Janaro Music: The Next Generation?

John Janaro on acoustic guitar, around 1984

This young guitarist is recognizable to some of you, perhaps. Around 30 years ago, he had composed at least a dozen original songs, none of which he can remember a single note of today. We did record all of them once... on a cassette tape! I don't know where the tape is. Although I still love music in a variety of genres, I have been away from the guitar for a long time. Too long, perhaps?

I bought a lovely black Ibanez Les Paul copy when I was in high school. It lasted me through college, but then in graduate school I sold it. Graduate students would often sell anything that they couldn't read or eat, because they needed ... money, so that they could buy... books and food. Ah, but that's another story for another day.

Over the ensuing years I collected guitars of all kinds, and often had plans to "start playing seriously" again, but life would always take a different turn. I have a Telecaster copy that I bought right around the end of May in 1995. I got a practice amp too. I decided I was going to make a comeback that summer. What else was there to do for fun? I had no other plans. But then this young woman that I had always kinda liked decided to move to Virginia, and... well... there ended up being no time to play guitar. Then, of course, we got married and along came the kids and the stress and greater responsibilities of work and then I got sick, and....

New generation: Classy look

Actually, those kids may finally get me going again, since John Paul and the others are digging out my old equipment and messing around trying to play the guitars and invent music with a keyboard or even the electronic music composition applications like MuseScore that anyone can download onto their computer for free. John Paul can compose music on the computer and have the music actually play back according to tonal varieties that he chooses (which are supposed to be "instruments" like violin or flute, but don't really imitate those sounds). Programs like these have led to a lot of cheap music, but they also open up possibilities for the development of musical craftsmanship in new ways. They are their own kind of musical instruments, like the enormous Synthesizers of the 1970s that we used to gaze upon with such admiration and awe in magazines. They cost unimaginable sums of money and were the size of a wall. But John Paul has everything he needs right on his laptop.

Our family never did much for the kids with music lessons beyond choir (which has been a great thing for the girls). But John Paul, in particular, is a very creative kid who likes to experiment with whatever he has at hand, whether it's a ukulele or a dollar-store keyboard or computer programs that I don't have the patience to be bothered with (a good Montessori education helped foster the curiosity, capacity, and competence to explore all kinds of possibilities with ingenuity and perseverance).

For years, the kids wanted to play with the electric guitar from 1995 that had been sitting in dusty corners ever since it was bought. Sometimes I let them, and mostly they broke strings. John Paul has remained interested, and even though the electric guitar only has four strings right now, he still plunks on it. So I've decided to get a few new sets of strings. He can add some guitar sounds to the synthesized tracks that he's already "produced" with the computer (or maybe I will add a few licks, if he lets me).

The things kids can do creatively with music thanks to computer technology are beyond the wildest dreams of that guitarist from 30 years ago in the picture at the top (and we dreamed big in those days). Of course, nothing will ever replace the sound of the human voice, or the natural material resonance of traditional instruments. We could let the ease of technology ruin our musical art (and it's doing that a lot). But we can also shape technological capacities into genuine forms of artistic expression; we can elevate them to express and communicate beauty. We can also bring the ancient and the new together in beautiful ways. This too is being done today, though you have to look around to find it... or try to do it yourself. Why not?

Perhaps while I'm helping John Paul and the others, I might rediscover some of my old songs. Or compose some new ones.

It may turn out to be a very musical summer.

I'm in a "Real" Magazine...Two Months in a Row!

Well, what do you know! The Meditation for the Day for August 27 in Magnificat is by...gosh!...me! Well, there it is. No matter how much I do on the internet, everyone (including me) still gets excited to see something in print. Perhaps printed books and magazines won't become obsolete. You can hold a book in your hand, according to its own real dimensions. You actually have the thing. Is it the sense of touch? The feel of pages? I don't know. I know that I love the internet and electronic media and electronic books and magazines, but I also love "real" books and magazines and even dumb, unwieldy, oversized, print-staining newspapers! Maybe its just the transition between epochs. Or maybe not.

In any case, here is a selection from the "meditation"--in case you don't get the magazine IRL ("In Real Life," hahaha). Although I must say, I feel more and more that the "IRL" tag is maybe a bit silly and misleading. The internet is very real indeed, and a lot of real life is played out on these electronic connections. Miracles even happen through the internet. Its not a problem for God. But He needs us to surrender all of our media, and all of our lives, to the mysterious workings of His wisdom and love.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the meditation:

Jesus is the intimate companion of each and every human person, even those who do not know him. He knows each one of us; God the eternal Son of the Father unites himself to my humanity and to your humanity. He lives in us and suffers in us and through us. He accompanies us through our companionship with one another and reaches out to others through our witness. 

Jesus knows who I am and who he wills me to be. He knows the secret of why I was created. He knows my sins. He knows how to heal me of them, how to draw me to himself, how to make me the adopted son that I am meant to be in him for all eternity.

And so my joys and sufferings are his infinitely wise, uniquely crafted, and tender love through which he shapes my life and leads me to my destiny. How little I really understand about my destiny. How little I understand about the eternal life that means belonging to him for ever.

We must remember every day that God is with us and that He draws us toward our true identity, which is to reflect His eternal glory in that unique way that corresponds to each of us as a person created in His image and likeness—a reflection that we do not yet understand but that He sees and knows.

We ought to dwell upon this and call it frequently to mind. Those little prayers throughout the day are worth so much: “Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I trust in you. Come, Holy Spirit.” No matter the storms and the fury; the depths of our lives are not solitude. At the heart of life, of every moment of life, there is companionship with the Merciful God.