A Specific Gravity

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

In the days of my childhood, there was a bookshelf, long since replaced. On the bookshelf there was a set of encyclopedias from the 60’s or 70’s, the go-to information source for all school reports in the days before the Internet. On a shelf below the encyclopedias, or maybe above, was one of dad’s books, titled How Long, How Far, How Fast . . . or something like that. I never read it, but Dad said it was a book about measurements. It’s the kind of book a science teacher should have on his bookshelf.

Most measurements seemed simple enough. The yardstick had inches on one side, and centimeters on the other. Within the centimeters were millimeters, seemingly the smallest possible measurement. What could be so small it would require something less than a millimeter to measure it? Bigger distances were easy to understand too – the grocery store in town was close, Grandma and Grandpa’s was farther away, and shopping in Portland was a special trip because it was so far away. Speed is easy to measure because faster on the merry-go-round is much more fun than slow – it isn’t necessary to understand that velocity is made up of two things, distance and time. Even time is easy. It takes two Mister Rogers’ to equal a Sesame Street. And it is a very long amount of time when a dad tells his bored son, “It will only be 20 more minutes. Be patient . . . ”

But some measurements are more abstract, like density. Sure, metal is heavier than wood, but not if you have a whole lot of wood and not very much metal. The trick was understanding that comparing density is measuring the weight of different things as long as the different things have the same volume. Specific gravity is a handy concept I learned . . . sometime . . . that uses the density of water as a reference for the density of other liquids and solids, and it is a weight in grams for a volume of one cubic centimeter. So if the density of a cubic centimeter of water is 1.00, the same volume of something lighter, like grain alcohol, is roughly 0.78. And likewise, something heavier has a higher specific gravity, like aluminum which is 2.70. Something really dense is lead, and we know this because people whose feet are made of it drive faster, and bricks of such are said to be very heavy, and we use it for fishing weights because it is 11.35 times denser than water, and that carries the line below the surface of the water quickly with a minimal surface area to move through the water.

Other things have higher specific gravities, but they are less common, and so it is harder to understand just how dense they are in a tangible way. Gold is 19.32 times heavier than water, but it is hard to understand that by feel, simply because I have so little of it to hold in the palm of my hand. A small cross and it’s chain are not big enough to really feel the density. Platinum is a little denser still with a specific gravity of 21.45. I once had a ring made of that, but again, one ring is just not enough to understand density by holding it.

Several months ago, while assisting my brother in procuring an engagement ring, I had to wait for the jeweller to perform part of the transaction. I think they make you wait so you have plenty of time to look at all their other wares. Another jeweller wanted to show me a fine watch made by a company with Leonardo DiCaprio in its employ. The watch was significantly thicker than your ordinary Timex, and had a window in its back in order to show off the fine movement. Even though the watch was thick, it was also surprisingly heavy when he handed it to me – so heavy that I wondered why anyone would want to wear it. It might cause back pain from walking about in an unbalanced manner. Anyone considering such a watch should buy two of them so that the weight can be distributed to the left and right equally. I suspect that this watch had some very dense metal in it. The price was in the low five figures, and I advised the jeweller that, while it was a very nice watch, it was well beyond my means, besides which, its earthly value would deter me from disassembling it, and so it would not be of much use to me. He said “Well you never know when you might be able to afford it!”

Other than that watch, I can’t think of much else that I have held where a very high density was appreciable. So it is left to imagination or other tricks of the mind. Like when staring at the television in one position late in the tired night, and the screen seems to become very far away, and small. And still the television has the same mass which can now be held between fingertips. And before long, the whole room has become small and might be encompassed by one’s arms, yet still be very very heavy.

What about sin? Of course, sin isn’t a substance. If it was, it would mean God created sin, which he surely did not. But supposing sin could be quantified in such a way, how dense would it be? We like to count sins, as if we can actually number them all. Just taking my own sins, the ones I can think of . . .

. . . hang on . . .

. . . still counting . . .

. . . yeah. It’s been a busy day. There are others too, forgotten, lumped together, explained away, and ones I didn’t even notice. I seem to be a nice guy. The vast majority of people who know me would say so I think. But there are a few who think I’m horrible . . . and the truth is, they’re right. I’m so bad they say I must be sick . . .and really I am. It isn’t so much that I am a sinner because I sin, it’s that I sin because I’m a sinner.

If a nice guy is so riddled with sin, how much is in the whole world? All the billions of sinners who exist now? All the billions who have already died? All the babies not yet conceived and all of their sins not yet committed (or omitted)? All the corruption of God’s creation? So much sin that every living created thing is corrupted and dies? Every murder, every murder in men’s hearts, every broken marriage, every sideways glance at a short skirt, every covetous desire, every failure to love perfectly, every permutation of every sin from the Fall to the Last Day . . .

How dense would sin be? It would have to be so compact that one man could carry it. And it would have to be so heavy that it would kill God.

But while one man, Jesus Christ, carried every bit of all that sin and even became sin for us, and while that same Jesus Christ, 100% true God died for it though He was blameless, a single perfect sacrifice more than sufficient to cover all that sin, it didn’t take all the sin of the world to kill Him. He laid down His life willingly, and would have done it for just one. For just one sin if that was all there ever was. For just one person if only one might be saved. For me. For you.

He did it so that our death, the temporal consequence of sin, might not be permanent. He did it so that we are not separated from Him eternally. That He loved the world in this way is a gravity beyond measure.

The World’s Biggest Pipe Organ I Won’t See

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

About once a year I get to fly somewhere on an airplane. Sometimes it’s for work, sometimes for a wedding, sometimes for a funeral, never just for vacationing, but perhaps I will do that someday. I like flying in airplanes. I especially like that final turn on the tarmac, sometimes followed by a pause at the runway, when I know the engines will throttle up next, and inertia will push me back in my seat. I recently found out that most people like aisle seats, and airlines may be charging more for them soon. But I like the window seat, especially during the day. I like when there is a break in the clouds and I can see the ground passing below. Once in a while I can see the shadow of the plane on the ground, miles below. From that height the shadow is tiny, just like an airplane in the sky is tiny when viewed from the ground, and not at all as the aircraft seems when I am in the airport watching them come and go. I like watching the shadow pass over the patchwork of fields of different colors, of green circles made by irrigation systems inside of arid brown squares. Passing hundreds of these fields in a minute, I begin to add up the length of the flight . . . all these parcels, owned by someone, tended by someone.

Next week I fly again, and this year’s trip is for work. As much fun as it is to fly on an airplane, I am really excited because I am going to Atlanta, Georgia, and there is a small possibility that I will get to see the World’s Biggest Pipe Organ. I read about it a couple years ago. It is up in the air exactly how the biggest pipe organ would be measured, so there are actually a few contenders, depending on if you count manuals, ranks of pipes, total number of pipes, or number of stops. But this particular one is a stand-out among gigantic pipe organs. It has seven manuals (keyboards), over 1200 stop tabs, and it has one of only two true 64′ open stops in the world.

The boxes on this wall are the actuators for the lowest diaphone pipes. There is one box per pipe, and the bottom of the pipe begins at about chest level.

The 64′ Diaphone is a pipe that makes an 8 Hertz tone, more than an octave below the normal range of human hearing. It works the same way a foghorn does. I have personally heard a 32′ Diaphone in person and remember it well, but this goes a full octave lower! It is true that this organ is not in very operable condition, and much of it doesn’t work. But even so, I hear that they are open a couple days a month for tours, and maybe I will be able to catch one of these. That would be so cool! This organ is the loudest musical instrument in the world – the Grand Ophicleide stop alone produces 130 decibels at a one meter distance. It operates on 100″ inches of air. That is to say that the air supply for the pipes has enough pressure to raise a column of mercury over 100 inches. Mercury is heavy! A church organ operates on something like 30″, and most theater organs on 60″ or more. But 100″?

I’m not really a pipe organ nut. I don’t play them, repair them, or collect them. But I do appreciate the complexity of moving parts, the mechanical apparatus of a tracker, and the valves, solenoids and switching network of an electrically operated organ. I appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into an instrument like this, and the amount of time and skill it takes to build one. I love the sounds they produce and the works written for them, especially those by the greatest Lutheran cantor ever, J. S. Bach. And I love a performance by a skilled organist. The pipe organ is, after all, the mother of all brass instruments, and while I am confined by ability to playing the smaller, less complicated, and less expensive variety of brass, that doesn’t mean I can’t sit back and enjoy the performance of someone else who can play it well.

So although this is a business trip, I am hoping that there will be an opportunity for me to break away and go see this behemoth of pipes.

What’s that . . . ? I have my cities mixed up . . . ? The biggest pipe organ is at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey? It’s not in Atlanta, Georgia? I guess my chances of seeing it on this trip are significantly diminished.

So what else is there to do in Atlanta? At least I still get to fly on an airplane. And I have a window seat.

No Imposition

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

There was no imposition of ashes on that Ash Wednesday.

In the early evening, I waited at the airport for my sister, Allison. She had planned another trip, but something had told her not to book it. At the last second, she used that money to set a flight for Portland instead. I was parked in short-term parking, as close as possible to the arrivals, in order to make a fast getaway. I waited, looking for any way to make things go faster.

Mom had called and said not to delay. Breathing was labored, and a morphine patch would be applied to ease the distress. There was no more time to waste. The plane was on time, and after a hasty greeting while moving through the airport, we found the car and made our way to the freeway as quickly as possible for the 50-mile drive south.

Once on the road, I said to Allison, “I want to warn you, Grandma doesn’t look the same as the last time you saw her.” I had been down to visit frequently in the evenings after work, and on weekends. I wanted to warn my sister of how thin she was, how her eyes and skin were yellow, and how weak she would be.

A handful or two of days prior, Grandma told me weakly, “I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to fight this. I’m going to do what the doctors say. I’m going to beat it.” It was an aggressive tumor surrounding her bile drain tube, squeezing down on it and shutting off its flow, causing a chain reaction of failures. I don’t think any of us knew just how bad it was, not until a day or two before. Various treatments were used and more were planned. One kind of stent was inserted to keep the drain open, and that failing, another more robust one was planned. But that was called off. I had not been there yet that day, but had been told the decline was rapid. We knew this was really happening. Grandma was dying.

Mom and Dad, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and now my sister and I were there in the hospital room. Only my brother, Austin, was missing. He had finished his day teaching in a small town 250 miles to the south, changed his clothes, and was on his motorcycle heading up the freeway over mountain passes in the cold February air. “Go Austin, Go!” I thought.

Grandma’s breathing was rough, impeded by fluid in her respiratory system, rattling. I sat nearby, I stood, I held her hand, I talked with my family. I didn’t really know what to do. When it seemed best, I took her hand, whispered my name in her ear, and told her that I loved her. I told her that I thought it would seem just a short time to her, but we would all be there right behind her. I said goodbye. Her breathing was in gasps, moments of stillness between. Others said their goodbyes too. We watched, helplessly.

Her pastor, Pastor Brauer, came to the hospital after the Ash Wednesday service at Redeemer. He performed a Service of Commendation of the Dying, tracing on her forehead the cross he had made with ashes on the foreheads of his other parishioners that night. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Her breathing became slower, the gasps more shallow, the moments longer. I looked to my cousin, a nurse, for what this meant. She confirmed what I already knew.

My heart was breaking. It was breaking for myself, for all the memories of my Grandma. My mind raced through all these as if they would depart with her, and I wanted to catalog them so they wouldn’t slip away. This is the grandma whom I followed as she vacuumed her formal living room. And as I followed, I carried a little chair stamping four feet marks in the smoothed golden carpet at every step, in awe of the pattern on the canvas she had smoothed for me. The memory is actually in her telling of the story, and the many stories she told . . . feeding a whole stack of ears of corn to the hogs after they were shucked for dinner . . . filling the newly planted and tied-up cauliflower with dirt . . . other things I don’t actually remember. The memory is of her smile and laughter, the laughter that was hard to stop once it was started.

For all the thousands of memories fixed in sounds, actions, looks, places, and pictures, the most vivid is the smell of Grandpa cooking bacon, then frying eggs in the bacon grease, of toast and coffee, and the ever-present smell of Grandma’s perfume mixed in. That was the smell of waking up at Grandma and Grandpa’s in my childhood. Grandma and Grandpa’s was the very best place to visit on the surface of the Earth.

I wanted that smell back again. It wasn’t just her – it was her and Grandpa together – as it should be – as it seemed it always was. My heart was breaking for him. His wife of 60 years was being called away. He had asked her to marry him the third time they met.

After his basic training, they met a fourth time and were married that day. The next day, he shipped out for the war in Europe, and she waited the 16 months until he returned. In the remaining 59 years, there was one argument, and only one. Their younger child, my aunt, an infant, was crying. Grandpa held her that early morning. Grandma asked him to give her the baby so he could go and milk the cows. He said no. That was it, the entire sum and substance of the argument.

I can point to nothing, save the hand of God, that could explain my Grandma and Grandpa. Almost unbelieveable, their love for each other, and the way they treated each other seems to be located the smallest degree this side of impossible. And yet it was. He now sat beside her and held her hand, as she lay looking upward from the bed, those breaths becoming more and more delayed.

There was no imposition of ashes for any of us that Ash Wednesday, save Pastor Brauer. None was needed. The imposition of ashes as a symbol of repentance at the beginning of Lent is tradition and is not mandatory. I have heard it said that to put on ashes, the recognition and of our sin and the penalty for it, is only half the confession . . . that the baptismal font should immediately follow the imposition, washing away the ashes, a remembrance of our baptism when we were baptized into death with Christ. No, that Ash Wednesday, the consequence of sin was staring us in the face, in the dying body of my Grandma. She was becoming dust before our eyes.

Where is Austin! Dad was on the phone in the corridor. Austin was circling the hospital outside, and did not know where to go. Should I go and point the direction? Should I go and take his bike? I don’t know how a motorcycle works, what would I do with it? How would I park it? It’s after visiting hours, and he will need to be checked in and cleared by the guards at the door. . . can I go and let them know he is coming? How can I get him here faster? I already got to say goodbye, he should be able to . . .

Her breathing was barely perceptible. It was so long between breaths . . . long suspensions . . . and then . . . she simply stopped. Her pulse faded, and peacefully, she died. Her burden was lifted. Clothed in Christ’s righteousness, the sentence pronounced at her baptism finished, she went to her Lord’s side. And there she waits as we do here, for the fulfillment of His promise, and to receive her body made anew.

Grandpa was in shock . . . grief beyond expression. He had quit his job just a few days before in order to take care of Grandma full-time. But that was not God’s will. Now what . . . ? The next few years would be hardest.

I met Austin at the door of the room two minutes later . . . two minutes. “I’m sorry, Austin . . . ” My heart was breaking for my brother. Breathless, he put his hands on his knees for a moment, then stood upright, and went in. Two minutes. 80 miles an hour for 250 miles in the cold winter air . . . two minutes.

Is there a better way to die? Is there a better way than with the knowledge that your debt was already paid centures ago, His name marked on you by the Spirit in the plain water of Holy Baptism, and forgiveness received in His body and blood? Is there a better way to live?

There was no imposition of ashes that Ash Wednesday.

On The Road Again

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

Tonight I went on a bike ride for the first time in ten weeks. Only on level ground, only for half an hour, and only for a short distance that I do not know because GPS conked out on me. In my short ride, I was stopped by the police, but not for speeding – they wanted to know if I had seen a missing boy they were searching for. I also rode past an elementary school that burned down yesterday. I saw the cloud of smoke on my way to church, but did not know what it was until I rode past tonight. The smell was something like the burn pile back home, only more sickening. I last smelled this particular smell when Dad took me to see the home of some friends from church after it had burned when I was a youngster. That time I was in my barn boots, and was shown a plastic clock that was still recognizeable, but was droopy and mishapen, something like in the famous Salvador Dali painting. Tonight there were news trucks from all the big local stations, and their lights were on. I was able to see that pretty much the whole building had burned down to the ground.

I haven’t ridden since the week before Thanksgiving. After ten days away with family at the end of November, I came home with a horrible nasty cold, and my ability to breathe was no good for cycling, or much of anything else for that matter. Once over that problem, there were a series of Dr. appointments to diagnose a knee problem, and the bike didn’t work out schedule-wise. That got me to Christmas, when I spent a little more than a week at Mom & Dad’s. On January 15, my knee was operated on for a torn medial meniscus. This is a part of the knee that had been repaired before, but the repair did not hold. The solution this time was simply to cut the torn portion away as is usually done, and clean that area up.

Knees are funny things. It doesn’t take much of a problem to cause swelling, and in my experience, once the kneecap is out of place, it hurts. There must have been advancements in surgery techniques, because instead of three incisions, there were only two this time. Before being discharged from surgery, they gave me a hydrocodone pill for pain, and a prescription for the same which was filled, but which I never took. The swelling was also much less, so much less that my knees looked almost symmetrical after only five days.

I had stayed with some good friends the night after surgery, since I wasn’t supposed to be alone for 24 hours after general anesthesia, and was lovingly scolded for bringing my overnight bag down the stairs the next morning. I was scheduled for six physical therapy sessions over three weeks, but was discharged after only three. At the first session, the day after surgery, the therapist said the crutch I was using was really only a prop, and I wasn’t required to use it. The therapist laughed at that third session when I leapt out of the chair in the waiting area, only a week after surgery. That day the joint was only six degrees away from full range of motion.

The overwhelming success of the surgery may be directly attributed to the skill of the surgeon (if anyone in the area needs a good one, let me know), the care of the nurses, the cleanliness of the facilities, and all the benefits that good medical practice can provide. But as Grandpa says, many prayers were answered. The truth is that all of this is a gift from the Father, providing for his child.

So perhaps after a couple weeks on level ground, I’ll be taking the ol’ bike over the bridge to work again.

My ’71 Schwinn Suburban

More Tired

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

These days I work a little more than normal. I have my real job, repairing various commercial electronics for Mood Media. Most days I choose one type of electronics, say a certain digital satellite music receiver, and work on that model from the beginning of the day to the end. On these days, there is little excitement from one unit to the next. Few and far between are the times I get to say, “I’ve never seen that before.” Today, however, was varied. I repaired three satellite receivers, two oscilloscopes, one spectrum analyzer, a power amplifier, and a large venue projector. I enjoy a new challenge. Working on something I never have before is exciting, like hunting in a new terrain, trying to ferret out the faulty component. This is what I do for 45 to 50 hours every week.

In my evenings and weekends I work on a (very) small side business where I design and build electronics. These are small items, most of which will end up in antique cars. All are handcrafted, so every hole is drilled one at a time with a pull on the drill press, every component is placed one at a time by hand, and every circuit is hand-soldered one point at a time. As any craftsman knows, an error can be disastrous, and some cannot be undone. This is a lesson I have learned the hard way, and so every detail is seen to with patience. This is what I do for about 20 – 25 hours a week. I suppose that overall, I work harder than some, and not as hard as others.

But today I am tired. I compare this tiredness to another . . .

Am I more tired than when I baled hay and straw with my family for eight summers?

Am I more tired than on the thirtieth consecutive fourteen-hour day without the respite a rain would provide?

Am I more tired than pumping diesel fuel into seven empty tanks at the end of the day with a hand crank pump, arms aching no matter how many times I switch hands?

More tired than living in a camp trailer for six weeks because home is too far away to drive every day?

More tired than an uneaten pizza, the crew’s reward for turning out 5000 bales yesterday, left because it is too hot to feel like eating?

More tired than reaching the seasonal goal of 120,000 bales, enough to meet the needs of the books, and then pushing further because this is where they go into the black?

Am I more tired than when I rode on the back of a baler for half a day trying to get a knotter to work right, the honeymoon after winter maintenance and repair long over?

More tired than when I busted my knuckles on that knotter when the 17mm wrench slipped off the nut that fastens the worm gear to it’s shaft?

Am I more tired than hauling a 40-pound pail of open-gear lubricant to the top of each machine three times a day in order to pour from it onto a half-ton of moving gears under my feet?

Am I more tired than taking advantage of a moment when all the machines are working right, everything is fueled and lubed, twineboxes are stocked and no one is complaining, a moment to lie down in a windrow and close my eyes, never at ease lest a machine should swallow me up?

More tired than searching a 40-acre field by spotlight for a cell phone I had dropped?

More tired than the dog, panting in the stagnant heat of the pickup truck, motor off and A/C not running because gas has gone up to $1.19?

Am I more tired than my sister, shotgun in the same stuffy pickup truck, broken leg in a fiberglass cast, and if casts aren’t bad enough in their seventh week, this one was sweated in eight hours a day?

More than trudging in five-pound steel-toe work boots from one end to the other of a 400-acre field to pull all the twine from a row of bales because the baler operator didn’t notice that the center twine was always popping?

More tired than climbing inside the 16″ x 22″ chamber of each baler to change the plunger knives, lying on my side in the confined space with just enough room to manuever the breaker bar?

Am I more tired than when I had to pound a broken shear bolt out of the flywheel . . . again. . . because the operator kept overfeeding, and then the hole became out of round and no shear bolt could be expected to last too long, even under normal circumstances?

Am I more tired than after blowing all the straw out of three balers with compressed air in order to go to another farmer’s fields, appearing like a ghost from the cloud of dust and chaff?

How about when the Chevy had it’s Third Annual Spontaneous Water Pump & Fan Clutch Failure Extravaganza, and it had to be attended to first because it carried the parts and tools to repair the other two machines that were broken down? That's me on the phonee, and my brother behind the door.

Am I more tired than at 11:30 at night, trying to figure out how to only spend 50 cents in the campground shower and have enough water to get all the gear lube and Bigfoot grease off my body and out of my hair?

Or am I more tired than eating a chicken chimichanga at midnight for the thirty-fifth time because Muchas Gracias is the only place open after 10:00 in this small town?

And am I more tired than one of those really hard days, the ones when there wasn’t a moment that something wasn’t broken, and at the end of the day, it’s two beers with my chimichanga instead of just one, because, lets face it . . . when you’re drinking Icehouse, it takes two anyways?

Despite how it sounds, these were great times. I’ve never worked with another crew as good as this one, and I don’t expect I ever will . . . more on that another time.

When I consider these things, I find I’m not so tired, and I can go another round or two, repair a couple more receivers, drill a few hundred more holes, and solder another dozen boards. I know I can’t keep this pace up indefinitely, and it isn’t suitable in the long run. But in this time and place, these are tasks I have been given to do, and they meet my needs. So I push ahead, thankful for this daily bread, and thankful for having the task to do.

Beyond I-V-vi-IV or Truth Is, I’m A Junkie

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

Words are hard. They don’t stick in my brain very well. The idea they convey remains, but the actual words slip away. And a thought or idea seems simple until it must be put into words – the length of this post is evidence enough. When it comes to music, the text, the very meaning of the song, takes a back seat to other things. I might hear a song on the radio a hundred times and still fumble the words, substituting one word for another that sounds similar, or mixing lines from different verses.

No, with most songs it’s in the musical elements where my brain works best. And of the basic building blocks of music, harmony is where I am most at home. Rhythm and melody are nice, but harmony is what makes me like a song. I’m a harmony junkie. For me, it’s all about the changes. I suspect that whether other people know it or not, they might be the same way.

There is a musical comedy group in Australia, Axis of Awesome. Most of their comedy is offensive in some way or another, and this video is no exception. So . . .

****WARNING****WARNING****WARNING****WARNING****

At 5:20 these guys drop the big one. If you play this video and don’t want to hear the bomb, keep an eye on the clock and a finger on the pause button. When you hear the word “birdplane” you have about six seconds to stop the film. By that point, you really have seen most everything in this very clever and humorous bit showing the common harmonic structure of many pop songs and poking fun at the original (or unoriginal) artists. I understand they can do this once in movies and keep a PG-13 rating, but wish they wouldn’t. I really would like if there was a clean version as I could give it an almost-blanket recommend. Alas. . . //End Rant//

Here’s the problem. I like some of these songs, probably at least half of them. It’s a little like chocolate. Just because it’s a common Hershey bar, does that mean I won’t eat it because I had one last month, or last week, or yesterday, . . . or even thirty minutes ago? No, I’m gonna eat the Hershey bar every time. Go ahead, call me unsophisticated, I don’t care. It doesn’t have to be fancy chocolate with funny sea salt sprinkled on it. It doesn’t have to be made from the very best exotic pods. It doesn’t have to be delivered by a team of fancy purple unicorns. Normal unicorns are just fine. A regular Hershey bar is just fine. And I’m ok with the common I-V-vi-IV progression. Is it the best? Is it unique? No, but it gives my brain a hit. The chords are the foundation on which a great melody is built and tight inner harmonies are constructed. It lends music a sense of motion all on its own, of rising and falling, tension and release. A good progression can certainly be squandered, but having one is a great start.

Suppose you did want a better chocolate bar though. . . How about a longer progression that starts out the same way as I-V-vi-IV, but is deeper and richer. . . although still copied?

But first, what’s with all the Roman numerals? It’s called Functional Harmony, and it helps to show the relationships between chords in a given key. I is a triad built on the first note in a major scale, V is built on the fifth, vi is built on the sixth, and so forth. Upper case numerals are major chords, and lower case are minor. So you can have the same functional harmony in any of the 12 major keys, and it would be expressed with the same sequence of numerals, regardless of the actual chords being played. So this progression is:

I – V – vi – iii – IV – I – IV – V – I

In the key of G it would go:

G – D – e – b – C – G – C – D – G

In C it goes like this:

C – G – a – e – F – C – F – G – C

As you can see, when changing keys, all the other chords change, but when using the numerals to express functional harmony, the numerals stay the same no matter what key the song is in. For simplicity, all the printed examples are in the key of C, regardless of what key these recordings are actually done in. So here are a few tunes I can think of off the top of my head. . .

First, there’s the ever-classic Percy Sledge singing When A Man Loves A Woman.

The Bee Gee’s put it in Holiday.

The Dixie Chicks used it in There’s Your Trouble.

A few years later the Chicks feuded with Toby Keith after he did The Angry American.

Aerosmith built most of Cryin’ on it.

In Blues Traveler’s Hook, John Popper sings that it doesn’t matter what words he sings because you will come back for the hook. And I do . . .

There is Fastball with the chorus of Out of My Head . . .

And finally, there is the Rance Allen Group singing Let The Music Get Down In Your Soul.

Just for kicks I’ll throw in the Marc Broussard cover of the same song.

What’s going on here? Something makes me want to keep listing to the same progression over and over. What makes it so good? It’s the inner tension of the chords pulling against one another. Here is the basic progression. It doesn’t look like much.

But if I take the chords and invert them, or move the bottom note up an octave on some of the chords, you can see continuous stepwise movement down the scale from one chord to the next. These are highlighted in blue.

With a different inversion, the same chords show a continuous upward movement in the notes. These are marked in red.

Not all of these songs are exactly the same progression. Many take out the second IV chord because that allows for a continous stepwise scale all the way from upper C to lower C.

So with the same set of chords, there can be stepwise upward movement and downward movement at the same time – contrary motion. Human ears usually like this. Mine do. Everything works its way back to I. Some chords have a stronger tension toward I than others, like V – I is stronger than IV – I. Even stronger is if you add a 7th on top of V for a V7-I. It all wants to roll downhill back to I.

What’s that? I left one out? So I did. It turns out that this progression has been used for a long time. In fact, this progression is probably best known for Johann Pachelbel’s use of it in his Canon in D, probably composed sometime in the late 17th century. Here is an ensemble playing it on period instruments.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvNQLJ1_HQ0

What amazes me is that I will listen to songs where I disagree with the words essentially because of the chord progression. I get Toby Keith, I really do. I remember being angry like that. But is it just to seek revenge and revel in the destruction of one’s enemies? The awesomeness of the song makes me second guess myself. And there’s Rev. Rance Allen, telling people they will find the answer deep inside themselves. Please don’t look inside yourself. You’re full of guts and other gross stuff. Something about that music? Do you feel it? Yes, it’s the chord changes. That’s all it is. So-called gospel music without a shred of the real Gospels. It does get in me somewhere, mainly my brain. It makes me feel happy, but it doesn’t do a single thing for my soul.

Alright, I’ve been holding out. There’s one more, a sort of chord progression cousin to Pachelbel. The overall structure is similar, but there are a few substitutions. These substitutions function as the V of something other than I. For example, I7 is the V of IV. Remember V-I is a strong pull? This is a strong pull toward something other than the real I. These constitute a sort of momentary key change where before everything wants to roll downhill to I, first it wants to roll on over to something else first. What is so cool about this progression is that instead of a regular stepwise motion along an unaltered major scale, a half-stepwise motion is enabled in an upward direction. The movement between notes marked in red is a mere half-step at each change. Talk about tension from one note to the next! The regular downward stepwise motion is in blue. And an extra bonus is marked in green where the same note can be held for several chords, something previously not possible. All at the same time, there are notes moving up, moving down, staying the same, moving only by small degrees, and pulling against each other.

The song is A Man Like Me by Randy Houser, and this progression is used for the chorus following a very plain verse made simply of I, IV, and V. It’s like a bite of sweetest chocolate after a sip of plain coffee.

I love it, love it, love it. Hard swinging rhythm section, honky-tonkin’ piano, sweet pitch-bending and sliding action, built on a great set of changes . . . and the words . . . what more could I ask for?

I’ve got my fix.

A Bedtime Story

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

My three-year-old nephew told his own bedtime story the other night. While his yarn was convoluted and a bit hard to understand at times, the overall arc of the tale as relayed to me is this:

Uncle Nafan . . .

. . . driving Baba’s boat . . .

. . . catching lots of crab.

How cool is that! Uncle Austin, your name is your own again.

Dysfunctional Piano or What’s A Euphonium?

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

I would have liked if I had earned a BA Mus. Ed., just so I could tell a joke.

No, instead I have a BM. Try telling people you have a BM and see what reaction you get.

When I was in the first grade, the music teacher, Mr. Mason, taught our class out of a little book titled Wee Sing Silly Songs. He played them for us on a piano in the music room. Our entire school only had 80 students, and what I remember is that his job also included mowing the grass.

Years later, as a student pursuing an . . . erm. . . BM . . . with an emphasis in music education, I was required to complete a course called Functional Piano. This was so that I could confidently play the ubiquitous music room piano in order to teach Wee Sing Silly Songs to gradeschoolers in my future career. The idea is that in one semester, your average music major can play all major and minor two octave scales, something Mozart wrote for little children to play, and sight-read a hymn in four parts from the Methodist Hymnal with five or fewer errors. There were other things on the checklist, but none of them were as horrible as these. This course took me six terms to complete.

I must have been just about the worst piano student ever. At one point the standard two-part Mozart children’s piece was abandoned altogether for a substitute because there were so many mistakes learned into my playing that it would be too hard to undo them. It was better to cut it loose and start from scratch on a new piece. Worse was the hymn. Since it was sight-reading, a different hymn was chosen at each lesson. By the end of the sixth term, all the other requirements of the class had been completed, and so the entire lesson was spent trying to successfully sight-read a hymn. There are only 552 hymns in that hymnal, and we were running out. I only had to do it once. It could be at any tempo. It could be the largoest of any largo you ever heard. It could be slow beyond recognition, just as long as one chord followed another at whatever tempo I chose, and five or fewer mistakes were made. Many times Dr. Hauff pointed out that if a hymn was difficult in real life, at least play the soprano and bass, but that for the purposes of completing the hymn requirement, we would keep hammering away at all four parts. (A few months ago, I was showing Mom and Dad my new-to-me Hammond organ by crashing through For All The Saints, sans pedals. Mom kindly pointed out that I might do better if I only played the top and bottom parts.) Eventually I got one hymn right, or right enough. I don’t know which hymn it was.

But the worst was yet to come. If I remember right, the final performance didn’t affect whether you passed or not, but it still had to be done. At the end of the term, all the Functional Piano students who had completed the requirements played at a sort of recital where all the Functional Piano professors heard you play your hymn and two-part little children’s piece. And the other Functional Piano students heard you too. They had probably all heard me for three years on the dilapidated Chickering upright in practice room B trying to figure this out, but it didn’t help. The final was an utter failure on my part. I wasn’t embarrassed for myself at being bad on an instrument that isn’t my main instrument. What made this the worst is that in front of the other piano professors and students, I embarrassed Dr. Hauff with the poorest showing after six terms of study.

The class was essentially private piano lessons, so I had plenty of attention. I was just a bad student. I didn’t practice enough. I was over-extended on other classes. The plight of the typical music major is that they have many more classes to fit into four years than any other discipline, and many of them are only one or two credit-hours because you can’t have students with a 32-hour load. I was never in less than three ensembles playing my native instrument. I’m sure I could have done better. I would love to play as well as my cousin, Steve. Steve can hammer out The Entertainer with speed and force that would make any piano bleed. Steve drives a motorcycle. Steve is cool. But I’m not Steve. I don’t drive a motorcycle. And I can’t play piano.

Ultimately, it comes down to how many fingers are involved. My first real instrument was B-flat trumpet – three fingers, all on one hand. The same three fingers also worked for baritone horn, valve trombone, F-horn (other hand), euphonium, and tuba. If you add a thumb or opposite index finger, you can also play the 4th valve of the last four instruments in the list. With brass instruments, that is pretty much all you need – four fingers, and they all stay on their own keys. With piano, it takes all 10, and they all have to play different notes. Beside that there are pedals to push with your feet – these do various and sundry things, only one of which I understand. With a better brass instrument, there are tuning levers and slides to move on the fly, but this is really beyond the functional level. So are the brass instruments with more than four rotors or pistons. With woodwinds, lots of fingers are involved, but at least they don’t each have to push multiple keys. Things pretty much stay where you start out. 88 keys to push is way too many. 61 on an organ manual is way too many. There are simply too many fingers and limbs involved, and my brain just can’t get everything in the right place at the right time. And so, loving piano and organ music, I seriously respect and wonder at musicians who can play keyboards very well.

My instrument was euphonium. What’s a euphonium?

This is my euphonium, Hirsbrunner model 479, serial number 323. It is most like a tuba, but since the tubing is only half as long, it sounds an octave higher. Like the tuba, it is also similar to the horn (call it a French horn if you must), in that the tubing is mostly a conical shape. This gives it a diffuse mellow sound compared to instruments like the trombone, trumpet and baritone horn where the tubing is mostly cylindrical and produce a sharper more focused sound.

I was considered a good player at the time, always first chair, but the pond is small when you are a euphonium player. And while I loved ensemble work, nerves were always a problem as a soloist. The most terrified I have ever been was before taking the stage four times to prove proficiency as a soloist in different periods of music. My last performance was in concert as a soloist with a full wind ensemble, playing the first movement of a concerto I had transcribed. After a 16-bar intro by the ensemble, I made my entrance . . . about 20 clicks faster than the ensemble was playing. Nerves throw my sense of time right out the window, along with my endurance. By the cadenza, my strength was gone, and after just a few improvised notes, I ended while I still could. I didn’t bother getting a tape of the performance. Upper range playing was always a problem while my low- and mid-range was rich and robust. One of my instructors commented that I may never have found the right instrument, and that tuba might have been better. My axe really deserves a better home than it has. I got my degree playing instruments owned by the university, and when that was done, had none to play. When the farm machines were sold a few years later, I bought the Hirsbrunner. I have never really played it. It’s probably time I do, in a capacity other than originally intended.

I also never taught music. I did very well in theory, ear-training, history, analysis, orchestration, and anything else that required thinking about music, but when it came to doing, I didn’t meet my own standard. I wanted to be a good teacher, and thought I wouldn’t be. I didn’t want to prove the adage that “those who can’t, teach.” I may have been wrong, but done is done. And so, having my BM, I now do board-level repair of electronics for a living, a vocation which suits me well.

Well, at least I don’t have to mow the grass at work.

A Tasty Savings Account

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

A few years ago I was looking for a piggy bank to give to my year-old nephew for Christmas. I found all sorts of piggy banks. Red, blue, green, pink, polka-dots, stripes, solids, furry, football pigs, soccer pigs, bicycle pigs, baseball pigs, sports team pigs, ceramic, cast iron, plastic, clay, leather, brass, wooden, chrome, clear, large, small, flowery, psychedelic, seasonal, electronic, musical, talking, oinking, fat pigs, skinny pigs, and pigs dressed as other animals. I ended up settling on a blue ceramic piggy bank with red polka dots, or something like that.

But I never found the piggy bank I was looking for. It seems so obvious! Why hasn’t anyone made this particular pig yet?

So I think someone should combine the following two pictures:

Here is my rendering of what it should look like:

The shape should be like a real pig I think, not like a blimp with snout, feet, and ears as an afterthought, you know . . . for accuracy.

So if anyone decides to make this and can make any profit at it, I think that’s great. But I want a cut . . . something I can have for breakfast. Ham or bacon. Either is fine with me.

It’s still Christmas! Time for a marching band!

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Nathan Grohn

Hey everybody! It’s still Christmas! All the way through January 5!

And since I think that marching bands are exciting, especially the very good ones and the sort that take to the gridiron, here is an exceptional show for the Christmas Season.

This is The Cadets at the 2012 Drum Corps International World Championships, with their show, 12.25.

Update 12/30/2012: It seems that sometime in the last 24 hours, the professionally produced video I linked to became locked. I don’t blame them, they probably want people to buy the DVD. So for free, here is the second best video, which is of a rehearsal of the show. Still cool . . .

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdanjOgVNo8