Pulled this from Worship Trench this morning,
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Healing to do healer...
I still distinctly remember how i felt when I first heard the song "Healer" by Mike Guglielmucci, I also (VERY distinctly) remember how disgusted I felt when I heard the truth behind the story. But, as Pick has pointed out to me on more than one occasion (mainly when I'm arguing about doing a performance song) is that Truth is truth, whether it's coming from an old hymn or a Train song. And after a bit of consideration I've come to accept that regardless of the means of promoting the song, there is strong truth to it, and it's an amazing worship song.
However, with far better words and scriptural backing allow me to share with you an email I received from one of our band members about using this song in worship, I've left out name references as i didn't ask this person permission to share this on the blog, but as awesome as this email was I wanted to share it.
I personally felt "ministered" to by this email and if you're a worship leader out there, or someone who's job is to find new worship music and you've been struggling with this song as much as I have I hope this helps you out.
God bless,
~Matt
However, with far better words and scriptural backing allow me to share with you an email I received from one of our band members about using this song in worship, I've left out name references as i didn't ask this person permission to share this on the blog, but as awesome as this email was I wanted to share it.
Man you sure know how to make a guy think...
When we were talking about this song at practice that night - about how the Hillsong guy Mike whatshisname lived a lie, promoted the song with his fake illness, the unbelieveable audacity of a very well-known Worship Leader to so distort everything related to the situation, I had no desire to ever do the song at all and said so that night. When I saw the Planning Center notification this morning, I "reviewed" the service to see what we were doing. I saw the song listed and the pit of stomach balled up in a humongous knot. I was getting ready to click the "Decline" button when something (had to be God) told me to wait. I then remembered something in Phillippians I had read before in my personal reading etc. Here's the passage...
Phillipians 1:15-18 (NIV)
15 It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16 The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.[c] 18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
I didn't remember anything false in the lyrics, but I listened to them again to make sure and yes there is truth in the song.
I went to planning center again and clicked the accept button. I'm just thankful the Lord and the Holy Spirit kept the promise from John 14 about the Comforter (Holy Spirit) being with us to bring to our rememberance everything He has taught us.
The reason I'm spelling all this out for you is in case someone else has doubts about the song feel free to share how God helped me.
Just don't expect to see the song on my "favorites" playlist :-)
I personally felt "ministered" to by this email and if you're a worship leader out there, or someone who's job is to find new worship music and you've been struggling with this song as much as I have I hope this helps you out.
God bless,
~Matt
Friday, August 8, 2008
Lessons Learned...
Okay, so this post is going to both the Lifepoint Worship blog, (Check it out if you haven't yet) and my personal blog (Which again, I would encourage you to checkout if you haven't seen it yet).
But as this past week we did an acoustic worship set there are few lesson's I've learned as music director that I'd like to pass along to you.
Point number one: It's really important to be off stage and evaluating worship on a regular basis. (Ironically Reid just talked about this on North Point's music blog, the same day I talked to Pick about the issue).
Point number two: Acoustic sets, are well recieved by the people attending the service (at least the few we've done have been), however, they are much harder on the music team.
Point number three: When you normally have a male worship leader, and switch to a female lead do not forget that every song will need to be re-keyed, and allow lead time for this to happen rather than wait for practice to role around.
We've had other churches come to see how we do things at Lifepoint and one person commented that it seemed like we had it all figured out, well we don't but we're always learning how to do things better, (hmm this gives me an idea for another post),
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Basics....
Sometimes it's hard to remember that they best of homes always begins with a strong foundation. And even when we know that it occasionally takes a reminder that even a foundation needs to be maintained.
Case in point, myself.
My reminder came from an article I was reading about Bassist John Myung (Of Dream Theater) where some of his bandmates mentioned that he was one of the only person they knew who warmed DOWN after a show.
Which brought my back to my drum corp days were we both warmed up and warmed down after practices, (but not always after performances) which then took me to the fall I worked as an Drum adviser for a marching band. I came in about halfway through the season on a request from a friend to give them a hand, the kids (I thought of them as kids even then, and I was only a couple years out of high school myself, at the time) were decent, but had no drum instructor to build their foundation and thus were floundering.
Instead of jumping on the music (which is why I was asked to come in the first place, to help them learn their parts better) I jumped on their fundamentals (Discipline! Rudiments! and Warm-ups!) It wasn't that they didn't know their part, quite the opposite actually, it's that they had problems on the performance aspect of it.
Now a part of me wishes I could say after a few weeks with me they turned into a whole new drumline that went on to win a bunch of awards at competitions, sadly that is not the case.
However I did come to find out that my time spent working on their fundamentals wasn't wasted as that helped them And I quote this from someone who had seen their early shows) "They looked and sounded like a real drumline"
So why did I just say all this? Well my point is I know about basics and fundamentals, but like so many of us, after playing set for a while I've slacked off on most (Nearly all) of said basics. So yesterday I began a regiment for getting this drummer's fundamentals back up to par.
So what does that entail?
1) Ear training, (this is the one part of my fundamentals that I can honestly say that I haven't stopped doing ever.
2) Arm strength/power/endurance, Jojo Mayer covers this one on his dvd but this is a delicate balance, because of the nature of the human body, build up more power, and you won't be able to access higher speeds.
3) Foot training, for those funky syncopated kick patterns (not something you normally run into in worship music, but you never know!)
4) Coordination/limb interdependence, the abilty to play different beats with different limbs (arms, legs, etc) at the same time. Sounds easy? here's a simple warm-up. Try tapping triplets with your left hand, eighth notes with your right foot, quarters with your left foot, and sixteenths with your right hand. (Try it slow, if you manage that, try speeding it up).
5) Warm-up/Cool-down routine, if I had professional drum instructions I'd probably have a slew of fancy exercises, (well maybe, shrug, it's not something I've had the luxury of having), I do have my rudimental listings and a handful of exercises for that, having played quads in drumline I'm used to adapting said exercises, of course my favorite exercise? (This sounds odd, I know) is eight on a hand, (plus the adaptations 1-xx on a hand, countdown on a hand etc).
So that's it, getting back to basics all around, remember that the house you live in is only as strong as it's foundations, (Read Matthew Chapter 7).
Case in point, myself.
My reminder came from an article I was reading about Bassist John Myung (Of Dream Theater) where some of his bandmates mentioned that he was one of the only person they knew who warmed DOWN after a show.
Which brought my back to my drum corp days were we both warmed up and warmed down after practices, (but not always after performances) which then took me to the fall I worked as an Drum adviser for a marching band. I came in about halfway through the season on a request from a friend to give them a hand, the kids (I thought of them as kids even then, and I was only a couple years out of high school myself, at the time) were decent, but had no drum instructor to build their foundation and thus were floundering.
Instead of jumping on the music (which is why I was asked to come in the first place, to help them learn their parts better) I jumped on their fundamentals (Discipline! Rudiments! and Warm-ups!) It wasn't that they didn't know their part, quite the opposite actually, it's that they had problems on the performance aspect of it.
Now a part of me wishes I could say after a few weeks with me they turned into a whole new drumline that went on to win a bunch of awards at competitions, sadly that is not the case.
However I did come to find out that my time spent working on their fundamentals wasn't wasted as that helped them And I quote this from someone who had seen their early shows) "They looked and sounded like a real drumline"
So why did I just say all this? Well my point is I know about basics and fundamentals, but like so many of us, after playing set for a while I've slacked off on most (Nearly all) of said basics. So yesterday I began a regiment for getting this drummer's fundamentals back up to par.
So what does that entail?
1) Ear training, (this is the one part of my fundamentals that I can honestly say that I haven't stopped doing ever.
2) Arm strength/power/endurance, Jojo Mayer covers this one on his dvd but this is a delicate balance, because of the nature of the human body, build up more power, and you won't be able to access higher speeds.
3) Foot training, for those funky syncopated kick patterns (not something you normally run into in worship music, but you never know!)
4) Coordination/limb interdependence, the abilty to play different beats with different limbs (arms, legs, etc) at the same time. Sounds easy? here's a simple warm-up. Try tapping triplets with your left hand, eighth notes with your right foot, quarters with your left foot, and sixteenths with your right hand. (Try it slow, if you manage that, try speeding it up).
5) Warm-up/Cool-down routine, if I had professional drum instructions I'd probably have a slew of fancy exercises, (well maybe, shrug, it's not something I've had the luxury of having), I do have my rudimental listings and a handful of exercises for that, having played quads in drumline I'm used to adapting said exercises, of course my favorite exercise? (This sounds odd, I know) is eight on a hand, (plus the adaptations 1-xx on a hand, countdown on a hand etc).
So that's it, getting back to basics all around, remember that the house you live in is only as strong as it's foundations, (Read Matthew Chapter 7).
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Lifepoint Resources
One of the joys of being the Musical Director for the Lifepoint campus of Lifepoint Church (as we are currently a two campus church, with a Lifepoint Downtown campus as well) is getting introduced to a plethora (oooh big word for me) of new worship music on a semi-regular basis, as well as delving (wow two in one post!) through a slew (yes, I did get a thesaurus) of all types of music to review for performance songs.
As far as Performance songs go, I'm working on a post for the Lifepoint Worship Blog (this past week's set listing post is up) regarding those, so check back there later, but as far as programming worship goes I wanted to share a few thoughts out there.
First off for programming a service let me recommend the amazing planning center online it's a service that helps you build your service and setup your people for their services that they can service.... sorry... Basically you can setup your service add your worship plans, schedule your people, and time everything. they have different paid plans for what your need, our let's me store our lead-sheets online and when I apply a song to the service it automatically builds a package of all the lead sheets (as long as I have them pre-uploaded) for the musicians and vocalists. (and the drummers, mustn't forget the drummers).
CCLI, not only a great site for keeping worship "legal" (CCLI license required) but also a great place to get charts, and to see new worship music. We use the Song select service which is awesome when I need to find a chart for a worship song... not always perfect (some songs/charts aren't available, some songs searches return a million [ok, not literally] results) but still a very good service.
Itunes (I'm not putting a link for this here, you should have it by now). I also use Amazon MP3 (Again no link here) to obtain most of my music selections. I can browse and preview thousands of worship songs without having to borrow a cd player and stand in the middle of an aisle with earphones. Not only that but I'm a huge fan of Podcasts, (the 8 gigs of space currently dedicated to storage of such would agree with that statement) and some churches (namely lifechurch.tv have made available, not only their sermons, but also their worship sets, it's cool to hear what other churches are doing).
North Point Music: (You can also find this one off the North Point Music Blog) - If you've got a subscription to the service then you can watch video tutorials on numerous subjects from how they run practices to how to play one of their worship songs, also has numerous Multi-Tracks and Core Packages available for purchase.
Numerous other blogs: Such as North Points, Elevations, (Wade Joy's who's the worship pastor for them), to name a few (There are others, so many others). It's a simple way to see what other ministries and/or churches are doing to reach their communities, along the lines I know Josh participates in the creative chaos blogs hosted by `Los. It's an "event" that takes place every Thursday where people from all across the country post something creative they've done in regards to their services.
These are just a few of the many resources I look to when it comes time to program the worship for the service...
As far as Performance songs go, I'm working on a post for the Lifepoint Worship Blog (this past week's set listing post is up) regarding those, so check back there later, but as far as programming worship goes I wanted to share a few thoughts out there.
First off for programming a service let me recommend the amazing planning center online it's a service that helps you build your service and setup your people for their services that they can service.... sorry... Basically you can setup your service add your worship plans, schedule your people, and time everything. they have different paid plans for what your need, our let's me store our lead-sheets online and when I apply a song to the service it automatically builds a package of all the lead sheets (as long as I have them pre-uploaded) for the musicians and vocalists. (and the drummers, mustn't forget the drummers).
CCLI, not only a great site for keeping worship "legal" (CCLI license required) but also a great place to get charts, and to see new worship music. We use the Song select service which is awesome when I need to find a chart for a worship song... not always perfect (some songs/charts aren't available, some songs searches return a million [ok, not literally] results) but still a very good service.
Itunes (I'm not putting a link for this here, you should have it by now). I also use Amazon MP3 (Again no link here) to obtain most of my music selections. I can browse and preview thousands of worship songs without having to borrow a cd player and stand in the middle of an aisle with earphones. Not only that but I'm a huge fan of Podcasts, (the 8 gigs of space currently dedicated to storage of such would agree with that statement) and some churches (namely lifechurch.tv have made available, not only their sermons, but also their worship sets, it's cool to hear what other churches are doing).
North Point Music: (You can also find this one off the North Point Music Blog) - If you've got a subscription to the service then you can watch video tutorials on numerous subjects from how they run practices to how to play one of their worship songs, also has numerous Multi-Tracks and Core Packages available for purchase.
Numerous other blogs: Such as North Points, Elevations, (Wade Joy's who's the worship pastor for them), to name a few (There are others, so many others). It's a simple way to see what other ministries and/or churches are doing to reach their communities, along the lines I know Josh participates in the creative chaos blogs hosted by `Los. It's an "event" that takes place every Thursday where people from all across the country post something creative they've done in regards to their services.
These are just a few of the many resources I look to when it comes time to program the worship for the service...
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Lessons learned...
Well Weds. night (last week) the worship team (well, most of us) were at Camile's (And I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong) for the FCA powercamp concert...
And we learned a lot.
1) We learned that when fudi (aka me) is frustrated/aggravated/and annoyed my normally, extremely (is that pushing it?) consistent tempo goes out the window, (though in my defense with absolutely no monitors I was kind of guessing what the tempo Jeremy set was anyway).
2) We learned that when planning a worship set for an outdoor event do one of the following.
Either A) Pick songs that don't have click tracks/loops
or B) Have a backup set list in case your click tracks/loops won't run on your sound system.
3) We learned that even under extremely adverse technological conditions, when it comes to Worship our God is ALWAYS good.
4) I learned that playing in live events like that while they can be extremely frustrating are very fun!
5) I learned that after being out in the heat and performing, water, no matter how hot it's been after sitting in my trunk taste great!
6) I learned not to leave my wallet on my desk. (oops!)
7) I learned that I can climb around like Willy when I need to dig a keyboard out of the back of our box truck.
8) I learned that I work with an amazing group of people who'll rock it out, even when they don't have a clue what's going on (as we changed set lists on the fly).
9) I learned that O'Charlies (sp?) has amazing bread, (of course the fact that I was about starving might have something to do with it.)
10) I learned that I can cram an entire drumset into my alero, (including kick, toms, snare, cymbals and hardware!)
And we learned a lot.
1) We learned that when fudi (aka me) is frustrated/aggravated/and annoyed my normally, extremely (is that pushing it?) consistent tempo goes out the window, (though in my defense with absolutely no monitors I was kind of guessing what the tempo Jeremy set was anyway).
2) We learned that when planning a worship set for an outdoor event do one of the following.
Either A) Pick songs that don't have click tracks/loops
or B) Have a backup set list in case your click tracks/loops won't run on your sound system.
3) We learned that even under extremely adverse technological conditions, when it comes to Worship our God is ALWAYS good.
4) I learned that playing in live events like that while they can be extremely frustrating are very fun!
5) I learned that after being out in the heat and performing, water, no matter how hot it's been after sitting in my trunk taste great!
6) I learned not to leave my wallet on my desk. (oops!)
7) I learned that I can climb around like Willy when I need to dig a keyboard out of the back of our box truck.
8) I learned that I work with an amazing group of people who'll rock it out, even when they don't have a clue what's going on (as we changed set lists on the fly).
9) I learned that O'Charlies (sp?) has amazing bread, (of course the fact that I was about starving might have something to do with it.)
10) I learned that I can cram an entire drumset into my alero, (including kick, toms, snare, cymbals and hardware!)
Monday, June 30, 2008
Head full of good thoughts, belly full of grub...
So I've got a few more detail in the lifepoint worship blog, but before I begin... does anyone recognize the title of this post? (Family not allowed to compete!) The first person who can tell me where it's from will get... bragging rights to all their friends about how much a geek you are.
So we did a "country" by which I mean "Bluegrass" song this week. If you've seen the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" then you'd probably remember Man of constant sorrows.
Despite the fact that I wasn't able to put together a full bluegrass band, our worship team rocked the song. And I got to play washboard, (a first for me)... and why is it every time I've got some weird I-need-my-percussionist-for-some-special-odd-type-instrument-thing, she's on vacation!
I'm not kidding, I'm planning to make sure to schedule our next acoustic worship set for after she get's back.
Anyway I've got more details about this last week's worship set including the performance song on the Lifepoint worship blog.
So we did a "country" by which I mean "Bluegrass" song this week. If you've seen the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" then you'd probably remember Man of constant sorrows.
Despite the fact that I wasn't able to put together a full bluegrass band, our worship team rocked the song. And I got to play washboard, (a first for me)... and why is it every time I've got some weird I-need-my-percussionist-for-some-special-odd-type-instrument-thing, she's on vacation!
I'm not kidding, I'm planning to make sure to schedule our next acoustic worship set for after she get's back.
Anyway I've got more details about this last week's worship set including the performance song on the Lifepoint worship blog.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Open the box...
So the title of the post really has two meanings. In our Volunteer Team meetings Jeremy's got us reading the (In my humble... no scratch that in this case, in my wildly unapologetic overinflated opinion, at least in this case...) Book the Houdini Solution, thinking INSIDE the box.
As he, or anyone else who's a part of this meeting will tell you I've been fighting this book from day one. It's not to say that I haven't come away with a lot of information, it's just something about the book rubs me the wrong way... and as the team knows I will argue the semantics of how the book is subtitled until they want to strangle me.
Actually I've started to use the book in creative planning, instead of responding negatively to an idea... or arguing it and pounding the table as we have been instructed to do I just whip out my copy of the book and bang THAT on the table.
Really and truly though I HAVE taken away some good ideas from the book so it hasn't been for naught but I don't know... I'll post more when I get a bit further in it.
Now the REAL reason for this post (congrats for sticking around long enough to get to this point, I could make a sarcastic yet witty jab about your needing a life (all in love though, really and truly!), but then I'm the one writing this so I have no room to talk now do I?) oh did I type that out loud?
AHEM. Back to the point. Pandora. (as in Pandora's box) No NOT the Greek Mythological figure, although that is the reference for the post title, no I'm talking about the website. I've managed to get two people (At least two that I'm aware of) addicted to it so I'm going for more.
What is it? Well to put it basically it's online radio station that where YOU create your own radio station. Just try it. You know the old saying "What do you have on your ipod?" well try "What stations do you have programmed on your Pandora?"
And while I'm on the subject of addicting online radio, I've found this little gem a while ago, not as... effective? (In my now humble opinion) as Pandora at song selection it's fun to play around with, and it does have a nice selection.
As he, or anyone else who's a part of this meeting will tell you I've been fighting this book from day one. It's not to say that I haven't come away with a lot of information, it's just something about the book rubs me the wrong way... and as the team knows I will argue the semantics of how the book is subtitled until they want to strangle me.
Actually I've started to use the book in creative planning, instead of responding negatively to an idea... or arguing it and pounding the table as we have been instructed to do I just whip out my copy of the book and bang THAT on the table.
Really and truly though I HAVE taken away some good ideas from the book so it hasn't been for naught but I don't know... I'll post more when I get a bit further in it.
Now the REAL reason for this post (congrats for sticking around long enough to get to this point, I could make a sarcastic yet witty jab about your needing a life (all in love though, really and truly!), but then I'm the one writing this so I have no room to talk now do I?) oh did I type that out loud?
AHEM. Back to the point. Pandora. (as in Pandora's box) No NOT the Greek Mythological figure, although that is the reference for the post title, no I'm talking about the website. I've managed to get two people (At least two that I'm aware of) addicted to it so I'm going for more.
What is it? Well to put it basically it's online radio station that where YOU create your own radio station. Just try it. You know the old saying "What do you have on your ipod?" well try "What stations do you have programmed on your Pandora?"
And while I'm on the subject of addicting online radio, I've found this little gem a while ago, not as... effective? (In my now humble opinion) as Pandora at song selection it's fun to play around with, and it does have a nice selection.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Worship Set
I've really got to back into the habit of posting these, even if it's just for reference purposes.
First off we had Tammie and Mia (switching off) Leading worship this week, our set list was
Blessed Be Your Name (The tree63 version)
How he loves (Jesus Culture)
You Alone (Jesus Culture)
We Cry Out (Jesus Culture)
How he loves was amazingly done, but I'm not sure if it's as congregational-y singable as we initially thought. (The Chorus is, the verses are a bit... odd?)
We cry out though was amazing. It was rocking, it was connecting, it started off as a performance song, but half way through became a worship song. I've gotten so much positive feedback about this set as a whole!
This Sunday our Downtown Campus Praise team is coming in. They're got a different vibe than my team does, (I mean they'll demographic that they're reaching is different) but I know it's gonna be an awesome experience. Hopefully I'll be able to post from Drive, I can't believe that it's only... 3 days away!!!!
Oh and I want to try this, it sounds like an awesome worship experience.
First off we had Tammie and Mia (switching off) Leading worship this week, our set list was
Blessed Be Your Name (The tree63 version)
How he loves (Jesus Culture)
You Alone (Jesus Culture)
We Cry Out (Jesus Culture)
How he loves was amazingly done, but I'm not sure if it's as congregational-y singable as we initially thought. (The Chorus is, the verses are a bit... odd?)
We cry out though was amazing. It was rocking, it was connecting, it started off as a performance song, but half way through became a worship song. I've gotten so much positive feedback about this set as a whole!
This Sunday our Downtown Campus Praise team is coming in. They're got a different vibe than my team does, (I mean they'll demographic that they're reaching is different) but I know it's gonna be an awesome experience. Hopefully I'll be able to post from Drive, I can't believe that it's only... 3 days away!!!!
Oh and I want to try this, it sounds like an awesome worship experience.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
So where have YOU been in the last 8 days?
For me I've been editing some audio clips for a little project, going through music to pick a couple songs for the worship auditions coming up, planning set lists for the worship team, checking out our (Lifepoint) new office and generally staying very busy. (including three nice draft blog posts that aren't up to my publish standards).
I haven't even had a chance to write out a real set of music notes to my amazing team (for shame)!
Also doing a fair amount of reading lately, several books (yes I read more than one book at a time, you point?) but one in particular is "The Houdini Solution" that Pick has his team (myself included) reading. And I'm arguing with a book... sad yes but I am indeed that much of a geek to sit read and argue with a book.
Really and Truly (smirk if you get the reference) I like the book, but I'm arguing the semantics of phraseology and the real meaning of a known saying.
Had it been my book I would at least have had the decency to sub-title it:
Thinking outside the box by thinking inside the box.
Confused yet? Well get a copy and read it for yourself... or ask to borrow mine in a few weeks, heck if you can wait mine will be hi-lighted and annotated... mind your some of said annotation will probably be me arguing with the book, but is that such a bad thing? (don't answer that).
Finally I've been drumming. One thing nice about my new place (aside from the fact that we now finally have a working stable internet connection) is that we've got a drumset. Well, we had a drumset. Once I got my hands on it I turned it into a DRUM SET!!! (insert loud echo-y effects and dramatic fanfares). My only sadness regarding it is that I ran out of cymbal stands before I ran out of cymbals, (And I'm sure everyone who knows my set up is rolling their eyes about now).
The set up?
13.5" pic. Snare
10" Popcorn Snare
8" Gretsch Tom
10" Gretsch Tom
12" Pearl Tom
14" Pearl Floor Tom
Standard 22?/24? (I honestly don't remember) pearl kick
The gretsch's I nabbed on ebay, the pic and pop are both Pacific (by DW) from Guitar Center and the Pearl pieces are part of the original kit that I Frankenstein-ed. I'm using Remo Pinstripes (Mainly because GC didn't have any of the fiber-skin heads that I really like) but I'm very pleased with the sound quality that I get out of them.
Finally the Cymbals. LOTS of cymbals, of which standard configuration changes on an almost daily basis depending on which ones I feel like playing.
I haven't even had a chance to write out a real set of music notes to my amazing team (for shame)!
Also doing a fair amount of reading lately, several books (yes I read more than one book at a time, you point?) but one in particular is "The Houdini Solution" that Pick has his team (myself included) reading. And I'm arguing with a book... sad yes but I am indeed that much of a geek to sit read and argue with a book.
Really and Truly (smirk if you get the reference) I like the book, but I'm arguing the semantics of phraseology and the real meaning of a known saying.
Had it been my book I would at least have had the decency to sub-title it:
Thinking outside the box by thinking inside the box.
Confused yet? Well get a copy and read it for yourself... or ask to borrow mine in a few weeks, heck if you can wait mine will be hi-lighted and annotated... mind your some of said annotation will probably be me arguing with the book, but is that such a bad thing? (don't answer that).
Finally I've been drumming. One thing nice about my new place (aside from the fact that we now finally have a working stable internet connection) is that we've got a drumset. Well, we had a drumset. Once I got my hands on it I turned it into a DRUM SET!!! (insert loud echo-y effects and dramatic fanfares). My only sadness regarding it is that I ran out of cymbal stands before I ran out of cymbals, (And I'm sure everyone who knows my set up is rolling their eyes about now).
The set up?
13.5" pic. Snare
10" Popcorn Snare
8" Gretsch Tom
10" Gretsch Tom
12" Pearl Tom
14" Pearl Floor Tom
Standard 22?/24? (I honestly don't remember) pearl kick
The gretsch's I nabbed on ebay, the pic and pop are both Pacific (by DW) from Guitar Center and the Pearl pieces are part of the original kit that I Frankenstein-ed. I'm using Remo Pinstripes (Mainly because GC didn't have any of the fiber-skin heads that I really like) but I'm very pleased with the sound quality that I get out of them.
Finally the Cymbals. LOTS of cymbals, of which standard configuration changes on an almost daily basis depending on which ones I feel like playing.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Amazed....
We used to do a worship song, "Lord I'm amazed by you" and I think that song really sums up this weekend. I'm sure by now all three pastors, (Pastor Daniel, Josh, and Pick) have all blogged about the weekend, but I wanted to add my 2 cents.
So let's start with Saturday, If you read Josh's Blog you know we've been tracking the weather all week. Since Monday all the weather stations were calling for rain. Our prayer was for a warm sunny day. As always God 1, weatherman 0. (More on this later)
Setup ran really smooth and the volunteers. We had over a hundred (near 150, from an earlier account) Lifepoint volunteers show up to help get the event rolling. Boy did it roll. I'm sure either Josh (who was the lucky person designated to be the event coordinator, or Pastor will be getting a call from the city. Last year we had 2500 people and stopped traffic for 2 miles around the school where we meet. No problem, we figured around 4-5 thousand people would show up this year. Depending on your source, (newspaper, radio, etc) we estimate somewhere between 7 and 12 thousand people showed up, traffic was backed up for MILES in every direction. I heard as far as the mall on Rt. 3 from one side, Lafayette Blvd, from another. We had chick-fil-a as a vendor and they kept running out of food! Oh and did I forget to mention that the police had to shut down our entrances? yeah we had THAT many people showing up. In fact we're already talking about where to go next year. The problem is finding a venue big enough, and one that can accommodate such a huge surge of traffic. And while I'm on the subject Mad Props to Tom Spellman and the whole Parking team who were swamped and went way above and beyond normal call of duty.
Then the eggs, I had the awesome privilege of doing all the ground level filming. (So if the video sucks when Josh get's done editing it, then it's my fault). I had joked all year leading up to this event that it looks like Lord of the Rings when the kids rush in to get the eggs, Well, you'll get a chance to see it I filmed several opening runs from the "epic" angle, just say a quick prayer that it turns out all right.
Also filmed some of the other events going on, we had a petting zoo, a rock climb, and a couple other vendors showed up as well.
Mad props to our Volunteer army, who put in, by my estimate an approximate 1,050 combined man-hours on Saturday ALONE. no idea HOW many hours were put in during the planning stages all I know is that it's a lot.
About the weather, next year I'm going to be dangerously specific with my prayer. Mostly clear with long periods of light cloud cover. I think most of us ended with sunburn from the day... here's an interesting bit of personal trivia in the last two years I've had a total of two Sunburns. The most recent was from the Eggdrop, the other was from our Gas buy down.
Then there was yesterday. What an amazing day, I didn't hear a count from the last service, but there was an estimated 30 people who changed their eternal destination from Hell and an eternity apart from God, to Heaven and an eternity with their creator how awesome is that! And that was just from the first two services! We had 674 people attend across three services, it was w00t-able.
Our set list was All Because of Jesus (by Fee) Mighty to Save (Hillsong) Wonderul Cross (Tomlin/Redman) with a performance song Meant to Live (Switchfoot) everything was so on! My whole upper body is killing me now too. I didn't just play, I didn't just perform I was in full blown worship mode and I have no regrets. Finally, Jeremy and Tom sang Mighty is the Power of the Cross (Tomlin) during the invitation, (with Ronnie, on guitar, Bill on Bass and Hannah on Cello) we were going for one of the those "Meet with God" moments I can't speak for anyone else but I know that my eyes were sweating.
And Pastor preached like the building was on fire, if there was ever (there wasn't for the record) any doubt in my mind about his Passion to reach people who are far from God, yesterday would have blasted those doubts away.
God we give you the glory for this amazing weekend where we celebrated the Resurrection of your son Jesus. Thank you for letting us, for letting me have a part in it.
So let's start with Saturday, If you read Josh's Blog you know we've been tracking the weather all week. Since Monday all the weather stations were calling for rain. Our prayer was for a warm sunny day. As always God 1, weatherman 0. (More on this later)
Setup ran really smooth and the volunteers. We had over a hundred (near 150, from an earlier account) Lifepoint volunteers show up to help get the event rolling. Boy did it roll. I'm sure either Josh (who was the lucky person designated to be the event coordinator, or Pastor will be getting a call from the city. Last year we had 2500 people and stopped traffic for 2 miles around the school where we meet. No problem, we figured around 4-5 thousand people would show up this year. Depending on your source, (newspaper, radio, etc) we estimate somewhere between 7 and 12 thousand people showed up, traffic was backed up for MILES in every direction. I heard as far as the mall on Rt. 3 from one side, Lafayette Blvd, from another. We had chick-fil-a as a vendor and they kept running out of food! Oh and did I forget to mention that the police had to shut down our entrances? yeah we had THAT many people showing up. In fact we're already talking about where to go next year. The problem is finding a venue big enough, and one that can accommodate such a huge surge of traffic. And while I'm on the subject Mad Props to Tom Spellman and the whole Parking team who were swamped and went way above and beyond normal call of duty.
Then the eggs, I had the awesome privilege of doing all the ground level filming. (So if the video sucks when Josh get's done editing it, then it's my fault). I had joked all year leading up to this event that it looks like Lord of the Rings when the kids rush in to get the eggs, Well, you'll get a chance to see it I filmed several opening runs from the "epic" angle, just say a quick prayer that it turns out all right.
Also filmed some of the other events going on, we had a petting zoo, a rock climb, and a couple other vendors showed up as well.
Mad props to our Volunteer army, who put in, by my estimate an approximate 1,050 combined man-hours on Saturday ALONE. no idea HOW many hours were put in during the planning stages all I know is that it's a lot.
About the weather, next year I'm going to be dangerously specific with my prayer. Mostly clear with long periods of light cloud cover. I think most of us ended with sunburn from the day... here's an interesting bit of personal trivia in the last two years I've had a total of two Sunburns. The most recent was from the Eggdrop, the other was from our Gas buy down.
Then there was yesterday. What an amazing day, I didn't hear a count from the last service, but there was an estimated 30 people who changed their eternal destination from Hell and an eternity apart from God, to Heaven and an eternity with their creator how awesome is that! And that was just from the first two services! We had 674 people attend across three services, it was w00t-able.
Our set list was All Because of Jesus (by Fee) Mighty to Save (Hillsong) Wonderul Cross (Tomlin/Redman) with a performance song Meant to Live (Switchfoot) everything was so on! My whole upper body is killing me now too. I didn't just play, I didn't just perform I was in full blown worship mode and I have no regrets. Finally, Jeremy and Tom sang Mighty is the Power of the Cross (Tomlin) during the invitation, (with Ronnie, on guitar, Bill on Bass and Hannah on Cello) we were going for one of the those "Meet with God" moments I can't speak for anyone else but I know that my eyes were sweating.
And Pastor preached like the building was on fire, if there was ever (there wasn't for the record) any doubt in my mind about his Passion to reach people who are far from God, yesterday would have blasted those doubts away.
God we give you the glory for this amazing weekend where we celebrated the Resurrection of your son Jesus. Thank you for letting us, for letting me have a part in it.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Still waiting...
So I'm still without internet. It's in process and I'll hopefully have it in another week, for now though...
So this was the last Sunday in our Quake series. Originally when we planned the service we were thinking about doing the John Mayer song Waiting on the world to change, because quake is about making a difference in the community.
Well what none of us in planning realized was that Waiting on the World to change was a huge war protest song, thankfully Kimberli came through with that information and we avoided a rather unintentional major faux pas (is that proper use of term?).
So instead we did "Change the World" by Eric Clapton, Pick finally played like one of his major musical influences and Ronnie of course blew me away with his gift for the guitar. Especially when they only had since Tuesday to prepare for this. I will admit to being almost giddy when I heard him play it during run through. And while I'm on the subject I had the morning off, meaning Jason our other drummer was playing... I felt lost! (More on this in a later post).
We also baptized 15 people today including on Robb from my life group. I have to admit that my eyes had a little sweat in them during that moment. Robb if you read this, I'm proud of you brotha!)
The rest of our Worship set was "Count Me In" by Leeland and "Glorious One" (By Todd Fields? I think). Glorious One is one of our favorites (It IS Pick's favorite) and "Count me In" is an amazing hi energy song. Which we'll do again within a couple weeks. And the sound today was awesome! Clark did our mix and it sounded great.
Sometime after Easter I'll be taking a month sabbatical from drumming to give Jason our other drummer a chance to grow into the ministry. Hopefully during that time I'll be able to focus some of my energies on some new worship music projects.
Oh and I had a phenomenal interview with Pastor Wade Joy from Elevation Church on Wednesday (which reminds me I need to send out a thank you card. anyone who knows me please ask me when you see me to make sure I get that out, thanks!) and got a ton of notes and ideas. Pastor Joy is their Worship pastor and part of his job reads my duties for director of music.
So on a semi side note wishing (and praying) for some healing for Elizabeth (My aux Percussionist) who developed tendinitis bashing the tar out of a tambourine a couple weeks ago (She's been playing one handed for the last 2 weeks!) Also for Anne (One of my vocals/guitarists) who had surgery the other week.
And I'm staring at my calender wondering when we'll have internet at the house and I can't help be think (yes I know rare for me)... Wow Easter is 7 days away, 6 for the egg drop.
So this was the last Sunday in our Quake series. Originally when we planned the service we were thinking about doing the John Mayer song Waiting on the world to change, because quake is about making a difference in the community.
Well what none of us in planning realized was that Waiting on the World to change was a huge war protest song, thankfully Kimberli came through with that information and we avoided a rather unintentional major faux pas (is that proper use of term?).
So instead we did "Change the World" by Eric Clapton, Pick finally played like one of his major musical influences and Ronnie of course blew me away with his gift for the guitar. Especially when they only had since Tuesday to prepare for this. I will admit to being almost giddy when I heard him play it during run through. And while I'm on the subject I had the morning off, meaning Jason our other drummer was playing... I felt lost! (More on this in a later post).
We also baptized 15 people today including on Robb from my life group. I have to admit that my eyes had a little sweat in them during that moment. Robb if you read this, I'm proud of you brotha!)
The rest of our Worship set was "Count Me In" by Leeland and "Glorious One" (By Todd Fields? I think). Glorious One is one of our favorites (It IS Pick's favorite) and "Count me In" is an amazing hi energy song. Which we'll do again within a couple weeks. And the sound today was awesome! Clark did our mix and it sounded great.
Sometime after Easter I'll be taking a month sabbatical from drumming to give Jason our other drummer a chance to grow into the ministry. Hopefully during that time I'll be able to focus some of my energies on some new worship music projects.
Oh and I had a phenomenal interview with Pastor Wade Joy from Elevation Church on Wednesday (which reminds me I need to send out a thank you card. anyone who knows me please ask me when you see me to make sure I get that out, thanks!) and got a ton of notes and ideas. Pastor Joy is their Worship pastor and part of his job reads my duties for director of music.
So on a semi side note wishing (and praying) for some healing for Elizabeth (My aux Percussionist) who developed tendinitis bashing the tar out of a tambourine a couple weeks ago (She's been playing one handed for the last 2 weeks!) Also for Anne (One of my vocals/guitarists) who had surgery the other week.
And I'm staring at my calender wondering when we'll have internet at the house and I can't help be think (yes I know rare for me)... Wow Easter is 7 days away, 6 for the egg drop.
Monday, March 3, 2008
28 reasons....
I've heard of a movie called 28 days later, (which apparently is a zombie movie? has anyone who's seen this let me know)
Anyway if nothing else I thought it was a catchy title, so in an unapologetic effort to capitalize on said catchiness of said title here are 28 reasons I'm thankful today.
1) I have a Savior who hung on a cross and died, and three days later arose.
2) I live in America, for all our problems and all our issues we're still the free-est greatest country out there. (I mean honestly you don't hear how people built a raft out of an old chevy and then floated it to Russia do you?)
3) I have an amazing family that I have a close relationship with.
4) I have a car that works and has working air conditioning, (I, at one point had a car that didn't have air conditioning which made me appreciate it all the more).
5) I live in a country that allows me freedom to worship. At our recent vocal workshop (write up to follow... err eventually) Tom and Jeremy showed a video clip (which was from a movie, but I know for a fact that this is done in reality) of a church in China and when it came time to sing a hymn they sang it silently, and while it was stirring and moving the reality hit me, they can't sing aloud because if their Government finds them, well I won't go there.
6) I have eyes that see, yes I wear glasses and my vision isn't perfect, but I can still see the breathtaking beauty of a sunrise, I can enjoy the bluest sky or the greenest field.
7) I have some great friends who are a joy and blessing, (even the one who has yet to return my phone call, though he probably won't read this) to my life.
8) I have a mentor, (well I have several for different areas of my life, but I have one in particular who's awesome beyond mere word description, he pushes me to be a better me and believes in me even when I don't believe in myself.
9) I've been blessed with a love and slight (trying to be humble here) talent for music.
10) I've got one of the greatest groups of musicians in my praise team. (Another post to follow)
11) I have a job, while I don't always enjoy it, I do have an income source.
12) I have a roof over my head, (soon to be) a different one then the one I had, but a roof none the less.
13) I have a cell phone, and even though there are times when I find them utterly annoying it's so nice to have a way to communicate with people.
14) I have my hearing. I can't even fathom the genius of Beethoven, writing music when the only place he could hear it was in his mind.
15) My amazing small group who knows my weakness for fresh krispy kreme donuts.
16) My sense of taste (and smell), so I can enjoy previously mentioned Krispy Kreme donuts.
17) Drums, and cymbals... Lots of Cymbals (should be spoken like Neo from that Matrix scene, you know the one).
18) I enjoy reading. Sir Richard Steele once said "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."
19) I can cook, (and bake) and do both moderately well.
20) I have a pc and I know how to use it.
21) I have fingers, wrists, arms, feet and legs and all of them work well enough that I can play the drums.
22) Despite my horrible grammar (ask ANY of my English teachers) and even worse spelling (hmm that gives me an idea) I still enjoy writing and apparently have people who enjoy reading what I write, warm fuzzies.
22.5) Auto Spell-check.
23) I have a country that doesn't pull a "big brother" on internet use. (cough cough China, where they'll throw you in jail if you try to look up (insert and remotely affiliated term of Christianity here) on the internet.
24) The second amendment, and I have the remains of a can from 100 yards to prove it.
25) That I am a part of a radical movement of God in my community and I just pray that we can in our own talents and ways make the name Jesus even more famous, that we can impact lives and change forever, the eternal destination of those around us from an eternity apart from God to an eternity with him.
26) Clean air to breath. (Been to L.A. nuff said)
27) Clean water to drink. (See above, the funny story is the first time I visited my family in LA as they picked me off at the airport, their first words exchanged after being greeted was a warning to only drink bottled water, my response was, "So nice place you live, can't breathe the air, can't drink the water... anything else I should know?").
28) I've made it 28 years (thus far... actually 28 years plus 3 days) and I couldn't be more thankful.
Anyway if nothing else I thought it was a catchy title, so in an unapologetic effort to capitalize on said catchiness of said title here are 28 reasons I'm thankful today.
1) I have a Savior who hung on a cross and died, and three days later arose.
2) I live in America, for all our problems and all our issues we're still the free-est greatest country out there. (I mean honestly you don't hear how people built a raft out of an old chevy and then floated it to Russia do you?)
3) I have an amazing family that I have a close relationship with.
4) I have a car that works and has working air conditioning, (I, at one point had a car that didn't have air conditioning which made me appreciate it all the more).
5) I live in a country that allows me freedom to worship. At our recent vocal workshop (write up to follow... err eventually) Tom and Jeremy showed a video clip (which was from a movie, but I know for a fact that this is done in reality) of a church in China and when it came time to sing a hymn they sang it silently, and while it was stirring and moving the reality hit me, they can't sing aloud because if their Government finds them, well I won't go there.
6) I have eyes that see, yes I wear glasses and my vision isn't perfect, but I can still see the breathtaking beauty of a sunrise, I can enjoy the bluest sky or the greenest field.
7) I have some great friends who are a joy and blessing, (even the one who has yet to return my phone call, though he probably won't read this) to my life.
8) I have a mentor, (well I have several for different areas of my life, but I have one in particular who's awesome beyond mere word description, he pushes me to be a better me and believes in me even when I don't believe in myself.
9) I've been blessed with a love and slight (trying to be humble here) talent for music.
10) I've got one of the greatest groups of musicians in my praise team. (Another post to follow)
11) I have a job, while I don't always enjoy it, I do have an income source.
12) I have a roof over my head, (soon to be) a different one then the one I had, but a roof none the less.
13) I have a cell phone, and even though there are times when I find them utterly annoying it's so nice to have a way to communicate with people.
14) I have my hearing. I can't even fathom the genius of Beethoven, writing music when the only place he could hear it was in his mind.
15) My amazing small group who knows my weakness for fresh krispy kreme donuts.
16) My sense of taste (and smell), so I can enjoy previously mentioned Krispy Kreme donuts.
17) Drums, and cymbals... Lots of Cymbals (should be spoken like Neo from that Matrix scene, you know the one).
18) I enjoy reading. Sir Richard Steele once said "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."
19) I can cook, (and bake) and do both moderately well.
20) I have a pc and I know how to use it.
21) I have fingers, wrists, arms, feet and legs and all of them work well enough that I can play the drums.
22) Despite my horrible grammar (ask ANY of my English teachers) and even worse spelling (hmm that gives me an idea) I still enjoy writing and apparently have people who enjoy reading what I write, warm fuzzies.
22.5) Auto Spell-check.
23) I have a country that doesn't pull a "big brother" on internet use. (cough cough China, where they'll throw you in jail if you try to look up (insert and remotely affiliated term of Christianity here) on the internet.
24) The second amendment, and I have the remains of a can from 100 yards to prove it.
25) That I am a part of a radical movement of God in my community and I just pray that we can in our own talents and ways make the name Jesus even more famous, that we can impact lives and change forever, the eternal destination of those around us from an eternity apart from God to an eternity with him.
26) Clean air to breath. (Been to L.A. nuff said)
27) Clean water to drink. (See above, the funny story is the first time I visited my family in LA as they picked me off at the airport, their first words exchanged after being greeted was a warning to only drink bottled water, my response was, "So nice place you live, can't breathe the air, can't drink the water... anything else I should know?").
28) I've made it 28 years (thus far... actually 28 years plus 3 days) and I couldn't be more thankful.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Loops, Why, What and How
Before I begin the meet of this post I want to apologize if it seems a bit... disjointed? (I think that's the word I want) I've been working on this post for around 3 weeks, just adding bits to it here and there as I've had time so I blame time lapse for any confusion. (Unlike this post though, I managed to keep all the names straight... at least I think I did).
Also later in this post I describe the method that I use to build loops. I am by no means a professional loop creator, I am at best an amateur, but it works for me and until I can get some official training on the subject here is what I've found works for me....
One of the (joys? headaches? frustrations? pleasures?) of being my current position at Lifepoint is working on/with loops.
First why work with loops at all?
Well it helps cement tempo, but is that necessarily a good thing?
I mean every drummer (any decent drummer) plays in time, but I know of very few applications musically where perfect time sounds right....
Drum Corp is one instance that I can think of, but applied to a drumset perfect time comes off as too... stiff? Robotic...
Tommy Igoe did a talk about this at last year's PASIC and I believe his exact phrasing is perfect time applied to the drumset comes off as "too vanilla".
So the end result is you play in time, but if that snare is hit somewhere between the last 32nd note of one and the first of two doesn't mean it's late,
Before I confuse you further let me move on to my original purpose of this post. (This subject matter is fodder for a whole other post, one I'll get to... eventually).
Building loops. Back to the original question, why work with loops, it also allows you to add instruments and sound effects in a timed manner that would otherwise require... well insert your sound of choice here, a lot of what we loop can be accomplished with a good keyboardist who knows their way around a keyboard, up until recently though we haven't had a regular keyboardist, though both our Vocal Director and one of our vocals are excellent pianist they weren't available every week to play. But occasionally you run into that sound that just doesn't lend itself to keyboard and requires either a recording session or a pre-recorded sound, Off hand I can't come up with anything, but I know there are examples out there. I've used them at add percussion sound on a Crowder song we did before we got a percussionist, and to add strings on a couple pieces we've done. Also there have been a couple instances when when we were going for a fuller sound than one keyboard could provide.
So okay, you're now convinced that working with loops is a good thing, now what?
Well, you can start by building your own!
I currently do most of the work on our loops with a couple different programs, if I have to program midi I normally use Ableton Live, (A copy of it came with my midi controller), however the need for me to work with midi isn't too great and so most of my work usually ends up being done with a program caller Reaper and a program called Audacity. Reaper is a fully functional
audio mixing program which is uncripled shareware (after 30 days it starts with a pop up asking you to pay) but all the features remain active, and having used several different full system editors in my time I have to say it's a really sweet program. Audacity is an open source audio editor, my only issue with Reaper is it doesn't have it's own WAV editor (Or if it does I have yet to figure out where/how to work it) so if I have to make any corrections to an individual track I pull it up in audacity make the changes and then send it back. Now quite as simple as working with say Adobe Audition (Which is what I was using) but much MUCH more budget friendly.
Ok back on the work cycle here, the first thing I do when we decided we want to do a song that we need a loop for is buy the song. (I normally Use itunes) then put is on a disc and then an mp3.
Then I plug it into this handy little program that analyzes the beats per minute of the song.
Once I have that I go into reaper and import the song. I then create a click (think metronome) track and channel it to the left, the click track becomes the tempo of the song.
Then going layer by layer I begin adding instrumentation and effects to the song. Normally through the Alesis Keyboard or my own PS350. Though I will hopefully be doing more work with a Phantom X8 in the very near future.
Once that I'm please with the way everything sounds I pan everything (except the click track) to the right, then remove the original song.
From there It's either imported into my Sampling pad (A Roland SPDS) or, as I've used more lately get's loaded on my ipod.
OR on occasion it's synced to a video like what we did for Bitter Sweet Symphony, though in this case Josh used the original track for this posting. Oh and I have a cameo in the video, but you only see my back.
Also later in this post I describe the method that I use to build loops. I am by no means a professional loop creator, I am at best an amateur, but it works for me and until I can get some official training on the subject here is what I've found works for me....
One of the (joys? headaches? frustrations? pleasures?) of being my current position at Lifepoint is working on/with loops.
First why work with loops at all?
Well it helps cement tempo, but is that necessarily a good thing?
I mean every drummer (any decent drummer) plays in time, but I know of very few applications musically where perfect time sounds right....
Drum Corp is one instance that I can think of, but applied to a drumset perfect time comes off as too... stiff? Robotic...
Tommy Igoe did a talk about this at last year's PASIC and I believe his exact phrasing is perfect time applied to the drumset comes off as "too vanilla".
So the end result is you play in time, but if that snare is hit somewhere between the last 32nd note of one and the first of two doesn't mean it's late,
Before I confuse you further let me move on to my original purpose of this post. (This subject matter is fodder for a whole other post, one I'll get to... eventually).
Building loops. Back to the original question, why work with loops, it also allows you to add instruments and sound effects in a timed manner that would otherwise require... well insert your sound of choice here, a lot of what we loop can be accomplished with a good keyboardist who knows their way around a keyboard, up until recently though we haven't had a regular keyboardist, though both our Vocal Director and one of our vocals are excellent pianist they weren't available every week to play. But occasionally you run into that sound that just doesn't lend itself to keyboard and requires either a recording session or a pre-recorded sound, Off hand I can't come up with anything, but I know there are examples out there. I've used them at add percussion sound on a Crowder song we did before we got a percussionist, and to add strings on a couple pieces we've done. Also there have been a couple instances when when we were going for a fuller sound than one keyboard could provide.
So okay, you're now convinced that working with loops is a good thing, now what?
Well, you can start by building your own!
I currently do most of the work on our loops with a couple different programs, if I have to program midi I normally use Ableton Live, (A copy of it came with my midi controller), however the need for me to work with midi isn't too great and so most of my work usually ends up being done with a program caller Reaper and a program called Audacity. Reaper is a fully functional
audio mixing program which is uncripled shareware (after 30 days it starts with a pop up asking you to pay) but all the features remain active, and having used several different full system editors in my time I have to say it's a really sweet program. Audacity is an open source audio editor, my only issue with Reaper is it doesn't have it's own WAV editor (Or if it does I have yet to figure out where/how to work it) so if I have to make any corrections to an individual track I pull it up in audacity make the changes and then send it back. Now quite as simple as working with say Adobe Audition (Which is what I was using) but much MUCH more budget friendly.
Ok back on the work cycle here, the first thing I do when we decided we want to do a song that we need a loop for is buy the song. (I normally Use itunes) then put is on a disc and then an mp3.
Then I plug it into this handy little program that analyzes the beats per minute of the song.
Once I have that I go into reaper and import the song. I then create a click (think metronome) track and channel it to the left, the click track becomes the tempo of the song.
Then going layer by layer I begin adding instrumentation and effects to the song. Normally through the Alesis Keyboard or my own PS350. Though I will hopefully be doing more work with a Phantom X8 in the very near future.
Once that I'm please with the way everything sounds I pan everything (except the click track) to the right, then remove the original song.
From there It's either imported into my Sampling pad (A Roland SPDS) or, as I've used more lately get's loaded on my ipod.
OR on occasion it's synced to a video like what we did for Bitter Sweet Symphony, though in this case Josh used the original track for this posting. Oh and I have a cameo in the video, but you only see my back.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Life's lesson's one oh one...
Always request signature required on any package you are having shipped.
Yes there is a story behind this, one from actually a month ago, but the bottom line for me, is that from now on every package (and I don't care what it is) I'm having shipped is getting the instructions: "Please insure that a signature is required" on the order. Especially when ordering parts for musical instruments or in-ear monitors, and doubly especially when there seems to be a bunch of idiots in your neighborhood.
That way if some shipper say... fedex has a shipment of say... ear piece replacements for um2s it's insured that someone at residence will actually receive the package, instead of it simply disappearing an act likely committed by the same people who like to break into cars.
Count it joy...Count it joy...Count it joy...Count it joy...Count it joy...
Yes there is a story behind this, one from actually a month ago, but the bottom line for me, is that from now on every package (and I don't care what it is) I'm having shipped is getting the instructions: "Please insure that a signature is required" on the order. Especially when ordering parts for musical instruments or in-ear monitors, and doubly especially when there seems to be a bunch of idiots in your neighborhood.
That way if some shipper say... fedex has a shipment of say... ear piece replacements for um2s it's insured that someone at residence will actually receive the package, instead of it simply disappearing an act likely committed by the same people who like to break into cars.
Count it joy...Count it joy...Count it joy...Count it joy...Count it joy...
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Rudimental beats
Though my title is a dvd by Bill Bachman (another member of Drummers for Jesus) my post is actually on some practice methods that I like to use. I started this last night and just got around to finishing it on my lunch break so if it seems fragmented I apologize in advance.
For one, I don't have a drum set at my current residence (both of which will hopefully be changing in the near future) I instead practice on a series of practice pads, and while I usually set them up in some semblance of a kit, I occasionally just work off one pad.
Now Tommy Igoe (see previous post regarding groove essentials) has described rudiments as a type of highly addictive need a fix kind of drug for drummers,especially for those of us coming in from a drum line background (See here for details you're looking for Installment 6: PASIC Clinic: “Applying the Rudimental Vocabulary to the Drumset”).
While I'm not that bad, (Really, I can quit at any time, I just don't want to that's all!) I have found that slowly working through rudiments can help you get used to little nuances that apply well to set drumming. I usually, (however) practice my rudiments at medium to fast tempos while listening to music, creating something of a snare cadence piece to what ever I may be listening to at any given time. It helps keep my mind sharp and in a "drumming" state of mind. Though unless you've been there I doubt you'd understand what I meant by that last statement.
If you're a beginning drummer, or one just coming back after being out of practice I would recommend this exercise to you, go get your ipod/cd player/mp3 player/ whatever, set it to random, and then just play a cadence to whatever is playing, I use this as my warm up for serious practice because it relaxes me and again gets me in a drumming frame of mind. A normal randomized set of music will take me from classical symphony to progressive rock, to R&B to Jazz to Rock and roll to swing and everywhere else in between.
So go try it, and if you do let me know if you've find it helps you as much as it does me, and drop me line if you have a better way to describe a drumming frame of mind.
~Matt
For one, I don't have a drum set at my current residence (both of which will hopefully be changing in the near future) I instead practice on a series of practice pads, and while I usually set them up in some semblance of a kit, I occasionally just work off one pad.
Now Tommy Igoe (see previous post regarding groove essentials) has described rudiments as a type of highly addictive need a fix kind of drug for drummers,especially for those of us coming in from a drum line background (See here for details you're looking for Installment 6: PASIC Clinic: “Applying the Rudimental Vocabulary to the Drumset”).
While I'm not that bad, (Really, I can quit at any time, I just don't want to that's all!) I have found that slowly working through rudiments can help you get used to little nuances that apply well to set drumming. I usually, (however) practice my rudiments at medium to fast tempos while listening to music, creating something of a snare cadence piece to what ever I may be listening to at any given time. It helps keep my mind sharp and in a "drumming" state of mind. Though unless you've been there I doubt you'd understand what I meant by that last statement.
If you're a beginning drummer, or one just coming back after being out of practice I would recommend this exercise to you, go get your ipod/cd player/mp3 player/ whatever, set it to random, and then just play a cadence to whatever is playing, I use this as my warm up for serious practice because it relaxes me and again gets me in a drumming frame of mind. A normal randomized set of music will take me from classical symphony to progressive rock, to R&B to Jazz to Rock and roll to swing and everywhere else in between.
So go try it, and if you do let me know if you've find it helps you as much as it does me, and drop me line if you have a better way to describe a drumming frame of mind.
~Matt
Friday, January 11, 2008
Advanced Drum Theory
Well, I suppose I should say Advanced for me, drum theory.
Something I was thinking of on the way to work this morning as I was listening to Change (By Justin King and the Apologies) and was probably influenced by Gavin Harrison's explanation of Polyrhythmic theory (see previous post for explanation).
Anyway this is something of a poly-rhythm idea (something I wouldn't have imagined a year ago). Right now it's mainly theory for me, I've tried it on my practice pads, but it doesn't really fit the style of music we use in praise team, so practical application will probably have to wait until the next Jam session. Okay here's the concept, say you've got a song in 4/4 a quarter note gets one beat, and there are four beats per measure, fairly basic stuff, here's where the theory comes in. Now phrasing has several definitions, but the general acceptance is that a phrase in music is a group of measures that seem to complete itself within a song. (A good example of a two bar phrase is Phil Collin's I don't care anymore. Eric Clapton's Change the world has a very present 4 bar phrasing. The Eagles Hotel California has a good 8 bar phrasing in it too).
Still with me? (Really? Even I got lost for a while there!) Okay so the concept of my poly-rhythmic theory works off of a phrasing, let's say you've got a 4 bar phrase of 4/4 that means there's 16 beats in the phrasing, a standard rock groove would place emphasis on two and four of every measure, now you could cause what GH refers to as a rhythmic illusion by taking the 16 beats, and then subdivide the counts, let's say two measure of 5 and then two of three, just an example.
I know it's nothing earth shattering, it's just something I'm working on myself.
Something I was thinking of on the way to work this morning as I was listening to Change (By Justin King and the Apologies) and was probably influenced by Gavin Harrison's explanation of Polyrhythmic theory (see previous post for explanation).
Anyway this is something of a poly-rhythm idea (something I wouldn't have imagined a year ago). Right now it's mainly theory for me, I've tried it on my practice pads, but it doesn't really fit the style of music we use in praise team, so practical application will probably have to wait until the next Jam session. Okay here's the concept, say you've got a song in 4/4 a quarter note gets one beat, and there are four beats per measure, fairly basic stuff, here's where the theory comes in. Now phrasing has several definitions, but the general acceptance is that a phrase in music is a group of measures that seem to complete itself within a song. (A good example of a two bar phrase is Phil Collin's I don't care anymore. Eric Clapton's Change the world has a very present 4 bar phrasing. The Eagles Hotel California has a good 8 bar phrasing in it too).
Still with me? (Really? Even I got lost for a while there!) Okay so the concept of my poly-rhythmic theory works off of a phrasing, let's say you've got a 4 bar phrase of 4/4 that means there's 16 beats in the phrasing, a standard rock groove would place emphasis on two and four of every measure, now you could cause what GH refers to as a rhythmic illusion by taking the 16 beats, and then subdivide the counts, let's say two measure of 5 and then two of three, just an example.
I know it's nothing earth shattering, it's just something I'm working on myself.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Drummer Resources
For any Drummers out there here are a few really handy resources that I've picked up the last few months.
Well first of, one of the (at least in my opinion) best websites for drummers out there is Bernhard Castiglioni's Drummerworld (I know I've linked Vic Firth, Promark, and Vater's Websites in previous posts) But Drummerworld has video, audio, transcription and an active forum for drummers, it's also directly responsible for introducing me to several new drummers one of which I'll mention later.
Why a sudden drum post? Well my copy of Gavin Harrison's Rhythmic Visions & Horizons just arrived and I've been enjoying it immensely. However I would rate it for more advanced drummers, the very concepts of poly-rhythms and rhythmic illusions would have scared me off in my earlier days. (Gavin Harrison is the Drummer for the Progressive Rock Band Porcupine Tree, and voted the #1 prog drummer in the Modern Drummer 2007 poll). Honestly the real reason I bought this (Though the education part of it is really well don't don't get me wrong) but it comes with the loop for 19 days, (which you can watch him perform live at music messe on drummerworld) and it's an amazing song in 19/8 time.
Also picked up Tommy Igoe's groove essentials, this is a great resource for new and veteran drummers alike, it comes in three formats (that I know of) The Book/Cd, The DVD and the combo (both the book/CD and the DVD) I personally recommend the latter. The CD that comes with the book has all the loop tracks for the songs that are performed on the DVD (See how neatly it all fits together?)
Finally Jojo Mayer's Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer. For those of you who don't recognize the name, Jojo is a phenomenal drummer who I first found out about on drummerworld... oh 2 years ago? (Look at his earlier videos) he's been big in the Drum and Bass world, especially with his group NERVE, but if there are any drummers out there who don't know who he is, that'll end now that SWFTMD is out. (I bought the first copy release at my local Guitar center. It's an encyclopedia of technique, exercises and tips. Perfect from the beginning drummer (showing proper grip) to the advanced drummer (with the shops workshop portion).
Well first of, one of the (at least in my opinion) best websites for drummers out there is Bernhard Castiglioni's Drummerworld (I know I've linked Vic Firth, Promark, and Vater's Websites in previous posts) But Drummerworld has video, audio, transcription and an active forum for drummers, it's also directly responsible for introducing me to several new drummers one of which I'll mention later.
Why a sudden drum post? Well my copy of Gavin Harrison's Rhythmic Visions & Horizons just arrived and I've been enjoying it immensely. However I would rate it for more advanced drummers, the very concepts of poly-rhythms and rhythmic illusions would have scared me off in my earlier days. (Gavin Harrison is the Drummer for the Progressive Rock Band Porcupine Tree, and voted the #1 prog drummer in the Modern Drummer 2007 poll). Honestly the real reason I bought this (Though the education part of it is really well don't don't get me wrong) but it comes with the loop for 19 days, (which you can watch him perform live at music messe on drummerworld) and it's an amazing song in 19/8 time.
Also picked up Tommy Igoe's groove essentials, this is a great resource for new and veteran drummers alike, it comes in three formats (that I know of) The Book/Cd, The DVD and the combo (both the book/CD and the DVD) I personally recommend the latter. The CD that comes with the book has all the loop tracks for the songs that are performed on the DVD (See how neatly it all fits together?)
Finally Jojo Mayer's Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer. For those of you who don't recognize the name, Jojo is a phenomenal drummer who I first found out about on drummerworld... oh 2 years ago? (Look at his earlier videos) he's been big in the Drum and Bass world, especially with his group NERVE, but if there are any drummers out there who don't know who he is, that'll end now that SWFTMD is out. (I bought the first copy release at my local Guitar center. It's an encyclopedia of technique, exercises and tips. Perfect from the beginning drummer (showing proper grip) to the advanced drummer (with the shops workshop portion).
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
...And this isn't even my music notes...
Okay, I've had a full day to 'decompress' after a phenomenal (and yes that's spoken with extended accent) Christmas Eve service. I wanted to take a day to come off of the emotional highs regarding the service so that I could make clinical comments regarding such. (Okay, everyone who actually knows me, you can pick yourselves off the floor now, it's not THAT funny... Come one I'm waiting, take slow deep breathes to calm down, that's the kind of laughter that gets painful after a while).
I've seen a nice email regarding the service, and Jeremy's Blog as well, so you might want to read his in addition/instead of mine. It's bound to be more informative.
First lets take a glimpse into what went into this one night. Planning for this service began somewhere in mid/late October / early November, details fell in place around late November, and then the final push began the second week of December, here's my completely unofficial stats. (Some of which are fairly accurate, some of which are a wild guess based on inductive reasoning, ie I know about how many people where there for about how long a time.)
Totals man hours of planning during programming meetings: (Because I can' even begin to fathom how much time everyone spent individually planning for the service) 38 hours
Total Man Hours Spent During Set up/Tear down of the service: 105 hours
Total Man Hours Spent by technical/worship team during the run practices/service: 68 hours
Total Man Hours by Decorating Team: 60 hours
Total Man Ours By Parking/Greeting/Usher/Refreshment team: 60 hours
Number of hours it took the Video to compile: 20 hours
Number of hours it took Josh to Put together said video: I have no clue, but it was quite a few
Number of hours to build the loop for the song in the video: 4 hours
Number of barrels of food collected for food bank: 5 (from Jeremy's Blog)
Number of Injuries to myself: 2
Number of sticks I broke while playing: 1
Number of cool new gear I got to buy for the service: 1 new pair of stick/mallet combos.
Amount collected for Simply love (Donation to Hope house and Thurman Brisben center): Over 10k (Again from Jeremy's Blog)
Number if Times Jeremy Acted Grinch-ish: 3 (Mostly during initial planning, see this post for details)
Number of times I acted Grinch-ish: (Way more than 3)
Official Number of lives who have forever changed their eternal destination: 25 (At least according to Jeremy's Blog)
Unofficial Number of lives who have forever changed their eternal destination: Unknown, but higher than the above number based on the hands that went up.
Amount of pride I feel from those last two stats: Immeasurable.
And really those last two items on the list are why we do what we do. Yes I love music and drumming, but that's not why I play for our worship team, if it was just about music I'd be working as a session drummer and/or gigging at clubs on nights and weekends it's about seeing what God is still doing in and around us, it's about seeing lives changed, and it's an amazing feeling.
Matthew Furukawa
Post Christmas Eve Service Reflections (Is that proper use of that word?) 2007
I've seen a nice email regarding the service, and Jeremy's Blog as well, so you might want to read his in addition/instead of mine. It's bound to be more informative.
First lets take a glimpse into what went into this one night. Planning for this service began somewhere in mid/late October / early November, details fell in place around late November, and then the final push began the second week of December, here's my completely unofficial stats. (Some of which are fairly accurate, some of which are a wild guess based on inductive reasoning, ie I know about how many people where there for about how long a time.)
Totals man hours of planning during programming meetings: (Because I can' even begin to fathom how much time everyone spent individually planning for the service) 38 hours
Total Man Hours Spent During Set up/Tear down of the service: 105 hours
Total Man Hours Spent by technical/worship team during the run practices/service: 68 hours
Total Man Hours by Decorating Team: 60 hours
Total Man Ours By Parking/Greeting/Usher/Refreshment team: 60 hours
Number of hours it took the Video to compile: 20 hours
Number of hours it took Josh to Put together said video: I have no clue, but it was quite a few
Number of hours to build the loop for the song in the video: 4 hours
Number of barrels of food collected for food bank: 5 (from Jeremy's Blog)
Number of Injuries to myself: 2
Number of sticks I broke while playing: 1
Number of cool new gear I got to buy for the service: 1 new pair of stick/mallet combos.
Amount collected for Simply love (Donation to Hope house and Thurman Brisben center): Over 10k (Again from Jeremy's Blog)
Number if Times Jeremy Acted Grinch-ish: 3 (Mostly during initial planning, see this post for details)
Number of times I acted Grinch-ish: (Way more than 3)
Official Number of lives who have forever changed their eternal destination: 25 (At least according to Jeremy's Blog)
Unofficial Number of lives who have forever changed their eternal destination: Unknown, but higher than the above number based on the hands that went up.
Amount of pride I feel from those last two stats: Immeasurable.
And really those last two items on the list are why we do what we do. Yes I love music and drumming, but that's not why I play for our worship team, if it was just about music I'd be working as a session drummer and/or gigging at clubs on nights and weekends it's about seeing what God is still doing in and around us, it's about seeing lives changed, and it's an amazing feeling.
Matthew Furukawa
Post Christmas Eve Service Reflections (Is that proper use of that word?) 2007
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Acoustic Set
Oh the Irony.
A few posts back I mentioned our awesome acoustic set and the fact that my wonderful percussionist was out that week.
Ever get that feeling?
Because Said percussionist is at home with their family for Christmas, now I knew this was going to occur, twas planned for months, well I'd guess about 3 weeks ago we decided to make this Sunday another Acoustic set to help expedite Tear-Down and packing as we're in a larger facility for Christmas Eve. (Side note, if you're in the Spotsylvania Area for Christmas come on by we'll be at MAssapponax high school Service Starts at 6:30 sharp, I would recommend getting there around 6:00 so you have time to park, etc).
The short version, hand drums for me again tomorrow. Thankfully the set we have is one that should be much easier on my hands. We're doing Joy to the World, Enough and Welcome to our World, the last of which has no drums at all, hopefully my next post will say how it wasn't near as bad as last time and that my hands don't hurt at all. (Cue hysterical laughter here)
Right,
Current Stats:
Reading: The Ant and the Elephant (I'd misplaced my copy and I'm finishing it up now)
Listening to: Something be Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Not sure what the title is, yay internet radio)
Watching: Band of Brothers, (though not at this very moment).
A few posts back I mentioned our awesome acoustic set and the fact that my wonderful percussionist was out that week.
Ever get that feeling?
Because Said percussionist is at home with their family for Christmas, now I knew this was going to occur, twas planned for months, well I'd guess about 3 weeks ago we decided to make this Sunday another Acoustic set to help expedite Tear-Down and packing as we're in a larger facility for Christmas Eve. (Side note, if you're in the Spotsylvania Area for Christmas come on by we'll be at MAssapponax high school Service Starts at 6:30 sharp, I would recommend getting there around 6:00 so you have time to park, etc).
The short version, hand drums for me again tomorrow. Thankfully the set we have is one that should be much easier on my hands. We're doing Joy to the World, Enough and Welcome to our World, the last of which has no drums at all, hopefully my next post will say how it wasn't near as bad as last time and that my hands don't hurt at all. (Cue hysterical laughter here)
Right,
Current Stats:
Reading: The Ant and the Elephant (I'd misplaced my copy and I'm finishing it up now)
Listening to: Something be Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Not sure what the title is, yay internet radio)
Watching: Band of Brothers, (though not at this very moment).
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