The Career You'll Love » sacred music

The career you’ll love newsletter – 29 June 2010

Carl — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:20:54 +0000

The Career You’ll Love

Sponsored by Carl Dierschow’s career blog at www.Dierschow.com

Welcome to my new career tips newsletter! I encourage you to pass this to anyone who might have an interest in revitalizing their career – instructions for subscribing are at the bottom.

It’s not always about getting a return

WIIFM?

I imagine that you’re familiar with this acronym, which stands for “What’s In It For Me.” I first came across it in connection with the idea of asking this question to always keep a view on how my work can deliver tangible benefits to customers, and that I need to be able to describe that in ways which are meaningful to them.

If you think about it, though, this phrase is reflective of our culture. With almost every interaction with others, we tend to look at what we get in return. We’re very individualistic and even self-centered.

When you look at your career decisions, you’re constantly searching for ways to help you achieve your personal career and life goals. That’s fair enough, I suppose, but let me challenge you with this thought: Not everything can be measured by what it gives to you in return.

If you always looked out solely for your own interests, cathedrals would never get built. Those ravaged by natural disasters would never get helped. Most countries would never have been formed.

I’ve been pondering this fact, because for the last week I’ve been at a conference with others who are passionate about the revival of sacred music in our faith. The entire organization is based on volunteer contributions, and people are giving an incredible amount of time, energy and money to a cause which may not reap the biggest benefits during their lifetime.

They do it because it’s important for others, to benefit the human race. WIIFM doesn’t even enter the picture.

If you think about it, you see that it means it’s even more important than things which will yield a return for any individual or even a small group.

We believe that we can’t take any of this with us when we die, so the most important things are those which will be carried on by others over the course of generations. A personal and cultural legacy.

But to be realistic, I do get something in return. The satisfaction of believing that I’ve contributed to making an important difference.

An important resource

I talked before about the importance of LinkedIn. If you’re a professional, I would recommend this above any other online investment of time, because you’ll get connected with people who can give you valuable information, and possibly connect you with future jobs.

But many don’t know that there’s other useful aspects to LinkedIn. You can search for people who you know who work (or worked) at a company you’d like to be hired by. You can contribute to group discussions with others in your profession, thus establishing your expertise and credibility. You can look for others who might need help and mentoring.

Locally, we have an expert who gives LinkedIn seminars in connection with our government workforce center. Look around – there’s a lot of expertise you can tap.

Carl Dierschow is a Certified Leadership Coach and author of the career management guide, Mondays Stink! 23 Secrets to Rediscover Delight and Fulfillment in Your Work. He is a career coach for those going through interesting transitions, and works with leaders who are creating amazing teams. Find out more at www.Dierschow.com and www.PossibilitiesPartnership.com.

If you are interested in individual career coaching, group coaching, or other resources which might help you with difficult choices, please contact Carl at carl@dierschow.com.

Connect with Carl on Facebook and LinkedIn to get timely updates and connections to a broader range of professionals.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, send an e-mail to newsletter@Dierschow.com

Colloquium audio recordings are final

Carl — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:07:26 +0000

Just a quck update to let you all know that the audio recordings that I captured from the Sacred Music Colloquium are all up and online – whew! This is truly wonderful and uplifting music, it’s hard to know where to start.

Here’s the link to the list of recordings.

Oh, how amazing!

Carl — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:39:52 +0000

The Colloquium came to a magnificent and emotional close today with a Mass of almost two hours. Everybody sang, and it was truly wonderful.

If you’re interested, follow along in the music packet distributed online starting on PDF page 181 (ignore the page numbers printed on the page itself) or in the paper copy starting on page 195. This was a Mass in the Ordinary Form, in Latin. Father Scott Haynes of St John Cantius parish in Chicago was the presider – he did a number of Masses during the week.

We started with the Introit of the thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Omnes Gentes Plaudite. The Kyrie and Gloria were polyphony pieces from William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices, along with the rest of the Ordinary. After the Old Testament Reading was the day’s Gradual, Exaltabo te, Domine. The Alleluia chant was the same text as the Introit, Omnes gentes plaudite, meaning “All nations, clap your hands; shout unto God with a voice of joy.”

The Offertory chant was Sicut in holocausto from Daniel: “As a holocaust … let our sacrifice be in your sight on this day.” Then came a lively two-choir SATB piece, Duo Seraphim, which had a challenging Bass 1 part because only two of us were singing it – trying to balance with about 35 other singers.

The Communion chant came from Psalm 30, Inclina aurem tuam: “Bow down thy ear, make haste to deliver us.” Also at communion was a beautiful Byrd Ave Verum Corpus, followed by a Victoria Laetatus Sum. Before the final Benediction the entire Colloquium – some 240 people – sang that wonderful Ave Maris Stella, and it was as stunning as I expected. I’ll be working this afternoon on processing all these recordings and getting them posted on the website.

After Mass we had a brunch, and I handed out the remainder of the CDs I made of the Thursday Holy Hour service. It was great to surprise people with copies fresh off my computer. And of course it was sad to say goodbye to everyone, especially Jeffrey, the directors I worked with this year, and the other singers I was with. And my roommate as well.

I finally made it to Arizona and had a nice dinner with my wife and daughter, it’s wonderful to kick back and relax. 110 degrees, but air conditioning fixes all.

Tomorrow after sleeping in, I hope to spend time getting the recordings processed and posted on the server. But no energy for that tonight, my brain’s fried.

Way too much to think about. I had some real interesting thoughts about my future career in combining coaching with sacred music … more to come later, I hope!

What an unexpected and delightful turn!

Carl — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:04:13 +0000

The Colloquium is drawing to a close – tomorrow we have the final Mass and a concluding brunch. We’re getting to the bottom of our inch-thick music packet, and people are giving their heartfelt thanks for such a wonderful and spiritually filling experience.

I had a number of great discussions with people today. One with a fellow schola director in town, about how we can get our groups together in collaboration to do some neat things. Singing music at Mass in the various parishes, putting on a broader chant workshop, and so on.

I had an interview with the group, Corpus Christi Watershed, who is doing all the incredible video work for this Colloquium. If you haven’t seen the first video they published, make sure to check this out:

I don’t know if they’ll use any of my interview, but it was great to have a chance to talk about what I’ve gotten out of this week.

I also had a discussion with my roommate here, with a very interesting twist: The combination of sacred music with my interest in coaching. It turns out that the spiritual journey isn’t so different from the life journeys that I hope to help people with through coaching.

What an unexpected and delightful turn!

This is going to be unbelievable

Carl — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:25:10 +0000

Oh man, this going to be a treat.

Apparently the Colloquiums now have a tradition of pulling together everybody – all choirs, over 200 people – to sing one last final hymn after the end of Sunday’s Mass. Last year’s piece, Bruckner’s Ave Maria (that’s the recording), just blew me away.

This year, we’re practicing an Ave Maris Stella by Liszt Ferenc, and it’s just beautiful. It needs a little more practice, but it’ll be amazing. I’ll post the recording next week.

I can’t wait.

Quote of the day: “It’s not about showing off talent, it’s about returning to God what He has given us.” — Father Keyes

Learning in a different way

Carl — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:58:12 +0000

I just got done hiking back from the north end of the campus where we had today’s Gregorian Chant rehearsal. Last year I was in Wilko Brouwer’s polyphony choir group and was incredibly impressed with his teaching style.

This year Wilko is leading my chant group. One of the things he brings is an incredible sense of humor and lightness in his approach. He’s always coming up with different ways to look at how we sing the music. For instance, today we practiced a section as if we were 20 years old, then 40, then 60. The idea was to realize that your emphasis in singing changes as you age, and Chant has been publicized a bit as “old guys’ music”. Which isn’t at all true – it can be as vibrant and lively as any modern music.

At least spiritually. We don’t want to turn this into a performance here.

The neat thing about Wilko’s approach is that we may not immediately understand everything he’s teaching, but over the course of time it starts to become integrated into what we’re doing – and the enlightenment then comes from within. It’s a bit hard to explain, but quite remarkable.

I’m continuing to blast out recordings – continue to check the website for more!

The angels rejoice

Carl — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:24:33 +0000

Not to leave you in suspense about what happened to our polyphony choir which sang the music for the Holy Hour Service this afternoon. If you remember, I talked about it yesterday.

After just three practices this week, we pulled it off. Not absolute perfection, to be sure, but it’s not really about perfection. It’s about putting in your best mind, soul and energy, learning an incredible amount, and working together as a group. Which happened, excellently. I made sure that Jenny knew how much I appreciated the work she put into this, and how much I learned from her dedicated leadership.

I captured the recording, but won’t have time to process it until tomorrow or Saturday. I’ll post the direct link here when I get that done, but feel free to check out all the recordings on this website.

I got some requests for audio CDs, so I ran over to Radio Shack and got a stack of CD-Rs to burn. I’ll make an announcement tonight. Blasting any of the files I have to a CD is straightforward using iTunes, it’s just that the whole collection will probably end up being about 15 hours of content. I’m capturing the lectures and morning/evening prayers this year as well.

A very good and wonderful day all around.

UPDATE: Here’s the direct link to the recording.

Time in Purgatory

Carl — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:05:08 +0000

Today was a most challenging practice. Here’s the setup:

The polyphony choir that I’m in, led by Jenny Donelson, is leading the Holy Hour service tomorrow afternoon at 5:00. We had a decent practice yesterday, but another group needed our practice room so we got swapped over to the vestibule of the Mundelein hall. Not so bad, but for one fatal flaw: no piano.

We started practicing a Tantum Ergo written by Kevin Allen, a new piece just published in 2007. So it has lots of modern harmonies. Which means that none of us had a clue what the thing should sound like. Well, Jenny did, but it’s hard to sing four parts at once.

After a total flameout after four measures on the first try, we started splitting it into sections. It started feeling like we were in trouble when it took the tenors about half an hour to get through the first page and a half of four pages. The basses didn’t do much better. And the poor ladies were feeling totally left out, so they tried doing sectionals in other parts of Mundelein hall. Time for a deep breath and a break.

While Jenny worked with the ladies, the tenors and basses went off into corners to remind ourselves of the Domine Non Sum Dignus (Tomas Luis de Victoria) that we practiced yesterday. It’s feeling like that’s getting under control. But when we come together, what’s the Tantum Ergo going to sound like?

Well, it was surprisingly good. Not perfect by any means, but we certainly earned lots of indulgences for the sweat and tears put into this afternoon. One of the hardest practices I’ve ever had.

But after we sleep on it, what about tomorrow? That’s anybody’s guess. We have one more practice after lunch and then a little warmup before the service starts, so hopefully these old brain cells will retain a bit of what we worked so hard on. If not, well, I guess we count it as time of purification in Purgatory.

Quote of the day: “Putting church music under copyright is rather like using the state to attempt to control something which should be divine.” — Jeffrey Tucker

Sing. Pray. Repeat.

Carl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:02:29 +0000

The music. Ah, the wonderful music.

Here’s how the Colloquium runs: Prayer. Eat. Music. Mass. Eat. Music. Music. Eat. Learning. Music. Prayer. Fall into a heap and do it all again tomorrow.

But for me, it’s the music and the wonderful people which give me energy. So I’ve used a lot of physical energy, but gained so much more back mentally and spiritually.

After breakfast, we had morning chant practice. I screwed up my courage to be in the Advanced Men’s Schola. It’s very challenging, but I love getting into stuff that forces me to think and concentrate that way. We practiced a couple of pieces that we’re going to use at Mass tomorrow morning: Priusquam te formarem (the Gradual) and Justus ut palma florebit (the Offertory). Wilko Brouwers is leading this particular group, and has an amazing teaching style which I grew to appreciate last year. He has a great sense of humor and a light approach, but misses nothing.

Check this out: At this morning’s Mass, everyone sang a couple of motets together: Let Thy Merciful Ears, O Lord, and Oh How Amiable Are Thy Dwellings. The latter we had practice a little bit last night, without accompaniment, and nobody was really sure what the song sounded like as a whole. But this morning, the Spirit graced the group, as well as wonderful acoustics, and we helped each other through it.

Absolutely amazing. I’ll get the recordings posted after I have a chance to process them all in Audacity.

This afternoon’s practice was with the Polyphony Choir I mentioned yesterday. We’re going to sing a bunch of songs for the Holy Hour service on Thursday afternoon, and worked on Domine Non Sum Dignus (Tomas Luis de Victoria) and O Salutaris Hostia (Pierre de La Rue). This is wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Speaking of wonderful stuff, so are the meals. It’s not easy exercising self control and just grabbing everything that looks good. This University is a fantastic venue for an experience like this.

Oh, and a shout out to my niece – fantastic talking with you today, Nate! You’d better come to Colorado in August, because now it’s committed to a blog!

I’m going to have to head off to the evening lectures pretty soon, but for now – I’m enjoying every minute of it!

A day of beginnings and endings

Carl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:16:24 +0000

It’s a day of great movement in my life, many things are in flux.

First, I found out that the job opening which seemed possible at some point has now slipped from my grasp. So the probability is now vanishingly small that I’m going to get an HP job in the next three weeks.

On the plus side, my son returned safely from a wonderful trip to California, where he engaged with leading minds in the homebrew community and learned a great deal. Can’t wait to hear the scoop from him.

On the downside, I’ve heard lots of bad news – relatives of friends dying, more people losing their jobs, and on and on. There’s a great number of people we need to pray for this week.

But the big positive: We just began the 19th Sacred Music Colloquium tonight. We started right off with a bang, singing Veni Creator Spiritus. There’s absolutely nothing like hundreds of people coming together to sing a beautiful hymn like that – and doing it successfully! My heart leaps with joy.

We practiced some other music for tomorrow’s Mass, with varying levels of confidence. Ah well, more work to do.

I signed up for the polyphony choir being led by Jenny Donelson, and we had the first practice for that group tonight. The hymn O Salutaris Hostia (Pierre de La Rue) actually came out in 4-part harmony pretty well after a few run-throughs. An attempt at solfege was a bit rockier, that exercises parts of my brain that aren’t turned on very well.

But it’s only the first day. We wouldn’t want to get it perfect right from the beginning.