The fact that we essentially lost three years off our lifetimes due to the pandemic really hit home today. I had a lesson with a long-time student of mine whose last lesson was March 23, 2020. Because of his advanced age, and the risks of the coronavirus, we had postponed any lessons past this date… Read More Diligence
(My new companion, C.P.E. Bach!) Since the pandemic, my daily life has started with a 2-1/2 mile walk (during which I listened to Spanish podcasts), 45 minutes of Spanish practice with Duolingo, a one-hour online Spanish class “Cada Dia Spanish”, a 45-minute Zoom conversation in Spanish with Vreni Griffith and/or Cindy Scheinert, two local friends,… Read More My life changed … with one phone call
When I was 17 and away in Paris, France to study with virtuoso, Marcel Dupré, I had only one focus—playing the organ. I quickly found a place to practice, L’Eglise Étranger, which gave me virtually unlimited practice time to learn the works of Bach, Dupré and Franck, which was what I was studying in those… Read More Like the old days
One of the most challenging aspect of teaching organ students is finding a place for them to practice. I wrote about this some time ago (See: “On my soapbox“) when some churches turned out to be very unfriendly places to seek organ practice time. And how do they expect anyone will learn how to play… Read More More is more!
Now that the Early Music Hawaii concert is over, I can get back to practicing Bach! Finally, I can go back to preparing for my concert on Sunday, October 30th at 7:00 pm, which will be Bach’s Clavierübung III, sometimes called the German Organ Mass. The word Clavierübung means “keyboard practice,” and so you may be asking, “Why,… Read More Back to Bach, RESET!
“Free at last! Thank God I’m free at last!” After six weeks of having a splint on my fractured wrist, I’m able to get back to normal and resume playing the organ. You won’t believe how much I’ve missed playing! I had the time, and the inclination, but when I tried to play with the… Read More I’m Bach! (YAY!)
My last post generated a lot of discussion about the whole notion of poor pay being the reason for the organist shortage, especially considering the amount of preparation time required to play a church service. I suppose if you go back to my ten years of private organ lessons, four years of college with courses… Read More How much prep?