Life as a Church Musician

I go to church. I go to the UCC, First Congregational Church in Norwich, NY. I am a church musician.

Now under normal circumstances, that last statement would preclude that I am either the organist or the choir director or both. I am neither.

My position is Music Ministry Associate.

Being an Associate always reminds me of Wal*Mart because all their employee name tags say “associate” on them. I don’t have a name tag…what am I talking about? I don’t even have a blue vest! So what is this oddball position?

At UCC, First Congregational Church, we have an extremely talented and knowledgeable choir director, an outrageously talented organist, and a wonderfully gifted bell choir director. This photo shows us all with Pastor Joe.

So what I get to do is all the things that these three don’t have the time or energy to do. And believe me, as far as I’m concerned, that’s all the fun stuff.

Briefly, I get to write and arrange a lot of music, play the guitar as solo and accompaniment, preview all the choir music, work with the web site, do music outreach to other churches, and substitute for singers in the choir and sometimes for the bells too. Along the way, I have also completely refurbished the music office, weeded the music collection, and purchased some new instruments for the church, and done quite a bit of recording.

If that weren’t enough, I have written a Christmas cantata (The Child) with Pastor Joe Connolly, and we are planning on writing an Easter cantata for 2013.

And if THAT weren’t enough, I created a church music seminar called “Water from the Well” to which we invite well known church composers from all over the country to come and work with us.

I was offered this position back in 2007 and was given the opportunity to write my own job description. How many times does something like that ever happen?



And now it’s ending, and I am sure of two things:


1- It has been a great ride.

2- This situation is probably never going to be duplicated.

As relocation for my wife and I becomes a reality, I will be looking around for another church position, which (I’m sure) will be vastly different than this one, and (I’m equally sure) just as rewarding.


Note: I will be releasing a new vocal CD in a couple weeks. I will post an update on that here sometime in early May. In the meantime, I’ll remind you that my music is available through Amazon, CDBaby, Rhapsody, iTunes, Spotify and dozens of other outlets. You can usually find them by typing “Tom Rasely” into the search bar of any of those sites. Plus, there are 10 videos at Tom's Youtube

Spare Time

How’s that 1981 hit tune by Styx go?

Oh yes: I’ve got too much time on my hands. Well, I don’t know about the “too much” part, but I do have a goodly amount of time during the week to pursue a lot of interests. So, you’re probably asking yourself: what does a musician in the middle of nowhere do when he’s not doing music? And here’s the answer…


First, you have to understand that our home is more of a Hobby Farm than anything. My wife is the farmer. I sometimes refer to myself as the hired hand that lives in old trailer out in the North 40. It’s not that bad; we don’t have 40 acres.

This year, we expanded our chicken flock to 11 layers, of mixed breeds. That makes for a lovely selection of eggs. We also built a fairly large shed for the goats that arrived last summer. Between that and putting up fencing, and repairing our hoop house, there was enough physically demanding activity to keep me occupied for a few days…weeks…etc.

Some of you may be aware of my vintage sci-fi space movie collection. I have strange space adventures films and TV show episodes from 1926 on up. Most of them are from the true classics between 1950 and the late 60s. “Aelita, Queen of Mars” (Russian, 1924) and “Woman in the Moon” (German, 1929) are black and white silent pictures that are absolutely precious. The 3 Flash Gordon serials with Buster Crabbe are favorites, and they led me to experiment watching “Star Wars: A New Hope” in black and white. You can try that by going to your settings and taking the color bar to the extreme left. This film has an entirely different feel to it in black and white.


My interest in the Civil War stems from an invitation from my good friend Douglas Rose to work on a video about the battle of Gettysburg. As things unfolded, I not only have read a lot about this conflict, but also have visited 5 or 6 battlefields; and I discovered that I had several relatives who fought for the North (Pennsylvania regiments), two of whom were wounded at Gettysburg.

The Marx Brothers are my all-time comedy heroes. I have all the movies that they were in with either 3 or 4 of the brothers. When I desperately need to be brought back to Reality, I put in one of their films.

Thomas Lawrence (AKA: Lawrence of Arabia) is also a hero of mine. Having read the Lowell Thomas accounts, and seen the 1962 film, I went on to read several other reliable histories about this amazing man. I even made a sojourn to his cottage in England called Clouds Hill.

Whenever I can take a few days off (really off), I try to get to see a major league baseball game. I’ve been to Fenway (Boston) twice, Wrigley (Chicago), the Astrodome (Houston), Turner Field (Atlanta), the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium (The Mistake by the Lake), Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia), the Rogers Center (Toronto), and Camden Yards (Baltimore). I really don’t care who plays: I mainly want to see a game well played; it’s a beautiful thing!

Life is never dull, never stagnant. One of these days, I’ll expand on what my church music job entails. That’s a good story all by itself.

While you’re waiting, I’ll remind you that my music is available through Amazon, CDBaby, Rhapsody, iTunes, Spotify and dozens of other outlets. You can usually find them by typing “Tom Rasely” into the search bar of any of those sites. Plus, there are 10 videos on Youtube

So you see, it’s not all music out here in the Nowhere.

Inspiration

Where does an idea come from?

Recently on Facebook, I posted that I had written 62 pieces of music during 2011. That’s more than one a week! I should be exhausted. But I’m not. I find it exhilarating, and inspiring.

Inspiration is a much maligned word. It gives people the impression that ideas come from some mystical place like out of the clear blue sky. And I suppose that sometimes happens…or at least SEEMS to happen.

There is a truth: if you seek you will find. That’s another way of saying, keep your eyes open. Keeping your mind open at the same time helps too.

I’ve been inspired to write music by a friend’s last name, by the suggestion of a fellow music teacher, by marriages, by playing a ”wrong” chord, by the necessity of filling up a CD’s worth of music.

The photo above was taken one night as I was returning home from a day of teaching guitar lessons. As I crested the hill above East Pharsalia NY, this is the sight that met my eyes. Incredible. I immediately came home and was inspired to write…nothing. I just thought it was pretty.

On another night returning home from teaching guitar lessons, I was listening to the radio, and heard what I thought was a choir singing nonsense syllables. What with the static of the radio, the noise of the road, and the heater going full blast, I eventually found out that it wasn’t nonsense, and it wasn’t even a choir. But when I got home, I sat down and wrote a piece of music with nonsense syllables called “Dmm Dmm” for a capella 5-part choir. I refer to it as an instrumental song for chorus.

So, where do ideas come from? Anywhere, everywhere, anyhow and everyhow. Sometimes they show up when you aren’t looking specifically for them, and sometimes they do. Sometimes they result in something, and sometimes they don’t. There’s no pattern, no formula. But one thing is definitely true: if you are ready for a new idea, you’ll spot it quicker and clearer when it does come.

Here are some of my latest inspirations Tom's inspirations

The March of Time! 2011 in Review

2011 is now history. But what a lot of things happened this year!

JANUARY led off with my annual insult from ASCAP, the royalty collection agency. Each year I fill out an application for their ASCAPlus award, and have gotten it for the past 15 years. It’s their unspoken way of saying, “We didn’t track any of your airplay because you’re just not important enough, so we’ll throw you this bone.” I love these guys. Also, in January, I played a concert at Danby Federated Church, near Ithaca, and got reacquainted with my old friend Ed Enstine. And on the 9th of January, I turned 60.

FEBRUARY brought a lot snow and lesson cancellations. But I was making good progress on my choral song cycle “The Best of Times” based on writings of Charles Dickens.

In MARCH, the church choir was preparing for our Easter music. And it was in March that I made the first of 5 church visits as part of our music ministry outreach at UCC, First Congregational, Norwich. On top of that I played guitar in the pit band for “The Robber Bridegroom” at Morrisville College. What a blast to play that much bluegrass/old-timey music!

APRIL was the month that I finally heard my string quartet played, thanks to Deb Mineo-Devine and students. And I was working hard on completing my “Back in the Window” project. You can read details about that in the previous blog post. In MAY that album was released on CDBbay.com. Also in May I presented my 2-day blues seminar at Norwich High School for the Music in our Lives class.

In JUNE, I was contacted by the Greg Kunde Chorale asking permission to perform the world premiere of “The Best of Times in an October concert; more on that momentarily. Also in June, I submitted a new Christmas carol, co-written with Pastor Joe Connolly, to a contest. I generally avoid contests, but I took this as a challenge just to see if I could write such a piece. This June, my wife and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary.

In JULY, I treated myself to a new sound system. I went from 80 watts to 300 with my Yamaha Stagepass system. An amazing machine! Also in July, the CD “Journeys” was released. This is a collection of lovely songs that I wrote with my good friend, Douglas Rose.

AUGUST was really busy with performances. The UCC music department hosted Water from the Well II, with guest composer Joseph Martin. The Chenango River Theater presented 15 performances of “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” (music of Neil Sedaka), with me on guitar. The Earlville Opera House presented a fund raiser concert “A Summer Guitar Summit” in which I played the role of project director. And to top it all off, I played a noontime concert in the downtown park in Norwich for the BID.

SEPTEMBER was almost relaxing; although there was a goodly amount of guitar lessons as well as the church choir reforming after its summer break. Also, Scott Adams invited me to work on yet another Christmas album for the Logos Bookstore chain with him. We took my solo guitar project “Holy Night” and added some beautiful orchestration, with the help of superb cellist Chris White.

In OCTOBER, I played an art opening at the Chenango County of the Arts gallery. And the Greg Kunde Chorale did sing “The Best of Times” on October 30th at the St. Louis Church in Pittsford, NY. I was invited to give a pre-concert talk on the piece, and it was well-received.

NOVEMBER tends to be a quiet month, and outside of teaching and church music, I treated myself to two new Shure microphones: an SM57 and an SM58. Lovely.

Then DECEMBER brought yet another opportunity to play for the Chamber of Commerce Business-after-Hours at the local bank. That’s always fun. And then of course, the Christmas Eve music, which included the premiere performance of that Christmas carol I referred to earlier, “One Angel Sings.” It didn’t win the contest, but it worked perfectly in our service.

In all I wrote about 65 pieces of music this year, about half of which were recorded, and the other half were for choirs. The search for a workable online distribution for these pieces will be a definite focus for 2012, along with a new vocal CD to be released in late April.

Best wishes for everyone in 2012!

SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING NEWER

Another new CD?? Yes!!

A friend of mine encouraged me to create a listing of every piece of music I’ve ever written. It starts with my 1959 opus “The Robin’s Song” which I wrote in the back seat of the family car, on a piece of notebook paper. That list is now over 355 compositions, ranging from 1 minute in length to a whole symphony!

My real writing career started just as I was going into college for music, 1969. At that time, I remember watching and listening to my Dad working through the writing process of his choral song “The Lamb” which is a setting of the William Blake poem. This piece took him over 2 years to complete. What any good composer or writer will tell you is that a piece of music, or a book or a poem, isn’t so much written as it is re-written.

As I developed as a guitarist, I began writing instrumental “songs”. The pure definition of a song is a piece of music with lyrics, because a Song implies a Singer. That was easy to accommodate since the guitar had become my musical Voice.

In 1988, my partnership with Scott B. Adams began, and so did my real maturation process as a player and a writer. In 1993, we released an album on cassette called “In the Window” that featured 7 new songs by me, 2 new songs by Scott, 2 songs co-written by me and (bass player) Dan Lovett, and one traditional hymn. This album was never released in CD format, although a few of the tunes were used on compilation CDs later on.

This year, I conceived the idea of re-creating (re-writing) that project. I decided to record my 7 songs in fresh new arrangements, and added one older tune, plus 5 more new ones, and re-named the album “Back in the Window” as a nod to our past efforts. 13 songs that you can make up your own words to, if you like.

The front cover features a photo of a window that stands on a small hill in our back yard: a sort of “Gateway to another world.” You can’t see them, but there really are green fence posts that support the sides of the window; in this photo I managed (accidentally) to lose them in the background; so it looks photo-shopped, but it isn’t.

This CD was recently posted at CDBaby. There you can sample individual cuts, or download the entire album.

It will soon be available through Apple iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody and a lot of other internet outlets. Enjoy the music!

NEW CD, OLD CD, NEW CD

In 2001, I recorded my very first solo guitar CD. It was a Christmas collection entitled “Holy Night”, and was completely recorded “live” in the studio; meaning that each song was played through with no overdubs, no editing, and no extra instrumentation.

Earlier this year my friend, and musical partner, Scott Adams, asked me if we could remake this album with a string orchestra dubbed over it. The challenge was intriguing. So we got together and created a string orchestra using mostly keyboard strings; however, to add depth and realism to it, we called on our friend, and master cellist, Chris White.

Chris had played on our “Acoustic Traditions” CD and also the “Moonlight Concert” CD. He had previously joined Scott on two other recordings. Chris is a natural musician, being able to read music and also being a very creative improviser. We needed both those talents.

With charts sometimes scribbled out on a torn off piece of legal yellow pad, and mostly made up on the spot, Chris gave us melody duplications, harmony lines and fleshed out a lot of the chord structures in the keyboard string parts.

15 cuts were recorded in less than 11 hours. By every bit of conventional studio wisdom, that is impossible; but we did it.

The resulting album will more than likely be re-titled, and will be released as a private issue for the Logos Bookstore Association- a non-profit trade association comprised of 20 independent Christian bookstore members- in December. You can find out more about a Logos near you at http://www.logosbookstores.com/
Then click on “find a store” at the top of the page.

Other new CDs in the works include an instrumental collection called “Back in the Window” (due out later this year), and a vocal collection called “New Love Songs” (due out in spring, 2012). Also, the original “Holy Night” solo guitar CD has just been added to cdbaby

In the meantime, I hope you visit http://www.rasely.com/ and also invite other people to “like” my Musician in the Middle of Nowhere page on Facebook.

What the Musician in the Middle of Nowhere Does in His Spare Time

This summer, my music partner Scott B. Adams and I released our latest CD “Country Roads…Beaten Paths”. You can find more information on that at http://www.orchardbeat.com/

Also, this summer, my wife and I built a goat shed, and fenced in the grazing yard for them. This took about 3 weeks to complete. We also re-covered our hoop house. This is what it looks like:

 
It was suggested to me, a long time ago, that I should develop interests in something other than music, just so I didn’t dissolve into a one-dimensional person. Through the years, I found an interest in the Civil War, and consequently discovered that I had two relatives who were wounded at the battle of Gettysburg. I began following baseball again; I had played as a kid and have always loved the game, and now I try to attend a major league game every other year as a vacation.

Another hobby of mine is collecting sci-fi space from the 50s and 60s. The black and white are the more desirable, but the whole pre-Star Wars genre is extremely entertaining. I have over 125 titles now. I found that watching the Flash Gordon serials from around 1940 was very enlightening when I heard that it was the model that George Lucas used. Watching Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope” in black and white gave it an entirely fresh look. You should try it sometime.

When I need a break from all that, I revert to my collection of Marx Brothers movies. I can watch them over and over again and they still make me laugh out loud. Or I lose myself in one of the novels of Charles Dickens, one of my all-time favorite authors.

Between my guitar teaching, my church position as Music Ministry Associate and my occasional performing and recording, I get to do a lot of music. But sometimes, just hanging out with the chickens and the goats is very relaxing. Here’s a video of our youngest goat Ruby “helping” me work on the goat barn.