Category: music
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A night with Bruce Hornsby’s brain
Last Friday night my wife and I had the opportunity to go hear Bruce Hornsby play a solo show at the Paramount Theater in Cedar Rapids. Hornsby is an interesting character - a fantastically talented pianist who has made his fame and fortune in rock and jam band genres, but who has made multiple bluegrass records with Ricky Skaggs and drops classical music into the middle of pop tunes.
When I first heard Hornsby’s stuff probably 10 years ago, I quickly recognized that my own piano styles and harmonizations aren’t too far away from what he plays… to the point that it was almost uncanny. So the chance to see him play in person was not one I was going to pass up.
Hornsby’s current tour is just him with a microphone and a piano (a Steinway concert grand), but with those two tools he commanded the stage for just over two hours. He set the tone by starting the concert with his biggest hit, “The Way it Is”, into which he dropped a long improvisatory section, morphed it into a couple minutes of a Bach something-or-other, and then morphed it back into the close of the song. Later on in a jam section he dropped in an avant garde ‘perpetual motion’ piece by American composer Elliott Carter. Even if he did spend the majority of his years with The Grateful Dead, the dude has serious piano chops.
When we got to our seats on the right-hand side of the theater, my wife lamented that we should’ve gotten seats on the other side so she could see his hands as he played. And I get the fascination with seeing those fingers fly over the keys. But for me the fascination was entirely a mental one.
To sit in the auditorium and engage with Hornsby’s brain as he improvised long sections was an amazing experience. I’m not a jazz player, but I hear and read jazz players talk about listening to and interacting with other jazz players, and after this Hornsby concert I finally think I understand what they’re talking about.
When you really understand the playing technique, the harmonies, the nuts and bolts of the music, then you can start to engage at a deeper level - the progressions, the expression, the choice to go around again or branch off somewhere new… it’s really quite a head trip.
I’d love to see Hornsby play again - preferably with a band next time, to experience all of those interactions. Playing good music in a talented group is a intellectually pleasurable exercise for me almost as much as a musical exercise. Sitting in the audience last weekend wasn’t as good as being in the band, but it got pretty close.
Utterly stuck in my head
We’re doing this one at church this weekend, and this Village Church version of Lion and the Lamb is now permanently stuck in my head.
It’s also so good that I don’t really mind.
Fun with time signatures
Because who doesn’t want to play an etude that switches between 7/8 and 4/4 every measure?
(Philip Glass, Etude #2. Book of Glass’s etudes arrived from Amazon yesterday. This will be fun.)
Found Tonight
The Hamilton / Dear Evan Hanson mashup we didn’t know we needed until it came out… so good.
Geek dad status, part 2
Tonight I introduced my daughters to Weird Al, and now daughter #2 insists she needs to listen to all his music. Now she’s not gonna fully get all the parodies…. but how can you not appreciate a song like this?
Geek dad status: unlocked. (Oh let's be honest, this is nothing new...)
Last night I showed my oldest (13-year-old) daughter the first 5 minutes of Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, resulting in sustained laughter, amused snickers, and a request to watch the rest of it.
Feels like I must’ve done at least something right.
These are the deep questions I ask myself...
The other night we were playing “Name that Disney movie” while shuffling soundtracks on Spotify. The question I have rattling around in my head two days later is this:
Do I like the Moana songs so much because I like their distinctive style? Because I do think that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s approach feels and sounds very different than what, say, Robert Lopez and Kristin Anderson-Lopez do in Frozen or what Randy Newman does in half the Pixar movies ever made…
Or am I just drawn to them because I love Lin-Manuel so much that I will irrationally support and be attracted to whatever he produces?
This question bothers me more than I’d like.
Land of My Sojourn
A Rich Mullins song as timely today as it was when it came out back in 1993.
And the coal trucks come a-runnin’
With their bellies full of coal
And their big wheels a-hummin’
Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman
Who hid the spies who were lookin’
For the land of the milk and the honey
And this road she is a woman
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains
Oh these great sleeping Adams
Who are lonely even here in paradise
Lonely for somebody to kiss them
And I’ll sing my song and I’ll sing my song
In the land of my sojourn
And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom but still it eludes them
The immigrant’s children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
Some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I’ll sing their song, and I’ll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn
Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you’ll come to love it
And how you’ll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I’ll be lonely for my home
And I wish that I could take you there with me
And down the brown brick spine
Of some dirty blind alley
All those drain pipes are drippin’ out
The last Sons Of Thunder
While off in the distance the smoke stacks were belching back
This city’s best answer
And the countryside was pocked
With all of those mail pouch posters
Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of these
Rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in
When the old world started dying
And the new world started coming on
And I’ll sing His song, and I’ll sing His song
In the land of my sojourn
Andrew Peterson and Friends: The Ragamuffin Album, Live at the Ryman
Last Sunday night I had the privilege of attending an Andrew Peterson-organized and -led concert honoring the legacy of Rich Mullins at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Peterson and his cadre are roughly my age, and we share a deep debt to Mullins, who in his all-too-short musical career penned songs that showed that Christian music could be artistic, poetic, and honest in ways we hadn’t before seen. (Andrew wrote an essay for the concert booklet telling his Rich Mullins story that’s well worth a read. It’s posted on The Rabbit Room.)
This year is the 20th anniversary of Mullins’ death in a car accident, and served as an opportunity for Peterson to round up his friends and prepare the music. The Ryman was packed to capacity with an audience that clearly loves Rich’s music just as much as the musicians themselves do; the concert was punctuated with opportunities for the audience to sing along, starting from an impromptu acapella chorus of “Awesome God”, which Peterson led “just to get it out of the way”. (While it’s perhaps Mullins’ best known song to the general public, it’s certainly not his favorite among his more devoted fans.)
Peterson and friends followed a concert format that he has perfected over years of touring his Behold The Lamb of God Christmas tour. The first half of the concert rotated in each of the guest artists to sing a Mullins song of their choice, with AP sneaking a few of his own choices in along the way.
When we hit intermission I told my wife that I couldn’t think of another Rich song that I was disappointed that they hadn’t played in the first half. The set list:
- “Awesome God” - AP
- “Calling Out Your Name” - AP
- “Boy Like Me/Man Like You” - AP
- “Hard to Get” - Andy Gullahorn
- “Cry The Name” - Jill Phillips
- “What Susan Said” - Andrew Osenga
- “The Howling” - Jeremy Casella
- “Screen Door” (complete w/ cups) - Brandon Heath & Mitch McVicker
- “You Did Not Have A Home” - Finnegan Bell
- “Elijah” - Matt Giraud
- “Buenos Noches from Nacogdoches” - Leigh Nash
- “Bound to Come Some Trouble” - Mitch McVicker
- “If I Stand” - AP
The second half of the concert brought each of those artists back out in turn to perform note-for-note versions of each song from Rich’s masterpiece A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band. A string section played the original string charts as provided by Rich’s producer Reed Arvin (who himself was present and played the piano on “Creed” midway through the second half).
To my critical ear they were indeed almost exactly note-for-note and lick-for-lick. Gabe Scott had his hammered dulcimer skills tested and found awesome. My specific criteria for this evaluation was the little turn from the second verse into the pre-chorus of “Peace” - there’s a drum fill, a bass slide, and a little guitar riff that come together in a sublime little moment that I’m probably the only person in the world who cares about. They nailed it. The only place they diverged was I think they gave Andy Osenga an extra couple choruses to play a smoking guitar solo on the end of “How To Grow Up Big and Strong”… but ain’t nobody gonna complain about that.
The second half setlist:
- “Here In America” - AP
- “Isaiah 52:10” - Jill Phillips
- “The Color Green” - AP
- “Hold Me Jesus” - Brandon Heath
- “Creed” - AP, Andy Gullahorn, and Jill Phillips
- “Peace” - Andy Gullahorn
- “78 Eatonwood Green” - Gabe Scott on the hammered dulcimer
- “Hard” - Finnegan Bell
- “I’ll Carry On” - Jeremy Casella
- “You Gotta Get Up” - Leigh Nash
- “How To Grow Up Big and Strong” - Andrew Osenga
- “Land of My Sojourn” - AP
Even they they weren’t quite done. Peterson brought the full cast of musicians out and led the (now standing) audience in “Step By Step” (with guest vocals by Peterson’s daughter Skye) and the call-and-response of “I See You”, which itself leads back in to one final chorus of “Step By Step”. After some final applause, Peterson did his trademark exit, singing the first line of the Doxology, and then exiting the stage as the audience finished singing it. (1200 people singing the Doxology in the old Ryman auditorium: chills.)
Hearing so many of Rich’s songs in one sitting highlighted both the artistry and prophetic nature of his lyrics. For instance, the last few lines from “Hard”:
I am a good midwestern boy
I give an honest day’s work when I can get it
I don’t cheat on my taxes, I don’t cheat on my girl
I’ve got values that would make the White House jealous
Peterson wondered aloud (perhaps just as much as he dared) whether Rich had any idea those words would still resonate so loudly 25 years after he wrote them. But the lines that stood out even more loudly to me were from “Land of My Sojourn”:
And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant’s children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
Some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I’ll sing their song, and I’ll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn
The list of concerts I’ve attended isn’t as long as I’d like - and shorter thanks to the U2 concert in St. Louis getting cancelled last weekend - but Sunday night at the Ryman has to be right up there at the top of the list. Peterson posted on Facebook the next day that it might have been his favorite concert ever. I’d be inclined to agree with him.
A little random follow-up
Nearly a year ago I wrote a post dismayed about a church looking for a part-time Director of Music with almost unbelievable qualifications. Just to recap, they were looking for:
Significant musical experience in performing and directing a contemporary band along with experience in songwriting and production. Must be able to incorporate strings, percussion, and other instruments into contemporary-band driven arrangements Ability to work with and train vocalists in singing of parts Ability to incorporate backing tracks and loops into regular Sunday and special services Minimum of bachelor’s degree in music and/or 5 years’ related church or industry experience. Possessing an MDiv or MA in theology is ideal.
All that in a part-time, pay commensurate with experience position.
I ran across my old post at random this morning and decided to revisit that church’s website to see if they had ever found such a Director of Music.
So far as I can tell, the position remains empty; the job posting is still there, with only one small edit from last year: the “Possessing an MDiv or MA in theology”, while ideal, was perhaps a lot to ask, so it has been removed.
I wonder how long they’ll have to keep looking?