Of Chairs and Art

On Wednesday, Marty Haugen came and spoke with a group of us. I'm not a huge Haugen fan, but I love the idea of what he does. He writes religious music for the masses, as in throngs, as well as masses, as in worship services. Some of his music is flat, but a huge chunk of it is singable and most people I've spoken to like it. Again, it's good for what it is.

I do however, truly, 100% respect him. He does nothing without thinking about it and has reasons for it. I may not agree with his logic, but at least it's there.

One comment he made was that Liturgical music or arts, unlike some other arts, is closer to making a chair than creating a sculpture. He says that one can create the most beautiful chair ever created, but in the end, people have to sit in it. If it doesn't serve that purpose, it ceases to be a chair. What good is a chair that cannot be sat upon? Likewise, what good is congregational song that the congregation cannot sing?

Hebrew

So, I'm taking Biblical Hebrew this J-term. Now, you can read a lot about the language by following that link, but I'm going to tell you everything you need to know right now. (That is, unless you actually need to know Hebrew).

Hebrew is a language without vowels, so to speak, so people had to invent them in order for it to be read by people like me. That is, idiots. So, these "points" were added, but it's still confusing.So, in order to read pointed Hebrew, one has to memorize the little dots. For example, the first vowel on the list, a patach, looks like an underscore _ under the bet, but it is really a pointed vowel. Full-blown Hebrew has no _'s in it and one needs to be smart enough to know which is which. So make matters worse, look at the last vowel, a kamatz, this is a T under the bet. It makes the same sound, or similar enough that I'm not supposed to learn the difference. Oi! I guess I'll just learn Hebrew and be done with it.

By the way, it is a fun language to learn. I do recommend it.

Introduction

This is to serve as a more academic relation to my other blog. I have a tremendous fear of "academic" writing, so I will write her to get the nerves out. I do welcome comments, both on quality and on the topic, but please be nice--there is a real person behind this blog.