posted
I wish there weren't nothin' that's keepin' me here Six Flags was calling and I reckoned to play Procrastination stole away my Saturday
Come monday I'll need to hand in the project with siggies said my boss with a grin it ain't his fault; they're nothin' but kind I gotta finish the files - those I'd paid no mind
It was worth it to me - every six months my mind drifts away and time drowns in the dumps I reckon this day is my id living on - it used to be finals that slapped me till dawn
a life needs a soundtrack - now where'd I put mine I'll borrow the nation's - turn to nine-oh-point-nine I'd hoped for some Keillor or the best BBC Instead it's the blues roarin back down at me this may keep me up - it's this or Steve Schwartz better the blues - to keep me out of the courts Nothin' like sorrow to rub in the sting of the three hundred dollars I tithed to speeding
this night is long and it di'n't have to be it's my fault I'm here instead of the P I promise I'll stop - it's August's the cause Better to erase it - it's not here - it never was.
posted
*kicks the ground* Oh, there's got to be some fellow surfer out there on the computer with whom I can commiserate for my sad, sad Saturday.
At least I worked procrastination (sort of) into the rhythm. That was exciting for me. It's a childish rhythm and rhyme scheme, but I was hoping it would just drag you along.
Anybody? Stapler isn't talking to me and I didn't get to change clothes after hanging out at Six Flags today, so Hatrack looked like my best shot.
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You're great at that. Fortunately, I'm not terribly bummed. There was a party last night, friends for fondue and Hearts tomorrow, and I hung out at Six Flags today with a good friend, so it's been a fairly eventful weekend. It's just DEAD here - I think I may be the only one in the building besides the security guard. My greatest sorrow at the moment is that I came straight to here after six flags instead of getting cleaned up. Just a little bit more and it may be time to take a break and shake my gravy Homer-style in the conference room. This the part where I hope there are no security cameras.
I think the blues will do that to you - slow you down, take a breath, and let the tears of vicarious sorrow fill and roll and drop. I started to miss even my teddy bear, and I never HAD a teddy bear.
My next step is Enya and little interpretative dance. This is so completely my fault, I suspect I do it just to shake up my routine, or something.
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If you wrote that, I am very impressed. I normally loathe 99 percent of the poetry that I read, but I enjoyed yours. Really good stuff. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Hey, thanks! I did write that - that's even first draft, written in the text box, inspired by some blues on the live feed of NPR. *wriggles happily*
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Your song is great, Kat! I just came back from a night with Mose Allison. He could do those lyrics proud.
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posted
Hot dang, Stormy, that's down-right eerie... did this thread remind you of her song? I've never even heard of her before - is there a sample of that song somewhere?
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Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody I got some money and I just got paid, How I wish I had someone to talk to, I'm in an awful way.
Okay, so, he's not being terribly appropriate with this lyric but at least he's commiserating with you on a Saturday night. Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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sleepwalkin down the street the sidewalks all crowded with you ain't got no feelin in my feets red lights change to blue.
been runnin on empty, you said you was full, i've taken fifty-some showers - aint no soap for fingerprints that been put on the soul.
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he asked me to call back and i got the machine. still waiting for my phone to ring *leaves half empty water bottle tipped over on its side, dripping on the carpet.*
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I have no idea if there is a sample of the song out there available for download. I don't have broadband so anything beyond a couple of megs takes forever, which means no music.
It's a great song. So, I recommend it highly if you can find it to download anywhere.
As for my reasons for posting it, it's always in the back of my mind in some form when I'm surfing the net in general and specifically when I'm on Hatrack. Though Hatrack is certainly an example of one of the most goodest aspects of communication through computers, there is a darker side to them that that song illustrates, and that Hatrack somewhat touches on.
Computers aren't meant to be a substitute for RL, but an addition to it. Sometimes it's hard to tell when the 'good' communication ends and when the 'bad' communication starts.
I certainly don't think you have anything like a computer addiction. It's more my thing, and this thread highlights all that is best about communicating over the internet. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Ah, that was great (the chocolate Jesus). I would love to hear the music to that! Sort of like communion, neh? Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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Well, back when they first came up with the Eucharist idea, chocolate wasn't around in the Middle East. It should probably be a marzipan Jesus. Or honey cake Jesus.
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Absolutely, ak! It's really a very spiritual song when you think about it in terms of communion, and could symbolize a really great aspect of Christianity/religion. While there are certainly aspects of gGod that are deeply nourishing, in other aspects, iIt makes life sweet and puts a sparkle in your eye, a spring in your step and makes kisses that much better.
**********************
I have to take off for a bit. Talk to y'all later.
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I've been listening to spirituals a lot lately in the course of my Sam Cooke researches (the Soul Stirrers were so great ), and I really do love this music. It's such a powerful force in worship. I feel like falling out in the aisles sometimes when I listen to it, and weeping at the foot of the altar, or else turning cartwheels like John Belushi in the Blues Brothers. One of the things we are very blessed with in the southern U.S. is a strong tradition of gospel music. I used to go for a while (after I was Christian but before I found the LDS church) to a little Pentacostal church on the other side of town where my friend Niecy played electric guitar. The music was so great there, there's no describing it! They raised the roof, just about, every Sunday, and every voice in the choir and congregation was so strong it was like having Aretha Franklin or Mahalia Jackson on each row.
I wish there was a way to bring this local music tradition into my church. To add it to my ward somehow. I'm in a small ward downtown that has a racially mixed composition. Our bishop is African-American. There is no doctrinal requirement that our sacred music be so stiff and dull and restrained, is there? When we could soar and be free? I wish I could help this to happen somehow. I wonder whether the wards in Africa have tapped into the wonderful local music traditions that are there? Or anywhere else in the world, for that matter?
[ September 06, 2003, 11:27 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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That's a good question, anne kate. We had the same situation in Detroit - the music was very different from the local customs, and that was seen as a big turn off for some people, as well as an implicit criticism.
They're really careful about the music in sacrament, though, because it's got an official stamp on it. They've even cracked on down on any non-hymnbook songs in church - no more weepy missionary tunes from Mormon pop music sung by the missionary's girlfriend. Also, no guitars, drums, tamborines, or saxaphones in sacrament meeting. This is a bit of a bummer - classical guitar seems like it would be very appropriate - but it is getting more like that, instead of less.
I'd say your best bet is a vocal arrangement of one of the hymns in the local tradition. There are some swinging songs in the hymnbook - there's even one with a country rhythm to it. Does the ward have a choir? Maybe the choir director would be up for it.
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Ah, I was going to float the idea on hatrack first (my real LDS community) and see what you guys thought. I'm trying to be a good girl and not turn my new ward upside down yet until I have to.
There's something that's very endearing about the way Mormons almost doggedly plunk out verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus always singing every one of the verses until we get to the very end. Yet culture, music, and learning, have always been important to the Saints from the earliest communities. Why would we reject this great local tradition which is so powerful and pure?
I just wish we could have better music somehow. Why must we approach hymns as though we are sawing through a board, shoo-bah shoo-bah shoo-bah? If only I had the training to directly contribute my own self! Maybe then I could volunteer and nudge us in that direction. But I can't perform, really, only appreciate.
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quote:I just wish we could have better music somehow.
Amen. The best ward I have been in was in Ann Arbor, where in a ward of about 100, there were 5 or so getting MFA's in vocal performance, and another 20 getting MFA's in various instruments. Holy cow - that was amazing. *sigh*
quote:Yet culture, music, and learning, have always been important to the Saints from the earliest communities. Why would we reject this great local tradition which is so powerful and pure?
Honestly, for sacrament meeting, it is to arrest "drift". Priests not kneeling when they pray to bless the sacrament, that's drift. The intermediate hymn always being sung standing - that's drift, because it creates a ritual where there wasn't one. Electric guitars and tamborines - which with a flick of the wrist easily turns into, oh, say, Innagodidivida (In the Garden of Eden) is perilously close to some serious drift.
For the music, the best beginning would be (1) the ward music director, and (2) one of the extra meetings, just not sacrament meeting. There are firesides all the time for the youth, I'll bet. That would be a great place for it, because it isn't the main service. We had one ward who had a special musical fireside - those are the coolest. Still no electric guitars, but a much, much greater variety of music.
Would that work? To start to share the culture?
Even the early saints didn't have fiddles in the sacrament meetings. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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We’ve actually got quite a few spirituals in our official hymnal (UMC) – but the congregations I serve don’t do very well with them, so we don't sing them too often. Imagine a bunch of retired farmers raised on the verse-chorus-verse steady meter of English hymnody trying to sing “My Lord, What a Morning.” It’s pretty sad.
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I do not understand why any instrument you need in a musical performance should not be brought into play. That seems about as reasonable as limiting the ingredients to be included in the jello molds at pot luck suppers. When you're cooking up a musical performance, you just have to use whatever it is you need for this particular flavor of recipe you are producing. Why would they say salt was okay in lasagna but don't anyone use garlic?
<sigh> I have a hard time, sometimes, when people want to act like their cultural practices are doctrine. I am glad for your input, though, kat. It shows me that it won't be as easy as I thought. I guess the answer is that when it's in my stewardship I should do as I'm led. If they assign me to do music, I'll include those influences and try to make the very best music I can. Until then I will enjoy what those who have been given stewardship over our music produce.
If I AM chosen, though, I suppose I can expect to get a lot of people upset at me, for doing something that's too good, same as happened with my calling in my other ward. <sighs>
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I love that hymnal, dk. My copy is my source for the songs I read snatches of and want to find all the words for.
anne kate, that's exactly why people got upset in Detroit. Basically, it's because what happens at the potluck isn't being presented as doctrine, but what happens in sacrament meeting is. There's a stamp of approval on it - sacrament meeting is the most sacred meeting of the week.
It isn't just foreign culture, though. The biggest protests I heard was a few years ago when there was the decree of No More Michael McClean. They aren't bad - they are just not doctrine. Too much of the Utah culture was creeping in and being presented as doctrine, and then that's the culture that was being exported.
quote: I have a hard time, sometimes, when people want to act like their cultural practices are doctrine.
So does the prophet; that's why the hymnbook is such a big deal. It is to PREVENT culture from being presented as doctrine, because if it is happens in sacrament meeting, then it is. Unfortunately, the sad result is often bloodless music, since culture is what makes it sing.
This isn't meant to keep spirituals from the South from heading to Utah; it's meant to keep sappy pop songs from Utah from being presented as doctrine in the South. It was getting close.
There are even no more missionary farewells - no family speaking, no party after church, no special musical number by the girlfriend. This is a BIG change. The bishop has some leeway, but not much. The point was that it was turning into a culture thing - a social rite of passage instead of a spiritual calling. If you take away the "coming-of-age" feel of becoming a missionary, maybe fewer missionaries will go for social reasons instead of spiritual ones. Instead of a hour of eulogy by the family for the departing missionary, the missionary speaks for fifteen minutes on doctrine. Presentation of doctrine is exactly what sacrament meeting is supposed to be for. The culture and social activities are still part of church life - and the local songs and traditions would be invaluable in the extra activities.
My brother was the first one in our home ward to go off as a missionary without a farewell, and he, if I may say so, rocked the house. It was his first serious talk, and he practiced for a whole week. He was so adorable - he kept rehearsing it in front of family members. He gave an incredible talk - full of scriptures, nicely plotted out with recognizable points, and didn't talk too fast. All in all, a much, much better way to say goodbye - seeing what kind of missionary he'd be.
Compare that to a farewell I went in Michigan - the girl's sister gave a talk where she went through the letters of her sister's name - with accompanying visuals - and each letter stood for a virtue that her sister and Christ had in common. I wanted to die.
That's why they're so strict about what happens in sacrament meeting. There's just a lot of place for drift, and it happens SO easily.
I spent all day at work putting up several hundred feet of flower garland at a guest ranch for a wedding, and the staff had blues playing all day.
On my way home from work, my roommate turned on Prairie Home Companion and it was an especially bluesy edition.
Now Kat's singin' the blues - this is a twisted little meme, indeed!
My personal favorite:
quote:There are nights, you swear you were born to lose. And you wish your feet were walkin' in someone else's shoes. The guys are out to get 'em, and the girls probably dead, they ain't got a nickel, and we should be in bed! And you outta luck... outta luck watchin' these guys. I've got the baby baby, babysitting blues
No one leaves this place without singin' the blues...
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Mikie and I, when we used to jam a lot, came up with this song which we called "the upper middle class white boy blues".
VERSE: There's a red house on the corner That's where my girlfriend lives. There's a red house on the corner That's where my girlfriend lives. I have not been to see my girlfriend In a very very long time.
CHORUS: I got the upper middle class white boy blues I got the upper middle class white boy blues Trying to figure out how to sing the music When we ain't got to pay no dues.
VERSE: I lost my low wage job, never earned much pay Lost my low wage job, never did earn much pay But oh well, who cares? I start grad school next month anyway.
CHORUS... etc.
We came up with a whole bunch more verses that I don't remember now. The first verse is a takeoff of an old blues standard. Jimi Hendrix's version is the one we were going by. His has "that's where my baby stay" and "for ninety nine and one half days" in the lyrics.
[ September 07, 2003, 12:25 AM: Message edited by: ak ]
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There really is a reason for having musical firesides - the songs are an informal worship and a sharing in the community, but it isn't coming from the pulpit.
quote: I can expect to get a lot of people upset at me, for doing something that's too good,
That's pride, girl. If you automatically assume that any disagreement with you is because you're too good, that's pride.
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Yeah, kat, I just saw your edit and read over what you said. I think you're right that just vocal arrangements will give leeway to let us do something better in sacrament meeting.
I'm going to remember what you said about the church belonging to me as much as anyone, and keep on doing my best work possible in my callings. When this offends and outrages people I'll just let them be offended and outraged and not worry about it, I think. Maybe what I need is to grow a thicker skin. Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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Nah, you don't need thicker skin, you just need to know that the Lord approves of what you are doing. That's the nice thing about callings - you are doing his work. If you pray for guidance of what to do, and then do it, then criticism isn't personal. You don't do YOUR best work, you do HIS work.
The Lord really, really cares about this. I mean, he cares about all of our lives, but when you have a calling, you have a right to direction in that calling, and you get it when you pray for it. That's one of the coolest parts of having a calling - the direction. With the direction, comes the strength to carry it out.
Annie: It's all about the blues.
It's funny - I turned it off, and now I've lost the rhythm. I can't write more in the same beat and cadence - I need to hear it.
Maybe I'd write better if I had the music appropriate what I want to say playing?
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kat, it wasn't an automatic assumption. It was my studied opinion after second guessing myself and pondering to death what went wrong from all angles.
I have this problem in that I read the scriptures, and I pray, and I read the Ensign, and the teachings of the presidents and other church literature, and think "YES! This is my church! This is so right and true! This is what I'm supposed to do!"
Then I go into my ward and try to do my work and it seems I outrage and offend everyone without meaning to. Now we know that I am not much of a joiner, that I scored 24 on that Asperger's geekiness test, and all that. Obviously there are all sorts to unspoken things that I'm accidentally doing wrong that prickle people under the skin. Yet when I analyze what actually was wrong with what I did in my other calling, I can't come up with any other answer. I did my job with too much spirit and enthusiam and creativity. The girls actually loved coming and were inspired to achieve. They wanted to meet every week, as the cub scouts their age did, instead of every other week. The boys were jealous, the other primary groups were jealous, and all that had to be stopped. It was high time we got back to being dull and unimaginative as the LORD has prescribed!
[ September 07, 2003, 12:42 AM: Message edited by: ak ]
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*hug* It's hard working with people - even in the Lord's church. Every time I do it, I get torn between warm fuzzies at the sweetness and greatness of them and remembering why I didn't like people in the first place.
((((anne kate))))
I didn't mean about the past incidents - I meant for in the future. In future callings, you will almost certainly find disagreement. You know how many critical letters the president gets? How much people trash the RS pres? You may be and are probably right about last time, but next time you hit a snag - and you will - there may be a different reason for it.
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I am not Mormon, but if it is OK, I would like to join in here as well.
One of the main reasons I left the Catholic church was because of the two-verse philosophy. No one sings, and we only do two verses of the hymns.
In the Congo church I have joined(well, I am trying to join-my Catholic strings are much more tight around my heart, I guess, and I can't make that official move yet) the pastor uses music quite a bit in her services. One day, she just scrapped her sermon, grabbed her guitar, and sang a song she had written. She stood there, with her eyes closed and her head tilted up, and I could feel God's love pouring right through her, and out to all of us. She told me later that that is how she prays at home-in song.
I have smart-assedly mentioned the Church of Universal Love and Music on this forum, but in fact, I kind of believe that music does connect us to a universal force. I call it God, others might call it something else.
Good luck getting your church to accept music as a pure part of devotion.
[ September 07, 2003, 07:41 AM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
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quote:One of the main reasons I left the Catholic church was because of the two-verse philosophy. No one sings, and we only do two verses of the hymns.
Well, we sang ALL the verses. Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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You can't say, though, that the hymns are dull and lifeless. I was in a ward once in which the chorister has us sing every single verse, even the little ones at the bottom of the page that everyone usually skips. I loved it! It's like solemn poetry.
And I notice that for the most part, Mormons are excellent singers, and even in the smallest of groups, people are singing parts. It's not only a great musical education for me, but it's nice to just listen sometimes.
I think music can be over-stimulatinng sometimes (don't get me wrong - I love it as much as anyone else) and the hymns are different - not because they're any less powerful, but because they're that much more sublime. It's like being bombarded with flashing lights and neon visual imagery and then looking at an exquisite watercolor. Sure, it's not as flashy, but it's a lot more meaningful.
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posted
I feel a strong connection of music with worship. Morgan, yes, I do love the hymns. I've bought CDs recently of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and put them on my playlist them to get to know the hymnbook. "MTC sings hymns of faith" is wonderful. The arrangements are sensitive and well done. The singing is so expressive. I get chill bumps and tears in my eyes from this one.
Then the next one, "MTC sings hymns of faith II" is cheesy as all getout! The arrangements pile on every hokey effect anyone ever thought of. I think nearly every single song modulates up a whole step, for instance, toward the end, to build excitement or whatever. That's the very hokeyest effect of all, second only to having someone speak the words over a background of humming. <laughs> (Which they do in one place in MTCSHoF1. An aberration.) It's totally tasteless! Yuck, why? Why must we have rotten cheese instead of music done with sensitivity and delicacy and real feeling?
The hymnbook, though, is great stuff! Even the bad renditions we do in sacrament meeting, plowing doggedly through the songs like we're planting a field, touch me deeply. I'm often in tears and my voice cracks before the end. There's great potential there. The music matters so much. <sighs> I just wish we could do better somehow. It would mean so much to me.
In that little Pentecostal church, sometimes when people stood up to testify, they'd just spontaneously break into song. Then the musicians would pick up the song behind them in whatever key they were singing it in. The keyboardist was a 12 year old kid who knew every song there was, and could play them all in any key, and improvise solo lines endlessly on anything at all. Contrast that with me who can memorize a song in a specific key, and if I'm going to take a solo I have to know how many bars and work out in advance something to do and practice it. It's just a whole different level of understanding music.
The musical part of me feels very unfed. It must be true for others in our ward as well. I wish there were something I could do to make it better.
[ September 07, 2003, 12:46 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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quote:Why must we have rotten cheese instead of music done with sensitivity and delicacy and real feeling?
You can't please everybody.
I'm sure some people like that. Other people hate it. Anne Kate, this upsets me - because when you dislike their music, its because their music is crap, but if someone objects to what you want to listen to, it is because they can't stand you being so good.
If you want to do something about it, do something. I'm serious - talk to the choir director, find out about a musical fireside - the activities people are always starving for ideas. DO something about it - and then tell us how it went. Don't wish - do it. There is stuff you can do.
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Katie, there IS such a thing as good and bad music, for heaven's sake! Same as art, literature, technical writing, and morals. Are you a musical relativist? I never would have thought such a thing! I am frankly shocked! <mostly playful but also a tiny bit in earnest shocked smilie>
Donny and Marie are just not as good as Jimi Hendrix. Bach's B Minor Mass is a better work of music than Karen Carpenter's Top of the World.
But you're right that doing something is the answer. Isn't that exactly what I said?
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No, I am not a music relativist. However, you asked a question, I answered as best I could with as sincere an answer as I could, and the reason makes sense to me, and you haven't even aknowledged it. You're sticking with the "They like crappy music, and they're going to dislike me when I show them the better because I'm better." theory. Good luck with that! Of course telling them they suck isn't going to work!
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quote: You can't say, though, that the hymns are dull and lifeless. I was in a ward once in which the chorister has us sing every single verse, even the little ones at the bottom of the page that everyone usually skips. I loved it! It's like solemn poetry.
I like this, Annie! It's not the hymns that are dull and lifeless, it's the singers. The hymns are meant to be a prayer unto the Lord. I try to sing like they are. They are not for our entertainment.
In our branch, you can usually hear me and one other lady singing, and she makes up the notes instead of singing what's in the book (harmony?). Some people seem to think song time is for chatting with the person next to you. Sometimes if I stop singing, all I can hear is people whispering and the organ playing.
I really wish they'd schedule time to sing all the verses. I noticed that in the new green hymnbooks, they changed some of the songs because the last verse in the music cut off in mid-sentence, with the next one usually unsung because it was printed below the music. And there is one sacrament-type song that says to sing verses 1, 5, and 6 for the sacrament. But people invariably sing 1-4 instead, even though the meaning is all in the 5th and 6th verses.
Okay, watch me get called to be the chorister as punishment for critiquing our singing. Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Storm Saxon: "Congo" is just a pet name for the Congregational Church(now part of United Church of Christ)
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kat, I did acknowledge you, dear. I said you are right. I will do my very best on all the music I'm assigned to do, and do my best to enjoy what others come up with on their watch. During sacrament meeting we can do better by doing some vocal arranging, and at firesides and such we can get more traditional if we want.
I'm really glad you aren't a musical relativist. <laughs> This may seem silly to you but to me music matters a whole lot.
Dead Horse, I didn't know this wasn't universal in the church. In both my wards we always sing every single verse, even the ones printed at the bottom. I really like that. I thought it was a Mormon thing, like jello. Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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