Tickling The Ivories

I recently bought myself a piano keyboard with some Christmas money.

I hadn't touched a piano in years -- not since I left Saskatchewan in 2019. I had taken piano lessons in both the first and last years of my degree, but since I had come into the program essentially without an instrument and since the program director was an opera singer, I had by default become a voice major. The worst and most detested voice major in the program, mind you, but a voice major nonetheless.

What I had really wanted to learn was piano. But I didn't advocate for myself -- I felt embarrassed that I couldn't even read music and here I wanted to be in the music program. At least in voice you could fake it without reading music. You should be better than this was the thought that constantly dogged everything I did -- dance, voice, piano, anything.

I took eight years' worth of music theory in the space of two. I learned enough piano to play my own melody lines in practice and to sight read new choir pieces. The rare time I attempted to play something on the piano in its own right, I noticed the peace that settled over my soul as I watched my fingers work out a recognisable -- and not unpleasant -- tune. But then the voices of everybody I knew would come back in my brain, shrieking and strident: you should be better than this.

When I left Saskatchewan in 2019, I was so tired of hearing that voice that I abandoned singing entirely. I celebrated my final day in the practice room, before my last show there. I would never have to set foot in those rooms again. I would never have anybody give me a failing grade on the voice God gave me ever again.

My piano skills died with it. Due to the absolutely insane schedule that school demands performance (read: voice) majors keep, the only time I really got to play piano was when I was learning a new song for my voice lessons. With my voice lessons firmly and definitely behind me, I also no longer played piano.

For a while, I forgot that I had ever known how to play. The pandemic came and took all the theatre opportunities away, so I lost my ability to sight-read music as well. I remembered the hellish hours of voice training during college, but the fleeting seconds of piano were lost.

This past Christmas, my husband offered to buy me a piano keyboard and showed me the one he had in mind. It looked great, but it was more money than I knew he could afford to spend on me and talked him out of it. But then a relative of his gave us both a not-insubstantial amount of money. Despite my pleas to put mine in our savings account for a house, my husband insisted his relative would have wanted us to spend it on something fun.

I have never in my life possessed a sum of money more than $20 with no option to spend it on the practical things of life. I sat on that money for literal months as I tried to think of something 'fun' to buy. I thought of a bass guitar -- something I had wanted to learn for years. But reading reviews on beginner basses overwhelmed me, and I wondered if I was really going to have the energy to learn a new instrument with my few remaining scraps of energy at the end of each day.

But then I remembered the piano keyboard my husband had shown me months earlier. I had some piano experience. I wouldn't be learning a whole new instrument from scratch. And I knew my husband would approve since it had been his idea in the first place.

So I ordered it, it arrived, and my mother and sister (an advanced pianist) sent me some sheet music my sister was no longer using. I found a copy of Michael W. Smith's Great Is The Lord is the pages they sent, and while that's not my favourite worship song or even my favourite MWS song, the memories of listening to it on my dad's vinyl copy drove me to pick that one.

The first week was mostly a rude awakening of just how much music theory I had forgotten. I spent days just trying to remember how key signatures worked (my theory books were all at my parents' house), and it took about as long to remember the notes of the bass clef (the treble clef was more hardwired into my soprano brain, but even that had taken a hit). But it began to come back to me, and I even began to develop some smoothness, then to play both hands together through some parts of the song.

And every time I sat down at that keyboard to run through the song, I felt a brush of... peace? maybe even joy? tickle my shoulders. It was so soft that I didn't even notice it at first. But after a few weeks, I realised it was the same feeling I get when I dance. That same peace, that calm, that assurance that all is right with the world, if only for a moment. And I began to remember having that same feeling the few times I played piano in its own right at college. Practicing voice had only ever been a source of stress and fear and frustration. Playing piano had been so lovely and calming that I had avoided it because it was 'wasting my time...' if I wasn't in a state of maximum stress while doing it, it probably was because I was using it to procrastinate on doing something useful... right?

But now, nobody is grading me on my voice or my piano skills, so I'm continuing to practice piano and relish the peace it brings me. I still don't have a space to dance in (and at the moment, I also do not have a healthy back to dance with), but at least I have this, this one modicum of peace in a world that feels increasingly and heavily against me. I'm only sad that it took me this long to realise that piano is what I should have been pursuing all along.

Music Day - A Song In The Night

I'm surprised I haven't featured this one.

Silverwind was, vocally, the 'Christian' equivalent of ABBA, and I loved both equally. There's not a lot of call for soprano voices in CCM, and from the day I first heard this album I was enraptured by Betsy Hernandez's pure, clear voice (come to think of it, those are also the same vocal qualities Rick Florian has). My short-lived desire to be a singer was born then, listening to my dad's vinyl copy of the album I'm about to feature.

For me, this was a slow burner of a song. It was pretty, of course, and I could appreciate the lyrics even then, but I liked Forgiven better (ironically the one song on the album that didn't heavily feature Hernandez's fairy-like soprano voice). It was around 2016 when this song sprang into my mind out of nowhere and I spent the next eight hours choreographing the entire thing start-to-finish from scratch. I had never even thought about choreographing it (there were too many Daniel Amos songs ahead of it in the queue), but suddenly I saw the entire thing in my head, fully formed, and it was all I could do to write it all down before it was gone. It was one of maybe two dances I've made that I would suspect were divinely inspired. There were seventeen dancers, angels flooding the stage. I'm not normally one for angels, but that was what the piece demanded so that was what I wrote. This is probably one of the ones I would most like to see on stage before I die.

The song itself is written as a lullaby -- a rather more lush and fleshed-out lullaby (the song clocks in at nearly four a and half minutes long). It includes not only Silverwind's signature harmonies, but also a child choir. If you can tune out the oom-pah-pah-like bass line (I promise, it is literally the only kitschy part of the song), you will find a beautiful bed of piano work (I wish I knew who played piano on this so I can buy everything they ever played on), accentuated by some light synth touches.

There are several highlight moments here. The first is the second chorus. The first chorus features only the children singing the melody in unison on la la la, accompanied only by a gentle rhythm section. The first and second verses are lovely and touching but not overly arresting -- painting a picture of a frightened child singing a simple song to beat back the terrors of the night -- but after the second verse there's a short but hard stop and Betsy's voice, nearly a cappella, puts words to the melody that the children sang earlier.

Take me soon, O morning star

To the heavens where you are

Sailing on a silver wind

Take me where my dreams begin...

In recent years, I've begun to imagine singing this to any future children I might have. It's the only time I have ever really pictured having a child of my (our) own. But the angel theme that I suddenly associated with the song in 2016 is a hard one to break. It does make sense -- in 2016, I was still very much grieving the losses (read: deaths) that happened in 2015, including the death of my cousin at nine years old. And in the past year or two especially, I have developed a very intense longing for 'home' -- the heavens, beyond the stars, beyond the wall of sleep. It's much deeper than the suicidal urges I've fought off and on through the years. This is a pervasive longing -- not to die, necessarily, but to go to the place where things are Good. The words take me, morning star / To the heavens where you are (as it is sung later in the song) sometimes fill me with so much longing to go there that it brings me to tears. This song is a lullaby, but a very emotionally intense one, one with the aura of death.

The second major highlight moment is where is seems the song comes to an end. At this point, it's been a lovely but mellow lullaby. It slows to an ending with a repeated line and a cadence... then the piano surges into the space and a triumphant trumpet kicks off a repeat of the chorus...

The third highlight is after this repeat. The chorus is repeated again, but with the children singing a counterpoint line -- which is something you literally NEVER, EVER hear in CCM (yes, DA did it in Horrendous Disc, the song, a couple years earlier, but by then they were in the process of being relegated to the 'probably heresy' section in Christian music stores). It is absolutely otherworldly.

Title: A Song In The Night

Artist: Silverwind

Album: A Song In The Night

Year: 1982

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Shadows fade and then disappear

When voices rise up sweet and clear...

The Annual Goalpost

I kind of dislike the annual goal-setting. It's hard. Part of it is because a lot of these goals are pretty abstract and difficult to measure progress in, but part of it is also because I genuinely have no idea what province I'm going to be in this time next year. I graduate (hopefully) in April... and then what? I have three viable options, and at the moment it's a waiting game to see which will pan out.

As far as that goes -- I want to stay in the performing arts. I've already got a few auditions lined up for 2019 -- the second is in less than a week. So I guess that counts as a goal. But what do I want to do around that -- when I'm not actually at rehearsal or practicing or performing? What do I want to work on in practice?

First -- dance.
If I do end up moving, goal #1 is to find a practice space. I'm spoiled here right now -- I have relatively unlimited access to a studio a five-minute walk from my house, and I have a connection to another studio in the next town over if I need it. I've had the opportunity to practice literally every day for the past two years and I would not be where I am now as a dancer if it wasn't for that. In dance, perhaps more than any other discipline, daily practice is absolutely CRUCIAL even just to maintain technique. Dance technique/ability gets lost faster than technique in any other discipline I've attempted.
Goal #2 would be to find classes (and a job to pay for them). If I can't find a studio to practice in on my own time, this would be the next best thing, plus it's also important to have a trained teacher looking at my technique and giving corrections on a regular basis even when I am practicing on my own regularly. I know at this point a career as a full-time classical ballerina is not likely, but I would still like to train toward that level, just for my own strength and enjoyment (and also to prove to those who said I couldn't that I can).

I want to do more choreography. Of course this includes National Choreography Month in January, but it also includes more dance videos. For 2018 my goal was to make multiple new dance videos (I believe I actually said 'one per month'), but unfortunately I only accomplished one (plus two live videos). I do want to continue the videos into 2019 though. At least two videos? I hope? Hopefully more, but realistically (financially) I might only be able to pull off two. I'd like to do at least one ballet one (to show that I'm not just a tapper -- then again, I'm definitely stronger in tap than ballet and I don't want the ballet videos to suffer artistically because of my lack of ability).

Talking of choreography, I've been wanting to make a longer story-show for a while now. Like maybe a half-hour to an hour of dance that somehow follows a cohesive story or at least a theme. I'm not sure how to approach it or what exactly to tackle, but I would really love to do something like this at some point in my life -- why not lay some groundwork for it now? I've already begun work on this a bit -- choreographing the first side of Daniel Amos' phenomenal album Doppelgänger as a long(ish)-form work to start.

I want to make a proper memorial dance for M. Ideally I would also like to actually have the opportunity to stage it (still haven't been able to stage Brittney's, my cousin's, or my grandpa's...).

I want to start doing more live (dance) performances. Right now I'm thinking competitions, coffeehouses, talent shows, et cetera (in addition to the one college recital). Just to get more audience response to my performance and choreography so I can see what needs to improve. Plus it'll keep me comfortable with live performance as opposed to the safety net of video editing.

I want to continue working on my flexibility. I feel less tight than usual (overall), but so far it's not translating into actual flexibility. This is still my greatest hindrance as a performer. Not just as a dancer, as a performer, full stop. I have had theatre directors pass over me even though I'm technically excellent, fairly expressive, and relatively strong simply because I'm not flexible. I'm so so close to my left front split and it's absolutely driving me crazy that I can't get those last two inches (I've been stuck there since probably about late September/early October).

I need to work on allegro more. I have some level of natural gifting for it, but I don't push myself in it nearly enough. It's hard to get up that much energy when practicing by oneself.

I also want to work on my wings (in tap), both single and double-foot. I'm decent at them actually... what I need is stamina. On that topic, I want to work on my stamina in general. It's MUCH better than it was when I started college (I couldn't even get through the first side of the Intermediate port de bras without literally collapsing), but it's still not great. Again, if I would actually just do allegro instead of avoiding it all the time...

I'm realising lately that I have a lot of mental tension around dance, of all things. I think at least part of the reason I don't push myself in allegro a lot (*cough* at all) is because I'm not confident I'm doing everything correctly (which is why I need dance classes with actual teachers, not just self-directed practice...), so 1. I'm scared I'll get incorrect technique in my muscle memory, and 2. I'm scared I'll injure myself. The one and only dance injury that ever actually sidelined me (ankle) happened during allegro. I'm also starting to wonder if mental tension is at least part of the plateau in my stretching. I notice during one stretch in particular that I can push myself farther without pain, but when I do, I just really, really dislike how it feels in my body -- so much that I actually feel slightly sick -- so I ease off it. So far I've only noticed it in that one stretch (on only one side... the other side I can push it fine), but maybe there are others I haven't clued into yet.

Regarding voice...
It's hard to set goals here. I still know very little about singing and what I should expect of myself. What's reasonable? What do I even want? I don't know. Until very recently, my only goal was to not suck. Now that I'm getting past that point, I don't really know what's next. I'd kind of like to learn more opera and musical theatre (mostly to challenge my acting skills, actually -- since I don't really know what to strive for in actual sound/technique).

And piano...
Oh yes, by the way, I started piano this past semester and absolutely fell in love with it. I took one semester at the beginning of my college career in 2013, but I was too angry and tense and perfectionistic and easily frustrated to enjoy it so of course I didn't really get anywhere in my abilities. Now I'm in a better place to receive the joy that playing piano brings me. I really just want to learn as much as I can. I just get lost in playing, and before I know it, a whole hour will have slipped by. The only other thing I have EVER done that with is dance.
Over Christmas break I've gone through my sister's earlier piano rep (she's a few grades ahead of me) and pulled out probably about a dozen songs that I feel are around or not insanely far above my current level of playing. I'm trying to think of a piece that I can set as a reasonable goal for the end of the year that won't be too easy for me to get by April, but also won't still be completely out of reach by November. I feel like I don't have enough of a sense of my growth trajectory yet to really make any solid long-term plans here so for now I'm just trying to take this a few pieces at a time, while consistently challenging myself.

Writing...
Of course I'd like to do NaNoWriMo in 2019 as well, but I'll ponder that more after graduation (I usually start percolating ideas around June).

I want to continue work on Kyrie. I had some momentum on it before NaNoWriMo this year, and it actually influenced my NaNoWriMo novel quite a bit because I couldn't quite get out of Kyrie brain during November (at one point during the month I said 'this novel is basically Kyrie but less good').

Theatre...
Basically the plan at the moment is 'audition for ALL the things!' I'm currently lining up my audition schedule for the next few months (I have one next week) and I have to say, I am VERY excited.
I want to work on my acting skills. I don't quite know how that looks yet. I'm trying to figure something out, but it's hard when I don't really know what the goal actually is, or even how you 'practice' acting.

Goals for life in general... These are the ones that are hardest to attain. The performing/artistic ones can be so easily incorporated into a schedule -- go to a practice room/studio for a few hours. But these are harder -- 98% of my life is wrapped up in the arts, so to do anything outside of it feels clunky and unnatural (well -- more clunky and unnatural than my artistic endeavours).

The biggest one is keep in contact with my friends.
This is a hard one. Due to depression, the way I was raised, and the way I was treated by my peers during my teen years, I have this deep-seated belief that nobody has time for me (and this belief is strong in my mind whether I'm in a good headspace or not). People have better things to do than spend time with me. So 99% of the time I don't even try to initiate contact with other people, even my closest friends. I'm terrified I'm going to wear out my welcome and then I'll be truly friendless, and I don't ever want to go back there again. I'd rather have a 'friend' that I'm too scared to talk to than overdo the talking and end up with no friends at all.
I think a subgoal of this might be to quit apologising that I'm spending time with them on the rare occasion that I actually do convince myself to spend time with them.

The other one is to not move back home immediately after graduating.
As much as I love my family and my friends at home and my home dance school and the city and the landscape, I don't dare go back too soon and settle back into my pre-college rut. I did that after I graduated with my Associate in 2015 and it almost literally killed me -- I had a $60,000 degree that I was doing literally nothing with and I was living the same dead-end life that I had before I went to college. I wound up feeling like my life was a waste and that I was a waste. There's an overpass I drive over on the commute from my home dance school and I cannot even count how many times over that next year I almost pulled over and jumped onto the busy highway below. Knowing this, I need to make a life for myself outside of both home and school, at least for a time. Once I know that I can survive on my own without school to set my routine, maybe I will end up back around home, closer to my family. But if I do it too soon, all the growth and excitement of what I've been learning out on my own in college will fizzle and I'll dead-end again. And that's so dangerous for me. I need to keep forward momentum, and I won't be able to do that if I move back home immediately after graduation.

I need to nail down my 'why.' Why do I perform? Why do I keep practicing? Why do I do this? 'Because I love it' is a good start, but I'm not convinced that it's really enough (it sure isn't when I'm struggling to motivate myself to practice an allegro that I know nobody will ever see me do). That reason seems inherently selfish to me, so I feel guilty about it. Which of course makes me second-guess myself which makes me tense and frustrated which of course means I continue to suck at performing. I need a strong reason to keep slogging through when it's tough. I am definitely the type of person who absolutely WILL NOT do something unless you can give me an extremely good reason to do it/do it this way. 'Because I said so' has never worked on me, even as a kid. 'Because it'll make this easier/sound better/look better/give you a better foundation for what's to come' resonates with me. Tell me why and I'll do it gladly. But so far I haven't been able to tell myself on the hard days why I do this. I love it. I do. I have never known joy like the joy I (usually) have during performance runs. But somehow that doesn't feel like a good enough reason, and it's keeping me hesitant.

Extraordinary

When I go visit my family, one of my favourite things is listening to my sister practice piano.

She's someone you probably wouldn't expect to be a pianist. She's almost a tomboy -- short hair, loves the outdoors, loves bugs in particular, owns a pet rabbit and co-owns about twenty outdoor cats, perennially in jeans and running barefoot, and can throw a punch or two if necessary. She's kindhearted and small and feisty and you don't mess with her if you know what's good for you.

Yet, she sits down at that piano and spins beautiful smooth melodies out of it so effortlessly. It's hard to believe it's my own little sister -- the rough-and-tumble farm kid -- making music like that. It never ceases to amaze me. Two of my other sisters are violinists, but somehow that seems more natural -- they both have a personality more stereotypically like that of a musician, plus in violin you see their arm moving the bow across the strings. With a piano it's just your fingers hitting keys. It's a lot more impressive to make a piano piece smooth and emotional.

The other day I was backstage at a show and got talking with a few other choir singers that I sort of knew, but not very well, and in the context of a different conversation it came out that I'm working on a novel. They were in awe and peppered me with questions. They were so impressed. I was a little taken aback. Having written fifteen (and a half) novels in the past ten years, I often genuinely forget that people don't just write novels in their free time. To me it seems normal. To them, it's extraordinary.

So I write this to you, my fellow artists -- whether or not you think you're worthy of the title. You are extraordinary. Yes, your everyday life consists of practice and rehearsal and research and fine-tuning and critique, but the average person's life doesn't. I especially write this to those of you, like me, who are in this world full-time and all your friends are from this world of practicing and rehearsing and fine-tuning and you feel lost in it. You (and your friends) are all extraordinary. You are not the norm. It feels like the norm, but it's not. You do incredible things. For me -- I write novels. Whole novels. For fun. People don't do that. That's extraordinary. I practice dance multiple hours every day. I may not have 180 extensions, but I have speed, and strength, and grace that does not come naturally to 99% of the population (even though I still often feel like I'm less-than because I'm surrounded by flexible dancers).

All those years that you have dedicated to your craft -- your instrument, your poetry, your drawing -- are extraordinary. This past August I made a rough calculation of how many hours of my life I've spent dancing -- not rehearsals or performance, just class and my own practice. The number came to well over two thousand hours, and I know for a fact most artists practice much more than I did in my earlier years. To dedicate that much time to a craft is extraordinary. Nobody has that kind of patience or love for something so difficult and nuanced (especially if it doesn't earn you millions of dollars).

And all those hours have culminated to make you extraordinary. Because now this is such a part of you that you can simply sit down at a piano, like my farm-girl sister, and play something so clear and effortless that it takes our breath away. Now you can simply pick up a paintbrush and create a world with so much depth and detail we forget that it's not a real place. Now you can simply put on a pair of shoes with metal on them and make an engaging rhythm faster than your brain can think. Now you can shape words into a living, breathing sculpture of the effervescent nature of human experience, explaining and understanding at the same time.

You now have the power to do extraordinary things at will. Yes, there are always improvements to be made, yes, we must always practice, but remember that we are not the norm. We are, right now, this moment, already extraordinary.

Music Day - Only Time

I am reinstating Music Day just so I can fangirl over this song. That is how good this song is. You know when you watch a sunset and everything seems so 'right'? That's what this song is like.

See, I bought a bunch of Crumbächer tapes the other day (full saga forthcoming). Stephen Crumbacher was already one of my favourite lyricists, just behind the likes of Terry Scott Taylor, Loyd Boldman, and the duo of David Meece and Dwight Liles. Identical Twins alone is a testament to just how much mastery Stephen Crumbacher has over the written word. Even in today's song -- notice how clearly you can picture each description of the sky. Now realise that he is painting this entire mental picture with three lines of text (each) and a bit of keyboard. He takes you almost literally across the galaxy, across time and space -- in essentially twelve lines of poetry.

I grew up in the Alberta countryside. Our yard faced west and every single night, from the comfort of our living room, we could watch God paint the western sky. I have seen many, many brilliant sunsets over the years, and that's one of the biggest things I miss now, living on a south-facing yard. But to this day sunsets capture me. All feels right in the world if I can watch a sunset for a while. In this song Crumbächer follows the changing, timeless skies with a wonder and peace that is rarely, rarely seen in the arts -- ever.

In the later Crumbächer albums, Stephen really began to show off the depth and emotional range of his piano/keyboard skills (though keyboards had always been a core part of the band's sound), and they are on full display here (the interlude, people!). Maybe Thunder Beach didn't have the harmonic virtuosity (vocals-wise) that Escape and Incandescent had, but the piano skills -- even just on this song -- make up for it.

Also, the space in the drum track opens this thing right up into something big and glorious and sweeping (again... that interlude!). Dawn's vocals are a really lovely touch. All in all, this is probably one of the loveliest songs I have ever heard -- and this is coming from a person who owns almost everything Terry Scott Taylor has ever written.

Title: Only Time
Artist: Crumbächer
Album: Thunder Beach
Year: 1987
Label: Frontline Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Midnight - the stars are shining
Frequencies that tease the ear
Parade across the atmosphere...

Music Day Part II - Easter Song

A week late for Easter Sunday... but He is still risen, even now.

This is probably one of the most well-known Easter songs -- ever. On Good Friday I featured Silverwind -- this group was their predecessor. The prototype, if you will, the original.

This is the song that launched the career of an orphaned group of siblings with no musical training to speak of but an ear for harmony. This piece remains a classic among Christian music historians. It's delightfully simple in its message and the piano is so light and bouncy that it induces almost immediate dancing of some kind -- whether the subtle, head-nodding type or a more Pentecostal full-body style.

Title: Easter Song
Artist: Second Chapter Of Acts
Album: With Footnotes
Year: 1974
iTunes here; YouTube here.

The angel up on the tombstone said 'He is risen, just as He said
'Quickly now
'Go tell His disciples that Jesus Christ is no longer dead'
Joy to the world -- He is risen
Hallelujah!

Music Day Part I - Forgiven

It really doesn't feel like Good Friday to me today. Usually on Good Friday there is a turkey dinner and family (whether mine or someone else's generous one). But I spent today researching tap shoes (mine are officially shot) alone in my flat.

It's getting harder to find suitable songs for Easter weekend every year. Songs on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus were fairly common in the 1970s and 1980s, but since then even the mention of Jesus in Christian music is hard to come by (unless you're a worship band, but even then they mostly talk about how He makes them feel, not anything He's actually done). As a result, I'm featuring the songs that do exist, but there aren't really any new ones coming out. The year will come when I have to either stop the two-for-one Easter weekend special or start re-using songs.

Fortunately for all of us, this is not that year.

Title: Forgiven
Artist: Silverwind
Album: A Song In The Night
Year: 1982
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

How have I not featured this song before? This album was my jam back in 2003-2006. Yeah, okay, the production is dated, but the vocal blend is lovely and there's a really sweet simplicity in all of Silverwind's songs -- especially the songs on this album. Betsy Hernandez has perhaps the prettiest unrecognised voice in CCM history and was actually my inspiration to even consider learning to sing myself. It just floats. It's like a fairy's voice. Unfortunately this is the one song on the album that doesn't feature her voice prominently, but you still hear her airy soprano in the harmonies in the chorus and in the backing vocals. (Check out the title track from this album and some of the Music Day archives -- here and here -- if you want to hear more of her.)

This song is based on a true story, by the way -- check out Luke 23:32-43.

Music Day - I Can See

I have been playing the crap out of this song lately. The other day I found out about the Steve Green cover of this song (which is fairly true to the original, and also it's apparently fairly well-known -- you know how sometimes the cover eclipses the original even if the original is better? This looks like one of those times), and I've been playing the original (which I already owned) ever since.

I really want to do a ballet solo to this. The orchestration is perfect for it. Now that I think about it, this song -- the album closer -- was really a departure from the album that preceded it. This was probably David Meece's most rocking album (which is still pretty mellow), and then at the very end comes this lovely quiet tender piano piece with a string orchestra and a very heartfelt (rather than energetic) vocal performance. David Meece is one of those performers who bleeds into his songs -- they're not just his way of making money (theoretically), these songs are a part of him. They come from his very soul and he means every word he sings. And it's not just the lyrics that are heartfelt -- the fact that he was practically born playing piano means he has that elusive ability to speak through the piano. The piano is an extension of his thoughts. This kind of intimacy with an instrument or tool only comes with long practice so it's quite rare (though less so among classical musicians, which David is), but it's so incredible to hear. There's a person at our church who plays cello and she's the same way -- she's so intimately acquainted with her instrument that the bow is an extension of her arm and she knows exactly how to make it say what she wants. (I hope to be able to dance like that one day -- that I will be able to know exactly how to shade what I do to speak without words. The sad thing is most dancers age out before they attain that level of thoroughness in their experience.) Photographers can do this too -- the camera is so much a part of them it's like the pen with which they write. They know the camera and the camera knows them. Taking a picture is a conversation between the photographer and her camera. But I digress...

This is a Don Francisco-style lyric (for his take on the same Biblical account, check out his song The Traveler/Joy), but David's voice is not quite as harsh as Don's and so blends better with the fragile flowing violins he chooses for his arrangement. I was first introduced to this song on vinyl (courtesy my dad), and that's a special treat. The warmer sound of vinyl adds just a little bit extra to the experience (although if your record has a lot of surface noise -- like ours does -- it's much harder to hear the actual song because the song is so quiet to begin with). If you get the chance to listen on vinyl, take it. But even listening in a digital format can be a moving experience.

Title: I Can See
Artist: David Meece
Album: 7
Year: 1985
Label: Myrrh Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

All at once he walked beside me
Like he'd been there all along
Not a stranger -- but a father
Who can sense when something's wrong...

Music Day - Father's Arms

Monday night/Tuesday morning I was working and was listening to Daniel Amos to keep me awake. I was just picking songs at random and hit on this one that I'd apparently played exactly twice before. (Just for comparison, the entire Vox Humana album sits at about 48 on the iTunes play count -- and that doesn't include playing the CD approximately four thousand times during the summer of 2013.) I didn't know this song well and I wasn't really listening at first, but then the lyrics began to sound familiar...

'And the darkness comes whispering down the halls
And you're a scared little child who dreams he falls...'

How many times have I daydreamed of falling -- falling off the overpass, off a bridge -- over the past two months?

I was listening more closely now, and the song got even more autobiographical:

'You assure them while composure is breaking
And they watch as you run and you hit the wall
Slump to the ground and begin to crawl
To the edge of the cliff where you start your fall...'

Parenthetical paragraph: These lyrics also call to mind another song that would come from Terry Taylor's pen ten years later: Safety Net, from Darn Floor, Big Bite. Specifically this part:
'Down to the black bridge of sighs
She drains her head by the river
Bowed to the father of lies
And hangs on the ledge of forever...'
(End parenthetical paragraph.)

The invitation issued in the chorus, though, still gives me pause -- 'Come fall in your Father's arms...'

Do I trust God even that much anymore? Do I trust Him to catch me as I fall apart, as I fall off the edge of faith, of joy, of everything that was good in my life? The call is so gentle, but still I stiffen and pull away. It's a nice thought, but is it really true? I wish it was, but I honestly don't know. The last couple times I trusted God, He just went ahead and wrecked everything anyway. This invitation here is so sweet and gentle though -- it makes me miss that assurance that He would catch me if I fell.

Now for the arrangement.

First -- those harmonies. DA has always been noted for their harmonies, especially in their early days. They're lovely here in the chorus. That third line where someone (Terry?) takes a higher harmony -- that's my favourite part.

Second, the melody is both beautiful and unique -- classic TST. I love the leap upward it makes at the end of the second line of each verse. I don't think anybody but Terry Taylor would write a melody like that. And I like the slightly-offset rhythm of the 'All right, okay, oh yeah...' line -- gives the song a little bit of verve.

Plus, the strings and piano add a bit of drama and almost-symphonic beauty to the song (particularly in the interlude), while the electric guitar keeps it in rock territory. This song is darn near perfection.

Title: Father's Arms
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: Shotgun Angel
Year: 1977
Label: Maranatha! Music
Buy the (deluxe two-disc remastered) album directly from the band here.
iTunes here; YouTube here.
Lyrics here.

Music Day - War Games

This song is literally my entire life for the past year and a half.

Title: War Games
Artist: Keith Green
Album: Keith Green Live
Year: circa 1975, released 2011
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Hey God
Where were You today?
You didn't answer my prayer
Seems like
I pray and I pray
And lately You are not there...

This is quite a departure from the in-your-face Keith Green of For Him Who Has Ears To Hear and it is many miles away from the joyful psalm-singing Keith Green of Songs Of The Shepherd. The rich emotional vocal style is the same, and the lovely sweeping piano work is the same, but the lyrics are very different, both in topic and in affect. Keith tackles the frustration that comes with being a Christian and seeing your life fall to pieces around you despite allegedly having the all-powerful and all-loving God of the universe on your side. This is one of the very, very few songs recorded by an artist with a Christian worldview that outright asks 'what's the point of being a Christian when I have to depend on myself for everything anyway?' Even Daniel Amos -- who do not shy away from controversial depth and frustration in their lyrics -- never (to my knowledge) come quite this close to that question.

It may be worth noting that this song was apparently written before Keith actually committed himself to Christ, but I find the pain and anger in the lyrics can be quite accurate. Sometimes you do just feel like screaming at God -- maybe it'll get His attention.

Christmas For The Broken (Music Day)

Usually I'm that really annoying hyper-Christmas person who starts working Boney M. and Michael W. Smith into the music rotation in the middle of August. But this year, it's already Christmas Day and I'm still not feeling it.

It was an awful year. It was right around this time of year that I heard from Brittney for the very last time -- although I didn't know it. It was at Christmas 2014 that I last saw my cousin, my aunt, the family friend we lost, and an entire family unit out of our extended family -- we didn't know it then either. I distinctly remember my uncle hugging me after our family Christmas last year and telling me to 'be good' -- his usual way of saying goodbye. Less than a month later, he left his wife, God abandoned me, and so began the Year From Hell.

How do you celebrate Christmas when the loving family who swore they'd love each other and stick together through thick and thin is either dead, banished, or not speaking to each other?

Peace on earth and good will to men.

This year I learnt that despite all my extended family's insistence to the contrary, their love for each other is EXTREMELY fickle. And if these people are willing to leave spouses and children, if they are willing to skip freaking Christmas after a year like this because of some spat with some in-law, how much longer until it's me they're leaving? How long until they tell me they don't love me anymore, the same way they're telling everyone else? How do you expect me, your niece, to believe you care for me and want the best for me when you are willing to walk out on your own spouse just because you decided you didn't like them anymore?

Does anybody not see what is wrong with this?

Title: Where Are You Christmas
Artist: The Piano Guys
Album: A Family Christmas
Year: 2013
Label: Portrait
iTunes here; YouTube here.

This arrangement is a prime example of when the beautiful is so lovely is also makes one sad -- or at least melancholy. It's an experience that's getting more and more rare these days, but one that really should be getting more frequent. There's 'sad because it's so awful,' there's 'sad because the lyrics are sad,' there's 'sad because of extenuating circumstances,' but this is the increasingly rare 'sad because of its sheer beauty.' The piano melody throughout the piece gets me every time. And then the girl's plaintive voice comes in with that question: where are you, Christmas? and it somehow sounds just like me.

What happened to Christmas with all my aunt and uncles laughing, with the voices of all of the children ringing happily off the ceiling? What happened to Christmas where love pervaded the room and not an awkward tiptoeing around pretty much every single subject we always used to talk about?

Death happens. I get that. My cousin didn't really have a choice in the matter. But divorce -- that's another story. That's your own selfish choice. That is a very clear message that the people you said you committed to don't matter. You committed to me. Don't I matter?

I can never be assured of that again.

Music Day - My Frontier

I've been overdosing on this song as of late. I don't even know why... it's like when I was a kid, I would love songs to death, but people would ask me why I liked this song or that artist so much and I wouldn't be able to answer. I didn't know why I liked them, I just did. Nowadays my reasons for liking songs usually have something to do with the lyrics, the poetry, the vocal, or sometimes there's a certain instrument track or soaring climax that captivates me. But I don't actually know why I love this song so much. It captivates me and sends me through so many emotions, but I don't know what it is about the song that does that. Perhaps it's all of it as a whole -- all the instruments, the poetry, the vocal... this is DA, after all. There's a melancholy artistic feeling to the song. I think it's the feel of the whole general thing that gets me -- the sum greater than its parts, maybe?

I suppose I should talk about the specific attributes of the song here though, so you have a better idea what you're about to hear. I make no guarantees about my ability to put this into words though (trying to describe great music in writing is stinking difficult -- why do I keep doing it then? Probably because nobody listens to me when I talk out loud about music and I have to exercise my enthusiasm somewhere...).

It crashes in with a guitar... I don't know, chord? and then the jingling guitar creeps up and that wonderful solid bass line comes in -- thump thump thump. The whole song has kind of a sweeping, swirling, ethereal feel to it, and only the bass keeps it grounded. It really is timeless. It's the same sort of feeling that captured me way back when I was four and fell in love with the music of David Meece (specifically, the song This Time).

And the climax of the song gives me chills -- when the piano thunders in and Terry's voice grows higher and more earnest (he spends most of the song in a low smooth near-whisper). And for some reason I absolutely love the line Kick it apart; Kick the whole world apart... Don't know why.

Title: My Frontier
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: MotorCycle
Year: 1993
iTunes here; YouTube here.
Lyrics here.

Kick it apart
Kick the whole world apart and the
Night will absolve us
Wipe the slate clean
Maybe not for a lifetime
For just one day
Just one more day...

Music Day

Just in time for a new year of Music Day posts, I've acquired a considerable amount of music in the past few weeks.

It started with the discovery of classicchristian247.com this past November. Not only have I discovered songs from my childhood that I had previously not known the names of, I have also discovered other music I've come to enjoy. (I would have said 'new music' except it's mostly from the eighties.)

However, the music they play on the station that I tend to like usually exceeds the iTunes Store's repertoire. So I turned to eBay.

In the past month or so, I've rounded out my entire White Heart collection (save Don't Wait For The Movie), gotten that one last Petra album that iTunes steadfastly refuses to carry, and bought at least one album from a flash-in-the-pan because I kept hearing songs from that artist on the radio.

Then, just before Christmas, I stopped at the second-hand store. I needed one last component for my little sister's gift and my mother suggested looking at the second-hand shop.

What I needed conveniently happened to be right next to the music section. So while I waited for my mother to return (she had dropped me off and taken the rattletrap to get groceries), I browsed through the music.

There I found Jars Of Clay's debut album on cassette, plus Steven Curtis Chapman's Signs Of Life, Newsboys' Take Me To Your Leader, and Petra's Petra Praise 2 on CD. All told it was less than five dollars. All of the CDs are in good condition and at least side one of the cassette is good (I haven't gotten around to the second side yet).

For Christmas my parents got me two Newsboys albums I didn't yet have and a friend got me an iTunes gift card, which, when added to the store credit I already had, yielded nearly fifty dollars. I'm still chipping away at that.

And now... I've talked about getting a USB record player for years now. My father has quite a collection of 1980s Christian records, most of which I'd also fallen in love with back when I was four or five years old and he would play DJ in our living room in the evenings, spinning his favourite songs on vinyl and CD for our enjoyment. Even now, hearing the songs he played most often brings me back to those evenings when I would sit by the stereo with him on our brand-new white carpet and look at all the album covers and -- perhaps most importantly -- look for the copyright year of each one (because even back then I was nerdy enough to care about this).

Anyway, back to the story.

So the other day I needed something at the electronics store. My father came with me, saying he wanted to look at something.

We left the store with the cable I needed... plus a shiny new record player. I think it was a purchase for him more than it was for me -- I've never seen him so excited.

Long story short I've spent the better part of the past two or three days importing vinyl. I intend to convert a few of his favourite albums to CD for his birthday next week, but right now I'm high on all his DeGarmo & Key and David Meece albums. (Though I'm sure he would enjoy having those on CD too -- after all, he evidently liked their music if he kept buying their records.)

So today, after much deliberation, I have decided to feature this:

Title: You Are The One
Artist: Keith Green
Album: Songs For The Shepherd
Year: 1982
Label: Pretty Good Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

(Note this is Keith Green, not to be confused with Steve Green (this confused me to no end as a child). Keith Green was the guy with the really thick curly hair who died in a plane crash. Steve Green, as far as I know, is still around (in fact, I think he's still recording).)

When I first heard a Keith Green song, about a year or so ago, I wasn't particularly impressed. I don't remember which song it was, but I remember thinking it was rather boring.

However, after a couple of months of hearing his work on the radio, it's started to grow on me. I think he composed with the piano rather than the guitar, a rarity in Christian music to say the least (David Meece is the only other Christian artist I can think of right this second who also composes on the piano). In fact, I read a review of a Keith Green album once that said simply, 'Keith Green makes the piano keys sing.' The more I listen to his songs, the more I'm inclined to agree. The rock feel of some of his other material (not so much in this song) has a sort of 'class' that isn't easily found elsewhere. I like electric-guitar-based rock as much as the next person, but piano-based rock is a nice burst of fresh air.

Another thing I've grown like about his music is the passion, the love he had for God. You hear it especially in the song I just posted... you can hear the smile in his voice, like he's almost about to laugh just from joy. It's such a simple song, but he has so much fun singing it you can't help singing along.

I was dying
But You gave Your life for me
Oh...