Monday, March 7, 2011

Last Epiphany

Yep, I'm definitely starting to get a handle on things, again. Slowly but surely I am catching up the pile of stuff that has been thrown my way--just in time for Ash Wednesday and Lent.

But first, a word about Sunday... Here is a link to the leaflet.

The musical group was "Infinitely More" (Allison Lynn and Gerald Flemming). They did a marvellous job--professional and beautiful. I love working with musicians that have the flexibility that comes from self-confidence merged with deep musicianship. Their style is quite a bit more contemporary than a lot of what we have done, recently, but it was very well done and offered a nice counterpoint to some of the more traditional liturgical music we have done at Messiah. I was particularly impressed with Allison's voice and Gerald's guitar skills. At one point I saw him tapping harmonics, which I believe is a fairly advanced skill. Allison was intrigued with our experience with Paperless Music, and led the congregation in a Gloria she had written using that technique.

Hymn-picking is an interesting phenomenon. Some of the musicians I've been working with can and want to pick the hymns we sing. Others have no idea how to do this. A few know how to do it, but want me to do it for them, which puzzles me. If I was a church musician and the priest asked whether I wanted to have some say about the hymns I would be leading on Sunday, I would be all over that! So I've spent a fair amount of time the last few weeks with Common Praise and other hymnals open.

The journey continues. This season of life at Messiah is definitely calling to be on my toes when it comes to church music!

-t

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