Customer Profiles:

Dave needs a 1 piano / 4 hands arrangement of “Peace Like a River” for this Sunday’s service and it’s now 8:00 on Friday night. He and his duet partner are usually able to get around the keyboard without problems, but they need something that won’t take more than an hour of practice.

Leslie is a senior music major a Notre Dame University and to make a little extra money, she is also the director of a home school band. They are a dedicated bunch with lots of support from home, but their numbers are seldom over 15 and they never know from year to year what kind of instrumentation to expect. Leslie needs arrangements which are a.) fun to play, b.) inexpensive, c.) completely versatile (which in this case means “transposable“) and d.) includes parts for players of all skill levels.

 

Sandra is a volunteer choir director in Thornthill, South Africa. She oversees three small choirs as the music minister in her small Christian church as well as a 50-voice community choir and ragtag bell choir who also meet in her church. Her budget is minimal, so she loves it when she can get music at a low price or even free.

 

Lorna is a piano teacher in a rural town in Idaho.  Resources for music for her younger students are plenty, but it's a challenge to find music for her teen students that will hold their interest. 

 

Jake is almost 18.  He loves playing the piano and composing his own music.  He has written over 20 new compositions and arrangements and has recorded a CD that he gives to friends and family for gifts.  He would love to share his music and maybe make a little money with it, but doesn't have a clue of how to begin.

Does This Count for Caring?

This picture is one that our teacher, Eric Young, took a few years back. It's perhaps the best picture I've had taken since I got fat. Thanks, Eric. I thought it was fitting that I use it on this blog you're making me write.

In the second lecture of this class Eric told us that it is our obligation as citizens of the world to care about certain things, like "Arab Spring" and "legitimate rape". I knew about the splash a dork of a politician had made by the 2nd term, but I had honestly never heard of the first one. Before he had finished his lecture I had looked it up and have been reading about it since then. I do care about the issues involved and do deem it my obligation to care, but Arab Spring is not my topic for this blog.

I didn't think I needed a professor to tell me what I am obligated to care about. I care about a great many things and feel I am an accepting, caring member of the human family. Believe it or not, even if I didn't know the term "Arab Spring", I do consider myself a sister to all men and women, no matter what their race, religion or political background. When one of them suffers, so do I. Even if I don't know them, when they die, my world is diminished. If my brothers and sisters in Syria are being oppressed, they do deserve my notice, concern and any help I can give them.

However, I have to admit to a suffering of another kind: emotial fatigue. When my husband or son is hurt, or frustrated or ill, so am I. When the values of my faith are threatened, so am I. When one of my former LDS Seminary students chooses unhealthy and/or dangerous relationships, my heart literally hurts. Add to this the worst pain of all (which is not unsubstantial): that which I have personally caused others by my own actions.

Sometimes I feel close to being paralized by the cares that I have. So when it appears that I don't care about the plight of my Arab brothers and sisters, it may indeed be my stone cold ignorance, which I'm being accused of OR it may be self preservation. For if I become too depressed by it all, which I have a tentency to do, I'm not going to be any good to anybody.

It is my hope that my young classmates are able to pay closer attention, to care more and to act quicker than I am. For now, what I am able to do is to pray for the family in Damascus of Huda: my dear Muslim friend from Kansas. From her I learned more about faith and fasting so for her I'll do both.

Kathleen

I am coming to blogging almost literally kicking and screaming.  Occasionally I enjoy reading the blogs of others, but I can't imagine anything about me that anyone would want to read about.  Nor do I really want to try to think of something to write about - I have plenty of other things to do.

However, there are a couple of things I do want to do:

1. Be as close to a Bachelor's degree as possible when or if the day comes when I'm forced to apply for my own job as secretary of the Communication Department in the even it becomes a division and they re-write my position. 
2. Turn a honest-to-goodness profit in my online music publishing company, Music House Publications.

To accomplish these goals, I need to take and pass a "New Social Media" class from Eric Young at Dixie State College.  And to do that, I need to establish this blog.

So read it if you dare:  it may be the most boring blog you've ever read.  Or I may just catch the vision - and the guts - to write something meaningful.

Kathleen