Eastertide Music

Easter is my favourite time of year. The church music is especially wonderful. Our church choir did a splendid job at the Good Friday Mass. Two songs brought tears to my eyes (and I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one tearing up). I can’t remember much of the details (composer and title) but I remember the lyrics were about the sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross. I’ll find out the info and post it at a later date. The soloists captured the intense emotions so effectively – their timbre reached deep into my soul and pulled. Hard. The harmonies were highly chromatic, which leads to the emotional angst. One song was sung by an alto. Her performance was especially moving. [04/26/06 note: Songs title are "The Seven Last Words from the Cross" and "The Pieta"."]

 Easter Vigil presents a different tone. When the lights are turned on and the candles blown out, the choir broke into a jubilant Gloria, while some of the children rang bells.

Easter Sunday. The joyous tone carried through. The choir at the church I attended last Sunday sang a capella. It made me realize how much I rely on the piano or guitar for my chords. I know that I should be able to hear where the chord progressions are going with four-part harmony, but alas, I haven’t mastered that yet.

Easter Break has been creatively productive and relaxing on all other fronts. I finally managed to arrange Above All for piano duet in a form that I am happy with. How apropos as it also has to deal with Easter. Now all I have to do is transcribe my scribbles into fancy looking sheet music, using Finale Notepad. But first, I need to do an arrangement of A Whole New World for another student. I’m simplifying it a bit, so that hasn’t been too hard.

Now if only I could solve my site feed issue (see the link on the right), I’d be laughing. It just stopped working one day and my research and Blogger support have come up with zilch. But that’s a challenge for another day.

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