TCATS #449 - Christmas

The Christmas season on Temple Square officially got underway today with the first of five Christmas Special editions of Music and the Spoken Word. I must say, I always enjoy singing Christmas music.  And it felt nice to participate in something that helped many, today, to tap into that Christmas spirit. There is plenty about this time of year that I don't like: the crowds, trying to adhere to a Christmas budget for gifts, the cold snowy weather, and the sicknesses that seem to make their rounds. But I do like the emphasis on Christ, the family time and family traditions, and Christmas music (well, let me qualify that by saying SOME Christmas music, since the overplayed playlists that are prevalent on the radio stations are to be avoided! I mean, who really wants to hear "Santa Baby", or "Mele Kalikimaka", or "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" yet again for the umteenth time??)

I think my favorites from today were the two Christmas classics "The First Noel" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", along with a French carol "Dance and Sing". The arrangements of all three of these really resonate with me. And that last 40 seconds or so of The First Noel  is just really powerful. 

As a bonus today, I got to sing right next to my friend Wes, which seems to only happen every couple of years. Week to week, we're always two or three seats in proximity to each other.  But for whatever reason, we hardly ever sit right next to each other. He's a good person.

The next three weeks will be the busiest ones for the Choir. Along with Thursday rehearsals, we add Tuesday rehearsals and then an extra rehearsal each Sunday. But the finished product should be worth all of the time and effort. It always is. 

I was thinking about the words to The First Noel today. And as I did so, I realized I didn't really know what the word "noel" actually meant. As far as I've been able to discover, it has both a French origin and a Latin one. From French, it means "of or born on Christmas". From the Latin, it means "birthday". So....while Christ was certainly not the first person born on the day he was born, He actually was the first person born on Christmas (since it's because of Him we have Christmas in the first place--which, technically was in April). Anyway, I'm grateful for Christ's birth and everything that Christ has done (and still does) for me. I hope you'll join me in trying to be more like Him this Christmas season. I'd also invite you to watch or re-watch some short music videos the choir has done in recent years that have Christ-like themes. My favorite is HERE, but these are also awesome: HERE and HERE.

Until next time, God be with you.

TCATS #448 - Living in Thanks + Meeting Reaction

From today's Spoken Word: "Of course, the great God of the universe wants to bless us, and He invites us to ask, seek, and knock. But it’s also true that one of the greatest blessings He offers is the peace and perspective that fill our souls when we live in thanks."

Along with the beautiful songs we were able to sing today, I pondered a bit about how the last line of that quote, above, is true for me. Do I really feel more peace and more perspective when I live in thanks? And what does "living in thanks"  really mean? 

I guess for me, living in thanks means that I don't wait until I pray to express thanks to God for my blessings. Sure, expressing thanks in a formal prayer is  definitely a good thing. But when I do it that way, I think I miss a lot. The bigger blessings always stand out and it's pretty easy to remember those. But if I am actively looking for blessings throughout the day, I can recognize them better (including some of the precious "smaller" ones) and I can give thanks for them in real-time. 

This proactive approach is hard to do when you're having a bad day, when you just don't feel good, or things have happened that have caused disappointment or despair. But I guess that's the best type of day to really put this blessing of "peace and perspective" to the test. While I'm not very good at this proactive approach on bad days, I can say that when I stop for a few seconds and open my eyes to what's around me and think about things from a more holistic point of view, I actually do feel an increase of peace and perspective. It doesn't take away any of the hurt or frustration, but is lessens the effects of it just a bit. And, actually, it can help in having that hurt and frustration either go away more quickly, or, I end up learning something valuable that can help me the next time such difficult emotions encircle and threaten to consume. 

My invitation to you is to try it. Be actively thankful not only on the good days, but on the bad ones. And see what happens. 

Switching gears, I did want to report on the semi-annual business meeting that the Choir organization was invited to this past Tuesday. You can actually read about what was discussed, HERE.  As for my take on it all... Well, I'm really happy that our weekly program will start to be offered in Spanish and Portuguese. And to emphasize, this does not mean that they are going to take the regular English program and just add subtitles or audio dub to it. No. Everything that gets displayed on the screen (including the Music & Spoken Word logo), and everything that is spoken (i.e. the "spoken word") will be in the native language. Obviously the music itself will still be in English primarily, but everything else will more country-friendly. INCLUDING, might I add, those video segments you often see on screen while we sing. Instead of seeing a white family of four running in a field of flowers in slow motion for example, you'll perhaps see a Latino family participating in some country-specific activity. Anyway, I think this is a very good move.

For the next initiative of going on tour more frequently but for shorter periods of time, I think that's also a great thing. Taking three weeks of personal leave from work to go on tour (thus sacrificing those vacation days to spend with family) was a tall order. Seven to 10 days is much more do-able. And I think more people will be able to make that work. The big blow that came to choir member spouses during that announcement  was that spouses will no longer be invited to go on tour. And for some spouses, that was a very hard thing to hear. Spouses already have a difficult time feeling included in this choir journey, and despite the occasional "thank you for your sacrifice and support" that comes from choir leaders, there really isn't a lot that is done for spouses to actually show them how much they are valued. Case in point: we typically have had a nice dinner the week after the Christmas Concert, held at the Grand America. This was a nice fancy occasion that plenty of the spouses looked forward to. It was seen as a nice token of thanks for all the support they had given throughout the year. Unfortunately, that dinner was discontinued and replaced with some unspecified summer activity. And many of us weren't very happy about it. 

The third pilot program that was spoken about was flying people in from other countries to sing at Conference. I'm waiting to hear more details on this (you can read the announcement linked above for a few more details), but I sort of struggle with this one. Are they doing this just so that the choir can appear more diverse? And what will happen to these people who go through a try-out process, get picked to learn the songs and participate in conference, and then fly back to their home country once conference is over?  Are they done? Do they get to do it again? What do they do between the time they fly back and the next conference? Too many questions, so I will defer judgment on this one until I know more.

 Well, this blog entry is running a bit long so I'll wrap it up. Just two quick things. One, after the meeting each choir member had to fill out a survey, and one of the questions was an open-ended one regarding general feedback. It was rather amazing! They've never asked for feedback and have never encouraged us giving it before. Two, my friend Willy had his sister sing with the choir at Thursday night's rehearsal as a guest and it was fun to see how excited he was. He introduced me to her after the rehearsal and it sounded like the whole experience for her was a positive one. 

And with that, I'll bid you all adieu!

Until next time, God be with you.

TCATS #447 - West Point Glee Club

The West Point Glee Club, from the West Point Military Academy in New York, joined us on Music & the Spoken Word today--which was fitting since today's broadcast was honoring the veterans. There was plenty of patriotic music to go around, from the familiar America the Beautiful and Battle Hymn of the Republic, the less familiar Because of the Brave and Mansions of the Lord. The Glee Club joined us on two numbers, and also sang their own piece, God is Nigh. Some interesting facts about the Glee Club. First, the president of the club is a young man from Farmington, UT, and is also a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He sang a brief solo in the song that the Glee Club performed today. Second, six male members of the Glee Club make up an a cappella group called the KnightCaps, and six females make up the a cappella group called the Knightingales. Third, the Glee Club's motto is “No Fun Without Music, No Music Without Fun!” And fourth, on their Instagram account today, they posted "As a finale to our Veteran’s Day tour in Utah, the Glee Club had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform for the Tabernacle Choir’s “Music and the Spoken Word” broadcast. This program has aired every Sunday since 1929 with the longest continuous broadcast on air. It was broadcast live on several stations throughout the US and will be available to watch for years to come by audiences around the world! What an honor to join this historic and internationally acclaimed ensemble!"

Having the Club perform with us today brought back some nice memories of when the Tabernacle Choir sang at West Point on the 4th of July of 2015 (as part of our East Coast tour). It was a very cool experience. There's a partial write-up on that experience HERE, if you're interested. (And a video of our performance, HERE)

For those who have faithfully followed my blog, this next comment will come as no surprise:  I'm always conflicted when we devote an entire broadcast to some holiday or event that is U.S.-centric. Since we are a worldwide Choir trying to represent a global Church, it doesn't seem quite fair that several of our broadcasts throughout the year cater to United States holidays. That said, I try very hard to remember that even though it may not be fair, these broadcasts do bring a lot of joy to people. And if THAT'S true, then I suppose an unfair thing can still be a good thing. 

To end today's post, I did want to comment that the Choir is having it's semi-annual business meeting this coming Tuesday. At this meeting, the Choir leadership will announce three new pilot projects, which will involve Music and the Spoken Word, the Choir’s future travel schedule, as well as ways for the Choir to better reflect the worldwide mission of the Church. At the end of the meeting, President Russell M. Nelson will address the members of the Tabernacle Choir Organization and their families. Sister Wendy W. Nelson will also speak.

Looking forward to hearing what will be announced.

Until next time, God be with you.

Pictures from today's performance, below. Click to enlarge...

 

TCATS #446 - The Canon Conundrum

It's been a very long time since I've seen just about every choir member scramble to learn a piece of music. But for the past several weeks, we've all been trying to sear into our memories this song that's based on Pachabel's Canon in D. The main difficulty was this: the song repeats the same phrase ( "Alleluia in excelsius") 16 times. And while there are a couple of repeated phrases, most of them are all structurally different note-wise. There's no pattern! While I can't speak for the entire men's section, I can say that every person around me and in my carpool group was trying to figure out the best creative way he could learn the song--and spent many hours in the process.

One guy simply used repetition after labeling each of the phrases 1-16. He'd memorize #1, then do #1 and #2, then #1, #2, and #3, and so forth, all the way to the end of the song. Over and over again. Another guy used some music software and put each phrase on it's own line, all the way down the page, so he could quickly see the differences. I decided to go through each phrase and label them with letters so I could see what was repeated and where the differences were. It looked like this

{Intro}
A  B
C  D
E  F
E  G
E  G
H  B
A  I
A  I
H  J
A  I
A  I
A  I
H  K
E  L
E  M

As you can see, it was sort of a mess. The A-I pattern was most prevalent, but you'll notice that there were four variations of "Alleluia" (A, C, E, H) and nine variations of "in-excelsius" (B, D, F, G, I, J, K, L, M). 

At any rate, most of us spent a lot of time on this song that debuted on today's Music & the Spoken Word (take a listen HERE). Mack seemed pleased with the performance but indicated we have a little more work to do before we perform it at the Christmas Concert in December. I sat there trying to figure out why Mack didn't arrange the song with more of a pattern we could follow. But I'm sure he had his reasons. I know next to nothing about arranging...

We spent the extra rehearsal today going through Christmas music, music for the Veteran's Day special next week, and the choral work ELIJAH. I'm having a terribly difficult time with ELIJAH. The words (at least to the songs we've learned thus far) aren't very uplifting or hopeful. A sampling:

"Yet doth the Lord see it not, He mocketh at us; His curse hath fallen down upon us, His wrath will pursue us till He destroy us."

"Though thousands languish and fall beside thee, and tens of thousands around thee perish, yet still it shall not come nigh thee."

"Behold, God the Lord passed by! And a mighty wind rent the mountains around, brake in pieces the rocks, brake them before the Lord. But yet the Lord was not in the tempest."

I'll try and keep an open mind.

Looking ahead to Christmas, if any of you did "put your name in the hat" for Christmas concert tickets, best of luck to you. If luck does not prevail for you this year, tune into your local PBS station on Dec 13th for the premiere showing of last year's concert (see HERE for details).  You can also stream the songs from that concert on any of the major streaming services or purchase the CD/DVD at various places around. Also, check out this comprehensive list of all-things-Christmas related to the Tabernacle Choir. Very handy.

And that's all I have!

Until next time, God be with you.

TCATS #445 - Music Everywhere

I found it very interesting that today's Music & the Spoken Word broadcast ended with a new song from Ryan Murphy called "Music Everywhere". The reason that's so interesting to me is because 99% of the time, broadcasts end with songs that are often familiar but always very Christ-centric. For example, if you looked at the last ten broadcasts, the following songs were the ending songs: 

Praise the Lord, His Glories Show
Let Us All Press On
Standing on the Promises
O Come Ye Nations of the Earth
How Firm a Foundation
All Creatures of Our God and King
It Is Well With My Soul
Come, Labor On
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
When in Our Music God is Glorified

The song "Music Everywhere" speaks of music being found in the valleys, on the hills, in the mountains, by the fireside, in the air, in the true heart, for the weary, in our gladness, and several other places.  Basically, as the title indicates, music is anywhere and everywhere. 

In thinking about this a little more deeply, even though the song doesn't once mention God or Christ, these deity are responsible for our lives and everything on this earth that we enjoy. They created the valleys, hills, and mountains. They gave us air to breathe. They allow us to feel all sorts of emotions--including weariness and gladness. And they give us opportunities to live according to a true heart--a heart that gives way to living authentically and lovingly. And in and through all of these things is music. Now it may be music that we purposely listen to or sing along to, but it could also be music that's found in nature, or the type that's found in the expression and the rhythm of our lives

I like how Wikipedia defines music:  "Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect of all human societies, a cultural universal."

By this definition, even our breathing (a type of rhythmic sound) could be considered music!

So actually, yes. The fact that music is indeed everywhere testifies of Christ's love for us. And whether it's a rousing chorus of "How Firm a Foundation" that stirs our emotions or the music of wind in the trees that brings tranquility and peace, we have God to thank for all of it. 

So perhaps, there's no better song to end a broadcast with!

Until next time, God be with you.

 

Photo: Ryan Murphy conducting "Music Everywhere".