It’s hard to know what to say about tambourines. On the one hand, they’re great for festive medieval music: “Gaudete! Gaudete! Christus est natus!” and so on. On the other hand, they’re so often not used for festive medieval music, and I think I’ll just leave it . . . . Continue Reading »
From the Church Music Association of America: Gregorian Chant at the National Shrine, Washington, DC, September 25-26, 2009.Chant is good. I imagine this pilgrimage will be all right, too, though it’s hard to consider it perfect when it hasn’t even happened yet.[Rating: 97 out of . . . . Continue Reading »
My friend Michael Linton just sent me this video clip of his lovely “Third Marian Carol,” and with the mercury climbing outside, and my little kids fighting over whose turn it is to hurl him- or herself headlong down the Slip’N’Slide, I thought I’d share it with all of . . . . Continue Reading »
Whoo. Let’s see what we’ve got going on tonight. Oh, oh, oh. Check it out. Easter’s over, baby, but you can beat the rush. I know about being forgiven, but won’t wearing a t-shirt that says so make people want to ask you what you did? In my town it would. “Whu’d . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m not a musician in any real sense of the word, only an enthusiast. In good choirs I’ve sung in, my contributions have been limited to reasonably non-incompetent alto-line filler, for pieces like Mendelssohn’s Richte mich Gott. That’s one kind of good choir: the choir which . . . . Continue Reading »
Doesn’t anybody play air guitar any more? Dude, you say. Air guitar? You mean, like, just . . . listening to some loud music and . . . pretending? Yeah, see, back in the day, what you would do was, you would put on a record in your room. A record. It’s a big round thing that comes in a . . . . Continue Reading »
If the New York Times shuts down, at least I won’t have to respond to mind-numbing items like David Brooks’ April 30 peroration, “Genius: the modern view.” Aldous Huxley’s wife Laura infamously said that her husband looked like a stupid man’s idea of what a clever . . . . Continue Reading »
Recently some friends of mine were discussing the misapplication of the word “heroic” to denote efforts which people ought to make simply as a matter of course. Staying married, for example, is not an act of heroism, at least in most cases, yet you read in the tabloids — that is, . . . . Continue Reading »
I missed the news last week that a firm in the Netherlands had purchased the rights to the Rodgers & Hammerstein songbook. Funny to think, isn’t it, that the Dutch now own these musicals? “Amsterdam, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the dikes.” Or that great musical North . . . . Continue Reading »
What do you think, Sally? Would the younger kids in your house enjoy or employ NEW! Feather and Marabou Angel Wings?“Get ready for Christmas plays and other plays in your church group with these adorable Angel Wings,” the advertising copy at the crafts store says. But looking at these, . . . . Continue Reading »
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