Thinking about the dissertation...

I tend to forget who knows me in real life (and has heard about this), and who doesn't, but my dissertation is "a substantial piece or pieces" of music. (Thus sayeth the program sheet.) So I'm doing a set of pieces on the mysteries (only the original 15...luminous ones are optional, not gospel, and I hate how they break the symbolism of rosary as "little psalter," since there are 150 Hail Marys and 150 psalms.) of the rosary. They're not exact literal settings. If you're familiar with Biber's "Mystery" sonatas, it's sort of like that. I'm not exactly sure how much of it I'll talk about, and hopefully it won't be necessary to understand them. (It's more like one big poetic metaphor.)

I've got the last one done (the crowning of the BVM.) I should work on some of the Joyful ones, since that's the season we're in, but I've never been attracted to the joyful mysteries. Maybe it's the insistence on the Holy Family as something perfect and saccharine, and as a model to those of us with broken families. That insistence of the Holy Family never seemed overly fair to them (I'm sure they had their fair share of squabbles and troubles like the rest of us), and isn't overly fair to the rest of us (we aren't fully human and fully divine, our fathers weren't saints, and our mothers weren't immaculately conceived.)

But I don't want to go very far on the Glorious mysteries, because another facet of what I'm doing is exploring canonic technique. One thing I think that's been lost in computer music is melody. I was listening to some early computer music out of Princeton, and what struck me was how musical it was, as if the composers were playing an instrument, not typing punchcards. (The music department there in the 1960's and 1970's gets much maligned...but oddly enough the students I know who were there write really great music.) I've always been a melodic composer, and I love counterpoint. So far I've got functions written to make any kind of conventional canon. I've got some more tricks up my sleeve for things computers are good at, but people aren't. (Have I mentioned I like Nancarrow?)

And I don't particularly want to do the sorrowful mysteries just yet, because the last big piece I finished was conceptually based upon the seven dolors chaplet. So logically it's one of the Joyous mysteries I should be working on. I started the first one, but I don't like it much.

The other thing that's got me moderately stuck, is that I keep thinking about my recital. Most people these days don't have the attention span for 75 minutes (in 15 pieces). I know...first things first, and write! (Local folks will probably hear more about said recital when it's closer to happening...I'm shooting for next winter.)

This is on KCTS RIGHT NOW: "Lives for Sale." It's a documentary on human trafficking. So far it's really good, although I'm not getting a picture in very well. (Sound is fine.)

It's a small world...

Since various people are doing delurking, I thought this might be a good conversation starter:

It's from my sitemeter and only the last 100 visitors. If I wanted more, I'd have to upgrade. But I thought it was pretty nifty to see.

Ada bukan orang disini, yang bisa bahasa Indonesia. :(

evening odds and ends

Hey if you can't spam your own blog, whose can you spam?

1.) Last post felt snarkier than I intended. If I didn't, at some level, think my belief structure was true, then why stick with it? That's the point I'm trying to make. If you believe in Ganesh, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or nothing at all, and are happy with it, then I'm happy. Odds are we'll probably agree about something. Odds are we'll probably disagree, as well.

2.) Podcast found by a friend of mine: Warcast for Catholics. It's an anti-war, anti-death penalty podcast run by the Catholic Peace Fellowship. One of the most recent ones is an interview with Sr. Helen Prejean.

3.) A few years ago, I injured my back on a printer. Every once and awhile it tweaks on me, so I pop a muscle relaxant, and I'm back to normal. Unfortunately they mess with my sleep schedule something fierce, and I wind up watching bad nighttime TV, because I can't sleep. I found this show with Geraldo (holy 1980's, Batman!), which was a lame excuse for journalism. He was discussing the Shawn Hornbeck kidnapping, and made the comment insinuating that the kid could've escaped.

OK, there's some hinky things with it. The parents need a thwap upside the head for putting him on Oprah. But to insinuate that a kid who's been abused is just having all sorts of fun and games is lower than putting your kid on TV after some trauma. I don't think people understand the kind of power abusers have over people. For instance in the last post, I'm still shaking after making the statement I did. I keep thinking that "they're" reading my blog--even though the sitemeter says otherwise--and that "they'll" punish me--nevermind that I'm 32 and living on my own--for saying what I did.

Let's unpack this, a bit. I'm an adult, living on my own, a fair distance away from "them," and I still fear them. There is nothing they can do to me. Logically, I know this. But that fear doesn't magically go away, and neither do the memories. They have no power over me, but the fear is still there. That's how abusers keep power--fear and doubt. You doubt that your memories are the correct ones, because they do what they do out of "love." If you met my parents, you'd think they were charming people. That very doubt--that such people couldn't possibly mistreat their children--is how they keep power.

4.) So I'm not ending on a downer: Silly Airport Security Flash Game. (Doesn't work under linux.) So go confiscate pressurized cheese, Virgin Mary statues, snakes, pudding, and cow skulls.

5.) Edited to add: Some cool stuff on sale here. Like books you'll probably never find elsewhere. Music people--need a Liber Usualis? They're selling some. I spent my Christmas/birthday money and got a copy of the Breviarium Monasticum. More on that later...

"Hand of God"

Apologies to those who saw my rant about this over on LJ, but the other night I watched the documentary "Hand of God" on PBS. The first hour was brilliant. The last 30 minutes was a Michael Moore-type screed on organized religion. Some have complained that the constant use of Catholic imagery was sacreligious, but that wasn't the part that bothered me.

OK. My bias: I believe the fullness of truth is evident through the Catholic Church. I think it's nifty that someone else finds Truth in their denomination, and we all get along, so long as someone doesn't try to save me from what they think are the "evils" of the RCC. I kind of like the postmodernist notion of truth--it is reminiscent of the whole notion of revealed truths as found in some encyclicals, namely "Nostra aetate." This having been said, the best way to get on my bad side is to try to convert me. I don't go around trying to convert people to the RCC, and I expect others to respect it. I like discovering where we agree on some things--for instance in talking with Rev. Mommy, I discovered that the Methodist and Catholic take on the Eucharist isn't as far off as I thought--but on others we have to agree to disagree. Life isn't a zero sum game.

Anyway, I don't appreciate it when I'm accused of hypocrisy, either from the religious right or the secular left. Any sympathy I had for the filmmaker and his family left after he started blaming the entire Catholic Church for the sex scandals. I don't dispute that there are those--especially in his parents' pre-Vatican II generation--who are complicit in the cover-up. Lord knows they have every right to be angry. God knows I'm angry at those who abused me--thankfully not sexually. But if I let myself be consumed by that anger like the filmmaker and his family were, then the abusers won.

"For the use of..."

So while drinking theraflu (head cold) and watching bad daytime TV (what else do you do with a head cold?), I'm catching up on my blogs. I found this entry about poverty over at A Nun's Life. Sr. Julie writes:

When I asked a sister about why they say “for the use of” she said that no one of us owns a single thing in the congregation — even that prayer book that we’ve used for years and which bears the marks of our praying hands and of our tears. By the simple act of writing “for the use of” a sister recognizes that she truly does not own a thing and that all she has is gift. A sister recognizes that if one of her sisters needed that prayer book, she would give it to her in a heartbeat.

Her discussion of poverty and ownership reminded me of knowledge--in a sense, it isn't really mine. It was entrusted to me by someone else, and I'm only using it, until I pass it off to future students. In a sense that which I'm learning about now is only "for the use of Jen" until such time that it's time for me to give it away to someone else.

In another blog, I found this post. Now I don't doubt that some cloning as composition teaching went on in generations before me, but I've never personally experienced it. I've never felt pressured into adopting one style over another. If a teacher played another person's music for me, it was because the piece was interesting or that it was something the teacher wanted to share, not because it was something I should emulate. Perhaps the piece represented a possible solution to a problem I had in a piece. Maybe it was just something cool. Most of my teachers have been pretty quiet on the subject of their own music--which in retrospect is a shame because I can't think of a teacher I've had who doesn't write good music.

I was warned when I was applying for my doctorate that it would ruin me, that I'd not encounter good music, and that those who get doctorates aren't good composers. The first three haven't been true, and as to the last one, I know plenty of people who write horrible music and don't have a last bit of alphabet soup after their names. I think that's the one, great equalizer of academics and non-academics--we all write bad music now and then.

I think my teachers have all instinctively embodied Sr. Julie's understanding of poverty--that the knowledge we have isn't really ours, and should be willingly given up to those who need it. Our knowledge is a gift, and to pass it on is the greatest tribute we could possibly give to those who gave it to us in the first place. Maybe those who worry about the loss of a voice or creativity never really had it in the first place.

I'm still alive. I haven't had much to say, and haven't felt like blogging lately, mostly having to do with the sheer nastiness that exists with respect to blogs with a religious slant. I'm flying back tomorrow, and wishing the Hoopy Frood could come with. But at 6'1", he's not fitting under the seat or in the overhead bin. So in lieu of actual content, here's a few links:

KUOW program, "The Conversation" on panhandling downtown. I posted my thoughts on it over at Cascadia Catholics.

Here's an article on J. Neville Ward, a Methodist minister who wrote a really interesting book on the rosary. It's definitely kind of weird, but I like it. Right now, it's probably my favorite book on the subject. .