Learning to Dance in the Rain

I have been in many ward choirs.  These are some pointers I have that I believe can apply to every choir director.  I appreciate all choir directors, and I am glad they take their time to serve us.  I certainly do not have the skill to do what they do, and I appreciate their selfless service.  Nevertheless, I believe some improvements could be easily made.  But if you are a choir director please do not take anything personally or as an attack — especially if you are one of my own current or past choir directors!  In other words, these are written more for humor than anything else.  If you do not find it funny, stop reading.

1. End choir practice at the scheduled time, and not a minute later.  Consider ending early if you are at a convenient stopping place.
2. One or two people do not constitute a majority.  When you ask “Shall we sing it one more time?” and only one or two people respond affirmatively, that means that everyone else is silently responding “no”.  Ditto for “Do you want to stand?”
3. Leaning over a first row choir member to conduct directly to the third row makes people nervous.
4. Don’t specifically invite “all members, including those who can’t sing” to choir.  Those who can sing become less enthused about attending themselves.  Choirs should sound pleasant.
5. Consider singing the music as it is written.  It is perfectly acceptable to sing a hymn out of the book without stuffing as much variety as possible (or more so!) into the verses with unison/parts/harmony or new verses. 
6. If you have limited practice time before the performance, consider simplifying the selection before you call an extra weeknight rehearsal.
7. Never, never say “Let’s sing it just once more(, I promise).”  I have never met a choir director who lived up to that promise even once, so do not even pretend you will live up to it.  You tease us with the concept of getting home to eat, then we practice the piece three more times.
8. Give the choir time to talk to each other.  Singing can be an inspiring experience, and singing with people you know and love greatly enhances that.  Just two or three minutes per rehearsal of “talk with your neighbor” time can go a long way to putting smiles on the choir’s faces both for rehearsals and for performances.  We will probably pay more attention when you are talking as well.
9. When working with a small section of the choir, invite the others to sit down.
10. Do not ask us whether we want to sit with the congregation or in the choir loft for the rest of the meeting.  We will be divided anyway, just tell us what to do.  We will do what you say.

I suppose I should mention that I am the primary developer behind the RELATE Institute web site.  It utilizes C#, ASP.NET, XSLT, XSL-FO.  It is divided into several class libraries and an ASP.NET web front-end.  A significant class library behind the site is about to be open-sourced so I can work on it even after I leave to work for Microsoft.  Almost all the lessons that I post on my JMPInline blog comes from my developing RELATE.

Microsoft flew me up for a second round of interviews last week.  I interviewed with the Sparkle team and the .NET Compact Framework team.  Tonight I received an email from my recruiter congratulating me on an offer from the .NET Compact Framework team.  How exciting!

Details pending a phone call next Monday.

This is a rant about BYU’s bike policy.

BYU has a list of rules posted all over campus about where and how bikes can ride and park.  Many of them are reasonable.  The really annoying one is that we can only park our bikes at installed bike racks.  There are too few of them, and they are not in the right places.  Depending on where you are on campus, you might have to park your bike 1-2 buildings away in order to get to where you are going because no bike rack is closer.  The worst thing though is that the racks that are there are too small.  During the school year, the bike rack between the Kimball Tower and the McKay building is so full that it is literally impossible to tie a bike up on the rack.  So what can you do besides park 3 buildings away?  I have tried tying my bike up to a nearby handrail or tree when no space was available on the bike rack.  I made sure it would not be in anyone’s way.  And I’ve gotten warnings stuck on my bike by the campus police telling me I could get a fine for doing this again.

Stupid.  This university already has a serious car parking problem.  They could alleviate much of it by providing enough bike racks to encourage more bicycles.  There have been many days where I took the bus just because I figured I could not compete for space at the bike racks.  It’s more friendly to the environment for me to take a bike.  BYU should encourage this behavior.

These are some thoughts from the talk “The Doer of our Deeds and the Speaker of our Words” by M. Catherine Thomas.

“Is
it not obvious that we, created out of the very stuff of truth and
permeated by his power, cannot live against our own natures of light
and truth and intelligence without setting up conflict and spiritual
dis-ease within ourselves? The quality of our emotional and spiritual
existence is absolutely governed by divine law, and whether or not we
know about these laws, or observe them, we are continually and
profoundly affected by them. I suggest that at the base of much low
self-esteem lies not only spiritual conflict but a deep
selfdisapproval, whether conscious or not, over neglect of the
spiritual laws that govern happiness and freedom.”

True
true. We are at the core spiritual beings who rejoiced when Heavenly
Father presented this plan to us for coming to earth.

“Often
doors have closed before us that seemed to lead to the opportunities we
thought we had to have. We assumed that the closed door was a
reflection of some inadequacy in ourselves. But perhaps the closed door
had nothing to do with whether we were good or bad or capable or
incompetent. Rather, a loving Father shapes, even now, our path
according to a prearranged, premortal covenant.”

As a
missionary I was twice in a situation where I was a zone leader and
“demoted” to a district leader. Both times I partly resented the
change. Both times I later saw the wisdom behind the assignment.

I have become aware of how demanding of attention the self is. What a lot of prayer
and deliberate living it will take for me to remove my self as the force in my life. I
have
become aware that all my sins rise out of the self-absorption of my
heart—impulses rising like the ticking of a clock in their persistent
quest for self-promotion, self-defense, and self-gratification. It
seems as though a change is needed at the very fountain of my heart out
of which all thought and emotion rise. Could I actually come to the
point where I could act without calculating my own self-interest all
the time? Could I really live my daily life so that I was constantly
searching out the Lord’s will and drawing down his grace to accomplish
it?

This is the changing of our motive, that is so desireable.

Remember Mary Poppins? Remember Bert, the chimney sweep who is friends with both Mary Poppins and the children? Well, one day Bert tries to "jump into" one of his chalk pictures with the children. These are the directions he gave to the children:

"Let’s see… you think. You wink. You do a double blink. You close your eyes, and jump."

At this point, Bert and the children jump onto another concrete square–the one with the picture drawn on it. Nothing happens. Mary Poppins then chimes in:

"Bert, why do you always complicate things that are really quite simple. Give me your hand, Michael. Don’t slouch. 1, 2…"

And everyone seems to jump without trying, and they travel into the magical world of Bert’s picture.

Why didn’t it work the first time? Bert thought he knew how to make the magic. Later in the movie you find out that Bert and Mary Poppins had had previous adventures together. Perhaps these instructions he gave were what he was doing when the magic happened before. But he left out the critical element, and actually the only element that was necessary: Mary Poppins.

While Mary Poppins was working magic, Bert was only aware of his telestial actions, and began to believe that they had something to do — in fact caused — the magic. He was mistaken, and the children were disappointed.

I tie this to conversion in the gospel and the Spirit. Many missionaries in training positions have taught techniques for door approaches, or special ways of leading discussions, that they promised would double baptisms. I have heard many, many promises. I have never witnessed or even heard of a story where applying the technique actually worked. On the other hand, when I and other missionaries have applied the Spirit, and put our whole faith in that, and followed the Spirit’s guidance — that is when the conversion happens. Now the unaware companion to the missionary who is led by the Spirit may inappropriately attribute the success to the techniques he used, rather than the true source.

The fact is that Heavenly Father is the source of all truth, all power, and true conversion. We must attribute each success to Him. And if we want to see an increase in baptisms as missionaries, we must focus on improving our relationship with Him, become familiar with the scriptures, and become more influenced by the Holy Ghost.

Sound preachy? Maybe there’s a reason General Conference sounds preachy. I submit to you my testimony: that there are many pure and splendid gospel truths that are only accessible through the scriptures and the power of the Holy Ghost. No wonder the brethren keep hitting on personal scripture study and prayer over and over again. They want us to have what they have. They can’t give it to us. They can only teach us how to obtain it for ourselves.

God loves each and every one of us. He wants us to feel his love always. We must be in tune to feel that.

Here are some of my own Aesop-style fables, that I wrote for a class:

The Stalemate Date

A boy and a girl went on a date. The boy wanted to please the girl by taking her anywhere she wanted to go. The girl liked the boy and wanted to appear cooperative and carefree to please him. When the boy asked the girl where she would like to go, she knew exactly where, but only said “I don’t care. Where would you like to go?” The boy insisted that he would like to go wherever she wanted to, but the girl never revealed her desire for fear the boy would not like it. In the end, the date ended with both upset that they could not please the other, and with neither’s wishes fulfilled.

Moral: A girl afraid to share her wish may not have it granted.

The Other Side

A father drove his daughter through a field they had not crossed before. The daughter looked out her window and exclaimed, “Look at the cows!” “Silly girl, those are not cows, those are antelope” the father corrected. Defensively, the daughter responded, “I know what cows are! Those are cows! How can you think they are antelope?” “They are antelope! Look at the way they are jumping!” “Jumping!? They are barely moving!” Frustrated with each other, each turned to look the other way, and discovered that the other was looking on the other side of the road.

Moral: Arguments with loved ones are usually based on misunderstandings.

The Violin

A well meaning child came home from a classical music concert and announced that he wanted very much to play the violin. He had seen a violinist play beautifully and simply, and the boy was confident that he could learn it and perform for others quickly. By assuring his parents that he would study hard, he convinced his parents to purchase the expensive violin and lessons. Very soon the boy tired of the lessons. They took longer than he thought, and he was not yet as good as the violinist he had seen. He stopped practicing, and his parents stopped giving him lessons. The violin went into a closet, right next to a dusty flute, trumpet and saxophone.

Moral: One who gives up too soon will never achieve one’s dreams.

The Movie

Once a boy walked up to a theater with his friends to look for a movie to watch. “Let’s watch that one!” cried one of the friends. The boy looked up at the listing. He knew he should not watch movies with that rating, but he so much wanted to be accepted by the others that he watched it with them anyway. The movie was much worse than he hoped it would be, and he felt awful through the whole movie.

Moral: Base your decisions on principles – not situations.

The Woodpecker and the Duck

A duck waddled through a field one day, when he heard a woodpecker approach him. “A duck is a waste of feathers,” said the woodpecker to the duck. He continued, “You are a bird, but you can’t fly, like me. I can fly high and fast, and I can make such a noise with my beak that people all around can hear me.” The duck made no response, but walked on and had a great day anyway.

Moral: Don’t sweat what you can’t control.

Idiot is a greek word for describing someone who wouldn’t vote because he was too preoccupied with private matters.

[Update 1/1/07] A humorous jibe at non-voters which I heard a while back.  But I just did a Google Search on it and found that it’s probably not all true.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 
I am the second counselor in the elders quorum in my ward.