Tag: music

Lovingkindness

For anyone who decries the grammar-challenging flexibility found at the birth of a new word, consider the word “lovingkindness.” I doubt that Myles Coverdale had any idea what a useful word he was creating in 1535 when he used it for the first time in his translation of the Bible into English. It’s a word which has since proven handy when translating precepts important in Hinduism (Priti) and Buddhism (Mettā), as well as Judaism, where the Hebrew word חסד (chesed) is most often translated into English as lovingkindness. The lovingkindness of God is invoked many times in Coverdale’s Psalms, though it strikes me that the original psalmist assumed that people do not have a comparable ability for that same forgiving, non-judgmental love.

 You, O LORD, will not withhold Your compassion from me; Your lovingkindness and Your truth will continually preserve me. – Psalm 40:11

Yet gemilut hasadim is the Jewish mitzvah which commands that one act with lovingkindness, without expectation of anything in return. It is a religious duty that requires one to “love your neighbor as yourself.” We can at least aspire to equal God’s capacity for lovingkindness in our daily interactions.

This melding of love and kindness into a single motivation for our actions implies a gentle attitude of service that does not come easily to many of us, but Bach’s 9th Goldberg Variation led me to think more about what this might look like. Or at least what it might feel like.

Goldberg Variations – 9 (Lovingkindness)

I’ve been slowly savoring a beautiful biography about 17th century poet and Anglican priest George Herbert which is called Music at Midnight. Though he never used the word “lovingkindness” in any of his poems as far as I know, he often wrote about such an intention, as in Love (III).

In Herbert’s best known poem (set to music by several composers, incidentally), God welcomes the narrator of the poem, presumably into Heaven, where a feast is offered, though the guest feels unworthy of Love’s hospitality. The poem’s dialogue between Love and the guest leaves the reader uncertain about who is speaking one significant line near the end.  Following Love’s question of who is to blame for the guest’s feeling of shame at his unworthiness for such a feast, it is unclear who then says “My dear, then I will serve.”

Is God serving the guest, or the guest serving God?  Each, it seems, feels the mitzvah to serve the other with lovingkindness. I’m so glad a new word was born in 1535.

Peace,
Sonya

P.S.  This Sunday, March 19, I’ll be playing on the annual Bach Marathon at Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church.  Come and go as you please, it’s free. Bach Marathon 2017

I’ve lived with Bach’s Goldberg Variations for a long time now. More than half my lifetime in fact. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was gifted to me on January 5, 2016.

Persistence

My appreciation for persistence as a desirable trait has been on a roller coaster in the past month or so. It seemed like an admirable quality to have until I went to see the film about Ray Kroc, of McDonald’s fame, titled, inappropriately as it turns out, “The Founder.” Kroc’s mantra-like reliance on his belief in persistence as the tool for success in business exposes his cutthroat tendencies. When he asks one of the McDonald brothers, with whom he is partnering to expand their fast food concept, if McDonald would be willing to put a garden hose down the throat of his drowning competitor, the brother carefully responds “no…nor would I want to.” Persistence, at all costs, has no place in my repertoire either.

And then persistence was redeemed! It happened for me when Senator Elizabeth Warren was chastised and temporarily silenced on the Senate floor as she tried to shed light on the history of a political appointee. A Senate colleague said of her: “Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” (Washington Post, 2/8/16)

Two ways to be persistent. One that hurts people. One that demonstrates a dogged interest in uncovering truth. One that looks no further than a tunnel-visioned need to dominate. One that is willing to overcome dismissiveness.

 Goldberg Variations – 8 (Persistence)

Peace,
Sonya

P.S.  This coming Tuesday, March 14 at 12:10, a performance of Debussy’s one-act opera L’infant prodigue.  No tickets.  Join us!  Church of the Epiphany, Tuesday Concert Series

I’ve lived with Bach’s Goldberg Variations for a long time now. More than half my lifetime in fact. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was gifted to me on January 5, 2016.

 

 

Generosity

Defining generosity as a process of making space for something might be a back door approach, but it works for me. Our most generous impulses are guided by those spaces we create in our minds, our hearts, and our lives for the needs we see in others. Perhaps genuine generosity begins when we share that which we hold most dear, whether that is our time, our money, or even sometimes our privacy. Generosity in those times becomes risky and makes us vulnerable. It requires that we give up something, and not just give. Perhaps giving up our superiority or our certainty creates the space we need to be  more generous.

Generosity is one of those human traits that seems like a great add-on to an otherwise perfectly good person.  We expect people to be truthful, to not steal or hurt others.  But being generous?  Speaking for myself, that is something I admire in others and hope that perhaps I’ll find a way to cultivate in myself. Someday. When it’s convenient.

My mind focused on the idea of generosity in direct connection to my experience of playing Variation 7. Graceful and dance-like, the ornaments that decorate so many of the notes require just a bit of extra space in the beat and in the shape of the hand in order to play them as fluently as possible.

Goldberg Variations – 7 (Generosity)

I wonder if any pressure we do feel to be more generous stems only from the cultural and historical contexts of religion. Showing hospitality to the stranger is a core tenet of the three Abrahamic faiths, as well as Buddhism and Hinduism, after all, and at the heart of hospitality we discover generosity. But maybe there are actually reasons to be generous beyond religious commandments? Sociological studies tell us, and we probably know from our own experiences, that to give does so often mean that in one form or another we receive in return. Those studies show the ways that a person’s health and happiness improve when a life of generous practices is adopted. Logically, generosity is good for a peaceful society when people take care of themselves in ways that also help to take care of others.

Wherever and however the impulse to be generous inhabits us, we can never be motivated by anything other than a desire to be open to understanding and responding to the needs of others, and then make space in our own lives for the kinds of relationships that just might result when we do.

Peace,
Sonya

I’ve lived with Bach’s Goldberg Variations for a long time now. More than half my lifetime in fact. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was gifted to me on January 5, 2016.

 

Vagueness

My near-sighted eyes have depended on contact lenses and glasses to function in our detailed world since my early teen years. Blurriness has always been an uncomfortable state, one to be avoided, but I noticed not so long ago that I can differentiate between closely related shades of color more easily without my glasses. Hmm.

Which made me wonder then about impressionistic art and the intentionally blurry visions created by artists such as Degas and Van Gogh, often so colorful and conducive to seeing beyond the details to the essence of a landscape or the movement in a scene. It’s not unlike something called Schenkerian analysis, which music students apply to a piece with the hope of somehow uncovering the essence of a work’s tonal structure by taking away as many of the notes as possible.  The details are blurred into the background and underlying forms and meanings sometimes emerge.

Interesting that just as photography was taking off in the late 19th century, recording the details of life with great clarity, artists such as Renoir and Monet were finding ways to blur those details in their paintings. Ambiguous tonalities and freely formed musical works picked up on this same desire, particularly in works by Debussy and Ravel (though they are both known to have rejected the term “impressionism” for the own styles).

No one is ever going to describe any moment in Bach’s music as “impressionistic,” I’m quite certain. He was a master of clarity and precision. Still, the idea of being vaguely lost in a blurry world came to me as I played Variation 6 because its imitative lines of music are  a step apart – i.e. a canon at the second, which creates momentary dissonances between notes right next to each other.

Goldberg Variation 6 (Vagueness)

The music becomes temporarily blurry, not, as is often the case in most music, with the intention of creating a dissonance and welcome resolution, but rather to suggest a fleeting moment of indecision or of feeling lost. And what’s so wrong with that?  Occasional indecision gives us more time to fully weigh both sides of a decision. Being lost sometimes leads us to places or people we would never have encountered otherwise.

I heard a story that utterly charmed me not long ago.  A group of millennials, all poised to answer the question of the moment with their pocket oracles, otherwise known as their phones, were stopped by one of the group who said, “Wait, let’s not know for a while.” Occasionally spending some time in vagueness just might remind us to live more often in wonder, and to peel away the details of certainty while we delve down to the essence of what is good.

Peace,
Sonya

I’ve lived with Bach’s Goldberg Variations for a long time now. More than half my lifetime in fact. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was gifted to me on January 5, 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

Extraverted (or is it Extroverted?)

(the answer is both)

A few weeks ago I wrote about introversion, making the perhaps obvious observation that most of us have personalities which are a combination of introverted and extroverted traits. Not equally balanced between the two surely, but with any luck a balance that works for us in all of the different situations we encounter in our lives. If extraversion is simply defined as having a desire to engage with the world outside of ourselves, then that is a worthy goal for every introvert. Taking on the assertiveness and enthusiasm of an extravert has a place in any introvert’s toolbox for dealing with the world. And if extraverts are sometimes people who talk too much, or those who always need to be the center of attention, or who don’t read social cues well enough to know when enough is enough….well, cultivating some of the quieter, reflective qualities of an introvert might be in order.

It’s always about balance. Having good physical balance, balancing competing interests and demands on our time, being balanced in our emotions. The golden mean. The via media.  Possibly part of The Goldberg Variations’ continuing appeal is found in the equilibrium that Bach created within the music.  He built each variation with two sections, each repeated, creating unchanging structural symmetry. Additionally, the “theme” upon which these variations are based is actually a 32-note bass line and that parallels the 32 measures of music in each variation. Which, in turn, corresponds to the number of variations, counting the opening and closing Arias which surround the 30 variations, giving stability to the whole. And that’s just the beginning of the beauty to be found in the mathematics of this music.

Goldberg Variation 5 (Extraverted)

Variation 5 is lively and sociable.  Bach suggested that it be played on two manuals – i.e. a harpsichord with two keyboards. The piano, of course, has just one keyboard and the player’s crossing hands spend a fair amount of time playing right on top of each other. Not unlike an animated dinner conversation, where perhaps the extravert has more chance of being heard!

Peace,
Sonya

I’ve lived with Bach’s Goldberg Variations for a long time now. More than half my lifetime in fact. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was gifted to me on January 5, 2016.

Openness

The music itself is obviously responsible for the “intention” I’ve set for this 4th Goldberg Variation. Open intervals of 3rds, 4ths and 5ths provide the music’s primary color, eschewing fancy running passage-work or complex polyphony. There is something so earnest and guileless about this variation. Some might even say unsophisticated, as trusting open-heartedness can sometimes seem.

Goldberg Variation 4 (Openness)

Easy enough to define openness as the opposite of secrecy. If your feelings and vulnerabilities are open for all to see then the armor of secrecy can’t protect you from others’ judgments and attacks. That sounds scary, but secrecy seems even more dangerous since it also protects you from having to be truthful…Pinocchio, I’m talking to you.

As Sophocles wrote, “Do nothing secretly, for time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.” Or as the Buddha taught, “three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”

Openness asks questions. Secrecy tries to hide the answers. Openness is sensitive to surrounding beauty. Secrecy is too busy guarding the gate to see what is outside of  it. Openness seeks to make connections. Secrecy closes doors. Openness tries to see what is possible. Secrecy fears new information. Openness disarms with candor. Secrecy empowers the manipulative.

I choose openness.

Peace,
Sonya

I’ve lived with Bach’s Goldberg Variations for a long time now. More than half my lifetime in fact. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was gifted to me on January 5, 2016.

 

 

 

 

Imagination

I’ve just returned from an imaginary place, the verdant and mountainous film set for The Lord of the Rings. At least it all appeared to be fantasy while hiking in New Zealand, where we seemed to exist in that thin place between reality and imagination. Yet it is the very real and frightening movements of tectonic plates that created, and continues to shape, this otherworld of stony mountains, fern-filled forests, fathomless lakes and plunging fjords.

Goldberg Variation 3 – Imagination

We have no limits in our imagination. What we see and hear and feel in our minds can take us to the heights of great joy or the depths of unbearable sorrow. It’s a place where we confront those things we are apprehensive about acknowledging out loud, whether they be our deepest desires or most disquieting fears. Imagination takes truth and reality and turns them into stories which entertain and illuminate. Or takes the absence of reality and creates something that had been previously…unimaginable! John Lennon asked us to imagine peace, and in that spirit let’s imagine justice for all and a world full of loving-kindness too. Imagination becomes reality in magical New Zealand, which makes me wonder if just maybe all things are actually possible.

Peace,
Sonya

 

 

I’ve lived with Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” for a long time now. More than half my lifetime. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was gifted to me on January 5, 2016.

Introverted

Timid, haughty, withdrawn, aloof, arrogant…those are some of the words people use to describe introverts. Our celebrity culture looks with some suspicion on that quality of being which finds energy in solitary pursuits. It doesn’t mean introverts fear social occasions, but there can be a sense of acting a part when faced with the small talk and jostling for attention prized by an extroverted society. Certainly, it seems like a mistake to confuse shyness (and its associated anxiety) with introversion. I say this with some authority because I identify as an introvert, and the Meyers-Briggs test I took several years ago agrees. Many of us introverts grew up thinking that something was wrong because the stuff of daily interactions seemed to be harder for us than our extroverted friends.  We thought we were socially deficient, rather than simply socially different.  Of course, my much older and wiser self knows that it’s always a mistake to compare my inner self to your outer self.

Popular psychology and TED Talks have some good things to say about introverts these days.  Reflective, non-reactive, observant…those are some of the positive attributes studies confer on introverts. They are people who crave authentic interactions and not ones built on networking and party banter. They are eager to dive into philosophical discussions, and though not very quick to share opinions,  you can be certain that there is a constant inner-dialogue going on that is weighing the voices of past experiences with current knowledge, emotions and intuition.

But in reality, most of us are probably ambiverts – a convenient balance between extroversion and introversion that allows us to behave in ways we find comfortable, depending on our individual reaction to a particular set of circumstances.  Living on the edges of behavior can be exciting or cautious to an extreme, but finding comfort in the middle just might be something to value more, especially in this world of loudly voiced opinions and shrilly proclaimed fake news and unconsidered  reactions.

Goldberg Variation 2 – Introverted

Peace,

Sonya

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I’ve lived with Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” for a long time now. More than half my lifetime. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was gifted to me on January 5, 2016.

 

 

 

Innocence

I’ve lived with Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” for a long time now. More than half my lifetime. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was gifted to me on January 5, 2016.

Aria (Innocence)

J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations are a journey of sorts, and all journeys begin in innocence. We can’t know where any journey will actually take us after all, or what we’ll learn along the way. Innocence is a word with many meanings, but I choose a definition that holds a lack of guile at its core, and one that implies the optimism that hope’s triumph over experience expresses. The innocence of children shouldn’t be carried into adulthood, because it would become a refusal to acknowledge some of the hard truths all adults face. Without burying our heads in the sand then, perhaps innocence in adults doesn’t first assume cunning in the actions of others, and looks like the open-heartedness that tries to see good in the people and experiences we encounter every day. The more I think about cultivating innocence in myself, the more I wonder if it will lead to wisdom.  Journey with me.

Peace,

Sonya

St. Herod’s Episcopal Church

 

(Originally posted December 29, 2011)

Liturgical calendars remind us that today we are to celebrate the life of Thomas Becket, the 12th century Archbishop of Canterbury who argued with King Henry II over issues of authority, with fatal consequences.

Issues of authority…power versus authority…these are themes that color nearly every news story and touch our lives in various ways. Christians  recently re-acknowledged the authority of a tiny babe born in Bethlehem a couple of thousand years ago. And legend, if not history, has King Herod quite fearful of the authority being placed in that newborn, seeing it as a threat to his own power and ordering the deaths of all boys under the age of two. What kind of authority did he expect that show of power to confer upon him? How to make a distinction between authority and power?  Is it simply the difference between what is bestowed and what is taken?

A good sermon usually turns at some point and takes the listener (or reader) to a place they might not have expected.  I am now artlessly making such a turn because I wanted to share again a TED (“Technology, Entertainment, Design”) Talk I came across several years ago. TED Talks, as you probably know, are forums for cross-related ideas on many topics. This particular mini-seminar is by an Italian conductor, Itay Talgam, who gives presentations to businesses around the world that “explore the magical relationship between conductor, musician and audience to achieve inspiring new insights into leadership, management, and teamwork.”  He is, in fact, exploring themes of power versus authority.

Near the end of Talgam’s 20-minute presentation (which had me laughing out loud several times, by the way), he talks about the confluence of creativity at any given moment during a concert between the architect of the hall, the conductor, the musicians and the audience. It wasn’t a difficult stretch for me to imagine that same kind of confluence happening during a worship service – the church building itself, liturgical leaders and the congregation all contributing some part to the experience. Somewhere around the 6:45 mark Talgam relates a funny story about musicians asking a renowned conductor to resign, telling him “you’re using us like instruments, not as partners.”

No surprise that there is so often more potential for fruitfulness in collaborative efforts. Who knows, there might have been a Saint Herod’s Episcopal Church somewhere in the world had that ancient king worked with the authority given to Jesus rather than being threatened by it.

Whether you have an interest in issues around power versus authority, in qualities of effective leadership, or simply enjoy music and observing the conductor’s craft I hope you will find 20 minutes to watch this highly entertaining TED talk. If you don’t have the time, let me leave you with one last thought, taken from something Talgam says about Leonard Bernstein near the end of his talk – “you can see the music on his face.”

As we cross paths with people throughout this coming new year, what will be seen on our faces?  Faith?  Joy?  Hope?  Kindness?  An invitation to explore any of those things together?  I suspect authority will be conferred upon you if so.

TED Talk-Itay Talgram

Peace,
Sonya

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