December 24th, 2012, 11:31 pm

I have been privy to ponder as of late. And ponder is indeed a verb apropos to times like these. As my mind thinks on the events of life that have led up to now, I have found myself nothing but grateful. I am a lucky one indeed. God has showered me with gifts: loving parents (including soon-to-be-in-laws, joyful Christmases, an incredible bride (8 days!). I have also marveled at the incredible way lives are weaved together on this earth.

The winds are changing, and the sails are being stretched to new heights and angles. This is a good thing. Amidst it all I am reminded that we exist for a very simple reason, and that by God's grace we were given the power to do it.

Sure, this might have been a pagan holiday assimilated by the Catholic Church to "convert" non-Christians, but I'll never put down remembering as a bad thing.

Merry Christmas!

Improvements

I've updated my sidebar! Take a gander.

Encouragement

It's such an incredible thing to find myself now doing what little I can to help others through the inevitable should-I-really-be-studying-this crisis that I so recently journeyed through (with the help of others too). I really am so glad that I struggled (and still continue to struggle sometimes) with my decision to immerse myself in the study of music for my baccalaureate degree. I have been forced to really understand myself and my volition, for living an apathetic lie is waste of time.

And so I encourage you, too, to wrestle. Wrestle with your mind. Wrestle with your soul. Wrestle with God. Through the strife and strain you will come to understand yourself as a human, and you will find yourself humbled, which is the only thing humans should be. You will be forced to defend yourself, you will be forced to know your weakness (and you will be forced to come to the disheartening conclusion that we often waste precious energy defending parts of ourselves that really should be done away with), and you will be forced to feel your opponent, knowing your opponent as well as yourself (for often your opponent is yourself). You will understand what is truly important, and the things which are stronger will dominate the things that are weaker. You will find yourself pruned. And like a vine after winter, you will bloom stronger and sturdier than before come summer.

Take heart, for it is in the crucible that the measurements are drawn, and the contents are purified. And do not avoid the crucible for the sake of ease and comfort. For living an apathetic lie is a waste of time. Once you understand yourself, you will finally be able to release yourself for the sake of others, and that's where the real work begins.

Pathways

Yesterday saw the first reading of the music for P's and my video on Creation. Composing is fun, and in it I'm learning that I really am nothing but an amateur. And it's such a humbling event for somebody else to read your composition.

I read articles like this. And think about composers such as this (woops, rather this I suppose, though the previous probably still composes better than I), and I realize just how much I have to learn. I'll keep learning, don't you worry, I just wonder sometimes if I'm studying hard enough.

I'll just keep swimming...or walking...or, for me, marching probably...

Ah, yes. I'm a piano performance major now. And also still a music education major. Herein is the proof of my sado-masochism.

Thanklitude

My thoughts are tangling into a sticky mess in my head. It's time I straighten them out (and not here). Once upon a time I journaled...

Posts are far and few in between on this blog, and not necessarily because I want them to be (though we are better defined by our actions instead of our words), but because I am so overwhelmed that I don't know where to begin. It's the same feeling as looking at a blank sheet of staff paper and writing whatever I want for whatever ensemble I want.

Impossible. We need guidelines. Like children.

And so, two days will find us in the American national holiday of Thanksgiving. I've been meditating on thankfulness lately and have found myself overcome with so much...stuff. In community groups we just finished the final T in APTAT, which is (you guessed it) "thank." And I've been given so many things in the past few months in relation to my upcoming nuptials, my upcoming thesis, my upcoming senior recital, and my upcoming "next chapter" of my life (and graduation is visible on the horizon too).  I am only humbled.

I don't think of myself as someone who has much to offer (an ironic statement for somebody who keeps a blog). And I am certainly changing my mind in that I know anything about anything. It seems the further along I move in my studies, the more I realize that I have no knowledge at all about anything. At least, nothing in comparison to what it is I need to learn. The world is such a big place. And that's just the world. I quote E. E. Cummings, "There's a hell of a universe next door. Let's go."

And so I am incredibly thankful. I am thankful with a weight that puts me on my knees, and I fall on my knees knowing that's where I belong. Grace rains. Grace reigns. Sure the semester is stressful, and one could nearly calculate my stress in proportion to the length between posts, but it really fades into oblivion when I consider how much has been given to me.

I mean, for goodness sake, I'm posting ramblings on the internet. These are the things that move me to tears.

The Schumanns

Clara played,
all day long,
all of Robert's finest songs.

/from pg. 28 of The Music Tree

Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow

Patience

"I will pray for God's patience to be placed in my heart. A patience that only comes from a God who deals with unbelief in Him, and who works patiently in believers who choose to disobey."

God has forgiven the sins I have committed, am committing, and will commit. What a mind-blowing thought. I also pray that will bow my knee in the obedience of faith to Christ, that I will no longer disobey. That my love for Him will be made known in my obedience. That I will grow and mature in my faith in Him, that He will make His glory known in me for others, and that nobody will see how "good" I am (for I am not), but that others will see how good He is.

God, save the lost. Save them for your glory. Bring comfort to those who need it so desperately. Teach me how to better love others.

Humming of Myself...

No, I haven't forgotten about my blog. Often I open a blank post with the intent of filling it...but I always just end up closing my computer in frustration. I refuse to do that this time. So sorry if this is nonsense, just know that others deal with writer's block too. It seems mine has lasted for nearly four years now.

But hey, I'm ripping all of Shostakovich's string quartets into my iTunes library right now, so at least I'll  have plenty to listen to. He's a composer I haven't listened to enough.

"But God remembered Noah..."
This quote speaks down to me from above my computer. He gently reminds me that He remembers me (and you) too. I can't imagine what it feels like to feel forgotten in the middle of the ocean.

With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums.

I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?

I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

I beat and pound for the dead.

I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

Vivas to those who have fail'd!

And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!

And to those themselves who sank in the sea!

And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!

And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!

/Walt Whitman

Oncoming

How blessed I am. I literally sitting in Denver, CO operating as a functioning member of an opera company for a week. In fact, I am the orchestra. And it's going really well. And it's loads of fun. And I'm growing exponentially as a musician/pianist.

Something still nags at me though. Maybe its the oncoming semester, looming closer than I understand.  Maybe it's the upcoming performance later this week. Maybe there's just too much caffeine running through my veins right now. But I am anxious and I'm not exactly sure why.

I do know this:

I miss my church.

I miss my family.

I guess this is homesickness? The thing I'm realizing is that here in Denver I am a traveler, passing through with my trade. I hope I'm making a difference. It's easier to make a difference in the place where people know you, where you affect your relationships, where I have the foundation from which to spring into the work God has set up for me. I think I'm just struggling to see it here (well, no I'm not. Right now I'm a pianist).

Maybe its the unclear future of the oncoming semester. I feel like I'm not progressing forward (in what, you ask? Anything, I say) quickly enough. Kind of like when you were a kid, running through black mud that caked up on your shoes with every step. I feel like there's so much work to be done, yet there is so little that I know about anything.

I press into the Lord, pleading for His will to be channeled through my life. I'm terrified sometimes that I'm wasting everything. How difficult wise discernment is. I pray for wisdom too.

Milestone

What intrepid times these are! I'm so looking forward to what we will accomplish together in the coming life. The possibilities are so very rich when I contemplate us together!

I've been Wordled!

That sounds funny, but I think you look funny. It comes from my philosophy of music education paper.

Limits...

I have recently found teachings on the perception of biocentrism. Unfortunately for you and me at this moment, this concept is incredibly complex and I've only been able to dabble my toes into its murky pool. BUT...I think there's something to be said here and now.

It makes sense AT LEAST that reality is uniquely individual, i.e. that our minds work like CD players. Information comes in, our minds read it and organize it, then they output it into our consciousnesses like a picture show. In such, the objectivity of the "physical" realm becomes much more suspect, and our only real consistency is found in matching up our individual picture shows with others'. Now beyond this is where Dr. Lanza and I have some more reckoning to do, but this is enough information to take me to the next paragraph.

As you either know or are about to know, I strive to call myself a musician, and hopefully one day a teacher of musicians (whether or not I'll actually be teaching traditional music or not is still up in the air). But if we consider the unique perceptions of the individuals' realities, there is a shift in our western musical paradigm to consider.

Consider the sonata form (made famous by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven):
Exposition, Development, Recapitulation

Essentially, for the modern mind:
Input, Process, Output

BAM! Music just became incredibly relevant (and I'll bam you again for any other case you wish to find the relevance of music). Expression is how we figure out our perception of the goings-on around us. [Cue the visual, dramatic, and musical arts with regal fanfare.] Creative interpretation of the world around us IS OUR REALITY. Artists don't live in the clouds; they live in their minds. And we're ALL artists, whether you want to be or not, for art is the only way we can perceive reality.

There's so much more to be thought out and said here, but I had to get this out before I lost it. It's midnight, and I'm buzzing. At least I'm awake with purpose though.

Cum Timore

Three passions have governed my life:  

The longings for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

/Bertrand Russell (adapted)

Here a man, with a mind as bright as the stars, and a soul as dark as the space between them. Not evil (at least by human standards), just without light (which is written to be synonymous with evil). And yet, him and I often feel the same.

Over and over again I am faced with the question: what am I doing with my life? Sometimes my answer is the most frightening thing I have ever experienced, because apathy is a dirty, dirty mentality.

And then similarly, my prayer to the Father to change my heart and mind and raise it from the mud of laziness makes my heart race in fear. That must be my fleshly self trying to get away with living in ignorance of the universe. I pray that fear will too be killed within me.

The only fear Christ ever experienced was the time of His separation from His Father. And for good reason! Hell is a rightfully dreaded abyss toward which no one should feel complacency. I pray that God will too instill the same insight (I think we call it wisdom, and the apostles called it sanctification) into my soul, spurring me toward action against inaction, driving me forward with the same intensity that burned within the chest of Jesus Christ.

Amen

8. We would like to see a serious examination of the deception and seductive power of advertising in terms of its role in fostering envy, consumerism, and false gods. 

/"Deliver Us from Evil--Consultation Statement," under the heading "Frontiers that Need Ongoing Exploration, http://www.lausanne.org/en/documents/all/ nairobi-2000/179-overview.html
 

O Church Arise

Our call to war, to love the captive soul,
But to rage against the captor;
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole 
We will fight with faith and valor.
When faced with trials on ev'ry side,
We know the outcome is secure,
And Christ will have the prize for which He died—

An inheritance of nations 

/"O Church Arise," Keith and Kristyn Getty

It is a difficult thing to pray that Father put me in a situation where I have no other option than to tremble and proclaim Christ and Him crucified. I have so much growing to do...

The Conductor's Credo

Music lives only when the notes fly off the page and soar into glorious sound. The performer, the conductor, releases them from bondage through his or her feeling for the message, through the power of the imagination, and by means of the physical technique one devotedly acquires. We build technique only to ensure that our music can achieve its unforgettable moments, evanescent as they are, before once more returning to its prison of impatient silence. The most profoundly inspiring performances o a lifetime were those where the performer's technique was so superb that we forgot it existed. Music spoke its own language in its own way, uninfluenced by human frailty.

~Elizabeth Green, The Modern Conductor

While I was sitting one night with a poet friend watching a great opera performed in a tent under arc lights, the poet took my arm and pointed silently. Far up, blundering out of the night, a huge Cecropia moth swept past from light to light over the posturings of the actors. "He doesn't know," my friend whispered excitedly. "He's passing through an alien universe brightly lit but invisible to him. He's in another play; he doesn't see us. He doesn't know. Maybe it's happening right now to us."

~Loren Eisely

3 Incredible Music Things Happened This Week

Monday
I was given the opportunity to conduct Ron Nelson's Courtly Airs and Dances with the university's premiere wind ensemble. Of course, with such good players, I couldn't really mess up--it's like driving those antique cars at Six Flags. Unlike those cars, though, this is like driving a new Ferrari. It handles great, and it's incredibly fun to drive. Conducting is a ton of fun, and my professor said I have the chops to continue if I wish (I'm only a first grader right now, and since our university doesn't like to let us learn (something about an economy or whatever; that's why I'm a music major, not a money major), the traditional classes stop here). More than anything, though, is that I was leading a group of incredible musicians in the art of making music. How humbling is that? I'll tell you. Stoopid humbling. And a ton of fun.

Wednesday
My score to "Mabul" (P and my second installment in our Believe It Anyway series) was read by a saxophone quintet here in the department. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME ANYBODY ELSE HAS READ MY MUSIC. Ever. And I got to conduct them. Wait, two chances to conduct in one week? What kind of program is this? Where's the macro-economics of music making class? Anyway, I was prodigiously (yes, I used a thesaurus, and yes, I love the movie October Sky) overwhelmed. The musicians themselves were incredible, and they played some probably-too-hard-parts very well for a quick sight-reading session. And the saxophone professor himself read the soprano part that has a high B held for too long. And he held it longer than I could have ever conceived. When we finally finished the last note, the atmosphere of the room was something I've never breathed before, and I'm hooked. How humbling is that? Stoopid humbling. And a ton of fun.

Friday
My jazz combo had our first big public performance in the town (we've performed plenty in other towns, but you know how it goes with your own town). However, the performance was a huge success. Picture a restaurant full of people (many of them your best friends), all of them hooked on what they're hearing. And what are they hearing? Jazz. Jazz! Who would have ever thought people in 2012 could be dancing and cheering for jazz! We played for two hours, and afterward my fingers fell off and the vibe player's knuckles busted in half. It was definitely the best gig we've ever played, if only because everybody was actually listening. Jazz isn't only for the background of an important conversation. So many people there listening to us play our hearts out. How humbling is that? Stoopid humbling. And a ton of fun.


Incredible week, and none of it because of me. How humbling is that? Stoopid humbling. And a ton of fun.

No Wonder I Never Sleep

I stay up too late getting my mind blown by things like this and enjoying it nearly as much as this guy.

Chant

||: Dew drops drip down, down into the dark :||

||: The bees buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz around my brain :||

||: Whish, goes the wind as it whisps around the bend :||

The world grew dark, and dark, and dark

on command of the enveloping twilight.

Lengthening shadows chased me well,

trying to touch me whilst in my flight.

The noise grows louder, a messy crescendo

growing heavy on my eardrum, lead

slowly settling onto my brain

as each thought vied for attention inside my head.

I turn up the radio, hoping, pleading

that it would quell the images, vivid;

my heart broken, blood and love spilling out.

Those things that made me livid:

Pain, and incompetence, terror, and apathy.

Serpents hissing behind self-made shields

of grass and fig leaves. “Where is your brother?”

“I left him in the fields.”

My heart aches in cowardice,

restrained by fear, and ambition,

growing colder and musty,

rank in its own detention.

That’s why I spill it. I want to know it’s still warm,

still wet, still beating.

“Teach me how to love!”

My cries become pleading.

The gregorian chant drones upward

from the engine, hot metal.

And despair closes in, hot and sticky;

I sink my shaking foot straight into the pedal.

The world is dark, and dark, and dark

by command of my twilight.

My shadows chase me well,

reaching out through my flight.

And in my despair, I finally remembered

that I am a human, susceptible to stings,

and wind, and water, life and death,

and the blessing of dreams.

I’m so small, and so not in control,

my car groaning against the force of my will.

There’s something bigger happening here.

There has to be.

A Little Weak-Kneed

‎These saints greet relief from their sufferings, when wrongs have been righted, with deep emotion....These saints are not stoic but are robust and authentic in expressing their emotions. It is a sign of their strength, not weakness. ~Bruce Waltke, on the reunion of Joseph and his father in Egypt

Because anything that presses you into the Lord will take you into the refuge of His strength.

I Like Studying Music, Part III

I Like Studying Music, Part II

I Like Studying Music

Too bad I'm a music major.

Well, maybe it's better said that too bad I'm a music education major with an emphasis in secondary instrumental education...in Texas. Which means I spend my time studying ensemble (band) techniques, budgets, marching band, and marching band.

I will post soon as to why I think marching band (at least marching band in the sense that Texas observes it) is leeching away the already osteoporotic music education system. But for now, I have the threat of test to battle over classroom management (sorry; I meant band hall management, which isn't a bad thing, but it's not the Bartok quartets I've been trying to get at for a year now).

Summer, come, but juries, stay away.

Black Angels

Creepy stuff. Brilliant composition.

My heart aches and breaks for the people of this world. I want so badly for everybody to know joy.

We love the word "beautiful"

because it's impossible to say it without getting emotional.

~These guys are good

Conundrum

Since I was small one of the main motivating phrases in the public school (especially in the study of music) was that if I don't do my job [well] there were at least three or four people waiting and wanting to do it for me. Especially as we begin to deal with large music programs in which three or even four ensembles of the same medium (choir, band, orchestra, etc.) operate simultaneously this phrase becomes the norm. Even if it's not spoken, it's understood. Do your job well (actually, better than well, because anybody can do a job well), or be replaced.

What a destructive motto.

If every individual is unique, doesn't every individual have something unique to offer? Why is our accepted motivation so negative and incredibly stressful? We reach problems, of course. Some people need stronger motivation than others. But what about a motivation that appeals to the unique contribution of each member? Let's talk music (because this is what I know). Every good ensemble will be characteristic from each other. If an ensemble is a collective whole, and each ensemble is made up of unique individuals working together, then each ensemble should be a unique entity. So the Chicago Symphony has a different sound/interpretation/etc. than the New York Philharmonic. This doesn't make either one of them wrong; rather it makes them musically interesting.

Similarly, high school and college (even younger) ensembles should have their distinct personalities, guided and crafted by a caring conductor. How do we motivate students? By revealing their potential. Johnny has something unique to offer the ensemble from Sally, and both contribute specifically and necessarily. We inspire them to develop their gifts (talent is a conversation for later; for now, a gift is education, hard work, and passion) so that they can contribute the absolute best they can to create an ensemble that is truly special. Telling them that they need to do well or be replaced by somebody who cares more than they do does nothing more than stress them out as they try to fit themselves into some sort of imaginary and impossible ideal. The greats should be an inspiration, not a mold to be fitted into.

The questions about competition are difficult ones to answer. Certainly competition has its merits and its place. However, there is a price that is too high, and I think that price is often called for at the expense of too many young musicians.

By the way, listen to this.

This is Cool

My first orchestration project. I could make a living out of this I think (or, at least, I could enjoy one).

On Teaching Music in Schools

So it is a tad long, at least for a blog post; but I thought it might be an interesting share. I hope it helps you understand music (or at least how I understand it) a little bit better. I thank God for the gift of letting me teach it everyday.

"When a child is producing music by playing or singing, either alone or in a group, and when his technique is being used in the service of producing sounds expressively his understanding of the musical content of the piece he is performing can be very strong and very immediate."

"The laboratory-like atmosphere of a performing group, in which the living stuff of music is right there to be handled, to be examined, to be manipulated, to be shared, is so educationally rich that it can be considered the best example of what meaningful education can be."

/Bennett Reimer

"Art is the result of man's need to transform his experience symbolically."

"The only sound basis for music education is the development of the natural responsiveness that all human beings posses."

/Charles Leonhard and Robert. W. House

The study of music is an ancient endeavor, and its study has been an academic matter since the evolution of Western academics. Wherever humans are found, there music will also be found, and the study of our musics is a study of ourselves. In this digital and global age, music is at its most accessible and cheapest peak it has ever experienced, and yet very few really understand its ubiquity. This is the purpose of the music educator, to seek understanding in music through its function, machinations, importance, and contribution to and in the human life, then share these discoveries with others.

What is music? This is the question that many have tried to answer, and the question that plagues many floundering music programs in the schools today. An acceptable answer must be sought to this question before any amount of real music teaching can be had, though I am not personally certain that one's answer to this question will remain static throughout his or her lifetime. If music is a reflection of life, then our understanding of it will too grow as we come to experience more and more of the human condition. However, some things can be readily understood about music at the start of the journey. The ancient Greeks included mousikos as part of their classical quadrivium directly from their observation of the world around them. They observed the stars above them, moving in perfect harmony with each other; they called this the music of the spheres. They observed the rhythm of the body, the pulse of the heart, and the activity of the emotions, and they called this the music of the soul. Of course, to them this was not music in our sense of the word "music." To them there was a life-thread that bound the world together in harmony and dissonance, and it vibrated vibrantly wherever humans cared to look for it. This was the design of the world. This was music. What we played on instruments and sang with our voices was our aural interpretation of this vibrant life-thread.

When we listen to Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony, or Davis's "Kind of Blue," or Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" we are listening to an interpretation of some facet of life. This is what we term the aesthetic experience of music. All art (all expression) is some sort of aesthetic rendering of someone's viewpoint of the world (that is, the sensory experience, though the aesthetic term includes also the sense of the intellect). The visual arts appeal to the eyes and the heart and mind, the aural arts appeal to the ears and the heart and mind, and then there are those arts that appeal to all three, and then to the performers, touch (and even smell and taste) can find its appeal. So music is that which appeals to the ears, and thus through the ears to the heart and the mind (it is the sense of the heart and mind we term interpretation).

And thus the study of music is the study of the world. However, in teaching music, we also have the gift of studying performance, interpretation, and thus creativity. It is one thing to hear a great piece of music, it is another to understand it, and it is yet one more thing to create it. In music education, we strive to open the minds of our students to the world of creative thinking. This is the goal of performance in music education, and it is only through performance this last part of music can be taught. The teaching of performance is thus two-fold: first, we must teach our students how to unlock the instrument, then we must teach them then to unlock the music with the instrument (this includes the voice as an instrument). We must include both aspects of teaching in performance education if the student is to learn fully the art of music, especially as the students' journey with us as the teachers will find its end, and the student will be left to continue the journey on his or her own. Our responsibility is to set that journey up for success.

The final level of creative interpretation to be sought after and refined (for we never fully achieve any level of musical understanding) is that of original creativity. To write music, and especially to create it spontaneously (improvisation), is something every musician should constantly practice. At this stage the musician is finally aesthetically interpreting his or her immediate world, and is refining his or her understanding of it by giving it musical meaning. This does not mean the composer has a full grasp of the meaning of life, but it does mean the composer knows how it feels to grasp at the meaning of life. As music educators, our job is to help our students figure out how to find this destination on their musical journeys (even though we have not quite made it either; we have just moved farther along). This final part of musical understanding can only be fully realized in performance.

We can teach our students how to become great musicians only by providing them with the best music, for this will be their model in understanding. If we give them poor music, they will have a poor and shallow understanding of aesthetic interpretation; if we give them great music, they have the opportunity to develop a deep and rich understanding of aesthetic interpretation. Even in teaching beginners, we must not forsake the quality of the music. A good piece of music is one that is shallow enough for toddlers to wade in, yet at the same time deep enough for elephants to bathe in. A good piece of music will continue to demand thoughtful questions and provide thoughtful answers for the musician among multiple stages of growth. This is easier to achieve in an academic study of music (there is, in fact, no excuse for the study of poor music in an academic setting), but it is also not impossible at the elementary performing level. Creative interpretation must be taught from the very beginning.

Additionally, the music used in education should be as diverse as the humans who use music. To only experience one type of music is to only listen to one people group of the world, and since education is the liberation of students' minds, this approach is criminal. If we are to teach our students how interpret their experiences of life, we must give them the interpretations of others life experiences, and our Earth is larger than the West. Musics of all ethnicities, cultures, modes, and theoretical systems must be taught in the classroom, and if possible, students should also have the opportunity to properly perform them. After all, a music is a reflection of an individual, and an individual is a product of a culture, so to offer these different musics to our students is teach them humanity in an entirely creative and aesthetic way that is unavailable to any other academic discipline.

The wind band has its place in the school curriculum, just as the choir, the orchestra, jazz, and the piano programs do. Of course, with smaller districts with less money, decisions might have to be made as to which ensembles will be capable of being sustained, but the band is hugely important to the American school. The town band has been a long-time American tradition, beginning with the inception of this country. It has become an expectation for any respectable town, and the modern century has seen the town bands move into the schools. While serving as an educational medium for the practical study of music, it also serves as a servant to the community, providing music where it is needed. The band is easily accessible to most students, as most students will be able to find his or her niche within this ensemble. The importance for a plurality of musical ensembles is noticed when those students are found without a niche in the band, for every person has a niche in music, for every person is a musician.

As for the extra-musical effects of music education and performance education, they are valuable and well-known. However, they are not a sound basis for this discussion of music education, and so will not be further discussed. The focus of this discussion has been musical, and a proper justification of music in the academic curriculum should and can be found therein. The study of music is the study of our experience of life, it is a study in the design and function of this world, and in thus it finds its natural justification. Any educator with his or her salt will understand and heed this value.

© Christopher Ramos 2012

Reflection, James 1:1-5

Count it joy, brothers and sisters.
Count it all, the meadows and the bogs,
the jogs through sun, rain, and pollen,
the laughter, and then the frogs

stuck in your throat because of the pain.

Count it joy, brothers and sisters.
Why? Because you're a Christian.
You hail from a legacy of martyrs,
and the glory of God is your mission,

the mission of the ages, nothing to be taken lightly.

Because when you're tried,
when you're placed very carefully into the crucible
of trial, the heat burns intensely, and the walls expand,
and you are purified, strengthened, made durable

under the pain, under the joy of a broken body redeemed.

This is the calling, that affliction
introduces a man to himself, and that for His purpose
of sanctity (though some call it insanity)
we find our strength outside of ourselves, in the poise

of the One who drew the boundaries of the Earth.

When you bruise a flower,
it rewards you with its perfume.
This is the joy of the saints, an unshakeable gift
we need only to ask for, to only presume

that the God of love is giving, and is working all for good.

What an idea, that the most evil of powers
is even unable to design the trials of steadfastness!
That such tests, designed by the perfect designer,
are the means of SANCTIFICATION, REDEMPTION, and MADNESS

for the GLORY OF OUR SAVIOR, our BRIDEGROOM of ETERNITY!

This is love; this is glory; this is perfect;
created by our Father in heaven.
Run well the race of your life,
run it with endurance, straight into the haven

of our Father's steady arms.

Run through the meadows, through the dark forests,
across the snow-capped peaks, and across the valley of dry bones.
Run it with the confidence in a Savior who is so capable
to catch you when you stumble over the stones

who will never forsake you

because you are His child.
And even those stones shout in exultation
for the GLORY of He who is redeeming them,
redeeming us, this broken nation.

We must only ask for Christ, Christ, Christ.

Messiah, Immanuel, Counselor, King.

H is Much Better at Designing Things than I Am

Seeing Red

I probably eavesdrop too much, but I just find people so interesting, and when I'm sitting by myself drinking coffee to keep myself awake for the road, I have little else to do. Some people might call me a stalker, but at least I'm not trying to find these conversees on Facebook...

A daughter, her mother, and her stepmother sit at the adjacent table, each drinking coffee, except for the little girl, who's drinking something sweeter and without caffeine, like any child should at that age (where did the lemonaid stands go?). All of a sudden, my heart curls up when I realize they are discussing divorce with the ten-year-old girl. I don't know anything about their situation, but I know that no matter what, I'm on the daughter's side (ha, as if it is my place to take sides in a stranger's business). I guess I'm no better than a sports fan, spectating, rooting, but nonetheless at the mercy of somebody else's fate.

What can a ten-year-old understand about divorce? When I was ten, it was just my life; I didn't know anything else than living with my mother and step-father (two wonderful parents by the way), and then visiting my father and step-mother (also two wonderful parents by the way) every other weekend and holiday. I feel the pain of this girl as the parents desperately try to explain the repercussions of her pending decision to live with her father, scaring her with court stories, pleading with her with their logic, and bribing her with promises, and the tears slowly start to run down her face as the information wells up in her brain, overloading it, crashing it. She talks coherently underneath the tears, replying only as children know how to reply in the face of an onslaught from their parents, probably only seeing in shades of red, her system needing a reboot before she can begin to understand (or at least begin trying to understand) things again. That's an awful place to sit as a child, especially in public, away from any comfort of a home or a friendly dog (because dogs too have only the comprehensive ability to understand love and little else).

They get up to leave and the step-father says the closest thing to truth yet, seeing the little girl scarcely able to walk from the overload, "Don't worry. It will all be okay. It's all going to turn out fine."

That is true, precious little girl, everything will turn out the way it is meant to, and you will be fine. You will grow up and one day you'll better understand, and it won't be as scary or overbearing, and the stress will lighten, and you'll look more toward your future than toward your parents' past. 

I will gladly and enthusiastically be the first to say I have been blessed in my parents' divorce, and it has turned out the way it needed to, and for the better I think. Nonetheless...divorce is awful.