Music Notes
Now that I have your attention with this confusing picture of me holding the wrong instrument:
Please join us to sing in the Multigenerational Choir at our first rehearsal this Sunday after the service in the Main Meeting Room at 11:30 a.m. We will be preparing for our Thanksgiving Service on 11/24, including two more rehearsals on 11/17 at 11:30 a.m. and 11/24 itself at 9:00 a.m. Participants of all ages are welcome, and absolutely no prior singing experience is necessary. (This is a great first group singing experience for young children and their families!)
But okay... I need to explain the tuba picture. Fourteen years ago, when this picture was taken, I was a serious tubist–a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. As a violinist-composer with a pianist mother and woodwind multi-instrumentalist sister, the major gap in my instrumental knowledge was the brass family. I felt that in order to compose well for brass, I needed some rudimentary knowledge of playing one of the instruments. So, I borrowed a high school tuba for a perspective as far from the violin section as possible. A couple of lessons–and my inability to keep my hobbies hobbies–later, and I was a brass player. Furthermore, I was on a crusade to prove to the world that the tuba was more than a punchline–better than the "oom-pah" role to which it was relegated shortly after its invention during the rise of the brass band.
Richard Wagner commissioned the first "tuba" in 1853 to reproduce the register of the [cylindrical] bass trombone, but with the warm timbre of the [conical] French horn. Sure the tuba can cover a bassline, but the instrument was built to sing. As we reflect on healing this Sunday, it occurred to me that the deep, resonant, visceral quality of low brass would be the perfect medium to facilitate introspection, groundedness, and inner peace. And as fortune would have it, our community is no stranger to fine low brass musicians. My friends Carr Everbach and Jonathan Schmid–two fabulous trombone players–will join me as we play music by icons of the Baroque period, Purcell, J.S. Bach, and Handel, and the meditative Verbum Caro by Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. Together, we will sing hymns #108: "My Life Flows On in Endless Song” and #18: "What Wondrous Love."
See you Sunday!
David Brown
Music Director
Please join us to sing in the Multigenerational Choir at our first rehearsal this Sunday after the service in the Main Meeting Room at 11:30 a.m. We will be preparing for our Thanksgiving Service on 11/24, including two more rehearsals on 11/17 at 11:30 a.m. and 11/24 itself at 9:00 a.m. Participants of all ages are welcome, and absolutely no prior singing experience is necessary. (This is a great first group singing experience for young children and their families!)
But okay... I need to explain the tuba picture. Fourteen years ago, when this picture was taken, I was a serious tubist–a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. As a violinist-composer with a pianist mother and woodwind multi-instrumentalist sister, the major gap in my instrumental knowledge was the brass family. I felt that in order to compose well for brass, I needed some rudimentary knowledge of playing one of the instruments. So, I borrowed a high school tuba for a perspective as far from the violin section as possible. A couple of lessons–and my inability to keep my hobbies hobbies–later, and I was a brass player. Furthermore, I was on a crusade to prove to the world that the tuba was more than a punchline–better than the "oom-pah" role to which it was relegated shortly after its invention during the rise of the brass band.
Richard Wagner commissioned the first "tuba" in 1853 to reproduce the register of the [cylindrical] bass trombone, but with the warm timbre of the [conical] French horn. Sure the tuba can cover a bassline, but the instrument was built to sing. As we reflect on healing this Sunday, it occurred to me that the deep, resonant, visceral quality of low brass would be the perfect medium to facilitate introspection, groundedness, and inner peace. And as fortune would have it, our community is no stranger to fine low brass musicians. My friends Carr Everbach and Jonathan Schmid–two fabulous trombone players–will join me as we play music by icons of the Baroque period, Purcell, J.S. Bach, and Handel, and the meditative Verbum Caro by Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. Together, we will sing hymns #108: "My Life Flows On in Endless Song” and #18: "What Wondrous Love."
See you Sunday!
David Brown
Music Director
Posted in Music Notes