Essentials Blue Creative Project (Song demo)

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, in St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

Perhaps rather predictably, for my creative project I’ve decided to write and demo a song.

Lyrically, I set out to echo my worldview post of the previous week and, as I worked, it became obviously fairly early on that it was turning into a Prodigal Son song, so I ran with that. I did try hard to honestly reflect my own thought and feelings so, if nothing else, this is a song that does it for me.

I’m hoping that it’ll be simple enough for congregational singing but I appreciate that the range may be a bit of a stretch for some singers. Harmonically, I’ve made use of quite a few inversions but, as these can be ignored (just play the chord to the left of the slash,) it really shouldn’t prove too difficult for your average church-guitarist.

In singing it I’ve used a fair amount of rubato but I’d expect to sing it more rigidly to-time with a congregation.

It’s in the key of A major and I’ve recorded it at 60bpm. Of course, I’ve sung it in a key that suits my voice but that’s not to say that you can’t change that with one o’ them new-fangled capos.

Technical bits (for any who are interested, as I always am):
Recorded on a PC (not a Mac! Is that an instant fail?) using Steinberg Cubase SE3 with several VSTi plugins – XLN Audio’s Addictive Drums, Steinberg’s The Grand 2, Applied Acoustics’ Lounge Lizard Session, GForce’s Virtual String Machine, real bass (my ancient Ibanez SR886) and real voices (four tracks of me and two of my wife, Sue.) Rendered to wav and then Normalised and topped-and-tailed in Steinberg Wavelab 6 and then saved as 192kbps Stereo mp3.

Here is the audio

Here is a lyric and chord sheet

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For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, in St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

As a musician or as a computer-geek (I’ve done rather a lot of both in my nearly-forty years) as soon as I start using jargon I tend lose people.

If I say “We’re starting on the dominant first-inversion with an anacrusis on the third beat into sixteen bars of half-time and then we’ll double-up into the chorus” or “Check the boot order in the BIOS is set to CD/DVD first, and you’d better check the CPU temp while you’re at it” no doubt some people will understand but many people will glaze over, and grin, and call me something uncomplimentary. It’s happened rather a lot to me but I’m slowly learning that, if I don’t want to lose people, I have to speak their language, not mine.

Ok, there are times when I’m with other musos who speak my language and using the correct terminology is the quickest and most effective way to get on. And, sometimes, computer nerds talk to each other too. Using words. From their mouths.

Believe me, I do find the dumbing-down of language quite sad but, ultimately, I’d rather be understood than merely correct.

A missionary friend of ours is working on a translation of Galatians. He’s trying very hard to keep the jargon out.

I’m not going to give you a list of words I find particularly unhelpful, but tell me – can we avoid the jargon in our worship song-writing?

Should we bother?

Does it matter?

Work of art

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, in St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

The question of whether creativity resides in all of us is one that I’ve pondered for quite some time now. I really don’t agree with the commonly-held belief that many people are entirely devoid of creativity.

I’ve occasionally tested individuals’ musical “ears” (purely out of interest) and have almost always found what I believe to be latent talent; and that’s just in the field of music (and, by the way, I’d also argue that a genuine appreciation of any art form indicates some sort of talent.) The visual arts, poetry, cookery, comedy, perfumery, sculpting… these are obvious examples of creativity but, as Dan mentioned in his video, creativity takes many, many forms, so many, in fact, that it would surely be incredible to happen upon a person gifted with none of them.

It puts me in mind of a song by Keith Green:

We are like windows
Stained with colors of the rainbow
Set in a darkened room
Till the bridegroom comes to shine through
Then the colors fall around our feet
Over those we meet
Covering all the gray that we see
Rainbow colors of assorted hues
Come exchange your blues
For His love that you see shining through me

(you can find the full lyrics here)

Speaking for myself, what has held me back creatively has been areas where I’ve been damaged. Fear of destructive criticism, fear of failing, fear of revealing emotion. As I’ve drawn closer to God I’ve experienced healing and my inhibitions have diminished (confession: I’m still not perfect.)

Rather than watching Sky+ in our ivory towers and counting our royalties, shouldn’t those of us who are already “shining” (or, rather, “allowing God to shine through us”) be encouraging those that aren’t? Not “Do a bit of macramé and you’ll feel so much better about yourself,” of course – more like “Your Father is really quite amazing, you know – why don’t we see if you’ve inherited any of that?”

P.s. It just occurred to me this morning that I’m a work of art. Not a da Vinci, or a Monet, or Rachmaninov – the Artist that painted me puts that lot in the shade. Makes me feel special, although you lot are by the same artist.