Ditch Doc » Music

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

bt — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:56:11 +0000

Everyone knows that answer is merely ceremonial when the question was “Honey, do I look fat in this?” A few weeks ago, I realized that the same is true for: “Hey man, will I bother you if I practise bagpipes … Continue reading →

Keeping Up With The Times

bt — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 21:10:14 +0000

The other day, I stumbled into a small music store in search of an electronic metronome. The aging hippie behind the desk was only too happy to help:

Ditch: What’s the difference between these two?

Pitch: Well, this one’s twenty dollars, and that one’s seventy.

Ditch: I see. And what does that fifty dollars get me?

Pitch: Oh, this one’s much higher end… [Stares significantly over his small, round spectacles] …MUCH… Higher. End.

Ditch: Oh. And um… What’s higher-end about it?

Pitch: Well, for one thing, that one’s made in China, and this one’s from Thailand…or Japan or somewhere… Let’s see. Oh; China. Well, but it lets you mark beats…and…uh…

And that’s how I came to own one of these:

I even get to wind it.

Euphony

bt — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 17:20:21 +0000

I’d always wondered why limericks sound so emphatically complete at the end. They shouldn’t. They’re five lines long, already an unstable number, and the last has to reach three lines back for its rhyme. Here’s the trick: A limerick is based on a strict but cleverly camouflaged anapestic quadrameter. The three long lines each begin with three explicit anapests and end with a silent one. The two short lines are actually one long one, disguised by an internal rhyme and an explicit fourth foot. So a limerick is in fact only four lines long, and the fourth rhymes the second, as it would in any less devious poem. Observe: (Square brackets denote silent syllables.)

. . / . . / . . / [ . . / ]
Once an epicure dining at Kew,
. . / . . / . . / [ . . / ]
Found a rather large mouse in his stew.
. . / . . /[.] . / . . /
Said the waiter don’t shout, and wave it about,
. . / . . / . . / [ . . / ]
Or the rest will be wanting one too.

I trust familiarity will not harm affection.

Cultural Imperialism

bt — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:04:42 +0000

Those most responsible for the wreck of Catholic liturgy in recent years are fond of the notion of delivering local custom from the ravages of the out-of-touch juggernaut of Roman tradition. In the name of which cause they take the metreless chants of the dusty Meditteranean first Christians, add words here, repeat others there and twist rhythm, mode and instrumentation until the Gloria evokes the latter end of a night in a Northern European beer hall. Not all the pretzels are of the salty and delectable variety.

105.9 CHPD-FM

bt — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:22:49 +0000

The Mennonites of Aylmer, Ontario.
Because who else is spinning Elgin County the Christian mariachi top 40 in Low German?

Say What?

bt — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:57:34 +0000

On the top of Google’s listing for weird emails today:

Dear Father,

Bad news: When I set the tenth Sunday after Pentecost as the first day for the Kinkoriites to sing the Propers, I’d forgotten that my boss is expecting me to attend the World Congress on Thyroid Cancer in Toronto. So I probably can’t make it. I am raking south-western Ontario for a replacement cantor for you. Very sorry for the mess.

In Christo,

Ditch

CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium 2009

bt — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:26:23 +0000

And here’s how you all should have spent this past week:

Keep an eye on Corpus Christi Watershed, who put together this video. They were taping all week, and I hope they’ll have more to offer soon.

Music History

bt — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:40:39 +0000

A few weeks ago, a non-Catholic music student and friend of a friend attended our Extraordinary Form morning Mass to hear the chant. Her review: “Looks like not much has changed since the 9th century.” It was the best musical … Continue reading →

Catholic Grandpa

bt — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:12:03 +0000

Step one when you buy a Liber Usualis is to flip to the very end and ask “Doesn’t this thing have an index?” To which my grandfather used to answer: “It’s a Catholic book. Of course it’s got an Index.” (Flip back about a hundred pages. Theeere you go. Sorry, I don’t know why either.)

Fitting Worship

bt — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:14:02 +0000

The language and music of the liturgy use our minds and bodies to express God’s love of man and our love of Him. Although visual art expresses the same thing, it does so with an inanimate medium, and so has a secondary place in worship.

That is why you can kneel in a beautifully decorated gothic Basilica untouched by the iconoclasm of the last forty years, in misery over the sickly-sweet vapidity of “Peace is Flowing Like a River.” And it’s why you can be brought to tears by a small congregation confidently singing the Kyrie in a cramped, misshapen church. You have entered the cave in Bethlehem, where the faithful have found the Lord in unworthy surroundings and come to do Him homage. The first scene recalls instead the Temple in Jerusalem after the veil was rent, when the great edifice still stood to the glory of the Lord, but the Lord had left. It is among Christ’s greatest mercies that he will never leave the tabernacle to escape bad music.