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Church-Hacker #16: Impromptu Ward Choir
November 3, 2011 by Kyle M
BCC reader Joanne has an easy way to fill out too-short sacrament meetings (we're assuming there is such a thing):
("The Holy Ghost led them…to sing" — Moroni 6:9)
When the Sacrament Meeting talks finish unexpectedly early, why not fill the time with impromptu music instead of impromptu speaking? The person conducting Sacrament Meeting could invite all willing congregants to come forward and sing a hymn of their choosing as a group. Those folks would have one minute to quickly decide how to sing the hymn (1st verse unison, 2nd verse men, etc.).
Another alternative would be for the bishopric and music chair to ask (in advance) a few versatile, confident musicians to prepare a few simple backup musical numbers for these situations.
Sounds good, right? I like the idea of an impromptu ward choir. The organist in my ward (the incomparable D. Fletcher), has been known to take to the podium before the closing hymn and organize a simple arrangement for it. Last week's example, for Adam-Ondi-Ahman: All versus sung in unison, men sing the 2nd verse, women the 3rd, listen for the key change before the last verse, and repeat the last line three times.
Sometimes D. will also organize an impromptu hymn as his testimony on Fast Sundays. These off-the-cuff musical moments are often the highlight of my Sabbath.
Any similar experiences with impromptu music in your ward? (If not, you should totally move into mine.)
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Once a few years and a few wards ago the speakers weren't able to make it to church, so the bishop had us sing the entire time. Anyone could stand up and say what song they wanted us to sing and why, and then we'd sing one verse. Best sacrament meeting ever, especially because it was interesting to learn something a little different about various ward members because of the songs they chose.
I'm having to comment anonymously here, since some people in the Bloggernacle know me and members of my ward in real life.
The problem with this idea is that you need an organist who can play all the hymns. (At tempo!) Not every ward has a D. Fletcher. (Sadly!) My ward's current organist is kind of in the category of beginner (to be generous), and the idea in the post would be a painful experience for all concerned.
But if you have a good organist, go for it!
"The problem with this idea is that you need an organist who can play all the hymns. (At tempo!)"
I think most the wards that suffer from a tempo problem (and I believe the vast majority do have such a problem) could fix it with the simple presence and regular use of a metronome.
If the organist isn't talented enough, you could probably substitute a piano and pianist instead. Most chapels have a piano, and talented pianists are a lot more common than talented organ players.
Ardis E. Parshall says:
I'd consider bribing speakers to end early …
esodhiambo says:
I cannot imagine who in my ward would choose to be a part of an "impromptu" choir, other than regular choir members, and not even all of those. It would undoubtedly be a very sad group. Why not simply have the entire congregation sing? I love D. Fletcher's instructions, and a chorister could do the very same thing.
There have been a handful of times where I have had a Bishopric member get up and say something to the effect of, "I would like to invite all of the men present to join me on the stand for a suprise special musical number." Some went up only because of social pressure or because their wives or mothers forced them, but those were all good experiences, at least for me.
I agree with the tempo problem issue. Most wards sing/play the hymns way too slow. My wife always mutters under her breath about how she is tired of singing "funeral dirges"
As a pianist, when I'm struggling with tempo problems it's not because I lack a metronome (or a decent conductor who should be functioning as a metronome) so much I was told, "Play this hymn now," and I'm sight-reading it as I go. I'm not a good sight-reader where hymns are concerned.
john f. says:
Looks like D. is in good company — Elder Caussé of the Seventy will sometimes wrap up his talk and then head over to the piano for an impromptu recital. He did it at our Stake Conference a couple of years ago. (Or maybe it was last year.)
Bonjo says:
Our ward organist has complained of the slow tempo, but the chorister gives her the stink eye when/if she tries to speed it up.
Bad idea. Nothing worse for a missionary than bringing a prime investigator family to church and ending up with hymns like "If You Could Hie To Kolob", "Praise To The Man", and "O My Father" all in the same meeting. Great hymns, hard to explain.
Our ward used to have "Hymnbook Choirs", where anyone who wanted to sing went to the front and sang from the hymnbook. We got instructions from the Stake to knock it off.
I'm already of the opinion tht we have way too much music as it is. I'd be thrilled with elimination of the rest hymn and the closing hymn. We tend to do music so badly as a church, it often seems that it would be better to skip it altogether.
I love this idea! I think all the other versions mentioned would be great, too. A ward could just choose what the best would be for them. I wonder how this would go over in my own ward, particularly the organist's musical testimony. Based on my experience I'm not sure some of my past super-strict bishops would have allowed it, but I'd like to think so, because I think it would be lovely.
I have to echo Janell's comment, too–being asked to play when you're not a good sight-reader is really hard.
Two experiences here:
1. We used to have a high councilor with a beautiful voice. He would regularly include a song as part of his HC talk when he spoke. He simply step away from the mic, sing his number and then return to the mic.
2. We had a high councilor responsible for music a few years ago who was charged with arranging for special music in PH leadership and stake PH meetings. As often as not, he'd stand in the meeting and say something like, "All brethren with birthdays in January, May or August are now invited to come forward and sing…" People were pretty good natured, and enough brothers sang parts so that it sounded kind of interesting, and no one had to miss time away from home to rehearse.
Rameumptom says:
For me the only problem would be when the only thing worse than the speakers' talks is the singing voices of the ward members…..
Peter LLC says:
I hear you, Ram. The obvious solution is to cut the talks and singing out altogether so we can get to the Sunday School (or home, as the case might be).
Paul 2 says:
This is a great idea that was tried one time when there were no talks. However too much music is no longer allowed.
After conferring with our area authority, who agreed with him, our stake president has forbidden the singing of more than 4 hymns during a sacrament meeting except for the primary program. After a several emails and a one hour meeting we were finally able to obtain exceptions for a Christmas and Easter program. I guess it depends how one reads the handbook.
David Elliott says:
One of the wards we share our building with occasionally presents its "no-guilt choir", which never rehearses. (Hence, no guilt over missing rehearsals.) Usually there are about 20 singers who can carry a tune and sing parts. It works for that ward but would never fly in ours because we simply don't have the musical talent to pull it off.
"Our ward organist has complained of the slow tempo, but the chorister gives her the stink eye when/if she tries to speed it up." (9)
One of the most important skills a ward organist can learn is to figure out if the music director knows about correct tempo for congregational music, and if not, how to ignore said music director.
I personally liked each of the women who directed music while I played the organ, but I certainly didn't care what they thought about the tempo! They got used to me soon enough. And so did the congregation. But it took just one week of a substitute organist for the congregation to slow down to the Normal Mormon Tempo (NMT) so every time I was off for a week or more, I had to retrain the congregation and director to sing at correct tempo. It's an ongoing process. And for those of us who are not operating at the level of D. Fletcher, it takes a metronome, so the music director and congregation don't cause the tempo to drag.
And, like several people have mentioned, you can substitute a piano, but you need to check with your music committee beforehand if you're going to try anything like this. The rest of the music committee could make sure that the pianist or organist wasn't saying yes under duress (due to social expectation) but didn't really have the skill level to sight read in front of an audience.
Great, a metronome. Now there's a device to help dispel the feeling of everyone being required to be in lock-step with the leaders.
CS Eric says:
I am our ward organist. For some reason, the bishopric has chosen not to call anyone with any musical skill as the chorister for the last two times, so they have no idea what the tempo of ths hymns should be. For this reason, the first app I got for my smartphone was a metronome. I set it on silent mode, and I follow as it flashes a light to the tempo. Sometimes it takes until the third verse before the entire congregation catches up–but if it's a song like "I Believe in Christ," you still have half the song to go.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Impromptu "choirs" are a terrible idea. Impromptu congregational singing is great, but impromptu choir sends the message that music requires no work or planning or investment of any kind–it's a message every choir director has to fight mightily to make any decent music happen in Sacrament Meeting. We have a terrible, terrible idea that we can be spiritually edified without doing any work–it's why Deseret Book sells so much crap, why we are among the foremost ritual butchers of Handel's _Messiah_ every year, why we hang cheap reproductions of Del Parsons' Jesus in all of our chapels, and why Catholics and Anglicans will be in charge of literature, art, and music in the Millennium.
Ha. I attended a hair-raising performance of Messiah last year. I will not name the poor, benighted stake which put on the production. They finished off the mind-numbing evening with a rousing rendition of "I Believe in Christ." It would have turned your hair gray, Kristine.
Someone different is in charge of the event this year, but I do not think I have the strength of mind to subject myself to a similar painful experience. (Why oh why don't they do an evening of carols??)
and why Catholics and Anglicans will be in charge of literature, art, and music in the Millennium.
Well, yes–Bruce Springsteen was raised Catholic, but I don't think that's the sole reason he'll be the boss.
Ben Park says:
Gee, Kristine, why don't you tell us how you really feel?
"I'm already of the opinion tht we have way too much music as it is. I'd be thrilled with elimination of the rest hymn and the closing hymn."
It really is true that if you live long enough, you'll hear or read just about everything imaginable.
Amen Kristine!!!
JamesM says:
What Kristine said. Our ward has had struggles making choir happen and went the "insta-choir" route (they WERE calling it the "no-guilt choir" until we moved in and basically demanded at least a name change)…mercifully got thrown out recently after a change in bishops.
I was in the Arlington. MA ward during college, and this idea would have worked wonderfully there. (The Relief Society used to delay starting their meeting just so they could listed to the Priesthood opening song, which was sung a capella.) Oh, the memories.
It would not work as well in some of the other wards I've attended, but I like the idea of time filler at the end being music instead of unprepared, non-volunteer talks and/or testimonies.
Why we would need time filler in the first place is a different issue . . .
But Ray, years of thinking that was enough in the Arlington ward means they'll never manage Bach's b-minor mass for Easter again. Raw talent is useless without rehearsal.
Kristine, if that was the ONLY choral music, sure – but if it happened only occasionally? In that ward, I'd have no problem with it as an exceptional occurrence.
I never even hinted about it being "enough" – and I don't read in the OP that it is being suggested as a substitute for regular choir performance or other special music. The question is: "Should we sing more or talk more when a Sacrament Meeting ends early?" That's totally different than: "Should we do away with prepared choral music?"
Again, why this even is a question (why we can't just end early, which I have seen done in multiple wards in my lifetime), is a completely different question – with a fairly simple answer.
Mark B. says:
But, Frank, the one place where the church must follow its leaders in lockstep is in congregational singing.
As to Michael, he and anyone else who in the future refers to anything sung in Sacrament meeting as a "rest hymn" should be excommunicated on the spot.
And, I agree with everything Kristine said. Right down to the 23 O's.
Wait. Who has a problem with a "too short sacrament meeting"? The best way to become instantly loved by your ward is to be the last speaker and end early! Why screw that up for someone? If you are going to do this idea at least plan it in. Put it in the announcements as a surprise and then have fun watching as the potential insta-choir starts trying to coordinate over their Iphones and sign language without trying to distract the other speakers. :)
I am also with the complaints of hymns sung well below the marked speeds. It is the one area where I would love correlation and strict obedience to actually work. If you believe the hymns were inspired and the hymn book itselt is inspired *for the love all that is holy* please believe the tempo ranges are COMMANDMENTS not GUIDELINES. I advice making a special point of thanking any chorister or organist who stubbornly keeps us within the marked range and lavish praise if they dare play at the upper tempo range. In my experience, almost all songs sung in the Church are sung at least 25% below the lowest marked tempo.
The best choir director I have ever seen was a former professional musician in a student branch that frankly had drawn from the low-end of the musical gene pool. He was great because he chose music that fell within the marginal abilities of said choir. He made below average Mormon signers sound better than all those others wards with great singers who get a little too ambitious or overestimate their abilities. As much as I would love to see an expansion of the hymn book outside of its narrow, parochial selections, I also shudder at the thought of watching some overachieving soloist butcher a black gospel rendition of Amazing Grace twice a year.
Kristine #20 wrote: "and why Catholics and Anglicans will be in charge of literature, art, and music in the Millennium."
Except for in the seedy and dark corners of the Mormon Celestial Realm, where we will be haunted by mediocre singing for a thousand years, because we never succeeded in creating quality choirs (with the exception of the MTC, but then they won't be in the seedy and dark corners).
Hilary says:
Back in my old Single's Ward, we did something along these lines a few times with congregational singing . . . people could randomly go up to the podium, bear a short testimony of what a certain hymn meant to them, then pick one verse and then we'd, as a congregation, would sing it. It was AMAZING every single time I experienced it. LOVE it.
We used to do something like this in my ward in college, a member would say their favorite hymn and why, person would play piano cause organ is too complicated, congregation would sing. We all loved it! Moved to New York, mentioned it to my Brooklyn Ward, we did it, LOVED IT! Moved back to Utah, mentioned it here, was told that they had received a letter from Salt Lake saying this type of meeting is innappropriate. Each of these meetings were the most spiritual meetings I have ever attended. My conclusion? I must have an innappropriate testimony.
I am not a great singer. I like to sing because it brings the spirit. It saddens me that so many look down on people whose singing doesn't meet their standards. Especially when some of those same people are so quick to be offended by anyone they precieve as judgemental or margializing
No, rah, those metronome markings cannot be commandments, because in some cases even the top of the range is too slow.
Nobody, Annon, is "looking down" on people whose singing doesn't meet their standards. What people on this thread have objected to is the acceptance of mediocrity in choral performance–a crowd of half-hearted singers making a hash of a beautiful piece of music is an insult to the composers and to their Creator.
Thanks, everyone. Ray summed up my idea in a few words: "Should we sing more or talk more when a Sacrament Meeting ends early?" I say we should sing — anything but calling up missionaries or auxiliary/priesthood leaders to bear testimony. Maybe ward music chairs can work out the details from there based on their ward personality and talent?
What about the alternative idea in the OP — the bishopric and music chair ask (in advance) one or more talented musicians to prepare a simple musical number for these situations — never knowing when they will be called upon. Something simple but well done? Kristine, does this still send the message that music requires no work?
How do you know they are half hearted? Some people are more talented than others. Who are you to judge? Only talented people get to particpate in church activities? Should we exclude people from church because they don't meet our standards? Or just tell them to sit down and shut up? Who would want to make more than a half hearted effort if they knew they were just going to be looked down and critized?
Glass Ceiling says:
I think church choir should be a calling. There is nothing worse than some well-meaning soul who shows up for the first time the day before showtime and is off and flat. And ruins the choir.
What is wrong with a little excellence every once in a while?
it's a series of tubes says:
a crowd of half-hearted singers making a hash of a beautiful piece of music is an insult to the composers and to their Creator
Or perhaps, more charitably, "Jesus listening can hear the songs [the singers] cannot sing".
An insult to their Creator? Puh-leeze.
I agree – we should strive for it. Spending time listening to the choir in Lincoln Cathedral, and playing the piano in the chapterhouse, were some of the most transcendent experiences of my life. The chapterhouse has exquisite acoustics (you can see this room in the Da Vinci Code movie where they are opening the cryptex).
I think we could do with a bit less arrogance and snobbery, though.
Annon (35)–that's EXACTLY why I think more (lots more!!) congregational singing would be great. I think everyone should sing regardless of what their voice sounds like. I'm not a particularly good singer myself. My only objection is to calling a group of volunteers up to sing and calling it a "choir" because it sends the message that choir rehearsals are a waste of time, and there's no need to actually prepare. I think the question of talent should be essentially irrelevant to participation in music at the ward level (except for directors and pianists/organists, where some level of training is necessary for a basic level of functioning). I AM a snob, but not the kind that only ever wants to hear professionals making music :)
Joanne (38)–Having a couple of musical numbers in one's back pocket at all times is a strategy which should be adopted by all music chairs and bishoprics everywhere.
tubes: If you don't think it is an insult to God to do less than one's very best, especially when it is something that we do in the name of His Only Begotten Son, then you have quite a different conception of God than I have.
And, Annon: I didn't pass judgment on anyone. Go read my comment again.
I had a Bishop once who wanted to ask the Stake President if it was OK to call someone to NOT sing in the choir.
series of tubes–what Mark B. said. No one is condemning people for not having great voices, or even for ending up with a mediocre result, but for not putting in any effort. Jesus may hear the songs we cannot sing, but he still might not like listening to the ones we don't bother to practice.
This is good for some chuckles. Do you consider all the ways you, Mark B., personally fail to do less than your very best to be an insult to God? If so, at least you are intellectually consistent. If not, well, then your posts simply look like arrogance.
I suspect God spends less time being insulted on his own behalf by the failings of his children, and more time wishing they were more charitable toward one another – but then clearly, I have quite a different conception of God than you do.
what Mark B. said.
Please, anything but. The world he inhabits would be hell.
Seriously? Hell? For thinking that a choir should practice?
It seems like there's some sort of misunderstanding here.
Kyle M says:
Ward choir is pretty far down on the list of things Jesus wishes I devoted more time to, Kristine.
I'll defend minimal choir practices, and even minimal effort. And I'll get impatient with any choir director who expects me to take time away from my other Sunday responsibilities to learn a challenging piece, when a one-rehearsal piece would have sufficed.
I'm a philistine, I know. But I'm also a great sight-reader so this is a moot point anyway.
"Ward choir is pretty far down on the list of things Jesus wishes I devoted more time to, Kristine. "
Well, as long as you're sure.
I'm a bad enough hometeacher and YM president that I can be fairly confident…
It's been years since I ever thought about metronome markings for the hymns, so I thought that the speed fetish so many are eager to champion might be a little bit an over-reaction, since I have known about as many song leaders who were really hyped up or eager to get the hymn over with as those who were letting everyone get an early start on their naps.
But I just went through about 100 of the first lines of hymns with the metronome markings and the complaints are absolutely right. No one should take those markings seriously. Not one in ten results in anything near what could be called a musical performance. Sweet Hour of Prayer at 42 to the dotted quarter? Torture. It can barely be redeemed at 63. How Firm a Foundation is a plodding disaster at 100 to the quarter. I would play it closer to 176. Most are not quite that far off, and some, like Sweet is the Work, He is Risen, and From All That Dwell below the Skies are about right at the top of the range. Best just to ignore them, however, and let the character of the music and text and the size of the congregation dictate the tempo. Of course, if you are just learning, and cannot play in time, the metronome is a useful tool.
Amen, Bill.
"He is Risen" and "For the Strength of the Hills" are probably my favorite hymns at a fast tempo, and my least favorite at a slow tempo.
I have heard some stately hymns taken at a pace that rendered them almost frivolous, but apparently it is much more widespread to err on the other side.
Just My Opinion says:
About the "rest" hymn: Our bishop used to announce that we would have a "rest" hymn, and I guess someone must have mentioned that we shouldn't used that term. So he announced (on two different Sundays) that we would sing a "congressional" hymn. I think most people completely missed it, but someone (the same someone?) must have mentioned it to the bishop, because now he's back to calling it a "rest" hymn. Too bad. I rather liked the idea of "congressional."
Singing hymns faster than the recommended tempo at church? Unimaginable. I haven't sung a hymn in church at even 80% of the slowest recommended tempo for months now. It doesn't matter how easy the song is to play–they're always played way too slow.
I admit I was spoiled in my last ward, with an organist who actually knew what he was doing. The contrast is jarring. Music is one of the few true highlights of church for me. But it's not nearly as much as a highlight when it's done so poorly.
As a missionary, small groups of us would get together in public places and sing (usually 4 to 6 missionaries at a time), a cappella. We found that it was always easier to stay in tune if we sang at a fast tempo, so we sang at the highest recommended tempo or higher. But that was purely intentional, We never sang that fast if we had a piano or organ to keep us from going flat.
My sister was in a ward in Southern California that sang "Congressional" hymns for years. Too bad they couldn't have sung "Ye Simple Souls Who Stray" every week.
As soon as we start having "rest" prayers, I'll sign up to sing "rest" hymns for the rest of my life.
"Best just to ignore [metronome markings], however, and let the character of the music and text and the size of the congregation dictate the tempo." (53)
Do you play organ, Bill? Have you ever accompanied a congregation? Or worked with a music director? And if so, have you done so with people with varying levels of musical skill and training?
(It doesn't sound like it.)
John Mansfield says:
You want fast enough hymns? Have a teenager lead your music, one who is a very good violinist and also placed third in the state track meet running the 1600 meters in 4:23. I had to concentrate to sing when such a lad conducted our ward; if my attention wavered, I would lose the beat, have to stop, and pick a place to jump back in.
NewlyHousewife says:
"Last week's example, for Adam-Ondi-Ahman: All versus sung in unison, men sing the 2nd verse, women the 3rd, listen for the key change before the last verse, and repeat the last line three times."
Thinking and singing are two very different functions that could result in blood-stained ugly carpet due to head explosions. Though it might help ward moral.
Anon–you've SERIOUSLY misunderstood Bill. I'll let him correct your misperception if he wants to, but your question is pretty hilarious.
Why hilarious? When I played the organ, it was a constant struggle to keep the tempo up. The music directors would get slower and slower by the verse, and it's hard to keep ignoring them, since I was trained to watch them, and the congregation would also tend to slow down as they sang and so the organ had to constantly struggle against both the director and congregation. Perhaps other people have had different experiences or worked in wards with people who knew how to direct music and sing.
And with our current organist, the songs tend to be played well below the bottom recommendation, and with a very random rhythm, so the idea of even being able to consider things like the actual content of the music sounds wildly utopian. But perhaps I've been a bit frustrated by my experience in a small, musically limited ward and stake.
gst says:
Please consider that metrognomes aren't an option for those of us that live in rural areas without access to magical dwarves.
In other words, the reality of church music on the ground more often consists of helping musicians get to the point of some competency, and it can be a difficult or impossible task. We have an excellent and professional organist attending our ward, and this organist has offered free training to the current organist, but has been repeatedly refused.
So, Bill's words rankled a bit. I wish our ward was at a place where tempo could be decided by such considerations, but tempo is currently being decided by incompetency.
(And saying something like that about an actual person who I am friends with in real life and who has a new baby and two other church callings and whose husband has a demanding new career and is elder's quorum president is why I'm commenting as "anon" here.)
I think he was just talking about how he sets the tempo when he is playing.
Now, gst, when did the magic dwarves abandon the countryside and take up city living? Some Great Society relocation program that's still going strong?
D. Fletcher says:
I guess I need to weigh-in about tempos for hymns. In my experience, some hymns magically come to life when played *slower* than usual. "He is Risen" is one of these; also "Lead, Kindly Light." Playing something at a slow tempo actually requires more focused energy and concentration, not less, particularly from the chorister. The problem with hymn-singing in most meetings is a lack of attention and energy, not tempo. P.S. I'm not a trained organist, but I am a trained pianist. I have never used a metronome in my life, and I wouldn't know how to choose a tempo from a tempo marking in the score, which I usually think of as a useful tool for learning the music, nothing more.
For a wonderful new experience, try "I Have Work Enough To Do," #224, in solemn and reverent manner, at about 60 = half note.
I can see how my phrase was misinterpreted. Letting circumstances "dictate" was meant not in the sense of ceding control, but in the sense of taking them into consideration. I mentioned the size of the congregation because generally one would want to play a little faster for a smaller group (also for an inexperienced group – a big well-trained group such as the tabernacle choir can sing really slowly and sometimes still sound good). And I mentioned sensitivity to the text and character of the music to elevate them above rigid and arbitrary guidelines for selecting tempos. Sometimes one might want to alter the tempo within a hymn, playing a final verse more broadly, for example, in conjunction with a registration change. A short interlude can prepare the new tempo; who wants to plow through "And should we die before our journey's through" at exactly the previous tempo as if nothing was happening?
But as you note, Anonymous, these higher order considerations don't really apply to incompetents who are struggling just to avoid any obvious mistakes.
Thanks, Bill. I really didn't mean to be offensive. I guess I'm just feeling a little sensitive right now with Christmas coming up, and the thought of singing all the Christmas carols v e r y slowly.
Here's a little tip: the tempo that is set by the organist and chorister should be kept up by them, even if the congregation lags behind. There is a tendency to wait for the singers, and this will always, always make the tempo get slower and slower, particularly with organ accompaniment. And when the organist is waiting for the chorister, who is waiting for the congregation, it can be deadly. But if you find a tempo and stick to it, the congregation will find it too, and you will all be together. When this happens, even a slower tempo works out well.
Being late can have a certain beauty, which makes it important for the tempo setters to not wait for the straggler to catch up. He can't straggle if they won't leave him half a beat behind. Think of Willie Nelson, or dancing a waltz.
Or Ives's Little Star of Bethlehem, which writes in that effect.
I'm not going to take a side on the impromptu choir issue, but I would like to use the opportunity for a plea: please come support the ward choir, sing with us, and commune with us. And bring your children, if you need to. We love children. And we love music, and we love making beautiful music, which is sometimes beyond the realm of the hymnbook. If the brethren would recognize the importance of music in our meetings (and can you imagine a meeting without music at all?) and mention in General Conference how much they love and appreciate the ward choirs, I think people might want to come more often. It's a pleasure singing with other people, and a pleasure giving that harmony away to others to hear and appreciate. Music is a glorious kind of communion.
(Music is used to wake people up between speakers, a meeting without music would be a glorified nap. Depending on the topic of the day it might be better to have no music and let the people sleep.)
No amount of ward choir GC praising is going to make me stay an extra hour.
What's really sad is that the scripture quoted in the opening post is ignored. We follow a regimented schedule, often forbidding people to sing instead of speak. When we have the Spirit of Christ like we ought to have, our meetings will be where we meet, not where we hold preplanned, preapproved sessions.
AndrewJDavis says:
Back to the OP: In my last ward in Connecticut, I would lead an impromptu choir in singing hymns as prelude to Sacrament meeting a few times a month. This was in addition to me leading the actual ward choir. Our impromptu group was to specifically invite those who's callings made it difficult (think NewlyHousewife's (#76) comment) to come to regular rehearsals. I loved it, and people in the congregation actually shut up during the prelude, which was great!
But, the only way music will get better is if the Bishops get better training. They should obey the handbook: ensure NO OTHER MEETINGS are EVER held during ward choir. They should ensure people called to musical callings are getting any required training. They should set the example and SHUT UP during prelude (and in my opinion postlude to, but that may be asking too much). They should prepare and plan for music far better than 80% of bishops I've seen actually do. And they need to delegate most (if not all) musical decisions to people who actually know something about music. Such as: knowing which organists/pianists can play all the hymns and which can't, so that you can ask someone to play a hymn on the spot without putting too much stress on people. Delegate that responsibility to a competent ward music chairperson, as no bishop I've ever had except my dad knew enough about the musical talents in the ward to know who could play on the spot.
LRC says:
Some of our best ward traditions have included an all-favorite hymns Sacrament Meeting where the organist is on the spot to play whatever's comes up that day.
But another fun tradition has been a summertime "favorite hymns prelude" where folks submit their favorite hymns one week and the organist/music people choose 3-4 for the congregation to sing together before church the next week. The organist gets time to practice and the congregation comes in early in hopes of singing their favorite hymn.
And, in addition to the hints D. Fletcher gives about not following the congregation, if the person waving a hand at the audience is waving too slowly, distracting you from playing at the right tempo, slide the hymnbook over so you don't have to look at the waving and then play on. Will someone complain that you're playing too loud and fast? Probably. Invite them to take your place at the bench next week.
LRC: I have done the "favorite hymns prelude" with good results. I even got permission to print in the bulletin some background about the hymns (or the person whose favorite hymns are being played that day).
Joanne, that's a great idea for a future Church-hacker…including background info on the hymns in the bulletin. Love it!
I used to do that every week–I think I posted a couple of them at T&S back in the day. I also used to play music during that awkward trickling-in time when I was teaching gospel doctrine–classical settings of the texts we were studying, or related ones, and I'd give out a sheet of notes about the music for them to read, along with a few "must-read" verses from the reading assignment (which, occasionally, people would not have read in its entirety ;) )
Martine says:
D. Fletcher, I figured you must be the D. Fletcher who will be playing my ward's organ on 11/27! Enjoy! I'll take the day off and let Kathryn lead the singing.
I had some more thoughts about tempos. Though I agree that the tempos in many wards are on the slow side, I'm not sure this is the problem. The real problem is lack of energy. When the hymn-singing becomes rote or ritualized, that tends to make the music go slower, mostly from a lack of interest. Many musicians, choristers, and singers in the congregation feel the need to "pick it up," to go faster, to instill some energy in the music and hence, the meeting. But simply changing the tempo may not fix the problem. Many orchestra conductors on Broadway and elsewhere know that a show tends to get faster over time and many performances, because a faster tempo seems to have more energy. A good conductor knows that his job is to keep the tempo from getting too fast, because if it gets too fast, the details are lost, the dancers can't do all their steps, the sixteenth notes become a blur, etc. Faster tempos encourage mistakes. My experience playing the organ for good choristers in our Ward, is that they always want to go fast, faster, but this obliterates the details of the music. Meanwhile, a slow tempo with real energy and concentration can be very beautiful. Some of the anthems in our hymnbook are always taken too fast, such as "Now Let Us Rejoice." I've heard some people say, it should be in "one," that is, one beat per measure (it's written 3/4). I think this is wrong, it isn't that fast, and taking it that fast pretty much ruins it.
I'll be playing the organ in the Yale Ward sacrament meeting on November 27, Martine, if that's your ward.
Can we make nominations for "intstructional / educational comment of the week / month"?
If so, I nominate #84.
Bro. B. on Handbook Changes: Music at Church
Not Eugene, not even close. on Kristine Haglund, Eugene England and the Possibility of Mormon Liberalism


The Maryland Department of Natural Resources invites everyone to Fort Frederick State Park 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 4 and 5 to experience what life was like for the American soldier through history, from the founding of Maryland to the 20th century.
The military history of Fort Frederick spans the 18th and 19th centuries. Building upon that legacy, "The American Soldier through the Ages" program will provide visitors with an up close and personal look at historical military gear, uniforms and weapons.
Demonstrations will highlight those who served in the colonial militia of the 1600s, French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, American Indian Wars of the 1870s, Spanish American War, World War II and Vietnam War. "This unique program allows our visitors to learn about the life of America's soldiers since colonial times – how things changed and how in many ways they have stayed the same," Ranger Rob Ambrose said.
Cost to attend is $3 per vehicle for residents and $5 for nonresidents. Visitors should also be advised that disabled access is available, although most of the activities are on grassy areas.
Events begin with a flag raising ceremony over the historic fort, which was built in 1756.


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Q: Asymtotic behavior of ratio of integrals (expectation of some random variable) From the Matlab numerical experiments, I could observe:
$$I(\theta)\equiv \frac{I_1(\theta)}{I_2(\theta)}\equiv \frac{\int_0^{\infty}x^k e^{\theta x-x^{1+k}}dx}{\int_0^{\infty}e^{\theta x-x^{1+k}}dx}$$
converges to a finite limit as $\theta\rightarrow \infty $ whenever $0<k<1$, whereas $I(\theta)$ diverges to infinity as $\theta\rightarrow \infty $ when $k\geq 1$. I really want to verify this observation analytically.
Notice that $I(\theta)=E[X^k]$, where $X$ has a probability density $$\frac{e^{\theta x-x^{1+k}}}{\int_0^{\infty}e^{\theta x-x^{1+k}}dx}$$ on the support $[0,\infty)$.
When $k=1$, $I(\theta)=E[X]$ is an expected value of truncated normal random variable on $[0,\infty)$. In particular, when $0<k<1$, the density decays slower than the normal density function.
Any help would be very much appreciated! Thank you.

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I was searching for a Property and found this listing (MLS® #98664110). Please send me more information regarding Tbd Valley Circle, Hagerman, ID, 83332. Thank you!
I'd like to request a showing of Tbd Valley Circle, Hagerman, ID, 83332 (MLS® #98664110). Thank you!


text:
News: William Penn appoints Gokulnath Subramanian as chief business officer
AUTHORMamta Sharma
WEDNESDAY07DEC 2022
1KREADS
William Penn appoints Gokulnath Subramanian as chief business officer
Subramanian has over a decade of rich experience in leadership roles, including head – strategic partnerships, Udaan, brand head – Mebaz, and retail head – Creyate, Arvind td.
William Penn, India's leading brand for premium writing instruments and lifestyle accessories, has appointed Gokulnath Subramanian as its chief business officer.
He will be responsible for driving business growth and delivering scale at William Penn.
"His vision for William Penn is to create a multi-channel house of brands for accessories as well as develop in-house brands," the company said in a statement.
"We are delighted to welcome Gokulnath Subramanian to the leadership team. With his remarkable experience and our aligned vision, I'm confident that William Penn will scale new heights. As we celebrate 20 years of embarking on the journey to becoming India's premier destination for fine writing instruments and lifestyle accessories, we are all set to expand our world-class product portfolio across markets to deliver memorable customer experiences," said Nikhil Ranjan, MD, William Penn.
"There's tremendous potential for this exceptional company to not only continue its stellar evolution, but also to create greater value in consumers' lives. I look forward to working with the team to meet the company vision of bringing the world's finest writing instruments and lifestyle accessories to India," added Subramanian, a gold medallist, with an MBA in Retail from Birla Institute of Management Technology, Greater Noida.
The Bengaluru-based company has been instrumental in bringing some of the most renowned international brands, such as Montblanc, Cross, Sheaffer, Pelikan and Sailor, to name a few, under one roof, for the Indian customer.
Earlier this year, William Penn acquired Sheaffer, the 110-year-old iconic American pen company and has taken over Sheaffer's manufacturing, marketing and retailing in over 70 countries.
Topics: Appointments, C-Suite
Mamta Sharma is the Associate Editor at People Matters. You can reach out to her at mamta.sharma@gopeoplematters.com
NEXT STORY: Job scam: Cyber-fraudsters offer aspirant job at Amazon, dupe her of 3 lakh
Also Read: CMS IT Services appoints Sanjeev Singh as CEO and Managing Director
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text:
Home 焦點展覽 A Thread of Light I Colin Reid with 3 generations of British kiln-cast glass artists.
A Thread of Light I Colin Reid with 3 generations of British kiln-cast glass artists.
Curator Andrew Brewerton
Only a few decades ago, just being able to cast glass was enough to excite interest, and questions that involved deeper creative motives were somewhat overshadowed in the headlong search for novel ways of merely shaping the material. We are now a couple of generations down the line from those heady, exciting and naïve days, though most of the pioneers of the studio movement are, happily, still with us…
Now that the studio-glass movement is in its third generation, it is increasingly common for established artists to accept aspiring ones as studio assistants. This has a profound effect on those lucky enough to benefit from such an experience. It is a far cry from the early days, when very little information was available and the little that did exist had to be gained by constant experiment.[1]
[Keith Cummings]
I think perhaps ideas are permanent. You know, the way they get handed down.[2]
[Richard Long]
Keith Cummings' reflections on the now global phenomenon of the studio-glass movement in contemporary art, provide a useful introduction to A Thread of Light: Colin Reid and three generations of British kiln-cast glass. They assemble at first-hand and in active, living memory a generational perspective on the emergence of kiln-cast studio glass since the 1960s in a very British context.
Our second epigraph, from the British 'land artist' Richard Long, was his response to a question from the audience, "what, if anything, would you say is permanent in art?", at a public conversation with fellow artist Chris Drury at Dartington (UK) in October 2005. Richard Long is here I think affirming the intangible power of cultural transmission, extension and renewal in philosophy and at the level of individual or collective art practise.
The artists gathered in this exhibition are in these terms closely linked across three generations of thinking and making in the medium of cast glass, in a particular place (the UK) at a certain point in time (over the last sixty years). With a series of three publications[3], Keith Cummings (b.1940) has established the technical, historical and contemporary dimensions of this movement, and of his own pioneering practise – exemplified in this Liuli China Museum show by Reflect (2017). Cummings' work is both the original fuse or element and also a continuing source of illumination in this bright thread of vitreous light across three generations of British artists in kiln-cast glass. His quietly self-effacing influence since the 1960s and, significantly for studio glass artists in China since the 1990s, both through his studio practise and through his teaching, is of far-reaching historical significance.
The artists represented in the current exhibition do not however comprise an aesthetic 'movement' in the formal sense of that term. They have no manifesto. There is no 'house style'. The extraordinary diversity of their work traces the individual pathways they have followed. Even so they are working in an identifiable tradition, exemplified by their choice of materials and techniques, philosophy and lifestyle, in which the work is not easily distinguishable from the life, This observation is clearly evident in the sense that Keith Cummings traces it to the example of François Décorchemont:
The route taken by today's studio-glass artists, although foreshadowed by earlier practitioners like François Décorchemont [1880-1971], with their choice of art over craft, is not a straightforward one. The decision to devote oneself to the lifetime practice of a craft discipline in the 21st century is not the same as making that choice in a pre-industrial, or even an early post-industrial age… The choice of a life spent in the practice of a craft material discipline is a self-conscious one based on the desire for self-expression. You could say that such a choice determines the lifestyle; two centuries ago the reverse was true. The context in which such activities are studied are now the art school and the university rather than the atelier, workshop or factory.[4]
Within the global studio glass movement this British tradition distinguishes itself from American hot glass (with the development of small studio furnace technology), or the work Czech and French artists in glass factory contexts, as a growing community of practise in kiln-forming, stemming from Keith Cummings' earliest experiments as a student at Durham University in the late 1950s and later at the Whitefriars Glass Company and at Stourbridge College of Art (later transferred to the University of Wolverhampton) and at the Royal College of Art in London. In the UK, the formative role of art schools and university departments has been decisive.
Reflect (2017) exemplifies Cummings' practise of combining glass with metal and other materials in multiple processes – here glass, copper, brass and pewter – giving rise to painterly development of surface and interior qualities of transparency and opacity, colour and texture. Light dwells on revealed and revealing detail, each moment occluding its origins in the slow alchemical exposition of ideas, materials and processes. Slump-casting, casting, cutting and polishing techniques draw and tease to the surface an ambiguous array of geological, celestial and imaginal depths. Its one-word title, 'Reflect', might be an English verb or noun, but has the weight of a gentle imperative. Its etymology invokes light as an optical or mental phenomenon, meaning literally 'to bring back' turning outwards or inwards through optics or meditation.
The complexity of this artefact reflects upon glass as a kiln-formed fine art medium as laboured, painstaking, intractable and unpredictable. And capable of happy accidents and extraordinary transformations:
Kiln-forming is slow, inefficient, limited and frustrating way of shaping glass…
…it combines the mystique of alchemy with the excitement of a lottery.[5]
A student of Keith Cummings in the 1970s, Colin Reid (b.1953) is perhaps best known in China for Bamboo Scroll (1999), a four-metre-high glass and steel installation on permanent display in the main entrance lobby of the Shanghai Public Library. Reid's position as a British artist within the international studio glass movement and as a mentor to a succession of studio assistants, including Sally Fawkes, Angela Jarman, Bruno Romanelli, Karen Browning, Fiaz Elson and Joseph Harrington, provides the focal interest or centre of gravity for A Thread of Light. It is a record of extraordinary creativity, openness and generosity. Reid's work since the 1970s has evolved constantly under the inspiration of formal interests in the texture of the world, the skin of things in nature and in human culture. There is a consistent, though not exclusive preoccupation with the print of reality as it registers from mould to cast to figure in the optical properties of the transparent medium.
The sculptural concept for Bamboo Scroll took as its point of departure ancient Chinese literary artefacts, namely engraved bamboo strips bound together to form a kind of flexible scroll. The design brief may have been unconsciously informed by the physical incident of the bamboo scaffolding which filled the library as a building site in April 1996 when this project commission took seed. Chinese written characters are incorporated in cast optical crystal blocks in raised and polished relief, providing cursive transparent windows into the light medium. The glass is held in a parallel ribbon structure of flame-cut and patinated steel.
The Chinese characters derive from engraved print originals, reversed out in raised relief through the mould making process, and they comprise a loosely ordered series representing elemental natural and human qualities. This is not a text as such – there is no woven narrative connection between the word sequence – but the layered disposition of Chinese written characters has clearly influenced the overall composition of the piece. This was in a sense Reid's first engagement with written symbols as 'found objects', and it is the visual energy of these characters, rather than their linguistic meaning, that stands foremost. Physically and metaphorically speaking, the characters hang luminous and illuminated in the light of day. Material precedes meaning; making comes before knowing.
Along with Ring of Fire (2019), four new kiln-cast works in the current show are linked by technique, notably here in the artist's recent use of colour inclusions as internal patterning within abstracted forms, and with titles variously invoking the artist's maritime interests as a keen amateur yachtsman: Nautilus; Wave; Vela [the Italian word for 'sail', or sail boat]; and Battuto Vessel. Battuto [meaning 'beaten' in Italian] is a wheel-cutting technique in which the glass surface is treated with multiple abrasions and polished to resemble beaten copper or pewter surface. The English word vessel can mean both a container or household utensil and a boat or ocean-going craft.
Reid's distinctive counterpoint of moulded surface relief with clear facets exposing internal dimensions in kiln-cast optical crystal is represented in Still Life with Sunflowers (2019), Walk in Taganana (2019) Still Life with Corn (2017) and Shoal of Roach (2016). The interplay of reflective and refractive properties, and the spatial illusions these qualities give rise to as we move around the object, creates a kind of animated presence in the work. In his own words:
If I were to identify a single thread that runs through my work it would be the influence of nature. That is the source to which I return for inspiration and fresh material for my work. I work in kiln-cast glass, using various moulding techniques to make the forms and moulds in which I cast my glass. My current work is mainly in optical glass because I like its purity. Firings are long, three weeks is typical, so I can get thickness and depth. When the piece comes out of the kiln it is only the start of the making process. There is much cold-work to be done, grinding, polishing, and sandblasting. The pieces evolve and change at this stage as I respond to what has come out of the kiln. Chance plays its part. The tension between what is planned and controlled and what is unexpected can be both creative and disastrous. I do not open the kiln if I am having a bad day. The quality I am after is elusive, impossible to describe, but I know it when I see it. [6]
Sally Fawkes (1968) worked as studio assistant to Colin Reid from 1999–2001, a period including the installation of Bamboo Scroll (1999) at the Shanghai Public Library, and is represented here by both her personal work and by collaborative pieces designed and made with her partner, Richard Jackson (b.1959). Her work contrasts the interior substance of the object with surface qualities that in diverse ways reflect, refract or obscure articulation with their surrounding spatial environment. This is certainly the case with three works in Fawkes' Eternal Exchange series, numbers VI (2018), IX (2019) and XI (2019), to the degree that they are configured in cast, cold-worked, engraved, mirrored and painted glass. It is also true Converging Connections II (2018), in cast glass and jesmonite, which derives from a residency at Musverre in Sars-Poteries (France) that resulted in a major exhibition–installation in 2018.
Fawkes shares with Reid an intense regard for the incidental details and textures of the natural and human worlds, their structures and their histories, and her work both embodies and transforms the significance of such incidents in glass combined with other materials. In Vice-versa (2018), the installation–exhibition arising from her Musverre experience, material co-ordinates for the artist's imaginative inquiry into the spatial, social and cultural parameters of a particular place are configured and transformed in careful and telling detail. Converging Connections II (2018), showing here in Liuli China Museum, is a strong example of this. Here the decorative end-bosses of iron tie-bars that Fawkes observed bracing the walls of houses together (technically speaking, moulded ornamental iron washers with central nut fastenings) are transformed into a sculptural artefact in glass and jesmonite, variously evoke the town of Sars-Poteries' industrial past, its former manufacturing prosperity and the enduring significance of decorative detail in people's lives. Aesthetics holding house and community together.
Richard Jackson's Returning Cycle (2019) and All Things Being Equal (2018) are remarkable, lucid essays in glass across its full range as a hot liquid and as a cooled resistant material. Their appearance is of carved light, addressing abstract, strongly planar forms (the sheet, the circle, the pillar) with a diverse range of kiln-casting, cold-working, carving and sandblasting techniques. Jackson's forms emerge and are worked unsparingly from the inside–out and from outside–in, the trace of every contrasting mark held up in clear optical crystal and on a monumental scale. Fawkes and Jackson's collaborative pieces, Together We Stand (2015) and New Perspective II (2017) each, though in different ways, achieves complete coherence as a discrete and free-standing artefact.
In Keith Cummings' words, from 1991–3, Bruno Romanelli (b.1968):
… benefited, like a number of others, from working as Colin Reid's assistant, and it is easy to see the influences in Bruno's mature pieces. However, although the technical control of large-scale casting is evident, the uses to which Bruno puts this are every inch his own. Bruno works with a limited range of geometric forms, with limited colour, and a precision of surface that means he relies on the complete control of each element to achieve the austere monumentality of his pieces. His control is absolute, allowing no room for accident or random effects.[7]
This extraordinary control is as self-evident in the earlier, figurative phase in Bruno Romanelli's work, represented here by Squeezed Vessel S3 (2013), as it is in the 2018-19 series whose titles seemingly invoke characters from Norse mythology and astronomical abstraction [Bestla (a frost giantess) and Narvi (Norse god of wrongdoing) are also names given to moons of the planet Saturn. Sycorax is the evil witch mother of Caliban in Shakespeare's magical late play The Tempest (1610-11) and the name attributed to a moon of the planet Uranus]. Romanelli's serial engagement with the circle as the very figure of abstraction – as a universal geometrical motif and as a source of seemingly inexhaustible imaginal power – might lend his work to unending interpretation or to none at all, but the compelling presence of this work resides in its formal perfection, in the balance and equilibrium of its abstract and material qualities.
Angela Jarman (b.1971) worked with Colin Reid from 1993–5 while developing her wholly distinctive practise in lost-wax glass casting.
All the ideas for my work originate from a lifelong interest I have in biology and the natural world. I look to all sources for inspiration – animal, vegetable and mineral; but the one common theme that unites all my thinking has at its core ideas to do with growth and reproduction, duplication, decay and transformation.[8]
Jarman's work since 2015/16 has acquired a rich chromatic interest since her earlier preoccupation with opaque black and translucent 'white' glass, and is represented in A Thread of Light by works from her recent Geode series, using kiln-cast body colour with cold-working techniques of grinding and polishing. In this work her overtly organic sculptural language, eliding vegetable and mineral forms, explores a more formal geological interest around the vessel form. The Oxford English Dictionary defines geode as:
A rock body or nodule having an internal cavity lined or filled with mineral crystals growing inwards; esp. a hollow, rounded stone containing large or well-formed crystals and typically cut in half for display. Also: the cavity within such a body; the contents of such a cavity. Also in figurative contexts.
The figurative context or dimension of these pieces places them slightly beyond reach, glowing and unknowable, balancing ambiguously qualities of strange familiarity and ultimate resistance to assimilation. Mirrors that mirror not only what you see in them, and whose embodied obscurity in the glassy medium is perhaps precisely the point.
Prior to her BA (Hons) degree in Glass Design, Fiaz Elson (b.1975) trained in fashion design, fine art and silversmithing. She worked as senior assistant to Colin Reid from 2001–4 before establishing her own studio practice. She describes her creative philosophy as complex, exploring formal tensions, ambiguities and contradictions inherent in the material properties of glass as the space of memory, emotion and experience – moments hidden, occulted and revealed. In structural terms she has explored formal structural themes of duality and singularity, the formal, cultural, emotional, or psychic resonance of two and one. For Fiaz Elson, working in her studio, the angled refractive planes, the play of translucent interior and exterior dimensions, the effect and the affect of colour and light in glass, become transmuted as alchemical elements of glassmaking as the crucible of interior reflection:
My work starts when I enter the studio and the world outside is forgotten. Play, sketching and model making are always within me, therefore always a source at any point of time.[9]
Karen Browning(b.1969) experimentswith black cast glass spheres and their capacity for surface reflection. Double Trouble (2019), is cast in black glass using the lost wax process with subsequent cold-working – polishing and sandblasting – then gilded with 24-carat gold. The artist's pre-occupation with the mirror motif draws consciously on complex historical reference, while focusing on the immediate presence of the glass artefact and its making. In the play of inside and outside, physical, cultural and mental dimensions, past, present and future, all surface in the visible moment of the glass studio.
As Browning writes, of her interest in mirrors and their various depths:
In these pieces I explore the historical and mystical side of black mirrors, traditionally used for scrying (looking into the future) whilst also combining this with historical use of black mirrors by landscape painters such as [the French baroque painter] Claude Lorrain [c.1600-1682]. Mirrors create another space, altering or confirming a sense of self or place, and through deception, illusion, and reflection provide a luminous space for contemplation.[10]
Joseph Harrington (b.1979), a studio assistant to Colin Reid from 2002–4, works in relation to the natural landscape, using salt to melt ice into sculptural form invoking coastal erosion and the abrasive interaction of sea and rock edges, of liquid and mineral states, as a constantly evolving material equation of time and space, of history and place. This he calls his 'Lost Ice Process':
I use salt to sculpt ice as a one-off ephemeral model to take a direct cast from. The textures this provides and the transient nature of the creative process reflects the erosion and sense of time I want to represent in the landscape. There is a roughness from the initial cast that is ground polished and refined to its final finish, revealing the internal structures of the glass and creating facets and flat planes to redefine the essence of the made against the organic surface.[11]
As a form of representation, this work does not therefore describe the landscape. Rather, it works as it were at the cliff-edge of representation, employing physical and chemical processes to re-create the original inspiration for the work in the texture of disintegration through gradual erosion, in time. All that is solid melts into air, as someone once wrote somewhere.[12]
Void (2018) and Gabbro iii (2018) are two such examples, showing at the Liuli China Museum. 'Cast Glass, Lost ice Process, with salt erosion' is their technical designation as pieces in which body colour and light itself appear similarly vulnerable to wear or attrition, their motion cast as arrested time.
This exhibition at Liuli China Museum in Taipei and Shanghai has thus a very special kind of intimacy as well as historic significance. Nine artists, three generations. A single, luminous, vitreous medium developed successively across a rich diversity of creative practise. Glass history, and the international studio glass movement, in the making. A thread of light, over three generations of British kiln-cast glass.
[1] Keith Cummings, Contemporary Kiln-Formed Glass: A World Survey (London: A&C Black/Philadelphia: University of "Pennsylvania Press, 2009) ISBN 978-1-408-10075-2. pp. 85, 170. [N.B. this book includes exemplary work by artists Colin Reid, Angela Jarman and Bruno Romanelli who are included in the current show, as well as detailed reference to the work of Loretta Yang Hui-shan.]
[2] Richard Long, in conversation at Dartington (UK), October 2005.
[3] Techniques of Kiln-formed Glass (1997); A History of Glassforming (2002); Contemporary Kiln-Formed Glass: A World Survey (2009), all London: A&C Black/Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. A Chinese edition of Techniques of Kiln-formed Glass translated by Xue Lu was published by China Architecture and Building Press [ISBN 978-7-112-09234-5] in 2007.
[4] Ibid. pp. 11, 58-9
[5] Keith Cummings, Techniques of Kiln-formed Glass (1997), p.46…48
[6] Colin Reid, personal statement at: https://www.adriansassoon.com/artists/colin-reid/
[7] Ibid., p.171
[8] Angela Jarman's website is at: https://www.angelajarman.com/profile-statement
[9] Fiaz Elson, July 2019
[10] Karen Browning, 'Experimenting with black cast glass sphere and reflections', quoted in Peter Johnson and Karen Browning, 50 years on: the heterotopian mirror of enchantment, self-reflection and disruption, at
http://www.heterotopiastudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Mirrors-50-years-on.pdf . "Using mirrors to foretell the future – 'scrying'- was practised by the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Hebrews and the ancient Chinese. The Italian physician Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) devoted 14 chapters of his treatise to the 'miracles of catoptrics', the 'natural magic' of optical manipulations, describing different types of mirrors that make it possible to invert, multiply, make distant, draw near or fragment an object in space."
[11] Joseph Harrington, at https://www.josephharrington.art/about
[12] "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober sense, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Chapter 1; Paragraph 18; Lines 12-14.
是誰,讓九魚同力齊心?
英國玻璃藝術


Payam Feili is a gay Iranian poet. Nadav Schwartz is an Orthodox Israeli Jew. But in ways both astoundingly similar and utterly different, both men have journeyed out of their communities, leaving behind almost everything but their identity. In our Passover special, we bring you two surprising stories of wanderers searching for a new life.


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In Wake Of Increasing Anti-Semitic Attacks, More Jews Flee France
Published April 17, 2016 at 5:00 AM PDT
Now to another question - this one about identity and security. A record number of Jews are leaving France and moving to Israel, partly because of an increase in violence. There have been a few high-profile attacks in France over the last five years - a shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, and then the attack on a kosher grocery in Paris last year. Those shootings combined with the attacks in November have created a tense security environment.
Robert Ejness is executive director of CRIF in Paris. It's an organization monitoring the security situation for the French Jewish community. He points to that shooting at the kosher grocery store as the point when Jews in France went on high alert.
ROBERT EJNESS: That was a Friday. On the Sunday, the president of the republic, Francois Hollande, invited all the leaders of the Jewish community and said he had decided to put security forces - military forces in front of every Jewish building in France and to have 10,000 soldiers immediately protect the Jewish schools, synagogues and Jewish Community Centers. That was a big difference, you can imagine. And we have had it since that day.
And you can imagine what it means for a parent to bring his child to the Jewish school every morning with military forces and guns in front of the school to protect the kids. It produces an effect on the Jewish community.
MARTIN: Are those military officers still there?
EJNESS: Yes. So every morning when we go to synagogue, when we go to Jewish Community Centers, when we go to schools - we realize every time we get into a Jewish building that we have to protected.
MARTIN: So how does that make you feel? I mean, does that make you feel more secure? Or is there some kind of...
EJNESS: Both.
MARTIN: ...Other level of isolation that happens as a result?
EJNESS: Absolutely, absolutely. In the one hand, we feel more secure because we feel there are people protecting the Jewish community. In the other hand, we realize that the Jewish community has to be protected. And therefore, whoever has to be protected means he is in danger.
MARTIN: There's been a lot written and reported about the Muslim immigrant population that has often been relegated into the banlieue and has not been able to integrate more fully into mainstream French society. Seven-point-five percent of the French population is now Muslim. Do you think France has succeeded in creating - or nurturing a religiously pluralistic society?
EJNESS: No because France has never wanted to be a pluralistic religious society. The story of the French Revolution shows that France has wanted to be a secular country, whereby the - in protecting the religion and individual freedom. And we were educated in the system - when I say the integration system - the system was built so that everyone - whatever religion, whatever color, whatever origin - was integrated in the French population through the school system. And this is what has failed with the Muslim population.
MARTIN: The school system, you say, has failed. How so?
EJNESS: Yes. Yes, for the past 40 years. It has failed integrating the Muslim population because of some changes that have been made because of some segregation that has been made geographically, where the Muslim population has been put in specific areas, where in some areas in France, there is not one Jewish child left in the French public schooling system. When I was a kid and I went to school, I had absolutely no difficulty being in school with Catholics, with Muslims, with Italians, Spaniards or whatever origin, colors or religion.
MARTIN: And that's not the case today?
EJNESS: And that's much more difficult today. I'm talking about a small portion of the Muslim population, essentially of recent immigration, that has not been able to integrate in the system. And most of the Muslim population, being in France for many years, has totally integrated.
MARTIN: Robert Ejness - he is the executive director of CRIF, an organization in Paris that monitors the security situation for the French Jewish community.
Thank you so much for talking with us and sharing your thoughts.
EJNESS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
Israeli Passion for Fashion
Why two Jewish siblings ignored their parents' advice to find practical jobs and instead became fashion designers
by Orit Arfa
Inside the waiting area of Gypsy05's solar-powered plant in downtown L.A., walls are decorated with brightly colored dresses and T-shirts alongside decorative hamsas, fashion magazine clippings, a "blessing of the business" in Hebrew, a picture of the Rebbe and certificates of recognition from American Solar Energy Solutions.
The display reflects Gypsy05's values: Israeli entrepreneurship, Jewish idealism, environmental awareness, American and Israeli patriotism, and a love of comfort and glamour.
Gypsy05 grew out of sabra Dotan Shoham's dye company, Pacific Blue, which he founded not long after coming to the United States 16 years ago with just a few hundred dollars in his pocket. Starting out in the garment business, he used his knack for chemistry to experiment with dying techniques that were considerably more eco-friendly than traditional techniques.
"I care about the environment," Dotan said. "Maybe it's important for me because I surf, and I go to the ocean a lot, and I see what goes back into the ocean, so it's important for me to be careful."
His sister, Osi, joined Dotan's dye house in 2002 with an MBA under her belt and a pent-up love for fashion. Together, they created Gypsy05 in 2005. Today, the brand, whose colorful, airy cotton and silk dresses and T-shirts evoke a connection to earth and water, have been worn by starlets Zoe Saldana, Ashley Tisdale, Nicky Hilton, Nikki Reed and others. Gypsy05 billboards appear on L.A.'s trendiest boulevards.
"It was always my true passion because I was always enamored with fashion," Osi said. "But we were Jewish kids so we were always encouraged to do something practical."
Their Jewish upbringing inspires the company's social awareness. Still very much connected to their homeland, the siblings are supporters of the Israeli Leadership Council and the Israel Film Festival.
"The more we'll grow and achieve and be successful," Dotan said, "the more we'll be able to contribute to our surroundings."
The article above was reprinted with permission from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.
Three Questions for Dotan Shoham
by the HBI staff
How does your Jewish upbringing inspire your fashion choices and/or the way you run the company?
Family is such an important part of Jewish tradition, and that definitely influences how we run the company. We treat our colleagues as family. We eat together, we celebrate together, and we always enjoy the company of those around us. Our Jewish upbringing in Israel also inspires us to actively contribute to society. Giving back to the community is extremely important to us; it is all part of the Karmic flow&#8212something that we all embrace at Gypsy. Gypsy05 designs also incorporate organic fabrics, organic soy softeners, low impact dyes, and seaweed extract printing in every collection. As part of our mission in environmental awareness, Gypsy05's headquarters is the first completely solar-powered dyeing, printing, and manufacturing facility in Los Angeles.
Where does the name Gypsy05 come from?
Gypsy05 was established in the spring of 2005. We gather inspiration from all over the world, combining elements from many different cultures and environments to create styles for the contemporary nomad. We are always changing and evolving with new colors and dye techniques. Our designs also reflect the Southern California lifestyle with a focus on effortless, comfortable fashion.
How would you say women's fashion is different in Israel than the U.S.?
Israeli style is more influenced by European fashions than U.S. fashions, although American brands are starting to become more important in Israel. Women's fashion is less conservative in Israel. The weather gets hot, and people wear less. They are comfortable with their bodies, and they are not afraid of color.
The beauty of fashion in Israel is the way people incorporate pieces from all over the world into their wardrobe. After the army, many Israelis take time to travel and they return with unique styles from different cultures. For example, it is not uncommon to see someone wearing fisherman pants from Thailand or a top from India. The blending of cultures is a large part of Israeli fashion and likewise it is an inspiration for our designs at Gypsy.
To check out clothing from Gypsy05, visit Gypsy05.com
Orit Arfa
Orit Arfa is a regular contributor to The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles and The Jerusalem Post. To learn more about her, visit Oritarfa.com.
2 + six =


text:
Rappler's Maria Ressa is joint winner of Nobel Peace Prize for 2021
Maria Ressa is honored for her work in safeguarding free speech in the Philippines
Maria Ressa, co-founder and chief executive officer of Rappler, the Philippines' leading digital media company, is one of two journalists who have just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021. She is the first Filipino to receive the prestigious award.
The other winner is Dmitry Muratov, co-founder and later, editor-in-chief of Novaja Gazeta, widely regarded as the most independent newspaper in Russia today.
In announcing the joint award today, Oct 8, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said Ressa and Muratov were being honored "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."
The two are said to represent all journalists who stand up for the ideal of free speech "in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions."
In particular, Ressa was cited for her use of "freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines."
When first told of the award by the Nobel committee via a recorded phone call, the usually loquacious Ressa could only stay, "I am speechless. Thank you so very much."
PRESS FOR DETAILS!
Later, during an interview with Rappler, Ressa was asked why she thought the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to journalists at the time of the pandemic, instead of the usual scientists who come up with ground-breaking work to help mankind.
"I guess what this just shows is that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee realized that a world without facts means a world without truth and trust. And if you don't have any of these things you certainly cannot conquer the coronavirus, you cannot conquer climate change."
Separately, Rappler's editor-in-chief Glenda Gloria said: "Thank you so much. This is Maria's and Rappler's as much as it is yours!"
Rappler is honored – and astounded – by the Nobel Peace Prize Award given to our CEO Maria Ressa. It could not have come at a better time – a time when journalists and the truth are being attacked and undermined."
"We thank the Nobel for recognizing all journalists both in the Philippines and in the world who continue to shine the light even in the darkest and toughest hours. hank you to everyone who has been part of the daily struggle to uphold the truth and who continues to hold the line with us."
Ressa speaks at a rally in the Philippines shortly after she was ordered arrested
For years, Ressa was under intense fire from powerful forces because of Rappler's exposes on the thousands of killings committed in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.
"The number of deaths is so high that the campaign resembles a war waged against the country's own population," said the Nobel committee in recognizing Ressa's work.
With Ressa at the helm, Rappler also documented how social media has been used by pro-government forces in spreading fake news, harassing opponents, and manipulating public opinion.
As a result, the veteran Filipina journalist has been sued eight times, got arrested and convicted of cyber libel, and was ordered to post millions of pesos in bail and travel bonds. On top of these, she was slapped with trumped-up charges ranging from securities fraud to tax evasion, which threatened to get Rappler off cyberspace.
Not content with these, Duterte supporters subjected Ressa to the vilest insults, even death threats, on social media. But she never wavered. Instead, she told journalists to "hold the line," meaning, they should not be cowed by the repressions and attempts to hide the truth to favor those in power.
Before founding Rappler, Ressa worked as bureau chief for CNN International and news chief of ABS-CBN, the Philippines' broadcast media giant which was forced to close down in May last year after its franchise was cancelled by pro-government legislators.
Ressa, who is 58, graduated cum laude with a B.A. degree in English and certificates in theater and dance from the prestigious Princeton University in the United States in 1986.[ She then studied political theater at the University of the Philippines in Diliman as a Fullbright scholar.
Muratov is cited for keeping his newspaper's independent stance amid threats and violence
Muratov, on the other hand, was cited for his decades of work in defending "freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions."
Since its founding in 1993, his newspaper Novaja Gazeta is said to have published stories critical of the powers-that-be, including those that dealt with corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests, electoral fraud and the use of Russian military forces both within and outside the country.
Its fiercely independent stance has resulted in six of its journalists getting killed, but with Muratov at the helm since 1995, the newspaper has refused to yield to pressure.
Muratov is said to have consistently defended the right of journalists to write freely, as long as they comply with professional and ethical standards.
"Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda," said a press release announcing the award to the two journalists.
"The Norwegian Nobel Committee is convinced that freedom of expression and freedom of information help to ensure an informed public. These rights are crucial prerequisites for democracy and protect against war and conflict."
"The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov is intended to underscore the importance of protecting and defending these fundamental rights.
"Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time."
PADALA NA!


text:
DTC starts installing CCTV in 200 buses
According to the DTC, CCTV cameras are being installed in 200 buses in the first phase. "A Hyderabad-based company has started to install CCTV in 200 DTC buses in the first phase. Each bus will have three CCTV cameras. They are being installed in 100 low-floor non air conditioned (green) and air conditioned (red) buses. The process of installing cameras would be completed in seven days," DTC spokesperson RS Minhas said. This is the first time in the history of DTC when CCTV cameras were being installed in its buses, which would prove useful for the women passengers traveling in corporation buses, especially at late night, he added.
Three CCTV cameras would be installed in each bus. They would have coverage of the entire area inside the bus. Minhas also said that the company would look after the operation of CCTVs for the next five years. "Each CCTV system would have the capacity of storing the recordings of around 15 days. The footage of these cameras would be monitored on daily basis," Minhas added.
The DTC official also said "if we get good response from this project, then the corporation would bring more buses under CCTV project so that we are able to keep a tab on every passenger". Another DTC official said if a passenger's behaviour is suspected while traveling in a DTC bus, police will be informed by the Corporation's officials. "With this project, theft can be detected in buses and accused can easily be identified," he added.
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Small yoga classes with personal attention in Bellmore, Nassau County, Long Island. Discount monthly class packages | Moonflower Yoga Inc.
There are NO membership fees or annual contracts to sign at Moonflower Yoga! You can simply register for a single class from the Schedule tab and enjoy a fabulous yoga class!
Individual one-hour, semi-private yoga and meditation classes are $21 per class.
Click on the "Book Now" button below or on the "Schedule" tab above to purchase a reservation in the class you would like to attend.
When you see the pink/purple calendar, go to the date of the class you would like to attend. Double click on that date. You will see a description of all the classes for that date. Select which of these classes you would like to attend, confirm that is the class you want, and continue to the registration screen. When you are ready to checkout, a PayPal screen will appear.
You do NOT need a PayPal account to register for a class online; any major credit card or debit card can be used to purchase an individual class or workshop. PayPal securely handles the financial transaction, and you will receive a written confirmation by email from Moonflower Yoga and a written confirmation by email from PayPal when your registration is completed.
All new students attending the studio for the first time receive a FREE gift with our compliments! Pick up your free gift when you attend your first class.
Walk-ins are welcome for any open class spaces that are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Our class sizes are small to provide individual attention, and we recommend that you reserve your class in advance using the "Schedule" tab above. Most classes have a maximum booking of 5-8 students per class. If a class is listed in solid red font on the Schedule tab, the class is fully booked for the day. We do keep waiting lists for classes which are fully booked. If the class you would like to attend is sold out, please send an email to moonfloweryoga@optimum.net with your name, phone number, and email address. Should an opening occur, we will get in touch with you.
Each month, we offer class packages at a discounted class price. The class packages vary from month to month. We list the monthly package offer on this page and we also distribute a monthly email announcing the special for the following month. The class packages can be purchased at the Moonflower Yoga studio, and are valid for the month of the package, i.e. the October package is valid for all classes on the October schedule. If you have any questions regarding this, just give us a call at (516) 557 2206 or stop by the Moonflower Yoga studio and we will be happy to help you.
All of the above April class packages offer a discount over the per-class price. The discounted classes purchased under the April class package must be used between April 1st and April 30th, 2019. The class package must be purchased at the Moonflower Yoga studio. There are no classes on Easter Sunday.
Moonflower Yoga also offers great workshops, training sessions and events. The prices for these activities vary depending on the activity. You can see the price for these on the "Descriptions" tab next to the full description of the upcoming activity. For workshops, you will also see the price in the description of the workshop on the "Workshops" tab above. For events, you will also see the price in the description of the event on the "Events" tab above.
Moonflower Yoga offers semi-private classes, workshops, training sessions and events. Because our size is small, each space in our studio room is reserved. If you need to cancel a class that you have booked, you can do so provided you have given us at least 24 hours' notice. We will issue a credit to you which can be used within 3 months of the date of your cancellation. NO credits will be issued for classes that are cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice. For workshops, events, or training sessions, we require a minimum of one week's notice in order to issue a credit to you. NO credits will be issued for workshops, events, or training sessions that are cancelled with less than one week's notice. Thank you for your understanding.


text:
WPRIM Management System> DCMS> Organ Transplantation
PublisherEditorial Department of Organ Transplantation, Periodical Center of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University
ElectronicLinks http://www.organtranspl.com
Editor-in-chiefChen Guihua
E-mailorgantranspl@163.com
AbbreviationOrgan Transpl
Vernacular Journal Title器官移植
EISSN
Start Year2010
DescriptionOrgan Transplantation is an international academic journal with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China as the responsible institution. It is sponsored by Sun Yat-sen University, and co-hosted by the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Organ Transplantation serves a wide scope of readership including physicians, nurses, fundamental researchers and medical students in the field of organ transplantation and relevant disciplines, such as the Department of Transplantation Surgery, Internal Medicine, Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Unit ,etc. Organ Transplantation primarily reports novel advancement in the basic and clinical research in the field of organ transplantation at home and abroad, serving as a platform to promote academic exchanges in organ transplantation among global researchers. Up to now, four academic journals related to organ transplantation have been established in China. Compared with its counterparts, Organ Transplantation places the submission quality on the top priority. It includes Guideline & Consensus, Editorial, Clinical research, Experimental research and Review, which mainly cover liver, renal, lung and cardiac transplantation, etc. A majority of submissions originate from large transplantation centers and institutions throughout China. Special issues are designed and published annually based upon the research highlights, which gains widespread recognition from global readers. According to the latest Chinese S&T Journal Citation Reports, the impact factor of Organ Transplantation reaches 0.788, ranking 1st among all organ transplantation-related academic journals in China. In 2013, the Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China promulgated legal regulations that all transplanted organs should be sourced from organ donation from voluntary civilian organ donors. The legitimacy of organ transplantation in China has been gradually supported by the international community. The quantity of organ transplantation surgeries performed in China is one of the largest around the globe. In recent years, both fundamental research (such as transplantation immunity and xenotransplantation) and clinical studies (like organ transplantation from living unrelated donors and donation after cardiac death) have been intensively investigated in China. Organ Transplantation strives to demonstrate these basic and clinical accomplishments of Chinese scholars to the outside world.
Organ Transplantation: 2010 (v1, n1) to Present ISSN: 1674-7445


text:
Q: OnPause is called immediately after Oncreate, OnResume I got a weird problem in my Application, In My Activity OnPause() is called immediately after OnCreate() and OnResume(). I have some functions to be performed in OnPause(), but  I don't know why this is happening. In My Log it showing as:
05-14 13:40:09.916: E/TestActivity(840): onCreate()
05-14 13:40:09.936: E/TestActivity(840): onResume()
**05-14 13:40:09.956: E/TestActivity(840): onPause()**
05-14 13:40:09.956: E/TestActivity(840): onResume()

EDIT
    public class PreTestActivity extends Activity{

    public static final String PREFS_NAME = "iPTPrefsFile";
    private static final String TAG = "PreTestActivity";
    SharedPreferences settings;

        static final int HEART_RATE_DIALOG_ID = 0;
        static final int BLOOD_PRESSURE_DIALOG_ID = 1;
        static final int RESPIRATORY_RATE_ID = 2;
        static final int O2_SATURATION_DIALOG_ID = 3;

    Button testActionNextButton,testActionBackButton;
    EditText Heart_Rate_EditText,Blood_Pressure_EditText,Respiratory_Rate_EditText,O2_Saturation_EditText;
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.pre_test);
         Log.e(TAG, "onCreate()=");
        settings = getSharedPreferences(PREFS_NAME, 0);

        Heart_Rate_EditText=(EditText)findViewById(R.id.Heart_Rate_EditText);
        Blood_Pressure_EditText=(EditText)findViewById(R.id.Blood_Pressure_EditText);
        Respiratory_Rate_EditText=(EditText)findViewById(R.id.Respiratory_Rate_EditText);
        O2_Saturation_EditText=(EditText)findViewById(R.id.O2_Saturation_EditText);

        testActionNextButton = (Button)findViewById(R.id.testActionNextButton);
        testActionNextButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                if(!Heart_Rate_EditText.getText().toString().equalsIgnoreCase("")&&!Blood_Pressure_EditText.getText().toString().equalsIgnoreCase("")
                   &&!Respiratory_Rate_EditText.getText().toString().equalsIgnoreCase("")&&!O2_Saturation_EditText.getText().toString().equalsIgnoreCase("")){
                Log.d(TAG,"Heart_Rate_EditText="+Heart_Rate_EditText.getText().toString());
                Log.d(TAG,"Blood_Pressure_EditText="+Blood_Pressure_EditText.getText().toString());
                Log.d(TAG,"Respiratory_Rate_EditText="+Respiratory_Rate_EditText.getText().toString());
                Log.d(TAG,"O2_Saturation_EditText="+O2_Saturation_EditText.getText().toString());

                SharedPreferences.Editor editor = settings.edit();

                float PreHeartRate=Float.parseFloat(Heart_Rate_EditText.getText().toString());
                float PreBloodPressure=Float.parseFloat(Blood_Pressure_EditText.getText().toString());
                float PreRepositoryRate=Float.parseFloat(Respiratory_Rate_EditText.getText().toString());
                float PreO2saturation=Float.parseFloat(O2_Saturation_EditText.getText().toString());

                editor.putFloat("preHeartRate", PreHeartRate);
                editor.putFloat("preBloodPressure", PreBloodPressure);
                editor.putFloat("preRepositoryRate", PreRepositoryRate);
                editor.putFloat("preO2saturation", PreO2saturation);
                editor.commit();
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub

                }
                if(validateForm()) {
                       Intent PreTestActivityIntent = new Intent(getParent(), TimerActivity.class);
                       BergBalanceScaleActivity parentActivity = (BergBalanceScaleActivity)getParent();
                       parentActivity.replaceContentView("PreTestActivity", PreTestActivityIntent);

                }

                }
        });
        testActionBackButton=(Button)findViewById(R.id.testActionBackButton);
        testActionBackButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                //finish();
            }
        });
    }
    @Override
    protected void onPause() {
        super.onPause();
        //isRecord=1;
        Log.e(TAG, "onPause()=");
    }
    @Override
    protected void onStop() {
        super.onStop();
        //isRecord=1;
        Log.e(TAG, "onStop()=");
    }
    @Override
    protected void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        Log.e(TAG, "onResume()=");
        if(settings.getFloat("preHeartRate", 0)==0.0 && settings.getFloat("preBloodPressure", 0)==0.0 && settings.getFloat("preRepositoryRate", 0)==0.0 && settings.getFloat("preO2saturation", 0)==0.0){
            Heart_Rate_EditText.setText("");
            Blood_Pressure_EditText.setText("");
            Respiratory_Rate_EditText.setText("");
            O2_Saturation_EditText.setText("");
            }else{

                //if(isRecord==1){
                 Heart_Rate_EditText.setText(""+settings.getFloat("preHeartRate", 0));
                 Blood_Pressure_EditText.setText(""+settings.getFloat("preBloodPressure", 0));
                 Respiratory_Rate_EditText.setText(""+settings.getFloat("preRepositoryRate", 0));
                 O2_Saturation_EditText.setText(""+settings.getFloat("preO2saturation", 0));
                //}
            }
     }

    @Override
    protected Dialog onCreateDialog(int id) {
        AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(getParent());
        AlertDialog dialog;
        switch(id) {

            case HEART_RATE_DIALOG_ID:
                builder.setMessage("Pleas, enter  Heart Rate.")
                        .setCancelable(false)
                        .setPositiveButton("Ok", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {

                    }
                });
                dialog = builder.create();
                break;
            case BLOOD_PRESSURE_DIALOG_ID:
                builder.setMessage("Please enter  Blood Pressure.")
                        .setCancelable(false)
                        .setPositiveButton("Ok", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {

                            }
                });
                dialog = builder.create();
                break;
            case RESPIRATORY_RATE_ID:
                builder.setMessage("Please enter  Respiratory rate.")
                        .setCancelable(false)
                        .setPositiveButton("Ok", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {

                            }
                        });
                dialog = builder.create();
                break;
            case O2_SATURATION_DIALOG_ID:
                builder.setMessage("Please enter  O2 Saturation.")
                        .setCancelable(false)
                        .setPositiveButton("Ok", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {

                            }
                        });
                dialog = builder.create();
                break;

            default:
                dialog = null;
        }
        return dialog;
    }
    boolean validateForm() {
        boolean result = true;
        if("".equals(Heart_Rate_EditText.getText().toString())) {
            showDialog(HEART_RATE_DIALOG_ID);
            result = false;
        } else if("".equals(Blood_Pressure_EditText.getText().toString())) {
            showDialog(BLOOD_PRESSURE_DIALOG_ID);
            result = false;
        } else if("".equals(Respiratory_Rate_EditText.getText().toString())) {
            showDialog(RESPIRATORY_RATE_ID);
            result = false;
        } else if("".equals(O2_Saturation_EditText.getText().toString())) {
            showDialog(O2_SATURATION_DIALOG_ID);
            result = false;
        }
        return result;
    }
}

Can anyone please help me in this.