The Recovering Choir Director

The Gen-X Revert tagged me, so I’ll oblige. I’m including books of sheet music—of course!

The total number of books I own
Probably between 300 to 400.

The last book I bought
Cold Calling is a Waste of Time: Sales Success in the Information Age by Frank J. Rumbauskas, Jr. He’s right. While I’m no longer in sales, the information he presents would be incredibly useful to members of the clergy and faithful who use “hard-sell” tactics to propagate the Faith or their own viewpoints.

The last book I read
The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. They’re right, too.

Five books that mean a lot to me:

• Why Catholics Can’t Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste, and Where Have You Gone, Michelangelo? by Thomas Day. I’m counting these as one book because the underlying theme is the same—the lack of beauty in the American wing of the Roman Catholic Church before and after Vatican II. I recommend the former with reservation, because while it has a lot of good points, I’m still recovering from the acid it contained. The latter gets much less play, but is broader and contains less vinegar. Both are quick reads.
• The Liber Usualis. I first encountered this book in 2000 when I was at the Cornell Catholic Community. Rob S., a singer in the music ministry, took it off the bookshelf and paged through it. I examined it for myself at length later. (Thanks, Rob, look what you started =) I wonder if the book is still on that shelf.) I was chant-illiterate at the time, so the instructions provided at the beginning of the book for reading and interpreting the chant and Solesmes markings were incredibly useful. I was tempted to lift this when I left in 2003, but I didn’t. I was bequeathed a brand-new copy late last year by my current choir director—thanks, Ed!

  For what it’s worth, my chant interpretations use the Solesmes method as a starting point, but are influenced by Byzantine stylings found in Chanticleer’s recording of John Tavener’s Lamentations and Praises, and in recordings of Eastern Rite Christian liturgical music.

  Someone ought to start a CD meme. Hey, that’s a good idea….

• I’m going to count as one the other chant volumes of varying vintage and denomination: The Anglican Chant Psalter, Graduale Romanum, Graduale Simplex, The Psalms: A Singing Translation (1963 Grail). All very beautiful. All underutilized.
• The Hardy Boys series of children’s mysteries by Franklin Dixon. If anything, they awakened a desire to “get to the bottom of things”. Always borrowed—never bought.
• Rhapsody in Blue—transcription for solo piano by George Gershwin. The first piano piece I shed tears over because of its degree of difficulty, it took me over a year to learn it (1986-1987). The upshot is that it’s in my muscle memory forever, prepped me for his Concerto in F (’87-’88), American in Paris (’88-’89), and a lot of self-taught Chopin. And yes, this was before United Airlines appropriated Rhapsody for their advertising purposes. I wish I still had a piano.

Tag five people:
Charles Everson, Bryan Jerabek, Kenny Leong, Matthew Meloche, Arthur and Andrew. If they wish.