Bjorck: As the liner notes to this most recent CD say, I grew up singing all the great old hymns in church, complete with a stuffy old organ! Not only are they important to me because of my faith, but they constitute a large part of my nostalgic core self. As you know, my first three CDs begin and end with my arrangements of old hymns, so those six hymns were obvious choices for this project. The liner notes of my latest CD go quite into depth regarding the significance of each one, but suffice it to say, every one is a personal favorite!
As for the time it took me to compose my arrangements, it's hard to say. Some came quite quickly while others came in installments. This was due in part to the fact that I actually do not play the piano very much for a "pianist/composer"- probably five or ten minutes a day on average, with many days where I don't play at all. This is due to my very full life of many interests.
KP: It sounds like hymns have always been a big part of your life. Let’s talk about that.
Bjorck: Yes indeed! It saddens me that even the church tends to yield to the search for "newer, faster, better," and many churches don't use these hymns at all anymore. That is tragic, because frankly the lyrical quality and poetic depth of most classic hymns far outshine the typical praise song played by today’s worship bands. In addition, this music helps me feel more connected to my parents’ and grandparents’ generations. I often say that I am "generationally displaced." For example, I still call that big white thing in the kitchen that keeps your food cold an "icebox!"
KP: Don’t worry, I have a couple of friends who call it that, too! When did you first start playing the piano?
Bjorck: I started plunking out melodies at age four or five, and my mother began teaching me what she knew (not as a teacher but as someone who had taken lessons for a number of years) when I turned six. She stopped very quickly, however, because she feared that my learning fractions via quarter notes, eighth notes, and the like would result in my being bored in school. I was a very hyperactive child and needed quite a bit of stimulation to keep my attention! My mother resumed my lessons when I turned nine and gave me informal instruction until I was about thirteen. Unfortunately, neither she nor I realized that my memory was quite photographic, so I would memorize the music very quickly and then look down at my hands. As a result, I never learned to sight read. I could read music but it was painfully slow. When I retire, I plan to get a piano teacher who will promise to smack me on the knuckles with a stick if I look down while playing, and I hope to really learn piano right this time... from scratch! Maybe you could be my teacher... do you have a stick? :-)
KP: That can be arranged, but it will be kind of hard to reach you online! Maybe I can just cue you when it’s time to smack your knuckles and you can do it yourself! One of my former adult students had such a problem with watching his hands that he resorted to attaching a board to his piano above the keyboard so he literally COULDN’T see his hands! That’s extreme, but it worked! As a hyperactive child, was music a tool to help you calm down and focus?
Bjorck: Yes and no. I could certainly sit and play for hours during my teenage years, but I wasn't necessarily focusing. Rather, I was wandering from one compositional idea to the next, playing out my feelings and occasionally stumbling upon the composition. I do remember sitting at the piano often and wistfully daydreaming about the fact that probably no one would ever hear my music. It is admittedly self-indulgent but fun that I have at least one composition on each of my CDs that was composed during the 1970s. People got to hear them after all!
KP: You continue to be a man of many hats, and music is one of a variety of activities that you do part-time. What else occupies your time?
