfight Four
'Tis the season to be surprised.
Benedict XVI resigned as Pope, the College of Cardinals elected as his successor, for the first time in history, someone not from a European see, and your humble scribe, who also putters about in the land of music from time to time, has just decided not to try to publish a radical series of scale and study texts for the piano.That is, not in the usual form, which requires pages full of staff lines covered with musical notes.
And not only have I made the decision, but my advisors all cheerfully agree with me, especially my senior agent, who was always such a supporter of the idea that she was vehemently concerned, from time to time as I came up with yet another "brilliant idea", of it falling into the wrong hands. Jill was temporarily returned to her old position of chairman of the board, heard my new thoughts with a approval, and then was allowed to resign again.
(One wonders if the latest version of the Vatican will have to make a similar arrangement for Benedict. Already there are appearing signs of some interesting thought patterns that are unlikely to gain universal approval from the Mystical Body of Christ. There are absolutely no Biblical references to Christ ever washing women's feet, for example.)
I was actually warned that my decision was coming up a few weeks ago, during a lesson with Tim McDaniel, but the terms of the warning, although clearly Divine in their style, were phrased mysteriously, and not understood until this week, possibly awaiting the new Pope's declared preference for thinking about the poor. The old plans obviously concerned making money, and possibly a great deal of it, but the new plan plainly does not. The information will continue to flow, and possibly with a greater rapidity, but you won't be able to buy it in a music store, you will have to read it in these blogs.
At 77, who needs lots of money? whereas at all ages, the world, including most Catholics, is spiritually illiterate and in very bad need of upgrading its reading habits.
Benedict XVI resigned as Pope, the College of Cardinals elected as his successor, for the first time in history, someone not from a European see, and your humble scribe, who also putters about in the land of music from time to time, has just decided not to try to publish a radical series of scale and study texts for the piano.That is, not in the usual form, which requires pages full of staff lines covered with musical notes.
And not only have I made the decision, but my advisors all cheerfully agree with me, especially my senior agent, who was always such a supporter of the idea that she was vehemently concerned, from time to time as I came up with yet another "brilliant idea", of it falling into the wrong hands. Jill was temporarily returned to her old position of chairman of the board, heard my new thoughts with a approval, and then was allowed to resign again.
(One wonders if the latest version of the Vatican will have to make a similar arrangement for Benedict. Already there are appearing signs of some interesting thought patterns that are unlikely to gain universal approval from the Mystical Body of Christ. There are absolutely no Biblical references to Christ ever washing women's feet, for example.)
I was actually warned that my decision was coming up a few weeks ago, during a lesson with Tim McDaniel, but the terms of the warning, although clearly Divine in their style, were phrased mysteriously, and not understood until this week, possibly awaiting the new Pope's declared preference for thinking about the poor. The old plans obviously concerned making money, and possibly a great deal of it, but the new plan plainly does not. The information will continue to flow, and possibly with a greater rapidity, but you won't be able to buy it in a music store, you will have to read it in these blogs.
At 77, who needs lots of money? whereas at all ages, the world, including most Catholics, is spiritually illiterate and in very bad need of upgrading its reading habits.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Gunfight Three
Oh, my, but didn't I break off the last post at just the right time. The very next day, just at "High Noon", to carry on with symbols and names from the Western genre - that is, high noon our time, which was eight p.m. in Italy - we beheld our new Pope, Francis of Argentina, standing on and talking from the balcony of Saint Peter's. It was instantly plain that he is a very dear man, which was good for the heart, and then as the initial biographical details poured forth from the researches of the journalists, both secular and Catholic, that his election was as rich a source of symbols and hope for this writer as could be asked for. For some months I've had a sense that the angels - or was it just the Trinity, as often the angels are in the dark about the future just as much as we are? - were sending chuckles in my direction, due to my natural inability to behold the future, and thus not be able to see all that clearly just what they had up their sleeves. Yet there was certainly a lot of interesting inspiration going on in previous months, and now I can see where it was leading.
Yes, Virginia, there are cowboys in Argentina, vaqueros, or gauchos, and all these images and memories I've been moved to drum up have been a very good foundation indeed for the job ahead. I will be surprised in the current title doesn't stick around for a while.
I even used to sing a hit parade song, in the 50's, "The Bandit of Brazil", all about a bold vaquero, who when he'd shoot, would shoot to kill. I recall being especially pleased that I could figure out the chords on my own, and did not have to resort to a book. I then had no experience of buying sheet music.
They say that amongst Francis' many virtues and interests there exists a passion for literature, therefore an ability to deal with symbols. Should he get around to reading my scribbles, therefore, he's well equipped to take hold of their meaning, unless I happen to wander too far into the upper mansions of the spiritual life without his having been prepared by God's more unusual graces. I have little idea so far of the new Pope's knowledge of the mystics. The journalistas, while interesting and occasionally informative, have so far been so consumed by mere politics - as they see them - that they haven't got around to reporting on his relationship with the Spanish masters of the spiritual life, and so, as usual, are possibly missing some of the most significant stories.
But I have heard - from Marianne, who monitors the news services of the Net much more than I do - that he has used the phrase "Mystical Body of Christ" already, and my soul took yet another little leap upward as it heard about it. As a Jesuit, he is also familiar with the concept of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and that is a good thing too, not only in itself but in the face of so many journalists, and not just secular journalists, who are basically Jansenistic in so much of their thinking. And incredibly unresearched about Benedict's vital role in dealing with the sexual abuse issue, thus almost obliterating their own unquestionable value in helping with this problem, simply by reporting it, in the early days of the clean-up.
Would it help if the Church were to give a formal thank you to the secular press for those first encounters with the horrors of fact and clerical negligence in dealing with it? Certainly the Church was doing nothing about the problem on its own. Had it been facing into it according to the will of Christ, the infamous Father John Monaghan of Nelson would have been arrested a quarter century earlier than 1988. Only Cardinal Ratzinger put into place the system that acts now as it should have been able to act then.
But, as one always has to admit, sadly, not only the world, but the Church and those who pretend to be some quasi-religious organization pretending to be the Church, are all punished, eventually, for ignoring perfection and the spiritual life, which means ignoring what the Bible actually says. It can be no other way. God has a contract with us, by which he is held to do everything He can to get us into heaven. If he could not go back to heaven without suffering, how can mankind expect to get there without a bruise or two, especially when it spends so much energy refusing to study the rules?
But this just in. Marianne told me an hour ago that it has been reported that Francis does know a little at least of the spiritual life from an experience in his youth.
Perhaps that was why, to my eyes, the expectant crowd in Saint Peter's Square, awaiting the sight of the man for whom the white smoke had flown, looked more like the happy portion of humanity at the Last Judgement than any crowd I've ever seen.
Yes, Virginia, there are cowboys in Argentina, vaqueros, or gauchos, and all these images and memories I've been moved to drum up have been a very good foundation indeed for the job ahead. I will be surprised in the current title doesn't stick around for a while.
I even used to sing a hit parade song, in the 50's, "The Bandit of Brazil", all about a bold vaquero, who when he'd shoot, would shoot to kill. I recall being especially pleased that I could figure out the chords on my own, and did not have to resort to a book. I then had no experience of buying sheet music.
They say that amongst Francis' many virtues and interests there exists a passion for literature, therefore an ability to deal with symbols. Should he get around to reading my scribbles, therefore, he's well equipped to take hold of their meaning, unless I happen to wander too far into the upper mansions of the spiritual life without his having been prepared by God's more unusual graces. I have little idea so far of the new Pope's knowledge of the mystics. The journalistas, while interesting and occasionally informative, have so far been so consumed by mere politics - as they see them - that they haven't got around to reporting on his relationship with the Spanish masters of the spiritual life, and so, as usual, are possibly missing some of the most significant stories.
But I have heard - from Marianne, who monitors the news services of the Net much more than I do - that he has used the phrase "Mystical Body of Christ" already, and my soul took yet another little leap upward as it heard about it. As a Jesuit, he is also familiar with the concept of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and that is a good thing too, not only in itself but in the face of so many journalists, and not just secular journalists, who are basically Jansenistic in so much of their thinking. And incredibly unresearched about Benedict's vital role in dealing with the sexual abuse issue, thus almost obliterating their own unquestionable value in helping with this problem, simply by reporting it, in the early days of the clean-up.
Would it help if the Church were to give a formal thank you to the secular press for those first encounters with the horrors of fact and clerical negligence in dealing with it? Certainly the Church was doing nothing about the problem on its own. Had it been facing into it according to the will of Christ, the infamous Father John Monaghan of Nelson would have been arrested a quarter century earlier than 1988. Only Cardinal Ratzinger put into place the system that acts now as it should have been able to act then.
But, as one always has to admit, sadly, not only the world, but the Church and those who pretend to be some quasi-religious organization pretending to be the Church, are all punished, eventually, for ignoring perfection and the spiritual life, which means ignoring what the Bible actually says. It can be no other way. God has a contract with us, by which he is held to do everything He can to get us into heaven. If he could not go back to heaven without suffering, how can mankind expect to get there without a bruise or two, especially when it spends so much energy refusing to study the rules?
But this just in. Marianne told me an hour ago that it has been reported that Francis does know a little at least of the spiritual life from an experience in his youth.
Perhaps that was why, to my eyes, the expectant crowd in Saint Peter's Square, awaiting the sight of the man for whom the white smoke had flown, looked more like the happy portion of humanity at the Last Judgement than any crowd I've ever seen.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Gunfight Two
To tell the simple truth, I don't think the papal election was very much in my mind when I began the Circle X post. I've been puttering at it for so long that it quite possibly started rolling even before I heard that Benedict was resigning. (I don't like that word "abdicate", because of its association with the unfortunate Edward VIII, a man with few of Benedict's virtues, and certainly none of his affection for prayer, service, and scripture scholarship. Given Benedict's undoubted spiritual status at present, and the utter quality of his life in the Church, coupled with God's ordinary preference for contemplation over action, it would be no surprise to discover in heaven that our beloved Bavarian will have accomplished even more, in the eyes of God, as a contemplative than he has as Prefect and Pope.)
Where I was really headed had to do with music, or rather the methods of teaching it, which I had no doubt was going to involve me in a shoot out of massive proportions. The election conclave will be interesting, and it would be surprising to hear that no sparks flew, but it will all be much more mannerly conducted than the process of returning music education to common sense, unless I am greatly - and gratefully - surprised. The establishment, and ignorance, will be reluctant to give up its grip. I know about at least the second because of my own fondness for performance rather than actually understanding what's underneath it all.
Given that I am already at work at Mr Cameron's Conservatory, many chapters well set on the east shore of Vancouver Island, why this sudden shift to the Cariboo Chilcotin, why this obvious sudden reliance on a symbol not only reader, but also the author, never heard of before? In my short time in the Chilcotin I never got around to learning that the Bracewell calves had a Circle X singed into their compliant little rumps.
There are at least two answers, the first and simplest being that it is not at all a sudden shift, for from the first chapters of Contemplatives it is obvious that the three young men and their survey crew are headed for that part of the world, and it is equally obvious that that book has as much to do with music as it has with literature, both ordinary and that which has to do with mysticism. And yet the second answer must admit of a huge surprise, to me, because of the creation of a new, deliberately functional, character, in spite of there being already at least two of these in Conservatory. Deirdre and Maggie are plainly young students being used as vehicles for the dissemination of theoretical information about the keyboard, although they are also very alive individuals to their creator. Why do they need supplementation?
I've been disturbed about this. Every author knows at least a little history of feeding himself red herrings. Blind leads. Inspirations that eventually lead nowhere. Or at least have to be laid aside for a much later date. All three of my young male troika are good examples of that last rule. The plot so far has many difficulties, starting with even the possibility of it being able to happen, given the degree of culture clash between whites and natives, even in the Chilcotin, where the history of co-operation and mutual esteem is quite good, barring the nineteenth century beginnings with the Alexis War.
I've spent some weeks on this, following the recent months of reading a number of great tales from the Cariboo, and I only recently came to peace by being able to make a uniquely contemplative decision. As John of the Cross says, one thought of a man is worth more than all the known universe, so as I am a man with a thought, that goes on and on as a regular meditation, I don't have to write a story about it in order for it have some effect. In his own way, God will find an employment for the meditation, and its assorted images, with or without a written narrative.
The central image of the picture is a native girl, I think around eleven or so, who exhibits an interest in the piano, especially after she sees and hears Jacob Cameron doing all sorts of things on the Circle X keyboard without in any way being under the influence of a written text. Her family are working in the area, as the native people regularly did for the white ranchers, especially at haying time. ( I knew nothing about this arrangement, years ago, when I was suddenly moved to try to write a short story set in the area.) In the sequel to Contemplatives, Jacob has already given some vocal instruction to a daughter from the ranch, summoned home from high school in Williams Lake for just that reason, but the native lassie was not then a factor; for one reason, because I was further along in researching vocal education than I was in keyboard instruction. The vocalist is not required to produce meaningful harmonies out of a single mouth. One tongue is by no means ten fingers.
Nor does eight divided neatly into ten, leaving nothing left over. Quite precisely, piano harmony theory as it has been presented by the music publishing industry is chock full of initially annoying, confusing, depressing, contradictions. We are creatures of structure, of recognizable and reliable patterns, even to the exclusion of reason and common sense, so much so that we are taken in by all sorts of music methods, not just for the keyboard, and make a murky sort of progress much more by uncritical memory than by the freeing, creative, understanding with which the Creator originally intended that music should be studied. We are encouraged to charge at music "literature"just as in second rate fitness centres work-out hopefuls are encouraged to charge at weight quotas. Something is accomplished, for a time, and then the process falls by the wayside, for so many, because of a discontent that is the logical result of failing to get to the core of the matter, where genuine understanding and real pleasure go hand in hand.
Those bound to be professionals or very good amateurs, simply by the natural fact that music is what they love and do best, somehow muddle through. This is because alone among all the arts music is not itself symbolic, like a painting, or the collection of tiny letters that make up a story, it is real. The theory is intentional, but the music itself is real. The student can thus put the paper theory away from him and respond to the reality of sound, the very real dimensions and structure of his instrument, and the even more real quantity, mass, and skill of his organs. In the case of the keyboard, he eventually sorts out his ten fingers. Or, more realistically, his eight fingers, with their somewhat limited lateral motion in relation to each other, and his two thumbs, which can wander all over the place.
But even among the professionals, I have to wonder at the degree of analytical understanding amidst their undoubted performance skills. Their accomplishment is primarily by way of memory. The composer wrote down what he wanted to be played, and they imitate the printed structure, with a few degrees of personal interpretation thrown in, usually in terms of pace and feeling. The basic structure, that is, the intervals between the notes, they leave as penned. Jazz is freer, of course, but many a jazz performance seems to follow a fixed text.
Now, what the native girl hears is not really a performance in the usual sense of the word. Jacob is not playing a known composition, but simply an exercise, or series of exercises, that follow a definite numerical pattern. That is, he is doing the very traditional thing of playing scales and arpeggios, but these scales and arpeggios are all in harmonic form, freely including both major and minor within one sketch, and utilizing however much of the keyboard dimension that he feels like playing at the moment. Thus there is a strong element of inspiration present, utterly lacking in the necessary confinement and limitation of a specific tune, and he can change time signatures as he feels so moved.
There is also perhaps an even stronger element of identity of structure, each more or less unique to the individual key or mode, although this appears more obviously in the left hand than in the right. The right hand is comprised of thirds and fourth only, in a plainly discernible sequence, while the left uses fifths as well as thirds and fourths (sixths where minor intervals within the major key are included) and these patterns can vary from one key or mode to another simply because of the plain demands of pleasant and agreeable sound.
Obviously. the usual plans of the usual scale books have been quite overturned, if not completely ignored, and the traditional mindset with its trouble-making pattern habits thoroughly rejected. All of this leads to a very pleasant combination of utter freedom and complete control, with no reliance on any external guidance or unwanted pressure. The student simply proceeds from his or her own internal interest, his or her own creation and solution of the problems to be solved in the understanding and mastery of numerically identified intervals, or pairs of notes, in each hand, which when put together with both hands create triads, therefore a full harmony and the habitual four voice structure of a piano or organ text.
Also, especially in the case of myself, a singer, the free swinging nature of the golden scale provides a most organic accompaniment, or even a resounding lieder type keyboard support and partnership to the fifth voice, that of the singer/player, and, if relevant, to the others in the room or building joining in. In fact for the last few days, especially as I putter at the numbers and the solfa among the pentachord that lies between great C and the fifth above, I've had so much freedom, quiet resonance, and support rather than resistance from the singer's Muse that with the conclave nicely past the black smoke of its first vote I was even moved to wonder if this was a sign of the new Pope shutting down on the sort of music it is impossible for me to give voice to.
This sounds like a good place to take a post break, as I'm still a long ways from making a conclusion out of all the symbols floating so interestingly out of the image of the Circle X ranch.
Where I was really headed had to do with music, or rather the methods of teaching it, which I had no doubt was going to involve me in a shoot out of massive proportions. The election conclave will be interesting, and it would be surprising to hear that no sparks flew, but it will all be much more mannerly conducted than the process of returning music education to common sense, unless I am greatly - and gratefully - surprised. The establishment, and ignorance, will be reluctant to give up its grip. I know about at least the second because of my own fondness for performance rather than actually understanding what's underneath it all.
Given that I am already at work at Mr Cameron's Conservatory, many chapters well set on the east shore of Vancouver Island, why this sudden shift to the Cariboo Chilcotin, why this obvious sudden reliance on a symbol not only reader, but also the author, never heard of before? In my short time in the Chilcotin I never got around to learning that the Bracewell calves had a Circle X singed into their compliant little rumps.
There are at least two answers, the first and simplest being that it is not at all a sudden shift, for from the first chapters of Contemplatives it is obvious that the three young men and their survey crew are headed for that part of the world, and it is equally obvious that that book has as much to do with music as it has with literature, both ordinary and that which has to do with mysticism. And yet the second answer must admit of a huge surprise, to me, because of the creation of a new, deliberately functional, character, in spite of there being already at least two of these in Conservatory. Deirdre and Maggie are plainly young students being used as vehicles for the dissemination of theoretical information about the keyboard, although they are also very alive individuals to their creator. Why do they need supplementation?
I've been disturbed about this. Every author knows at least a little history of feeding himself red herrings. Blind leads. Inspirations that eventually lead nowhere. Or at least have to be laid aside for a much later date. All three of my young male troika are good examples of that last rule. The plot so far has many difficulties, starting with even the possibility of it being able to happen, given the degree of culture clash between whites and natives, even in the Chilcotin, where the history of co-operation and mutual esteem is quite good, barring the nineteenth century beginnings with the Alexis War.
I've spent some weeks on this, following the recent months of reading a number of great tales from the Cariboo, and I only recently came to peace by being able to make a uniquely contemplative decision. As John of the Cross says, one thought of a man is worth more than all the known universe, so as I am a man with a thought, that goes on and on as a regular meditation, I don't have to write a story about it in order for it have some effect. In his own way, God will find an employment for the meditation, and its assorted images, with or without a written narrative.
The central image of the picture is a native girl, I think around eleven or so, who exhibits an interest in the piano, especially after she sees and hears Jacob Cameron doing all sorts of things on the Circle X keyboard without in any way being under the influence of a written text. Her family are working in the area, as the native people regularly did for the white ranchers, especially at haying time. ( I knew nothing about this arrangement, years ago, when I was suddenly moved to try to write a short story set in the area.) In the sequel to Contemplatives, Jacob has already given some vocal instruction to a daughter from the ranch, summoned home from high school in Williams Lake for just that reason, but the native lassie was not then a factor; for one reason, because I was further along in researching vocal education than I was in keyboard instruction. The vocalist is not required to produce meaningful harmonies out of a single mouth. One tongue is by no means ten fingers.
Nor does eight divided neatly into ten, leaving nothing left over. Quite precisely, piano harmony theory as it has been presented by the music publishing industry is chock full of initially annoying, confusing, depressing, contradictions. We are creatures of structure, of recognizable and reliable patterns, even to the exclusion of reason and common sense, so much so that we are taken in by all sorts of music methods, not just for the keyboard, and make a murky sort of progress much more by uncritical memory than by the freeing, creative, understanding with which the Creator originally intended that music should be studied. We are encouraged to charge at music "literature"just as in second rate fitness centres work-out hopefuls are encouraged to charge at weight quotas. Something is accomplished, for a time, and then the process falls by the wayside, for so many, because of a discontent that is the logical result of failing to get to the core of the matter, where genuine understanding and real pleasure go hand in hand.
Those bound to be professionals or very good amateurs, simply by the natural fact that music is what they love and do best, somehow muddle through. This is because alone among all the arts music is not itself symbolic, like a painting, or the collection of tiny letters that make up a story, it is real. The theory is intentional, but the music itself is real. The student can thus put the paper theory away from him and respond to the reality of sound, the very real dimensions and structure of his instrument, and the even more real quantity, mass, and skill of his organs. In the case of the keyboard, he eventually sorts out his ten fingers. Or, more realistically, his eight fingers, with their somewhat limited lateral motion in relation to each other, and his two thumbs, which can wander all over the place.
But even among the professionals, I have to wonder at the degree of analytical understanding amidst their undoubted performance skills. Their accomplishment is primarily by way of memory. The composer wrote down what he wanted to be played, and they imitate the printed structure, with a few degrees of personal interpretation thrown in, usually in terms of pace and feeling. The basic structure, that is, the intervals between the notes, they leave as penned. Jazz is freer, of course, but many a jazz performance seems to follow a fixed text.
Now, what the native girl hears is not really a performance in the usual sense of the word. Jacob is not playing a known composition, but simply an exercise, or series of exercises, that follow a definite numerical pattern. That is, he is doing the very traditional thing of playing scales and arpeggios, but these scales and arpeggios are all in harmonic form, freely including both major and minor within one sketch, and utilizing however much of the keyboard dimension that he feels like playing at the moment. Thus there is a strong element of inspiration present, utterly lacking in the necessary confinement and limitation of a specific tune, and he can change time signatures as he feels so moved.
There is also perhaps an even stronger element of identity of structure, each more or less unique to the individual key or mode, although this appears more obviously in the left hand than in the right. The right hand is comprised of thirds and fourth only, in a plainly discernible sequence, while the left uses fifths as well as thirds and fourths (sixths where minor intervals within the major key are included) and these patterns can vary from one key or mode to another simply because of the plain demands of pleasant and agreeable sound.
Obviously. the usual plans of the usual scale books have been quite overturned, if not completely ignored, and the traditional mindset with its trouble-making pattern habits thoroughly rejected. All of this leads to a very pleasant combination of utter freedom and complete control, with no reliance on any external guidance or unwanted pressure. The student simply proceeds from his or her own internal interest, his or her own creation and solution of the problems to be solved in the understanding and mastery of numerically identified intervals, or pairs of notes, in each hand, which when put together with both hands create triads, therefore a full harmony and the habitual four voice structure of a piano or organ text.
Also, especially in the case of myself, a singer, the free swinging nature of the golden scale provides a most organic accompaniment, or even a resounding lieder type keyboard support and partnership to the fifth voice, that of the singer/player, and, if relevant, to the others in the room or building joining in. In fact for the last few days, especially as I putter at the numbers and the solfa among the pentachord that lies between great C and the fifth above, I've had so much freedom, quiet resonance, and support rather than resistance from the singer's Muse that with the conclave nicely past the black smoke of its first vote I was even moved to wonder if this was a sign of the new Pope shutting down on the sort of music it is impossible for me to give voice to.
This sounds like a good place to take a post break, as I'm still a long ways from making a conclusion out of all the symbols floating so interestingly out of the image of the Circle X ranch.
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