This is just too funny not to repost on my own blog. This was on Boing Boing. Flashbacks. Yikes.

Psalm 130 - Emergent Psalter

Here is Infinitely More (Allison Lynn and Gerald Fleming) performing Psalm 130 at Church of The Messiah on Lent 5. They are using The Emergent Psalter by Isaac Everett, which I have mentioned on my blog before. It's a very interesting resource for those of you looking for new ways to handle psalms.



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Holy Week Planning 2011

Today I had a meeting with the musician who will be sharing his gifts with Messiah from Palm Sunday, through Holy Week, and for the first several Sundays of Eastertide: Simon Waegemaekers. Simon is a pro, and I am especially appreciating how good he is working with the choir (he has been rehearsing the choir for the past few weeks in anticipation of the Holy Week rigours). Running a choir is a fine art, especially church choirs, especially especially volunteer church choirs. But to paraphrase a psalm, singing together in harmony is like fine oil running down the beard.

Today we had a meeting (along with my student, Nancy) to plan out more detail for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil, and Easter Sunday. It's a monumental amount of work to prepare and plan these services, and much of it has actually already been done. Today we finalized the scripture lessons for those days as well as picked out much of the music.

Last year's Holy Week was epic. Really, some of the finest liturgy I have ever offered-up, anywhere. I think that many of my colleagues would be amazed at what we were able to accomplish, worship-wise, in our small parish. Eric and I worked out a lot of stuff and then brought in more and more people to contribute to that vision. But it didn't take vast sums of money or hired-gun-musicians or any of that stuff. It just took passionate people, two principal leaders, and lots of thought.

This year Simon, Nancy, and I started with last year, and then started tweaking and changing things. I put sheets of flip chart paper on the wall with notes about the various services: date/time, lessons, prayers, configuration of space, music, etc. These sheets are going to live on my walls for the next several weeks. They look fairly neat now, but will be a mess by the time Holy Week actually comes!

So this is starting to make Lent a little less Lent-ish...

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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!

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Black History Service at COTM

Last Sunday we celebrated Black History Month a the church. We had a guest musician--Glenn Marais--which presented some interesting planning challenges. Glenn is a performer and educator interested in bringing change into the world through education. He is primarily used to giving an hour and a half long presentation to high school groups and other venues. And while a musical tour of black history would be interesting, it wouldn't necessarily be the gospel. And my people need the gospel, yeah know? So the challenge was to squeeze his presentation into a 45-minute "Liturgy of the Word" part of the service.

Because Glenn does not know how to lead congregational singing (hymns and such), I had to rely on my choir to lead the few hymns we did a capella. I used the RCL's Hebrew Bible lesson (aka "Old Testament"), but changed the Gospel reading. I also selected a relevant Eucharistic Prayer. I had to cut or streamline a bunch of other stuff, and those you interested in liturgy might like to see the leaflet I made:

Click here to the leaflet.

What the leaflet does not reveal is some of the cool stuff that happened spontaneously. For example, after communion someone passed me a note asking whether I thought we should lay hands on Glenn and pray for his ministry. So at announcement time we did just that--forming a holy-huddle of hands around him as I prayed that he would receive the Spirit's gifts of wisdom for his work of spreading a message of peace and reconciliation. We've only done this a couple of other times since I've been at Messiah, but the nature of this community is that they are totally prepared to "roll with it." Afterwards I was telling someone about how the Quakers handle "leadings" of the Spirit--there are many useful pieces of wisdom from that tradition.

Glenn was quite humbled and moved by the experience. I was pleased about that, too. Our community might be struggling to figure out the money thing, but we certainly have some solid spiritual foundations on which to build!

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PS. I think most churchy people are service bulletin/leaflet connoisseurs. If you are of that mindset, you will find some of the things in this leaflet design worth noting, like the deliberate creation of margin space to put extra notes and marginalia. Most of this design has evolved over the years, especially when my former Music Minister, Eric, took over doing the leaflets. We went back and forth on the design and made huge strides--even just switching over to InDesign (previously they had been done on Microsoft Publisher) was a huge step forward. It gave him (or whomever was making the leaflet) far more dexterity. Since Eric left we hadn't had a leaflet--I just didn't have time to make one with everything else going on. But last week it was necessary because of departures from the BAS Glenn's visit inspired.

Musicians

I've had some great experiences working with various musicians to create liturgy in the last few weeks, but one of the learnings for me is that I cannot take for granted the people I'm working with share my language for liturgical music. For example, I was talking today with someone and realized that even though he is going to be leading worship at my church this upcoming Sunday, as far as I can tell he has little or no experience or interest in leading congregational hymn singing as we know it in the Anglican Church. He's happy to play beautiful, worshipful music and even lead pieces that involve the choir, but he really has no idea where to start when I say something like, "Can you pick a hymn to sing during the offertory"? This just isn't one of his gifts or part of his background. No problem, that's why I'm thankful that I have a choir capable of filling in gaps like this. For the offertory we'll simply do Ben Allaway's "Freedom Come" as a paperless piece--very apt for a Black History Month service.

Meanwhile, I met with another church musician who has a much stronger background in church music, but mostly in the genre of praise and contemporary music. Interestingly, she asked me about how our congregation does paperless music and we had a long conversation about that I showed her some clips on You Tube of some of my favourite examples. She has no trouble at all leading or picking hymns.

Two Sundays ago we had an incomparable accordion player who doesn't know much about liturgy, but is pretty much fearless about learning whatever he needs to know. He also has great love for God. If I had to choose between working with someone with great musical skill and no liturgical training or background versus someone familiar with church land but with poor musical sensibility, I would take the former every time. Of course the ideal is to have both.

This time is requiring me to dig deep into what I know not just about how about music, but about you form people to lead worship and those people form us. I'm pleased about how much I am having to learn to work with people from such different musical backgounds and traditions.

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The Messiah Choir

The Messiah Choir on Easter Sunday. I'm extremely proud of this group, they did a great job with a challenging set of liturgies.
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Yacht Rock

Jack (aka "Topper Dandy"), my roommate for two years at Hampden-Sydney, has a hilarious music project: Three Sheets to The Wind. They play Yacht Rock--think Steely Dan, Magnum PI, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Also think boat shoes, gin, and white chinos. Got it?

Back in college Jack and some other friends had a band called "Where the Sidewalk Ends." I was their "Spiritual Advisor" (I'm credited in the liner notes)--which also meant I was a kind of a Roadie. It was a blast. We went to a lot of parties. Drank a lot of free beer. Learned a lot about sound engineering, too.

Anyway, Jack is very skillful on the guitar and currently lives in Richmond, VA. It's been a few years since I've seen him, but a few days before I saw this clip I had a strange dream about him....



Good times; good times.

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Drum Circles...

On my mind... Drum Circles... I think that when (if) things calm down in my life and I catch up on some stuff, I would love to be a regular at a drum circle. A drum circle is simply a bunch of people gathering together and making music together--usually with hand-drums and other simple percussion instruments (though violins and flutes are not unwelcome). The point is to make music together--it's a performance in the sense that there isn't usually much of an audience, per se, just different levels of participation in the music making itself.

This an ancient practice, and is the common way that people learn to play the drum in aural cultures. You simply show up with your drum and listen to the rhythm and find a place in it. You watch, and eventually imitate, more skillful players.

Probably the best known Drum Circle in Toronto is Drummers in Exile. They meet every Tuesday night downtown, and are open to anyone who wants to attend. They have a pretty modest budget, and have a pay-what-you-want policy.

Here is an example of what they sound like (a track they called "sometimes"):


Here is another example entitled "Galley on Chug":


It looks like a lot of fun!

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Thoughts on Epiphany 4

Here is a scary idea--I could hook up an iPhone/iPod Dock to the church sound system. I could run a wire to the Presider's Chair. It would be like the Captain's Chair on the Enterprise. I could push a button to activate a Shruti Box sound or another to play an MLK Sermon, etc. I could even use voice commands. I can see it now, "Computer, play drone, major scale..."

Just kidding.

At church this morning I mentioned the Shruti Box app to Eric and he said that he found a large Shruti for sale in the GTA for about $200. Smaller ones are even cheaper. I think these have great potential for doing music with congregations--especially with smaller-sized groups. They are even easier than a Djembe (which also great for leading relatively small groups in holy song).

I don't see us using a Shruti for any Sunday mornings coming up--but the Djembe is a different matter. We actually have used the Djembe a fair amount for worship here at Messiah. One of these days I should take some lessons. It has a great energy is wonderful for processions.

A good day in church. More first-timers. I'm glad because I think this church is now really, really ready for some new people. All aspects of our programme are humming along and we have the capacity to incorporate some new people. I'm pleased about the fact that we have welcomed five new people into the life of our parish in the last few months. Anxiety is down and optimism is up. The community is feeling very warm and loving right now. Sweet!

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The Shruti Box

A Shruti Box is a classical Indian musical instrument which sustains a constant drone of a combination of user-set notes. In other words, you select which pitches you want in your drone, then you start pumping the Shruti and it sustains a constant drone at the specified intervals. It's a lot like a Harmonium, except that instead of keys it simply has little covers over each of the reed holes. You open the holes corresponding the pitches you want played.

The Shruti is useful for many different applications. They are useful in performance, especially because they lay down a kind of carpet on which a singer or instrumentalist can lay down something special. They are also useful for practice since you can, for instance, set the Shruti to drone the home-tone of a chant you are playing with. As you improvise and play around you can simultaneously hear how you sound against your musical home base.

I was was first introduced to the Shruti by the St. Gregory of Nyssa folks. They love a good drone! It's easy to get such a sound out of a congregation, but you can also simulate a Shruti with a pipe organ pretty easily (you just need something or someone to hold the right keys down).

Of course, there is also an iPhone app for that. And they sound surprisingly good. You just need to have a sound system to hook up to your iPhone (or iPod Touch) and you've got yourself an instant Shruti box! Here is an example of what the Shruti sounds like. This musician will play over the top of it with a Hang Drum, which is a whole post in its own right!



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Extemporaneous Eucharistic Prayers

Of course I'm a liturgy nerd. I care a great deal about what we pray and how we pray. Like many Episcopal Priests, I was "raised" to think that great precision is required when praying the Eucharistic Prayer. God help you (literally) if you say it wrong. The magic won't happen! Jesus will flee your feast!

So I find it impressive when people can extemporaneously pray the Eucharistic prayers and hit all the right points. There is an ancient precedent for this: the Mozarabic Rite. It requires a deep understanding, in my humble opinion, of the Eucharistic prayers to do it well, but it is certainly within the capacity of most priests who put their mind to it. The so-called Rite III liturgy in the American Prayerbook (1979 BCP 402ff) gives the presiding priest great discretion in how the Eucharistic Prayer is to be said, but still specifies the words for the Institution Narrative and a few other parts. Of course, the Rite III rubrics insist that it should not be used during the principal Sunday service of the community.

Certainly doing a Eucharistic Prayer off-the-cuff is stretching the bounds of what is "Anglican"--but that's perhaps what interests me about it. I see great potential for relational liturgy in the immediacy of such a prayer. It's the same principle as what happens when one learns to preach without notes or improvise of the organ.

I happen to enjoy broad episcopal permission when it comes the Contemplative Eucharists that I do on Wednesday morning and Saturday afternoon. Further, the Archbishop has told us (priests) that we "have the keys to the family car--just don't wreck it." So in that spirit I've been trying my hand at extemporaneous eucharistic prayers at my Contemplative Eucharists. The group that comes appreciates it. I find that it requires even more concentration and preparation than what I used before, which is even more than what it required to a regular BCP/BAS Mass!

To prepare for it, I think you need a couple of years of saying the Eucharist out of the prayerbooks. To this end, saying the daily masses at St. Mary Magdalene's was great training. It's like the 10,000 hours concept of Malcome Gladwell--you need to spend about 10,000 hours saying the Mass to master it. Maybe I haven't wracked up that much time, perhaps I've got about 3 or 4 thousand hours, though? You should have a few of rites basically memorized from repetition.

Then, you need to have a real command over the different parts of the Eucharistic prayers. You need to know what they are and why they are there.

Next, and perhaps most importantly, you need to be right with your personal sacramental prayer life. I mean that you need to be really confident in your own skin as a priest doing the thing priests do. So... that's my advice about that.

Now, here is an example of Rick Fabian (best known from St. Gregory of Nyssa fame) presiding at the Eucharist that ended our Music That Makes Community Conference in Atlanta a few months ago. Note that both the words and the music were made-up on the spot. We sing a Sanctus at the end in a paperless-style, but it wasn't our first time hearing/singing that particular song.


Now, there is a lot of craft in doing this well. For one thing, notice that Rick has a particular pattern in mind for how is going to chant the text. He is basically going up and a down a scale. Also, he has an idea in his head of the shape of the eucharistic prayers. He knows where is beginning from and where he is ending. He also knows some of the points he wants to hit along the way: thanksgiving for creation, rehearsing salvation history, the institution narrative, the epiclesis, etc.

BTW, I like the way Rick says "whores." It's a nice, sharp moment in the flow of the prayer.

I was never taught how to pray this way. I wasn't ready for it in seminary, anyway. These are advanced teachings. But it's definitely worth sharing because the spiritual results can be breath taking!

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Solemn Preface for Christmas

Here is a recording I made of the Rev'd Marili Moore singing an outstanding Proper Preface at the Midnight Christmas Mass. It's the solemn version of the Preface as pointed for chanting in the BAS Altar Book:


Here's a direct link to the MP3 file...

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Christmas/Advent Concert 2009

Here's a sample of the Christmas (Advent) Concert this year at Messiah. It's Laura Roth (our Cantor) and Gwynedd Macleod singing a beautiful duet by Howard Blake: "Walking in the air."



Here's a direct link to the MP3 file...

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Our Lady of Guadalupe

Probably the most important pilgrimage site in the Americas, the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine in Mexico City is an incredible place. I've been there twice and have been incredibly moved both times by the pure devotion, warmth, and affection of the pilgrims there. Definitely something you don't want to miss if you are ever in D.F. (Mexico City).



Doug C. sent me this video of the crowds singing "Happy Birthday" to this patron saint of Mexico.

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DJ Spooky: Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica

DJ Spooky is an amazing musician and composer with a very sensitive ear. He wrote a piece called Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica after visiting Antarctica. I heard an interview with him on NPR in which he impressed me with his depth of craft and engagement. You might get a sense of what I mean from this clip from Sinfonia Antarctica....



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Music That Makes Community: Khudaya rahem kar (Kyrie)

Scott Weidler taught the Music That Makes Community: Atlanta group this haunting Kyrie in Urdu. I find the melody wonderfully haunting--the sort of thing that can be hard to get out of your head once you start singing it.



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Music that Makes Community: Rejoice and sing with me

Marilyn leading Michael Hahn's "Rejoice and sing with me."



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Music That Makes Community: Pugila - halleluia

This piece of paperless music is great for getting a congregation on their feet and moving. Scott Weidler and Emily Scott show how to teach the music as well as the movements. Note how Emily then adds another layer by introducing intercessions between refrains.



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Music That Makes Community: To the Bath and the Table

This is a really nice piece of Paperless Music. The Cantor's part has a bunch of really neat verses, of which Emily sings only the first in this example.



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