I had to work hard. Anyone who works as hard will get just as far. - J.S. Bach
2005, November 04
Patterns in Architecture
A language for towns, buildings and construction.
If you look around in the northern part of the East San Francisco Bay at the housing that was built by developers in the forties and fifties, as well as most of what is being built today, you would think that no one has ever given any thought to planning, livability, or simple attractiveness. This is not so.
A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, et al, was published in 1977 and is now in its 26th printing. It is the second of a series of three books; the first is A Timeless Way of Building, and the third is The Oregon Experiment
The book, A Pattern Language is carefully organized and addresses the architecture of rooms, offices, waiting rooms, small houses, large buildings, villages, towns, cities within the social context of how people live their lives.
Though it presents a theory of architecture and construction, the book reads like a series of meditations on human life, a social architecture. You can start at the beginning and read through, or start anywhere and read as much as you want.
These ideas are available to architects and developers. Why are they ignored?
Christopher Alexander's Website
Discussion of work by C. Alexander
2005, November 02
Chinese Worry Balls
A tip from a pianist friend - for finger strength and dexterity
Rotate these balls in both hands. They massage important accupressure points and strengthen the muscles of the fingers, palm, wrist and forearm. All important for violinists, pianists and students.
2005, October 14
BWV 1.6 Organ Trio
BWV 1.6 corrections and a wonderful organ trio arrangement.
Hermann Scheuber, a gentleman in Switzerland who is retired and an organ student, downloaded the midi file for BWV 1.6 and made an arrangement for the organ.
He omitted the alto, the tenor and the first horn part so that he was left with an organ trio made up of the soprano chorale in the right hand, the second horn part as an obligato in the left hand, and the bass in the pedal.
Here is a QuickTime file of the resulting trio.
When three parts were omitted, I was able to hear the second horn part more clearly and realized there was a mistake in the file that went back through the years to the original file and ran through the midi, the QuickTime and the PDF files.
So because of Hermann's work I have been able to post all new corrected files for this chorale. It is wonderful how people are using the files; I always appreciate the feedback I get.
- Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh' darein
- BWV 1.6 midi
- BWV 1.6 QuickTime
- BWV 1.6 PDF
- BWV 1.6 Organ Trio QuickTime
- BWV 1.6 Organ Trio PDF
(Wie schön leuchtet der morgenstern)
2005, September 25
Myth and Man
From Reflections by Idries Shah, June 1924 - November, 1996
Myth and Man
Man is a myth maker.
Myth, when manipulated by unregenerates, is an even more effective man-maker.
Man (as he imagines himself to be), in general, is a possiblity, not a fact.
For most people, the sort of man whom they imagine to exist, or assume themselves to be, does not yet exist.
2005, September 14
Road Trip - Arrival
Arrived safe and sound in Maine on Monday.
She arrived safe on Sept 12 after a two week trip across the country. Five days were lost with car trouble, a crushed fuel filter had to be replaced over the holiday weekend and she got a tank of gas with a lot of water in it. Apparently this is a common problem in Indiana and Ohio where the humidity is 88 per cent on 90 degree days. So she not only moved but learned a lot about the car.
She got a lot of long distance help over the telephone from our wonderful mechanic here in the Bay area, even though he knows she was moving and probably won't be a customer any more. I am so thankful he was able to give her helpful suggestions.
Her cat was safe, and so happy to land in permanent quarters. Now comes the unpacking and settling in, another adventure in itself.
2005, September 07
Lord Hear my Deepest Longing
Lord Hear my Deepest Longing (Herzlich tut mich verlangen)
This chorale melody is attributed to Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612), 1601. Bach used the melody in the following eleven settings.
| BWV 135.6 | A four part chorale. | BWV 161.6 | A four part chorale. |
| BWV 244.15 | A four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 244.17 | Another four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 244.44 | Another four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 244.54 | Another four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 244.62 | Another four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 248.5 | A four part chorale from the Christmas Oratorio. | ||
| BWV 248.64 | Another four part chorale from the Christmas Oratorio. | ||
| BWV 270 | A four part chorale. | ||
| BWV 271 | Another four part chorale. |
MP3 files of these chorales are available. If you want one, leave me a note in a comment with your email address and I will send it. Unfortunately, the files are too large to put them on my ftp server for general distribution.
Some names under which this chorale is known:
Herzlich tut mich verlangen
Lord Hear my Deepest Longing
Discussions from the Bach Cantatas website:
Discussions from the Emmanuel Music website:
2005, September 03
Road Trip
I-80 across the US
For the past two weeks I have been busy helping to plan a trip from San Francisco to Maine. This has taken all available time so I have not kept up with posting. I hope to return soon.
This is the first long drive for my daughter, and she did not have a true idea of the magnitude of the undertaking. But she is beginning to appreciate the actual size of the country. In a time when we can get from SF to NY in less than a working day, it is easy to forget how large the country is. Driving at night, through a seemingly endless, seemingly empty land, brings home the real size of the US.
She is driving at night because she has her cat with her and it is too hot in the daytime for his safety. She does get to see parts of the country where she is stopped for the day for sleeping. People have ranged from very helpful to very unhelpful, human nature everywhere. She loved Utah with its canyons and colors, and Wyoming with its open sky and cold mornings.
But she will especially love getting to her destination, home in Maine.
2005, August 11
Century Plant
Agave americana this year and last year
Last year
This year
