Category: music
You are viewing all posts from this category, beginning with the most recent.
Be careful what you ask for...
So, that guy who complained earlier this week that he was getting a little bored or stale playing keys?
Well, he went to worship band practice this morning and found out that the drummer had called in sick. And while there are drum tracks that can be enabled for most of the songs, there’s one that conspicuously needs a live drummer.
Guess who’s going to be heading in to church extra-early in the morning to practice?
Here’s hoping he doesn’t end up sounding awful. The band deserves better.
My running record for this year...
…I think it’s gonna by Battle Born by The Killers.
Forget the violent sounding name. The album is chock full of easygoing rock that sometimes feels like Springsteen, other times like U2, and occasionally like old school Bon Jovi.
Here’s the track that’s been stuck in my head all week.
On Playing and Variety
My primary instrument has always been (and likely always will be) keys of some sort. I started piano lessons when I was 7. I started playing for church at age 14. I first started playing with a church worship band in college at age 19. I’ve led worship while playing the piano hundreds of times. Those fingers on the keys at the top of my blog are my fingers, playing piano at my sister’s wedding.
Back in high school I taught myself to play guitar, and I’m a reasonable hack there, though my fingerings are never very clean. From there I did a lot of playing bass lines on the guitar, though I’ve only played bass as part of a band a handful of times. Keys are where it’s at for me. And that’s worked to fill the need where I’ve been. After college there haven’t been an abundance of other keyboardists.
For the last year or so, though, while I love playing keys in the worship band, the instruments that are in my head all the time, the ones I dream about playing, are bass and drums. I’m not sure why. Maybe because so much of the music I listen to is guitar/bass/drums driven instead of piano-driven? Maybe I’m just getting bored with piano right now?
In reality, I’m a passable bass player. I can keep tempo on the drums, but one listen to a real drummer (of which we have several at church) quickly reminds me that I’m just a hack. (Of course, I have no practice… maybe I’d pick it up quickly?)
I don’t know where this leaves me or even really what my conclusion is. It’s just odd to observe that after having piano ingrained in my brain for almost 30 years, I’m now doing a lot of my primary thinking in terms of other instruments. (It’s suppose it’s also entirely possible that piano is just so ingrained that I don’t notice it any more.)
Carols for Christmas
For at least twenty years my mother has been requesting that I record some of my piano stylings. For one reason and another I’ve never gotten to it, until now. My mom got her copy last weekend when we celebrated Christmas with my side of the family, so now I’m free and clear to share it with you all. I’m calling it Carols for Christmas.
It’s just over 30 minutes worth of music, all piano versions of traditional Christmas carols. There’s not a lot in the way of production - I recorded them using my Casio midi controller keyboard in single takes in GarageBand and did a minimal amount of editing to remove the clunky notes. The perfectionist part of me wishes I had another 80 hours to really refine and polish the arrangements and recordings; the engineer in me has declared “good enough”. The engineer won the debate this time.
So please enjoy Carols for Christmas as my gift to you this season. This download link will let you listen and/or download MP3s from Dropbox.
Merry Christmas!
Andrew Peterson - Light for the Lost Boy
Andrew Peterson’s new record, Light for the Lost Boy, came out last week, but a business trip and a busy weekend conspired against me. So, my first listen to the record didn’t come until this morning. There is so much I could say about this record that I don’t even really know where to begin.
Great records seem to come out of pain. Much as I love Peterson’s earlier records, they’ve succeeded due to their beautiful melodies and tightly-crafted lyrics. The truth is present in his word-art, but it hasn’t as often fully resonated with the deep soul ache of a man wrestling with the fallenness of the world and the goodness of God.
Light for the Lost Boy, though, changes all that. From the opening line of the record (“I remember the day of the Tennessee flood…”), Peterson examines the fallen beauty of the world, the joy of childhood, and the loss of innocence that comes as we grow up. (I’d highly recommend Jonathan Rogers’ piece on this record over on The Rabbit Room. Jonathan says it way better than I can.)
In “The Cornerstone”, he examines the experience of colliding with Jesus in a life-changing way. “The Voice of Jesus” sits in contrast as a lullaby to a child, recognizing how God speaks to her through “the ache in your bones”. The final track, “Don’t You Want to Thank Someone?” is epic in length (9 minutes 57 seconds!) and in scope, tracing the course of human history from the goodness of creation through the fall and finally to the ultimate reckoning.
Sonically this record breaks some new ground for Peterson. While some tracks (including the official pre-release, “Rest Easy”) will sound familiar to the ears of long-time Peterson fans, at least half of the record builds energy with electric guitars and electronic beats. While the record was produced by Ben Shive and Cason Cooley, the opening track had me thinking that my friend Andy Osenga had a hand in it. (The song “Carry the Fire” is AP’s nearly exact corollary to Andy O’s “Hold The Light”. This is a good thing.)
If it isn’t clear enough from my review already, Light for the Lost Boy is highly, highly recommended. It would be presumptuous of me to declare it my new favorite Andrew Peterson record after only one listen. However, given that after one listen I can remember every song and a particular way that it stuck with me, I think that future listens (of which there will be many) will only cement this record as a long-time favorite from Peterson.
You can buy the record from The Rabbit Room, or on iTunes.
I just wanna be Andy Gullahorn
I’ve gone through a lot of wanna-be stages in my life as a musician. My mother listened with horror while as a teenager I tried to imitate Michael W. Smith’s raspy pop voice. Then I fell in love with Rich Mullins and worked out all of his piano riffs. I’ve dreamed about playing electric guitar with U2 (I know, they already have a guy), saxophone in Harry Connick’s band, and replacing another guy named Chris who fronts for Coldplay.
I think I’ve finally settled on a wanna-be now, though. I just wanna be Andy Gullahorn.
You may not be familiar with Andy, so let me introduce you.
Andy Gullahorn is a tall, quiet, guitar-playing Texan who writes songs and plays guitars for lots of folks. I’ve most often seen him on stage adding a second guitar for Andrew Peterson.
Andy is a man of few words. Seemingly every time he takes the mic to sing he stares awkwardly at the crowd, finally saying simply “hello”, and then launching in to a song. His songs are clever, insightful, and funny. He has you laughing right up until the point where you feel the blade twist and realize he’s got you good. Here’s an example:
Andy has a website which he recently updated. Part of me is glad he updated it, because it looks really nice and might help impress people who don’t know him. The other part of me is sad, because his old website was this mess of homebrewed awesomeness that captured Andy’s je ne sais quoi. At least his new site still has some of his haiku reviews, which are fantastic.
(A recent haiku, just as an example: “Summer night plus woods / Plus Kentucky plus stage lights / Equals moths in face”. Boom.)
When I was in Nashville back in May to hear NT Wright, a bunch of the Square Peg types sang songs before the good bishop spoke. And darn near every song, there was Andy in the background, playing the second guitar part, adding just the right amount of background vocal. After every song he’d back off, sit down, only to hear the next song that was being played and jump right back in.
Here’s gets me most about Andy: he’s not a star. He’s the consummate backup man. He knows everybody’s songs, the right keys to play them in, the guitar riffs, and all the harmonies.
You don’t necessarily recognize that Andy’s there, but you sure as heck would notice if he was missing. He adds the complementary touch that makes each song better but he never hogs the spotlight. When the spotlight is thrust upon him, he speaks truth in a way that sneaks up on you.
Yep, that’s the guy I want to be.
One of the dangers of a standing desk...
…is that when I’ve got my headphones on and I’m grooving to some music, I’m not just in danger of air drumming, but now it’s possible to be working on my white boy dance moves as well.
Now that can be a little bit hard to explain when the boss walks in.
Today, though, the boss is out on travel, and I have Bruce Hornsby to blame for my grooving.
N. T. Wright sings
Monday night I had the privilege of meeting Bishop N. T. Wright and hearing him speak in Nashville, TN. I’ve written about it for 800 words over at the BHT, so I won’t repeat that here.
After his talk and some Q&A he was pressed to pick up a guitar, and the second song he sang was this one. The story is that he was bored during a conference and so wrote these lyrics about Genesis to the tune of “Yesterday”. Francis Collins (brilliant scientist, Christian, and currently director of the National Institutes of Health) made some tweaks to them and (as the story goes) they sang this song at a BioLogos conference in New York.
Sorry for the lousy video quality; the sound is good, though.
Leonard the Lonely Astronaut
My friend Andy Osenga has a new record available to purchase (download or physical CD) today over on the Rabbit Room store.
Leonard the Lonely Astronaut is quite a concept. Leonard is off on a solo intergalactic space flight, and while he’s traversing the galaxy he’s writing songs. We build a rocket ship set for Andy to record this thing in. It was awesome. The record has turned out awesome as well.
Ten bucks gets you the mp3 downloads today. Don’t wait long, though, because in a few days it’s going back into the AO vault until its official release in the fall.
Leonard the Lonely Astronaut is rated A for AWESOME. No space rocks were harmed in the making of this blog post. This author did not receive any compensation for writing this post other than the satisfaction of plugging a friend’s record. In fact, this author is still waiting for the t-shirt that is coming with the Kickstarter pledge. Pictures to follow.
My 5K Playlist for Hog Wild Days
It’s been a while since I’ve reworked my 5K playlist. This latest incarnation may be a little heavy on Arcade Fire, but I’ve been listening to them a lot while I’ve been running this spring, and the tempos of the songs work really well. Anyway, here’s what I’ve got:
- “Modern Man” - Arcade Fire
- “Beautiful Day” - U2
- “Brighter Day” - Gungor
- “City With No Children” - Arcade Fire
- Someone Else’s Arms - Mae
- “After The Garden” - Andrew Osenga
- “Month of May” - Arcade Fire
- “Hometown Glory” - Adele
If I finish in the time I’m hoping for, I’ll be somewhere in the middle of “Month of May” when I cross the finish line. The Adele song is a fantastic cooldown song.
Here’s hoping for good weather in the morning and a good race time!