Greetings UUSS musicians & friends!

Some of you remember the talent show opening the campfire at Norge Family Camp last year (gosh, we do miss our annual camp! :( ), where I rolled out a 5 minute (poorly memorized I admit) Walt Whitman poetry presentation. I do hope to keep refining this in the year(s) to come, having gotten some valuable help from Lonon Smith, but I share one poem by “America’s good grey poet”  with you below, and below that, an interesting “photoshopping” of me and ‘Uncle Walt’ made by a very long-time dear friend – artist and art teacher – whose new Covid school-at-home art curriculum includes manipulating i-phone etc  photos. (Enjoy but know I don’t feel as old as I look! : ) )

“I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition / They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins / They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God / Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things / Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago / Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.”

In addition to some UU ideas herein, this poem also gives me a chance to reveal  a  bit about my sheltered-in-place life 40+ miles east of UUSS that you may know less about.  I walk our mutt Callie virtually every day, meandering away from our 10 acres and often around our little private neighborhood lake (Candian geese aplenty). On this routine exercise of the last 29 years (with several dogs preceding Callie — all in a lovely cemetery beneath an oak tree down the hill),  I see and / or hear daily the following in random order: sheep, horses, mule, donkeys, cows, llamas, chickens, goats, other dogs, target practice gunshots, squirrels, crows, jays, deer, turkey vultures, and the occasional chain saw or welding torch! :) Less common but spotted somewhat routinely: fox, coyote, skunk, possum, raccoon. Alas I am but a few miles too far away to hear the American River, though my volunteer local conservancy where  I help out works helps school kids experience all of the above!

Tonight’s music moment is all about Greece! The ancient Greeks studied music closely, and came up with the following scales, which they called “modes” — the building blocks of Western music. Greek thinkers thought various modes brought on different moods when experienced by listeners.  Here are all seven, as found on the Classical Music FM website (darn I should have kept my college music degree textbooks!):
“Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. Some of them are major modes, some are minor, and some are ambiguous. Some modes are sadder or holier than others. “

We currently use mostly just the major and minor “modes” / scales, though some variations of several  are found in various  European folk musics and more adventurous American  jazz.

Our Greek artist is a very well-known singer, Nana Mouskouris, whom I first encountered in the 70’s when I was a Greek folk dancer (another story for another time!) She sings in 4 languages; here is her lovely version of De Colores that  we almost used in the flower communion service:

Our other Greek topic for tonight is the 8 stringed instrument  (4 pairs of 2 strings, like a mandolin)  called the bouzouki  — which some may recall from the classic movie, “Zorba the Greek” (from a long novel I only attempted to read!)

Enjoy a virtuoso performance here!

For those scrolling through my Monday music moments for an inspiring and encouraging  virtual choir song, here is a link sent yesterday from my friend (see above) the art photographer, that honors our health workers (You Raise Me Up)

“See” you all soon — I think of you daily!

Keith