Star Wars...Revelation-style!

When I was a student (a few too many years ago now, sad to say) I picked up a couple of Crusader Comics. These were genuine comic books but written from a very 'fundamentalist Christian' point-of-view. While they were 'sensationalist' (to say the VERY least) they did contain some pointers towards good Christian teaching. They were more anti-Catholic than Ian Paisley, as anti-Freemason as a thrice-blackballed bank manager and made Dan Brown's expose of The Vatican read like Cinderella!

But one comic, entitled 'Angel of Light' told the Biblical story of Lucifer quite well! Lucifer was, of course, God's favourite angel - the leader of all the worshipping angels - who got 'bored' with grovelling at the Almighty's feet and tried to con a third of Heaven's angels into bowing to HIM for a change! The Bible tells us that God, in His wrath, cast Lucifer out of Heaven and not - as is popularly believed - into Hell but down onto the surface of planet Earth (and the atmosphere surrounding it)! I even had to look up the relevant scripture to help me believe this! Yet, there it was in King James's best black and white!

It became a popular topic for me as I regarded myself as a rather radical, young Christian student at the time! I even preached on the subject on one of 'Blood & Fire's' evangelical weekend campaigns...

It was remarked upon, by one of the stalwarts of Pontypool Corps, that it was the first time he had EVER heard the 'fall of Satan' preached from a pulpit/SA platform! Extremely sadly, I have to admit that, in 26 years of subsequent church attendance, I have also never heard the same subject preached upon! Now, "Hellfire and Damnation" are, admittedly, rather out of fashion in the modern church - some might say rightly so - though I doubt the SA's Founder, William Booth, would agree - and, just possibly, the progressive weakness of the church's influence in society, as well as its dwindling membership throughout the 20th century may reflect this!

In fact, the only other time I ever encountered the story of the 'fall of Satan' was in the movie 'Bedazzled', written by and starring the popular comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore! There, Stanley Moon (Moore) encounters Satan (aka George Spigott, played by Cook) and hears the almost exact Biblical description of Lucifer's fall 'from grace', played out around a pillar box!

Anyway, what on earth (and the atmosphere around it) has this got to do with a music blog, I hear the less patient of you ask?

The answer is: a 50p cassette (without box) that I purchased nearly thirty years ago!

Bill Davidson is a well-known name amongst older Salvationists: he was a founder-member of 'The Joystrings', not only the first Salvation Army 'pop' group but, according to many experts (including the late, great Larry Norman) the first Christian pop-group from any denomination! Certainly the first to have a hit record in the UK charts ('It's an Open Secret' reached number 32 in 1964).

After 'The Joystrings' Bill led another group called 'Good News' and later moved to the USA where he is currently the Senior Pastor at the 'Church of the King', Queensbury, New York. Bill was loved (in the SA, anyway) for his wonderful voice, heard on so many 'Joystrings' favourites - especially on one of Joy Webb's most popular and enduring songs 'There Will Be God' - and, later, his beautiful rendition of Gowans & Larsson's 'Love Never Fails' on the LP recording of their musical 'Spirit'.

In the States Bill also recorded some solo albums - and one of these was the afore-mentioned 50p, boxless bargain I purchased all those years ago!

The title of the album is 'Star Wars of Darkness and Light'. The title track begins with a synthesizer introduction - very nearly, but not quite exactly, a note-for note quotation from what is. surely, John Williams' most famous theme! The song tells the story:

"Long ago and far away

Long before the dawning of our day

In a world that we can only dream of

Though it's described so we can clearly read of it..."

(Can't you see those yellow titles scrolling on a black background?)

...Lucifer turned from his maker's eyes,

Coveting the throne for his own prize.

Star Wars of darkness and light,

Hear words that begin the fight:

"Expel Lucifer from my sight!""

What a bold move for a brave pastor/singer to take the most well-known movie of all time and use it as his own evangelical tool to tell the story, a story (as we have seen) almost taboo in the pulpit!

Of course, in even more modern times - the age of the internet - we can Google 'Star Wars and the Bible' and find over three and a quarter million hits - leading us to numerous scholarly theses exploring the details of the two right down to their absolute pathological minutiae!!!

The same can be said for E.T. (a friend from 'afar' who is misunderstood to the point of being an outcast, heals the sick ("Ouch!") then dies and rises from the dead) and even Harry Potter...gosh, this internet is a wonderful thing!

My own personal circumstances led me to dig out, re-play (and even convert to iTunes compatible mp3) Bill's 1978 album this week (originally because of a different track on the album, I have to admit) but it was good to hear it again after so long - and my Star Wars-loving kids enjoyed it too!

When we, as Christian musicians, offer our music to the Lord we can never know the good He will make of it - even many, many years later! We should not be surprised! Isaiah tells us exactly how God will use our efforts:

" it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

Christian musicians: "Keep singing and playing for Him!" Amen!

Have Mouthpiece...Will Blow!

I know some brass players who treat their mouthpiece the way some golfers treat their putters - i.e. they change them more often than they do their socks! I remember one cornetist with a mantelpiece full from one end to the other with Denis Wicks, Vincent Bachs, Adams, Blessings, Bessons, Kellys...standing like little ornaments on a shelf! Indeed, that's exactly what they WERE...waiting their turn patiently until my friend split a few too many notes and gave each another chance!

My eldest son, Morgan is a collector of mouthpieces. We found, just the other day an antique French mouthpiece with a triangular aperture! I have never seen anything like that before in my 40+ years as a player! Suffice to say there are mouthpieces to help you get high notes, ones to help you get low ones, some aim to improve your tone, plastic ones that are not too cold when playing Christmas Carols, heavy ones with boosters to help you

play longer by dispersing the vibrations to your lips...

Who would think such a small thing could come in such variations or make such a difference? But then...the amateur golfer probably asks the same about putters! I think it was Sam Torrance I once heard admit he had over 400 of them in his garage!

When I first moved onto euphonium it came about almost by accident: While playing with Camborne SA band I had formed part of a 'stage band' in the musical 'Hosea'. I had played cornet myself back then (aged 10) but our wise bandmaster, Ken Norton (left with Morgan and who, very sadly, passed away just a few months ago) realised such a small instrument was not for me. he moved me onto tenor horn and, within weeks, even I could recognise an improvement. When, a short while later, my parents were appointed across the Tamar to Torquay, the bandleader already had, ready for me, a shiny cornet. Oh-oh!

"But I play horn now," the 12-year old me piped up! He didn't have a horn - but he DID have a blackened 1912 euphonium with a bent 4th valve! If ever an instrument responded to some TLC it was that one...I worked and polished until it shone - the bath still had the marks when we left Torquay two years later - and I played and played and played. Six months later I am told I was playing some of the hardest solos in the euphonium repertoire using the SA manufactured Rangefinder mouthpiece my dad bought for me!

At our next home (Tunstall, Stoke-On-Trent) I played an Imperial euphonium (still with the Rangefinder) - although I looked with not a little envy towards our principal euphonium player's Bright Silver Plate Sovereign! At Bedlington (our next port of call) I played one of those strange design Yamaha euphoniums with the 4th valve 'up top' alongside the other three). This was a slightly larger bore and, therefore, necessitated a change in mouthpiece. Billy Webb, a friend from Newcastle, gave me a Denis Wick 6BM which I played until I left home for college.

At Colchester Institute I studied with one of the best musicians it has ever been my privilege to meet, Michael Clack - for many years the conductor of the world famous Chalk Farm Salvation Army Band. Michael was vice-principal of the college (and was an old friend of my parents) - which may account for the fact he managed to purloin one of the college Sovereigns for me to play (I finally got to play one...5 years after lusting after Kevin's back in Tunstall!)

The 6BM didn't fit the wider bore of the Sovereign, of course, and Michael kindly lent me a Vincent Bach 3G mouthpiece in my first college lesson, September 1981. I used it until Christmas then, using my Christmas money, I bought my own shiny new one from my fellow SA bandsman Dennis Todd's 'Rosehill Instruments' shop in Bedlington High Street. I think, even back in 1981/2 it cost me £30!

When I got back to college something was not quite right...the new mouthpiece didn't 'feel' the same. Michael and I did an A/B comparison and they weren't the same! I have spoken to Bach 'experts' who 'absolutely assure' me that I am wrong - but that 3G has a different internal contour and cup-size! My surprise (and slight disappointment) was somewhat tempered by Michael Clack informing me I'd been silly to buy a new mouthpiece anyway - he was more than happy to let me have his...for a fiver!

Fortunately, Dennis Todd allowed me a refund...I had the 3G I liked AND a £25 bonus into the

bargain (which, undoubtedly, was soon diverted to Parrot Records in Colchester!)

29 years later, I still use that very same mouthpiece! It has been re-plated once and the number of hours of usage it has been employed in practising and performance must be into tens of thousands of hours...best value for a fiver I will ever have in my life!

At this precise moment, due to some (and I choose my description very carefully) particularly

graceless and clumsy man-management I am without a band to play with for the first time in nearly 40 years. As my new Prestige euphonium belongs to the band who have discarded me I will also soon be without an instrument as well. Today, I enjoyed a good long blow, up and down my scales and exercises and through some favourite tunes and solos. I don't know how long it will be before I can do this again and made the most of it!

But when I DO re-begin to play...my Vincent Bach 3G (pictured left complete with my own reflection) will be

waiting - and, boy, I hope that day comes soon!

Are you listening...or just hearing?

It was one of my favourite questions to GCSE students at the start of their 2 year course! Not worded quite like that, to be honest...I preferred to inject a little bit of fun: "How many of you listen to music while you do your homework?" was more like what I would have asked. Every time, every year, every hand went up. I would shake my head with a wry grin and accuse them all of being liars!

What a great way to provoke a wave of indignation! "But I DO!!!" would come back at me from all corners...and so I would go on to prove my point! Shaking my head, somewhat, I would ask them to 'listen' to a piece of music I had carefully pre-prepared! As soon as they heard the harpsichord arepeggio that led into an operatic recitative I watched the lights go out around the classroom...pupil by pupil the eyes glazed over. Which was something of a shame, really, for the words I sang on the recording included the lines, "Come, touch me on the shoulder and this fiver shall be yours!"

As the music played I took a note from my wallet and placed it, for all to see, in front of me on the desk. I waited for the music to stop, looked around the room in a questioning way for a few moments, then placed it back into my wallet. I never parted with the note in 15 years!

Of course, I would always be asked what I'd been doing with the money and I replie

d each time by writing four questions on the board:

1) Which instrument provides the accompaniment for this song?

2) From which type of work might this excerpt be taken:

a) a symphony

b) an opera

c) a pop song

3) What might have happened had I listened to the words properly first time through?

4) Write a sentence or two about the difference between listening to music and just hearing it.

Of course, second time through, the music was 'listened to' properly, one or two jokers might even try to touch me on the shoulder...but the fiver was staying in my pocket! We would go on to discuss the differences between 'hearing' music (as they now all admitted they did while doing homework) and really listening to it! An important lesson was learned very early on as part of a GCSE course that relies heavily on the ability to listen to music 'properly'

But I have discovered over the years that some people really CAN'T listen to music in the way I do (or the way I might want them to). Listening to music and enjoying it has a pre-requisite requirement* that you 'understand' what you are listening to, at least to some ext

ent. Let me explain:

If I were to play some little known excerpt of 'classical' music** to a brand new class of Year 7 pupils (11 years old) - for example, Bartok's Violin Concerto (see link below) - with the instruction from me to simply 'enjoy it', I may as well give a toothless man a 16 ounce steak with no knife and fork with the same directive! He would choke and they would, at least, feel sick!

On the contrary, if I asked the pupils to listen for the 8 note introduction by the harp, then hear how it is joined by the plucked (pizzicato) bassline played by cellos and basses - with a single French Horn note above - then, at least they will have some chance of 'digesting' at least a part of the musical 'steak'.

(The Bartok - here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJx4KkAzW0 )

Of course, it's this very fact that makes The Beatles easier to 'listen' to than Bartok; why (Glenn) Miller sold more discs than Miles (Davis) and why Cheryl (Cole) gets more downloads than...I dunno...Sade!

It's instant palatability - the same reason more people eat bubble-gum than broccoli or drink Ribena rather than rootbeer! And***, if we never venture beyond the instantly appeasing we may go our whole lives without experiencing Elgar, reading beyond Seuss to, say, Salinger...or even doing something as basic as enjoying olives and anchovies on a pizza!

I'll happily admit that when my friend Alvin first played me the music of Yes I 'didn't get it'! When I first played the music of Eric Ball it went over my head! Just like my first month of doing the Telegraph crossword saw one or two clues a day filled in! Fortunately, most of us can continue to LEARN all the way through our lives...and thank God for that!

So...next time you do your homework or have the radio on while you do your housework why not sit down quietly for five minutes and REALLY LISTEN. There's a whole new world out there!

***************************************************

*at this point I have a vision of my old English teacher, Trish Gilbert, admonishing me for a) starting a sentence with an adjective and b) breaking another rule whose name escapes me 31 years later about using two words with the same meaning...like saying, "Personally, I...". Sorry Mrs G!

** definitely a blog subject for another day: "What is Classical Music?"

***Oh-oh...he's at it again Trish!

Heavenly Minded

When I first went to Music College I stayed with a dear, elderly lady called Mrs Hurnard. She was a widow and her husband had been a leading Quaker. She was already into her eighties but was as sprightly as most half her age. It was porridge or cornflakes for breakfast followed by an extensive Bible and prayers session...I had to be up at 7 in order to get to college by lunchtime! Seriously, one morning she read the entire book of Jonah before I could leave the house. After a month I had memorised the back of the cornflakes packet!

She ate (and expected me to) apples fresh from the trees in her garden, complete with bruises and copious amounts of maggots and expected a lengthy explanation of the sermon when I got home from the Salvation Army on a Sunday. I stayed at her house exactly one half term (and that was only because I'd paid rent up front!!)

Mrs Hurnard was one of those people my dad would have described as "too Heavenly minded to be of any Earthly use!" Bless her!

Well, this evening we've had a death in the family...and hence our thoughts turned Heavenward. Lewis, my middle son, and I had just enjoyed a couple of hours of great music by Randy Newman, ending with his concert for BBC4 last year, Ieuan (my youngest) had been inspired to go to bed watching Toy Story and we turned our attentions to one of our favourite albums "A Trick of the Tail" by Genesis. We put the disc in the machine, selected DTS (which we prefer to Dolby Digital), balanced the surround speaker levels and had just watched the video to "Robbery Assault and Battery". "Ripples" came next and as Phil Collins soared up to the opening notes of the final chorus Lewis saw a streak of white light emanate from our trusty DENON AVR-1601. The room was filled with silence for a moment then filled with hot, electronic smoke as Denon's spirit ascended to Silicon Heaven! Well, it was a good way to go.

As is our wont these days, Lewis and I immediately turned to Facebook where I announced the bereavement to some wonderfully sympathetic friends. Lewis did the same, announcing that we'd been watching Genesis at the time!

Now, if Mrs Hurnard were still alive and on Facebook, I could have expected this reply from her - but thank you Sandy for inspiring this blog entry and giving me the best belly-laugh I've had in days.

For Sandy replied to Lewis with, "At least you were watching something biblical."

...And lines like that one, intentional or not, make dealing with a death in the family so much more manageable!

:)