'Tis the season for viral videos -- USAF Band flash mob plays Bach chorale, "Greensleves" and "Carol of the Bells" at Smithsonian

If you've ever wanted to get a sense of what it's like to be in a flash mob -- and to be surrounded by the music of a Bach cantata or a brass band playing Christmas carols -- the U.S. Air Force Band has put up flash mob videos for two years running now. Last year's rapidly went viral, and this year's is likely to as well. It's flawlessly produced, and it gives you a sense of the precision of a military band. Here it is, on the band's YouTube channel:

The USAF Band - 2014 Holiday Flash Mob. Published on Dec 3, 2014. The USAF Band Holiday Flash Mob 2014 at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

This year's performance is a medley that begins with "Greensleeves" and "What Child is This" (to the same melody), and segues into "Carol of the Bells" (which begins with a segue at 3:09). It prompted The Christian Science Monitor to run an article with links to a sort of hit parade of flash mobs. One of their links, to a 2010 performance of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" at a food court in Ontario, is dead, but I linked it to a blog I kept for my communications students back in the day at Benedictine. (Scroll down to the second paragraph, past the assignment for final exams.) It's a classic, well worth watching again and again.

This month's flash mob follows the band's performance, at the same time last year, of Bach's "Jesu Thou Joy of Man's Desiring" and "Joy to the World" at the Smithsonian. "Jesu Thou Joy of Man's Desiring" is actually part of a larger work, Bach's cantata Herz und Mund und Tat ind Leben (BWV 147). As usual, Wikipedia has the details. "Joy to the World" is -- well, it's "Joy to the World." Everybody knows it.

Here it is the Air Force Band's website:

A first-person blog post by Tech Sgt. Kristen Bowers titled "Flash Mob! -- A blog from beginning to end" gives a detailed first-person account of the rehearsals and the 2013 performance itself. Here are some excerpts:

11:20 a.m.: Five buses arrive outside the National Air and Space Museum. Musicians file off, attempting to conceal their instruments and uniforms under civilian coats. As they enter the museum, they quickly make their way into designated "hiding spots." …

At 11:53: The Air and Space Museum is buzzing with excitement. The United States Air Force Band members disguised in civilian coats roam the museum, acting as tourists. Observing a sign stating that there will be filming in the area, a group of tourists asks an employee what is being filmed. "Something big is happening in here in seven minutes--stick around!" the employee replies. …

12 noon: A man walks to the center of the museum carrying just one chair and places it in an open area. Nobody seems to notice. Suddenly, one cellist removes a civilian coat to reveal his ceremonial uniform. He sits down and begins to play "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." A few close spectators turn and begin to listen. The cellist is joined shortly by the Band's commander and conductor, Col. Larry H. Lang, as well as a bassist and a handful of winds and strings who are each presented with their instrument by a member of the United States Air Force Honor Guard. The small group slowly turns into a mass of airmen musicians, each adding a new texture to the tune. … The music fills the National Air and Space Museum and lights the faces of the audience members. At the conclusion of the performance, the final triumphant brass chord lingers in the museum long after the musicians have stopped playing. The audience erupts into applause. …

There's lots more. If you've ever wondered what it's like to be in a flash mob, Sgt. Bowers' post is the place to find out!

British TV ad recalling WWI, "Christmas in the Trenches" goes viral

The Christmas truce, or Weihnachtsfrieden in German, at the beginning of World War I is the subject of a powerful and impeccably produced British supermarket chain's institutional advertisement for the Christmas season. It's going viral, and, I think, deservedly so. Nathalie Tadena reported today on the Journal's website::

Sainsbury’s four-minute ad is based on the 1914 Christmas Truce, in which British and German soldiers dropped their guns and met in no-man’s land on Christmas Eve. In the ad, the soldiers of the two armies leave the trenches to play a game of soccer. At the end of the video, a German soldier discovers that a British soldier has left him a chocolate bar from home in his pocket. Sainsbury’s is selling the chocolate bar featured in the ad at its stores and will donate profits to the Royal British Legion.

Since the campaign’s launch on Nov. 12, the ad has been viewed more than 9.5 million times and received more than 383,000 social interactions, according to Visible Measures.

Sainsbury's is a chain of supermarkets and convenience stores in the UK. And, yes, they do sell chocolate. Although that's probably not the point of this ad, which is a example of institutional advertising designed to promote goodwill toward the corporation. The Royal British Legion, analogous to the American Legion in the US, is a veterans' assistance and advocacy group.

Sainsbury's has posted the video to YouTube:

True story. Even the football (soccer) game in no man's land, although accounts vary. And "Silent Night/Stille Nacht" is one of the songs the British and German troops sang that night. I also hear the American gospel tune "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" in the background during the football game beginning at 2:10. Not sure that's historically accurate, at least I've not heard before that it was sung that night, but I think it's appropriate to the ad's message.

Wikipedia, typically, has the most balanced, complete and judicious survey of fraternization up and down the front lines. Equally authoritative, although it doesn't quote as many German and French sources, is an article by Malcolm Brown, a historian at the Imperial War Museum, las month in the Guardian. Here's Brown's take on the iconic moment:

… the devil is often said to be in the detail, but not in this story. On Christmas Eve at Plugstreet Wood [Ploegsteert Wood, in Flanders], Germans put Christmas trees on the parapet of their front-line trench and sang Stille Nacht (Silent Night), then largely unfamiliar to British ears but instantly acknowledged as a carol of extraordinary beauty. Moved to respond the territorials [British troops, equivalent to our National Guard] opposite struck up with The First Noël. So it continued until, when the British sang O Come, All Ye Faithful, they heard the Germans joining in with the Latin words Adeste Fideles. Recalling the event many years later, one former soldier commented: "I thought this a most extraordinary thing - two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of the war."

In the clip below, Sainsbury's PR people give more background:

In all, a classy way to sell chocolates. Or corporate goodwill (same difference).

Singer-songwriter, activist and storyteller John McCutcheon tells of the same incident in one of his most requested songs He wrote it in 1984 and included it on his 1985 album (that's what we called them back then) Winter Solstice. Here he is singing it in concert in 2011 in Gainesville, Fla., preceded by a delightful account of the time he met Frank Buckles, the last surviving veteran of World War I (who corrected him on several inaccuracies in the song). The singing begins at 8:25:

I knew John in the 1970s when he was music director of the Epworth Congregation/Jubilee Community Arts, an ecumenical inner-city ministry near the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville. A recent graduate of St. John's University in Minnesota, he was a folk singer in the mold of Pete Seeger, and he'd come south to learn Appalachian traditional music. He's still fighting what he believes to be the good fight all these years later.

Martin Marty defines pluralism -- and substance of his work -- in 2006 ACLS "Life of Learning" lecture

The "Life of Learning" lectures are an annual series sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies in which scholars are asked to "to reflect on a lifetime of work as a scholar and an institution builder, on the motives, the chance determinations, the satisfactions (and dissatisfactions) of the life of learning, to explore through one's own life the larger, institutional life of scholarship." Toward the end, church history professor Martin Marty sums up one of the key themes of his historical writing:

The question of substance -- voiced as "what was and what is your historical work about?" -- receives a simple answer. It is telling a story of American religion, a story that has continued unfolding in new contexts and with new emphases through 50 years. Decades ago, during a long strenuous slog on a Manhattan avenue during a snowstorm, cabs that day having been unresponsive to hailing, my publisher-to-be asked about my plot: what did I think American religion was about? "Pluralism," I responded between a huff and a puff, while thinking of America's unmatched varieties of faiths and polities. He snorted: "You couldn't be more wrong! That is what social scientists think, but religious people themselves have other things beside abstractions on their minds." Those odd "other things" turned out to be the lure for my re- search, even if they have to be accounted for under the abstract blanket of "pluralism." (18)

Martin Marty. "A Life of Learning." Charles Homer Haskins Prize Lecture for 2006. ALCS Occasional Paper No. 62. American Council of Learned Societies. http://www.acls.org/Publications/OP/Haskins/2006_MartinEMarty.pdf

Psalms/hymns (mostly) in psalmodikon siffernoter for "Pastor Esbjorn's Singing School" workshop at Jenny Lind

D R A F T

My workshop will be one of the breakout sessions for interest groups taking part in the Founders Day celebration at Augustana Lutheran Church in Andover on Saturday, April 25. (For more information on the event in Andover, link here and follow the link at the bottom of the page.) For more tunes that can be played on the psalmodikon, see the notes I posted Feb. 24 on tunes I was preparing for a workshop at Bishop Hill, at:

http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2014/02/siffernoter-for-bishop-hill-workshop.html

All of the psalms and hymns below are in Lars-Paul Esbjorn's untitled manuscript notebook [ca. 1859-62] of sifferskrift hymns in Esbjorn Family Papers, Special Collections, Tredway Library, Augustana College. Numbers are those of Olof Wallin's 1819 psalmbook; sifferskrift from Johann Dillner's 1830 Melodierna till Svenska Psalm-bok. Sound files are included in order to help me learn the tunes.

Prepare the Royal Highway (53)

How Brightly Shines the Morning Star (55)

Missionary Hymn -- "From Greenland's icy mountains …" (Mason 259)

In Lars-Paul Esbjorn's untitled manuscript notebook [ca. 1859-62] of sifferskrift hymns in Esbjorn Family Papers, Special Collections, Tredway Library, Augustana College.

Source: The Hallelujah: A Book for the Service of Song in the House of the Lord, Containing Tunes, Chants, and Anthems, Both for the Choir and the Congregation ; to which is Prefixed The Singing School : a Manual for Classes in Vocal Music, with Exercises, Rounds, and Part Songs, for Choir Practice ; Also, Musical Notation in a Nutshell : a Brief Course for Singing Schools, Intended for Skillful Teachers and Apt Pupils (Google eBook) http://books.google.com/books?id=9YgQAAAAYAAJ&vq=ortonville&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Krigspsalmen -- Förfäras ej, du lilla hop (387b)

Two YouTube clips:

• Piano -- Jens Fredbor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f91NSlMLWt4
• Megan Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOdlhd0CCOw -- Traditional rendition of the 17th century German hymn "O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe" with lyrics. This video is from my blog "When Suffering Doesn't Stop: Life with Chronic Pain" at http://life-incessant.blogspot.com/.

[378b is the one in the Esbjorn manuscript]

Hit O Jesu (328)

Extended discussion at http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2014/05/add-liebster-jesu-swedish-psalmbook.html and linked blog post of September 2013.

• MIDI file at http://koralboken.blogspot.com/2012/10/kare-jesus-vi-ar-har-alt-koral.html

Liebster Jesu (126)

Words at Wallin 341; sung to melody Wallin 126. See http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2014/05/add-liebster-jesu-swedish-psalmbook.html. This is an isometric variation of Ahle's chorale melody.

Din Klara Sol (420)

http://youtu.be/g05yP2HvyVE -- instrumental and vocal in harmony by the Nordiska Psalmodikonförbundet. "Din klara sol går åter opp ... ett smakprov från Nordiska psalmodikonförbundets CD-skiva Psalmer och visor på psalmodikon inspelad i Stjärnhov i juli 2010. Kan beställas från NPsF hemsida www.npsalmodikonforbundet.se.

Another psalmodikon performance, uploaded by YouTube user Gisli Olsen. "En vers av den gamla skolpsalmen "Din klara sol..." , här spelad tvåstämmigt på varsin hemmabyggda psalmodikon varav en har tillfogats tangenter." The one on the left has keys -- cf. pix of Dillner's psalmodikon in Upplandsmuseet.

Diddley bows, cigar box guitars, KADC, etc. -- misc links

Information about the diddley bow I bought at the Knoxville Area Dulcimer Club's fall retreat --

From YouTube:

Seane Crews at the "Pickin' Porch." "Seane takes the occasion of a Hot Summer Night, and Makes it His! Playing everything from Mountain Dulcimer and Uke to his own "Cigar Box" Diddley-Bow! From Hymns to Blues and everything in between!!!"

[He plays cigar box guitar at 4:34 -- diddey bow at 7:21.]

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Strothers Web Site -- Tom and Missy Strothers, of Cincinatti -- http://www.strothers.com/mountain_dulcimer.htm -- a lot of resources -- incl. tab (w/ quite a few E-minor Christmas tunes I wish we'd known about a month ago)!

String Gauge Calculator http://www.strothers.com/string_choice.htm -- "You can use the form below to determine the most appropriate string to use for your dulcimer. Well actually this will work for any stringed instrument that uses typical steel wire. …"

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Med plank og strengar (trans. with plank and strings) Vegard Hjartholm, Sandane, Norway. https://www.facebook.com/medplankogstrengar in Norwegian (Nynorsk?) and English -- lots of videos -- plays bottleneck -- blog http://sigarboks.blogspot.com -- 2010 to March 2013

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See also http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2013/01/diddley-bow.html on this blog.

KADC's website at http://www.knoxvilledulcimers.org/index.html. Link here for: pictures and class notes from fall retreat; current playout list for KADC meetings.

Reggae, hip hop and pop musicians record benefit performances in West Africa, UK to benefit Ebola treatment

While this week's star-studded Live Aid recording session in London hopes to raise money in the developed nations to combat the spread of the Ebola virus, West African artists have been joining forces in local and regional supergroups since the outbreak of the disease several months ago. Some of the music is quite stunning.

Live Aid is a British and Irish charity supergroup organized by Sir Bob Gendolf, of the Irish rock band Boomtown Rats. First recruited in 1984 to record a song called "Do They Know It's Christmas?" to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia, Gendolf has updated the lyrics to reflect the Ebola crisis and plans to have the new video ready for purchase in time for the holiday season.

(Click here to see some of the celebrity coverage of this week's recording session.)

In the meantime, a group of 12 musicians from Guinea and Senegal has recorded a song "Africa Stop Ebola." It is getting airplay in the French-speaking West African nations, and its promoters say proceeds from sales in the developed world will go to Médecins Sans Frontières. And it isn't the only musical Ebola initiative in West Africa.

A couple of YouTube clips, first the "Africa Stop Ebola" video and second Tiken Jah Fakoly explaining his hopes for airing it in the affected nations:

Africa Stop Ebola. Tiken Jah Fakoly, Amadou & Mariam, Salif Keita, Oumou Sangare, Kandia Kora, Mory Kante, Sia Tolno, Barbara Kanam and rappers Didier Awadi, Marcus (from the band Banlieuz'Arts) and Mokobe. Click on "CC" logo for English subtitles.

Message from Tiken Jah Fakoly to #Liberia and #SierraLeone. Fakoly, a reggae artist of Ivory Coast who enlisted the other musicians for the project, explains his hope that the music will help educate West Africans about the disease and help bring hope that its ravages can be overcome.

Recorded and produced over a period of several weeks this fall, "Africa Stop Ebola" will be sold by iTunes and other online vendors, reports Linda Poon for National Public Radio. "Profits will go to the international health group Doctors Without Borders, which has been on the ground in the hardest-hit countries since the spring," she adds. Her report gives the necessary background for American listeners:

The reggae song is called "Africa Stop Ebola" and features legendary West African musicians like Tiken Jah Fakoly and Kandia Kora from Guinea, along with influential rappers like Didier Awadi from Senegal. The French company 3D Family produced the song.

Kora and fellow musician Sekou Kouyate, also from Guinea, wrote the song. Fakoly began to recruit West African artists to lend their voices. Most came to Paris to record; a few sang from their countries. The song took about a month to assemble.

In French and in local African languages, the supergroup sings about an "invisible enemy" that can be defeated. They sing of the need to "have confidence in doctors" and to rid Ebola victims of the stigma they face. The track has been getting airplay in West Africa since its release last month.

On Nov. 2 BBC News aired a report quoting Carlos Chirinos of London University, an expert in communications in the developing nations and one of the video's producers. "We need a lot of support [for efforts to contain the disease in West Africa]," and we need to build on the popularity of music," he said. Musicians can have a measure of credibility that official spokesmen lack, he said, and one of the goals of airing the song is to restore trust in the medical community in the affected nations.

In the meantime, on Friday Great Britain's Channel 4 news aired a report on "catchy educational tunes" used to fight the disease in West Africa. Riffing off of the celebrity involvement in the new BandAid recording session and titled "Does Bob Geldof know Africa's Ebola aid songs?," it features audio and video clips of several West African songs. Especially powerful, both musically and in terms of its production values as a video, is one put together and narrated by rapper Jimmy B of Sierra Leone:

EBOLA 4 GO - Paradise Film. Sierra Leone. Uploaded Oct. 22 by the Sierra Network.

Song Title: "Ebola 4 Go"
Artist: Jimmy B, Wahid, Camouflage & Cee Jay
Produced By: Paradise Film

Background on Jimmy B, more formally known as Jimmy Yeanie Bangura, the "God-father" of Sierra Leone's music industry, in the newspaper Awoko at http://awoko.org/2014/07/15/sierra-leone-news-jimmy-b-joins-fight-against-ebola/:

This is not the first time that the musician turn filmmaker has done songs about development and national issues. He was at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS and his contribution towards bringing peace to Sierra Leone was even more well documented.

About the outbreak of the virus which has led to the death of about 110 people [as of Juy 15] in Sierra Leone, Jimmy described the outbreak as “the biggest calamity that has befallen Sierra Leone after the war”. He added: “we need to come together and fight together.” ‘The Ebola Song features veteran musician Steady Bongo and singing sensation Heyden Adama.

Jimmy B said he produced the song from his little resources and thanked Steady Bongo and Heyden Adama for their parts in it. “I am giving this song out free of charge and I want the Ministry of Health to help distribute it far and wide.”

He said the song is self-explanatory and it is aimed at raising awarenss about the deadly virus that is spreading fast in the country.

Jimmy B maintained that he has rapport and access to the masses and through his song he believes the masses will understand and learn about the dangers of Ebola as it is a gift to the people of Sierra Leone.

Jimmy B hopes the ‘the Ebola Song’ [EBOLA 4 GO] will go a long way to help sensitize people on this latest trying times in the country’s life. “We need more information about the dangers of this disease and ‘the Ebola Song’ will serve as a useful tool to help sensitize others. Music reaches a wider audience and I am sure the message will reach the people through this song,” he said.

He added that most time people tend to listen to their [cultural] icons than politicians and therefore urged the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to work with artists. “We have been very consistent and society also tends to trust and listen to us.”

"Cat Hair on the Fretboard" -- a Knoxville-area dulcimer novelty song to the tune of "I Been a Swede from North Dakota"

This year's Smoky Mountain Dulcimer Retreat in Townsend, Tenn., featured a variety of good music, ranging from a haunting a cappella folk hymn sung by Anne Lough and her husband Rob, to a soprano saxophone solo by Guy George and a demonstration of bottleneck-style blues on a diddley bow by Seane Crews, who also led a workshop on how to make a diddley bow out of a cigar box and a length of broom handle. The retreat is sponsored by the Knoxville Area Dulcimer Club, and there were more dulcimers there, both mountain and hammered, than you could shake a diddley bow at.

Meals were prepared by the Townsend Church of God, which provides the venue for the KADC's fall retreat, and the food was all that an expatriate Southerner could wish for. Saturday night I was able to choose ham, green beans and a bowl of ham and soup beans. The whole weekend was small-town East Tennessee as I remember it at its best.

But of all the good times we had and all the good tunes I heard, my favorite was a novelty song by T.N.T., a mountain dulcimer trio from Knoxville, called "Cat Hair on the Fretboard."

We have longhaired cats at home in Illinois, and let's say I could relate.

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Picture at right shows Champaign, a rescue cat named for the city in Illinois, demonstrating how to make a fur-lined dulcimer case. He also sheds cat hair on our instruments.

If you want a fur-lined dulcimer case all your very own, consider adopting from your local animal shelter.

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T.N.T. is made up of KADC members Ginny Cliett, Linda Smith and Deby Libby. They have been writing and playing ensemble arrangements for mountain dulcimer since 2006, according to their website at http://www.tntdulcimers.com, and their repertory ranges from meditative finger-picking arrangements of ballads like "Shenandoah" and "The Water is Wide" to up-tempo fiddle tunes like "Cumberland Mountain Deer Chase."

And then there's "Cat Hair on the Fretboard."

I noticed the title when I was browsing through CDs, and I was intrigued. So I bought it and took it out to the car where I could put it on the CD changer. And I loved it. (There's a 30-second sound clip on T.N.T.'s website.) So I asked Deby Libby about it.

Like so many ensemble arrangements, "Cat Hair" grew out of an off-hand remark and took on a life of its own as members of T.N.T. riffed on the remark and by bits and pieces it grew into a song. It was well received when they played it at a local festival -- acted out with great abandon -- and it's been part of their repertory ever since.

The verses are kind of a talking blues about "dust balls big as tumbleweeds" and other challenges of a musician who lets the housework go while she's playing the dulcimer. And the chorus, to the tune of "Reuben, Reuben I've been thinking," ends like this:

I've got cat hair on my fretboard, and a mess in this old place,
Got those cat hairs on my fretboard, and a big smile on my face.

It was another one of those moments that sometimes come to an expat, when things from very different parts of your life fit together in unexpected ways.

While the melody has been around for years as a children's song, I know it best as a novelty number about Swedish-Americans in the Midwest where I live now and spend a lot of time these days researching the music of Scandinavian immigrants (click here, here and here). Mudcat Cafe has several versions:

I bin a Swede from Nort' Dakota
Work on farmstead 'bout two year
Tink I go to Minnesota
Yust to look at the big state fair.

One version has the Swede turn down an opportunity to "work for Yesus" when he learns the Salvation Army doesn't pay its volunteers. In others, he gets drunk and spends 10 days in jail.

The tune is best known today as the children's song "Reuben and Rachel," also known by its first line, "Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking …" It's a composed song, published in Boston in 1871, with words by Harry Birch and music by William Gooch. It went into the oral tradition at least a hundred years ago, and it's been parodied frequently. (Seems like I remember singing, "Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking / Why your feet are always stinking" when I was in junior high, but I don't remember the rest. Which is probably a good thing.) Mudcat Cafe also has several versions of "Reuben and Rachel," including those of the original sheet music in the Levy collection at Johns Hopkins.

"You Ain't Nothing But a Lap Cat"

Inadvertently surfed into tonight, while I was looking for arrangements (see post below) of "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella" for an upcoming Christmas program …

OK, that doesn't make any sense at all, does it? Let's back up a little.

So I'm watching a very nice arrangement of the Christmas carol on YouTube, and I read, "Ah que le chat est beau!" Well, OK, it fits the meter of the song. But what, I wonder, does a cat have to do with the Christ child in the manger at Bethlehem? So I follow the link to the YouTube user's channel, and I see she's a music teacher and a cat person -- not necessarily in that order of importance.

And there among her videos is this:

Lap Cat, blues for harp. Uploaded June 2, 2012, by Freb Hunt-Bull. "Lap Cat gives new meaning to blues harp. Freb Hunt-Bull's parody of Hound Dog is played entirely on harp. Like it, then go adopt a cat."

"Freb is a harpist and music teacher in New Hampshire," according to her YouTube channel. "She loves alternative, folk, jazz, and so much more music."

And now she's inspired me to write a song about our cats to the tune of "Old Dog Blue," something I've long wanted to do. Maybe:

Had an ol' cat and his eyes were green
Prettiest cat you ever seen …

And now I've got to turn off the computer and go do something constructive!

It's beginning to look a little bit like Christmas, at least for Prairieland Strings -- link here for videos of "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella" ** UPDATE x1 ** w/ December schedule

UPDATE FROM BLAST EMAIL, NOV. 16: Our next session of the Prairieland Strings is from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, at Atonement Lutheran Church, 2800 West Jefferson, Spfld. We'll be practicing for our annual "sing/play for our supper" performance at the Advent soup supper on Wednesday, Dec. 10. The way Thanksgiving, Christmas and Advent fall this year, we won't have as much time to practice as we have in the past. But we got started earlier this year than we usually do, so we'll work out just fine!

Our schedule for the rest of November and December, which I will copy to the Hogfiddle blog, is as follows:

-- Thursday, Nov. 20, 7-9 p.m., "third Thursday" at Atonement -- rehearsal for soup supper.
-- Tuesday, Dec. 2, 7-9 p.m., "first Tuesday" at Atonement -- rehearsal.
-- Saturday, Dec. 6, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Clayville Historic Site, Ill. 125, Pleasant Plains. Christmas party.
-- Wednesday, Dec. 10. ca. 6 p.m. Advent soup supper at Atonement. Eat at 5:45, play at 6:20.

Our playlist, as it stands now, is:

-- Joy to the World
-- The First Noel
-- Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
-- Carol of the Bells
-- Silent Night

We made a lot of headway in Saturday morning's jam session at Clayville Historic Site, getting holiday music ready for for Clayville's Dec. 6 Christmas party and our annual Wednesday night Advent soup supper gig at Springfield's Atonement Lutheran Church at a time to be announced.

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Our next session is from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4, at Atonement Lutheran Church, 2800 West Jefferson in Springfield. Since Atonement is a precinct polling place, we'll meet in the education room or narthex (the lobby next to the sanctuary on the opposite end of the building from our usual meeting space). Come in the usual door and turn right through the double doors into the education room.

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One of our songs is "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella," and as we got into it, we started realizing there's more to it than meets the eye. The melody is an old French dance tune, originally in 3/8 time (our arrangement is in 3/4 and I've also seen it in 6/8 time), but the words, as printed in Wikipedia, ask the singers ("Jeanette, Isabella") to run to a village manger scene and gather around the sleeping Christ child. There's more history in a thread on Mudcat Cafe, along with alternative lyrics. I didn't realize, till we started practicing it this morning, what a complex, interesting piece of music it is!

So what we've got is a lively dance tune that conveys both the excitement of a village celebration ("Bring a torch, to the stable run") and the delicacy of a lullaby ("Hush, hush, see how the Child is sleeping") at the same time.

Neat trick if you can do it! But lots of musicians manage to do it very well. That complexity is what makes it fun.

YouTube performances

Here are some people playing the song. I haven't tried to link to the best performances here, but rather to musicians -- mostly amateurs or people offering instruction for amateurs -- that we can learn from.

You can find others, ranging from Tennessee Ernie Ford to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, by going to YouTube and entering the titles "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella" in English and "Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle" in French in the search engine.

Take a look at the videos below, see whether you like the tempo, dynamics, the interplay of different parts of the tune. I'm posting a combination of small-group choral and instrumental. What do you see that we might borrow for the Advent soup supper? What should we stay away from? What ideas might we adapt for our group?

An arrangement for harp and voice. The tempo is a little slower than we're used to hearing, but effective. Notice how she gets a "lilt" by hitting the downbeat. If she didn't, the melody would die at that tempo.

"Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle" on harp. Old French carol played on harp and sung by Freb Hunt-Bull. "Ah que le chat est beau!" [I'm not sure what a cat is doing here, but click here, or scroll up to the next post, to see my theory.]

High school madrigal singers in south suburban New Lenox, Ill. -- listen for their dynamics. "Soft … soft …" Listen to the words -- it's a lullaby!

BRING A TORCH, JEANETTE, ISABELLA. Uploaded on May 29, 2009. Lincoln-Way Central's 2006 Madrigal Singers

A nice arrangement for guitar …

Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella. This is an easy classical guitar arrangement by Douglas Niedt. You can get the arrangement free by subscribing to Doug's technique tips at DouglasNiedt.com.

Another version, more freely arranged …

Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella - arranged by Allan Alexander. Cynthia Underwood Guitar. Classical guitar solo arranged by Allan Alexander from his book An International Christmas for Guitar.

Profile of Bishop Hill psalmodikon workshop in Swedish newsletter

My writeup of my Aug. 2 workshop on the psalmodikon at Bishop Hill is in the current issue of Psalmodika (Vol. 20, Nr. 2), the newsletter of the Nordiska Psalmodikonförbundet [trans. the nordic psalmodikon club] in Sweden. A psalmodikon, (pronounced sal-MOW-di-kon), is a one-stringed box zither used by 19th-century pastors in Sweden and Norway to teach four-part harmony singing to rural congregations using a system of tablature called siffernoter [numerical notation].

Background, in Swedish, is available at http://www.npsalmodikonforbundet.se on the club's website (click on the button that says Kontaka oss [contact us] for a pulldown directory and on Öpna [open] to open an item in the directory). Even if you don't read Swedish, you can find some cool pictures by scrolling down to Bilder [pictures] and clicking on the Öpna button.

A mostly Norwegian-American group in Minnesota, called the Nordic Psalmodikonforbundet (no umlaut in Norwegian), has a wealth of information in English at http://www.psalmodikon.com.

Article in Psalmodika (click on picture to enlarge)

Here's what I wrote, translated into Swedish and (since I can't find my original draft anymore) translated back into English:

The Profile

On 2 August, I led a workshop on the psalmodikon for the Bishop Hill Heritage Association in the old Swedish colony of Bishop Hill in Illinois. There were 21 persons. When I in the beginning of my appearance asked if they knew of the instrument Psalmodikon it was only two or three people who raised their hands.

I have a copy of an instrument made ​​in Bishop Hill in 1870 and I showed how to play on it and got them to sing " A Mighty Fortress is our God" by numerical scores [the siffernoter] so they would understand how the numbers relate to the notes in the scale. It was great fun and I think the audience appreciated it.

MORE ON THE PSALMODIKON: In April 2015 I will be presenting a workshop, "Pastor Esbjörn's Singing School," at the Augustana Founder's Day Renuion in Andover:

On Saturday, April 25, there will be interest groups during the day, with a noon lunch and an evening smorgasbord. The evening will close with a hymn sing and brief Vesper service.

On Sunday, April 26, there will be a morning worship service, followed by a noon lunch. The Augustana College Choir will give a special concert from 2:30 - 3:30 pm. ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton will be the preacher at the 4:00 pm Founders Day Service. The Reunion will end with an evening dinner.

This special event celebrates the 155th anniversary of the Augustana Synod and the 165th anniversary of the Andover congregation. …

My workshop will be one of the breakout sessions for interest groups on Saturday. The Rev. Lars Paul Esbjörn was the first pastor at Andover's Jenny Lind Chapel/Augustana Lutheran Church and one of the founders of the old Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and I have been learning tunes from a handwritten booklet of his siffernoter tablature in the Special Collections at Augustana College's Tredway Library.

"Carol of the Bells" -- links to sheet music and videos to inspire us for Clayville's Christmas party and our Advent soup supper gig ** UPDATE x1 ** w/ December schedule

UPDATE FROM BLAST EMAIL, NOV. 16: Our next session of the Prairieland Strings is from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, at Atonement Lutheran Church, 2800 West Jefferson, Spfld. We'll be practicing for our annual "sing/play for our supper" performance at the Advent soup supper on Wednesday, Dec. 10. The way Thanksgiving, Christmas and Advent fall this year, we won't have as much time to practice as we have in the past. But we got started earlier this year than we usually do, so we'll work out just fine!

Our schedule for the rest of November and December, which I will copy to the Hogfiddle blog, is as follows:

-- Thursday, Nov. 20, 7-9 p.m., "third Thursday" at Atonement -- rehearsal for soup supper.
-- Tuesday, Dec. 2, 7-9 p.m., "first Tuesday" at Atonement -- rehearsal.
-- Saturday, Dec. 6, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Clayville Historic Site, Ill. 125, Pleasant Plains. Christmas party.
-- Wednesday, Dec. 10. ca. 6 p.m. Advent soup supper at Atonement. Eat at 5:45, play at 6:20.

Our playlist, as it stands now, is:

-- Joy to the World
-- The First Noel
-- Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
-- Carol of the Bells
-- Silent Night

Blast email sent out tonight last night and corrected today to include the link to this blog post, to my Clayville and Prairieland Strings lists.

We have two sessions of the Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music and the Prairieland Strings coming up in the next week or so. At our last meeting, we made a good start on Christmas music, and we'll devote at least part of both sessions to getting ready for the annual Christmas party at Clayville Historic Site and our annual Advent soup supper performance in December at Atonement Lutheran Church in Springfield.

We've chosen the following songs for the Advent supper, which is our chance to say thanks to the Atonement congregation for hosting our Springfield meetings:

Carol of the Bells -- http://www.everythingdulcimer.com/tab/CarolOfTheBells.pdf

Silent Night -- http://www.everythingdulcimer.com/tab/SilentNight2.pdf

Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella -- http://www.johnsackenheim.com/John_Sackenheim/Tab_Archive_files/Bring%20A%20Torch%20Jeanette%20Isabella.pdf

The First Noel -- http://www.thedulcimerhymnal.com/resources/media/The_First_Noel.pdf

Joy to the World -- http://www.thedulcimerhymnal.com/resources/media/Joy_to_the_World.pdf

For "Carol of the Bells," we will essentially be making our own arrangement. I think we're ready for that, we went through it at the last meeting and we think it's going to sound pretty good. To inspire us, I am posting several YouTube clips to Hogfiddle at http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2014/10/carol-of-bells-clayville.html" that show different arrangements with various stringed instruments. Give 'em a listen, and see if you hear any ideas we can borrow.

And, for further inspiration, I'm posting the link I sent out earlier of Darth Vader directing an a cappella flash mob in the library at Algonquin College in Ontario:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiDTufRNL10

See if that doesn't get you in the spirit of the season!

Here are the videos I mentioned in the email above:

Carol of the Bells - Steve and Ruth Smith - Hammered Dulcimer. This song is from Steve and Ruth's new Christmas/winter CD "An Appalachian Winter." They even bring in a riff or two from other songs.

Carol of the Bells - Hammered Dulcimer & Cello. Hammered dulcimer by National Champion Joshua Messick and cello by Max Dyer.

Guitar Duet - Carol of the Bells cover. My bud Evan came over and we decided to make two videos, this first one being Carol of the Bells. The backing track got a little off sync at the breakdown and a few other parts, I dunno why. Enjoy!

Carol of the Bells: On Mandolins. YouTube user MandolinMan93 writes, "IT'S DONE!!! I have been working on this for some time now and I am very proud of it. The way i did this is i went into GarageBand and recorded myself three different times.

"Ballad of Bruce Rauner": Shakin' up down Springfield and bringing' back Illinois, one plutocrat at a time ** UPDATED x1 **

Judging by the way the polls are trending, it looks like hedge fund manager Bruce Rauner is about to buy up another distressed asset. The last three surveys show Republican gubernatorial candidate Rauner leading incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn by as much as 3.8 percent, and I'm starting to look for "Don't Blame Me -- I Voted for Quinn" bumper stickers.

So a new Johnny Cash-style talking blues titled "Plutocrat: The Ballad of Bruce Rauner" was -- literally -- music to my ears:

Lyrics at http://bluestatecowboys.blogspot.com.

Written by a Chicago lawyer named Matt Farmer who fronts a band called the Blue State Cowboys ("Chicago's Most Litigious Band"), the song went up Thursday. I saw it on Fred Klonsky's school "reform" blog, and a little while later a link appeared on the Capitol Fax political blog. (CapFax crashed that night, and Thursday's posts are no longer available, but blog administrator Rich Miller blames technical issues rather than Rauner, or Rauner-inspired hackers, for that.) The song hits all the campaign themes -- from the way Rauner clouted his suburban daughter into an elite Chicago magnet school to the the negligence and wrongful death litigation that has dogged Rauner's nursing homes.

The chorus:

So, Springfield, get out the welcome mat
What this state needs is a plutocrat
A slashin’, burnin’, union-bustin’ guy

I’ll hammer and shake that capitol dome
Like it’s a grandma stuck in a nursing home
Hey, grandma, it’s time to say goodbye

I could say more, but I probably shouldn't.

LATER: Ben Joravsky, education (and Chicago city politics) reporter at The Chicago Reader, has linked to Farmer's video. "Hey, Matt," Joravsky writes, presumably with tongue firmly planted in cheek, "have you considered the witness protection program?"

What is it about Rauner that makes so many people think, even in a joking way, he's out for retribution?

Could it be the way, in Joravsky's words, that "Rauner blew his stack when former Sun-Times reporter Dave McKinney cowrote a mildly critical article about something someone said about him many years ago?" McKinney resigned last week after Sun-Times owner (and Rauner pal) Michael Ferro blew his stack and pulled him off the Statehouse beat, and Farmer did dedicate the song to McKinney. But, gee whiz, it couldn't be that.

Whatever. At any rate, Joravsky put in a good word for the singer-songwriter:

OK look, Mr. Rauner, please allow me to make an appeal on Matt's behalf.

He's a nice guy. A lawyer by day. On nights and weekends, he frequently plays guitar and sings old rock, blues, or country songs at bars around town.

He's made a bunch of satiric country-western videos, including one about Blago. You'd like that -— right?

That song about Blagojevich is a classic, by the way. It's titled ""Pay to Play (But Keep Love in Your Heart)," and it's available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBqXbLKx4No.

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us -- Bishop Ussher's date of the creation of the world was 6,018 years ago today

Want to know the exact time the world was created? James Ussher (1581-1656), 17th-century Anglican archbishop of Armagh and vice-chancellor of Trinity College Dublin, figured it out. And it was Oct. 23, 2004 BCE. Not the 22nd, and not the 24th. But Oct. 23. Today.

So ... happy birthday, world!

How did Bishop Usher get such a precise date? Well, he didn't just count up all the "begats" and generations in the bible (although he did take Nebuchadnezar and the day the sun stood still when Joshua fit the battle of Jericho into account). Instead he relied on a complex set of astronomical calculations that sought to reconcile the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It's complicated. Here's how Wikipedia explains it in its article on the "Julian day," a related astronomical calculation that dates back to the 1500s and is still used to time orbits in space and to compare dates in different calendars. And here's how Bishop Ussher explained his final calculation in a book called The Annals of the World, published in 1658:

… from thence I gathered the creation of the world did fall out upon the 710 year of the Julian Period, by placing its beginning in autumn: but for as much as the first day of the world began with the evening of the first day of the week, I have observed that the Sunday, which in the year 710 aforesaid came nearest the Autumnal Æquinox, by astronomical tables (notwithstanding the stay of the sun in the dayes of Joshua, and the going back of it in the dayes c Ezekiah) happened upon the 23 day of the Julian October; from thence concluded that from the evening preceding that first day of the Julian year, both the first day of the creation and the first motion of time are to be deduced.

Ussher is quoted in more detail on a webpage by Donald Simanek of Lock Haven University. And Ussher's methodology is discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology. Included is the quote, which strikes me as both generous and wise, by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould:

I shall be defending Ussher's chronology as an honorable effort for its time and arguing that our usual ridicule only records a lamentable small-mindedness based on mistaken use of present criteria to judge a distant and different past. ... Ussher represented the best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial research tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common goal under an accepted methodology[.]

Augustana Synod -- misc. liturgical notes

Memoirs of the Lutheran Liturgical Association, Vols. 1-7 (Pittsburgh: Lutheran Liturgical Association, 1906) (Google eBook). "The Swedish Liturgies" by the Rev. Prof. N. Forsander, D.D., 2:15-27.

Table of contents for all 7 volumes pp. v-viii. Also histories of Danish and Norwegian liturgies. Google eBooks

"Mo Ghile Mear" and Seán Ó Riada ** UPDATED x2 ** lyrics in Irish and English, a very cool arrangement by a choral group at University College Dublin -- and a link to a trad Irish slow session in Dublin

So this afternoon I'm looking for lyrics to "Mo Ghile Mear" I can take to tonight's session of the Prairieland Strings, and I surf into an article by Irish sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird that details Seán Ó Riada's role in developing the modern arrangement of the song for his Cór Chúil Aodha (choir of the Chúil Aodha district in County Cork). Turns out it was crucial; in a very substantial way, the song is Ó Riada's legacy to Ireland -- and all the rest of us.

Then -- what a lovely bonus! -- I find a YouTube video of Ó Riada's daughter, Liadh Ní Riada, winning a seat for Ireland's nationalist Sinn Féin party in the European Parliament back in May. Her supporters sing "Mo Ghile Mear" at 2:18 after the deciding votes are announced.

Link here for the lyrics I was looking for, in Irish and English:

• With the Gaelic and a literal translation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Ghile_Mear
• With phonetic transcription: http://www.celticartscenter.com/Songs/Irish/MoGhileMear.html
• With Sting's translation of verses http://www.metrolyrics.com/mo-ghile-mear-lyrics-the-chieftains.html

From YouTube, footage of: (1) Liadh Ní Riada's victory celebration; and performances by (2) Iarla Ó Lionáird and (3) the Cór Chúil Aodha:

1. Liadh Ní Riada elected MEP for Ireland South.
   Published on May 27, 2014. Liadh Ní Riada elected MEP for Ireland South. Video footage from the count centre as declaration was announced. Watch out for the great and emotional rendition of Mo Ghile Mear near the end [beginning at 2:18].

   Liadh Ní Riada is Sinn Féin’s National Gaeilge Officer. A good bio on the partry's website at http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/27886. It stands to reason she would be Sinn Féin, given her father's role in reviving Irish traditional music.

2. Iarla 0'Lionaird and Steve Cooney -Mo Ghile Mear.
   Published on Jul 29, 2012 Iarla O'Lionaird and Steve Cooney at Abbeystrewery church - July 27 2012- a celebration of the life and works of Canon James Goodman.

3. Mo Ghile Mear - Cór Chúil Aodha agus Peadar Ó Riada
   Uploaded on Mar 24, 2010. Notes in Irish Gaelic. [Peadar Ó Riada is Seán Ó Riada's son and director of the Cór Chúíl Aodha.]

Paraphrasing Ó Lionáird's article, Wikipedia says: "The lyrics and verse of the song more commonly performed today comes from the Cúil Aodha Gaeltacht in County Cork. The air was documented by a man named Dómhnall Ó Buachalla and the words are edited from two of Seán Clárach Mac Domhnaill's songs: Bímse Buan ar Buairt Gach Ló and another without a title. Dónal Ó Liatháin gave an account of how it was formed to the sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird."

** Update #1. Video of a performance by the UCD Choral Scholars at University College Dublin -- well, a rehearsal during a recording session, actually, but you wouldn't know it wasn't the final take by listening to it -- that I surfed into. Link here to https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=739685519441564.

A sneaky video of the last track we recorded in Castleknock College for Signum Records this weekend. We can't wait to hear the mix! This was the very last piece performed together by UCD Choral Scholars 2013-2014. What a joyful year it was for us!

** End update.

Ó Riada performs the melody on the harpsichord in the CD Ó Riada's Farewell (click here for a brief audio clip), but it took the form in which we now know it after his death in 1971 as an anthem for Cóir Chúil Aodha. Dónal Ó Liatháin recalled :

"We were gathered in the Ó Riada house [...] and Peadar had this tape and he put it on and on it was a man, if my memory serves me correctly, whose name was Domhnall Ó Buachalla. ... You could recognise from the tape that his was an old voice. [Peadar] told us that this was a tape that his father had collected from the man in question and he played us a song from it. [...] Peadar gave it to me saying that we could make a song from this melody. ...

"I had no plan whatsoever except that I ... would take the most beautiful verses ... the verses that were ... sort of universal as you might say. There really wasn't any difficulty because it was kind of clear that this was the thing you would do... The words and lines were very nice in the verses that we chose, but ... Seán Clarach really was a superb craftsman as regards metre and so forth and you couldn't really find a bad verse where the metre would not be spot on" [quoted in Wikipedia].

In Ó Lionáird's article in the Journal of Music published in Galway, Ó Liatháin is quoted as saying "it became the song that would be sung at the end of the night and people really loved it." Ó Liatháin added:

Well the thing about it was that it was Gaolach [Gaelic in a tribal as opposed to a linguistic sense] and nationalistic and manly and that it consisted of all these things. … the melody itself … had a marching rhythm, there was the sense of … referring back to times of heroism and triumph in Ireland and … I suppose it fitted into the atmosphere at the time since the situation in the North was quite troublesome. And then Ó Riada himself was dead and there was… there was a certain sadness to that period…

Ó Lionáird continues the story:

Prior to its arrival the choir habitually ended a night’s song in public performance with a humorous song – ‘Scoil Bharr d’Inse’. It would soon be usurped by what was now being called ‘Gile Mear’ – a Cúil Aodha song! It was accorded an additional life when its air started to be played at funerals as the coffin made its journey shouldered from the altar to the hearse. It in effect became the Cóir Chúil Aodha anthem. -

See more at: http://journalofmusic.com/focus/o-riadas-vision#sthash.ez1Feook.dpuf.

Earlier posts:

• http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2010/04/mo-ghile-mear.html

• http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2010/05/mo-ghile-mear-and-will-ye-no-come-back.html

** Update #2. Worth studying: Trad Irish Slow Sessions at New School of Music in center city Dublin:

The New School's Trad Slow Sessions are traditional Irish music sessions in all ways except one: the tempo. We play the session tunes at a slower than normal pace (usually less than half the speed), so that beginning and intermediate players can more easily learn the tunes and join in the session. More experienced players who wish to refine their techniques at a slower pace are also very welcome.

At many Irish traditional sessions the music can be quite loud and fast, which can be intimidating for newer players. Instead, our sessions are ‘softer and slower’ to facilitate the learning process in a friendly and supportive environment. Also, unlike many Irish sessions, those players who need to read the music can use it at the session, although ultimately our goal is to get everyone playing the music in the aural tradition so they can join other sessions. We limit the tunes to those on our tune list, which allows us to repeat the tunes from session to session.

Fascinating tune list!

Gustav II Adolf's Krigspsalm / "Fear not, O little flock" / Förfäras ej du lilla hop -- cf. tunes in Haeffner's chorale book and 1925 hymnal

LATER (Dec. 23, 2014): The tune 378b in Dillner appears in the 1892 koral-bok and the 1901 hymnal. In the 1925 hymnal, however, it is replaced by a melody composed by Augustana Seminary professor Carl Johannes Söndergren. See the discussion in Songs of Two Homelands (31n).

In both of Lars Paul Esbjorn's handwritten notebooks of psalmodikon tablature (sifferskrift) in the Esbjorn Family Papers, Box 14, MSS 1, Special Collections, Tredway Library, Augustana College, are versions of the "Krigspsalm" (war hymn) attributed to King Gustav II Adolf. Better known as Gustavus Adolphus, he was a national hero of Sweden during the 1800s and Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota was named for him.

It is No. 378 in Wallin's 1819 psalmbook, No. 390 in the Augustana Synod's 1901 service book and hymnal.

Förfäras ej, du lilla hop --
Tune used in Haeffner's chorale book -- posted by YouTube user Jens Fredborg, played on piano w/ lyrics, in Swedish, of first stanza

The basics are in the Swedish edition of Wikipedia at http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Förfäras_ej_du_lilla_hop:

Förfäras ej du lilla hop är inledningsraden på "Gustaf Adolfs fältpsalm", som sägs ha sjungits av Gustav II Adolf och hans här inför slaget vid Lützen 1632. Den ursprungliga tyska texten, Verzage nicht, du Häuflein klein av Johann Michael Altenburg. Översättaren är okänd. Den svenska texten har tre 6-radiga verser i den version som bearbetades av Johan Olof Wallin.

Melodin är en medeltida folkmelodi med tyskt ursprung, nedtecknad 1530 i Ain schöns newes Christlichs Lyed.

The hymn is known as Gustavus Adolphus' "swan song" because he is said to have led his troops in singing it before his death in the Battle of Lützen during the Thirty Years War. Excerpt from The Story of Our Hymns by E.E. Ryden, available online at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/ryden/hymnstory.p2.c11.html in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, gives the traditional story:

On the morning of November 6, 1632, the two armies faced each other in battle array. Dr. Fabricius, chaplain of the Swedish army, had been commanded by Gustavus to lead his troops in worship. The king himself raised the strains of “Be not dismayed, thou little flock,” and led the army in singing the stirring hymn. Then he knelt in fervent prayer.

A heavy fog prevented the Protestant forces from moving forward to the attack, and, while they were waiting for the fog to lift, Gustavus ordered the musicians to play Luther’s hymn, “A mighty Fortress is our God.” The whole army joined with a shout. The king then mounted his charger, and, drawing his sword, rode back and forth in front of the lines, speaking words of encouragement to his men.

As the sun began to break through the fog, Gustavus himself offered a prayer, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, help me today to do battle for the glory of Thy holy name,” and then shouted, “Now forward to the attack in the name of our God!” The army answered, “God with us!” and rushed forward, the king galloping in the lead.

Ryden was an Augustana Synod pastor, hymnologist and editor of The Lutheran Companion. Good bio on ArchiveGrid website at http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/309274052. Including this: "He served as secretary of the Joint Commission on a Common Hymnal, which in conjunction with the Joint Commission on a Common Liturgy created the Service Book and Hymnal which represented the collaborative work of the eight Lutheran church bodies that comprised the National Lutheran Council. Previously, Ryden served on the Augustana committee that created its 1925 hymnal. In addition to this hymnal, he also co-wrote Augustana's Junior Hymnal in 1930 and its revision in 1960. Several of his original hymns and hymn texts were used in past hymnals and in the current Evangelical Lutheran Church in America hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, three of his hymn texts are included."

A "yes" vote for the Skye Boat Song this week at Clayville

Scots may have voted against independence in this month's referendum (but read this before you make up your mind about that). By coincidence -- and by request -- we are going to be taking up a song from the Scottish rebellion of 1745-46 for the Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music at 10 a.m. Saturday. It's called the Skye Boat Song, and it's a fantastic piece of music 3/4 time. It can be played as a waltz, but it's more of a slow air.

The best account (as so often happens) is in Wikipedia, which says it "recall[s] the escape of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) from Uist to the Isle of Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746." Don't believe the bad things you hear about Wikipedia!

According to Wikipedia, for all their romance about Scottish rebellion, the lyrics was written by the British aristocracy of the 1800s -- " by Sir Harold Boulton, 2nd Baronet, to an air collected in the 1870s by Anne Campbelle MacLeod (1855–1921), who became Lady Wilson by marriage to Sir James Wilson KSCI (1853–1926) in 1888." The air, or melody, is traditional, however, and it's lovely. It has been covered by everyone from James Galway and the Chieftans to Tom Jones and Rod Stewart. YouTube has covers by the Corries, the Scots Guards Pipe and Drums and the Tampa Bay Children's Chorus, among others.

A lead sheet is available on EverythingDulcimer.com at http://www.everythingdulcimer.com/tab/ (scroll down the alphabetical directory to the "rlwalker" version of "Skye Boat Song.") It's dulcimer tab, in DAD and DAA, but it has the melody line and chords for those of us who play other instruments. You can also print it out directly by linking here:

http://www.everythingdulcimer.com/tab/skyedul.pdf

There are several versions on YouTube, but the one that's probably the most instructive for us shows a local band called Carl Purdy and Friends at O'Donovan's Irish Pub in Augusta, Ga., Musicians include: Carl (harmony, Irish pennywhistle) and Erin (lead vocal, guitar). The woman who inquires at 1:50 who ordered the "burger with a side of mayonnaise" is surely a waitress and not part of the performance. Think of her as adding to the ambiance!

There's also a nice fingerpicked version on the mountain dulcimer by YouTube user dulcibard.

A classical arrangement -- Beautiful Classic Scottish Music - The Skye Boat Song - Relaxing Harp, Flute, Clarinet, Violin Solo: Beautiful instrumental Scottish folk music solo of the classic traditional Skye Boat - Speed Bonnie Boat song. Best Relaxing Harp and Peaceful Flute music. Mormon Tabernacle Choir Principal Flute, Jeannine Goeckeritz and Principal Harp, Tamara Oswald performing live an arrangement by Skaila Kanga and Clive Romney, joined by Becca Goeckeritz, violin, Daron Bradford, clarinet, and Scott Allen, bass. From the Oswald Goeckeritz Duo live concert "A Joyful Evening" at BYU Education Week. http://www.harpandflute.com.

And an a cappella performance by the UCD Choral Scholars at University College Dublin. If you'd like to hear the lyrics without a conversation about hamburgers in the background, this is the one to listen to!

Augie -- Hasselquist, Esbjörnand music, misc. notes

d r a f t

The Alumnus, Alumni Association of Augustana College, Rock Island. Volume 1 (1892-93) (Google eBook)

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At left, quote from I.M. Anderson, "The Educational Institutions of the Augustana Synod," The Augustana Synod, A Brief Review of its History, 1860-1910. Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1910.

With dummy or placemarker ("Lorem ipsum …") text below is to make the citations line up with the JPEGs. (Click here for a brief history and some text you can copy and paste into your own dummies.) As I find more information, I'll replace the "lorem ipsum" with text that actually means something!

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Ernst Olson, The Swedish Element in Illinois: Survey of the Past Seven Decades : with Life Sketches of Men of Today Chicago: Swedish-American Biographical Association, 1917, p. 130.

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C.J. Södergren, "A Brief History of the Augustana Synod," The Augustana Synod, A Brief Review of its History, 1860-1910. Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1910, p. 30.

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I.M. Anderson, "The Educational Institutions of the Augustana Synod," The Augustana Synod, A Brief Review of its History, 1860-1910. (Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1910), p. 99.

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

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"Fem får og fire geder" (five sheep and four goats) -- a bouncy little traditional Danish fiddle tune

Here performed by Danish --- band Rannok at Live fra Café Bartof in Fredericksberg 23 Februar 2013 - "Dejodejo" CD release. The other tune, the reel, is titled "Den sidste ged" (the last goat).

And here, performed by Fiolministeriet (the Ministry of Fiddles) live in Solingen in 2011. I don't know what the second tune is. Both are from the Bast Brothers' tune collection (whatever that is), according to the notes on YouTube.

Nice review of Fiolministeriet on the Danish Roots website at http://www.danishroots.eu/fiolministeriet-the-fiddle-ministry/:

We meet one early spring evening in the pleasant little café in the foyer of a small hotel in Flensborg, on the German-Danish border. A fairly large group of Danish musicians and people from the international music business are talking animatedly when the street door opens and in step a trio of smiling young women carrying their musical instruments. An aura of success and self-confidence surrounds them. That’s because this is the young Danish trio Fiolministeriet (The Fiddle Ministry), and they are breaking through on the German folk music scene at this very point in time. The Fiddle Ministry play Danish and European music from the 18th century, arranged for violin, viola, cello, guitar and voice sang, and this evening they are returning to their hotel after yet another in a long series of concerts, yet another full house, yet another wild success. The gathering is for the German festival folkBALTICA, and in the weeks up to the festival, The Fiddle Ministry – violinist and singer, Ditte Fromseier, violinist Kirstine Sand and cellist Kirstine Petersen – have toured all over Germany, presenting their brand new debut album.

"Terrible Swedes" -- Andover's community baseball team of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, and a truly remarkable home run

Very well-written feature story by Stephen Elliott in the Dispatch and Argus when the team was honored in 2007. Elliott's lede and nut graf:

ANDOVER -- They played on ball diamonds with no fences, where collections were taken up to pay for bats and baseballs.

They traveled to small towns around the area, where farm kids could watch their heroes round the bases. Cheers came from people standing outside the dusty ballfields.

They were known as the Andover Terrible Swedes, and they played baseball in the open fields, in rain and sunshine, sometimes into darkness. The players came from farms and factory jobs to share a little of their youth with each other and the fans who came to watch.

Eugene Carlson started his career with the Andover Junior Swedes back in 1939.

When he puts his fingers around a baseball today, the 84-year-old still has a firm grip after all these years.

The eyes squint a little in the sun. The smile seems to reveal memories of a time when crowds came out to see a young boy standing in the open spotlight on a dirt field.…

This, on the local team's origin:

Andover historian Ron Peterson said the Terrible Swedes came about after one of the Swedish players, "Stripes" Johnson, saw a local basketball game with a team called, "Olson's Terrible Swedes," in the 1920s. "Stripes" thought it would make a good name for the baseball club.

And a good deal of history about the team, the players and their service in WWII, and the post-war years, including this:

"One time, a guy hit a ground ball past second base, and it went into a gopher hole in the outfield," Mr. Carlson said. "The guy got a home run."

And this, for a kicker at the end:

But, the Swedes faded out in the late 1950s to early '60s.

The ghosts of the Terrible Swedes are being honored this weekend. Mr. Carlson and Mr. Johnson will be there, along with former teammate and Milan resident Vergene Samuelson.

"I see them now out there running around in the dust," Mr. Carlson said of today's baseball players. "I think, `isn't that a bunch of crazy people?'

"I did it. But, when you're younger, you do a lot of crazy things."

Stephen Elliott, "`Terrible Swedes' played for the love of baseball" Dispatch-Argus QCOnline.com 31 May 2007, http://qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=340738.

Lars Paul Esbjörn's psalmodikon -- pix and measurements ** UPDATED w/ AutoCorrect blunder that's too good to fix

Editorial note: In the list of captions to pictures below, there is a reference to a "melody string, center, attached to woods crew …" No, there were no tiny lumberjacks running around Jenny Lind Chapel, and they had no melody strings attached! That's what AutoCorrect did to me when I tried to write "wood screws" as one word.

Notes and pictures from my visit to the Jenny Lind Chapel yesterday with Ron Peterson of the Andover Historical Society, who removed the Esbjörn instrument from its display case and allowed me to measure it. (See also the picture with my post Psalmodikon -- misc. notes on resonance strings (resonanssträngar) immediately below on Sept. 5.) It is clearly a sophisticated, well crafted musical instrument.

Psalmodikon in Jenny Lind Chapel museum

Esbjörn was a protoge of Johann Dillner, who wrote the most important primer on the psalmodikon, and he was one of two founders of the Augustana Synod who used it widely in the early days. (The other was Eric Norelius, of Vasa, Minnesota.) His instrument is wider and deeper than Dillner recommended in his introduction to the 1846 sifferskrift (psalmodikon tablature) edition of Johan Olof Wallin's Swedish Psalmbook of 1819 (click here for details), but is approximately the same length. Its measurements:

• Length (along side of instrument): 44 inches.
  
• Breadth (at wide end): 11.75 inches.
  
• Breadth (at narrow end): 5.25 inches.
  
• Height: 3.75 inches.
  
• Fretboard: 29.75 inches.
  
• Vibrating string length (estimated): 33-34 inches.

The instrument was apparently designed for one melody string centered over the fretboard and 10 drone strings, five on each side of the fretboard. See Sept. 5 post below for details. Three strings are still attached. They appear to be loop-end metal strings (maybe 0.12 or 0.14 gauge?). And the end of what appears to be a gut string is attached to the bridge end of the psalmodikon.

Some other measurements: The fretboard is raised approximately 1 inch from the soundbox. Like other Swedish psalmodikons, it lacks metal frets but is cut in a shallow sawtoothed pattern The bridge is a block of wood 1 inch in height, 0.75 inch at the bottom and 0.25 inch at the top. It is cut in a right-angled trapezoidal pattern with the right angle nearest the fretboard.

The picture below, taken in 2013 when the instrument was in its display case, shows its overall proportions.

Other pictures below show: (1) At left, decorated sound hole, 8.75 inches from the nut end; (2) at right, nut end of psalmodikon with wooden peg for melody string. Drone strings are metal loop-end string slipped over woods crews; (3) metal tuning pegs on butt end of psalmodikon for drone strings and end of melody string, center, attached to woods crew; and (4) detail of nut end, showing tuner for melody string, at center, and resonant strings looped over wood screws at sides.

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