country house left 04

Here's the left approximately 1/3 of the original picture of the house I've blogged so many times with so many differing colors and styles; this will be my last post on this blog for now, since I think I've sort of proven I can blog something almost every day, though I still need to fill in a couple of days from the past.

old blogger profile

a few minutes ago I updated my blogger profile, so for safekeeping, here's the old one:

Whom have I in heaven but Thee?
And there is nothing on earth I desire beside Thee.
–Psalm 73:25–

Shout to the Lord, all the earth let us sing;
Power and majesty, praise to the King;
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar,
At the sound of Your name.
I sing for joy at the work of Your hands;
Forever I'll love You, forever I'll stand;
Nothing compares to the promise I have in You!

houses again

for lack of anything else to blog, here are my latest tweaks of one of my previously blogged houses; I'm also thinking I won't continue this blog post-Reign of Christ, but may try to blog daily on one of my other (less active, maybe) blogs during Advent. The 1st has plain gradients; for the 2nd I've duplicated each layer with added layer styles.

Ordinary Miracle

by Sarah McLachlan

It's not that unusual when everything is beautiful
It's just another ordinary miracle today

The sky knows when its time to snow
You don't need to teach a seed to grow
It's just another ordinary miracle today

Life is like a gift they say
Wrapped up for you everyday
Open up and find a way
To give some of your own

Isn't it remarkable?
Like every time a raindrop falls
It's just another ordinary miracle today

Birds in winter have their fling
And always make it home by spring
It's just another ordinary miracle today

When you wake up everyday
Please don't throw your dreams away
Hold them close to your heart
Cause we are all a part
Of the ordinary miracle

Ordinary miracle
Do you want to see a miracle?

Its seems so exceptional
Things just work out after all
It's just another ordinary miracle today

The sun comes up and shines so bright
It disappears again at night
It's just another ordinary miracle today

It's just another ordinary miracle today

house 1a layer style

house 5a layer style

Dakoda_01

santa ana winds again

back unsettling the land again
making their presence felt
dry heat
fast winds
driving along the beach, free style
wind in the sands, free style
nothing but play, free style
high dry winds
transforming the spaces of paradise

Dakoda_02

Send Your Rain

stanza 1

Send Your rain oh Lord
Send Your rain oh Lord
Send Your rain to Your people
Send Your rain oh Lord
Send Your rain oh Lord
Send Your rain bring Your kingdom

chorus

Soften our hearts and pour out Your Spirit
Fill us anew, let Your rain come (repeat)

stanza 2

May Your kingdom come
And Your will be done
On the earth as it is in heaven
May Your kingdom come
And Your will be done
On the earth, bring Your kingdom

Kelly Carpenter
© 1996 Mercy/Vineyard Publishing

october musical musings intro

Like many members of this community, I have a formal background in music and regularly play the piano (sometimes organ) in church and elsewhere around town, so I've linked to scores for some of the music I enjoy playing, and almost for sure you'll be able to find bound or single hard copies or possibly an online PDF at nominal cost for most of the rest.

As I started this month's Musical Musings, I noticed most of the music came from a specific place, so initially I decided to focus on geography rather than genre, and I also opted for a short chronological span—the last half of the last century. Whether as listener or performer, much of the music I resonate with and keep returning to comes from those decades, and I ran with my instincts! Given that we all became increasingly familiar with non-Western expressions in the fine and popular arts that often ran parallel to alternative expressions of the church as the 2oth century aged, my inclusive, multicultural side longed for this Musical Musings to reflect more diversity, but in the end it really doesn't much at all. I've included music many of you likely know and possibly some none of you have heard. For the "albums," I've mentioned my favorite tracks, but you might find another more appealing. For each category I've invented a possible heading without specific comments about the individual tracks, but whatever your previous preferences, set your imagination free!

how does this display?

1. I have this gratitude for cities...




2. and for cats;




3. gratefulness for the cat and the city and for cats in cities.




4. for houses of almost every imaginable kind I'm thankful

and, of course,

5. thank-filled for the days (and nights) of summer.

upstream: new book

I found this book yesterday at the Breast Cancer benefit books table at the grocery store—by Melissa Lion, Upstream.

Harwich scrapbook contact sheet

checking to see how this blogs

American Composer Participant-Listener Musical Musings

CDs/Songs: for worship and devotion

Leah Taylor - Faithful Friend

• In Christ Alone, of Newsboys renown
• Beyond the Tears
• Falling Up

Darrell Evans - Trading My Sorrows: The Best of...

• Trading My Sorrows
• Your Love is Extravagant

From Latter-Day Saint Paul Cardall - Songs of Praise - with guests Steele Croswhite and Cheri Magill

• Grateful
• Agnus Dei
• Green Hill

Rich Mullins - The World As Best I remember It, volume 1, 1991

• Calling Out Your Name
• Step by Step

Mercy Me, Spoken For, 2002

• Word of God, Speak

Samuel Barber: Prayers of Kierkegaard

Randall Thompson: The Peaceable Kingdom - excerpts from 1, 2 and 3 Isaiah juxtaposed and intertwined in a glorious cantata-style sequence for a cappella SATB chorus; I love it all, but esp recommend...

• Say ye to the righteous
• The paper reeds by the brook
• Have ye not known? and
• Ye shall have a song

secular vernacular variety assortment

David Benoit - Urban Daydreams, 1989

• Wild Kids - originally for a Charlie Brown Peanuts Special, glory in the sound of Eric Marienthal's sax!
• When the Winter's Past (Song for a Stranger) - with Jennifer Warnes
• Sailing through the City

Jewel Kilcher - Spirit, 1998

• Absence of Fear
• Life Uncommon
• Down so Long
• Innocence Maintained

Tracy Chapman - New Beginning - with wonderful photographs from the UC Santa Cruz Greenhouses

• The Promise
• Give Me One Reason

concert-hall array collection

Samuel Barber: Knoxville, Summer of 1915, 1947 - text taken from a prose poem by James Agee written in 1935, now included as the prologue to Agee's novel, A Death in the Family. If you sing and want to learn the piece to perform it; here's the vocal score with a piano reduction of the orchestral parts.

Roy Harris - Symphony No. 3, 1938 - 18 minutes long, 1 movement in 5 sections: raw, angular and elegant

Christopher Rouse - Phaethon, 1986 - started as a mini-concerto for orchestra to narrate part of the Greek myth, and turned out to be in memory of the Challenger's 7 astronauts


music to play for worship

Mark Hayes: Lord, Be Glorified - Keepsake Edition

• Lamb of God - Twila Paris
• He Is Exalted - Twila Paris
• We Bow Down - Twila Paris
• I Will Call Upon the Lord
• You Are My All in All

Glory to His Name! Charity Book Putnam

• Glory to His Name/Holy Manna Medley
• On Jordan's Stormy Banks--Southern Harmony's "Promised Land"

Stephen Nielson At the Piano

• Fanfare
• O For a Thousand Tongues

music to play mostly outside of worship

For piano scores I've linked to Sheet Music Plus, with its huge selection and fast, cheap shipping, too

Lukas Foss - Fantasy Rondo, 1944: I played this one-movement piece with its ever-changing key signatures, time signatures, textures and dynamics as prelude to worship on one Trinity Sunday; together with Leon Fleisher, Foss was on the piano faculty the summer I spent at Tanglewood; Scott Dunn plays Lukas Foss' Complete Piano works

Vincent Persichetti - 3rd Piano Sonata, Opus 22, 1943: Declaration - Episode - Psalm - amazing! I also love to play Persichetti's relatively austere Organ Sonata, Opus 86, 1960

Paul Creston

• Prelude and Dance, Opus 29, #2
• Prelude and Dance, Opus 29, #1

--Creston wrote a zillion pieces called "Prelude and Dance" for almost every instrument and instrumentation imaginable


...and two more...

Because I won't get to do this very often, in Latin, written by a German
Ernst Pepping - Te deum (1956) for soprano and baritone solos, SATB choir, woodwinds, brass, timpani, drums and strings. I got an ancient Deutsche Grammaphon recording on vinyl on eBay and couldn't find a CD anywhere I looked, but here's a Te Deum details page

from KiwiLand—New Zealander Douglas Lilburn brings us elegance with Aotearoa Overture

Dakoda - new Tucson nephew

Snow Cat

Right after noon today, I won another amazing cat painting on eBay from Dorchester(!) (Massachusetts) artist Carol Springer.

poppies

Not an original by me, but offered by a local freecycler—I love this painting!