Workshop Day 2

Today we pretty much finished the lecture part of the workshop and turned the participants loose on composing new songs.

Ginny and I both made a new friend. Ginny didn’t have to wash her shirt after spending time with her.

My new friend isn’t as cute, but he’s better behaved. He would like to have the next workshop up in the mountains, and so would we, health hazards notwithstanding.

Today’s crowd was about twenty, as people who couldn’t make it yesterday arrived today.

We got to hear world premiers of many songs, some solos, some in groups.

The day’s session began with an exhortation to keep the Bible most important and remember that the purpose of the music is to serve the Bible.

While the speaker spoke in Quechua (well, maybe more like Quechuañol, since we could catch Spanish words in there), he read the Bible in Spanish. Those with Quechua Bibles were older men who had probably been children when the Bible translators arrived, young adults when the New Testament was finished, and mature when the Bible was finished. What I heard made me think that when Quechuas hear the Bible in their own language, they hear it read haltingly and with difficulty, but when they hear it in Spanish, they hear it read fluently. Reading in Spanish and applying in Quechua must be a valuable skill for discipleship.

Reminding us that one does not need electric instruments to drown out singing was the accompaniment band for the morning singing. The bass drum and the field drum were OK, but we would have needed a choir of a couple of hundred to outdo the six saxophones.

The groups premiered their compositions, and all were well received. Between the altitude and lack of sleep I don’t have the oomph to edit the videos to post them. Maybe tomorrow or later.

After the session ended for the day, Ginny continued her work as computer consultant, this time expanding her role to guiding a fellow who works in the mountains through the intricacies of a music notation program that used to frustrate her to no end. The mountain air is doing her good!