This is a Winter 2006 photo of the Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church in Mount Vernon, Washington. Click on image for full size photo.
High School Musical Conductor Question
Hi,
I’m doing HS Musical at Irvington Town Hall Theater in a little over a week. I’m playing and conducting and my old Mx8 midi patchbay has just died. Would you recommend a replacement to control my synth rig, either standalone or computer based is fine? What do you use?
Thank You,
Julius Petty
Hi Julius, I only use a midi patchbay in the studio, not live. When performing live I use 4-5 keyboards to cover different sounds, so no need for a patchbay. (Keyboards used are dedicated weighted piano, Hammmond B3 clone, Synth controlling laptop with virtual keyboard I use for custom FX, and two utility boards for synth, strings etc. ) You can usually daisy-chain up to three midi units together without an audible delay. Off the top of my head I think delay per midi daisy chain “through” is around 3-7 milliseconds. Audible delay usually occurs somewhere around 20 milliseconds for most people. So, you can hook up to three units together before you reach a delay that’s audible. Do you need to link together more than three modules per board?
Hope that helps. We’re just starting to rehearse our production, so let me know if you have any super-duper secret insider tips or errata info on the scores.
Conrad
Martin Luther King Jr Mountaintop Speech
Martin Luther King’s final speech. Memphis April 3 1968 “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”. He had a fever that night and had cancelled his speech, but so many people showed up that they called him and said “You HAVE to speak tonight”. They covered for him so he would only have to speak a couple minutes, but he got on a roll, and here you go.
Martin Luther King
August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Washington D.C.
Clarification on Isaac Asimov Quote
Here is an Isaac Asimov quote I was a little unclear on, and a following explanation from a member at one of my forums. It came up during an evolution-creation debate. More info on oblate spheroids.
When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
Isaac Asimov, 1988.
My statement: Please clarify, I thought the earth was an oblate spheroid.
Answer:
An oblate spheriod, and slightly pear-shaped, to boot. So yes, it’s not a sphere. But it’s much closer to being a sphere than it is to being flat. More importantly, the determination that the Earth was a sphere was done by observation and experimentation. It is incorrect only due to the limitations of the observational equipment.
The Earth being flat is quite obviously wrong with the smallest amount of investigation. The Earth being spherical is wrong when examined quite carefully and precisely. There is a quantitive difference in the “wrongness” of those two positions.
It’s like Newtonian mechanics is wrong, but still useful for terrestrial movement. A spherical earth is a useful simplification for navigational purposes. A flat Earth is not a useful model for anything much.
Augsburg Fortress 2007 Seattle Church Music Workshop
 Augsburg Fortress is hosting a Winter 2007 Music Clinic on Saturday, January 13 at Plymouth Congregational Church, 1217 6th Avenue, Seattle, WA led by choral director and organist Douglas Cleveland. Sign up for free registration at http://www.augsburgfortress.org/events or visit the Augsburg Fortress music website.
Augsburg Fortress is the Publishing House of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Workshop runs from 8:30am to 3pm and includes two choral sessions, a pipe organ workshop and Musikgarten presentation for reaching younger children with music in a church setting. A music store will be on location with the latest liturgical and sacred choral arrangements from Augsburg Fortress.
Douglas Cleveland is acclaimed as one of America’s finest concert organists and currently maintains a full recital calendar while serving as Music Director at Plymouth Congregational Church in Seattle, Washington. He holds degrees from The Eastman School of Music, as well as Indiana University, and served as Assistant Professor of Organ and Church Music at Northwestern University.
Rumor Mill – Brigadoon is NOT Pre-Cast
Rumor mills in theater are nothing new. I wanted to clear the air and let people know that the Lyric Light Opera of the Northwest production of Brigadoon is NOT pre-cast. At this point all roles are open and will be decided at auditions.
We do have a Scottish choir rehearsing for a concert, but this is not a casting of the Brigadoon chorus. It’s a sort of Brigadoon preamble and I appreciate the opportunity to get better versed on Scottish music styles.
Just had our first rehearsal for our Scottish choir in preparation for performing at the Celtic Arts Foundation January 20th Lincoln Theater (Mount Vernon, WA) event. The sound was incredibly beautiful, I think we were all pleasantly surprised. If this is any indication of the quality of music we will have for the show then I can reasonably predict that this production of Brigadoon will be a very professional presentation that any trained singer would be proud to be a part of.
There is talk of a first run of auditions to happen in January with later auditions in April – this is still up in the air so please visit the Lyric Light Opera of the Northwest website for audition updates. If there is a first run of auditions before April it is strongly suggested you make those if interested in being part of the Brigadoon cast. This show will run at McIntyre Hall and at Kirkland Performance Center in July and September 2007.
This show is BIG. I will make it rock to the best of my abilities.
Dracula Poster
Click for full size image. Dracula poster for Skagit Valley College Theater Department production of Dracula by Steven Dietz.
Freddy Fender – Newsmaker of the Year 2006
Corpus Christ, TX – The Corpus Christi Caller Times has named Freddy Fender their Newsmaker of the Year. Denise Malan, one of the writers, called me a couple weeks ago for the article. Some of article focuses on the spiritual side of Freddy and includes some of my comments on that. You can read the Freddy Fender Caller Times article here.
As far as I know I’m the only former band member currently working on sacred music on a regular basis. It was a little ironic when the writer asked me if Freddy had any impact on my spiritual life, and I replied that I didn’t think so directly. Then she asked me what I was doing now, and I said music for theater and church. Made me stop and think for a bit about that. I stopped playing for Freddy Fender in March 2005.
Freddy Fender was very supportive of AA. He had the bond that only those in AA have for each other. The close of the article reads:
Askland, the keyboardist, remembers that while touring Fender kept in touch with friends from Alcoholics Anonymous. One Christmas a few years ago, Fender even brought the band to Corpus Christi to play for his AA group.
“We were right in the little meeting room,” Askland said. “That was his Christmas gift to them.”
Vaya Con Dios Freddy.
JS Bach Pipe Organ MP3 Music Samples
Reference page for JS Bach Pipe Organ midi samples. The samples are very mechanical and certainly not the way you’d want to play Bach on the pipe organ, but a good quick reference tool for organists.