First, you should know that I feel incredibly inadequate to do album reviews.  I have no experience recording or producing an entire album.  Yet, I keep getting blessed by several folks asking me to review their recording.  I hope someday I’ll be the one asking for the review, but until then, I’ll give my honest and raw opinion about what I hear. Continue Reading…

Every once in a while on a Friday I like to step away from writing my thoughts and musings and share some fun things with you that I’ve found in various places.

I love how our infinitely creative God uses a vast number of creative styles to magnify Himself through the work of His children on earth.  Enjoy this amazing piece of spoken word art that clearly communicates the Gospel in an extremely powerful way. (Thanks to worship leader and blogger Kyle Campos at Our Rising Sound for posting this on his blog.)

I’m a big fan of when churches do advertising, marketing and media correctly.  After all, we are spreading the greatest message of all time. I recently was introduced to a new church media and marketing podcast called the Push Church podcast.  I love it when people are willing to start new things with the purpose of connecting people with Jesus and this is a great example.  They talk about “media evangelism” or the idea that advertising can be redeemed by the church to respond to Jesus Christ.  (full disclosure – they are advertising on my sidebar)

All About Worship is hosting a retreat very soon. Take a look at this great retreat for worship leaders. (full disclosure, I’m currently trading ad space with Worship Devotional, a sub property of All About Worship)

I received some recording equipment for Christmas.  It was awesome.  I was excited.  I hurriedly installed the hardware, borrowed a mic from church, and downloaded the latest version of Audacity.  I recorded an arrangement for a contest and sat back and listened.

It sounded NOTHING like recordings I listen to every day.  It sounded poorly mixed, averagely performed, and….novice, would be the best word.  Now granted, I did the recording and mix in a very short amount of time to hit a deadline for a contest, but it still sounded empty compared to what I’ve heard from friends of mine.  So, I’ve come to respect anyone who records and produces music, but especially people who SELF-record and product music.  Here are three reasons why:

1. They’re incredibly creative:  not only do self-recorders and producers come up with the original melody and chord structure, they also come up with creative ways to arrange their songs.  Many of them begin with just a vocal part and guitar part (or piano part) but end up filling their arrangements with elaborate textures, rhythms, and harmonies.
2. They’re willing to get judged and open to everyone’s opinion (even amatuer ones).  I’ve been reviewing albums off and on on here for a while, and now that I’ve been doing my own recording I realize how hard it is to do and just how un-qualified I am to be doing the reviews!  Also, it takes a LOT of guts to put your music out there for the world to hear.
3. They’re patient and persistent (okay, that’s technically two more, but they go together).  I lay down a couple of rough tracks and say, “Meh, those are okay, I’ll go do something else for a while” when I should be re-writing and re-recording.  These artists and producers work hard and long until the right finished sound is ready.  Until you’ve done it, you know have no idea how much patience and perseverance is necessary to record and produce music.

So, as I begin my adventure of recording and producing I say, “You are amazing.  I salute you” to the many people who are doing it and very successfully at that.