The Music Page

Pick up a guitar. You may never put it down!

Man, this is fun!

Schedule:

May 12, Hyde Concert, playing Eh, Cumpari!, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
May 20, Allard Concert, playing Eh, Cumpari!, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
May 29, Wedding, SMM, 4:30
June 11, Last Day of School Concert, Moon Area Middle School Auditorium, TBD
June 25, Wedding, SMM

“I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday, and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it, and you need them to hear it.” - James Taylor

Leaving Moonshine

It is with a heavy heart and after a lengthy and difficult thought process that I have decided to leave Moonshine.

The thrill of playing live music is second to none, but the dedication and the pressure take their toll. Sadly, there just aren’t enough hours in the day, and something had to give.

I leave Moonshine in good hands - still 2 guitars and the very capable Dante S. on lead vocals. I wish the boys nothing but success as Moonshine continues to rock the house.

As for me, plenty of stuff going on, as the schedules below indicate. But a special place in my heart for the boys of Moonshine. With all my gratitude for all they taught me.

Going to the Movies with CFC

I had the honor of accompanying the Children’s Festival Chorus of Pittsburgh at its Tiffany Concert Series performance last Sunday at the historic Calvary United Methodist Church on Pittsburgh’s North Side. The show was one of a selection of musical events at the old church sponsored by the Allegheny Historic Preservation Society. I played the Walter Ehret arrangement Sound of Music Medley on classical guitar along with piano accompanist Kristin Benham. Typically a four-song arrangement, the artistic staff of CFC inserted Edelweiss into the score, where I soloed over top of the singers from the Troubadour choir.
CFC is an amazing organization - the settings in which these kids present their talents are breathtaking, whether Heinz Hall, the Benedum Center, or one of Pittsburgh’s stunning old churches, such as Calvary, with its original Tiffany windows, some of the largest remaining examples of Tiffany’ artistry left in the world.

CFC, under the direction of Christine Jordanoff, presented a concert of songs from movie musicals — Oliver, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, Mamma Mia, and more. I thought this might be a warmup of sorts of CFC’s big spring concert coming up in Pittsburgh on May 2nd, but this was its own show and was very well attended. Spotted in the audience was at least one celebrity: the bass player from the country-rock band Moonshine and his wife, Deb.

I have always been in awe of the genius of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and I think that the movie, Sound of Music, is a fine as filmmaking gets. In my efforts to create a worthwhile guitar arrangement from the piano score provided me, I saw there was more depth to these beloved songs than I ever imagined. I owe a debt of gratitude to Kris for her invaluable help - “Not a dominant seventh over top of C, but a diminished seventh.” It’s a particular thrill to play Edelweiss because this “extra” song was written during tryouts for the original stage version of Sound of Music and was given to Theodore Bikel, who originated the role of Captain von Trapp on Broadway. Bikel was a guitar player and a folk singer - the song fit him perfectly; the rest is history. Edelweiss is one of the best-loved songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein and the last one the two wrote together.

So of all the things I could have done Sunday, I cannot imagine being anywhere else but in that lovely church, guitar in hand, surrounded by beautiful Tiffany glass, ten feet from my son, who with his chorus mates in one beautiful harmonized voice made a dreary afternoon splendid.

Country for Cans - April 13, 2010

Moonshine teamed up with Moon Area senior Dante S. for a benefit concert, Tuesday, April 13 at the Moon Area High School Auditorium, Country For Cans. Proceeds benefitted local food banks, raising over $500!

Dante prowls the stage at Country for Cans

The warm-up band, Calling All Cars, performs Blind Melon's No Rain

Sound-checking the Taylor

That's how country boys roll

Alex and Scott blow off steam at the sound check

Getting the lyrics down before the show

The aftermath

St. Margaret Mary Ensemble

The St. Margaret Mary Ensemble is a woodwind and string group that includes guitar, violin, viola, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, baritone and keyboards. The group is supported by a regular vocalist/cantor, while additional singers are summoned for special masses such as Christmas and Easter. The Ensemble plays twice monthly according to the needs of the parish and is performing in its fifth year. Musicians are added by suggestion and invitation.The Ensemble expects to add members in the fall of 2010.

Schedule:
May 22, Ensemble Mass, 4

The Saint Margaret Mary Ensemble is:

Guitar: Gregg, Carl, Dan, Luke, Alivia Violin: Marissa, Kristen, Abby Viola: Michael Flute: Esther Clarinet: Jordan, Jessica Bass Clarinet: Sarah Saxophone: Keith Trumpet:
Eric, Ryan Baritone: Matthew Keyboard: Alana, Mark Vocalist: Michelle

“Give me a laundry list and I’ll set it to music.” - Gioacchino Antonio Rossini

Guitars and the Pope

A friend of mine pointed me to a recent articlein the New York Times detailing the Henschel Quartet’s (Munich, Germany) March 19th performance at the Vatican attended by Pope Benedict. My friend - let’s call him Ludwig…wait, let’s call him Wolfgang…no, let’s stick with Ludwig - thought I would find this passage noteworthy:

Benedict has strong views about pop and rock that tend not to be complimentary. And one of his first initiatives in office was to start exorcising the gently strummed guitar from its place of prominence in contemporary Roman Catholic liturgy.

Ludwig was right - this is noteworthy. I play guitar in church. In fact, about half the time spent in church is done so with a guitar in hand. I also play in a rock band.

The Times article got me thinking about the efforts, whose origins predate those of Benedict’s pontificate, to eradicate guitar music from the liturgy and my belief that the movement will one day succeed. Of the many essays out there on the subject, one in particular stands out, written by a woman named Lucy E. Carroll, D.M.A., organist and music director at the public chapel of the Carmelite monastery in Philadelphia, who also happens to be an adjunct associate professor at Westminster Choir College, Princeton. Now if that’s not an impressive title I don’t know what one is. In her three-part article, Musicians in Catholic Worship III: Bells and Whistles, Guitars and Tambourines, in a section entitled What about Guitars? Ms. Carroll argues:

The guitar can be a beautiful solo instrument. It can blend nicely into an accompaniment ensemble behind a soloist or choir. But it is not a good instrument for leading congregational singing, as most musicians observe: “What is it with you Catholics and guitars?” an Episcopalian friend asked. And a Methodist colleague added, “we only bring in the guitar for the children’s group. It just doesn’t work for a congregation”. Indeed!

Indeed? Indeed what? Did you just make an argument regarding the Catholic liturgy by quoting Protestants? While you were at it did you get their take on the Catholic devotion to the Eucharist? On our beliefs regarding Mary?

Ms. Carroll, adjunct associate professor at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, continues:

Lest I be accused of being anti-guitar, I have a large collection of recordings of Paco Peña, Carlos Montoya, Andrés Segovia. To me, this is guitar. But most people who play the guitar in our churches today are not well trained musicians. So we get nothing but a rhythmic strum-strum-strum (and not always in tune).

Ignoring the slam on guitarists who play styles that Ms. Carroll would perhaps say “ain’t guitar”, I’m not sure that owning a CD by the wonderful flamenco player, Paco Peña, accomplishes the goal of proving ones guitar bonafides any more than owning a Chevy makes one supportive of the government takeover of GM, but I digress. A tuneless, out-of-tune rhythmic strum-strum-strum? Let me tackle that. Guitars are fickle instruments and very sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity. It is a foolish player who arrives to an empty church to set up, who tunes his or her guitar and expects it to remain so an hour later when the temperature has gone up 15 degrees by virtue of body heat. So yes, I could see occasions, especially on cold winter mornings, when a guitar could go monstrously out of tune if not kept in check. But, I invite you, Ms. Carroll, to visit our church and listen to our piano, whose strings suffer the same fate as that of a guitar’s. Our piano is rarely perfectly in tune, but it is a quality instrument and when it suffers harmonically my first thought is never to fault the players or seek to write three-part articles on why we should get rid of them.

I can’t speak for every Catholic guitar player (although Ms. Carroll has no such issue lumping us all together), but I play a method known as classical fingerstyle, in which the melody is picked out from the underlying chord structure, in effect making one guitar sound like two. This is not unlike a piano player laying down supporting chord and bass note structure with the left hand while peeling out the melody with the right. The only difference is that when I do it in my church, my guitar is usually in tune and when the piano player does it, it is more often than not out. Regardless, the effort to learn this style took years of practice, mostly because of that pesky left-brain, right-brain thing, but I assure you I spend very little time with a pick in my right hand strum-strum-strumming and absolutely no time banging out three major chords while someone stands next to me shaking a tambourine.

Onward we go:

If the instruments used to accompany congregational singing do not lead the faithful into fuller participation in the Sacrifice of the Mass, or a deeper sense of the sacred; if instead they entertain us, or bring our hearts and minds into the world — the mundane, secular, and sensual — then how can they be suitable (or “made apt”) for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?

My instrument of choice is a Takamine EC132SC, a classical guitar handmade in Japan of pure, unlamenated rosewood and cedar. It lists for $1,649.00, if you can find one. I string it with Savarez Red Card nylon high-tension 520s, imported from France. I wish I could use light tension strings – it would be easier on my fingers and cheaper, but after years of experimentation, this is the setup that gives my guitar its best sound.

But quality of sound issues aside, in what biblical passage is it written that the pipe organ, and only the pipe organ, can adequately and properly set music such as necessary for sacred liturgy? Who exactly judges that God does not find pleasing any sacred piece not played by pipe organ?

Along the same lines:

When the untrained lead the untrained, how can we present the best to God? How can we give God — the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness — music that is true, beautiful, and good?

Ms. Carroll, I lack the formal training you refer to here, and I concede that your understanding of music theory eclipses mine, but I dare you to present me on Saturday any musical piece suitable for the liturgy, regardless of difficulty, length, key, etc., that I could not play by 9:30 a.m. Sunday. You see, I know the difference between a C major, a C minor, a C 7, a C major 7, a C minor 7, a C 6, a C minor 6, a C 9, a C add 9, a C sus 4 and a C sus 2. I know them because I use them all in church when the score calls for them. I don’t substitute; I play them as the composer wrote them. All that without ever having stepped foot into a music theory class at a choir college.

Carrying the argument a step further, does this mean that only the trained can lead the untrained, i.e. that only trained musicians can lead untrained congregational singers? As if a trained organist will make a layperson sing better during the offertory hymn? Really? The money I could have saved in my son’s vocal instruction.

And there’s this:

Catholic parishes today are homes to rock bands and back-up groups that sound no different from those at the local bar or supper club. While they may be entertaining, are they truly suitable for the celebration of the Eucharist?

I’m sure there are rock bands in some churches – I’ve just never encountered one. Certainly there aren’t a lot of them, and I would agree with Ms. Carroll that they probably are the least appropriate musical groups to lead a liturgy. I think the guys in my band are fabulous musicians, but I would never think to drag them into church and rip into a rousing rock chorus of Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days. A rock group in church seems to me an issue with individual parishes allowing such musicianship, and I would therefore say, Don’t blame the musicians themselves. But can’t we at least for one moment in time appreciate that our young people are participating in the liturgy?

As for what I call the Kumbaya-ing of Mass, I agree that anyone who dares stand up before a congregation and lead it in song should be a competent musician, one who doesn’t adapt each song to the small handful of chords he or she can play. He or she should be accompanied by a quality instrument played in such a style as to be appropriate for a Catholic liturgy. The fact that this ideal is not always achieved does not warrant the booting of all guitar players from church, as Ms. Carroll seems so eager to do.

Lest I be accused of protesting too loudly, I believe the effort to exterminate guitar players from Mass will ultimately succeed and probably already would have succeeded had not the American church (and now the European church) been so consumed by, and so set back by, the child abuse scandals. All things in due time. It would seem that Ms. Carroll has no greater ally in her fight than Pope Benedict himself.

Carmen at the Benedum

We congratulate the kids of Carmen on their wonderful run.

The Kids of Carmen, Benedum Center, 2010

“Chorus master Mark Trawka…had the adults and children of this production singing with utmost precision and liveliness” - Post-Gazette review of Carmen.
“Pittsburgh Opera Chorus sang with remarkable strength and focus, one of the few unalloyed triumphs of this production. The children’s chorus was even more vocally aggressive than the staging assigned to them, which was nicely boisterous. - Tribune-Review on Carmen.

Backstage before Act IV, one last time

Family Matters

Luke as Poor Child in Carmen, 2010...

...and as Poor Boy #2 in La Boheme, 2009

“Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding he sings.” - Edward Gardner

Dan soloing with the marching band on Night in Tunisia

My brother making an Em7 in 1976...

...teaching in 2007...

...and jamming in 2009.

The Ancient Chinese Art of TooNing

Bobby of Moonshine at rehearsal. Too many guitars? No such thing.

“Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.” - Noel Coward