Viewing posts in the category of Music

Sometimes You Just Have to Do It

September 1, 2009 | Church | Life | Music | Worship

pathway

Sometimes the way forward is just that; forward.  Sometimes the next thing you need to do is the thing that you should have been doing all along.  Most times, we know where the next step is, we just don’t want to take it.  We feel like we can’t, or aren’t allowed, or shouldn’t.  We just need to start walking in that direction.

I play music.  It’s something I’ve loved since I was in grade school.  I’ve played in bands at church before, but recently I haven’t been playing.

Here’s the thing: I have been given a talent from God to play music.  It’s something that I am passionate about, and I love playing music.  But lately I haven’t been using my gifts.

Now, for a time, taking a break is fine.  But to not use the gifts God has given you is bad.  You lose something about yourself when you don’t use your gifts.

This past month, I started using my gifts again by getting involved in a new band at my church.  And it feels great!  I don’t know why I waited so long to get back into playing.

So here’s the point.  You all have talents and gifts from God that you can use.  Are you using them?  You can’t keep your gifts and talents to yourself and stay whole.  You have gifts and talents for a reason.

Move towards using them.  Move forward with your task.  Take the next step.

[ Image by carnavalet ]

Catalysts: The Web is Changing the Music Business

May 19, 2009 | Music | Technology

Was on ChurchCrunch and I saw this post on the Catalyst Music Project.  I got all excited about it.

[ Catalyst Music Project | Aaron Keyes from Catalyst on Vimeo ].

So here’s the deal.  The music industry is changing.  No, it already has changed.  Not everyone knows it yet.

The Web is empowering the artists and the listeners.  People who would have never made it into the mainstream 20 years ago can make a living.  And people can find just that right band even if their taste is a little off the beaten path.

Pandora gave me a band I would have never found otherwise.  (It’s Tokyo Rose, if you’re wondering)  I bought a few songs from iTunes once I found them.  It was awesome!

We need to take heed, my friends!  The change is upon us!  Okay, all poetic verbage aside, there are awesome ideas just waiting to be used.

What will the future be?  How has the web changed music for you?

Turning the Internal Analyze Switch Off

May 4, 2009 | Art | Life | Music

music_piano_2

Ok.  You’re going about your usual day.  You see something related to your work, and all of a sudden, you’re analyzing the heck out of something and you jump into work mode.  Ahh!

This happens to me with music all of the time!  I’m listening to my iPod, just enjoying the tune, when I hear a certain chord progression and my music theory brain kicks in and I’m analyzing the song.  Which chords should come next, how could I change that and use it, what chord is that?  By the time I realize it, the song is over and I missed it!

I’ve had to learn how to turn my “Music Theory” switch on and off.  Otherwise my music experience is shot.

I had to almost practice this daily when I took music theory classes in college.  The switch had to be flipped every time I left the classroom.  But eventually, I was able to use the switch to my advantage.  Now I can listen to a song in a few different ways depending on what I want to do.  It broadens my listening experience.

I think this “switching” happens no matter what you are involved in.  Engineers start thinking about the structure of a building and miss the beauty.  Writers start thinking about what words fit better and miss the poetry.

So, what “switches” do you have to turn off to enjoy things?

[Image from Dusty Wagner]

Looking for Meaning in Music, Part II

April 6, 2009 | Art | Church | Music | Worship

In my previous post, I said that music is essentially a vehicle of meaning.  Music communicates emotions, but can only communicate so many before something else is added.

Adding Layers

Adding words to a song makes it more specific.  The sounds of music are like broad strokes on the canvas.  Lyrics are the details.  They bring the fuzziness of emotions into focus, or increase the effect.

When you add somber lyrics to a somber tune, it intensifies the effect.  When you add worshipful words to a glorious melody, it makes you want to worship.  You can also add irony and tension.  If you mix the two (happy tune, sad lyrics) you can add shades of meaning, ranging from comical to satire.

This is why music says it better.  If you say “I love you” to your spouse, that says a lot.  If you sing it to your spouse, that adds the extra emotions.  (Valentine’s Day hint…)

Creating a Response

We write music to convey something.  The human who creates the music shapes the meaning.  And this applies, I think, to individual performances as well.  One band can mean one thing with a song, but another band plays it and it conveys something else.

We also have our own response.  Art is about expressing Truth beautifully.  As such, the same music can have different meanings to different people.  Rock music is a good example.  To some people, it means to express freely.  To others, it is connected with rebellion.  Always remember the context!  And when you use context well, it empowers the song you write.

Remember, oh you writers of music, the power you wield.

Posted via web from On Life, Stories, and Music

Looking for Meaning in Music, Part I

April 4, 2009 | Music

Music as Language

Music is powerful to us humans.  We consume – no, devour – music for everything.  We play it for celebrations, we use it for sorrow, we use it to vent, we play it to romance.

Music at its core is a language.

Compare it to a spoken/written language.  Music has letters (notes), words (musical phrases), sentences (verses), and together they make stories (songs).  A song tells you something.  That something is its meaning.

Vehicles of Meaning

I read the phrase “language is a vehicle of meaning” and I immediately thought of music.  Music does the same.

For example, if I write a bouncy, light, skippy tune, you might think of something happy.  If I write, a dark, somber, plodding tune, you may feel something sad.  This effect is extremely powerful!  I can make you feel something with just timed sound.

However, I think there are some limits.  I can’t really make you think something specific, like say the day Dad took you to the ball game, or the feeling you felt when your best friend moved.

Music superimposes itself on us.  It uses our past.  If some soul had never, ever heard any music, they probably could guess the bouncy tune was happy, but they would not know that it was written to resemble the way a family dog bounced on everything.

This idea is important though.  There are certain emotions you can convey well, such as happiness, sorrow, longing, anger, or reverence.  Outside of these emotions, you would need some other experience or opinion.  If you heard a certain tune every time your parents were angry, then you would associate that tune with those events, even if the song does not deal with that.

Always search for the purpose of a song.  Especially the intent of the writer and performer.  The whole meaning of a song includes the human intent and the human interpretation.

Posted via web from On Life, Stories, and Music

The Place of Art in the Church Part II

April 1, 2009 | Art | Church | Music | Worship

The purpose of all art in the Church is to glorify God.

When the Church creates art, it is expressing what the soul wants to say to God.  It is our expression of what God has revealed to us to be Truth (as in absolute Truth).  This can be in a worship song of adoration, a novel based on a biblical story, or a painting of a sunset.

So how is it that we glorify God with our art?

From my standpoint, I see three big ways art from the Church glorifies God.

Building Up

When art builds up the community of God – His Church – then the art brings glory to God.  Some examples include worship music and books dealing with our relationship with God.  When a local church sings praises to God, the people get closer to God.  When we read a book that shows us how to pray, then we are encouraged and given knowledge.  These things build the community.  As the community is strengthened in God, He is given the honor for it.

Reaching Out

When art reaches people outside of the Church – as in leading people to Christ – then the art brings glory to God as well.  When the Church grows, the fame of God increases.  He receives the credit.  Examples here include movies or plays that intentionally reach out to people.  If someone goes to a church Christmas production and realize that a relationship with God is what they need, then God receives glory.

Personal Expression

Art leads the soul to some Truth, and there God is given glory too.  This category is quite broad, and it also gets into some gray areas.  What I mean here are the works of art that point to God.  Much of Christian music can fall into this category.  Hawk Nelson doesn’t make music that is designed for worship.  They play music from a biblical standpoint, pointing out spiritual truths, or looking at life through the lens of their faith.  Much of literature (novels, poetry, stories, etc.) could fall in here.  Thomas Kinkade paints a beautiful picture, but he doesn’t paint (I don’t think) to reach out.  He paints because that is how he expresses beauty.  And that beauty, in some way, reflects the beauty of God.  When we see that, we thank God for beauty, and that glorifies Him.

This is most certainly an incomplete list.  And many of the examples could fit into more than one category.  Think of the Psalms.  Most of them could fit into the first and third categories easily.

The point is this: each category has a place in the realm of art from the Church.  Just because your music isn’t sung on Sunday mornings doesn’t mean it isn’t Church music!  Isn’t it wonderful that we have so many ways to glorify God?

So go, create!

Read Part I

Posted via web from On Life, Stories, and Music

The Future of Music and the Flat Rate

March 22, 2009 | Music

This topic has been around for a while now.  We talked about this very problem in a music business class I took in college (only a few years ago, but for digital things, that’s a while).  Is the music “flat rate” the answer for the music industry?

I say no.

Here’s why.

The flat rate would be essentially a universal internet user tax that would pay for all downloaded music.  That’s how I understand it.  There’s probably a thousand different variations, but that’s the basis.

One big problem is the people who don’t get their music online.  They subsidize the rest.  Why should I pay for Jonny’s 183 GB worth of music?  I only have 500 MB!

Another problem I see is that the music industry is essentially capping itself.  If the tax is say $2 per internet user, that only pays for 2 songs per internet connection.  If the average user downloads (or just listens) to more than that per whatever time period we use, then the industry loses money.  As a business model, you want to be paid for what you do.  It’s bad if you’re not compensated as much as you should.  If I continued to do that in say, a bakery, then I would go under.

Now, subscription based services seem fine to me, but they’re especially useful for people who do buy/use a lot of music.  If you’re going to buy 12 issues per year of some magazine, why not buy a subscription for the year and save some money?  But for the person who only buys 1 or 2 copies over the year, the subscription isn’t worth it.  They’ll pay less because they skipped the subcription.

By collecting the music fee, you take away that option for higher usage, and essentially make everyone pay a subscription fee.  It’s like charging someone $20 to walk in a record store saying “Take what you want.”  If you heard that, you’d go a pick out 20 or 30 CDs.  At $15 per CD, the store just lost money!

And the silly thing is, the music industry has been giving away free songs for years.  It’s called radio.  In fact, they’ve paid people to play music on the radio!  Now you’re telling me that they can’t figure out a way to monetize digital music other than by universally charging internet users?

Personally, I think things like Spotify or Pandora or YouTube are on the right track.  Free music is the ultimate end of the digital revolution.  It’s too easy to copy songs digitally and give them away for anyone to truly stop it now.  YouTube is like radio MTV.  Pandora is internet radio.  Spotify is more like a new breed of music, combining social media aspects with radio.  The trick is finding ways to create value in free music.

I don’t have an easy answer.  But I do know that by giving enough away for free, you generate interest that will probably lead to sales.  Charging a flat rate seems to be reaching to far, and I think there has to be a better way.

Any thoughts?

Posted via web from On Life, Stories, and Music

The Nature of Tools: Thoughts on Worship

February 18, 2009 | Church | Music | Worship

I just read a blog post yesterday that inspired me to say something about tools.  I stumbled across this link on twitter in a search I have up in TweetDeck.  So here goes.

Is a tool inherently good or evil?  How about a fork?  Is it good?  Bad?

Seems a kind of silly question.  Let me rephrase it a bit: Is a weapon inherently good or evil?

Now that will get some responses.  A weapon generally is used to harm.  Most people would say that is an “evil” purpose.  But how about when it defends something from evil?  Is it now “good?”  Most would say that defending the innocent is good.  Why the difference?

It’s all about how the tool is used!  The intent of the heart decides what is good or evil.

The original post, if you didn’t read it, were about contemporary worship music and how the inherent quality of certain kinds of music (extreme paraphrase).  As a musician and as a Christian, I am deeply passionate about this subject.  So here are my thoughts in response.

Musical style is a tool.  Musical instruments are tools.  Tools are not inherently good or evil.  Therefore, no musical style should be considered good or evil.  If a musical style reaches a portion of our culture in such a way as to bring them to Christ and repent, then why should we not use said style?  If a musical style brings us to worship our Creator God who wants nothing more than to fellowship with his people, then why should we not use it?

My biggest problem of the “Which musical style is the best for worship?” debate is who gets to be arbiter and judge?  Who decides that rock music is evil and that folk music is good?  Or that classical music is worthless and rap is relevant?  God is the only one who can judge the heart and soul of a man.  Period.  If you don’t understand why someone is moved by a certain genre, try to understand.  If you still don’t, try and find out why.  Agree to disagree, but don’t say one style is better for worship than another.

I think I need to put a disclaimer in right here.  I am not condoning a “Whatever works for you” brand of theology.  That gets into some dangerous waters.  God is the judge, so go to Him for your answers.  Listening to questionable lyrics that talk about sex explicitly, or have rampant profanity, or hold to very ungodly ideologies is probably not a good idea.  We are to be holy as God is holy, so what we take in needs to be controlled.

That said, how does instrumental music (i.e. devoid of lyrics) become sexual?  Or filled with profanity?  Or rebels against God?  How do drums depict wrong affections whereas piano depicts right affections?  If I remember my music history correctly, the piano (or the fortepiano as it was originally called) was not accepted into the church rapidly.  It was seen as an evil instrument, and that the organ should be played in church instead.  Sounds familiar…  And what do we see today?  Piano is considered an acceptable instrument.  Funny how that works.

All art, I believe, is viewed through the lens of one’s own values, views, and experiences.  That means, if you think that the electric guitar is not an instrument to be used for sacred music, you won’t like modern praise music that uses it.  There’s nothing wrong with not liking something, or saying that you feel the presence of God better if you listen to Style A than Style B.  I don’t like pickles, but my wife likes pickles.  I love fish, but my wife does not.  Both were created by God.  Which one is better?  Who is more right?  Neither.  It’s a preference.  But to say one is holy and one is not makes a statement I don’t want to make.

And I can’t understand how one style can be acceptable and one cannot.  Art is subjective.  It’s not concrete.  Offering sacrifices was a concrete deal.  There were certain animals you were to sacrifice for certain things, at certain times, in line with your means.  So how do we make the jump that music for worship has the same concrete ideas?  It’s the same thing as saying only one set of chords are acceptable.  Boy, wouldn’t that be boring!  It’d become a ritual!  Not an overflow.

So here’s an extreme example.  If we take instrument restrictions to the logical maximum, then we should only play with instruments that the Bible mentioned.  Which would be, I think, basically the lyre, cymbals, and our voices.  I’m probably leaving something out, but you get the point.  Our God is creative.  He is the Ultimate Artist.  Therefore, why should we stifle our creativity for worshipping Him?  I think God, being the lover of our souls that He is, enjoys hearing all of our ways to worship Him.

The blog post did make some good points.  It urged us to pay attention to how we worship.  Worship is not just music.  It is us responding rightly to all that God truly is.  If we go to musical worship and just follow after the cool emotions of being in a crowd, watching a show full of lights and pictures, waiting for the fuzzies to come over us, then we are there for the wrong reasons.  But if those outward expressions of love and fear are flowing from a truthful realization of who God is, then that is true worship.  It doesn’t matter if that style is classical, rock, rap, folk, blues, jazz, metal, pop, or whatever!  If God is truly at the center, then He will be praised.

And it doesn’t have to be music!  It could be a painting where you see the true suffering of Christ on the cross, bearing the weight of our shame to save us from our sin.  You see that and thank God for his grace, and praise Him for it.  Or it could be a work of fiction, where you see God’s eternal pursuit of His children no matter the cost, and you realize that you have been running from God and turn back to Him and praise Him.  Or it could be a film, where you finally see the gravity of your sin and the fullness of God’s holiness and glory, and you realize that one day you will not have the option to turn from it, so you turn to God and praise Him for it.

The tools are a means to an end.  I don’t believe that they carry with them an inherent value of good or evil.  And just because someone does something evil with a particular tool does not make that tool evil.  Neither does it make the tool good if good comes from that tool.  The tool is subject to the heart of its user.  And the heart is subject to God.  If God can use us as tools to advance His Kingdom, surely he could use rock music for good.

If you have any thoughts or scripture to share, please do.  I always want to be learning about my passions.  And if you disagree, please post some comments about why, but do so in love.  Thanks.

Posted via web from On Life, Stories, and Music

The Way We’ve Always Done It: Words Not to Live By

February 1, 2009 | Church | Music

So here’s the deal.  If, in order to explain why you’re doing something, you say “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” then you are in trouble.

Case in point: the music industry.  We’ve always sold physical copies and been able to control their copying to our liking.  That’s how we’ll approach digital transmissions.  Result: RIAA as attack dog, proper digital legislation is not around, and the consumers are leaving.

Case in point: the church.  We’ve always done service this way, with these songs, at these times.  Why change to anything else?  Result: churches are losing members and not reaching out to a new generation of believers.

Obviously there is more to both of the points above, and I’m really, really oversimplifying things.

But here’s the point: If we are to survive in a new age, we need to reevaluate our methods.

This is, again, not to say that old methods are bad.  I don’t believe physical copies of music will ever truly dissappear.  There will always be some people (probably like me) who like to have a CD, an album, a whatever of their favorite band.  And churches have always (I think) sung songs together as a group.  They probably always will.  But in order to survive and remain viable, we must always reevaluate the methods to see if they are still optimal.  If you find that your current methods are falling behind, then you must adapt.  There is no other option.  Your choices are change and grow, or remain and die. 

Changing your methods can be hard.  If it wasn’t, we’d all be doing it constantly.  But we cannot end up looking back saying “If only we had changed.”  If we do, we’ll end up trying to sell papers to people who don’t need them anymore because they get the news online.  Or on their iPhone or BlackBerry.  Or on the next cool toy.  If you do successfully change (especially before the rest), you will be prepared for the future.

Just watch out for the next big shift, so you don’t get caught behind the rest!

Posted via web from On Life, Stories, and Music

Balance of Control

January 14, 2009 | Music | Technology

After seeing much news about copyright control, the RIAA, and others, I am getting frustrated.

I just read this article from Mashable that YouTube is muting audio to respect copyright.

Okay, hold up a second.

You’re saying that you’re going to force places like YouTube to coform to the old rules about copyright in a completely new medium?  I think these folks need to read the writing on the wall.

First, a disclaimer: I understand the spirit of copyright.  I am a writer and musician.  If a song I write gets out into the mainstream, I want compensation!  I want to receive something for the effort I put in to the song.  People who put effort into construction receive something.  Why shouldn’t artists?

That said, art is (and has always been) a place where imitation, copying, and using are good for the whole.  Let me explain.  When you contribute art to the community, other people get ideas.  Other people use your ideas to inspire their own.  They inspire you, and the cycle continues.  If we place too harsh restrictions on music (i.e. You can’t even use one bit of my recording or I can sue you for everything you have), then creativity is stifled.  The art as a whole is diminished.

If someone wants to make their own crazy video of themselves doing a “music video” to to your tune, why is that so bad?  People know who you are, people want to know what that song is.  It just might get you another fan, you know, the one who buys all of your special edition albums?

This is the crux of the new music culture we are in.  And we are there, it has arrived.  As this post from earlier this month points out, people come to you because of your music.  It is incredibly too easy to aquire music for free.  DRM doesn’t work all that well.  It’s also kind of annoying.  I can’t take my iTunes music to another computer without first authorizing it and maybe deauthorizing another computer.  Wait, I bought it.  They are my copies of the song.  Why can’t I move them to my own property?  Thankfully, iTunes is removing DRM (but you get to pay for the priviledge of being a part of the new medium before they removed it, article here).

All ranting aside, here’s the point: music is no longer about the physical recording of the song.  It’s about the music and the people who create musical art.

Once again, I’m not advocating anarchy in the music biz.  I want artists to be rewarded for their efforts.  But I also want to be creative without being stifled.  This is a balance we must find soon, or the music business as a whole may be in for a seriously rough time.

Posted via web from On Life, Stories, and Music

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