As you know, yesterday was Bach’s birthday (March 21) and Google created an artificial intelligence-powered Google doodle that lets you compose your own music in the style of J. S. Bach. Did you try it? You could put in a single line melody and the Google doodle would harmonize it in four parts, in the style of J. S. Bach. Based on machine learning, with the press of a button, the Doodle would harmonize the custom melody into Bach’s signature music style.
Try clicking this link:
https://www.google.com/logos/2018/bach/r1/bach18.html?hl=en
I’m now in Berkeley, CA, where I am here to organize the music office of my friend George Emblom at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. I was here two years ago to give an all-Bach organ recital on the church’s beautiful Flentrop organ. It was at that time I offered to return to help George sort through the piles and piles of music, books, programs and other things that he has accumulated in this 28 years as music director.
In today’s paper, The Mercury News had a story about Bach on BART, live music performances of Bach at San Francisco’s rapid transit system. Erin Baldassari writes:
“Dozens of musicians will descend on BART this weekend to celebrate classical music composer Johann Sebastian Bach, gifting passengers with free performances.
… The bulk of performances will take place in the free areas of stations this evening, roughly between the hours of 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., but times vary by station.
“We know music in the stations delight people… It’s part of our efforts to make our stations more inviting.”
You can click here to read the entire story.
Isn’t that great! The music of Bach speaking to the average Joe in the street.
Today I returned to the Musical Offering and Cafe restaurant which features live classical music and jazz. The last time I was here, the shop was playing the music of Bach as background music! (Well, of course, for a restaurant named after one of Bach’s masterworks!) Oh, and the food is excellent, too! Here’s a picture of my excellent eggplant sandwich on fresh-baked focaccia bread I had for lunch today.
After lunch we started tackling the pile of boxes and were able to make two piles: KEEP and GIVE AWAY. I’m thrilled to say that the GIVE AWAY pile was a lot larger and we put a major dent in this overwhelming project. Not bad for the first day!
I know that this is a painful process—of letting go of “things” that define the life of a church musician. Hang in there, George!