mikeymo's place

husband, father, pastor, musician, teacher

6/30/09

Bass and Piano


It's been a couple of weeks since my last post about the song idea I've been revisiting. The song will hopefully be sung at some point by Send Judah First, the gospel choir at GLCC. But first it needs to get finished!!

When we left off, I had just finished building the drumline in Hydrogen. The next step is to get it into Ardour, the DAW I will be using. There are two ways to go about that. The "Cool Recording Studio Way" is to sync Hydrogen to Ardour using a program called Jack. Jack is a real-time audio server. In a nutshell, it can connect various audio programs and hardware together. Not only can it exchange audio between programs, but also transport commands and time signals. This is the preferred method for final, studio quality recordings, because it involves a direct exchange of data without any coding or compression.

For a quick-and-dirty method for making scratch tracks and such, it is simple to export the Hydrogen track as a wav file, then import the wav into Ardour.

Once the drum track was in Ardour, I wanted to add some melody and bass. Again, since this is a quick-and-dirty scratch track, I decided not to go the whole midi-sequencer route, and instead decided to capture the keyboard audio directly. Each track in Ardour shows up with two inputs in Jack. The way I record over existing audio is to connect the output 2 of the drum track directly to the System Playback 2 connection. Then I put the System Capture 1 to the track's #1 input. Connect the masters, and you can hear the drums playback without it copying over to the new track.

When connecting an instrument to the soundcard of my PC (since I don't have an audio interface), I prefer to use a mixer in the middle. Why? Because it gives me better control than the instruments volume knob, and is easier to adjust on the fly than the computers sound controls. I use a Behringer Xenyx 802 mixer. That way I can see the levels in the Ardour mixer and make easy adjustments on the 802, without having to flip windows.

The rest was just playing. One track for a bassline (I cheated and used the keyboard) and one for the piano.

So now I have a scratch track to take to our choir director for comments. My next plan is to re-record it with a real bass (or possible a bass synth) and use the MIDI capabilities of the keyboard to make a nicer piano track.



Here's a short clip of the first verse.


video

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6/29/09

Sunday Setlist - June 28th


Here is this week's worship service recap from Gospel Light Community Church.


Opening:

Shout to the Lord (Zschech)(A)

Main Set:

Trading My Sorrows (Evans)(G)
Your Grace is Enough (Maher)(G)
Cover the Earth (Houghton/Cruse-Ratcliff/Houghton)(D)
How Great is Our God (Tomlin/Reeves/Cash)(F)
Only By Grace (Gustafson)(C)


Offering:

O Praise Him (All This for a King)(Crowder)(Bb)


Obviously, ther's something missing here. Those who read this blog regularly will ask "Where's the Hillsong tune?" Well, we didn't have one! So there!


It was "More Acoustic Than Usual" day for me. The first four songs of the main set are all songs I do on acoustic, and my right arm was getting a workout! We won't even talk about the condition of my right pinky after fretting the E string four songs in a row. Piano players have it easy!


This time of year tends to get a little challenging regarding scheduling and filling spots. We're down a couple of vocalists due to summer schedules, but we have two new singers who've been rehearsing with us. Hopefully they will be starting soon. We were also short Danny, who was preaching at a different church as part of his college ministry, So Elyano stepped in to play bass.


We also began - for the first time this year - to work on some new music. I'll post separately on our process and how we've included the congregation, but it's time to make some changes to the song list. Yesterday at rehearsal we worked on "All Because of Jesus" by Fee. Aquim was all over the song on drums, and I had spent some time with my effects chain to get the tone and delays right. The multi-delay on the Echo Park pedal did the trick well, and our vocalists did a great job with the song - even though we were playing it in the original key of C. (I had also prepped to do it in A.) Expect to see that song in a setlist soon.


So how did your service go? Check out some others at Fred McKinnon's blog.

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6/26/09

From the Studio - Take 12

This week was the last scheduled week of recording, as it was time to begin the process of final-mixing the record. That was the plan, anyway.


The schedule for this week was to record the spoken parts we are doing over one of the musical interludes, and have Josh record a chorus on "From the Inside Out" that he had left to do. That all went pretty smoothly. We were joined in the studio by none other than my seven-year-old daughter Cailynn, who is contributing her voice to one of the spoken parts. Danny and Celia did the others, and then it was on to Josh.

He recorded his parts in just a couple of takes, and there it was - milestone reached. The "main" recording was done!!


The best part of the whole session came next. We sat down and listened - actually listened - to the entire album. The reason we did this was to make notes on the areas that we needed to do inserts and overdubs, and also to start to get a feel for where we need to go in mixing, in terms of editing, levelling and plugins. This was the first time I had heard a couple of the songs at all since the guitar parts were done. "He Reigns," for example. We did this song pretty much in two takes back in February. And I haven't even listened to the music on it since. But it was amazing with the vocals on it.


Some of the vocal choices that the singers made surprised me, actually, but in a good way. I had done the basic arrangements for all the songs, but was at few of the vocal sessions. So this was really a fresh experience for me, listening to the vocal runs, the harmonies, and the choices that were made on who was to sing what. I've got to hand it to our singers, they definitely got some game.


One thing that became apparent is that we need to do some more work than we though. Hearing the songs in more-or-less competed form showed us where the holes are. We need to add one vocal session to record the fills and redo some small parts. That will add a week to the project, and some more money to the budget.


We had about an hour left after listening and making notes, so we decided to tackle some issues. Since Josh was there, we decided to redo his vocals on "You Said," which weren't really meshing with the new guitar track I had recorded. Once that was done, we then turned to "Say So," which needed some fortifications in the last chorus. It had been recorded with just the girls singing that section, but it sounded a bit weak compared to the rest of the song. Fortunately, the guys had sung it in the middle of the song, and Gabby was able to overdub that part onto the end. The power of Pro Tools became evident as the vocals were dropped in and then synced to the existing vocals seamlessly.


We also made some decisions about the arrangement on "Mighty to Save." I don't want to give everything away, but there will be some editing to the ending in post-production to change things around a bit.


Next week will be recording the fills and some overdubs, then jumping heavy on the final mix.



Sign up for updates, including release events on our Facebook page.


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6/24/09

Milestones

How do we judge a life? No, that's not a reference to the song "Seasons of Love." But maybe it ought to be. Because like that song, life is best measured in moments, in milestones, in points of reference.

A popular phrase is this: He who has the most toys wins. Fiddlesticks. Life has nothing to do with toys. (although I like toys!) It has everything to do with relationships, and with accomplishments. As long as each accomplishment is a stepping stone to another one.


Why am I waxing such philosophy today? My daughter graduated high school last night, and I was strongly reminded of my own high school graduation twenty-five years ago. Perhaps I'm not where I planned twenty-five years ago now, but I can look back on those years with satisfaction, knowing now that the journey continues.


We're very proud of Shannon. She has done remarkable things, and has a focus and vision for her life. (She didn't get that from me, I can tell you.) This summer she will be going on a mission trip and teaching other youth about some of these very ideas. Then she begins to chase that next hill.


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6/21/09

Sunday Setlist - Father's Day 2009

It's apropos that on this Father's Day, the setlist was put together by a father - me!! I did last week's set, as well as the one for this week. I always find the second week of our two week rotations harder, probably because I'm more excited at doing it for the first time in months on my first week. Last week's set worked out really well, and flowed beautifully. Let's see how this week's turned out.

Opening:
Rescue (Anderson)(G)


Main Set:

Turn It Around (Houghton/Lindsey)(D)
Finding Who We Are (Shamburger)(G)
Hosanna (Fraser)(C#m)
From the Inside Out (Houston)(G)
Arms of Love (Musseau)(G)

Offering:


Blow the Trumpet (Terndrup)(Dm)
Montana (Gonzales/Gonzales/Gonzales) (Am)

Ok, I know you don't know the last two. Or maybe you do. "Blow the Trumpet" is a favorite from the early days of Gospel Light. "Montana" (that's mon-ton-ya) is a song by the Latin Christian band Salvador. The song has a kind of rancheras feel to it. And we sing it in Spanish.


"Turn it Around" I wanted to do a little different than we usually do it. We usually start it with a guitar riff (D-Am7-D-C) but I wanted a little more of the Alive in South Africa vibe to it, And of course, Justin with the "thunderstorm" sound at the end! Aquim did a great job bringing the right feel to the song on the drums.


The first song that came to me as I was praying and thinking about this list was "Hosanna." It's not on our "official" list, but I felt really strongly about it. It was just in my head all week. It was the first time we've done it since I got my Korg AX10G multi. I had a couple of patches set up for it that sounded nice, and this is one of the few songs we do that we actually play the guitar solo during worship.

I stayed with the electric during "From the Inside Out" - not my usual choice on a Sunday. I think I'll go back to the acoustic next time. It's a better "one guitar" choice with our setup, I think. For "Arms of Love" I used a swell delay that gave a nice cello-like sound. "Inside Out" went over really well, and flowed nicely into "Arms of Love."


Being Father's Day today, we did have a special presentation for all the fathers in attendance, by our 4-9 year-old children's cell group. They gave cards and balloons to all us pastors, then a copy of The Bible Promise Book to all of the fathers. Finally, the led the church in singing "Counting on God" by the Desparation Band - the version on the Integrity Shout Praises! Kids: Living for You DVD.

This setlist is part of the setlist carnival at Fred McKinnon's blog. Check out other Father's Day services.

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6/18/09

Song of the Week - We Prepare the Way - Rick Pino

When looking for a song to anchor the upcoming Gospel Light Worship album, Prepare, we had to look no farther than Christ For the Nations alum Rick Pino. The theme of the album from the start has been evangelism - both from the point of view of the call, and the response. All of our songs focus some way on these two aspects of spreading the Gospel of Christ - either "telling the world" what Christ has done, or seeking to "draw close" to God.


The keynote scripture for the the entire project has been Luke 3:4-6 :


...as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘ Prepare the way of the LORD; Make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’"


For this reason, Rick Pino's "We Prepare the Way" is the perfect capstone for the record. Answering the call to "prepare the way of the Lord," the record represents our desire to go beyond our walls with the message of the Gospel.


Rick and his Fire Rain ministry were kind enough to share about the origins of the song, from his upcoming songbook: (Thanks to Adam at Fire Rain for getting this to us!)



This song began in a small worship gathering where just a few people who had their hearts set on singing prayers of worship to the Lord. The word of God says that a person who has a pilgrim’s heart is blessed! A pilgrim’s heart is one that pioneers. A pilgrim’s heart is one that journeys into the unknown. A pilgrim’s heart is one that blazes trails where no one else has ever gone! What if every worship leader, every person on the worship team, everyone who has anything to do with worship unto the Lord, began to journey into the unknown in their worship? We would have nothing but blessed worship! The only boundary in your pilgrimage worship journey should be the word of God and nothing else.

Pilgrims are forerunners. They are ones who run before. They find the path for others. One of the things that the forerunner will always come up against is the spirit of religion. Forerunners help to break the bride of Christ into the next level. They usher in the new corporate wineskin. Religion, however, does not want this to happen! The religious spirit of formulas, productions, and traditions wants to keep us enslaved to the old wineskin mindset; but God is raising up His contenders who will push the envelope and believe God for the new! Be encouraged! If forerunners like Elijah, John the Baptist, and Jesus had to face the religious and political demons of their day, then so will you. Just know that the rewards of breakthrough are greater than the battles that get you there.


Our interpretation of this song is a simple arrangement, mainly acoustic guitar and piano. The song will include a musical interlude, with a reprise of the chorus. As it caps off the record, we hope that it will indeed be a voice in the wilderness for those who listen.


Check out the project's Facebook page for regular updates. And check out this video of Rick worshipping with this song. (With CFNI)



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6/16/09

Playing for Change - Worldwide Collaboration


This amazing video is the product of years of travelling around the globe, recording musicians who each contributed their little piece to the final product. The song "began" in 2005 in Santa Monica, California with street singer Roger Ridley, and went to over thirty-five musicians in North America, Europe and Africa.

They never met one another, but crafted this masterpiece out of a love for the music. Read more after the bump.







The story about this amazing song, others like it, and the foundation behind it can be found at the Playing For Change website.

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6/14/09

Sunday Setlist - June 14




Here's this week's list from Gospel Light Community Church.

Opening:

Revelation Song (Riddle)(G)


Main Set:



Tell the World (Douglass/Houston/Sampson)(G)
We Cry Out (Johnson)(C#)
For Who You Are (Sampson)(B)
The Stand (Houston)(G)
Came to My Rescue (Davies/Sampson/Thomas)



Wow, what a day. The service went really well today, especially the worship segment. Rehearsal was a bit rough, as the musicians seemed to be having a hard time finding the pocket, and Josh was straining to hit some notes.

None of that was apparent in service. Everything really flowed well, and the worship really soared. "We Cry Out" continues to be an amazing song of ministry to so many people. We hold nothing back when playing it, and still it's all about what the song is saying that really engages people.

For the "For Who You Are" and "The Stand" especially, I was in tone Nirvana, hitting things just as I wanted. There was such a good balance with the piano today, it was amazing. On "The Stand," I used the same trick I used last week with the reverse delay, giving a heavy, cello-like string sound in the verses, a clean channel for the walkup in the prechorus, and then some Bad Monkey overdrive when the chorus begins to pick up. We then dropped all the istruments and let the voices sing out. (this is where I switched to acoustic for the next song)

The congregation was so engaged at this point, that when we got to the lyric "Falling on my knees in worship..." on the next song, many people were already on their knees. As I looked over the room, I saw tears and lifted hands. But I was in my own worship space, too, so maybe I was doing the same.

Check out other worship sets over at Fred McKinnon's blog.

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6/13/09

Saturday Silliness - Movie Review - The Taking of Pelham One Two Three


No, not that one.

Everyone and their brother is doing reviews of Tony Scott's new summer blockbuster, starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington. Alas, in this, the Golden Age of the Remake, we have yet another entry, it seems.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three has actually been remade twice. In 1998, there was a made-for-TV movie starting Vincent "Private Pyle" D'onofrio and Edward James "So say we all!" Olmos. That film was very faithful to the original novel by John Godey.

The 1974 film by Joseph "Don't blame me for Jaws: The Revenge" Sargent is a cult classic, and one of the best real New York films of the 70's. For those of you under the age of, say, thirty, this film gives a very realistic look at what the Big Apple was like pre Rudolph Guliani.
The film stars a powerhouse of character actors: Walter Matthiau, Robert Shaw, Hector Elizondo, Martin Balsam, Jerry Stiller, Earl Hindman and Dick O'Neill. The fact that all of these guys were in the same film is a credit to the era the film was made in.

This film is all man. There are no touchy-feeley romantic subplots, no "deus-ex-machina" aliens or machines to save the day, no ridiculous fights. Only two men, relentlessly matching wits with one another over a radio; one cold and cunning, the other experienced and world-weary.


Robert Shaw brings all of his "you go in the cage, cage goes in the water. Shark's in the water..." Quint-coldness and efficiency to the part of Mister Blue, the mastermind behind the caper. (Yeah, in the 70s, this was a "caper.") Matthiau mopes along with some quick wit, aided by some of the best ethnic stereotypes in film history, especially the Japanese businessmen. Oh, how funny was the age before political correctness! And the guys hijacking the train are asking for a Dr. Evil-like one million dollars!



24 owes a lot to this film: Sargent edited it so that it takes place in real time. This, combined with the gritty feeling of the film, the dark tone of the humor, and the short-fused portrayal of Mister Grey by Elizondo, give the film a sense of pounding suspense and realism.


I dont' imagine that you'll find this film at the local Redbox. You'll have to scoot on down to Blockbuster, or maybe the local public library. It's worth the effort, though. (Just don't watch it with the kiddies - there's a bit of language in it. ) Based on the reviews coming in for the Tony Scott film, this classic will be remembered long after that film has been forgotten. (Or, you can just enjoy the trailer:)



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6/12/09

From the Studio - Take 11


It's been awhile ( six weeks, actually) since I did a "From the Studio" update. The reason for that is that our vocalists have spent the last six studio sessions doing their part, and have had little need for a guitar player or arranger. The break was well needed, though, as the project had been consuming much of my time for four months.

Not that I've been doing nothing. Besides the actual recording, there's been working on the cover art, planning the packaging and distribution, working on the press kit. Lots of stuff to do. (A tentative version of the front cover is shown to the right. )


Last night was the last full vocal session. Everything is just about "in the can" so to speak. The plan for last night was to do three things. 1) redo the acoustic part on "You Said." 2) have Mariah record her parts on "You Said" 3) have Mariah record her parts for "From the Inside Out."

I was redoing the acoustic part on "You Said" for one basic reason - it didn't sound good. When it was just music, it sounded fine, but as the vocals got layered over it, there were two problems with it: there were a couple of timing issues, and the chord voicing didn't sound right with the vocals. We're doing the song in A, but I had played the song in a G voicing with a capo, the way we do it live. But recorded, the guitar sounded a bit tinny behind the voices. So we redubbed it, this time using the open A chords. I also stripped down how I was playing it, as it sounded a little busy.



Once that was done, it was time for Mariah to step up and sing. Our arrangement of this song is vocally layered over simple accompaniment. She was doing choruses, the bridge and the tag. One of the things we're doing is called "doubletracking." Doubletracking is a technique where a singer sings over a previous take in order to get a "bigger" sound. It's not as easy as it sounds, as the second take has to be just about exactly like the first take in timing, inflection, vibrato - everything that goes into a performance. The other challenge was that Mariah was singing aharmony part, and thus had to sing a third above the music. (Basically sing in the key of C while the music played in A.)

Obviously the vocalists have been working hard during the past six weeks, because Mariah not only nailed the key and the timing, but the doubletrack as well. Moving on to the second song, she breezed through that as well, as if she's been doing it for years.

It was exciting listening to the songs, now that all the parts have been assembled. All that's left to record vocally is for Josh to do two choruses on one song, and then record a couple of spoken parts for a short interlude on the record. We should get that done early in the next session, then it will be time to do the final mix and get ready for mastering.

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6/11/09

Setting Up Our Podcast - The Audacity of It! - Part 2

Yesterday, I started explaining the process we use at GLCC to edit and post our weekly podcast. Here's the rest.

Now where was I?

Oh, yeah... we had trimmed the ends, taken out the peaks, and levelled the whole thing. Cool.


The next step is to maximize the volume across the entire recording. I do this because people listen to a podcast in different ways. Some listen on their computer with desktop speakers, some with headphones; some download it and play it in the car, some burn it to a disc. One of the reasons to reduce the high-amplitude peaks is so that you can bring the amplitude of the entire recording up. It is easy for someone to turn the playback down if it's too loud; they can't really make it any louder than it is on the recording.


To do this, I select the entire track by clicking in the gray area under the L/R slider to the left of the track. Then I go to Effects=>Amplify. The Amplify plugin will automatically set to the maximum level you can set the track without clipping. Click "OK" and get a cup of coffee. (Some of these plugins take a few minutes to apply to an entire track.



Sometimes I will take some music from the end of the track (music that I've cut) and make a bumper at the end, to fade in over the end of the speaking. This is easily done by adding a track (Tracks => Add New => Stereo Track) then cutting the section of music from the original track, and pasting it at the appropriate place in the new track, so that it overlaps the end of the speaking. Finally, I will add a fade in to the music section. (Effect => Fade in) (Actually, I use a VST "Cross-fade" plugin, but the standard Fade plugin will work fine.) The image below is what it looks like with the bumper added.

The last step is to add a Fade in and Fade out to the ends of the total track. I do a five-second fade on both ends, usually. From there, I go to File => Export. Audacity will automatically combine the two stereo tracks into one stereo track by default. (the other option is that stereo track 1 will become the left channel in the new file. Who wants that?)


Exporting can be done to a variety of files. Audacity does not come with a native .mp3 encoder (for copyright reasons), but will use the LAME (or any other) mp3 codec you may have installed. I export the file as a 128-bit mp3. You can also ID3 info right in the export dialog.




That's it in a nutshell. The podcast is now an mp3 file, ready for uploading. We host our podcast on the Internet Archive, largely because it's free, and I don't need to worry about bandwidth off of our own site. You can upload directly to the archive, but I use SpinXpress, which makes adding metadata easier. I encode for the web at 64kps to keep the file small. It all works great, however, the Archive cannot package the file with the correct iTunes headers. And if you're going to podcast, you need to be on iTunes.

So, what we do is use a separate blog (that no one actually visits, but you can!) on Blogger. All this blog has is the title to the podcast and an enclosure link to the mp3 file on archive.org. The feed from that blog then goes to Feedburner, where it is optomized for iTunes automatically. iTunes then pulls the feed from Feedburner, and puts it in the podcast directory.

The last step is to add a direct link on the church's website for folks who don't use iTunes or are browsing the site. We use Wordpress for the site platform, and I use the microaudio plugin to create the audio player.

It sound like a lot of steps, but it's really not. The longest parts are the encoding and uploading, but I can do other things while that's happening. The entire process takes less than an hour, front to back, and 0nce the file is uploaded, the "making it available" part takes less than five minutes.


Questions, comments? If you want something clarified, just comment and I'll be happy to.

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6/10/09

Setting Up Our Podcast- The Audacity of It! Part 1

One of my weekly tasks relating to ministry is the editing and posting of our weekly sermon podcast. A lot of people have asked me how I do it, and a Twitter conversation yesterday inspired me to give it a quick write up.

Perhaps the greatest and most useful program ever written for anyone involved in any kind of sound manipulation is Audacity. Audacity is a cross-platform sound editor, built by a collection of volunteers around the world, and offered as open-source software. Audacity has ports for Windows, Linux, Mac and Unix, and it has many of the same features as expensive, commercial DAW programs.

One of the best reasons for using a program like Audacity to edit a podcast is that it is a visual process as well as an audio one. Audacity, Ardour, GarageBand, ProTools and other programs translate the audio file into a visual display. With practice, the editor can spot potential issues just by looking at the waveform, without having to listen to the entire program. Below is an example of what the recording looks like in Audacity.










At Gospel Light, our sermons are recorded directly off the FOH soundboard onto a dedicated Sony CD recorder. The sound tech is responsible for watching the levels on the recorder to minimize clipping. It is better for me as the editor for the recording level to be too low than too high. Clips represent lost data, that cannot be recovered.


I import the recording onto my computer using the "CD Rip" feature of Windows Media Player, but any ripping software will do. I rip the CD as a .wav file, so that there is no data loss. Once I have the .wav file, I import it into Audacity.


The first thing I do is look at the ends of the recording. Often our sound techs will start the recording before the actual sermon starts, or the speaker will converse with the audience about something unrelated to the sermon, and which may not make sense to a listener. I will listen to the beginning of the recording to find and appropriate place to cut in.


Audacity features an easy click and drag selection tool. What I do is set the marker at 1:00 and drag back to the beginning of the recording. This does two things. When "Play" is hit, it will play the selection. Also, by hitting "Ctrl+1", I can zoom in on the selection.


Once I locate the place to begin the podcast, I mark it with the cursor, drag to the beginning and press the "Cut" button. I do the same kind of trimming at the end. I listen to the last few minutes to find a good place to end. A lot of times there is music during the invitation, so I will cut after thirty seconds or so of music. This gives me a nice bumper for the end of the podcast. (More on that later.)


Once the ends are trimmed, I begin to look at the overall levels. Sometimes there are peaks visible that indicate there are areas of very high amplitude (volume) in the signal. If there are many of them, I apply the "Leveller" effect. Select Effects => Leveller. I generally find that "Moderate" is sufficient to accomplish what I want - to equalize some of the extreme high- and low-volume areas.








If there's not a lot of peaks, I will zoom in on them and selectively use the "Amplify" effect to lower them. To do this, I move the slider on the "Amplify" dialog to the left until it's about -3.8 or so. This has little discernable effect on volume. (And we'll fix it later, anyway!) The selection tool and "Ctrl+1" are useful in this process. ("Ctrl+F" zooms the file out to fit the window.)




In the example above, you can also notice "flat lines" - areas where there are periods of silence. These may be fine in a live setting, but can get distracting when listening to audio. If I "see" a period of silence lasting more than five or six seconds, I often will trim it out. Also, sometimes the speaker engages in dialog with the audience. Since we use a wireless lavalier mic for the speaker, I would have to select and amplify that section to match the surrounding sections.

Tomorrow I will go over the rest of the process, including some more effects, and prepping for upload.

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6/9/09

Album Review - Back & Forth - Lanae Hale



This will be an interesting exercise for me... writing an album review for someone I've met and had a conversation with. (Although I kind of did a Crowder review...) Will it personalize it? Make me whimpy-soft?



We won't find out here, because Lanae Hale's debut full-length record, Back & Forth, is good. As I wrote in my review of Kari Jobe, I don't listen to a lot of female vocalists. And Back & Forth came to me at a bad time; it streeted while I was preparing to play at Lifepath Church's grand opening weekend. So I gave it a couple of quick listens, but my head was really filled with some Vigilantes of Soul that week.



But, I've had time to not only listen to the record, but to meet Lanae and to listen to her perform live. One thing I can tell you is that this is a very personal project for the artist. Each of the songs on the record come from a very deep place within the young songwriter. During her live show - just her and her guitar a la Phil Wickham - she spends time weaving her testimony among the songs. Maybe this made me more receptive to the record, but that's OK. In my mind, "play live" is what an musician does; studio work serves to get people to the shows.



The title track is an easily listened-to, radio-pop good tune, as is "Beautiful Things." "Estranged" is a surprisingly driving rock song, with a powerful tale of God's grace. "Headed Home" packs the most emotional punch, and if I were mastering the record, I might have saved it for last.



Production, though, is excellent throughout, and completely Nashville. It was an interesting listen, given the stripped down, acoustic versions of the songs I heard last weekend, to hear the fully-produced and -arranged version on the album. One constant, though; Lanae's voice is amazing, not only in its range, but in its emotional content. She's got kind of a Sarah McLaughlin/Taylor Swift thing going, with great dynamics and a ton of feeling.





My wife and daughters all fell in love with Lanae as soon as they heard her, and more so once they met her. She was approachable and genuine... just like her music.


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6/5/09

Sunday Setlist - June 7


This week, Gospel Light Community Church celebrates its 27th anniversary. There will be a lot of changes in the coming year, so this was a very special celebration for us. It is the last time that Pastor Miller will be celebrating the church anniversary as its senior pastor, as the Millers leave next month to formally begin a church plant in the Bronx, NY.

Fitting, then that this week's list was assembled by Celia Miller:

Opening Song:

Agnes Dei (Smith)(G)


Main Set:

Father, Spirit, Jesus (Cates/Hunt/Hall)(B)
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman/Redman)(C)
My Savior, My God (Shust/Greenwell)(E)
Oh Lord, You're Beautiful (Green)(D)

Offerings:
Lord I Lift Your Name on High (Founds)(G)
You Are Good (Houghton)(E)


I don't usually add the offering songs, but they flowed really well with the service. We did the Rick Founds classic with a Carribbean vibe to it, and then straight-up rocked out "You Are Good."

Being our church anniversary, it is fitting that we have some older tunes in the set. "O Lord, You're Beautiful" was a fairly new song when Gospel Light was planted in '82, and "Give Thanks" was already on it's way to being a classic. The rest of the songs all came to life during GLCC's time in Bridgeport, and have all, in their way, become part of the congregation. The set was a little short today due to the other events, but it still packed a punch!

If there was one word to describe the worship service today, it was "joyful." There just seemed to be great joy abounding in everyone. "Father, Spirit, Jesus" is a good song to get people up and out of their seats, and get their hands clapping, but "Blessed Be Your Name" took it to another level. As I looked out over the congregation during that song, just about every single person was up on their feet, jumping and clapping, and the aisles were full of people just dancing and worshipping.


We really switched up the voicing and feeling of "My Savior, My God" this time. Justin was using this cool woodwind-style patch on the keyboard to play the melody line, which sounded like a tenor-sax voice, and I was using a lot of chorus and a reverse delay which gave me a violin sound. It made for a really moody, mellow kind of sound. I switched from delay to OD in the chorus, which added a nice dynamic to the song.


Send Judah First also shared some song during the service with two songs. I drew bass duty on those, which included "Come Thou Almighty King."


We had a guest speaker on Sunday, Pastor Randolph Stanley from Light of the World Christian Fellowship in Maryland. LOtW is one of our sister churches. They came up with a group of about fifteen people, and shared some West African-style worship with is as well. They then joined us for an outdoor fellowship meal under beautiful clear skies.





Sunday was also our annual worship team family cookout, where the worship and sound team and their families get together for some fun and food. We had the cookout at my house, and I'm glad to say that just about everyone showed up. The festivities went late into the night, complete with s'mores over the fire.



How did your weekend service go? Check out Fred McKinnon's blog for more.

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Song of the Week - From the Inside Out - Hillsong United


One of my favorite songs on the upcoming Gospel Light Worship album Prepare is Joel Houston's "From the Inside Out." I love listening to this song, I love playing this song; I even love singing it (as long as no one can hear me!)

To me, this song has always been about my own imperfections, and how God's grace covers them anyway. At the end of the day, all we really have to fall back on is God's everlasting love, His grace and mercy are all that will be left.


A thousand times I've failed
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
Still I'm caught in your grace.

When we strip away everything else - all the noise, the confusion of the world, our own shortcomings, fears and worries - when we get down to the heart of things, all that is really there consistantly is the light of God. I am reminded sometimes of C.S. Lewis' book The Magician's Nephew, when Aslan sings Narnia into existance, beginning with the light. Of course, I'm also reminded of Genesis 1 "And God said "Let there be light..."

My favorite part of the song is the pre-chorus, because it's done differently depending on where in the song it is:


In my heart and my soul, I give you control
Consume me from the inside out, Lord...
Let justice and praise, become my embrace
To love you from the inside out

The lyric that really resonates with me is in the second chorus:


...and the cry of my heart is to bring you praise
From the inside out, Lord, my soul cries out!


When I play this song as the only guitar player, I typically choose to play acoustic. We do the song in C, so I just strum the opening chords: F - C - G instead of playing the little apreggio at the beginning. On the record, I got to overdub electric over the acoustic, which was a lot of fun, because I could play the whole thing. Our arrangement is a little shorter than the Hillsong live version. The song first appeared on Hillsong United's 2006 live album United We Stand, but I prefer the version on The I Heart Revolution: With Hearts as One.

Next week, we will look at the final song off the record, a song which is kind of the lynchpin for the entire project. In the mean time, enjoy a little Hillsong goodness...



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6/2/09

Getting Back to It

I've been inspired (or shamed) by a recent post by my friend Fernando. He wrote about revisiting some old, unfinished songs and blogging about the process. That got me thinking - I've got some old, unfinished songs in various states of disrepair...


So I yanked one out. This song is called "Forever and a Day." It started as a short piano riff I was playing at a youth encounter weekend a year and a half ago. They had this grand piano in the room we were meeting in, and during a break I just started noodling. This uptempo little riff just kept running through my head - just a verse and chorus, no lyrics.



C.... F.... G..... G,F,C... F... G... C... F... G... and


Bb... Dm... C... Bb... Dm... C... Bb... Dm... C, Am, Gm... F



Back and forth I would play this little bit of a song, over and over. Finally, after about a hundred repetitions, came a bridge of sorts:



D/F#... A/C#... D/F#... A/C#... E... B... A, B, E...


As I was playing that, one of the other leaders (who happens to be an amazing Gospel singer) and asked what song it was. I told her that I was just playing with it, and when I got to the bridge, she started just singing:



No matter the circumstances
I will choose to lift my hands
Your Word will be my light, Lord
My life is in your hands
I will praise you, I will praise you
And bless your name.


And so that's how the song sat for a year or so... some chords and lyrics for the bridge. I would go back to it from time to time, and finally finished the lyrics this winter.


So... now comes time to get it recorded. I really have no excuse anymore, as my Ubuntu Studio installation gives me all the tools. So I started working on it. First thing to do is the rhythm track. I fired up the Hydrogen drum machine, and started programming the patterns for the various parts of the song: (click for more humongous detail)



















It's fast, yes. I figure the tempo at about 200 bpm. Prestissimo, they would call that. Once I start putting melody to it, I might take it down to 180 or so, but for now it sounds like I imagined.


First pass through Hydrogen with a Yamaha Vintage Kit drum kit sounded like this:




video


I decided it needed more dynamics, so I switched the kit to a Roland XV-5080 synth, and added some crash cymbals:


video

Next will come finishing the entire drum line, importing into Ardour, and adding a bass line.

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6/1/09

Sunday Setlist - May 31 - Pentecost on the Road

I don't even know where to start.
It was a crazy, amazing musical weekend, complete with tunes, new friends, a concert, a beaches and rediculous mansions. Good times.

My wife, daughters packed up the family truckster and traveled to the Ocean State, Rhode Island. (Trivia: the actual name of the state is "The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." So the littlest state has the biggest name!) The reason we did this was twofold - first, a little family camping time; second, to help celebrate the official Grand Opening of new worship space for Lifepath Church.


Lifepath is the church were my good friend (and long-lost twin) Joel Klampert is the worship leader and youth pastor. Joel is exceptionally hip, and plays some serious guitar. Let me repeat that: Klampert. Plays. Guitar. I was very happy doing the rhythm thing behind his amazing leads. (Another cool fact: Joel's dad, who is the pastor of Lifepath, is an amazing drummer, and handles the bass as well. Very cool!)


Saturday night was the offical Grand Opening kickoff. We began with a free concert, open to the public. The opening act was the Lifepath band, supplimented by yours truly. It was a very cool experience for me, as Joel sent me a list of a dozen songs that I didn't know. It was New Music Overdrive for me - and it was awesome. Suffice it to say, I am now a huge fan of The Choir and the Vigilantes of Love. The set was loud, raucious and fun. (The pictures in this post are from the concert.)


Following our set, we were treated to a more intimate time with new Centricity artist Lenae Hale. Lenae is a talented singer and songwriter, who's kind of a Jewel/Taylor Swift vibe, and a very personal collection of songs on her new record. My wife and daughters fell in love with her right away, as they chatted after the show. (A review of her new record, Back and Forth, will be an upcoming post.


I also joined Joel and the band for worship on Sunday morning. I'm sure Joel will have his own take on it, but here's mine. (This is from memory, so I might have skipped one...):



Opening/Processional
In Christ Alone (D)(Gettty/Townend)

Main Set:
Gloria (G)(Klampert)
Let the Praises Ring (E)(Brewster)
My Redeemer Lives (E)(Morgan)
You Amaze Me (G)(Neale/Duvall)

Communion
O Praise Him (All This for a King)(G)(Crowder)

Recessional
Dancing Generation (C)(Redman)

There is a small, talented core of musicians at Lifepath, and it was a ball playing with them. though I knew some of these songs, with the exception of the Crowder tune I had never played any of them at a service, so it was fun doing them. I thought it sounded great for the fact I had never played with them, and we only had one run-through. I guess the Holy Spirit was moving on Pentecost.

We had three guitars playing during the service - lead, rhythm, and acoustic. (I am usually the only player at Gospel Light's services, so that was very cool.) For Sunday morning, I stuck mainly to a clean rhythm tone. For "You Amaze Me" and "O Praise Him" I picked a patch with some chorus and delay. Joel plays the Crowder song a lot slower than I'm used to, and way down in G, whereas I usually play it in Bb. This turned it into a more intimate, worship-y tune, and I liked that.
After service, Lifepath held a tailgate cookout right in the parking lot. The church is right on the main route through Aquidneck Island, so there was ample evidence that there was indeed life at Lifepath. If you are ever visiting Rhode Island, I would highly recommend visiting this great congregation.



After we said our goodbyes, we took a drive through Newport. We drove down the famous Bellvue Avenue and saw all the tremendous mansions, then continued driving along the coast to Brenton Point, where the Atlantic meets Narragansett Bay, and the water breaks over the shale coastline. (That's where the picture in the setlist banner was taken.)
As always, this setlist is part of the setlist carnival on Fred McKinnon's blog.

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