Google Books Explored

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Internet

books_logo_lg.png by RndConnections on Aviary

Yesterday Google rocked the eBook world by announcing its entry into the market. Their approach is to host everything in the cloud, and all access would be remote. The upside would be that your books are available on any device. The downside would be that you would have to be constantly connected to read them. There’s supposed to be a download option, but I haven’t read up enough on it. In fact, I’m not going to talk about the new service at all (apart from that brief introductory statement.) I’ll let the rest of the blogosphere do that, and perhaps follow up later. Instead, today I’d like to focus on what Google’s been doing all along with it’s Google Books service.

For whatever reason, I really hadn’t paid much attention to everything that was available in Google Books. It was something I knew about and had used on rare occasion. Lately I’ve been exploring it in depth, and I’m really impressed by all the tools available for research and reading. I’ve hinted at this in the last couple of posts, but this time I’ll take one book and put it through its paces.

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Carols Ancient and Modern

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Music

Ancient and Modern

I collect hymnals – the older the better. It’s fascinating to see how musical tastes have changed over the years, and see which hymns were included or excluded.   Language changes and various issues (such as temperance) rise and fall from prominence.

As far as Christmas Carols go, in addition to my Oxford Book of Carols, there are three hymnals that have held my attention.  I actually possess one of these, and I’ve just found copies of the other two online.  I guess that will have to do, if I can’t actually own the physical copies.

The first of these is Hymns Ancient and Modern, and is a general hymnal rather than being specific to Christmas.  For many years it was the primary hymnal of the Church of England, and is a standard reference for hymnology.   Anne Dudley put together an excellent CD of Advent and Christmas music based on tunes from the hymnal and entitled it Ancient and Modern.  I was able to acquire a copy of Ancient and Modern on eBay.  I think mine is the 1916 edition, and it’s a small pocket version with only the words to the hymns – no music (pictured above.)

In the mid-to-late 20th Century there was a revived interest in ancient melodies for worship. I noticed this in our most recent Presbyterian Hymnal, which included more plainsong chants and hymns with ancient origins. These next two hymnals are even older than Hymns Ancient and Modern.

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A Christmas Carol

Posted on By Tom 3 Comments on A Christmas Carol
Music

Nope, no ghosts this time (that I know of, although I did watch Scrooged this evening.) No, I’ve been spending some time with an old friend – my well-worn copy of The Oxford Book of Carols.

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The Oxford Book of Carols was originally published in 1924, and edited by Percey Dearmer, Martin Shaw, and Ralph Vaughn Williams. It was supposed to be the definitive collection of Christmas Carols. It’s still widely available, as is the New Oxford Book of Carols.

As a young choir director I would check a copy of the book out of the library each year as a reference, and to give me ideas for upcoming Christmas programming. One Christmas my mother-in-law gave me my own copy. Understand that this was in pre-Internet days. You couldn’t just log onto Amazon.com and find a copy. Her neighbor was a retired reference librarian, and was able to track down a copy for me.

So, quick – name your favorite Christmas Carols. You would probably come up with something like this…

Joy to the World
O Come All Ye Faithful
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Silent Night
Angels We Have Heard on High
Away in a Manger

You might be surprised to find that none of those beloved carols are in there. Some of those titles don’t even fit the narrow definition of “Carol” applied to the songs that are in the collection. To be a supposedly definitive work, there is much that is lacking, as well as some surprising inclusions.

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Rubik’s Music – Part 1

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Music, Weirdness

rubiks-cube

This year mark’s the 30th anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube. I’ve seen and heard lots of references to it recently, and Office Depot has even started using it as one of their advertising logos.

All of this reminiscing brought back memories of my own experiences with the cube, and in particular, a piece of music that I composed based on the cube.

The year was 1981, and the cube was in its heyday. I was a music student at Furman University, and had been studying 20th Century composers and compositional techniques. I had also been spending just about every spare minute trying o solve the blasted cube.

One warm spring afternoon I was in a Furman Singers rehearsal, and we were working on “O Crux” by Knute Nystedt. This particular piece is very dissonant, and doesn’t resolve its intricate harmonies until the very end of the piece. I was drowsy from a late night of working on the cube, so as I semi-dozed through rehearsal, the strains of Nystedt blended with visions of Rubik’s Cube twirling, and a new musical composition popped into my brain.

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Chilly Jocassee Paddling Trip

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Local, Paddling

Since I had already missed a couple of trips, I really wanted to get some paddling in over the Thanksgiving break. I had originally planned to head up to Lake Jocassee on Black Friday, but the weather wasn’t very amenable. Saturday’s weather looked like it was going to be clear, but quite chilly. Despite the cold weather, Chip, Houston, Brian Goess, and I loaded up the boats and headed to the lake.

The plan was to paddle up to Wright Creek Falls, then explore elsewhere as time allowed. We had some time constraints, with football games looming in the evening, so we couldn’t spend all day on the water.

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Bobby Lamb – End of an Era

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on Bobby Lamb – End of an Era
Local, Miscellaneous

Bobby Lamb

I planned to do something I hadn’t done in nearly 20 years. I was going to skip Furman’s home game with Georgia Southern on Saturday – the last game of the season and with one of Furman’s main rivals – and go kayaking. Furman hadn’t been playing well this season, and I was just ready for a change. Be careful what you wish for. The change I wanted was much more dramatic than I had anticipated. On Friday, head coach Bobby Lamb resigned. I immediately changed my plans and decided to go to the game.

Bobby Lamb has been associated with Furman for nearly 29 years. My senior year at Furman Bobby was a freshman, taking over as quarterback for the team. He has been with the team in some capacity ever since, as an assistant coach, and for the last nine years as head coach. Unfortunately the last six years or so have not been kind, with Furman not playing the kind of football we saw in 1980’s. There were already grumblings.

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