More pipe organ music! This one is definitely more loud and dramatic than my previous recordings. Listen for the familiar hymn tune “A Mighty Fortress” thundering along in the pedal as Reger weaves ridiculous harmonies around it in the manuals. :-)
I’m pretty happy with the recording, but it’s really nothing compared to hearing/feeling the torrent of sound that pipe organ produces in person!
Yay, Thanksgiving! Things were on a bit smaller scale this year, but still most excellent. I’d write up a summary, but the Hutch News already put one on the front page. (Big photo above the fold and everything!) They called about doing a story on us, so my Dad invited them over for our big Thanksgiving lunch, and we made them a part of the family while they were there. :-)
The LETU guest list: Fjord, Grey, Glyph, Kick, Erin, Jenna, Hopps, Paco, and Liz.
Last week, Rebecca asked me if I’d heard the new Arcade Fire album, The Suburbs. My reply ended up being more or less a full review, so here are my thoughts on the album:
It’s pretty great, but at this point, I wouldn’t rank it as high as their previous two albums. While they maintain their trademark epic soundscape, the music itself doesn’t sound quite as epic to me. “Neon Bible” has several multi-part songs and lots of cool things with harmonies, counter-melodies, time signature changes, creative instrumentation (boys choir, mens choir, pipe organ(!), bells, etc.), and dark lyrics reflecting on such weighty topics as postmodernism and theology.
On the other hand, the topic at hand in the album–the suburbs–doesn’t really lend itself to those kinds things. Do you really need a pipe organ and a boys choir to bemoan the fact that the house you grew up in looked like all the other ones on your block? Besides, their instrumentation does evoke a bit of a 90s vibe, which makes sense given that Win and Regine are in their early 30s.
And the album certainly has its moments. Who would have thought endlessly repeating the word “rococo” would be so interesting? There’s also the always-eloquent biting cultural commentary: “They heard me singing and they told me to stop. Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock” (Sprawl II [Mountains Beyond Mountains]) and “In line for a number, but you don’t understand. Like a modern man” (Modern Man). And I particularly enjoyed “We Used to Wait,” their lament over the transience of modern communication and our obsession with instant gratification.
So should you buy it? Yes. But also get “Neon Bible” and “Funeral.” :-)
I adopted her from from the friendly folks at Humanimal Connection a few weeks ago. It’s nice to finally have a cat. Even if she does think play time comes well before my alarm clock goes off…
The best part is that I didn’t even make up her name. It came from her previous owners. Clearly it was meant to be.
Just like everyone else, I like to think that I’m immune to advertising’s influence. But that’s not really the case. The other day, Gmail figured out that I’m interested in music and decided to show me an ad for Musician’s Dice. Those sounded pretty novel, so I decided to take a look. Next thing I knew, I was ordering a copy of Muzundrum, a sort of musical Scrabble/crossword puzzle board game that is played with the Musician’s Dice.
I had a chance to play a few games while visiting my family in Kansas, and I think it’s a pretty great game. Players take turns rolling one of the 12-sided (one side for each note in the chromatic scale) dice and then try to place that die on the board in a way that adds to a scale or a triad. To keep things from getting too complicated, only major scales are allowed and triads must be either major, minor, or diminished. If that’s too simple, they also have a master’s version of the game.
I’ve played only three rounds (and won one!) so far, and I’m still using the cheat sheet quite a bit. But, as I hoped, it has helped improve my understanding of music theory.
Nathan (who is a full-time music minister and really knows his music theory) and Abu (who isn’t half bad at music theory either) were able to be in town one evening, and we all played a game with Grey (who claims not to know music theory, but has successfully applied his mathematical superpowers to the game). We probably spent more time talking about music theory and fiddling around on the piano than we did actually playing the game. It was great! Nathan won. :-)
If you happen to get a copy of the game (or come visit me!), here are the important bits of music theory you’ll need to know. Major scales are made up of whole steps and half steps in this pattern: WWHWWWH. Or, you can think of it as two identical tetrachords separated by a whole step: WWH-W-WWH (thank you, Wikipedia). Major triads are made up of a major third (the second note is two whole steps above the first) and a minor third (the second note is one whole step and one half step above the first). Minor triads are the opposite: a minor third followed by a major third. Diminished triads are made of two minor triads.
I’d learned all that stuff at some point, but playing the game and talking through it all really helped solidify it in my mind.
One potential gripe I have with the game is that there seems to be very little strategy involved. You never know what note you’ll get on your next roll, so there’s usually not much point in planning ahead; just find the best place to put the note you just rolled. For now, just trying to find that best place is sufficiently challenging to keep me interested, but I can see how it might get less interesting once I get better.
I haven’t tried it yet, but it might be fun to try pre-rolling some number of dice for each player and keeping them secret. This could make Scrabble-like strategizing possible. Or, maybe once I get bored with the standard gameplay, I could just move up to the master level.
Anyway, it’s a cool game. You should come visit me so we can play a round!
Last weekend was my final weekend in Maryland before moving to California to start my shiny new job (which starts on tomorrow!). So, my totally awesome friends put together a non-stop four-day-long party which Jared titled “Fjord’s Last Stand.” Luckily, things worked out better for me than for Custer.
Friday
The weekend began with an all-you-can-eat crab extravaganza at a little seafood place that Jared found. Zerg had never had crabs before, and I’d only had them once, so we definitely had to experience a true Maryland crab dinner before I left. It was pretty great. The all-you-can-eat aspect certainly made it less stressful–we didn’t have to be worried about extracting all possible meat from every crab.
Then we went back to the Osborn’s (who graciously let me sleep on their couch because I had already vacated my apartment) and watched the last two episodes of Chuck. Zerg and I had watched all the rest of the season while we were still roommates, so it seemed fitting to finish it off at the party. The season had a great finale, but I really wish they would have just ended the show instead of adding another crazy twist at the last moment.
Saturday
The next morning, we got up early and headed to Philadelphia to see (and hear) THE LARGEST PIPE ORGAN IN THE WORLD! Woo! Oddly enough, it’s not in a church or a concert hall, but a Macy’s department store. The Wanamaker Organ did not disappoint. The sound wasn’t overwhelming loud, but amazingly rich, warm, complex, diverse, and yes, powerful. I highly recommend a visit. In addition to a fantastic concert by Peter Conte himself, we also got to go on a tour of the organ.
But, best of all, I got to sit at the console! More photos of the tour and the console are in the gallery.
We also got to see the Liberty Bell, visited a couple yarn shops, and ate at Pat’s, home of the original Philly Cheese Steak. Those were all great, but obviously my favorite was the organ. :-)
Sunday
On Sunday, we had a special outdoor church service under a big tent for the Bishop’s visit. It was actually pretty neat, and we had great weather for it. St. Tim’s gave me a really amazing going away present: an accompanist’s edition of the 1982 Hymnal and Service Music, signed by everyone on the worship team. I hope I can find a good church that will let me use it on their pipe organ!
After the service, we had a big picnic lunch. And after that, Fr. Terry had the crazy idea that we should have a Young Adults vs. The Vestry rope pull over a mud pit. He had told us we’d be doing this earlier, but we really couldn’t tell if he was joking or not until it actually happened. Unfortunately, most of the young adults had left by that time, but the teens joined in with us in our battle against the vestry. We still lost. And got rather muddy. What a way to finish up my time at St. Tim’s! :-)
Then, we went back to the Osborn’s for an excellent Rock Band session (we played a lot of Rock Band that weekend) and watched Hero and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (the greatest movie ever made, ever).
Monday
Thanks to Memorial Day, most people were off work on Monday, so the party continued! In the morning, we went to Jared’s parents’ place to celebrate his dad’s birthday. Then it was back to the Osborn’s for Make-Your-Own-Sushi Night! We had salmon and shark for the meat and cucumber, carrot, avacado, and scrambled eggs for the, uh, non-meat. We mostly did regular rolls but also a few handrolls and even some sashimi. It was pretty tasty.
Then, in continuing our movie theme, we watched Once (one of Rebecca’s favorite movies). It had some pretty great music and made me want to go start a band or something. Brandon and CC even came over, and I got to play with their cat Diotima.
Conclusion
If you were to make a list of Things Fjord Likes, there wouldn’t be very many things on it that didn’t occur that weekend. Thanks to everyone who made it happen! I shall miss you, my east coast buddies. Thanks for being the awesomest friends anyone could ask for!
Spence flew in Thursday night for our long-awaited Epic Research Party of Awesometude. Remember that Stockade Case thing we obsessively researched for an entire semester back in college and were going to write a book about? Well, it’s going to happen. It turns out that the National Archives in DC has all of the original copies of everything used in the trial, so we’re going to spend the next week researching and writing like crazy.
It’s pretty exciting to handle original documents from the 1860s. We’ve spent countless hours reading about the people involved in this crazy trial, and now we’re able to handle papers that they actually wrote on! Better yet, the things they wrote are pretty nuts. My advice: don’t mess with a Reconstruction-era disenfranchised Texan.
Bonus: we get to use locker #41 every day to store our stuff. :-)
As of today, I’m actually a real organist! Nearly two years ago (April ’08), I started piano lessons with the goal of eventually playing the organ in church. Today, I played Old Hundredth (“Praise God from whom all Blessings Flow”) in church. I used all three manuals of the pipe organ at St. Tim’s, both feet on the pedals, and a pretty full registration. The congregation sang and everything! I made a few minor mistakes, but I kept on playing, and I doubt very many people even noticed.
For Christmas break, I’m back in Kansas with my parents. This last Sunday, I decided to check out the local Episcopal church. I started attending an Episcopal church after college, so I was curious what the one in my hometown was like. Grace Episcopal turned out to be a great little church, and better yet, they’ve got an awesome pipe organ! It’s a little Gabriel Kney tracker organ (entirely mechanical) built in 1989 in Canada. I talked with the rector after the service, and he said I could come by during the week and practice on it if I wanted, so guess where I’ve been the last three afternoons. :-)
It has only 13 stops, but it’s tons of fun to play. It’s small, so I was right next to the pipes and immersed in their sound when playing. And, it’s a tracker organ, so I could literally feel the levers opening the pipes for every note I played.
I’m still trying to figure out a reasonable way to record pipe organ music, so I don’t have any music to post yet, but I’ll get that figured out soon. Next week, it’s back to the much larger pipe organ at St. Tim’s!
First off, have you heard The Decemberists’ latest album, “The Hazards of Love?” If not, drop what you’re doing, go buy it, listen to it at least 3 times on a good sound system, and read the lyrics while you’re listening. No really, do it now. I’ll wait.
…
Wasn’t it awesome?! It’s this crazy epic rock opera about a shape-shifting forest-dweller who falls in love with a lovely young maiden, their trials with the queen of the forest, a murdering rake, and a wild river. The brand brought in two amazing vocalists from other bands to fill the parts of Margaret (the heroine of the story) and the forest queen.
Naturally, when I found out they were coming to the area, I had to go to the concert. So, last night Lucky, Zerg, Brittany, and I made our way down to Richmond, VA for the show.
I need to finish packing for India (leaving in just a few hours!), so I’ll just list some of the highlights: The Queen absolutely rocked, Margaret did an excellent job of staying in character the entire performance, the band has several ridiculously talented multi-instrumentalists (Hammond organ, Nord synth, and glockenspiel all at the same time? Very yes!), and finally, the Decemberists Players taught me that Evel Knievel’s ability to jump 7 cars with his motorcycle was the real reason that the South didn’t successfully succeed from the North during the Civil War. Brilliant.
Hi there. My name is Curtis Hawthorne, but most of my friends call me Fjord.