To Begin the Week

1. The Julia Project continues with 'Nun Lob, mein Seel, den Herren', a setting of a hymn tune common in Bach's day. I'm struck by how tolerant Bach was of dissonance, how creatively he moved in and out of those dissonant moments.

The theory texts I endured in school had totally sanitized the dissonances out of the process of learning how to harmonize, while still presenting the material as if it were based upon Bach. No wonder I slept through class!

I browsed through the theory text of a college freshman last week, and nothing has changed about the American approach to theory teaching. Dry, pedantic, and unconnected to the rich realities of Western music. Your tax dollars, once again, at work on campus. Multiply this example by a few thousand, across other disciplines, and understand the task ahead.

2. Two Green Shoots Awards candidates: Chicagoland's Brookhaven Market, and New Harmony Indiana's The White House Restaurant. Both are small operations, and fabulous experiences on last week's travels. It is businesses like these, that understand profits are made by truly serving customers(as opposed to raping them!), that will create the next American Renaissance. Three loud cheers for each establishment.

By the way, New Harmony Indiana was an inspiring visit...too long a task to detail now.

3. Speaking of awards--stumbled over an hour of sheer hilarity on CMT--the annual 'Here's Your Sign' Award, honoring the absolutely most stupid moments caught on video this year. My favorite was the guy who sawed off a tree limb while sitting on the part destined to fall...where have we seen that lately?

4. Walked nine holes from the blues, always kept the ball in play, started and ended on the same ball...6 over my goal of 'bogies from the blues'(carrying the bag, persimmon woods). But what fun!

Julia Project Week 1, and a Bach Moment

The goal--to learn every Bach chorale as published in the classic Breitkopf edition--to able to sing any line whilst playing the other three.

Week one: This is fun, and it is a mind-bender for those like me, trained as single-line orchestral musicians. But it's fun for just that reason.

I've spent great stretches of my life feeling vaguely restless and at times unhappy. After the privilege of marriage to my bride and raising two bright children with her, it finally dawned on me that the restlessness was borne out of boredom: If I'm not learning something, working on the next project, creating something, I'm not happy.

Everyone in the house is the same sort of person, including the border collies.

Bach scratches that itch. And ideas for my composing/arranging trade are beginning to flow fast and furious.

And, for this week's Bach moment: Rostropovich performing the prelude to the first Cello Suite. It's about two minutes long.

Bach worked in obscurity, in deeply difficult circumstances.

Rostropovich survived both WWII and Stalin in Russia.

Both endured to create this moment.