choir folder boxes

Allen (Dutch) Moyer, left, and maintenance staff Bill, right. Far left, Dutch's creation for the music department. A clever creation of cabinetry out of wood, so choir folders--those black things--aren't strewn around the music room.

Dutch stopped in and signed his lovely work. He usually brands with a hot iron, but given the circumstances, he just signed with a felt tip pen.

I made Bill get on the photo because he figured out what I needed and found Dutch to do it. Bill also designed the dimensions, making sure part of the choir folder stuck out so the name tags could be seen.

A big thanks to these guys. Now I can use the little counter space I have and the singers can easily find their folders. The metal file cabinets store the hundreds of anthems and other music.

Maundy Thursday service

Hunter walks in this morning. What about Maundy Thursday this year?

What about last year? Let's look at that.

Secretary searches computer. What's it under? Try special services...tenebrae...Lent. It's found. I can't believe it's time to plan for the week before Easter.

the three tenors

Any choir would beg to have these three: Clyde, Gerry, and Bill.

choir's first ladies

Sopranos are the "face" of the choir, since they sing the lead line....here they are (a few absent): Katie, Gail, Nancy, Mary, Lorraine, and Nancy. You can't say thank-you enough for these voices.

Most of the altos

Maybe the smallest section here--the altos. Each one counts enormously: Gail, Mary Jane, and Brenda

happy 18th

Before rehearsal got underway, it was a heart-felt singing of happy birthday for soprano Katie. Only once in a lifetime does one have an 18th birthday. Best wishes.

more basses

Here's Pat and Bob, part two of the bass section. A few singers were absent on the 23rd.

choir pictures

I'm past taking pics to learn names. But it was time for decent photos. I used the church's Konica, and on the fly, after a rousing rehearsal Wednesday evening, as we were leaving, here's part one of the basses: Floyd and Barry.

overhead or in the window

If you like your words overhead, you might have liked the church where the seminar was held Jan. 12. Overhead, yes. But not on a screen.

Etched in the stained glass of the window looking in on the organ loft.

The words and the notes.

That said something to me. Something like, the screen is part of our lives which disappears when we pull the plug. I like to associate hymns with a part of our lives which is more permanent. Yes, books fit that category. So, when worship is over, I like the feeling that part of it--a big part, really--lingers on. In a book, the hymnal. And in the Bible, another book.

The screen does a lot of good things for us. But it can't do that.

pipes at the seminar

Once during the master class, when my mind wandered just a bit, I pointed my camera up and over my right shoulder and saw the facade of the pipes. Of course, any organ builder puts the shiney ones in the front.

These are especially stunning. And they sounded just as good.

I'm from the plain school of singing means singing--like with our own God-given voices. But in this beauty I'm ready to say that these pipes can help singing and lift our hearts just looking at them or hearing them. It's not this OR acappella. Why not this AND acappella.

master class, master teacher

My Saturday seminar...

One of the seminars featured Wilma Jensen giving a master class. That means a student volunteers to have a lesson in front of the rest of us.

Wilma is the one with white hair. She must be eighty-five, with seven grandchildren she told us, and as wirey as they come.

What struck me was a quiet confidence at the center of her. With this student her main objective was to loosen him up, to play expressively, to not be afraid to hold onto a note longer than the score prescribes. I was in the presence of a master musician.

decrescendo Souderton

Take a look. Where are we? It's got to be America. Look at the sugar dispenser, the napkin dispenser, the omnipresent ketchup bottle.

This is not Zion fellowship hall. It is a warm place. It has been here for 50 years. I just discovered it last week. Bonnie tipped me off.

This job at Zion is high energy and fast-paced. The music word is crescendo. To offset that jive I need to have times for the opposite--decrescendo. At good old R&S Keystone diner.

attends seminar Jan 12

Sat. Jan. 12 I went to the church musician seminar held annually at this church, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian.

How great can stones look when you pile them up right!

Two seminars in the a.m. and two in the p.m. One was about incorporating percussion into singing. Another was about making choir rehearsals as dynamic and productive as possible.

Another was a new anthem reading session. Seasoned choir directors (maybe 30 of us) read through a stack of new anthems (maybe 25 of them). I ordered about 8 of them for Zion.

Sing-a-long and a smile on my face

The blue hymnal does not have a New Year's section as such. It has several hymns which refer to the changing of seasons and the changing of the years.

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of the new year. Instead of choosing one I talked to Pastor Hunter about doing a sing-a-long of four. With his permission I planned that, but was scared about the whole thing. This meant, I understand it, that I would direct the singing with my voice very informally. This is a congregation used to singing along with the organ. Maybe that would be called organ-a-long.

Two tricks up my sleeve as I flicked the mute off on my portable mic--just one verse each hymn and pitch them much lower than written. This was, afterall, at 9 in the morning when voices don't like going very high.

What I heard was a new sound to me. It sounded spontaneous, rising up and benefiting from the great acoustics. It sounded like the people were hearing their congregational voice.

Hearing their congregational voice. That's the starting point for church music. One builds from that. It's not an ingredient one adds to a rich stew of piano or organ or orchestra.

While I saw the beauty and success of what was happening, I guess I'll have to check with people who want all the lyrics on the screen. I wanted the lyrics on my face, in the books, and on their hearts. At moments like that, the screen moves down the list of tools doing the heavy lifting. I'll listen to what others say.

An Iraqi hymn, please

Zion has been sponsoring a family from Iraq. Last week I asked them about Iraqi songs. They had fled the country as light as possible and had no music.

Today I called a large music distributor, Pepper. They had never had a request for that before. I called my friendly Hymn Society, headquartered in Boston. They had never thought of that before, but would look into it. Dr. Daw himself, composer of several well known anthems and director of the Hymn Society, responded with several google lines to get me to at least a little information.

There are Christian churches in Iraq.

I'm going to talk to the Iraqi family again and pursue the internet sites. I'm feeling feisty, somehow, about this. Wasn't it Mennonite Central Committee which had the slogan: if the Christians of the world would just agree to not kill each other....

10 or 15 mph?

The drive to work gives me a nice block of audio book time. I've gotten through Jimmy Carter's Christmas at Plains, and I'm mostly through a book about writing and the creative process.

The drive also helps me see America, at least one tiny slice of Pennsylvania. If I think there are so many ambiquities in church music and worship styles, the sharp turn on Ott Road, not far south after Gravel Pike, makes me chuckle.

Going south, approaching the carriage-narrow, tree-tight ninety degree turn, the sign warns me--15 miles an hour. I wouldn't surpass that by much. Yet on my way to Souderton, the sign on the other approach to the turn gives me a sour warning to not exceed 10 mph. I think that would be right, too.

How can they both be right? Maybe one way was determined by the township guy, the other by the PennDot experts. Maybe because the road is not level at that point. A descent would call for a slower turn.

What's this have to do with music after 4 p.m. after a hard day's work already, and an instrumental rehearsal at 5:30 and choir at 7:00?

It's kind of like hymns look different depending on which direction you're coming to them. Contemporary songs, same thing.

Annual report already

When you're new on the job, it makes you feel like part of the action when your boss requests an annual report after five weeks of work.

How long? I want to know.

You know what? I'm going to knock it right off now. I know what I did. And I know what people brought me here to do.

Soloists please

Beth will preach this Sunday and asks that we sing 395 after the sermon, "Here I Am Lord." The refrain is the only music given in the blue hymnal. The words of the verses are given, and the accompaniment version gives the music. So I think of having someone sing the verses and the congregation sings the refrain.

This puts me on a new path. Who are the soloists one can tap at this congregational level? This is not a Handel's Messiah tour de force.

Or, I could have a cluster of singers do the verses--three, maybe.

date stone 1968

I walk in the front door and see two date stones to the right. One fits the new bricks of the building and is "1968." The other is aged and weathered and says "1892." It is obviously imported from an earlier age and place.

1968. One year before Woodstock. One year before a whole bunch of stuff.

But, now, 40 years before this beautiful building was built. One persons tells me they remember walking into this building as a high school kid, singing "We're Marching to Zion." Another tells me their husband was on the building committee.

I can see having some musical tributes this year. I think I'll look up the hymns sung those first Sundays in the new building.