Byzantine

Kind of an odd title for this post.  But yes, it is about singing Byzantine music.  The Greek Orthodox Church is built on byzantine music, art and architecture.  Complicated as it is to study it is very easy to listen to.  The chants flow easily and beautifully, exploring musical intervals not common to the “westernized” musical ear.  There is a plethora of music from ancient times that feeds what we sing today.  And the timelessness of a music that started so many years ago is truly spiritual and magical.

I’m about to embark on that journey as choir director of a Greek Orthodox Church.  The music for the Divine Liturgy is going to be restructured to reflect the true byzantine tradition that it should.  What a wonderful journey into the past, keeping a culture alive within the walls of the Church.  A true escape for a while on Sunday morning to lose oneself in the beauty and spirituality of the Divine Liturgy.

Eve’s Philosophy

My latest rant has to do with a Facebook friend who has taken upon himself the trashing of all the Republican candidates for President, and the Roman Catholic Religion (likening it to the Muslim “sharia law”), and anything conservative.  Personally, I think Facebook is overrated and should be kept light-hearted.  So I in return, have posted a couple of links to articles about Obama that state his many lies in office and how he hasn’t come close to fulfilling any so-called promises to the people.  We, in fact, are in worse shape than ever in this country.

Then I picked up an email from a friend about how no one really knows Obama.  So many of us never heard of him.  And I am from Chicago…lived there still when he was supposedly running for the Senate.  I don’t remember ever seeing his name on a ballot or voting for him or anything!  There are only two candidates for a senate seat…one republican and one democrat.  So it’s not like there were so many I couldn’t remember who I voted for, or any odd names such as “Barack Obama.”  I would have remembered a name like that.

The email I received asked many important questions about Obama…namely, why nobody he supposedly went to school with knows anything about him.  If he were at Columbia University, nobody there remembers him.  People in his classes (supposedly his classes) didn’t know the guy…can’t remember anybody like him.  And we all know all of his records are sealed…birth certificate, class records and grades, etc.  Why?  And that’s a BIG why?  Everybody who runs for office is raked over the coals.  But Obama?  Nothing!  Why?

This email pointed out how as soon as Tiger Woods’ extra-marital affairs news hit the media, every woman from here to Timbuktu got in front of the camera to say they were yet another girlfriend of his.  Boy, that was easy.  But we can’t even know if Obama had a girlfriend before Michelle, how he and Michelle met, the name of his best man?  Stuff that is very much “out there” except for him, it seems.

There is just so much mystery surrounding this guy that I am still shocked that he ever could be elected President.  No vetting process for the highest office in the land?  Are we Americans collectively nuts?

I am doing my part in November of this year to be sure I know exactly WHO the next President is…I mean his background.  We really don’t know who Barack Obama is and that is shameful.  And this weekend, I am also going to an open house of the Masonic Temple where I live!

Eve’s Philosophy

My newest rant on December 26, the day after Christmas, is from food shopping at the store I regularly visit.  Why do people talk on cell phones constantly?  Once again I saw a mother on the phone and her young boy, maybe 3, was with her and a good little boy at that!  But Mom was busy yakking it up on the phone and basically ignoring her child.  I have seen this scenario before unfortunately.  The Mom ignores a special one-on-one time with that child to have interaction and make it a special “shopping time” with the little one.  And the child always looks so lost.  I felt bad that the cell phone had been elevated to a more important level during that shopping trip.

Which brings me to…talking on the cell phone in public whilst walking on the street or shopping in the store or riding the T, etc., is just plain low-class!  Now I don’t mean to be a snob but really!  Talking all the time in public to basically an inanimate object whilst the rest of us are privy to “too much information” is just…low-class.  What did we all do before cell phones were invented?  We talked to EACH OTHER and not a little “ear-tag.”  We made decisions by ourselves!  What a concept!  This really bugs me at the store.  People call to ask questions about pasta, whether or not they need vinegar, etc.  We spend our lives teaching our children to make decisions and then they grow up, go to the store and can’t manage…they have to call home!  Huh?!  Make that decision.  The rest of the household will just have to live with it.  We did!  And me and my brother and sister turned out to be “ok” humans.  Good God!

We seem to have forgotten manners with the technology now in our lives.  Those little black or colored things stuck in our ears or now in our hands whilst we text people…they are more important than even thanking someone for holding the door open for you!  That’s disturbing.  I have a cell phone and do a modicum of texting as well.  But anyone who really knows me knows to NEVER call me in the car…I just don’t want to talk while I’m driving unless the person is IN the car with me.  I can’t handle a steering wheel and a cell phone at the same time and I don’t think I should have to.  Plus, I DO want to be incommunicado at certain times.  I don’t think I should have to be available every minute of the day.

Everything we have in our lives has a measure of importance but none of them is more important than the human contact.  Maybe if we keep that uppermost in our minds our collective manners will improve.

Making Music

My subject this time is the act and art of making music.  Let me start with the fact that IF you are going to make music, the point is to make it WELL!  The point is never to make music because it is “seasonal” or you happen to know the piece of music.  If you can perform it well, by all means do it.  If you cannot, then basically, shutup.  I know, that’s hard but guess what the audience and fellow musicians think when someone is performing music badly?  You guessed it…”ohhhh shutup!”

This also applies to hiring proper musicians to perform proper music jobs.  I have always said that there are no shortcuts to making music.  You either do it well or do it badly.  There is never an in-between.  Music that is sort-of good just isn’t good…it’s bad.  Music is like that.  It’s either made well or made horribly.  To make good music means that a person must be proficient in the art of playing or singing and have good sense about their own abilities as a performer.  Not every pianist can play everything or even accompany singers.  It’s how you’re made physically and mentally.   If you are a big-banger, you might take on those Beethoven piano concertos.  But if you have a lighter touch at the piano and can make it sound brilliant and watery, you are probably more geared toward Chopin.  And singers, well, you can’t sing it all folks.  And it’s never advisable anyway.  If you are a “big” singer with expansive singing traits, you probably will sing operatic arias very well.  If you are a very strict musician and don’t do well with the “long and involved cadenza” mindset, you probably will sing cantatas, oratorio, and art songs better…smaller art forms and stricter rules.

This affects Choir Directors as well but in a different sense.  A Choir Director or Music Director of a music establishment (orchestra or church choir, etc.) not only has to have all of the above but vision as well.  These people need to be able to transform a group of performing musicians, either professional or amateur, into an entity all its own.  The sum of all the parts has to be bigger than the individuals.  For anyone who thinks this is easy, think again.  It takes musical expertise, ability to “hear” what this group can become, and the knowledge to choose the music that this group can perform and excel.  Plus, it takes a different kind of communication…conducting, which is pantomime meant to communicate with the group.  AND, it takes nerves of steele since the person is now dealing with personalities of all different shapes and sizes, and egos.

There is also the “student” phenomenon, which is when a student (usually college) starts getting somewhat proficient in their musical studies but over-exceeds their worth without what we call in the music world, “paying their dues.”  Yes, I have come upon numerous young people who think they are very hot stuff before they even have their first degree!  As a former teacher of mine, and former employer as well, used to say…”you can’t have the attitude without the work!”  Boy we heard that one around the school a lot!

And then there’s the group that has studied a bit of music for a little bit of time and think they know what the pro’s know and well, they’re just idiots.

So there you have it, some thoughts on making music well.  And now I’m going to watch The Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, a movie definitely made well!  I love when stuff is made well.  Stay tuned for more from Eve!

Philosophy with Eve

Time for another dose of Ev’s philosophy.  This time I’m blogging about big companies versus small companies.  I recently decided to trade in my small netbook for a new laptop to replace my ailing tower and monitor and actually tone down how many electronics I have in my small place.  So I did get a new laptop from Dell, bought it during the MA tax-free weekend, and love it!  Now, the plan was to return the netbook and get enough money to almost pay it off.  So I scrambled to return it, got it there on time, and that’s when everything turned sour.  The Techforward people who supplied the buyback program told me that the information they got from Dell about what I originally bought in 2010 was totally different from the netbook I returned.  So when I registered the thing online and saw a refund of $274, I saw the wrong thing because Dell gave the company the wrong information from the getgo.  By the time Techforward figured out my refund it came down to a total of $96.  Far cry from $274.

Then Techforward wanted to send me a gift card.  My plan was to pay down my original bill with Dell.  You can’t do that with a gift card.  They told me they could only send me a check if I bought something else.  I told them I did!  Then they told me they couldn’t send a check since they already started processing the gift card it would be “too confusing” to reverse that and issue a check.  What kind of people are we talking about here?  Too confusing?

So now, in a nutshell, I am still paying on a device I no longer have, I owe Dell more money, and I have three gift cards I can’t use.  That is how this deal went south.

Now, I feel Dell should never force people to buy anything they don’t want or issue gift cards people don’t want.  And I have been emailing with them a long time now.  And guess what?  Dell won’t budge.

I teach private students.  I’ve been doing this 25 years.  I have had to be flexible so many times I can’t count already.  And every time I am flexible with a student it usually means I lose money.  I am not asking Dell to do anything for thier client (me) that I would not do for mine.  In fact I’m asking them to do less.  I am asking them to cash in those three gift cards and issue me a check so that I can pay down my bill with them, with absolutely no loss of money on their part.  They won’t budge.

Well, I’m not done yet.  I am not counting on them being noble but miracles do happen.  One thing I know is that Dell is out of the computer picture for me for some time.  I actually like apples…maybe an Apple the next time?  After all, I wouldn’t want to confuse anyone!

Update as of December, 2011…this situation actually DID work out!  I ended up taking a customer service manager’s advice and returned the new laptop, and bought it again!  ha!  He combined all three gift cards into one and I was able to buy my laptop “again” using the combined cards.  So it all did work out and I am happy, even though it was a pain to return all of this and start over.  So I guess the moral of the story is to stick to your guns, as long as you’re being honest, and a situation CAN work in your favor.

Studying Music

Yes, I’m on a tear again about the study of music!  When I was a kid my parents saw my talent and on the advice of a music teacher of mine in school, put me into private lessons.  Here is what they did NOT do…take me out for the summer to “give me a break,” rearrange everyone’s schedules and call the teacher last on the list to rearrange the lesson time or worse yet, if the teacher didn’t miraculously have a new time for me then take me to another teacher.  Yes, that’s the current music-study scenario.  And did I forget another thing my parents didn’t do?  They never, I repeat never, called the teacher at the last minute to say I wasn’t coming nor did we ever blow off the teacher altogether.  I never did that as an adult professional student either!

So what does this say about my parents?  Conscientious people.  Period.  Really cared about someone else including their kid (me) so that I had the lessons with the teacher that was recommended and who I wanted to study with.  Consistency breeds success.  That works in business too by the way!  Imagine moving your child from school to school every 3 years!  Think they’ll learn anything?  Maybe.  Not the same as with consistent study in the same place.

I don’t expect everyone to be a professional musician but I do expect people to be reasonable and actually think.  I’ve been teaching for 25 years and I have to say, I’m rather tired of it at this level.  I would honestly give my eye-teeth for 5 serious students that would study, evolve into good musicians and make me proud.  But the attitude people have now is just not worth my time most of the time.

So there!  All of you guilty parties have succeeded in frustrating your private music teacher into quitting!  Let’s see if I actually do.  Have to stay tuned to my blog!

Being Positive

There are a lot of reasons to feel depressed and negative in today’s world.  News of the bad economy, no jobs, recession, the national debt.  The list goes on.  The media cramms it down our throats.  And yet, we can rise above it.  We can actually prosper and thrive personally despite the bad economy and bad news our lousy government and sensationalist-media are feeding us.  When you live from the “inside out” rather than the “outside in” you can accomplish all that you want no matter what.  This is not a new concept by any means yet it is radically new for so many people.  It has to do with taking complete responsibility for ourselves.  The average good, hard-working person (including me) thinks they do all the time.  But, there is still a part of us we tend to not “tend to.”  That is our deep inner voice which is subtle but very powerful.  I call it God pushing me around!  ha!

I am currently taking a 6-lesson online course in Intuitive Healing and raising my own energetic level around me to do exactly what I am talking about above.  When we raise our energetic vibrational field around us we can manifest what we want and quickly.  Now of course, this sounds easier than it actually is.  ha!  Do I know that!  But once you start this journey you get bound and determined to change your life and how you think/feel period!  I noticed that after only 2 lessons, when I get nervous or fearful of not having enough money or mortgage or whatever, I feel even worse than I did before I started this course.  It’s like I’ve already lifted myself and to come down to those previous places is a huge fall!  It’s a wonderful exercise in listening to one’s own body and thoughts.  What do I really want in life and how can I get it and prosper no matter what the fools in federal government are doing or what the hyper-media is spewing?!  We can bypass that stuff in our lives and tap into ourselves to bring out and manifest our own desires and prosperity. 

This is not junk science.  We are spiritual beings in a physical body not the other way around.  We always have been.  What we need to do is personally regroup and tap into this for answers to our own life’s questions.  And I think with what is going on in the world today, we are all primed and ready for a new approach to personal happiness and prosperity.  I have taken my personal steps to make life work better for me.  I encourage anyone reading my blog to do the same.  Google “intuitive healing” or “meditation” for starters and you’ll be amazed at the ton of information that comes up to help you.  Don’t wait for the government to turn things around.  Do it for yourself.  You’ll be glad you did!