Category: Music

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Hyfrydol

Rowland Prichard’s tune “Hyfrydol” has been used as a setting for some great hymn texts, but one of my very favorites will always remain John Wilbur Chapman’s,

Jesus! what a Friend for sinners! Jesus! Lover of my soul;
Friends may fail me, foes assail me, He, my Savior, makes me whole.

Chorus
Hallelujah! what a Savior! Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving, He is with me to the end.

Jesus! what a strength in weakness! Let me hide myself in Him;
Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing, He, my strength, my vic’try wins.

Chorus

Jesus! what a help in sorrow! While the billows o’er me roll,
Even when my heart is breaking, He, my comfort, helps my soul.

Chorus

Jesus! what a guide and keeper! While the tempest still is high,
Storms about me, night o’ertakes me, He, my pilot, hears my cry.

Chorus

Jesus! I do now receive Him, More than all in Him I find,
He hath granted me forgiveness, I am His and He is mine!

Chorus

BTW, the song is only loosely a hymn, technically speaking. It’s actually much closer to a Gospel song, though not in the contemporary pejorated sense but in the classical sense.

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Tip for the Holidays

Getcher “figgy pudding cannons and claymores” set up early to drive off the toxically tuneless carolers who won’t go away until they get some. Give it to ’em, but good.

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Trials of the Season. . .

Oh, goodie! It’s time for me to break out some noise-canceling earbuds and crank up some decent Xmas music to drown out the disgusting crap that tone deaf, tasteless, auto-lobotomized producers slap into the Hallmark Xmas shows that a *cough* much-beloved someone *cough* likes to watch.

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Memory’s a Funny Thing

In addition to my tinnitus chorusing along with earworms, sometimes those earworms just seem to pop up out of nowhere, or some “Fibber McGee’s Closet” of memories. . .

One occasional source of memories insinuating themselves as earworms is children’s songs learned in early-mid childhood. I recall 4th Grade music class (what, maybe once or twice a week?) which was held in the school library for some reason. The music book was a faded red cloth-covered book, and when one of the songs from that class crops up, I see the page the song was on, the music, and the lyrics, even, from time to time, illustrations accompanying the song. *shrugs* Visual memory always seems to work better for me when it’s associated with music, especially sheet music, etc.

Just one of those things.

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Practice Does Not Make Perfect

At most, practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice can make “perfect,” and that ain’t gonna happen this side of the Jordan. . .

Still, practicing a musical piece. . . so many different methods, and choices/successes depend largely on skill level and preferences, but I always preferred reading through a piece and listening to it “between my ears” as much as possible before setting hand (and mouth, depending on instrument) or voice to the music. *shrugs* During a quick read-through, I could generally identify places that might need special attention, and could often iron them out, at least a bit during the scan. Then it was mostly discerning and effecting the teleos of the piece, as I inferred it from the leading of the tune and harmonies, as well as the composer’s directions on the page (notes and signs and etc.). When leading a group through a sight–reading. I came to appreciate the STARS method for young/inexperienced/amateur performers. For a group with more developed music literacy, just walking through a piece and noting to the group where I thought the different sections (or the group or the piece or both) might require a bit of attention. That was usually enough to get that attention paid during the first sigh reading session. Usually. *heh*

With volunteer choral groups, I preferred handing out an abbreviated rehearsal schedule, with bullet points derived from my much more detailed outline for each piece in the schedule for that rehearsal. Kept things moving and saved time. Of course, I had to remain flexible and touch on unanticipated issues though those were usually rare. A fav book on choral conducting informed the time I spent doing that. . . I occasionally had voices like those referred to below, and I celebrated their inclusion:

“I have never paid much attention to the ‘quality’ of a choral candidate’s voice. I am much more influenced by the extent of his desire to sing, and by his interest in music. . . May I offer an extreme example of this indifference to vocal endowment. I once had, as members of a chorus, two monotones. It would be impossible to exaggerate the delight they experienced in having a part in the rehearsal of great music, and had I denied them one of the real resources of life, I should always have regretted it. They were not the least sensitive over their deficiency and made no protest at being seated together a little apart from the chorus. Fortunately, their voices were not strong ones. They sang, without deleterious effect, not less than four major choral works with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its conductor.” —
_Choral Conducting_, Archibald T. Davison ©1940, sixth edition: 1950,pp. 27-28.

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Mary’s Boy-Child

(I have, as Perri noted in comments, now had the “video unavailable” error twice, while at other times it has loaded. *sigh*

This one, of several others, has loaded a few times for me. Let’s see how long it stays up, mmmK?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_t-rTbOOAI

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Really? Do Tell. . .

I saw a social media post recently cursing at God because one of the writer’s musical icons has COPD. It’s God’s fault, apparently, that this musician’s lifestyle, which includes some pf the leading risk factors for COPD apparently contributed to his health problems, but apparently God made him engage in risky health practices. *shrugs* ‘S’all right. God has big shoulders. Curse Him if you will (for all the good it will do anyone, which is zero). *sigh*

The main causes/risk factors of COPD are:
Smoking
Air pollution
Occupational exposure- Intense and prolonged exposure to workplace dusts, chemicals and fumes
Genetics
Infectious diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis increase risk of COPD

Heck, even the musician himself “blames” an occupational hazard, viz.,

[Ian] Anderson noted that he has not had an exacerbation for a while, an improvement he puts down to living in the pollution-free English countryside – and blamed on stage smoke machines for his ill health.

“Today they’re (smoke machines) referred to as ‘hazers,’ as if they’re somehow innocent and not damaging to your lungs,” he fumed. “I really do believe that’s a very significant part of the problem that I have.”

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It Is Neither Pretty Nor Is It Art.

I have (more frequently than I care to think) heard folks argue that Psalm 100:1-2 (“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing.”) is a perfectly good excuse for execrable congregational singing: off-pitch, raucous, muddied rhythms and lyrics, and worse. Betcha most of those who use it as their excuse for their laziness and lack of care in approaching their worship expressions don’t use the KJV (the “noise” translation in Psalm 100:1) for other things. Other translations focus on joyful shouts and joyful songs. Painfully raucous croaks ain’t what springs readily to mind when I think of “joyful.” Maybe it’s just me, but off-key, or even atonal, grating, muddled, and altogether ugly sounds just do not comprise “singing,” IMO. (And no, “Their heart is in the right place” just doesn’t cut it. If their heart were “in the right place” they’d not submit “sacrifice[s] of praise” that were crap. Just sayin’.)

Of course, much of the problem may be simply because something approaching 90% of people nowadays apparently cannot hear and reproduce pitches with any degree of accuracy. Not my fault: theirs, for playing crap into their ears and pretending it is music, corrupting any possible embryonic musical ability they might have.