I was having second thoughts about project Dhymn. I wondered if it would be heretical to mix secular musical styles with sacred hymns. But then I discovered that's just what Martin Luther did. At least some of the melodies for his compositions were lifted from popular bar tunes and folk songs of the time and reappropriated for worship.

Luther even quipped, "why should the devil have all the good tunes?"

The substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music is called contrafactum. Contrafactum was a common practice in the sixteenth century, as there was no concept of copyright law or intellectual property.

An update on the hand independence exercise: I'm gotten a lot quicker, but can only do it five six times in a row before flubbing up. Developing hand independence requires complete attention and awareness. My window of high awareness is short, even with daily meditation.

I'll work on expanding this window with more meditation and mindfulness.

Meditation Time bookstanding today: 0... the night is still young, update forthcoming Quality of meditation (out of 10): 0

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 20 minutes Quality of practice (out of 10): 6

---

You can follow this blog via @posertocomposer on twitter or by RSS in your favorite RSS feed reader (mine is NewsBlur). I also send out the occassional newsletter.