Notes http://jrbauer.posterous.com My Life Flows On In Endless Song posterous.com Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:06:00 -0800 Gems http://jrbauer.posterous.com/gems-9 http://jrbauer.posterous.com/gems-9

But there are a sort of Saints meet to be your companions, in another manner, but that they be concealed.  You must therefore make yourself exceeding virtuous that by the very splendour of your fame you may find them out.  While the wicked are like heaps of rubbish, these few jewels lie buried in the ruins of mankind: and must diligently be digged for.  You may know them by their lustre, and by the very desire and esteem they have of you when you are virtuous.  For as it is the glory of the sun that darkness cannot approach it, because it is always encompassed with its own beams; so it is the privilege of Holy Souls, that they are always secure in their own light, which driveth away devils and evil men: and is accessible by none, but lovers of virtue.  Beginners and desirers will give you the opportunity of infusing yourself and your principles into them.  Practicers and growers will mingle souls and be delightful companions.  The sublime and perfect, in the lustre of their spirit, will show you the Image of Almighty God and the joys of Heaven.  They will allure, protect, encourage, comfort, teach, honour and delight you.  But you must be very good, for that is the way to find them.  And very patient to endure some time, and very diligent to observe where they are.

Centuries of Meditation 1:82
Thomas Traherne
(1636-1674)

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:49:26 -0700 Oh, Really? http://jrbauer.posterous.com/oh-really-12 http://jrbauer.posterous.com/oh-really-12 In mathematics, many number-theory proofs stipulate "if the Riemann hypothesis holds". The Riemann hypothesis would seem to most non-mathematicians to be a rather esoteric thing, surely not something that supports much of modern mathematics. In very simple lay terms, it states that there is a particular pattern to the way prime numbers are distributed on the number line. Of course, it states this in a much more precise way, in the arcane language of number theory. But that's the gist of it.

Philosophy also has a stipulation, although usually not so clearly stated. It is "objective reality". You don't get far without stipulating objective reality. Of course, there is solipsism, the belief system that says that you are all that exists; that everything is the product of your mind, your imagination. Sure, it is an internally consistent belief system, unassailable. I find it very unsatisfying, and while I recognize it, I don't embrace it. I doubt that it has any true adherents, especially sane ones.

Most of us accept that there exists an objective reality, one each of us perceives, albeit differently. We believe that there is something real, in which we participate. Each of us believes that others consider us to be part of reality, and vice-versa. This is what I mean when I say "objective reality". It is this that I stipulate, usually implicitly, here explicitly.

Each of us is different, and part of that difference is our place within reality. We exist at different locations and times. Further, our senses are different -- we see things differently; feel, smell, hear things differently. Within our separate heads, we construct models of reality, based upon what we sense, so our models are different.

We use language to communicate, and in that communication, we rely upon some commonality between our respective models. As we communicate, those models adapt to each other, and in doing so become more similar. That, essentially, is what the word "communication" means.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:43:00 -0700 She Should Wear Sunscreen http://jrbauer.posterous.com/she-should-wear-sunscreen http://jrbauer.posterous.com/she-should-wear-sunscreen

Karla is a friend, and one of the founders and shining lights of Harpers Hall.

I really don't know how it happens.  At some point I find a new tune playing in my head.  Then I think, "This sounds like Karla." (Or whomever, that's just what happened with this one.)

When I go to write it down, I may make some changes, but the gist of it remains.

KarlaBurns.pdf (43 KB)
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Karlaburns   (995 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:42:00 -0700 Flocking http://jrbauer.posterous.com/flocking-0 http://jrbauer.posterous.com/flocking-0

I found this poem a decade ago, and the "feel" and "shape" of the music grew around it. I finally got around to writing it down, and contacted the author, who kindly gave me permission to use the poem. So, here's "Flocking":

Flocking   (4789 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:34:22 -0700 Not Forever http://jrbauer.posterous.com/not-forever http://jrbauer.posterous.com/not-forever Silence broken by stifled cry
wells tear in sympathetic eye.

 Deep within wherein are kept the secret salves,
retrieve the one, the only one,
that will ease the passing.

 For do dreams daily die, each one
so fragile, yet they butterfly the sun,
and in the hurricane of life are thrown down on the stone ground.

 Zeal sky glows fear upon the hatred earth,
and peace is not.
Chill darks, and ruin-hued clouds frown dismay upon the ashes.

 Dreams that die
mortal and quicken the ashes.

 Do not the ashes call forth?

 Do not the ancient songs flow to now and ever?

 For are there not dreams, yet?

 Wash the bitter from the sympathetic eye.
The dream does not forever die.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:22:33 -0700 Older http://jrbauer.posterous.com/older-14 http://jrbauer.posterous.com/older-14 My older son has a song, as I mentioned in a previous post. This is his song.

JeremysSong.pdf (53 KB)
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Jeremyssong   (948 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:25:00 -0700 More Malone http://jrbauer.posterous.com/more-malone http://jrbauer.posterous.com/more-malone

Leslie lives in Malone, New York. I was introduced to Leslie by Kim (previous post, q.v.) on tha Intarwebs. It seems that Kim was posting in her blog about some of the quirks of Malone (like a third of its population is convicted felons or something like that), and Leslie was with the Malone Chamber of Commerce. Anyway, Kim posted some stuff in the Intertubes and Leslie found it and joined the discussion, in Malone's defense. Soon afterward, Leslie decided to leave the Chamber of Commerce, but we shouldn't go all post hoc, ergo propter hoc about it. Unlike Kim, Leslie does have birthdays, so I gave her this tune for one of them.

LesliesSong.pdf (38 KB)
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Lesliessong   (1291 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:05:45 -0700 Maloney http://jrbauer.posterous.com/maloney http://jrbauer.posterous.com/maloney My internet friend Kim lives in Malone, New York. She keeps a blog at http://thedarwinexception.wordpress.com where she documents her life and the lives of her neighbors. Kim is a champion knitter, often winning prizes at the county fair. She does not have birthdays, so I gave her this song for one of her unbirthdays.

KimsSong.pdf (40 KB)
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Kimssong   (1710 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:01:37 -0700 Bop Bop http://jrbauer.posterous.com/bop-bop http://jrbauer.posterous.com/bop-bop This is the song that came into my head and attached itself to my younger son, Joey. It's been his song since he was a baby, and it remains his song. I don't know how it happens, it just does. "Sapphire Eyes" is Cathy's song, and Jeremy, my oldest son, has a song, too, but I have not ever written it down. I should do that.
 
Anyway, this is Joey's song. It's the "bop-bop" song because when I sing it, the first two phrases go "Bop-bop, bop-bop-e-bop". (The remainder of the lyrics are "da da-da da da da da-da da" and so on.)

BopBop.pdf (52 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:05:36 -0700 Harp Dance http://jrbauer.posterous.com/harp-dance http://jrbauer.posterous.com/harp-dance Each year the harp group I'm in holds a retreat near Pescadero, California. The retreat is just that, a get-away. It is not a conference; there is no schedule, there are no seminars, no classes. There is poor cellphone reception, no television, no internet. It is just a gathering of friends, most of whom play harp. In 2008, I composed this piece while there. The title, while evocative, is just a title.

AndSheDancedInTheMist.pdf (64 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:14:08 -0700 Parabola http://jrbauer.posterous.com/parabola-0 http://jrbauer.posterous.com/parabola-0 In my second-grade classroom, on the windowsill, were plastic models of dinosaurs. These were interesting to me, but not as interesting as the clear plastic models of the regular solids and some other shapes. Of these, one especially captured my interest.
 
It was a clear plastic model of a cone. Intersecting the cone were transparent colored plastic planes. Each plane intersected at a different angle; one orthogonal to the axis, one at an angle less than the angle of the cone, one parallel to the axis, and one at the angle of the cone. Where these planes intersected the cone, they created a circle, ellipse, hyperbola, and parabola, respectively.
 
The whole thing was a complex jewel, in diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire. A beautiful thing, it also appealed to my nascent sense of precision and mathematical relationships. My classmates, budding paleontologists all, thought the dinosaurs were special. I thought the prisms, pyramids, polyhedra, and other geometric sculptures were the best things ever. But that cone was the best of the best.
 
The parabola is a wonderful shape; the path of a thrown ball, the shape of a telescope mirror. The "bola" part of the word is roughly cognate with "ball" -- the Greek word-inventors knew their metaphors. The "para" part means "beside" or "along with", like parallel lines.
 
The word "parable" comes from "parabola". One of the classical rhetorical terms refers to "parabolic speech", which is, of course, metaphoric. From "parable", the Romance languages get words for speaking; French "parler", Spanish "palaver", and such. Language is metaphor. All speech is parable. Come in to my parlor.
 
Words are symbols that represent things. Nouns are names of things; verbs are names of actions. With rare exceptions ("word") words are not the things themselves. It is this relation between the symbol and the thing that makes language what it is. It is the ability to associate meaning with symbols, and then manipulate the symbols, that gives language its power.
 
Jesus spoke in parables, sometimes. The parallel between the meaning of the stories and the application of that meaning to real life is similar to the relationship between words and their referents. We are left with symbols: the cross, the bread and wine, baptism.
 
As real as Jesus was and is, what I most often experience of Him is symbolic. Religious icons, practices, and words comprise much of my experience of Him. Rarely do I experience a feeling of person-to-person being-with.
 
I'm not sure, but I think this is right, at least for me, at least for now. Jesus is a parable, the word became flesh.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:01:41 -0700 Fish Tale http://jrbauer.posterous.com/fish-tale http://jrbauer.posterous.com/fish-tale Saint Brennan the Navigator was a 6th century Irish monk. "The Voyage of Saint Brennan" is a fantastic tale of an odyssey he and a small group of followers took.

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Brendan   (2519 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:39:00 -0700 Not A Composer http://jrbauer.posterous.com/not-a-composer http://jrbauer.posterous.com/not-a-composer

I have a friend who composes music. He says "I'm not a composer; I'm a songwriter." (Yes, he says it with a semicolon.) "What's the difference?", I ask. "A composer gets compared with Bach and Mozart, while a songwriter gets compared to Lennon and Dylan."
 
I'm a composer. For one thing, I don't do lyrics. Oh, I suppose I could, but they don't come easy, the way the music does. So I use other people's words. If that means I'm compared to Bach or Mozart, so be it.
 
So here's a hymn I composed recently. I actually wrote it for lyrics written by an internet friend, but here I've set Christmas lyrics to it. The lyricist here is William Chatterton Dix, who also wrote "What Child is This?" as part of a larger work, "The Manger Throne".

JoyFillsOurInmostHeartsToday.pdf (73 KB)
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Joyfillsourinmostheartstoday   (709 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:26:00 -0700 Timbrel and Dance! http://jrbauer.posterous.com/timbrel-and-dance http://jrbauer.posterous.com/timbrel-and-dance

I upgraded to Sibelius 6 today. (That's my music-writing software.) To try it out, I pulled up a piece I wrote down in 2002 or so (but in my head for decades), and I re-worked it a little.

Psalm150   (1440 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:45:00 -0700 Yclept http://jrbauer.posterous.com/yclept http://jrbauer.posterous.com/yclept

Here is an organ piece I wrote down a couple of years ago.
 
Most of my pieces don't have names, really; I just put titles on them so I can call them something. If they get lyrics, they inherit a name. In my head, each is just "the one that goes like this". So this is "Pie Jesu", because I had to name it.
 
I wrote this one down in 2007. I don't recall when it first came into my head. Our organist played it as the prelude for the Good Friday service in 2008.

Pie Jesu   (4000 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:04:58 -0700 My Faith http://jrbauer.posterous.com/my-faith http://jrbauer.posterous.com/my-faith Tonight, our church held its annual Music Sunday concert. This year's concert was called "Homegrown Hallelujahs" and featured original works and arrangements by members of the church. We played my arrangement of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for handbell choir, and we did my original setting of "My Faith Looks Up to Thee".
 
The music for "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is in the April 30th entry, below, although the live version sounds different from this computer-generated version. In the live version, the "bass" part is played on malleted bells and the "tenor" part is played on handchimes. Together, these parts comprise the "om-pah-pah", and the total effect imitates a ball-park organ about as well as metallophones can.
 
"My Faith Looks Up to Thee" is set to a piece that came into my head in 1973. The marriage with the hymn lyrics by Ray Palmer happened in the late 1980s. A couple of years ago, our music director asked me to add the oboe descant. My original music is very close to my heart, so much so that I have a hard time containing my emotions when it is performed. (My arrangements of other peoples' music do not affect me nearly as much.) This piece is especially emotional for me because my siblings and I sang it at my father's memorial service (without the oboe).
 
Here it is, in computer-generated form. There may be a recording of tonight's performance; if there is, I may be able to add it here, in a later entry. Meanwhile...

MyFaith_all.pdf (167 KB)
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Myfaith All   (3852 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sat, 30 May 2009 17:01:00 -0700 Pentecost http://jrbauer.posterous.com/pentecost http://jrbauer.posterous.com/pentecost

Is any unusual event a miracle?
 
Yesterday, I drove to Sacramento to visit my brother. He is the curator of The Aerospace Museum of California, and there's a new exhibit about space exploration that pays homage to the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
 
As I was driving north on 680, just south of Walnut Creek, doing about sixty-five miles per hour, I saw a bird fly up toward the passenger-side window. It was a pure white dove. It flew parallel to the car for several seconds, and looked in straight at me, then flew away.
 
Do let me know if you see a tongue of flame above my head, or if you can actually understand me.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Tue, 12 May 2009 19:30:31 -0700 Around the Sun http://jrbauer.posterous.com/around-the-sun-0 http://jrbauer.posterous.com/around-the-sun-0 Sometimes, I hear a song that needs to be written and shared. Upon learning about a friend's birthday, the phrase "Around the Sun" and this piece got into my head. This is not common; not often do they come with title or language-based leitmotif, but this one did.
 
The 5/4 meter is not surprising, though. Odd meters are not odd to me. But brass ensemble is not my normal musical millieu, and I don't know the idioms, so the notation may be irregular and perhaps even ungrammatical. I can't tell, because I don't know enough to be able to discern whatever might be at variance with standard practice.

Around the Sun_1.pdf (67 KB)
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Around The Sun 1   (1547 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:21:59 -0700 The Bell Game http://jrbauer.posterous.com/the-bell-game http://jrbauer.posterous.com/the-bell-game A friend asked me to arrange this old favorite for bell choir, so I did.

TakeMeOut.pdf (73 KB)
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Takemeout   (1892 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:40:00 -0700 Cape Clear http://jrbauer.posterous.com/cape-clear http://jrbauer.posterous.com/cape-clear

A week ago, I played the prelude at my niece's wedding, in Peoria, Arizona. The prelude was supposed to last ten minutes, but it lasted forty minutes. I played my entire setlist twice, plus some other repertoire.
 
Here's a video:

(14382 KB)
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/7023/jerry.JPG http://posterous.com/people/hJkgjAlw6 Jerry Bauer Jerry Jerry Bauer