Saturday night

Steve and I attended a difficult meeting at church today. This is the church where I am the organist. Our denomination is dealing with gender issues. This week I will be going to a women’s retreat “up the McKenzie.” That would be the McKenzie River. It’s so beautiful up there! I’m going to play the guitar for our singing time. I plan to take my dulcimer too. One of the days I will be leading an activity exploring tune names. Tune name — another word for melody.  “Happy Birthday” — everyone knows that melody. A melody used in church a lot is “New Britain” which is the name of the tune to “Amazing Grace.” Some other tune names are “Brother James’ Air,” “Slane,” and “Duke Street.” I plan to have the group compose an original text to the tune of Amazing Grace. There is a collection of tunes that I’m especially fascinated with right now. These are the Southern Harmony tunes. Amazing Grace is one of them, also Wondrous Love. I’m going to dig into the history of these tunes… they go back to early America.