Unconvenient stand-in

Tuesday 19th July i was asked to play at the Sunday Service as the organist had been injured. On the Friday (22nd July) I went to church 4 pm to practice for the comming service. Little did I know of what took place in Oslo at the same time, a maniac killing 80+ people.

I was of course shocked to learn about the tradegy, but took no further notice organ-wise until the priest phoned me 10 pm (22:00) Saturday evening wanting to change the music for the service the following morning. So I ended up playing at a very special service indeed, for many parts unprepared. Being an amateur isn't always easy...

Oslo Lutheran Cathedral had the "official" and fully broadcasted service for 24th July, where Elgar's Nimrod was played during procession, ending in Abide With Me (in Norwegian). Hopefully, Elgar's music may gain more popularity after this.

Here I am again!

After a long break from performances, but still keeping up the harmonium playing at home, I played at a wedding last Saturday. Sadly, there wasn't any organ, only a piano (a small church).

The coming Friday I am asked to play at a funeral in a small chapel. There is just a piano there too. I haven't played at a funeral before, so this is going to be an interesting experience I believe. Also a challenge to find suitable music for piano, as I usually never play the piano. I found a 1900 European style funeral march among the sheet music from my grandmother that sounded OK on the piano. I also supposed to accompany a solo singer to Amazing Grace and Doggdropen (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZgDUfPRAoY). I'm supposed to pick up the sheet music for all the music and hymns tomorrow.

More organist stand-ins

27^th of June and 8^th of August I played at Lutheran services, in two different churches respectively. I am starting to regain the confidence and playing skills I had 7 years ago. I hope to continue this good trend so stand-in assignments can be done without unnecessary struggle on my part. Then I can actually start producing some real music, which would be nice. I was very close to playing the Andante by Macpherson the 27th of June, but I gave in to lack of confidence and resorted to improvisation instead. I don't want to play a famous piece in a horrific manner, although sounding OK to the unknowingly, in case someone in the congregation would happen to know the music. I played the Nun Danket by Karg-Elert on the 17^th of May, but I didn't deliver the goods. However, many people loved it because they had no clue what it was supposed to sound like... I got away with it, but I will not count on getting away with it another time...

Gospel Shouts

Normally I wouldn't pay any attention to "gospel music". On youtube I found this video. Just look at their faces. I can never get tired of watching it. It really is an inspiration to all musicians to watch the joy they're expressing.

However, I can not imagine having this music in my church....

New homepage layout

I have now changed the layout on my homepage. In effect I have improved the old section "Music by me", removed everything else, and then made the old "Music by me" as the main page. In fact, the only page.

Please don't try to hack it, but I made the changes partly because of security reasons, and partly for my own convenience. The homepage now extracts the contents from my database where I keep all my music stuff. I don't have to update the homepage any more, I just put stuff into the database, and the rest is done automatically. In addition I now have an easy way to password protect certain files that unprotected would violate copyrights of other composers and authors.