Today I got to listening to Ella Jenkins songs on Youtube. I was mostly curious how she used her ‘ukulele when she was singing with children.
But as I watched the few videos there are of her actually singing with kids, I began to appreciate how good she is working with children. She was especially good with preschoolers and early elementary grades. There’s a great photo on her website showing her sitting on the floor in the middle of a circle of young children leading a song. Of the 18 children visible in the photo, every single one appears engaged with the music — even the ones who are looking away are clapping along with the song.
Her music is also just right for young children. Her singing is understandable and straightforward, and she’s brilliant at using call-and-response techniques to get kids singing. Her skillful ukulele accompaniment is understated, so that it supports but never overwhelms the singing. Both the songs she has written, and the folks songs she has found, are prefect for singing along. Pretty much everything she does seems designed to get kids to sing along with her.
You can watch her in action in a video where she sings “Who Fed the Chickens” with another group of preschoolers. This is a call-and-response song with hand motions. Ella sings, “Who fed the chickens?” and the children respond with “I did,” or “she did,” or “they did,” or “we did,” while pointing at the appropriate person or group of people. Ella makes it all fun, and the children respond. It’s also worth noting that the video was recorded in 2012, when Ella was 88.
Ella Jenkins is pretty fabulous. Makes me want to play the baritone ukulele.
(Still recovering from a mild concussion…slowly emerging from brain fog….)
Twenty years ago, sociologist Mark Chaves demonstrated that one of the things that congregations are really good at is exposing people to the arts, especially music (Congregations in America, Harvard Univ. Press, 2004). In the course of studying everything that congregations are really good at, Chaves came to a rather surprising conclusion:
“If we ask what congregations mainly do, the answer is, in the first place, gather people for worship and religious education. But another answer is that, in their pursuit of worship and religious education, congregations generate as a by-product more artistic activity than either social services or political activity. Although many may wish it were otherwise, congregations facilitate art… more commonly and more intensively than they pursue either charity or justice.” [p. 201; emphasis mine]
I believe this remains true today. In fact, in my limited experience I’d say participating in music-making (as opposed to consuming music, or as opposed to other art forms) is what really hooks people in the UU congregations I’ve been part of. If you want to grow your congregation, and you have the choice between asking staff to spend more time on public acts of social justice, or asking staff to spend more time on nurturing the choir — go with nurturing the choir, every time.
Recently, though, I had a conversation with a UU who pointed out that many people feel intimidated by choir participation. This comment came from someone who is a fairly skilled amateur musician; they were not talking about themselves, they were making what I feel is an astute observation. And it tallies with my own observations. I remember leading some songs with a group of UU children a dozen years ago, and realizing that several of the children had never sung in a group before — we are a society that either consumes music, or performs music, but rarely makes music together.
“The amateur ukulele club scene is a kind of musical revival of participative music making, reminiscent of the sixties folk music and eighties rock band, with the ukulele as a self-accompanying instrument for singers and non-singers alike. The explosive growth of ukulele clubs and sales raises the question: how does the combination of a simple song sheet with no music symbol or notation and a small, lightweight four-stringed acoustic instrument provide sufficient material for group music making by performers who are not trained to read music or at all in music?….”
Ku documents how ‘ukulele clubs are evolving new ways of making music together, while drawing from a widely-known repertoire of popular music, and using online learning tools such as Youtube videos and lyrics websites.
So then of course I started searching for UU ukulele groups. I found them in: Ithaca, N.Y.; Eugene, Ore.; Salt Lake City; Dubuque, Iowa; Boca Raton, Fla.; Newark, Del.; and Raleigh, N.C.. No doubt there are others out there, but I was too lazy to continue my web search.
I’m not saying that your UU congregation should start a ‘ukulele group. But if we want to reverse the decline of Unitarian Universalism, I suspect we should all start thinking more about expanding the kinds of participative music making we nurture.
I took a sick day today (for a truly boring reason not worth going into). My main need was plenty of rest, so I did as little as possible. Since I’ve been getting increasingly serious about playing ‘ukulele, I decided to listen to a bunch of ukulele virtuosi. What follows are my notes to myself about what I’ve been listening to.
Jake Shimabukuro is perhaps the preeminent ‘ukulele virtuoso today. I’m in awe of his technical proficiency. However, his music doesn’t do much for me. I have to say the same thing about James Hill, who occupies the number two spot amongst ‘ukulele virtuosi — amazing skills, but I’m not much moved by his music. Taimane, who I think now edges Hill out for the number two spot, also dazzles me with her technical brilliance but once again her music just doesn’t do it for me.
Now on to some lesser-known ‘ukulele players who do move me with their music.
I first discovered Corey Fujimoto from his 2015 video of the Presto movement of Bach’s Sonata No. 1 in G minor (BWV 1001). His technical skills have only increased since then. He doesn’t appear to be recording much these days, butt he’s a regular on the Hawaii Music Supply ‘ukulele podcast, where he usually plays with Kalei Gamaio, another ukulele virtuoso. Here’s one of their recent recordings. In my opinion, Fujimoto is not only technically brilliant, but his musical sensibility is worth spending time with. His deep knowledge of classical, pop, rock, jazz, and traditional Hawai’ian musics comes together in something uniquely beautiful. He has a deeply humane musical sensibility.
Kalei Gamaio’s solo work is also well worth listening to. I think I first ran into his playing from this video of him jamming on Pachelbel’s Canon in D with Brittni Paiva and Sungha Jung (they really get going about a minute and a half in). Gamaio is probably best known for his own composition “The Unknown,” which has been covered by hundreds of aspiring ‘ukulele players. But I like him best when he plays jazz, as in this recording of “Autumn Leaves” with Neal Chin — or this recording of “Spain” with Chin and Andrew Molina. What I especially like about Gamaio is how well he listens to other players, and complements what they’re doing without overwhelming; he never shows off, but always uses his technical abilities in service of the music. For me, this kind of humility and sensitivity raises him above many other players.
Turning back to jazz and pop, Brittni Paiva is, in my opinion, underrated as a ‘ukulele player. Women are often ignored in the ukulele world, and of the women uke players Taimane Gardner seems to get the most attention. Paiva isn’t as flashy a player as Gardner, but her technique is so good she doesn’t need to be flashy. You see, Paiva doesn’t need to play a lot of notes because every note she plays is perfect, every note has a purpose, as in this recording. She’s also a multi-instrumentalist, and has issued albums where she played every instrument, and produced the album as well. Listen to her version of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five.”
Fujimoto, Gamaio, and Paiva all come from Hawai’i, the home of the ‘ukulele. The other major hotspot for ‘ukulele players is Japan. I’m just beginning to learn about Japanese players — if you don’t speak Japanese (like me), it’s hard to find out about them. Fortunately, I just discovered the ‘Ukulele Japan website, an English-language site with links to a dozen of the top Japanese players. I’m still exploring this site, and learning about players like Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Iwao, and Tomoko Suzuki. Check out Suzuki’s version of Benny Goodman’s “Sing Sing,” which includes an amazing percussion break — sheer unadulterated fun
George Formby singing “When I’m Cleaning Windows”
Speaking of unadulterated fun, that brings me to the ‘ukulele player who inspired George Harrison, and indeed all the Beatles. That would be none other than George Formby. It’s easy to dismiss Formby’s humorous songs as dated, but there’s more than than you’d think. Maybe he’s not an impressive ‘ukulele soloist like Paiva, but his syncopated right-hand technique is world-class — as in this film performance of “When I’m Cleaning Windows.” And while his songs are goofy, there’s a kind of innocence and simplicity to them. He’s an Everyman ukulele virtuoso.
Which brings me to one final ‘ukulele virtusoso, George Harrison himself: here he is playing the ukulele not long before he died. Simple stuff, but so well done. It’s just about perfect. (And I do think I hear a little bit of Formby in Harrison’s playing.)
So what do I look for in a ‘ukulele player? Dazzling technique is ultimately empty, unless there’s some deep meaning behind it. The best music has to have — for want of a better word — humaneness.
And that’s what I did on my sick day: I listened for the humanity in the music.
Also, I left out Aunty Genoa Keawe, but that’s mostly because I couldn’t find good free videos of her online (she died in 2008). I love the way she accompanied her singing with her uke.
The Eurovision song contest is usually ignored here in the U.S. That might change a teeny bit with this year’s contest, which was won for the first time by a non-binary singer, with a song about how they came to terms with their non-binary identity. (This song will surely be condemned by the U.S. right-wing, and perhaps embraced by some of the U.S. LGBTQ+ community and their allies. But most Americans will probably ignore Eurovision, as usual.) Good for Nemo for winning.
But this is the only Eurovision contest where I actually had a song that I wanted to win. The nu-folk duo Puuluup, from Estonia, teamed up with the Estonian hiphop group 5miinust on the song “(Nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi.” They came in 20th, out of 25 finalists. Of course they didn’t win; if I like them, they’re not going to win.But wouldn’t it have been cool if someone playing a folk instrument — in this case, the talharpa — won Eurovision?
With these songbooks, you can get lead sheets for Malvina Reynolds’s most famous songs — for free. I’m especially pleased to see this, since I lost my copy of There’s Music in the Air during our move from California to Massachusetts.
The Malvina Reynolds Songbook has “God Bless the Grass” (p. 29), “It Isn’t Nice” (p. 40), “Little Boxes” (p. 44), “Magic Penny” (p.50), “Turn Around” (p. 81), and “What Have They Done to the Rain” (p. 90).
There’s Music in the Air has all of these except “It Isn’t Nice,” but it also includes “You Can’t Make a Turtle Come Out” (p. 94). This songbook also has the lesser-known but hilarious song “Let Us Come In” a.k.a. “The Party-Crashers’ Carol” (p. 48). (Somewhere I have a 3-part madrigal-type arrangement of this latter song, which I’d be happy to share to anyone who wants it.)
Tweedles and Foodles has songs I’ve never heard before. It’s also unusual in that it has both guitar chords and simple piano accompaniment. Looks like there’s some fun songs in there — “Rabbit Dance” looks like fun, and maybe I’ll learn it.
Thank you, Nancy Schimmel, for your generosity in giving away your mother’s music for free!
Nym Cooke, well-known scholar of early American music, will be offering a webinar on “The Sounds of New England Congregationalism in the 18th C.” under the auspices of the Congregational Library and Archives. Info about how to register may be found here. And to whet your appetite, here’s the first sentence of the description:
“The ‘sound of Congregationalism’ — the musical sound, at any rate — changed markedly several times during the hundred years from?1720-1820, as musical philosophies shifted between two sets of poles: ritual and art, and worship and performance….”
I signed up as soon as I heard about it. I’m fascinated by the soundscapes of New England congregational-polity churches, so I’ve already been using Nym Cooke’s website “Early American Sacred Music.” I can’t wait to hear more from this top-notch scholar.
I found four more copyright-free hymns that I’d been meaning to upload: “Yielding and Simple,” a Shaker song; “Trouble in Mind,” the blues and jazz standard; “Hold On,” also known at “Keep Your Hands on the Plow”; and “Rise Up O Flame,” which I once thought might be protected by copyright but am now convinced in public domain.
That webpage is static HTML, by the way, which I code by hand in the text editor Atom. Thank goodness this is the last of the hymns I have which are ready to post. Writing static HTML takes up too much time, time that I’d rather spend creating content (e.g., writing actual posts for this blog). This bout of hand-coding proved to be especially time-consuming because Filezilla, free open-source software which I use to upload the HTML to the server, suddenly stopped talking to the server. I spent half a day troubleshooting, until I finally gave up and purchased Transmit, another FTP application. However, static HTML is more resistant to attacks by malicious hackers, and requires less energy consumption to render — so I suppose writing static HTML is worth it in the long run.
This week someone contacted me about the copyright-free hymns I’ve posted online. This prompted me to look in my files, where I discovered I had another ten hymns ready to upload. Those ten new hymns are now online here. I’ll include info about these hymns below the jump.
Four of the newly-uploaded hymns are patriotic hymns. Unitarian Universalist hymnals used to include patriotic songs, but that ended with the 1993 gray hymnal. This was a short-sighted policy. Today, U.S. religious conservatives wrap themselves in the mantle of patriotism and maintain that theirs is the only patriotism. Well, Unitarians and Universalists were key players in the founding of the United States, and we need to reclaim that part of our heritage so that we can inject our own religious vies into contemporary political discourse — our views being that the U.S. is a democracy (not an autocracy) and is not a Christian country; that our country is founded on the separation of religion and the state; and that the revolution continues through our ongoing efforts to make sure all persons are treated as equals. With the approach of the 250th anniversary of the singing of the Declaration of Independence, it’s time for us to show our patriotism again. I’ve uploaded America, My Country ‘Tis of Thee, and The New Patriot, all taken from pre-1993 UU hymnals. I also uploaded Chester, a patriotic song actually written during the Revolution — it’s of limited use, but can be useful for Massachusetts congregations that recognize Patriots Day.
The other six hymns include African American spirituals, a hymn allegedly by Rabindranath Tagore, a South African song, etc. After you read the descriptions below, look for the songs on my music website.
The annual Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp singing convention is being held this weekend. The organizers are requiring a same-day COVID test for all singers, and with that public health protocol in place I decided I felt safe going to sing today (but not Sunday when I have to be at church).
These Sacred Harp conventions are a bit of an endurance test. The singing starts at 9:30 or 10, and continues to 3:30 or 4 with an hour for lunch. It’s a whole-body immersive experience.
Before COVID, the Western Massachusetts convention reportedly got as many as 400 singers. COVID seems to have reduced the numbers somewhat. Today, I did a rough count and came up with about 175 singers in the room at one time.
Only about a dozen of us were wearing masks. I had my N-95 mask on the whole time. I skipped the potluck lunch because it would have meant sitting at close quarters with more than a hundred other people for most of an hour with my mask off. The post-COVID world is all about calculating the odds, and determining what risk you’re willing to tolerate.
I enjoyed singing in the morning. But after lunch, I realized to my surprise that I was beginning to feel a little bit anxious. It was no problem to control my anxiety. But after about an hour I had a further realization: controlling my anxiety was taking enough of my attention that it wasn’t as much fun to sing.
So I left early.
What it looked like from the back row of the bass section
Seiji Ozawa, long-time music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), has died.
From 184 to 1987, I had subscription tickets to the BSO — Thursday nights, the so-called “jump seat” in the second balcony, one of the cheapest seats in the house. I remember several transcendent experiences with Ozawa on the conductor’s podium.
The Mahler symphonies; as I recall I heard the second, third, fifth, seventh, and the ninth. Although I can no longer remember the specifics — I have a terrible musical memory — I remember the emotional and spiritual effect Ozawa’s Mahler symphonies had on me.
Three Tableaux from Messiaen’s opera “St. Francis of Assisi,” complete with bird song written into the score, had a tremendous effect on me as well. I hadn’t realized that music could do that — could draw directly on the natural world, could bring the non-human world directly into the concert hall. Messiaen was in the audience that night, which added to the magic.
I mostly remember Ozawa conducting twentieth century music. I had little interest in music from the Baroque, Classical, or Romantic eras. But that’s what Boston audiences wanted: Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Mozart, over and over again. I still remember attending one of the Friday afternoon concerts (I must have gotten a day off from work), and watching as the rich old blue-haired ladies deliberately stood up and pushed their way out of their seats five minutes into some piece of new music, their nasty way of stating to the whole world that They Did Not Approve. And the hell with the concert-goers whose toes they crushed on the way out.
The self-proclaimed cognoscenti in Boston were exactly like the rich old blue-haired ladies in that they never approved of Ozawa. Take Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe — he seemed to hate Ozawa, and never missed a chance to badmouth him. Sometimes my father and I would attend the same concert, and we’d read Dyer’s review and wonder if he went to the same concert as we did. Even after Ozawa’s death, Dyer couldn’t resist taking potshots at him in the obituary he wrote for today’s Globe — if you only read Dyer’s obit, you’d wonder why in hell the BSO kept such an incompetent socially awkward idiot as their music director for so many years. (I wish I hadn’t read Dyer’s obit; it only served to sully the memory of a brilliant, charismatic, dynamic musician.) Why did the Boston cognoscenti hate him so much? Probably because he was dashing, charismatic, exciting, innovative — all of which are character traits which Boston has historically despised. Plus he wasn’t White. I still say Boston is the most racist city I’ve ever lived in, and hating on Ozawa seems to me to be yet another manifestation of that racism. God knows why Ozawa put up with it for so long, but I’m grateful that he did.
I’ll end with a brief memory of the most memorable concert I ever experienced.
It was Thursday night, November 29. On the program: one of the greatest of all symphonies, Mahler’s Ninth. I took my seat at the back of the second balcony in Symphony Hall, excited to hear the Ninth live for the very first time in my life. The orchestra was much larger than usual, filling the entire stage. Ozawa entered to the usual applause.
The first movement was mind-blowing — I just didn’t realize how huge the sound of a Mahler orchestra was, and I didn’t realize how deeply moving Mahler’s music got towards the end of his career. Looking back, I think my brain was being rewired by what Mahler was saying. The movement ended, and Ozawa stepped off the stage. And we waited. And waited. For nearly twenty minutes. Ozawa’s brother Katsumi had died of a stroke the day before, at age 56, and Ozawa must have been crippled with grief. But he came back on stage. He finished conducting the Ninth, and somehow all the emotion and grief and feelings of love for his brother came through. No doubt Richard Dyer wrote a scoffing review of the performance, but it remains one of the most memorable musical experiences of my life. Ozawa had created music with the deepest feeling possible.
Ozawa wasn’t able to conduct the performances of the Ninth on Friday or Saturday; the BSO had to bring in a substitute. We who were there on that Thursday were the only ones to hear music from Ozawa’s deepest soul; at what cost to him I cannot imagine. But I’m eternally grateful to him for that gift he gave us that night; I’ve never forgotten it; it change me and made me a better person. What more can we ask of the arts?
