Mood Swing

My family and I love to have fun with music. Whether it be singing "Dixie" like a bunch of chipmunks, pretending that we are attending a Scottish wedding with all of our instruments ("Mairi's Wedding"),  singing "In the Sweet By and By" Southern style, or trying to sing in octaves not meant to be sung by voices like our own; we love to have fun with our music. So in this Babiak spirit of musical enjoyment, I thought I would give you a special treat. You see, when my creative juices get running...well...let's just say, interesting things happen. :-) This song is one of them. One of the songs I have known for about ten years, one of them I just learned recently, and one of them I worte. (At least I think I wrote it. I have a tendancy to play things by ear that I think are original and then I find out that they really are not. I have changed the tune enough that I think it's safe to call it original.) See if you can figure out which one it is.

I have named it "Mood Swing," because each song switches the mood. (Rather self explanitory I think.)

Songs: 1. "Fluttering Leaves"

2. "Sonato Ops. 2 No. 3"

3. "Mapel Leaf Rag"

4. "Vipsania"

5. "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"

6. "Fluttering Leaves" repeat.

So I purposely did not put the authors. See if you can figure out which one is mine. In fact, for an even more fun challenge, see how many of the authors you can figure out.

If you think that you have guessed which one I wrote, see if you can figure out the inspiration behind it.

Have fun!

In Christ,

Kaila

Gods and Generals - Amazing Movie Music

This post is quite overdue. Between sickness and business, there has not been  very much time to get on blogger to post or read. My apologies to all.


Ever since reading an article written by: Ben Botkin on his blog, I have become exceedingly interested in movie music. Now, on the rare occasion that I actually watch a movie, I sometimes get more caught up in the music than I do in the movie. One of my all time favorite movies as far as content + music goes, is "Gods and Generals." It is a Civil War movie that mainly follows the lives of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson in the South, and Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Chamberlain in the North. It is a great movie and I would highly recommend it to anyone!
So anyways, I have the movie soundtrack, which Daddy picked up for us while book shopping, and I thought that I would really enjoy listening to it. Funny thing is, I was a little disappointed because it wasn't as exciting to listen to as I thought it would be. (Personal opinion- it is nice music.) Just a couple days ago, we watched the movie and I sat there listening to the music and thinking about how absolutely perfect the music was. When put together with the film, this music is simply AMAZING! Every bit of it is so perfect; the sweet, delicate tune played whenever Anna and Thomas Jackson are together, the grand, regal music played when honorable officers take center stage, the bagpipes during the Battle of Fredericksburg...Oh, the bagpipes!..., the song played at the beginning with all of the flags flying, it's all so perfectly written and placed. It just wouldn't be the same movie without the music.
There is one particular part that gets to me every time. During the Battle of Fredericksburg, there is a scene where the Northern Irishmen are fighting their way across the field to where a group of Southern Irishmen are shooting behind a stone wall. The Northern men are being killed left and right and it is nearly crushing the Southern men to continue shooting. The bagpipes start playing and, oh my, is it heart wrenching, especially for me because I have Southern Pruitt blood running through me on my Mom's side. The Pruitts were Virginian Irishmen, and I can't help but imagine that they were some of the men behind the stone wall crying for their brothers and cheering at the top of their lungs after they successfully drove the Northerners back. I can guarantee that I would not have this connection if it were not for the music. As soon as the bagpipes start playing the whole scene becomes real to me. Can you tell I enjoy this movie?
Aside from the phenomenal music, there is a lot of rich Southern religion seen throughout the movie. General Jackson was a strong follower of Christ and this is clearly seen throughout the whole movie even to his death. Oops! Did I just spoil the end? :-) Don't ever ask me to tell you about a movie you have never seen before.

So, like I said, this is a great movie content wise as well as music wise, but don't take my word for it. See it yourself if you haven't already!

In Christ,

Kaila

The Butterflies Have Flown Away!

Well, the nerves have died down and the relief of another recital down has arrived! It was wonderful to see how well everyone did. I am so thankful to God for getting me through and strengthening each one of my students. All glory be to Him!

This was Jared's second recital. He played "Christopher Columbus" as a duet with me, and "Fairest Lord Jesus."

He was so scared. He told my mom, "I'm so nervous, even my nerves are nervous!"

He made it through and was as cute as ever!

Above is my newest student Faith. She has only been taking for a few months and has really been doing well.

I just love duets!

Kendra played "Hoe Down," "Tango Staccato," and "Give Me That Old Time Religion."

“Give me that, old time religion. It’s good enough for me!”

Okay, I have a funny story here. Rachel and Anna worked and worked on this duet and never once played it perfect for me. I was waiting for a disaster, but they pulled it off. The played it better than they ever had before. I was in utter shock. Why did I work so hard?

Rachel played, "Overture from the Opera Raymond," "A Little Prelude," (by: Bach) and "This Little Light of Mine," (duet with me).

Michael shocked me to pieces! He played better than he ever had for me. He likes being the comedian of the show and put a little act into his pieces. It was great!

I played two songs, as I mentioned in the last post. I am so grateful to God for the gift of every one of these students. Afterwards, it was like one huge party since most of the families know each other. We had a great time.

Parker, Drew, Justin, Michael, Julia. Jared, Kelly, Rachel, Kendra, Emilee, Faith, Anna, Emma, Kayla, Christopher, Daniel, and yours truly.

An excited little girl.

Jared and his friend Laurel.

 They all did marvelous! I am so so thankful to God for His great mercy. I do not have pictures of all of my students playing yet. I will try to get some from other people at the recital. Michael, (my tech guy) is going to see if he can get the recital downloaded onto my laptop so that I can make a highlights movie. We'll see.....

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, You're Only A Day Away!

Well tomorrow is the big day, at least for my piano students and I. Piano Recital 2011...whew...time sure flies by! It seems like we just had last years recital two months ago. I'm excited, nervous, delighted, scared-to-death, jittery, and tired all at once. We practiced lessons at church today. It went well, but there's no place like home. I have seventeen students in the recital this year, (two more starting soon, Yeah!). They have all been working so hard. I will say, I have almost every song, being played, memorized after all of the time we have spent working on them. Of course, there's always the anual, "Magic Man," and "Amazing Grace," but I've grown so used to hearing those songs at the recital that it just wouldn't be the same without them.
Usually I make a piano cake for the recital, but this year I cheated. I ordered a cake. It looks really cute and it saves me a lot of time. I'll see if I can beat my mom on getting pictures uploaded. :-) I'll be playing a couple songs tomorrow. One is "Fluttering Leaves," by Carl Kolling. Someday I will make a video of me playing it. (Someday; not today, not tomorrow, not this week...someday.) I am also playing "A Passion For Thee," which I played at my teachers recital.

Well, I've got programs to finish and policies to write. I just wanted to give an update and ask for prayer for tomorrow. I'm excited, but there's always that slight fear that something will go wrong, someone will forget their music or worse their song, someone will start crying etc. etc. I just have to trust that God has it planned out perfectly.

In Christ,

Kaila

P.S. If any of y'all would like to come to a Piano Recital tomorrow, I'd love to see you!

Sing Like Nobody Is Looking

At Last! I've Found One!

I don't know about you, but I'm one that loves to find out that I live in the same area, am related to, share a birthday with etc. famous people. I just find it to be quite fun... well most of the time... until I found out some of the people I share birthdays with. Anyways, we discovered that we live around the area of this composer named Joseph Philbrick Webster, better known by his two most popular songs, "In the Sweet By and By," and Civil War song "Lorena." We have been studying "In the Sweet By and By," as our hymn this month, which is fantastic because all of the history is local. What's even better is that most of the history is from the time of the Civil War, so we've been studying the war in our area. Very fascinating stuff!

Back to Webster; this guy wrote tons of songs, including many Civil War songs. Being that he was a composer, he mainly wrote the music and not the words, but there are a few where he wrote both.

Click here to see a website full (and I mean FULL) of songs that he composed and wrote. If you click on the title you can hear the music, and if you click on the authors name, you can read the words.
Some of my favorites, (how can you possibly pick a favorite out of all of them?) are "The Irish Volenteer," "Lorena," "We Are But Young," "New Star Spangled Banner," "Mother Can I Go?" I could list off tons more, but you get the idea. I really like alot of his songs. It takes a while to get through them all, but oh is it worth it!

It's propably easy to see that I am excited to have found a well known (somewhat) composer from my lovely state and county, and I am even more thrilled to have found one that writes such good songs.
I hope you enjoy them as I do!

In Christ,
Kaila

Be Still My Soul

By: Katharina Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel
1697-1768

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Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

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I was having a hard time today. There was alot of spiritual warfare going on in my mind and I was not at peace. It seems as though Satan glories in my mistakes and continues to remind me of them endlessly when I sin. He knows when I am weak and wounded and takes advantage of it. I was really struggling this evening and decided to turn on a C.D. of hymns. The first song was "It Is Well With My Soul," and then "Be Still My Soul." It was as though the Lord was strengthening and comforting me in my trials. I still felt down, but I no longer felt as though I was being taunted within.
I thought about how two years ago I probably would have tried to wash out my frustrations by turning on a song that spoke of my frustrations. Rather the Lord, in His great mercy, allowed me to hear a song that would comfort me and give my weary soul rest. How sweet it is to dwell on the Lord. He is the great comforter and deliverer. No matter how Satan may taunt and bring us down, the Lord faithful will remain and lead us to a joyful end.
"Be still my soul," it's a good reminder of Christ's power over the sin in our lives. He cleanses us and heals us from our unrighteousness. What a wonderful Savior.

In Christ,

Kaila