I’ve been quite locked up in my home studio lately. Trying to figure out what it is God wants to say through me. After a chat with one of my currently unofficial “advisors” earlier this week, I was reminded that this thing that I do, music, is not about me. I’m just the tool, or weapon, if you will, being used by somebody much more powerful who has much more important things to say than I.
Pray that God would reveal his word to me so that I can relay it onto those who need to hear it.
Apparently my new development is to go to bed early… and by early I mean 9 or 10… and then wake up around midnight, wide awake, and go sit in my studio with oodles of late night inspiration writing songs until 4am. I don’t know? Whatever works.
I read a sweet post by this guy today. Here’s a quote from it:
“Will you woodshed it on your own time this week to get it right, or will you cross your fingers and hope for the best? Will you spend the needed mental and musical energy needed, or will your apathy get the best of you? Or are you simply not good enough – and if so, what are you going to do about that?”
The holiday season always seems to stretch us as musicians at Rock Church the most. Partially because we’re cramming, and that’s usually my fault (which is another subject in itself). But the other part is because we are playing different styles of music, stuff that’s outside of the normal pop or rock box that we tend to put “praise and worship” music into. We play stuff like jazz blended with gospel and, well, let’s face it musicians, Christmas music is just different. Different progressions and voicings than we’re use to… or maybe that’s just me?
My point is this. I love how Christmas pulls at me as a musician to get back into the “Woodshed” and pound things out. This is where the term “shed session” originated. This term is used more on the gospel side of the spectrum. Essentially, it’s where a bunch of musicians get together and stretch themselves, trade licks, bounce melodies and ideas off of each other. Here are two drummers “shedding.”
The beauty of course of this “shed” concept is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be done with anybody else. You can shed with any musician out there. Just put in a CD, throw on a DVD or scour YouTube of your favorite artists. And then click on some of the “related videos” and stretch yourself to learn something completely outside of your preferred genre.
This is often how I write “church” songs. I get with God, and shed.
So go read the quote at the top of the post again and ask yourself, “what am I going to do about it?”
Here’s a new song for ya’ll! When I say new, I mean like less than a week old… it happened while I was working on another song, so I just kind of went with it. It’s not completely done yet but I think we’re going to use it as an opener at the Mix (next weekend!) and also give a test run tonight at the Matthew West show. Let me know what you think:
So last night I was drug out of bed by a hunger of some sort. And I don’t mean that I went straight into the kitchen and stood in front of the newly stocked refrigerator for a midnight snack.
Nope.
I actually went into the living room and just stood there in the dark for about 5 minutes until I realized that God was trying to get my attention. I’ve been a bit side-tracked with this new house thing for about the last month. Everyone has their distractions, some handle them better than others. I haven’t handled mine very well considering I found myself standing in my underwear in a dark living room last night. But to be honest, at that moment there was no place else I would have rather been.
Your gifts (and life) are enhanced in direct relation to your intimacy with God. And almost immediately after I stood there with God for a spell, I had the urge to grab my guitar and just play from my heart. Needless to say some new ideas were birthed.
Today I woke up humming the melodies from last night’s episode, so I decided to take the morning and indulge, expand and just kind of marinate in them.
Ok so here’s the thing. There comes a time in your songwriting journey when you need to stop, turn around and take “inventory” of the songs you’ve written up to that point. So I’m going to take the next month or so and do just that.
When I say inventory, I mean I’m going to look at not only the quantity but the quality of the songs that we currently sing in either the main church service, but also KYC. I’ve recently began a stage of enlightenment through these Hillsong DVD’s and CD’s (see below post). It has come to my attention that people do, indeed, shape their doctrine through songs that they sing and like. Whether biblically sound or not. They then, however later down the road it may be, find themselves reading scripture (which is to say the least, MORE doctrinally sound than ANY song will ever be) and actually FIND the truth as it relates to a certain song they’ve been singing for years.
So needless to say, I certainly want the songs that have my name attached to them to be 100% truth. And not only that, but they leave NO space for misinterpretation.
The ultimate goal for the future is for all songs to be inspired and/or sifted through the word before they ever hit the stage.
Like I’ve said before, all songs written under the umbrella of Rock Church should fall under one of these three categories:
1. Scripture Songs – scripture with a catchy melody woven into it. These songs help the congregation memorize scripture as they leave the church service humming and singing the melody all week long.
2. Jesus Songs – songs that focus on the FINISHED work of Jesus.
3. Now Songs – songs that come from the overflow of what God is speaking to the body.
