Me and Keith making hit records for the Bryanites and College-Stationians.Monday, February 23, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Coming up for air
Boy oh boy. What’s it been? Like, a month? Sorry. Busy, busy, busy. This particular entry won’t be long, but I did want to explain why I’ve been absent.
Here’s a brief synopsis of my last 4-6 weeks:Producing a couple of records, working alomst-full-time at GBC, doing more gigs than I’ve done in a long time, leading worship at Com Church, writing music for the children’s record, writing and producing a local jingle, writing some instrumental music to try and get some work in a new field, working on a new website (yeah, I’ve been doing that for about a year, but still) and of course raising 3 kids while maintaining my status as Hot Love Provider for my super-fine wife.
It’s my own fault, really. I just said yes to too much (Hot Love Provider is a non-negotiable, but some of the other stuff could probably have been put off or avoided altogether). But this is just temporary. I’ll have a bit of a break at the end of this month. Hopefully I’ll be back to blogging more soon. Until then, go find something more important to do. The internet is mostly a waste of time, anyway, and you know it.
Here’s a brief synopsis of my last 4-6 weeks:Producing a couple of records, working alomst-full-time at GBC, doing more gigs than I’ve done in a long time, leading worship at Com Church, writing music for the children’s record, writing and producing a local jingle, writing some instrumental music to try and get some work in a new field, working on a new website (yeah, I’ve been doing that for about a year, but still) and of course raising 3 kids while maintaining my status as Hot Love Provider for my super-fine wife.
It’s my own fault, really. I just said yes to too much (Hot Love Provider is a non-negotiable, but some of the other stuff could probably have been put off or avoided altogether). But this is just temporary. I’ll have a bit of a break at the end of this month. Hopefully I’ll be back to blogging more soon. Until then, go find something more important to do. The internet is mostly a waste of time, anyway, and you know it.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Shows!
Come see me this weekend if you live in the DFW area. Friday night, I'll be playing a concert here as a benefit for this ministry.
Saturday night I'm leading worship here for this dude, who many of you will recognize as a percussion genius that sat in last year for a house concert in beautiful Sanger, TX. I'll have a full band for both nights. Should be fun. If you want more details, email me or comment on this post.
Finally, I think I deserve some props for maximum link-age in this post. Just sayin'.
Saturday night I'm leading worship here for this dude, who many of you will recognize as a percussion genius that sat in last year for a house concert in beautiful Sanger, TX. I'll have a full band for both nights. Should be fun. If you want more details, email me or comment on this post.
Finally, I think I deserve some props for maximum link-age in this post. Just sayin'.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Pay what you want.
I like "pay what you want." Those of you who have attended any of my house concerts know that I utilized this method there. I've found that people generally pay well when they are given the freedom to decide what something is worth. For the buyer, it's a chance to act as a sort of "art appraiser," and for the seller/artist, it's a chance to walk in faith. Win/win, right?
Well, these people agree, and they now carry my music. Right now, they only have my most recent project, which most of you probably already own. However, I hope to release an EP of some sort within the next few months, and I'll probably sell that project there as well.
Anyway, for now you can check out the site. I'm on the "most recent" page, right at the top. If any of your friends don't have my music, feel free to send them there and tell them to pay what they want. It's a win/win.
Well, these people agree, and they now carry my music. Right now, they only have my most recent project, which most of you probably already own. However, I hope to release an EP of some sort within the next few months, and I'll probably sell that project there as well.
Anyway, for now you can check out the site. I'm on the "most recent" page, right at the top. If any of your friends don't have my music, feel free to send them there and tell them to pay what they want. It's a win/win.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Post #127
Happy New Year everybody. I couldn't think of any good titles for this one, so I just took some data from my blogger dashboard. I do what I have to to keep things lively around here.
The writing retreat was a huge success. I mean, I don’t know if I wrote any huge hits, but I definitely accomplished the goals that I set for myself. I completed 3 songs (2 of those were “from scratch”) and half-pseudo-almost-wrote 5 others. It’s weird how productive I can be when I sit in a quiet room with nothing to do but pray, read, and write. Thanks to everybody who said a prayer for my time. And thanks also to anybody who really wanted to pray but instead spent their daily prayer time praying for starving children or world peace. Those are really important things too.
I made some great progress on the children’s record that I mentioned a while ago. Thanks again to all of you who gave me ideas. I won’t tell which ones I used just yet, but I can say that a few of you are going to find yourselves in the liner notes of my huge international smash hit record.
That’s all for now. I’ve a got a few gigs coming up that I’ll write more about soon. In the meantime, be looking for my music here. What a cool idea! I’ll have it up there sometime this week.
One more thing. I've found that more people read this blog when there are pictures of my kids, so here's another recent shot of my precious little heartbreaker:
The writing retreat was a huge success. I mean, I don’t know if I wrote any huge hits, but I definitely accomplished the goals that I set for myself. I completed 3 songs (2 of those were “from scratch”) and half-pseudo-almost-wrote 5 others. It’s weird how productive I can be when I sit in a quiet room with nothing to do but pray, read, and write. Thanks to everybody who said a prayer for my time. And thanks also to anybody who really wanted to pray but instead spent their daily prayer time praying for starving children or world peace. Those are really important things too.
I made some great progress on the children’s record that I mentioned a while ago. Thanks again to all of you who gave me ideas. I won’t tell which ones I used just yet, but I can say that a few of you are going to find yourselves in the liner notes of my huge international smash hit record.
That’s all for now. I’ve a got a few gigs coming up that I’ll write more about soon. In the meantime, be looking for my music here. What a cool idea! I’ll have it up there sometime this week.
One more thing. I've found that more people read this blog when there are pictures of my kids, so here's another recent shot of my precious little heartbreaker:
Monday, December 29, 2008
Honing one's craft
Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Holidays, you know how it goes. Anyway, I thought I'd fill all of you in on a little something that I'm doing. Starting Saturday evening, and continuing until tomorrow, I am on a writing retreat. Since songwriting is a fairly significant portion of my income, sometimes I like to make time to get away and write intentionally. This is always a little weird for me because, for all the years that I've been writing songs, my primary method has been to write in response to inspiration. What I mean is that I would wait until something kind of "hit me" and then I'd grab a pen and some paper and go to the guitar or piano and work it out.
That method worked great until we started getting kids around here. All of a sudden it wasn't so easy to jsut stop everything to respond to the voices in my head.
So for the last few years, I've been trying to write more intentionally. I still get inspired, and when I am, I try to take good notes or record a little chunk of music on my nifty Edirol handheld recorder. Then later, when I get some time, I'll go back and take a look/listen to the "inspiration" and go from there. But other times I just try to sit and "listen" to what the Lord might be sitrring in me. When I can actually get time to do that, songs often come out.
And other times it's (I think) way less spiritual than that. I just think about things that I've been saying or feeling a lot and I try to build songs around those ideas. Or if I'm working in another genre -- like children's music or country or instrumental or whatever -- I just write songs around ideas that seem appealing/interesting/funny/thought-provoking to me.
And yes, you did see "country" back there. That's a long story that maybe I'll get into someday, but a few times in my career, I've actually had songs (primarily "wake up" from Big Quiet Truth and "why me Lord" from Perhaps) that have garnered some interest in the country music world. Nothing significant has ever really developed, but occasionally I'll come across an idea for a country song and I'll work on it. Think whatever you want about this, but if I "sold" a country song to a remotely successful country artist, I'd make enough money to do house shows for free for a few years. I'm not going to dedicate my life to it or anything, but my philosophy is that I write because I'm a writer. And if I open myself up to the Lord, He'll bring the songs that He wants me to write.
So that's what I'm doing for the next few days. I'm just writing. so far I've worked on 2 country songs, 2 "Christian" songs, 1 children's song, and 1 instrumental. My goal is is to finish at least one song for every day that I do this. So I'm hoping for at least 4 finished songs in my 4 day retreat. We'll see. But if you have a little time, you can pray that I'll write to the glory of God, and that great music will be the fruit.
Thanks to all of you for your support of what I do.
That method worked great until we started getting kids around here. All of a sudden it wasn't so easy to jsut stop everything to respond to the voices in my head.
So for the last few years, I've been trying to write more intentionally. I still get inspired, and when I am, I try to take good notes or record a little chunk of music on my nifty Edirol handheld recorder. Then later, when I get some time, I'll go back and take a look/listen to the "inspiration" and go from there. But other times I just try to sit and "listen" to what the Lord might be sitrring in me. When I can actually get time to do that, songs often come out.
And other times it's (I think) way less spiritual than that. I just think about things that I've been saying or feeling a lot and I try to build songs around those ideas. Or if I'm working in another genre -- like children's music or country or instrumental or whatever -- I just write songs around ideas that seem appealing/interesting/funny/thought-provoking to me.
And yes, you did see "country" back there. That's a long story that maybe I'll get into someday, but a few times in my career, I've actually had songs (primarily "wake up" from Big Quiet Truth and "why me Lord" from Perhaps) that have garnered some interest in the country music world. Nothing significant has ever really developed, but occasionally I'll come across an idea for a country song and I'll work on it. Think whatever you want about this, but if I "sold" a country song to a remotely successful country artist, I'd make enough money to do house shows for free for a few years. I'm not going to dedicate my life to it or anything, but my philosophy is that I write because I'm a writer. And if I open myself up to the Lord, He'll bring the songs that He wants me to write.
So that's what I'm doing for the next few days. I'm just writing. so far I've worked on 2 country songs, 2 "Christian" songs, 1 children's song, and 1 instrumental. My goal is is to finish at least one song for every day that I do this. So I'm hoping for at least 4 finished songs in my 4 day retreat. We'll see. But if you have a little time, you can pray that I'll write to the glory of God, and that great music will be the fruit.
Thanks to all of you for your support of what I do.
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