Music

It's funny how easy it is to find anniversaries in your year if you just pay attention. Last November 4 was the first song of the week. The song of the week selection has been a little slow in coming these days for a variety of reasons; I have been loath to repeat artists on general principle, and on a couple occasions it has provided some impetus to pick up new music. By and large, that music has been something of a disappointment, but that's all right. It's experience.

Anyone who knows me probably laughs at my songs of the week because I have practically no facility with music whatsoever; I can't read it (though I can remember the notes on the clefs) and I basically like what I like without apology or regard for critical merit.

As a result, the songs of the week have not done much for representing either a very "good" selection of music, nor have they really done a very good job of representing my weeks. I expect that my format will change some in the coming weeks insofar as I'll probably permit myself to stretch the period officially (no longer "songs of the week"; just "songs" instead, I suppose) and to repeat artists (and maybe even albums, sorry).

I refuse, however, to bow to pressure to include more percussion for the sake of percussion. Ahem.

All in all, I had 39 songs of the week; I missed most of July and most of August (one song apiece) due to travels (August) and laziness (July). My inconsistency mostly arrived in the summer time.

Here are the songs of the week for the past year:

"State of Grace," Liberty'n'Justice; "Come on Back to Me," Third Day; "Internet Girlfriend," Grantham Sound Crisis^*; "Dance," Petra; "The Fortunate Isle," Jeff Johnson and Brian Dunning; "Amis Raynaut," QNTAL^**; "Entertaining Angels," Common Children; "Glory to God in the Highest," G. F. Handel^***; "Nobody Gets a Smooth Ride," The Choir; "Highland," Phil Keaggy; "Come Thou Fount," (instrumental) Chris Rice; "One More Day," The Lost Dogs; "Ich bin Wieder Hier" (Here I am again), Blümchen; "Catharsis," Natalie MacMaster; "Shoeshine Johnny," Guardian; "Bi Thusa Mo Huile," (Be Thou My Vision) Maíre Brennan; "Deep Deep Love," (instrumental) "Anne"; "Valleys Fill First," Caedmon's Call; "You Believe," The Waiting; "Work," Jars of Clay; "My Father's World / For the Beauty," Glad; "I know that my Redeemer Liveth," G. F. Handel^***; "Beautiful Day," London Calling; "Breakaway," Idle Cure; "Open Sky," Iona; "Pardon Me," Sarah Brendel; "Louie's Solo," Kevin Max / Passafist; "Come Christians Join to Sing," Concordia^****; "Mind's Made Up," Billey Smiley; "The A-Team Theme Song, Fool"; "The Highwayman," Loreena McKennitt; "Lovely Day," Michelle Tumes; [Africa intervenes]; "Trolley Wood," Eisley; "Break the Same," Mutemath; "Evenstar," Isabel Bayrakdarian; "Long Long Journey," Enya; "Midare Uchi," Kiyoshi Yoshida; "10,000 Years," Stryper.

^* I love this song. Done by some friends who went to Messiah college (hence the reference to Grantham), it just has witty lyrics and a really simple backbeat.

^** They have been most consistently in my music player this year. I've got two of their records; one is "musicalization" of various traditions concerning Tristan and Isolde (French, Spanish, German, Latin, et c), and the other, from which this song is taken, is a collection of miscellaneous poems. They did a terrific job of putting Queen Elizabeth's "On Monsieur's Departure" to music. She was not a very good poet, and she is significantly better than I am.

^*** This is the only artist I repeated, once for Christmas and once for Easter; I love The Messiah. It plays not a small part in my everyday life.

^**** In dedication to my old church choir director, who passed on this past May. This is the first song I ever remember singing in church. She was known for ruling her choir with an iron fist. I remember her fondly.


So there you have it. A bit of the year in review in music.

The week was less exciting than that; mostly it was work and teaching, mixed with a bit of sleep and online shenanigans. I had a talking to with one of the children who has lots of energy but misdirects it. It actually involved a couple kids. And the parents came to me separately afterward and said thank you, which was a little surprising; they are good about not coaching from the sideline, which is much appreciated.

I read quite a bit this week from a variety of sources, which was a great deal of fun. R and I are trying to put together a system based on The Death Gate Cycle, one of the more unique turns in the fantasy world (hold your groans, Olsen Twin!), so I plowed through two of the seven books. I also started reading Josephus' biography, which projects to be a loooong read. And I read a lot of Clement, Mathetes, and Ignatius.

I had a low-grade fever all day yesterday, which didn't help anything. I taught extremely well-disciplined white belts. One of them spit on the floor, and that was basically all I had to deal with. I made him clean it up with his face.

That's not actually true. The cleaning part, I mean. Well, the face part. I made him use a paper towel instead.

I also helped Dad take apart an FM modulator for MP3s because the fuse was going. Exciting times.

Breakfast was good, but definitely did not have enough caffeine. OSU plays on BTN today (ugh), so I will be forced to go out to watch the game, or listen to a cruddy simulcast online.