Providence seems to bring surprises at the most unexpected times. On Wednesday, December 30, my daughters and I arrived in Modesto to visit my family for the New Year's weekend. Upon my arrival, my sister handed me the local newspaper, folded open to the obituary page. It seems my high school choir director had lived her last years not too terribly far from Modesto, and had just passed into Glory. Her funeral was to be held the following day at the local cemetery.
My dad passed away in 1996, and it meant the world to me that people I had never met came forward to share their good experiences and memories of my father. They either did so by showing up at my mom's door, or by attending his service. After that experience, I realized that I wanted the families of those I know who died, always to know how special their loved one was to me. If I could not attend the service, I would try to send a card with a special story. So, it didn't take but a minute to decide to attend Mrs. Cothren's funeral.
Today, my sister and I rang in The Master's College 11th annual Bellfest, led by Artist in Residence Christine Anderson. (We're in the back row, at 1:19 on the video).
My sister and I had the double treat of ringing not only with our own church handbell choir, the Master's Hands, but also with Jubilation, one of the handbell choirs at The Master's College.
This is the last song that we rang. It was written by John F. Wade, arranged by Cynthia Dobrinski, and conducted by Christine Anderson.
Today I took the time to play around with my Finale music composition software. Unfortunately, I bit off more than I could chew in trying to compose and arrange my own piece of music as I know very little about writing or arranging music. So, after two and a half hours of banging my head against the computer trying to create something playable, I was incredibly frustrated by the time I went to talk to my father.
My father listened to me as I told him all about my frustrations, then he suggested I try something different. He recommended taking the easiest children's song I could think of and arranging a simple piece - which I did. I chose the song "I've got the Joy Joy Joy Joy" by George Willis Cooke.
My Dad must have been in a ragtime mood because when I showed him my arrangement he challenged me to write something worthy of a ragtime pianist at Disneyland. I took his challenge and began to play around with it on the piano until I knew how I wanted it to sound. After that, the notes came easily and in twenty minutes I had finished my first ragtime piano duet. I hope you enjoy-joy-joy-joy this arrangement!
If you have ever had the experience of associating a positive experience at an event with a particular song or type of music, you'll know what I'm referring to in this post.
Last month, when I went to Manila to deliver the Beyond-Planning: eProductivity conference, I also attended church services at the Cathedral of Praise. Since my conference was during the week, I had the opportunity to attend several services at each weekend.
While some of the worship experience was new for me, we worship the same God and read from the same Bible. One of the worship songs that I heard at each service was called "How can I keep from singing your praise" by songwriter Chris Tomlin. What a beautiful song of expression of love and worship for our creator.
It's become a powerful worship song for me, as well as a sweet reminder of my time of fellowship with the dear people at COP.
I was unfamiliar with this song or songwriter, but it turns out that we sing many of Chris Tomlin's songs in our worship service, too. Chris has an amazing gift for capturing the essence in true worship in his songs. For me, Chris' songs create a sense of awe and wonder and they add to my personal worship experience.
When I returned to the states, I went to iTunes store and purchased this song and four additional worship songs by Chris.
Indescribable How Great is Our God Made to Worship How Can I Keep from Singing Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)
These are now on my iPod for my morning quiet (well, not so quiet) time.
I crashed hard last night at about 7:30 PM local time. Now, it's 3:43 AM local time and I'm wide awake. I'd rather be on this side of jet lag. Anyway, I enjoyed a nice quiet time, reading my Bible and listening to my favorite hymns and worship songs in my hotel room. I'm normally a late night person, and while getting up early for a quiet time has long been a desire of mine, it does not happen as often as I would like. So, I'm thankful for opportunities like these when I actually get up before the clock sounds.
Focusing on the outcome This conference has required so much work and preparation that's easy to forget the purpose of the conference itself and focus on mechanics and delivery. The purpose of this conference is about helping people. I desire to be a part of that process, by sharing some of what I have learned in the past 25 years in business with the hope that others will find some of it useful and learn from it, too. I'm really excited about the vision that Pastor Sumrall has for these conferences that he does each year to help the people of Manila and I'm honored to be invited to be this year's featured speaker. It's an awesome responsibility and opportunity.
This weekend, Amy and Wendy were invited to participate in Bellfest 2007 at The Master's College. Christine Anderson taught a bell class for small groups, ensembles, and solos. Amy and Wendy prepared a beautiful piece to share at the concert at the end of the day. (Click on the image to watch the video)
What's amazing is that the girls accomplished this using two inexpensive sets of children's bells. If you've ever seen or rung one of these bells - where the clapper can go in any direction - you will know how hard it is to get one of these bells to ring only once or on queue. Amy and Wendy perfected a technique that allowed them to do this well, and they were an inspiration to everyone present. I'm very proud of them..
I'm also very appreciative of Mrs. Anderson for her kindness and invitation and inspiration to my children.
What's a day in the sandbox without music?
As part of our office tour, Michael Sampson spotted the contraption in
the center of my office - a collection of pipes, wires, and cables. When
he asked what it was, I decided to show him; rather, I decided to play
it for him.
Listen along for a digital-to-analog treat, live from my Digital Sandbox
Today, Kathy and I are in Ontario, California,
participating in a Home Education Conference. (CHEA) We attended
fascinating presentation, entitled, "The Profound Effects of Music
on Life," by Andrew
Pudewa. In his presentation,
Pudewa describes in detail, the beneficial as well as potentially detrimental
effects which various types of music have on living things, namely children.
I bought the tape series. I'll try to find a link to the program.
His current web site, does not yet have it listed.
http://www.writing-edu.com
Tonight, the girls and I purchased a console
organ for Kathy's birthday. The deal was too good to pass up: The
organist of the local church passed away a few years ago, and her husband
decided to sell her console organ along with her entire music library --
all for $300. I had known the woman and her husband from my time
serving at the church many years ago, and she was very fond of Amy &
Wendy. Kathy and I discussed the organ and she said that she would
like to have it for the girls to learn to play, but that it should be presented
as "Mom's organ."
All I needed to do now, was to convince my children that it would be worth
"borrowing" $300 from our savings towards a future trip to Disneyland
to buy the organ. They were unimpressed with the idea. I finally
convinced Amy and Wendy to go with me to check out the organ -- just
to "look" at it. Well, they came along, arms folded, unsure
of the wisdom of this purchase vs the potential future fun of going to
Disneyland at the end of the year. The elderly man who owned the
organ told us all about it; the girls remained unconvinced. Then
he offered to allow them to "test" the organ themselves; they
sat down, and played a duet of "heart and soul." Moments
later, it was all over; we were the proud owners of a console organ. (I
will spare you the details of all I learned about how [not] to move an
organ.)
So now, we have this beautiful console organ sitting in our living room.
We have managed to play the National Anthem, Take me out to the ball
game, a few hymns, and other classics. Kathy wants to be able to
play the song from Swiss Family Robinson for the girls, and I envision
myself playing Phantom of the Opera. I have been able to figure out
what the two keyboards, the bass pedals, and most of the top two rows of
switches and levers do -- at least functionally -- but I am clueless on
some of the other controls. Fortunately, the organ can also be controlled
by a computer through a MIDI interface, so I know I can make it work that
way. I am sure that there are books or places to get started learning,
and I will start researching these shortly.
Close your eyes and imagine that you are
on a carousel. (Click
to listen) Hear the
music? Does it make you feel happy? Are you there?
Sometimes, when I get ready to study and I want to put myself into a happy
mood, I hook up my calliope and play some happy music. I find that my disposition
changes and the burdens of the world are lifted - as if I were a child
again. Of course sometimes I just do this because it is an excuse
not to study -- which I am supposed to be doing right now. :-)
Listening to music like this brings back find memories of when I was a
kid. There was a man in our neighborhood who restored carousel band organs
as a hobby. On Saturday mornings, he would start up his band organ and
kids would come running for blocks around to sit on his lawn and wiggle
to the happy music.
That experience inspired me to desire to have a band organ of my own --
until I found out how expensive they were to own and maintain. A few years
ago, I began researching the idea of building one and making it computer
controlled so that I would have an endless supply of MIDI files to control
it with. This has been a long project and I am certain to have many
years of work still ahead of me. So far, I have completed the MIDI controlled
Calliope (see above) and a MIDI controlled Glockenspiel. I am almost done
with a MIDI controlled Accordion. Next, will be the rhythm section. All
of this is powered by my Oreck XL vacuum, which you can see in the
above photo.
Here's a treat. It's a video clip of my computer-controlled calliope
powered by an 8 lb Oreck XL vacuum cleaner. The video clip is in RealMedia
format and you can watch it by clicking on the link below. During the video,
be sure to watch for the Mack sisters, our American Bear, the vacuum cleaner
(which you can hear in the background) and the laptop computer that controls
the entire performance.
* MIDI stands for "Musical Instrument Digital Interface" - a
computer control system where a computer can control musical instruments,
lights, or other equipment.
Eric recently completed building a computer-controlled calliope powered by, of all things, our Oreck XL vacuum cleaner.
Eric and the gilrs brought the calliope down to the Lilac Festival to share with folks at the festival. It ws a big hit.
This video clip is a treat. Eric has completed building his computer-controlled calliope powered by his 8 lb Oreck XL vacuum cleaner. The video clip is in RealMedia format and you can watch it by clicking on the link below. During the video, be sure to watch for the Mack sisters, our American Bear, the vacuum cleaner (which you can hear in the background) and the laptop computer that controls the entire performance.
Providence seems to bring surprises at the most unexpected times. On Wednesday, December 30, my daughters and I arrived in Modesto to visit my family for the New Year's weekend. Upon my arrival, my sister handed me the local newspaper, folded open to the obituary page. It seems my high school choir director had lived her last years not too terribly far from Modesto, and had just passed into Glory. Her funeral was to be held the following day at the local cemetery. 
