Nevermind the AR.Drone. I want this toy for Christmas. Amazing.
Posts Tagged: Guitar
26
Oct 09
Worship Reflection:: 10.25.09
Here’s what we sang at RVC this week:
-Psalm 145:1-3 (Luke Mundy)
-Take My Life (Scott Underwood)
-Hosanna (Brooke Fraser)
-Nothing But The Blood (Matt Redman)
-Give Us Clean Hands/Cannons (Charlie Hall/Phil Wickham)
-Marvelous Light [Reprise] (Charlie Hall)
Last week, Gene asked me to share Psalm 145, so I went ahead and recorded a rough version and have it uploaded below. It’s a song I wrote a few years back. Honestly, it’s not the best song I’ve ever written–not really my style–but it’s biblical, worshipful and our congregation seems to enjoy singing it. So… I guess that makes it a good song! Take a listen and feel free to download the chart below.
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Psalm 145:1-3 Chord Chart (278)
22
Mar 09
Stats Suck Sunday
Just remember. No matter how much your stats suck. They don’t suck like this:
22
Feb 09
Stats Suck Sunday
It’s Sunday and stats suck:
- My stats REALLY sucked yesterday because this blog was nonexistent. Thanks to either Gene or Dreamhost for getting it back up because today it is magically all better.
- That being said, there was a time a few months ago when I would have been really concerned about this site going down. Now, I’m not too worried.
- On Friday, I went to a “tweetup.” Basically, a bunch of Twitter users from Fresno went and met face to face.
- It was pretty cool to meet some people for the first time.
- It was pretty cool to hang out with some tweets I already knew.
- It was pretty geeky no matter how you look at it.
- I’d totally do it again.
- Today, I borrowed a whole mess of effects pedals and played electric guitar at RVC.
- I threw out some amazing delay-tastic leads.
- I also threw out some stinkers.
- I decided my new birthday/christmas present gift list consists of effects pedals and effects pedals only.
- Unfortunately, there’s a long time between now and birthday/christmas.
- I had a couple of great conversations with good friends. Made me realize that I want to be continually pressing deeper in my friendships.
- I came really really close to buying a dog today. I know… that happens often, but today it almost became reality. I have the lady’s business card. We’ll see…
- Almost buying a dog made me think about buying a house again. Seems to be a cycle I go through every 6-8 weeks…
- Anyway, I’m off to a birthday party at a pub where I will undoubtedly consume a hamburger topped with a fried egg and bacon. Wish me luck.
For more deplorable stats, visit Brody. His are terrible.
14
Feb 09
Happy Valentine’s Day (Part 2)
Alright. YouTube has released it’s stranglehold on my video. So, here it is. I hope you had a lovely Valentine’s Day!
Enjoy.
19
Jan 09
“New” Instruments
I once read an Elvis Costello quote where he talked about buying a bass guitar. He explained that he had never played bass before and didn’t really have any plans to master the instrument, but that he felt that the new instrument would open up new possibilities to him as a song writer. By taking him away from his primary writing instruments–guitar and piano–he’d be free to create new melodies and themes without falling into old ruts.
That idea has always sort of stuck with me and recently, I’ve been trying to put it into practice. I got a piano about a month ago, but I unfortunately haven’t had much time to put into it yet. In the meantime, I’ve busted out my old high school guitar: an Ibanez Cimar.
Here’s a few things about the Cimar:
- It’s old
- It’s not a high-quality guitar
- The strings are about 2 years old
All of these things combined lead to a wonderfully dull, twangy sound that contrasts completely with my Taylor. While it’s not a sound I’d say I like, it causes me to hear music differently and thus, write differently. I find that when I play this guitar I start to write music with a more subtle, folksy sound. It broadens me.
So, songwriters… what instrument(s) do you typically write on?
17
Nov 08
Inspiration: Andrew Bird
On Mondays I generally try to post something about songwriting.
This week I didn’t pick up my guitar at all and frankly… didn’t spend any time thinking about my music.
I did, however, reacquaint myself with a few artists I haven’t listened to in awhile. I tried to listen to artists who inspire me and stretch me. Not necessarily music that I would write myself, but music that captures my attention.
One such artist is Andrew Bird. He’s a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter from Chicago. My friend Jeremy turned me onto his music about a year ago and I’m hooked. His live performances usually consist of a precussionist, himself, and a looper–basically he layers tracks (violin, guitar, vocals, whistling, piano, etc) over and over until he’s created the instrumentation for the song. It’s fascinating to watch and I’d love to try something similar sometime!
Anyway, I Twittered about him a few times and a few of you asked about him, so I thought I’d share. Here’s one of his most popular tunes. It’s one of my favorites and is a great example of looping:
3
Nov 08
The Co-Write
I’ve never really been a fan of co-writing with other musicians. Gene and I used to write together a lot in jr high and high school (wow… so long ago!) but most of our “sessions” consisted of us trying really hard to force rhyhms to impossible themes (we often wrote titles before songs and… eh… that’s a whole other post).
Anyway… that all changed this weekend. I took a chance and got together with this guy for some good old fashioned co-writing:
I’m not sure how co-writing works for guys like Chris Tomlin and Ed Cash, but here are some of the things I picked up this weekend:
- Theological input. Both Paul and I came with some ideas for worship songs. It was great to see us both turn to our bibles time and time again to pull out a Psalm or other reference that gave legitimacy to the thoughts we wanted to express. We both used things we had recently learned from our study of scripture.
- Practical guidance. We’re both pretty young as leaders, but when you combine our expereince, we’ve led a lot of worship for a wide variety of settings. Having someone else there to provide feedback on the singability of melodies, ranges, and phrasing helps a ton. I tend to get myself attached to a certain melodic hook because it’s interesting or unique… that doesn’t mean it makes a good worship song!
- New thinking. The old saying about a 2nd set of ears really is true. I brought in a song that I’d been working on for about a week and was having some trouble with. I had a great structure for the song, some workable lyrics, but I just wasn’t very satisfied with where it was going. Honestly, I was probably close to scrapping it (I give up easily… that’s another post!) Paul made some suggestions that got me through my writer’s block and I’m excited about the song once again!
- Encouraging and fun. Really, it’s just a good time! I’m excited to think about writing songs to use in our community. We lead at two churches directly across from one another. How cool would it be for us to use the same group of original songs with our congregations. Where many people would say that we should be competing (don’t you hate it when churches compete?) we’re taking the opportunity to reach a community together.
There you have it. I had a great time with Paul and I look forward to doing it again!
Songwriters, is there anyone you co-write with? How does your writing benefit from it?
26
Aug 08
Worship Reflection: 08.24.08
It’s Tuesday. I led worship (twice) on Sunday. I know that was two days ago. But it’s never too late to share*
Worship at RVC was super-cool. We had a large(ish) band for a change that consisted of drums, bass, acoustic, 2 electric guitars, and 2 vocals. I love how much the 2nd electric fills out the sound (not to mention the fact that Tyler melts my face off when he plays!) Here’s the set:
- Open Skies (d. crowder)
- Everlasting God (b. brown)
- Jesus Lord of Heaven (p. wickham)
- Salvation Is Here (hillsong united)
This Sunday was extra fun because I got to lead at a church plant in my hometown later in the evening. I led this set solo acoustic, which is something I don’t do very much of anymore, but always enjoy.
- Unchanging (c. tomlin)
- Lovesong (l. mundy)
- Mighty To Save (r. morgan)
- Jesus Lord of Heaven (p. wickham)
- Nothing But The Blood of Jesus
- Fuel (still not sure who wrote this)
- Nothing But The Blood of Jesus [Reprise]
Yes… I played that many songs. And it was rad.
On the drive home from Lemoore, the lyrics for “Mighty To Save” were just repeating over and over in my heart. It’s a great song and God’s been using it to encourage me a lot lately.
So, it was a good Sunday. My fingers and throat were all tired, but I got to sing songs with some awesome people and thought a lot about how great our God is!
*This is for you, Daniel!