mikeymo's place

husband, father, pastor, musician, teacher

2/27/09

From the Studio - Take 4

We're getting there.


Five songs down, five to go, as least as far as the bulk of the music goes. We may add some percussion to a couple of the tracks, but barring that, we've done half the music. We also had a really productive night in the studio last night, which is good, being as we lost a week last week.


The plan for the night was simple to lay guitar and keys for "From the Inside Out" "Say So." But we had hit a glitch earlier on that really didn't make itself known until this week. Two sessions ago, I did not attend, and a couple of my arrangements had been changed. No problem, the arrangements were guides, anyway. We've made a couple of on-the-fly changes on other songs. I just didn't know what changes had been made.


As I listened to the songs, We realized that that for some reason they ran long in the verses, and a couple of the transitions didn't seem to fit right. (These were just rhythm tracks, by the way. Drums and bass only.) We started trying to cut up "From the Inside Out" to take out the extra measures, but realized that we'd be better off just re-recording it from scratch. We hadn't planned on having Danny record anything, so we had to call him to grab his bass and come to the studio.




After one false start, Danny and Elyano retracked the song in one take. We may redo the bass, as Danny wasn't really warmed up, and thinks he can do better, but the arrangement is right now. That done, we started to look at "Say So." The intro was long by eight measures, and there were four extra measures in the break before the second verse. But the bassline and groove were so good that we were hesitant to try and cut it up. After some discussion we decided that we could use the extra space in the song for some vocal vamping.



We decided since we already had "Say So" loaded up, to finish that one out. We recorded keys and guitar, but in listening to the playback, I didn't really like the way the guitar sounded. (This is a problem working in a studio environment - the dreaded playback. You hear everything! Yuk!



The guitar sounded a little harsh for the feel of the rest of the song, so it was clear I had to change my tone. I had been playing clean through my modeler, and adding some overdrive with the Bad Monkey. After fiddling around a bit, I decided to ditch the Monkey and play a distorted patch through the Digitech, and switch up to the neck pickup only to mellow out the sound a bit. This combination sounded much better for this song.

These are the kinds of descisions that you have to make when doing a project like this. We had fiddled around with the voiceing on the piano as well, going with a kind of techno-synth deal. (The Yamaha has got a sweet sound engine!) Proper tone selected, and let 'er rip!


Another listen, and this take was much better... but. But something was just... not right. Gabi pointed out that the guitar and the piano seemed to be clashing in the pre-chorus. (The "To be salt and light in the world, in the world..." part) Justin had been playing a register higher than I was in the choruses, but came down to the C#m for that, and was stepping on the guitar a bit. Enormous self-sacrifice time. We pulled the guitar out of that part of the song, so that there is only guitar in the chorus (Let the redeemed of the Lord say so...) and bridge (I am redeemed...) and nowhere else. This was perfect - great dynamics, plus the song came out a little more rock-and-rollish than the original, which fits in with the feel of the record in general.



With not enough time left in the session to do another song, we instead mixed down three of the songs we had completed into rough cuts. These will be given to the vocalists, so that they can begin rehearsing for their parts, and get a feel for the arrangements and groove of the songs. The arrangements are a little different than we usually do the songs live, so they're going to need to get familar with them.


So, I've got a CD with three songs on it that I cannot stop listening to. I cannot believe how good this sounds. Being able to hear some music after all this work has really refreshed my excitement level, and I'm sure it will do the same to the other members of the team. Especially the vocalists, who haven't heard a note of the album yet. I can't wait to play if for them Sunday and give them their copies.


Here is a Facebook page for the upcoming CD with some clips of the rough cuts. Remember, these are in no way the final mix. The clips are in the music player on the right side.

0 comments

2/26/09

The Music Licensing Quagmire - Part 2 - Diving In


Yesterday, I started explaining about the music licensing process works, relating to the CD we are producing. The first post was a basic overview of how mechanical licenses work. Now I'll get into what I had to do.


The first step is to identify exactly who the copyright administrator is. This is not as easy as it sounds. Some songs have several copyright holders. Fortunately there are some resources available.


For Christian music, the best resource to start with is CCLI. Many churches have a CCLI license, which allows them to display and copy song lyrics. CCLI has a service called SongSelect, which allows churches to identify the copyright information on a given song. You have to be sure that you have the correct song, though, because there are often multiple compositions with the same title. For example, SongSelect lists about thirteen songs with the title "Tell the World." Two of those songs are copyrighted by Hillsong Publishing. So you have to be sure you get the correct song.


Most publishers (a.k.a "record companies") don't want to bother with copyright license requests. So, they sublet that business out to other companies that handle those requests. Out there in the world, the big dog on the block is the Harry Fox Agency. HFA has a vast amount of resources for copyright information. If you ever have a question about copyright licensing, their information center probably has the answer. HFA has a service called Songfile, which allows artists to easily gain compulsory mechanical licenses for literally millions of songs. (You can also get a lot of very dry, leagalese information from the U.S. Copyright Office. Look for a sexy little document called Circular 73. Sounds like something out of a bad spy movie. )


But... not many of the Christian publishers work with HFA. But there is a resource specifically for the Christian music industry, called Music Services. Music Services represents many of the larger Christian music publishers, with one noteable exception. Using their website to obtain licenses is very easy. Simply create an account, search for the song, requests the type of license you want. They even let you batch up the requests into a project. Very nice.


I said there was one noteable exception: Integrity Music. Integrity does all of their music administration in-house. Buried deep in Integrity's flash-laden, slow-loading website is a link to their music administration department. The link is here if you don't feel like going on the Easter Egg Hunt. Once you find the right page, there are links to request the proper license. You need to fill out a separate request for each song. (We were requesting seven from Integrity)


Of course, there is one in every crowd. In this case, the one was a song called "We Prepare the Way," written by Rick Pino. Rick is an alum of Christ for the Nations Institute, like our friend Kari Jobe. But... I could not find this song listed with anyone. When all else fails, you go to the source, and in this case, that's just what I did. Rick runs a ministry called Fire Rain Ministries down in Texas. An email to them was poorly timed by me over the Christmas holidays. A second email in January was answered right away by their music coordinator.


All three of these resources handled things in very different ways. Stay tuned for more info on that...

0 comments

2/25/09

The Music Licensing Quagmire - Part 1 - A Primer


As we were preparing to record our worship CD, there was one thing that we knew right off: since we were going to be doing "congregational favorites" (i.e. cover tunes) we would need to properly license the music. As the CCLI "licensee" at our church, I felt it was incumbent upon me to make sure this was done properly - in other words, do it myself.


I began this foray into the wild world of music licensing in November. Since we are recording our own performance of someone else's compositions for distribution on physical "phonorecords" (a term which includes CD's) we need what is call a mechanical license. A mechanical license is what is needed to produce a mechanical copy of the record.


Mechanical licenses are pretty unique when it comes to music licensing. There are a vast array of different types of music licenses... licenses for using music in a public performance, for broadcasting that performance, licenses for adding music to videos, for streaming music, for playing music on the radio... you name it, there's a license for it. Each of these licenses is negotiated between the copyright holder and the licensee. This is usually done by a copyright administrator. The copyright holder may not be the composer of the song.


For example, we are using a couple of Hillsong tunes. Let's take "From the Inside Out." The song was written by Joel Houston. The copyright holder is Hillsong Publishing in Australia. The copyright administrator is Integrity Media Inc. in the U.S. So Integrity is ultimately who we need to get the license from.


I said mechanical licenses are unique. There are two reasons. First, a copyright holder cannot prevent you from recording and selling a composition they own the rights to, as long as you pay royalties on it. They can refuse to issue you rights to put a song in a video or movie, or to write it into a play or to broadcast their recording of it. But they cannot stop you from covering it.


You are entitled under U.S. law to what is called a compulsory mechanical license. In other words, you can make the recording, sell the records, and send them the royalty check, as long as you give them legal notice you intend to do so. In fact, many publishers request that if you are only making a small amount of copies, that that's just what you do - "don't bother us, use a compulsory license." The difficulty with compulsories is the reporting requirements; you must send a monthly statement and payment, and you must have a C.P.A. send a yearly statement. What a pain.


The other difference with mechanical licenses is the royalty rate. This is how much you pay copyright holder to use the song. In the U.S., the royalties for mechanical rights are set by statute, they're not negotiated. For a song under five minutes, the royalty is 9.1 cents per song per copy. (If a song goes over five minutes, it's based on the length, but the formula is still set by law.) So for our CD, which has ten songs, we are paying 91 cents for every CD we press in royalties.

0 comments

2/24/09

Don't Let the Bear Get You

I was asked to preach at our youth service this past Sunday night at Gospel Light. I love youth services. There's always such a hunger and a desire for something there, especially when there are new youth present.

Worship was great. Our youth worship team is largely made up as the same people as Gospel Light's regular team, but in different roles, some different people, and with a different feel and vibe. They did six songs, but the two that really struck me were "From the Inside Out" and "Hosanna."

I'll be honest. I am not by any stretch a fire-and-brimstone preacher, and I will never be a televangelist. I am what might be called a teacher-preacher. I kind follow a traditional three-step process - exegisis, exposition, hermeneutics. Basically, describe what it says, what it means, and how it applies. Or, as my old English lit teacher used to say: "Tell 'em what your gonna tell 'em, tell 'em, and tell 'em what you told 'em." There's an example of that here.

I was a little nervous with this one. The scripture that God had placed on my heart was one that I had never heard preached, and I had not found anyone who had heard it preached. The verses were 2Kings 2:

23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” 24 So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. 25 Then he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.

Ok, so lets look at it... here are my notes. When I preach, I typically do not read my notes, I glance at them from time to time. But they are as good a resource as I have to offer.




Historical context:

Elijah had become deeply dejected and depressed. This was a time of severe crisis in Israel. Elijah had been on the run from Jezebel, and had fled into the wilderness of Beersheeba. He had prayed to the Lord that he be "taken from the Earth" (1Kings 19)Elijah's prayer had been answered by God - his work was completed.

Elisha had thus begun to literally follow in Elijah's footsteps, retracing his route. He first heals the bitter waters of Jericho.

Elisha travels from Jericho to Bethel. This is a twenty-mile journey on foot. Jericho is 1300 feet below sea level, in a valley. Bethel is 2000 feet above sea level, on a hill. The journey is long and tiresome, additionally so because Elisha is not welcomed anywhere. He is also despairing himself - on his own inadequacy, on the (apparent) futility of Elijah's ministry, on his own lack of prospects.

There are many critics of this story; rather there are many critics of God who hold this story up as an example of why to hate God. Interesting, that athiests absolutely believe this story.

As Elisha approaches Bethel, he comes upon a group of young people. Let's look at that. Most English translations will render this verse 23 as "little children." So we have a picture of a group of small children playing, and seeing a funny-looking man approach, and decide to make fun of him. Right?

Not so fast.

There is a problem here with the translation. The phrase little children comes from the Hebrew ketaniam and na'ar. Now, the exact usage of these words is pretty vague, especially na'ar, which seems to be used variously for a lot of different meanings. We do know, though, that this word is used to describe Issac in Genesis 22, when God tells Abraham "do not harm the lad." Most scholars think Isaac may have been in his late teens at that point, if not older. Na'ar is also used in Genesis 37 to refer to Joseph, in the same verse where it was indicated he was 17 years old. It is also used in 1 Kings to describe the men in a military company. So we can be pretty certain that we're not talking about ten-year-old boys here. We're probably talking about boys of somewhere around fifteen to seventeen or so.

Keep in mind as well, that verse 24 says that the bears mauled forty-two of them. Which means that there was at least forty-two of them there.

Elisha was in in deep trouble here. "Bald head" was not a minor, or harmless insult. Losing ones hair was often one of the first symptoms of leprosy, and the Israelites viewed lepers as being unclean and sinful. This was a deep, cutting insult. There is a word in the English language that serves no other purpose than to keep down people of color. The word qereach contains exacltly that sort of loathing and venom. Whether or not Elisha was actually bald - who knows. it doesn't matter. The law and tradition would have dictated that he had his head covered anyway. And, he was likely wearing a prophet's mantle - indicating he was annointed of God. So this mob of young men were hurling vile, despicable insults at an obvious man of God.

Let's look at what they were telling him, as well. "Go on up!" What kind of insult is that?

Remember what had just happened to Elijah. He had just "gone up" to Heaven, or at least the story went. The people in Bethel would have heard this story. They probably would have not believed it, but they would have heard it. And they would know that Elijah was gone. Don't forget, most people hated Elijah. So in essence, they were telling this man of God - "I hope you die, or go away and never come back. "

Ok, so... Elisha (a young man himself) comes upon a large group of young thugs, who are clearly threatening him. Changes things a little.

How do we deal with threatening situations?

How did Elisha. He "cursed" the youth. Why? (BTW, this is not cursing at them)
This was actually the proper, law-abiding response! Leviticus 26 speaks of what will happen if God's people do not obey Him:

22:I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate.

Sound familiar?

Elisha, as a prophet of God, was bound to do exacly what he did: leave the situation in the hands of God. The text says that Elish cursed them in the name of the Lord. It was not Elisha who called the bears - how could he?

Elisha did what was right - he called upon God to do what was right and just. And God's justice required that He be true to His word. Elisha did what we need to do when faced with threatening challenges - call upon the name of the Lord.

I'm not talking about minor setback. There are things that we face in our lives that are dangerous. There are things that will threaten our very existence - spiritually, physically, wahtever. We are told in Ephesians that our battlefield is not a physical one, but we should still be prepared to face threats. And we can rely on the fact that those threats will get what they deserve.

So let's look at what Elisha did and did not do in the face of these dangerous challenges:

He did not - run away and hide
He did not - complain to God He did not - act out of self-preservation (they were mocking God's messenger)
He did not - try to argue with them (cast pearls before the swine, Mat 7:6)He did not - take matters into his own hands

He did - Rely on God
He did - remember the Word of God
He did - face the challenge head on
He did - take up the armor that God had provided
He did - leave them to get what they deserved (removed the blessing)


So what do we do when faced with danger?

People criticise us, ridicule us, threaten us? How do we respond?

Do we leave it to God? Do we remember the word? Do we handle it ourselves?

Was the end result of this cruel? I think not. God's justice is according to His word. Often we are told to allow the sinner to sin if he will not accept the message of God. Jesus told us to "shake the dust off" our feet wherever the Gospel is not accepted. Paul told us to give the brother who persists in sin "over to the world."

Elisha was simply saying that God would remove His devine protection from these youth - that they would simply be treated the way they deserved. Imagine how we would deserve to be treated if we were not under God's grace. Once God's grace was removed, it was simply a matter of the bears acting according to their natures. But one needs to think about this: two bears mauled forty-two youth? Why could they not get away? Were they so mired in their sin that they would not flee? Is there an escape from judgement when God's grace is removed?




The altar call was an invitation to look inward on how we face challenges and obstacles, to be thankful for God's grace in times of trouble and darkness. To see God for who He is - an understanding provider and protector. I played a song called "Never" by Mandy Thompson, which I thought really spoke to the moment.

0 comments

2/20/09

Sunday Setlist - February 22 #sundaysetlists

This weeks setlist from Gospel Light Community Church in Bridgeport, Ct


Opening:

For Who You Are (Sampson)(B)


Main Set:



Trading My Sorrows (Evans)(G)
Again I Say Rejoice (Houghton/Lindsay)(E)
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)(C)
He Is Exalted (Paris)(G)
Shout to the Lord (Zschech)(A)



I also wanted to give props today to our offering song, which I don't usually do. Today we did "Righteousness, Peace and Joy" by Helena Barrington. (C) We haven't done it in awhile, but I remember it was one of the first songs I heard when I started coming to Gospel Light. It takes some kind of soprano to really pull it off, and we had one at the time. Mayby that's why I remember liking it so well.

We've been doing "He is Exalted" with our gospel choir, so this was kind of a hybrid arrangement. It's really a good song to have a lot of fun with.

I have to say that today was one of the best worship services I can remember in while. Everything clicked, the songs were great, we sounded good and everyone participated. I think we played "Blessed Be Your Name" and "Trading My Sorrows" for six or seven minutes each. And "Shout to the Lord..." What a great worship moment we had.



Tonight is youth service. I'm preaching at that.


This is part of Fred McKinnon's veritable setlist lollipolooa. Check it out!

0 comments

2/19/09

Song of the Week - Just Wanna Say - Israel Houghton


Since I've been doing From the Studio posts on Fridays, I'll move Song of the Week to Thursdays for a while.


This week's tune is the new release from Israel Houghton, called "Just Wanna Say." This is the first single off his upcoming album The Power of One, which is due out in March. "Just Wanna Say" was released as a single on iTunes and other digital stores a couple of weeks ago. I've been listening to it a lot, and I can tell you - this joint smokes!


Quoting liberally from Psalm 37, this song makes the point that God will NOT forsake us.


Even now I'm older
Never have I seen the
Righteous forsaken...


WARNING: Israel Hougton's music should be considered HIGHLY ADDICTIVE! Even without the formidable skills of the New Breed behind him, this song could cause uncontrollable head-bopping, foot stomping, hand-clapping and other fun symptoms. Don't call your doctor - just give into it.


I just wanna say
I'm not afraid
I know that you are with me
Always!


Here is Iz performing the song on TBN. Below is his own story behind the song.







0 comments

2/18/09

Out of the Mouths...

Eric Magnusson is a Christian journalist, and CEO of 4T4C News Corp. He posted this on Facebook.

This is a 12-year-old girl delivering a speech that she wrote for a school project. The topic is abortion. 197,000 views and counting.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and in the end he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6


0 comments

2/17/09

Who Am I

No, this is not the Song of the Week post about the classic Casting Crowns song.

Today, Tam (or as we know her in Tweet-land, @inProgress) posted about being a little girl, and imagining her father was on every airplane that flew overhead. The post struck a chord with me.

I am a child of adoption. I was adopted when I was seven months old, and although my adoptive parents, my real parents, are tremendous, wonderful people, who did a fine job raising me, there is always some part of an adopted child who wonders "Who am I?"

I've read that most adopted people who seek out their birth parents do so in their forties. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's one of those change-of-life things. Buy a sportscar, get a facelift, find your birthparents. Maybe it's that when you hit forty, you start measuring your own mortality, start realizing the scales may be tipping, that there may be more days behind than ahead.

Whatever the reason, when I hit forty a year and a half ago, I started thinking more and more about this question. Not that I'm in any way unsatisfied with my life; it's more of just an identity issue. I think on some level, we all want to know "who am I; where do I come from."

My situation is complicated by the fact it was an international adoption of sorts. Although I was adopted through an agency in New York City, I was born in a very rural part of Canada. How and why I came from one of the least populated parts of the hemisphere to one of the most populous cities on earth is part of the mystery.

A while after my 40th birthday I went and tracked down the agency that handled my adoption. Apparently, they closed in 2002. A little more research dug up the name of the agency that had acquired their accounts. An email to them finally returned an answer that the adoption records from the sixties had been transferred to the City. Contact so-and-so at such-and-such an agency.

That email sat in my inbox for a couple of weeks. What do I do now? Finally I called. So-and-so was on vacation, but doesn't handle that anyway. I'll transfer you. The next persons said "yes, I have those records. Give my your name, date and place of birth. The records aren't catalogued. We may not have anything. I'll pull the file. Call back in ten days."

That was thirteen months ago. I never called back. I'm not sure why.

In 2003, Canada passed the Adoption Act. One of the provisions of this law is that anyone who was adopted prior to 2003 can requests the entire file - birth name, birth parents names, adoption order - everything. And unless there is a veto filed requesting this information not be released, it is given. It takes a year for the paperwork to clear. But it's out there. Fifty bucks Canadian and a stamp.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. What would you do?

0 comments

2/13/09

Sunday Setlist - February 15

The weekly setlist from Gospel Light Community Church in Bridgeport, Ct.



Here is this week's list:
Opening:

We Cry Out - (Johnson)(Db)

Main Set:

Father, Spirit, Jesus - (Hall/Cates/Hunt)(B)
Beautiful One - (Hughes)(G)
Once Again - (Redman)(D)
Came to My Rescue - (Sampson/Davies/Thomas)(C)
The More I Seek You (Neese)(E)

We had a rough time at rehersal today - a lot of glitches and gremlins. Fortunately, that usually means that the service is good, and today was no different. Great time.

"We Cry Out" is the flavor of the week at GLCC, the "new" favorite. And it's a great song, to boot. We haven't done any Casting Crowns music in awhile. I don't know why - we all love the Crowns.


"Came to My Rescue" - I find comfort in the almost droning, repetitive progression. I can just close my eyes and let the music work.


I'm glad we did "The More I Seek You" this week. It had nothing to do with the release of Kari Jobi's new record, but I've been spending so much time listening to her this week (I'm writing a review for The Worship Community this week) that it seems fitting to have a Gateway song in the set.

Check in over at Fred McKinnon's blog to see what other churches are doing.

0 comments

From the Studio - Take 3

Last week, I didn't go to the studio, as it was my wife Jill's birthday. In that session, Elyano and Danny tracked drums and bass for three songs, "He Reigns," "Say So," and "From the Inside Out."


The plan this week was to finish tracking drums/bass on Elyano's last song, "You Said." He's playing on six of the ten songs, and the other four are going to be split between our other two drummers. So we got right into recording "You Said." We originally recorded it with the three of us, Elyano, Danny and myself. I'm only playing acoustic on this song, no electric.


I don't know if it was latency in the recording tools, but we were having a hard time keeping the guitar and drums in time. We did two takes with the three of us. After the second take, it looked that the guitar track was closer to the grid than the drums, even after quantatizing.


So what we wound up doing was trading off. We re-recorded the drums over the guitar track, then retracked the guitar over the new drum track. Finally, Elyano and Danny retracked drums and bass one final time. Their result was perfect. The sequence got tighter each time.


The song also wound up running too long in the first take. We're trying to keep each track under five minutes. This is basically because it simplifies the licensing and royalty payment process. To be brief, we have to pay the publishers of these songs for each copy we press of the finished album. If a song runs under five minutes, there is a flat rate computation. If the song goes over five minutes, it has to be calculated on the song length. So this just keeps the math simpler. (I'll do a post sometime on the licensing process.)


We we're running 5:20 in the first take, so we did a quick re-arrangement, shorted the intro and the lead-in to the bridge.


That song done, we went back to the songs that had been recorded last week. I tell you, "He Reigns" with just bass and drums sounded hot. We had half a mind just to leave it. (OK, not really, but it sounded good!) First step: I tracked electric - clean with a little overdrive, fatten up the bottom a tad, no distortion, no delay. Just me and the Bad Monkey. That done, Justin recorded his piano part, just choruses. Finally, I recorded acoustic. Same thing, just choruses. The result is (we hope) a lot of dynamics between the verses and the choruses.

Next week, the plan is to record guitar and keys over "Say So" and "From the Inside Out." We shouldn't need to do any bass/drums, unless we need to redo something. Hopefully, we can just work with what's there (I haven't heard it) and knock those two out.


We're hoping also to get some rough mixes of the five songs we have done next week, so the vocalists can start their rehearsals.

0 comments

2/11/09

Free Stuff

This is pretty deep.


Jon over at Stuff Christians Like wrote a post today that just blew me away. Far too often, we try to get stuff "on the cheap" when it comes to ministry. But as Jon points out, if we are doing things for God, shouldn't they require some sacrifice?


Do we give God time whenever we can "fit him in?"


Do we give old, free stuff to the church?


Do we look for some way to do things "without cost" so we can be "good stewards?"


Jon points out 2Samuel 24, where David approaches Araunah for a place to offer sacrifice. Araunah says:


"Let my lord the king take and offer up whatever seems good to him. Look, here are oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing implements and the yokes of the oxen for wood. All these, O king, Araunah has given to the king.”


Free stuff! Very kewl. But David answers:


“No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing.”


David would not offer sacrifice to God on a free altar. Why should we?




0 comments

2/10/09

Old School and the N.T.


Sunday night I decided to eschew the Grammy Awards show. I relate very little to the Grammys these days - I don't know most of the acts, they place (in my view) way to much emphasis on hip-hop, and totin' the old fogies out (ahem... Sir Paul, for example) is getting old. (although I did flip over a couple of times during commercials, and did catch Kid Rock. I don't like the dude's music, but he is talented, no doubt.

So I spent the evening flipping back and forth between the House marathon and BET's Celebration of Gospel '09. What a great show that was!

One real surprise for me in that show was L.L. Cool J doing a song with Mary, Mary. The ladies may love Cool James, but he got his start - like so many -singing in a church choir. He showed why he was and is one of the patriarchs of rap and hip-hop. In candor, I consider most hip-hop "artists" to be small-talent wannabes, making money off of samples of real musician's work, filling the beats with profanity and barely intelligible babbling. But I've always respected James and his music. (Plus, he's a pretty good actor if you forget Deep Blue Sea.)

I know there is a trend for secular artists to do Gospel music from time to time. I don't know if it buys them credibility, or (I'm sure in some cases) it's their heart's call. But it's cool to see big-time talent giving it up for G.O.D. once in a while.



0 comments

2/8/09

Sunday Setlist - February 8

Another great week at Gospel Light Community Church. We were expecting to have a smaller crowd than normal, as much of the Men's Network was away on an Encounter Weekend, but it was a full house with a lot of visitors today.

Here's this week's setlist:

Opening:

Shout to the Lord (Zschech)

Main Set:

Eres Todopoderoso (Salinas) (D)
All About You (Cruse-Ratcliffe/Houghton) (E)
For Who You Are (Sampson) (B)
Revelation Song (Riddle)(D)
You Are My All in All (Jernigan)(G)
You Are My King (Amazing Love) -(Foote) (D)

Special:

We Cry Out (Johnson) (F#)


"All in All" was a mid-service addition. Just seemed to feel right, given the mood of the worship at the time. "Revelation Song" really got to some people. We played it with a lot of dynamics today. Piano for melody in the first couple of verses, electric on a clean channel playing light arpeggios behind. Bass came later. We played like that through the first chorus and second verse. Going into the second chorus we built it up, I kicked the electric over to dirty and waled away. We dropped to almost a capella for the third verse. Laura hits that "Jesus your name is power..." lyric so well, we hate to mask it behind music. Then back in big.

"All in All" just kind of came out. But it's an old favorite, so everyone really got into it right away. It went nice right into "You Are My King" which is simply an amazing song.

We had one of the members come up to give testamony and she asked us up to play a song. We didn't know what she wanted to do, and were surprised at "We Cry Out." But everyone really digs that song. I think the member was really impressed with her own performance with a whole band behind her... I was.

This is part of Fred McKinnon's worship blog carnival. Check it out.

0 comments

2/7/09

Saturday Silliness - Identity Theft


You love 'em. you know it. Just admit it.

They come on the TV and you sing along. You know the words. In fact, the last one hinted at that.

"Free credit report dot com.
Tell your friends, tell your dad, tell your mom.
Nevermind, they've been singing our songs
since we first showed up
with the pirate hats on!"

It's the saga of everyday life here in America. This poor schmoe has his life slowly ruined by a bad credit score. It even ruined his marriage to his dream girl! He can't get a house, has a series of bads job, can't buy a car and has to hide out in a Renaissance Fair. Typical "Joe the Plumber" type, right?

Not so fast. Dude ain't even American! English isn't even his first language! It's not him singing! We've been had!

The actor in question is Eric Violette, a French-Canadian actor/singer/songwriter. (the Jobless Trifecta!) He can sing, he can play; he just doesn't in the commercials. The guy singing in the commercials is (marketing jingle genius) Dave Mulhefeld, who also writes the ditties.

Go figure, Joe American is really a pseudo-euro bohemian type. Sheesh!

Here is our frauster in real life: (more below)





...and here he is pretending to be down and out. (Notice La même guitare bon marché.) And yes, this is the best ad of the bunch. (Just don't actually call the company. Apparently they leave much to be desired.)



0 comments

2/6/09

Song of the Week - I Will Be Here - Steven Curtis Chapman


Yesterday was my wife Jill's birthday. After we got back from dinner, the kids had a cake and gifts waiting for her. One of the gifts she got was a copy of the book "The Love Dare," which was the basis of the film Fireproof. (Which, by the way, is now on DVD) That and the whole birthday thing got be thinking back...

In late 2000 or early 2001, when I first started getting into the whole church thing, one of my biggest stumbling blocks was music. Music is obviously very important to me, and I did not want to give up my tunes, to be quite honest. I had heard some Christian music, but Carmen was not really cutting it for me. Then someone gave me a copy of Steven Curtis Chapman's Greatest Hits. "This was some decent music." I thought to myself. Especially the two "Abbey Road Sessions" tunes at the end.

One of the songs, though, really spoke to my heart, and to my wife's as well. That song was "I Will Be Here. We liked it so much, in fact, that we used it when we renewed our wedding vows a couple of years later. To me, it is a song that really speaks of love and the union that God blesses a man and woman with.

The song was first released on 1989's More to This Life album, but Chapman has re-released it several times. It's on the Greatest Hits album, as well as 2003's All About Love.

Tomorrow morning if you wake up
and the sun does not appear
I will be here.

That is so simple, yet so profound. The song meanders through a variety of situations and difficulties, always with the promise and assurance "I will be here." My favorite lyric is in the bridge:

I will be true
to the promise I have made
to you and to the One
who gave you to me.

The song was written in Eb, owing to Chapman's range. There are a lot of chord changes, but the easy, gently pace of the song makes it fairly easy to play. It's a great song for just a singer and an acoustic guitar.



0 comments

2/5/09

Building a song

Yesterday I extolled the virtues of Ubuntu Studio. I got a comment, plus a couple of emails about it. Apparently someone was intersted.

I thought I'd give a quick demo on how easy it is to create music with software like this. A lot of folks are afraid of this kind of software. So was I, but apparently for no reason.


I decided (since we're putting it on the album) to record a scratch of Hillsong's "From the Inside Out." Just a verse and chorus. Don't worry - you won't have any tracks of me singing, trust me.



I decided to start with the drum track. For this, I used Hydrogen, the drum sequencer included with Ubuntu Studio. First thing to do is open a new session and then open the pattern editor. On the top of the editor, you select how many beats you want your pattern to be, and how many divisions you want. In this case, I chose 8 beats and 1/32nd notes.






From there it's a simple matter of adding each element at the appropriate place. This rhythm is slightly syncopated, which is why I chose the 1/32 divisions. I could have gotten away with sixteenths for a straight 4/4 rock song. (for the high-hats)


The bars along the bottom show the velocity of each of the hits. In this part of the pattern they are even.






For this pattern, you can see the velocity gets greater with each hit. This is a buildup using kick and two toms. Once you have your patterns set, you then look at the song editor view.


If you think this looks like a mixer, that's because that's what it is. The top half assigns patterns to each measure, and the bottom is a regular mixing console. With the mixer you can adjust the relative volumes of each channel, pan them left or right, mute or solo them. There are even FX inserts for plugins. "humanize" is a nice feature - it will randomly change the timing and/or velocity slightly. After all, no one is perfect.

In a future post, I will show how to import this into Ardour. You can listen to what we have so far here.

0 comments

2/4/09

Music Production Cheap and Easy

Disclosure: I've never owned a Mac.


Whew, there it is. I will readily acknowledge that a Mac is probably the be-all of digital music production. The album that Gospel Light Worship is recording is being produced on a Mac. But for my own stuff at home, practice, scratch tracks and the like, there's no way I can shell out the coin for a Mac, ProTools etc...


So I began to look for some cheap solutions. What I found was amazing.



I've been a Linux hacker for a little bit now. My laptop has been dual booted through several versions of Ubuntu, and I have an older laptop (OK, an ancient laptop that I run DSL on. But the only thing I really found useful in Linux (so far ) was some of the music apps. (Let's face it, OpenOffice, while good, is not Microsoft Office, and there is no program that does what Outlook does as well as it does it.)



But what I did find is a derivative of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Studio. What Studio is a distro of Ubuntu that is specifically geared for music, video and graphic production. And there are a couple of very significant differences between Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio.


First is the kernel, which is the most basic level of software that an application has to control. The Studio kernel is specifically written to provide low-latency - in other words, to prioritize media applications to get immediate CPU time so that multiple tracks line up, recorded music is timed properly, etc...


Second, is the sheer volume of applications (called packages in Linux-speak) that come bundled with Studio. There is Ardour (multitrack recorder), Audacity (.wav editor), Hydrogen (butt-kicking drum machine), MusE (MIDI sequencer), Rosegarden (another DAW program), Mixx (a DJ-style program) - and those are just the audio production packages. There are a dozen graphics packages, a couple of video editors, video/audio sychronization tools, music notation editors, animation tools...


All these packages (as well as Ubuntu itself) are open-source, meaning that they are offered without the need for licensing. There is no cost associated with any of these packages, although you can donate to the various development efforts if you see fit.



These are not, by the way, fly-by-night, cheesey applications. Ardour is every bit the DAW that ProTools is. Hydrogen is one of the most complete drum machines you could want. In fact, most of these packages are not for "recreational use-" they are serious, professional-level production tools.



This is a screenshot of my Studio desktop. Here I'm running Ardour and Hydrogen. Using the included JACK Audio Connection Kit, you can basically have Ardour "control" various other packages. For example, you create a drum loop in Hydrogen, and a MIDI sequence in MusE. You can set up tracks for these in Ardour, and the Ardour transport controls will start and stop the other programs. And with the low-latency kernel, everything comes together.



Now, before you get scared by phrases like "Linux" and "dual-boot," let me say "No sweat!" Studio is very easy to install. (You can run "live" CD's of Ubuntu without installign anything.) It will even partition and set up the multi-boot for you. The best bet, though, is to use an older PC that you may not use anymore, and do a clean install onto a formatted hard drive. Ubuntu has a lower overhead than XP or (heaven-forbid) Vista, so it runs well on older hardware. (Trivia: Mac OS X is a derivative of BSD Unix. So are several flavors of Linux.)


Bottom line is this: if you are interested in some serious media production, have some technical skills, and are either thrifty or broke, then Ubuntu Studio may be for you. (Now if I can just get Ardour to import from Wiinstrument...)

0 comments

2/3/09

Desktop Revealed.

Connor over at Worship City started this, and I though I'd jump in. He asked us to show our desktop wallpaper. So here goes.

I have two PC's that I use regularly. My Acer Aspire notebook (dual-booted to XP and Ubuntu Studio) is my main horse. Both OS's have the same image:


Yes, I'm a Battlestar Galactica freak. This image I got, I think, from Mojo, who is a visual effects artist/supervisor for BSG, having worked on Star Trek: Voyager and Babylon 5 as well. Very cool dude to know if you are into computer- generated eye-candy. (This is actually one fourth of the original giga-pixel image of Pegasus. I just wanted Galactica.)

At work, my seriously overpowered Dell Optiplex 745 carries this joint:


I'm not sure where I got it, but I think it's cool nonetheless.

So what are you sporting?

0 comments

2/2/09

A Case For Perserverance


Fooled ya!


You thought I was going to comment on Hebrews 12 or 2 Timothy 4, right? OK. But you sure didn't expect a DVD Review of WALL-E.


WALL-E was our Movie Night film this past Friday at GLCCKidz. (Believe me, it's a challenge finding movies to screen for a church group of 4 to 12 year-olds that everyone likes and are approriate. I'm glad fifth Fridays only come every couple of months.


Disclosure: I love Pixar films. I'm one of those Disney-holics from the way back. Before the Dark Times. Before the Internet. I saw Forbidden Disney and got every single joke. So I love all the little in-jokes and Disney references in these movies. I love the technical proficiency with which they can render expressions, skin, water, space... amazing. So I was eagerly anticipating seeing this movie.


WALL-E is a great film to show kids of all ages, and it has a hidden nugget in it - a great lesson on biblical perserverance.


The film opens with the basic set-up. On Earth in the 22nd century, trash has become such a problem that the obligitory Corporate Giant that Runs the World (Buy -n-Large) decides to evacuate the planet into giant starliners, and send an army of robots to clean up the planet. Soon it is decided it is easier to live in space than return to Earth.


WALL-E is the last functioning robot on Earth. After 700 years of recycling trash, we are introduced to the little feller, who is still doing his job. No supervision, no companionship, no accountability. But the little robot still goes out every day and does his job, rebuilding himself from the other WALL-E units who have failed.


Soon a life-seeking probe (EVE) returns to Earth and finds WALL-E. A budding robo-mance happens until WALL-E presents EVE with a plant. She shuts down right away, after locking the plant inside.


You can read Wikipedia if you want the whole plot. The point is this: both WALL-E and EVE give great examples of perserverance; WALL-E for doing his job for so many years when he could have easily given up, and EVE for sacrificing her own happiness for the sake of her "directive."


This film is not only an example of the best kind of science-fiction in that it takes us to a place clearly not our own, but makes that place completely believeable and does not allow the eye-candy to get in the way of the storytelling; but also great storytelling in it's own right. Indeed, there is very little in the way of dialogue from our hero and heroine. WALL-E's vocabulary seems to be limited to clicks, whistles and repeating names. It is astounding how EVE can express a multitude of ideas and emotions with the word "Directive."


One great bonus of the DVD version of this film, is the added short called "BURN-E." This short expands on the life of one throw-away character in the main movie, a little maintenance bot seen only for a few seconds. But the seven-odd minute short is cleverly wound into the events in the main film - as is a day in the life of BURN-E.


So put the popcorn on, head over to the Redbox and grab this Andrew Stanton joint. Get the kiddies on the couch, and pretend it's for them. And be sure to watch until the end of the credits.

0 comments

2/1/09

Sunday Setlist - February 1

Here's the setlist from Gospel Light Community Church for this Superbowl Sunday.

Opening:

Friend of God (Houghton/Gungor)

Main Set:

Cover the Earth (Houghton/Cruse-Ratcliff/Houghton)
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)
God of Wonders (Byrd/Hindalong)
How Great is Our God (Tomlin/Reeves/Cash)
Oh Lord, You're Beautiful (Green)
Give Us Clean Hands (Hall)

"Friend of God" is one of those great songs that is a favorite at GLCC - kind of a bookend with "You Are Good." It always gets people going. "God of Wonders" is one of my favorite songs - it was on the short list for the CD, and was the last song cut, I think. (I often size up acoustic guitars by playing this song.)

We did a lot of dynamics for "How Great..." Started really mellow, then kicked in hard for the bridge, and finished the song that way. We reprised it for the building fund offering, coming in right into the bridge.

"Give Us Clean Hands" was an on-the spot addition. It was clear when we finished the set that people were not done worshipping, so we kept playing. Justin looked over at me and said "Give me a G" and just started singing. It was a great moment, people raising hands, swaying and singing.

Today's Band:

Leader/Keys: Justin
Vocals: Laura, Mariah, Esther, Celia
Guitar: Mike
Bass: Danny
Drums: Aquim

As always, check out Fred McKinnon's blog for more setlists. Fred has a new look this week.

0 comments

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)