Greed brings out the worst in … (you think I’m
going to say “people,” don’t you?)
Robins!
Especially the ones that raise their young under
our neighbor’s eaves.
When the serviceberry tree by our deck is in
bloom, the robins lay their eggs.
The chicks are voracious eaters and soon fledge.
Not long after they fledge our serviceberry tree is
covered with bright red berries. And robin greed kicks in!
This sordid music
story is a robin tale about greed. From the album “Paper Book Colors - Songs from Nature” this video is scrolling playback of the song.
Kathy
You can
get print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for Guano.
Click here for digital sheet music. (MusicXML™
is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help
files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)
While he was in prison the Apostle Paul wrote to his
friends at Philippi. He was in chains simply because he was a Christian. Now
his friends at Philippi were facing chains. Paul prayed for them, that their
love would overflow more and more. That they would grow spiritually, discerning
and doing what is right, leading blameless lives to the glory of God.
At the same time that our life group was studying this, our
pastor was preaching a sermon series on the meme “coexist.”
According to coexist.org, “There is a crisis of
understanding that tears at the social fabric of societies around the world.
Globalization has outpaced our understanding of one another, creating divisions
that plague communities with prejudice, hate and violence.”
I wonder. Does understanding each other break the cycle
of prejudice, hate, and violence? Was it a “crisis of understanding” that put
Paul in chains? Or was Paul in chains because his enemies wanted to suppress Christianity?
You could understand the people you live and work with and
still hate them. But when you love with the love of Jesus, you are patient and
kind, not arrogant or rude, not irritable or resentful, not selfish, not glad
about injustice done to anyone. Paul prayed that his friends would love those
who want to suppress Christianity, be irreproachable in their treatment of
them, and continue to share Jesus.
Christians face persecution in over 60 countries in the world.
It is a crisis of love that tears at the fabric of society! Our pastor said
that because the love of Jesus can break the cycle of prejudice, hate, and
violence, the world needs more of the Gospel, not less.
I want Paul’s prayer to be my prayer. So I put the first
chapter of Philippians to song. From
the album “Main Street – Songs for Today” this video is scrolling playback of
the song.
Kathy
Print (PDF) and
digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for This
Is Our Prayer is available at the MusicStories shop on Etsy.com.
They said
their vows and exchanged rings. My daughter was glowing. I had never seen her
so happy. My son-in-law adored her, calling her his angel. He called himself a
pagan.
He spent his formative
years on a Native American reservation where his mother was a nurse. He grew up
bare footed, with dirt floors, surrounded by poverty. But that didn’t matter
because the community offered love and support. Everyone was his mother or father,
sister or brother.
I had written
a song for each person in my family. Now it was time to write a song for Joe. Could
I write one that honored his childhood yet reflected a biblical worldview? Native
Americans pass on their heritage through storytelling, singing, and dancing accompanied
by drums. The drumbeat is powerful, full of emotion, and is described as
haunting and beautiful. Joe’s song had to be based on Native American drum
music.
The Old
Testament prophet Isaiah had a powerful, emotional encounter with beauty that
haunted him the rest of his life. He saw God. Then he saw himself as God saw
him. That encounter changed his identity and his view of the world. I wrote
this song for Joe hoping that one day he, too, would encounter the God of the
Bible. The story line is Isaiah’s. The music is inspired by Native American
drum music.
With a pentatonic melody for vibrato voice, the song has three
pushes. The lead singer in the drum introduces each push. The rest of the drum,
called the second, repeats the lead. All sing the chorus, or main theme of the
song. The chorus is followed by three accented drum beats called honor beats
and the chorus is repeated. At the end of the last chorus the final five beats
are accented. You’ll need speakers with a subwoofer to feel the power of the
drums. No subwoofer? Use earphones!
From the album
“Main Street – Songs for Today” this video is scrolling playback of the song.
Kathy
You can
get print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for Holy Is my
King.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open
format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files in your music
notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)
On the first page of his autobiography St. Augustine of
Hippo wrote, “Lord, teach me to … praise Thee.” Then he wrote Confessions in praise of God. I wondered
why, given the eloquence of his praise, he never set his prose to music.
Music played a pivotal role in his spiritual journey. Music
moved him deeply; he was intensely stirred by singing the Psalms. He was
musically literate. His six books on music influenced music in the West for
centuries to come. A history of hymn writing preceded him. His contemporaries
wrote hymns. If Augustine wished to praise God, why did he not set his praises to
music?
I learned that for Augustine:
·Music was an intellectual
pursuit, not an artistic endeavor.
·Studying the structure and
components of music made sense of the world and man’s place in it.
·Music could draw a person
to God, but it gratified the senses.
·Gratifying the senses took
a back seat to intellectual pursuit.
·Meaning was more important
than emotions.
St. Augustine was critical of his emotional response to
music!
God answered Augustine’s opening prayer in Confessions. His autobiography is filled
with praise to God. I wondered, could I take Augustine’s written praises and
turn them into praise music, something that Augustine’s view of music wouldn’t
allow? Plainchant and responsorial singing were the genre of his day. But the
exuberance of his praise suggests a music style that moves. Perhaps I owe St.
Augustine an apology for setting his prose to swing.
From the album
“The HymnBook – Thirty-Four Hundred Years of Praise” this video is scrolling
playback of the song.
Kathy
You can
get print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for Great Are You Lord.
(MusicXML™ is
the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files
in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)
Easter changes
everything. Easter gives meaning to life, tells us who we are and why we are
here. Easter explains why others hurt us and what God has done about it. Easter
endows the present and future with inexplicable joy. But not everyone who knows
about Easter gets this.
Her life was
marked by pain. How could she trust God after what she had been through? God
hadn’t protected her. God hadn’t met her needs. Now pain defined who she was.
She would reach for anyone or anything that might ease the pain, pushing away whatever
got in the way. She made wrong assumptions about love – love in general and God’s
love specifically. She equated love with feelings and circumstances. If it
didn’t look or feel like love, it must not be love.
How could God
possibly show the depth of his love for her? What could he do to change her
identity, who she was at the core, so that she was no longer defined by her
pain, but by his love? Good Friday, Jesus’ death on the cross, is the answer to
that question. God loves us so deeply that he became a man and died for us. But
God didn’t stop there. Jesus rose from the dead and that’s why Easter changes
everything! If Jesus is alive then God’s demonstration of love is more than an
historical event. If Easter is true, God’s love trumps pain, does not waiver
with circumstances, is not dictated by feelings. His love is an ever-present
reality. He defines who we are, not pain, not circumstances, not feelings.
I wrote this Good
Friday song with her in mind. But she moved away before I had the chance to
share it with her. From the album “Main Street – Songs for Today” this video is
scrolling playback of the song.
Kathy
Do you play the
flute, oboe, French horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, or keyboard? Forgiven
is on SmartMusic, the comprehensive music practice app!
Click here for digital sheet music. (MusicXML™ is
the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files
in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)
Sara was
inconsolable. She and her beloved doll, Baby Katie, were nearly inseparable. Sara
didn’t understand why Katie needed a makeover.
Baby Katie was
a ‘wipe clean with a damp cloth’ little baby doll. While her heart was soft and
cuddly, the rest of Katie was molded plastic. She usually dressed in her
birthday suit as pre-K fingers struggled pulling small PJ’s over small legs and
arms. Nevertheless, Katie stayed warm wrapped in a wash cloth, its corners
twisted together to keep it from falling off.
“Grandma, play
with me!” When Sara made that request, it meant holding Katie and making her
come alive, being the ‘puppeteer’ and voice of Baby Katie.
Baby Katie
shared life with a menagerie of animals, inviting them to sumptuous tea parties
so she could indulge her sweet tooth. Katie was born, celebrated her birthday,
and got married several times a week. She slid down banisters, jumped on
couches, made forts, collected dust bunnies under the bed. Unbelievably, Baby
Katie even crashed the Christmas tree. Stickers served as Band-Aids or casts
for her numerous injuries. When stickers weren’t available, a strip of paper
licked and applied to the injury worked just as well. Katie took trips around
town and out of state. She had a certain fondness for tattoos. She painted her
nails, colored her hair, and experimented with eye and cheek makeup. When
things didn’t go her way, Baby Katie threw tantrums that could be heard all
over the house.
Baby Katie was
beautiful even when a damp cloth failed to remove the evidence of her many adventures.
Heedless of care instructions, she took a bath. Katie didn’t get clean. Sadly,
her stuffing migrated to the lower half of her trunk leaving her heart nearly
empty. None of that mattered to Sara. She loved Katie unconditionally. Sara was
heartbroken when Baby Katie had to get a makeover.
From the album
“Silly or Celebratory – Songs for Sara Lily” this video is scrolling playback
of the song.
Kathy
You can
get print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for Baby Katie.
(MusicXML™ is
the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files
in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)
For more of
unconditional love of a toy by a child see TheVelveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.
Garritan
Weekend Challenge, July 18, 2014: create a melody using all twelve keys on the
keyboard and loop it. Then publish it on SoundCloud.
A melody that
hits all seven white keys can be joyful. But what if it has to include the
missing black keys? Twelve tone compositions are typically chaotic, atonal,
have no home note, no resting place. But I realized that if a twelve tone melody
had a resting place it would fit Psalm 30.
“Suddenly my courage was gone; I was terrified and panic-stricken. I cried
to you, O Lord … Then he turned my sorrow into joy!” (The Living Bible)
I wrote Sorrow into Joy, but before I could upload
it to SoundCloud my life hit the black keys. This is how I
described it:
“There have
been a lot of ‘black keys’ in the melody of my life the last six weeks.
We managed to
rip all the carpeting off the second floor without injuring ourselves. Then...
When we moved
the credenza, my printer fell off and hit the floor. It no longer prints.
Office Depot says it is cheaper to replace than repair it.
The toilet
tank in the upstairs hall bath cracked and leaked water for several hours
before we discovered it. There is extensive water damage to the living room
ceiling.
I broke my
bicycle 14 miles into a 28 mile ride. The gears tore off when they hit the
spokes. Our bike shop couldn't repair it. Bob disassembled it and mailed the
frame to the manufacturer for repairs. It's in pieces in the garage waiting to
be reassembled.
I was admitted
to the hospital with abdominal pain and a fever, had emergency surgery, and a
five day in-patient stay. This exacerbated another problem. I need another
surgery.
A few days
after I got home from the hospital the new flooring was delivered. It reeked of
formaldehyde. I had severe headaches and dangerously high blood pressure. My
doctor ordered me out of the house!
The hard drive
on my computer died. Tiger Direct replaced it and Dell walked me through
formatting it. I lost lots of files, but am so glad I didn't lose this song.
God wove the ‘black
keys’ of my life into a joyful melody!”
From the album
“This & That – A Little Bit of Everything” this video is scrolling playback
of the song.
Kathy
You can
get print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for Sorrow into Joy.
(MusicXML™ is
the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files
in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)
