Music and the Existence of God

I like the idea that we know God exists because music does. How else can you explain it? How else can you explain so many people being moved by the sounds?

http://youtu.be/XCR7yg3bbAs

Answers from Students on Music Exams (funny)

The following "gems" came from Emma Lou Diemer, a retired music teacher.

Answers from Students on Music Exams

The principal singer of nineteenth-century opera was called pre-Madonna.

It is easy to teach anyone to play the maracas. Just grip the neck and shake him in rhythm.

Gregorian chant has no music, just singers singing the same lines.

Sherbet composed the Unfinished Symphony.

All female parts were sung by castrati. We don't know exactly what they sounded like because there are no known descendants.

Young scholars have expressed their rapture for the Bronze Lullaby, the Taco Bell Cannon, Beethoven's Erotica, Tchaikovsky Cracknutter Suite, and Gershwin's Rap City in Blue.

Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel; if they sing without music it is called Acapulco.

A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.

Contralto is a low sort of music that only ladies sing.

Diatonic is a low calorie Schweppes.

Probably the most marvelous fugue was the one between the Hatfields and the McCoys.

A harp is a nude piano.

The main trouble with a French Horn is that it is too tangled up.

An interval in music is the distance from one piano to the next.

The correct way to find the key to a piece of music is to use a pitchfork.

Agitato is a state of mind when one's finger slips in the middle of playing a piece.

Refrain means don't do it. A refrain in music is the part you'd better not try to sing.

Most authorities agree that music of antiquity was written long ago.

My favorite composer was Opus. Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music.

Henry Purcell was a well-known composer few people have ever heard of.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic.

Rock Monanoff was a famous post-romantic composer of piano concerti.

Worms, Ears and Music

Ever get a song stuck in your head? You get that irritating pop chorus, commercial ditty, or riff, and it won't go away? Well, there's a term for it, "earworm". From the German "Ohrwurm". This is more like a virus than a worm. Then again, songs have 'hooks', and reel us in. Just thought you'd like to know...shaaa na na na hey hey...

Organ Recital

This afternoon I went to listen to Dr. Dorothy Riess give an organ recital. Part of our church's growing concert series. Dorothy is turning 77 this year, and is a truly delightful and accomplished human being. She has an interesting biography, starting with her playing piano at the age of four. Oh, I should say here that the reason she's doing this at our church is that she's one of our organists. On with her story; when she was a teenager she studied advance piano at Oklahoma City University, switched to organ when she was 16. She began winning lots of competitions. She studied in France with Marcel Dupre, who was a megaforce in the music and organ world. She was for two years organist-choirmaster at the American church in Rome. She was heard there by a Yale professor and got a scholarship to Yale Graduate Music School. Some changes happened, as they do, and her father died. The result of that was that she did pre-med at Columbia University, at at the age of 33 went to Oklahoma Medical School, and got her MD. From then on she practiced internal medicine until she retired. Quite an accomplished life, and she rocks on the keyboards.

The recital itself was marvelous. She gave a brief history of the pieces and composers, and explained to us the workings of the organ, and gave a great performance. A good afternoon was had by all.