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Maybe the belt was intended for the photographer.

Clef, I'll be thinking about you while you're recovering. I know that's rough surgery, but I also know that the recovery will be swift and you'll be so happy to have the new knee.
Hey, what's with you and Greg? Can't have my main guys sidelined for too long!

Resolution: I WILL start taking photos of my brides with me at the piano. How I wish I had started doing this years ago.

Next year's brides are already circling the lobby of the castle. This time of year we have lots of brides-to-be out shopping around for locations. Business cards are placed on the piano, special edition CD is ready to go.

Excellent surgeon and medical team--- of course I'm a bit worried about the recovery phase, but not about those guys. The oral surgeon who took my wisdom teeth out was such a comedian--- all these jokes and dry witticisms during the procedure and I couldn't even laugh, let alone come back at him. Crunch crunch crunch, and it was all over. And I went home with these holes in my jawbone to get well on my own. And so it goes.

I asked my piano teacher, who plays for cash at church services (but is a concert performer at heart), if he ever does weddings or funerals.

"Since I started playing at this church, I do," he replied.

"More funerals than weddings, I would imagine," I said (I've been there and have seen the members).

"Well..." he replied modestly.

"Funerals are better," I said. "They never bother you at a funeral. Whereas, at weddings..."

"Oh--- I never speak to the bride," he assured me.

"That's right," I said. "Or the matron of honor, either."

"No... no."

He was tired of my Beethoven, so I was playing a hymn. Bach, O Sacred Head. Easy--- for the choir; tricky for the accompanist, but he can make a good lesson out of any kind of music. He was showing me the legato fingering. "Presto. Too fast," I said. He slowed down to tempo di marcia. "Still too fast," I said, "You have to allow room for the tears to fall during each measure."

I tried it over myself. "You're cheating," he remarked, "but it works ok."

I could not get the picture out of my imagination of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, playing Bach for the natives in the jungles of the Belgian Congo--- probably, this very piece. It was too much; I could not think of the Congo and the notes and the fingering all at once.

Bach became blind at the end of his life because of diabetes, Dr. Schweitzer said, and died following a diabetic stroke. I have never read this anywhere else, but as a medical doctor and a Bach scholar, who would know better. If only he had had long enough to finish the last number of The Art of the Fugue. His sons patched it up with a number written earlier; the release was such a flop that the engravers' plates were broken up and sold for scrap. No goblets full of louis d'or for this great work. So the greater light is extinguished, and the lesser lights shine on. But, we lesser lights can learn at least to have our blood sugar checked and watch our figures... as well as to use the legato chorale fingering and leave room for the tears to fall between the measures... in their due season, of course.

That way, we can afford to laugh when we visit the dentist.

Room for the tears to fall? How beautiful is that? I LOVE your teacher, Clef. What a great post.

This lesser light bailed on the gig last night due to a ridiculous amount of snow in the area. I called a pianist who lives close to the castle (walking distance) to sub for me. I'm still feeling guilty, but I think being older and wiser means not risking life and limb to go play a cocktail piano job.

Here is a video that just came to my attention---a photographer used my music to score his collection of winter photographs. No brides, but lots of pretty pictures. And I like the space in this composition---no tears falling, but certainly room to breathe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd6OwbBETBo\

Happy weekend, everyone!

"And if you're going to play hymns," my teacher continued, "you have to learn to play with more force. You're leading the singing; you have to be heard above---"

"I know the guy you're talking about," I interrupted. "You have to play loud enough to drown out---"

"I was going to say," he said, with some asperity (but he couldn't help smiling; he knows who I mean), "they have to hear you, or they can get lost."

"Oh yes, I've heard that," I replied. "Someone with a loud voice can drag everyone else down with them if they make a mistake."

"Well... maybe some of the singers. Not the accompanist, though."

"I've seen choral directors go down, too. Yes." Yes, indeed: it was Suzanne. She could sing all right; that wasn't the problem. She was naughty and scampy, and happened to catch the eye of Marty and me across the choir loft at just the wrong moment, during one of those lyrics that can be taken the wrong way; unfortunately, during a bombastic, forte passage. A laughing fit can be nearly impossible to recover from, especially in the wrong place at the wrong time, and especially with a deep breath taken in. One is helpless. Add a scarlet blush and there goes plausible deniability.

"And playing louder helps your muscle memory. If you make a mistake, you may as well make a loud one."

There was no denying that. For choral accompaniment, you can blow the notes and get by, but if you drop the beat it's fatal. The only thing that's worse is to have the risers collapse. In fact, the one resembles the other.

The youth chorus is conducted by a Russian emigrant. I have observed that she has a forceful manner. I wondered out loud what happens when things don't go her way.

"Well..." he said. "Well. She intends that things should go her way."

"Hmmmm," I replied. "Yes."

There's a story about a Russian piano teacher. Screaming was heard by students waiting outside the door of the practice room. Eventually, the door opened and the student left, in tears. The teacher stepped out, with a cheerful smile. "Oh well, who cares about a little screaming," he remarked, "as long as he gets to be a good pianist."

Oh, God--- my surgeon is Russian. This may not be a good story to remember just now.

The lunar eclipse on the winter solstice (the morning of Dec. 21 for east coast viewers; the evening of Dec. 20 for west coast skywatchers) is rare. The eclipse has not occurred on the solstice since at least the Year One (no, really--- an astronomer looked it up).**[correction: there was one, on Dec. 21, 1638]** Dress up like a Russian and you can watch it quite comfortably--- I've been wanting one of those fur hats for a long time. European readers are excused from the exercise; the eclipse can only be viewed in full there from the most northerly latitudes. Viewers in the Americas, north of the equator, are not excused: we will expect to see you there... dressed like a Russian--- at least, with a warm hat. Fur is... you know; controversial.

my director contantly implores me to play louder. I save my strength and fingers for actual services. She plays ridiculously loudly and it sounds awful. I suppose the music moves right along tho.

One of the best things about my little Saturday job, is that I get to gaze down upon the congregation while they think they are not being watched. I see the boyfriend stroke his girlfriend's fanny. I see boys playing video games on their cellphones. I see the tops of the heads of the older Vietnamese. They seem to be very concerned about covering their grey. They all dye their hair and are prone to hair loss on the crown. The Italians have plenty of hair and the women generally have it styled in the curled, teased and puffy hairstyles, the ones that need weekly maintenance, hairspray and those plastic rainbonnets. The Italian men sometimes dye their hair.

Lots of people come late to church and try to sneak in.

Last week the electricity to the whole church went out during the final hymn. The cantor bravely carried on and finished the verse and another refrain. A few candles were lit and they enabled the older population to exit the church without trouble. It was considerably darker in the choir loft and I had to grope to find my shoes, bag, coat and music.


The priest yelled up to me in the dark. "Mary - are you up there? On the 'Rejoice' just give two notes for an intro. Don't play the whole line. It is too confusing." Once he yelled up to me during the intro to the hymn. "Mary - Let's sing the other song.. I don't like this one. It is too high".


Good luck on your surgery Jeff.

There's no pleasing them, is there, Apple. It's like Chapter One of Piano Girl: the manager is making energetic shusshing gestures toward the pianist, until Father Louie is struck down by a buffalo wing, and then it's "Louder, louder!" But up til now I've never heard them say, "Don't play at all--- just the first note."

I remember when i was 12 and had first started playing the organ at church. It actually was a wedding. They gave me the music, including Here Comes the Bride and I played it the coming Saturday.. I was paid 25$. I was then appointed head and chief organist at my church and was paid 30 dollars for two Masses every Sunday. I was terrified most of the time and really didn't understand when to come in and when to play what. The priest (who turned out to be our family's priest for all occasions) would kindly announce. "Mary - the Holy Holy". I was a bundle of raw nerves.

The good thing is that I was able to leave school for funerals. That was wonderful to pop out of class and run over to the church. I don't remember anyone ever complaining and I must have been pathetic, particularly for weddings.

I played Catholic services for nearly two years. (No, I wasn't skilled enough, but I was all they had.) And I was still never completely sure what came next.

As always this thread is wonderfully entertaining.

Jeff - best wishes for your surgery and hope you have a quick recovery!

my Saturday congregation gave me a Christmas gift.. a box of home made Italian cookies. I am not going to play for any Christmas Masses there. All the old ladies gathered together in the back of the church and watched me open the box. They are known for their Italian cookies.

I am playing a wedding there in January. The bride is as usual, kind of high maintenance. I am going to put phone call time into my next contract. (includes one hour of phone time maybe).

Has anyone addressed this issue?

I thought some of you would enjoy this proposal story..

not quite Mr. Rodgers, but close .

sweet story.

Had to share a comment made this past Sunday. I was asked to play a couple of simple tunes on recorder as part of the pageant (no dead air between shepherds!). I don't like to do unaccompanied melody; I find it tiring because the brain is forced to construct harmony. So I wrote a very simple root-fifth handbell accompaniment, and played the tunes on sopranino.

Somebody commented: That was amazing, you actually made music with a fourth grader's toy.

Well, no, not really. It's a real historic instrument dating back many centuries. But I just smiled and thanked her, no time for a lecture on period instruments.

Someone (not me) should publish a list of silly (and stupid) things civilians say to musicians. There are, of course some very kind and moving things as well.

(patting the performer's hand)
"That was lovely, dear, and I'm sure no one noticed."

"Your music is just perfect. I could hardly hear it."

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays my wedding friends.

I played Christmas Eve Mass last nite with 800 attending and played PERFECTLY, (not so easy considering there are about 25 things to play and they all need different settings or interpretations). I successfully navigated betw/ the piano and organ without falling or making noise. I also played my self-composed postlude, a variation and explosion* upon " The Sussex Carol".

On the home front, I found GREAT gifts for the kids at garage sales this fall. Great gifts! They were ecstatic. I usually just give them money. I bought my daughter a Vera Bradley purse, the sons awesome fur covers for their beds.. one a beaver throw - absolutely gorgeous, and one a huge sheepskin cover with a brown tinge, wonderful huge robes for everyone. I found a glockenspiel for son #2, some great perfume and colognes (new, but at sales), buck knives.. lots of really good stuff. They were really surprised to get gifts. I usually let them buy their own (after they got over the Santa thing). it was a good nite.

* a virtuosic. arpeggiated chordal repetition of the theme performed on different manuals, alternating between bells and brass with lots of bass pedal. It was quite fun.

Apple, reading your post made me extremely happy. Way to go. Sounds like you had the perfect Christmas. Excellent.

I just finished playing for lunch at the castle. Now I'm back home and will return to play the cocktail hour this evening. Lots of lovey-dovey newly engaged folks loitering around the piano—or maybe they were hovering close to the fireplace, since it was COLD in the main hall this afternoon. Anyway, one of them asked if I play for weddings and I thought of all of you and just cracked up. I'm lining up the ducks for next season.

To those of you celebrating Christmas, I wish you a happy and musical holiday. And remember, don't eat too many cookies or the ball gown won't fit.

Happy birthday to Isaac Newton, Rod Serling, and Karl Rove... and Jesus, of course. Some revert to the old celebration of the Saturnalia, and whatever the 'Turning of the Light' was called long before that, for it's been celebrated just forever. Others brood darkly upon where the best after-Christmas sales are likely to be, and where the lines for product returns will be shortest and employees the most gullible.

Let us not overlook the Grinch either, or the rebirth of Ebeneezer Scrooge, though I felt the unreformed Scrooge offered more of a splash of color and was a juicier part for a dramatic actor. Even Susan Lucci was able to make hay out of Scrooge, though she modernized the role by using her power and position to put the move on a handsome young family man... and them blackmailed him! Even Dickens wouldn't go so far as that, though in another Christmas novelette he had a character either get drunk and freeze on Christmas Eve, or lose his head and jump (fatally) from the bell tower of the village church, bewitched by demons who dwelt there. And froze after that. But the juiciest Christmas tale was penned by Anne Rice in The Witching Hour. Almost a thousand pages (spilling over into several sequels); I won't even attempt to synopsize it. I don't know the date of her birth, but Rod Serling would have admired her very well-crafted tale.

Congratulations, Apple, on the flawless Mass performance. Not every son can count on a beaver throw for Christmas, though many want them. It is nice to learn of the sidewalk sales in Kansas; there used to be just wonderful things at sidewalk sales in San Francisco. I never saw a glock, though I bought a classical guitar, a beautiful silver flute, an autoharp (which was a wonderful instrument to play with my tamboura--- on recordings, not both at once with the same two hands), and many fabulous items from the old days... all sold for a song.

There was lots of junk and trash on offer as well; of course one must shop carefully. Imagine my surprise when having my own sidewalk sale, to find that the junk and trash moved briskly but the nice things were all-but-ignored. Suggestive of the deep psychology of merchandising, isn't it.

Last year's Christmas music was a collection of the complete piano works of Scriabin, which I enjoyed so much I thought I'd try it again this year. So I hope Santa brought you something as nice and satisfying in its own way.

What I really want is a bell tree, though it never appears among the gifts and I really can't think of anything more useless, though enchanting.

Thanks for sharing your wonderful Christmas performance experience/story, Apple! My favorite memory is playing a Christmas Eve service in a little church in City Island (Bronx, NY), starting with Christmas carols. I was about 19 and never played with a choir before, so they really directed me, which was a big help. I don't think more than 50 people attended the service, so I wasn't too nervous - well, okay, I was, but I must have done okay because the people in charge asked me to be the permanent organist there (the old one was leaving).

MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALL!

We have our own castle here in my neighborhood.. a limestone beauty built at the turn of the century by fortunate Belgians.

the Caenen Castle

I kind of know the owner and have talked about her buying a piano. She thinks her guests come for the food and ambience. Who am I to argue tho?

I have eaten there and was dissappointed by the fake hollandaise sauce and the frozen, mixed vegetables mixed in with the fresh. People in Shawnee, Kansas are not very cosmopolitan. They wear high-heeled boots with their tight jeans, Coach purses and bling, and dine at this greasy Irish joint or the local bar. I should get a job cooking at Renee's so I can plant the piano bug firmly in her ear while I teach her how to make a proper hollandaise sauce.