neurophilia

I graduated in the bottom 10% of my high school class and wasn’t really planning to go to college at all.  I later did, majoring first in Bible, then computer science, and finally business.

If I had it to do over I’d study neurology.  And music.  My PhD thesis would be something about  the frontal cortex relationship between music and language or music and thought.  The whole topic is amazing to me.  We all know, somehow, that music is special.  We know how music affects our memory and our mood.  But exactly where does that specialness come from?  I don’t only mean “What neutrons are firing when we listen to or create music?” but even more “How deeply did God program music into our minds?”.

Oliver Sacks said, in his excellent book Musicophilia that we acquire much of our musical aptitude in our first eighteen months or so; possibly even pre-birth.  Once we begin acquiring verbal language music is somehow suppressed.  There it lurks as an influence over the deep things of our heart.  I believe it would be worth spending a life grasping how that works.

microphone placement

Pointer to a good article by Bruce Bartlet on microphone placement for church choirs.

 

tuesday tunes – 3/31/2009

Tonight was:

• King of Majesty – Mary Sampson
• Consuming FIre – Tim Hughes
• Lord I Give You My Heart – Reuben Morgan
• Oh How He Loves Me – John Mark McMillian (done Kim Walker style)

We originally had the Vinyard tune Hallelujah (Shout to the Earth) – (Martin Reardon) on the list, but of the 6 people on the worship team, only 1 knew it.  (I mostly don’t pick the tunes on Tuesday nights, btw).  So we swapped in I Give You My Heart.  It was Tim Hoover’s idea and it went well.  Also, Tim did a great transition between the the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th songs.

The night went well.  Oh How He Loves Me really resonated with Cynthia – who leads the meeting – and the group.  I think it’ll be on my list in two Sundays too.  I’ll be out of town this next Sunday to witness my friend Eugene McBride being installed as pastor of a church in Shreveport.

Have a great and worshipful day!

May Music in Dallas

May looks like a good month for music at the Superpages.com Center.

Dave Matthews will be there on the 2nd and Paramore on the 30th

set list for sunday 2-22-09

• Happy Day – Tim Hughes, Ben Cantelon (jesusculture/Kim Walker style)  – in E
• Here I am to Worship – Tim Hughes – in E
• Alabaster Jar – Zach Neese, Walker Beach – in E
• You Are Good – Jeff Deyo – in E

i usually do You Are Good in A, but since I was rolling with all-E-all-the-time, i tried it and – amazingly – it was singable up a 5th.

i also have Jenn Johnson’s “A Little Longer” with me and we may do it depending on who shows up.

words

i can’t remember if i wrote this before, but it was on a note i had laying on my desk and it certainly bears repeating.  it’s from Kari Jobe about song writing:

don’t worry if it’s been said before, there are only so many words out there

songs of the week

this is what’s staying on my mind and under my fingers this week:

• hosanna – brooke fraser
• you won’t relent – misty edwards
• better is one day – matt redman
• hallelujah, our lord reigns – hillsong united

mostly i’ve been doing them in E and medleying between one and another.  a chord progression that’s joined up with them (though not part of any of them) is:

E(no 3)    Bsus/D#   D2+   A2/C#

E(no 3)   Bsus/D#   D2+   Bsus/D#

E(no 3)   Bsus/D#   D2/F#, A2

E(no 3)   Bsus/D#   D2+   Bsus/D#

you know, with the top two strings droning open through the whole thing (except the D2/F#)

fav new song

image stolen from paulshope.com

i have a friend who sings in a worship group i’m part of, and her birthday was a few days ago.  i’m not always so good at thinking of a gift that’s both worth giving and appropriate.  it takes me a lot of thought and still sometimes i get it wrong.  christian paraphernalia gets old fast, and i don’t know her enough to know what she has and doesn’t have anyway.

so while i was thinking about it, i remembered something jennie riddle had said in a session on songwriting.  she was suggesting ways to “use your gift”, in addition to the ones that seem obvious.  one of them was to write a song to give as a gift.

now i typically get either a complete concept for a song, or the main words, or a substantial part of the music, all in one rush.  then i labor for weeks, months, or years getting it done.  well, on the day of my friend’s birthday, i got a picture for a song – just the concept, no words or melody.  a day later i got a line or two driving to work.  on the way home i got the rest of the words and the melody and knew how it should feel.  i played with them for a couple more hours, then (about 1:30 a.m.) i dropped by my ersatz studio and recorded it.

i just did acoustic guitar and a single voice track.  the guitar on the track is the first take, no punch-ins, and isn’t half bad.  i’d clean up one or two places and that would be all.  it’s not even my “good” guitar (which is loaned out), but it sounded ok.

the vocal i did need to punch in two or three times because i was still changing up the words and phrasing as i was singing it.  after the fact, listening to it in the trucklet on the way home, i realized i’d overdriven the vocal track in a few places and had some nasty digital distortion.  i’ll clean that up this and give my friend a fresh copy.

but the cool part to me is this.  it’s one of my favorite songs i’ve written in years, and it was less than 48 hours, concept-to-completion.  if i wasn’t so tired and hadn’t had to get up for work the next morning i’d have given it a better critical ear that night and done a really good job instead of just ok  (the vocal track issue is going to bug me until i fix it).

just to fill you in on the concept, i was thinking about the way i love my kids, especially my girls.  and i was thinking about the specialness of those relationships – how there are so many aspects that go far beyond words.   and what i was feeling was god saying, “that’s the way i feel about your friend.  she’s special to me.  i get excited just hearing her voice, and when she wants to spend time with me i just melt”

and even now, just thinking about that, makes me cry a bit.  god is a good, good daddy!

so, i don’t know that you’ll ever get to hear the song.  since i gave it as a gift i don’t feel at liberty to share it with anyone other than the recipient.  but, it’s a good one, and you’ll probably have it on your playlist in eternity!

i already wrote and thanked jennie for the idea.  it is absolutely brilliant, really.  if god actually gave you a gift for writing songs (or doing any other creative thing), you shouldn’t save it for when you can get “exposure”.   bless someone with it!  it is infinite, not finite.  use it!

forever

i could have played guitar this morning forever

friday at the cfni worship conference

if i could have klause kuehn lead worship to start off my day, every day of my life, i’d sign up for it.  really, it just continued the mood from the day before.  kari jobe was also singing, which didn’t hurt.  glorious!

roger hodges spoke about being real in ministry.  he said a lot of good, i’d have added some to it (but then, of course, we’d have gone over the time limit).

bob sorge did the next general session.  i’d heard of him, but didn’t really remember him.  actually, i think i’d heard him somewhere, or maybe an audio or video of him.  i don’t have time to do him justice, suffice it to say i’m going to buy all his books from his merch table!

lunch now and on to some breakout sessions.  i bumped into my daughter emily in the morning session and my wife as she was headed to lunch.  laurie is here teaching a children’s teaching session with connie mckenzie.  have i mentioned that god is awesome?