Dear Alberton

Last summer my friend and I set out in a songwriting challenge. Each of us wrote one song a week based off of a mutually agreed upon topic. We got our topic by spinning the wheel of Wikipedia randomness. For this particular song, the topic that the wheel stopped on was "Alberton-Roseville".

The result is this song, "Dear Alberton".

The reason I'm posting this song is because it's not finished, and I wanted to give you a peek into the songwriting process. Right now I'm arranging songs for my next record, but I've yet to find anything that I am happy with for this particular song. So below is a video of me playing the song as I originally wrote it. Below that I will post several SoundCloud files that are different versions of the song I have demo'd as I try and find a direction I want to go with the song. (I've also posted the lyrics and chord progression at the bottom of the blog.)

The demos are not complete demos. There are holes in the arrangement without drums, or bass, etc. I use demos like these to help me get ideas out as I work at putting a song together.




Here are a few of my thoughts about the song:

Lyrically I'm pretty happy with it. It's a bit more pop sounding than a lot of what I write, but that's probably OK. I've been writing a lot of slow songs lately, so I could stand to have a few fast ones, and several friends have had good responses to this song.

When I started arranging it, I realized that it's at an odd speed (I played it a bit slower on the video than I originally played it). It's really too fast for a standard back beat (traditional drum groove with snare on 2 and 4), and honestly, that would make it come off a bit too mainstream for my taste anyway. But it's also a bit slow for a cut time feel. I also realized early on that my acoustic guitar part was probably a bit too busy for a big arrangement, which meant that at some point I would need to consider simplifying it.

I originally tried to see how it might work out if I kept the tempo the same with a back beat in the verses and a more driving feel in the chorus. Add some electric guitars and tadaaaaa... I have a song that sounds like the love child of a pop song and a Switchfoot song. Here it is:





While that was fun to mess around with, it's not really what I'm going for.

So I decided to slow the song down by a few bpm (beats per minute) and went for a groove that's a bit more broken up and staggered in the verse that would then go to more of a standard backbeat in the chorus. This would help keep things interesting. I also went for a more open sound on the electric guitars. I wanted to give the chorus some room to breathe. Below is the second demo:



Tempo-wise this felt a little better to me except that it was starting to sound a bit heavy and melancholy for a song that's about venturing out, taking chances and living life. This isn't helped by the fact that the first chord of the chorus is an E minor (WARNING: MUSICAL JARGON COMING UP). It's much less obvious in what my acoustic guitar is playing because of the fact that the fifth (B) is in the bass and the third (G) is buried in the middle of the chord. This keeps the focus off of the chord sounding dark. But on the bass guitar I was playing an E, so it brought the minor sound a bit back into focus, adding to the heavyness feeling. So this is something I have to keep in mind as I'm arranging.

I'm convinced that capturing the right feeling in this song begins with the drums, so I opted to focus more on the groove of the song, changing up the pattern that the drums were playing in the chorus. I also think that with the standard back beat that the song feels a bit too "adult contemporary", so my goal with the drums in the chorus was to get rid of the standard snare on two and four feel but still maintain the feel of a groove. I changed nothing else in this demo other than the drums. Here is the third version:




This drum groove did not help the song any. In my opinion, it actually got heavier feeling. There may be some things that might help this particular pattern feel less heavy, maybe some brushes instead of drumsticks? Overall though, the song still feels heavy and not light and carefree.

So needless to say, I'm not happy with any of this and I'll keep working on it. But I wanted you to be able to see some of the process. At this point I will finally give in and start considering changing the acoustic guitar part. I've really been clinging to it because I like playing it, but I think overall, it might not be serving the song that well, at least for the musical direction I want to go. My wife has suggested more piano and bigger strumming sounds, but then I feel like I'm moving into Caedmon's Call territory, which I want to avoid.

I've also stuck primarily to traditional rock instrumentation and now I will start branching out into other areas. I'll keep you posted on how the song is coming along, as well as doing more videos of music along the way.

If you have any questions or comments about the song or any of the demos, feel free to leave them. Let me know what you think.

Dear Alberton - Lyrics and music by Chris Freeman

Capo 2 (chords are with capo)
verse: C Cmaj7 am am7 F Fsus2 G G7
Prechorus: B em am7 D7/A
Chorus: dm/A am7 F Fsus2 G G7
Bridge: F am7 dm/A C C/B

Dear Alberton I wish that I could stay
But there's a siren that is calling me away
This city feels so comfortable and safe
But what is life without rough roads and risks to take?
You've settled for autumn
Even when the spring is just beyond your fears

Alberton I hope that things go well in Roseville when I'm gone
You should know that life is better when you're facing the unknown

Dear Alberton it's time that I must go
But think of me as I embrace life's ebb and flow
Wisdom comes from knowing that you know nothing at all
And leaning forward without fear that you might fall
Don't settle for autumn
When the sounds of spring are just beyond your ears

Lessons from The A Team.

I grew up watching the A Team. Not the new one. Not the one that came out in theaters last year. I mean the original, old school A Team. The one with Mr. T. It was an awesome show. Predictable? Absolutely. Great plots? Negatory. It was pretty much the same thing in every episode. But for a 6-year-old, it was the definition of awesomeness.

The best part in every episode was where the A Team would get captured by the bad guys. Inevitably they would be locked in a room with a bunch of tools, welding equipment, sheet metal and and old beater of a car (oh, and apparently guns, as well, since the A Team was always able to come out shooting). The A Team would then look at all of the stuff in the room and in a matter of a 30 second music and video montage, they would craft together a sweet armored vehicle, which would then be used as a means of escape. They were incredibly resourceful and also apparently quite gifted mechanics. Surely you've seen shows like this before. Maybe you've seen McGyver. The things that man could craft with some duct tape and papers clips was unbelievable.

The ability to make the most out of a given situation using only the things immediately available to you is one of the most important things for a creative individual to embrace. Shows like The A Team and McGyver remind me of the value of resourcefulness (if even in a cheesy way). Resourcefulness requires us to not only be purposeful in what we are creating, but stretches us in our creativity to work within our means.

There are certainly two sides to this discussion. Many would argue that their dreams and vision are too big for what they have available to them. And this certainly is a legitimate concern. But honestly, if you are dreaming and visioning, the reality is that you will always find that your dreams are bigger than your resources. It's the nature of dreaming. The responsibility of the artist is to figure out how to make that vision a reality, given our available resources. And most of us will never have everything that we want in order to see those visions completely fulfilled to their original form. Working within limitations causes us to think outside the box.

As a musician, there is much that I would like to do in my production. There are state of the tools that I would love to have at my disposal in order to produce my music. Would it sound better? In some ways yes. The overall production quality of the music would be much higher. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. So the question is, what do you do in the meantime? How do you create something great with very little? As artists we must force ourselves to be resourceful. To make the most of what we have. It forces us to use our creativity in ways that we might not normally use it. We must consider options and creative directions that we might not have considered otherwise. I believe that it makes us better artists.

Can a musician still produce a great song without all the bells and whistles that big budget records have? Yes. An artist right now that is very fresh in all of our minds is Bon Iver. Most are more familiar with his latest record, for which he just walked away with a Grammy award. But it's his first record that is really remarkable to me. For 'Emma, Forever Ago', was recorded in a cabin in the woods, basically on an SM57. Very, very basic. And yet it was voted to be one of the most influential records of the last decade. Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), is a great demonstration of resourcefulness. One of the cool byproducts of the home recording revolution is that it is forcing artists to be very experimental and resourceful with how they make their music. Some of the biggest artistic leaps and advancements are coming from the world of independent music and home/project recording.

There are also applications for churches, especially in worship and media ministries. Churches are one of the largest users and consumers of the latest technology. They dream big ideas and then convince everyone, including themselves that ministries will fail otherwise. And because most churches have large budgets for music and media ministries, many churches get the new toys and are never forced to consider if there are other ways to be artistic. And forget about ever considering whether or not the use of all the technology is actually artistic or tasteful at all.

I fully realize that technology is constantly evolving. It is not, in the words of Dennis Duffy, "cyclical", and churches will constantly find themselves in the position of having to reevaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of what they have. It is in many ways a necessary evil. But there is a difference in necessity and just going out and getting the newest and greatest things just because we can. Technology ≠ Art, at least in most cases. It is a tool, and nothing more. And in my humble personal opinion, I have seen very few examples of these new technologies used well.

There is also a spiritual side to resourcefulness. It is a close relative to sustainability. Working with and making the most of what we have been given. Operating within our means. Being a good steward. The idea of stewardship requires that we be resourceful. It requires that we think outside of the box in order to make the most of what we have and make it go further than it should. This is a very God honoring thing.

There is an inherent beauty in art that is born out the very struggle to see it realized. Are you a McGyver of an artist? Consider what this looks like for you as a creative individual.

Dave Grohl, Songwriting and the Craft Thereof

I don't know how familiar you are with The Foo Fighters or not. Hopefully you are. You should be at least since they have been one of the biggest names in rock and alternative music since the mid 90's. Dave Grohl, the lead singer and rhythm guitar player for the band, has proven time and time again that a drummer's talent isn't limited to just smashing drum heads.

This past year, they set out to do something really great with their new record. They recorded it in Dave's garage and they did it all analog. This means that, contrary to modern recording methods, nothing was ever recorded onto a computer or processed by a computer. The entire record was recorded onto analog tape and processed with traditional analog outboard gear and analog mixing consoles. The significance of this is that no digital trickery was ever used to make the band sound better. No quantizing (digitally forcing parts to align exactly with the tempo of the song so that everything syncs perfectly), no auto tuning of vocals, just pure, raw rock music. All of the inconsistencies and imperfections that humans bring into music is present on the record.

When so much technology is available to make bands and singers so tight and so good, why would they do this? To bring back the human element into making music. It's a celebration of the craft of writing songs and making music, and it won them their tenth Grammy award recently for Best Rock Album. Here is an excerpt from Dave Grohl's acceptance speech at this year's Grammy awards.

“To me this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of music is what’s important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that’s the most important thing for people to do… It’s not about being perfect, it’s not about sounding absolutely correct, it’s not about what goes on in a computer. It’s about what goes on in here [your heart] and what goes on in here [your head].” 

Dave Grohl acceptance speech at 2012 Grammy Awards.

Interesting thing to say. He definitely stepped on a few peoples toes with what he said. And it begs the question - Have we lost an appreciation for craft? Not just in songwriting, but in general.

To me, there is something really cool about a product that was made by someone who had to spend years of their life honing their skill and talents. Something that is truly great in quality but also contains a very human element. Imperfections from product to product, something that is completely unique and not exactly like any other. With many craft products, you are actually investing in something that gets better over time.

I do worry that many have lost the appreciation and vision of songwriting being a craft. Just like a wood worker spends years learning how to make a great rocking chair, as songwriters we should view what we do in a similar manner. We are crafting a piece of art from nothing. We are learning how to tell a story or communicate an emotion in a way that speaks universally to people and causes them to respond. That is a very human thing to do.

I also think there is a very spiritual side to craft. I daily rest in knowing that I did not come off an assembly line that God set up - that I was made completely unique. He created the world around me and every aspect of creation is unique and perfect. There are no two trees exactly alike. No two mountain peaks that look identical, no two rivers that run the same course. Knowing that there was attention to detail as God made creation, as he put me together, and ordered my life...that knowledge gives me purpose.

For artists, photographers, writers, musicians and songwriters, we should embrace the work that comes in making something great. Pour yourself into the process. Continually push yourself do to better and be better at your craft. There is something truly wonderful about it, and our job is to share our craft with other people.

I'm curious what you think. Do you think that as a culture we have lost an appreciation for craft? For honing a skill, developing a talent. Is there still a place for this in our lives? As a creative individual, are you practicing this? Are you investing in your craft? Or should we embrace the technology and advancements?

Some Photography

So I spent some time last week with my friend, David, at his shop. He's a local craft coffee roaster here in Fort Collins, as well as being the senior pastor at our church. We have been talking about putting together a little side project here in town that focuses on the craft culture here in Fort Collins. And as part of the preparation, I went and took some pictures of his shop.

It was very last minute, and unfortunately the only speed of film I had with me was really too slow to be used inside his shop, such is the downfall of shooting film. I was shooting between 1/15 and 1/8 shutter speed with no tripod, so there were many pictures that didn't turn out well. Although there was really too much shake on most of the pictures, I managed to salvage a few and I thought I would share them with you.

If you have the time, you should really check out David's business, The Coffee Registry. Head on over to www.thecoffeeregistry.com and start a subscription of some of the best coffee you'll ever drink. You can also find a few more pictures from the shoot on his site, as well.

For those who are interested, these pictures were shot with a Mamiya M645 1000s with a 80mm F/2.8 lens on Kodak TMax 100 film. 

I did a very light bit of editing in Photoshop.

Stuck In An Elevator or How To Survive a Creative Block Part II

People often say about traumatic situations that one day, you will be able to look back and see what God was teaching you in that particular moment. They say that sometimes that happens quickly, and sometimes it may be years afterward.

It’s been 12 years since I was stuck in an elevator, and I can honestly say I don’t think that God was teaching me anything life changing. Sometimes I think that maybe He just has a sick sense of humor. But through the randomness which is in my brain, I have managed to turn the story into an object lesson. There are things about how we survived being in an elevator that I have somehow twisted into being able to apply to those who may be experiencing a creative block. So enjoy: 

Don’t panic. 

Panic will not make the block go away any faster.

Not long after we got stuck, it slowly began to sink in with the three of us that we were going to be in the elevator for a while. Dandy Fenton began pacing back and forth slowly falling into a panic. It was actually quite amusing to watch this big guy taking one step in one direction then having to turn around and take only one step in the opposite direction. It didn’t take long for him to realize that no amount of panic was going to get us out of the elevator.

It’s easy to think that you have finally run out of creative juices - that you might never again make anything quality or that has any originality ever again. But fear not. Experiencing a block is not the end of the world. It won’t last forever, so be patient and be ready to wait it out. 

Embrace the downtime. 

As we worked our way through the stages of grief, we finally landed on acceptance. We were going to be in that elevator for a while and we had to make the most of it. I can honestly say that we learned more about each other in those 13 hours than we ever would have otherwise. Lots and lots of crazy stories and secrets shared. It was actually a really great time and the three of us look back on it and laugh and love to tell the story.

Sometimes we spend so much time writing, that we fail to get out and have experiences and live life. That is where our inspiration comes from. In general, writers don’t write about writing. They write about life. Look at a writer’s block as a way of being forced to get out and have experiences. Embrace the opportunity to take a break. It’s those new experiences that will provide plenty of material and inspiration. 

Get down to the basics. 

At some point, as we continued to sweat profusely because there was no air conditioning in the elevator, we slowly found ourselves taking more and more of our clothes off. First it was shoes and socks, then our t-shirts, until we were finally sitting on the floor of an elevator wearing nothing but our boxers - just the necessities.

We can often get bogged down with a bunch of stuff that we like to throw into our creations. Sometimes it’s a new technique. Sometimes it’s being so thrilled with a new technology and then trying to throw it all into our music, or art or whatever. All the tricks and technology can get in the way. Whatever it is, it can often slow us down and take away from the simplicity of the art.

When we are experiencing a creative blog, it often helps to get back to the basics. Strip everything down to the essentials and focus on those. You only need the basics to survive. If you can’t make something great with the very basics, then you don’t need all of the tricks. 

Remember not to stink everyone else out.

Whataburger can do horrible things to the bowels. We almost immediately instituted a no farting rule. Why? Because no matter how badly one of us felt we might need to express some gas, we had to remember that there were two other people stuck sharing the air, and it wasn’t fair to make everyone else smell our stink.

It’s tempting when experiencing a creative block to try and force the situation and put out something that is lackluster at best for people to enjoy. The truth is that it just stinks. That’s why it’s called a block. It’s the artist’s inability to do anything really great. So don’t bother. Don’t put stuff out just for the sake of doing it. Is it important to keep disciplined and exercising the creative muscles? Sure it is. But until you feel like you’ve overcome your block, don’t bother with putting out stuff for others that just stinks. 

Use a lifeline.

The biggest mistake we made was in not bringing cell phones with us. Granted, at the time, cell phones were large and bulky and didn’t fit comfortably in the front of your jeans like they do now. My cell phone was the original flip phone. This was post bag phone and pre anything cool. It was the size of a gold bar. This was also just at a point when people were starting to carry phones with them regularly. (Yes, I know this dates me a bit). But had we had them, we could easily have called for help and saved ourselves 13 hours of sweat, smell and full bladders.

There is nothing wrong with talking to others that you respect about your block. As an artist you need to have friends or mentors in your life that you can call and talk to when you run into a creative block. They can often provide great advice and insight into why you may be experiencing a dry spell and may be able to save you some time.

As I said before, a creative block isn’t the end of the world. They only happen for a season so enjoy the time off. Live life to its fullest and do what you can to embrace as many situations as possible, because these will be the things that inspire you later on.

If anyone else has any other advice about surviving a creative block, feel free to put it in the comments section below.

Stuck In An Elevator or How To Survive a Creative Block Part I

One time I got stuck in an elevator for 13 hours. No joke. My friends often give me a hard time for being an exaggerator, but this is 100 percent true. And to make it worse, it was a small elevator, maybe 4‘x5’. I’m going to give you the abbreviated version of the story. In the interest of protecting the innocent, I have changed the names of my band members. Now you should know that we were three pretty big guys. Two of us were over six feet tall. One of us, Dandy Fenton was over 300 pounds. The other guy, Krandon Bees, was shorter, but weighed about as much as I did (approximately 220 pounds). So there wasn’t a lot of room to move around.

We were in Victoria, Texas for a couple of weeks to record at the church where one of my bandmates was an interning. It was a pretty big church, and it had a huge youth room that also had all of the gear my band needed to start recording. We were pretty jazzed about the opportunity to have free access to the equipment and to get started on recording some new tracks.

On a Wednesday night after all of the students and church staff had gone home, my band and I began unloading our instruments and gear into the youth room. The room was on the second floor and we were fortunate enough that the building had a small freight elevator. So we brought in all of our equipment and began to set things up. It was around midnight and we were hungry (we were hungry a lot) and decided to make a run to Whataburger before we started tracking.

Now there are moments in life when you make a decision that in hindsight you know was quite stupid. My stupid decision came in deciding not to take my cell phone with me. My drummer made the same stupid decision. Our thought process simply being, “We’re just going to Whataburger. We don’t need them”. Famous last words.

We got to Whataburger just fine and had our fill of fast food and giant Texas sized soft drinks. Then we made sure to grab a refill, and headed back to the church.

It was our laziness that sealed our fate. Make no mistake about it. Had we even exerted the smallest bit of effort, we could have avoided all of our troubles. But, feeling lazy when we returned to the church, having been filled up like plump little piglets, we made the decision to use the freight elevator as opposed to simply walking up a flight of stairs.

We made it about two or three feet off of the ground when the elevator stopped. There was the flickering of lights that one might associate with an elevator stopping, and then a few half nervous jokes. My drummer made the comment that it would probably start again in a moment after it reset. (I don’t know that elevators really reset. It’s just something you say.) But the elevator didn’t start moving. We were stuck. And as we assessed our situation, we discovered that not only were we stuck, but there were several factors that assured we were going to be stuck for a while. These included: 

• No air conditioning. This doesn’t seem like a big deal if you live in Colorado. In South Texas however, in mid summer, it’s quite a terrifying prospect. 

• The panel on the ceiling of the elevator (you know the one – it’s what everyone in the movies uses to escape situations like this) was bolted shut, and made of steel. There would be no theatrical escapes. 

• We could not open the elevator door. Again, you see this in movies a lot. It works really well with doors that open from the middle. Not with freight doors that open from one side. 

• The emergency call box didn’t work. Yup. That’s just bad luck. 

• We didn’t have our cell phones. This is where hindsight is 20/20. 

• The church offices were not located in the same building as the sanctuary and youth room. They were located across town in an office building. The building we were in would not be used again until Sunday morning. It was Wednesday night. 

There are many details about that night that I won’t mention because this blog would double or triple in length. Those may or may not include spooning each other on the floor in our boxer shorts (because it was hot and the floor of the elevator was cold) while we tried to sleep. If you are curious about the rest of the night, ask me about it sometime.

Long story short, we were finally rescued the next afternoon around 13 hours later, when another youth intern randomly brought a group of kids to the church to work on something in the youth room.

As I look back on it, the whole predicament raises some interesting questions. Namely - have you ever been stuck? I mean stuck in any way, not just in an elevator? Maybe your car was stuck in the mud or snow. Maybe you accidentally got locked in a room. Maybe you felt trapped in a relationship. I think it’s safe to say that most of us have experienced that before. It’s an incredibly frustrating place to be.

As a creative, have you ever experienced a creative block? If you have, you know that it is equally frustrating, having the desire to create but being unable to actually get anything out. It’s similar to being stuck on an elevator. Feeling trapped and claustrophobic. Sometimes it feels like creatively you are stuck in a box and don’t know how to get out of it.

In my next blog, I will let you in on a few lessons I learned through my elevator experience, and how to apply those to a creative block.

The Songwriter and the Listener

I think there is a great connection and relationship between a songwriter and the listener. When an artist chooses to make music and then allow other people in on that world, a journey happens. The songwriter begins the journey and is then a facilitator as he works his song to a place that it can pull others in on the journey as well. Songwriters by nature allow themselves to be quite vulnerable and take a risk at allowing others into their world, and a unique interaction happens when the listener begins to take in a song and allows himself to become immersed in the music.

This relationship is often underrated. It shows itself often times in the creative process. I know of many artists who refuse to acknowledge the value of the listener and actually enjoy making music that is unapproachable. The act of songwriting being some great, mysterious thing -- a process to be shrouded in secrecy and hidden from public view, like a magician protects his tricks. Fortunately, there is no Songwriters Alliance that can blacklist artists when they allow people to see the creative process (any Arrested Development fans?). The reality, however, is that songwriters depend on the listener and undervaluing them is a huge mistake. 

Music exists to move humanity. It speaks to the spirit, evokes emotions and responses. Songs are not meant to be self serving, and no songwriter is an island. It is irresponsible for the writer to make music only for themselves. Sure an artist can choose to push ahead creatively. They can try new things, new production techniques, new styles, new instrumentations. But without regard to what others think, at the end of the day if no one enjoys or accepts it, what good did it serve?

The other side of the coin is that many artists are so wrapped up in making people happy and selling records that they become slaves to the listener. This too is a problem because it deprives the artist of the joy of creating something that truly comes from who they are. To allow things to remain the same and be stagnant is a horrible place to be. Humanity is not meant to remain in one place. It is in us to move forward and progress and this is ever so important for the artist. 

So songwriters do have a responsibility to challenge the listener to try new things. That is a healthy and necessary part of the creative process. The balance that an artist must find is in how to serve the listener and at the same time be creative. But how do we go about that? I’m not sure there is an easy answer. I do believe, though, that the artist must find a way to allow the audience to become invested in the work. And this means that as songwriters, we must lift the veil and mystique. Allow the listener to see us work through the creative process. Because of the great invention of these interwebs that are doing things like bringing you my blog, websites like YouTube, and Vimeo, and SoundCloud, we are seeing more artists do this now than ever.

I want to do this in my own music as well. I’m planning on beginning production on a new record in August, and I’m very excited about this. Between now and then, I will be posting regular videos of my songs as they progress, to make you, the listener a bigger part of the journey. I appreciate the support that everyone has  given me thus far, and I’m looking forward to tickling your ears with more musical goodies as the year goes on.

What Do You Think? - Christians and Creativity

Ok, all of you creative types. Musicians, artists, writers. A friend emailed me a link to this article from Relevant Magazine yesterday. It was an interesting read and brings up some questions that are good for discussion. I've taken the liberty of putting a few quotes from the article below to discuss if you feel so led.

The article can be found in its entirety here.
_______________________________________________________________________

"The true artist displays to the world a manifestation of the inner meditations of their heart and mind....In community that is caring and healthy, an artist brings not only beauty and inspiration but also powerful observational skills and spiritual awareness. We can become a source of joy, blessing and the voice of God in other peoples’ lives.”                        

- Linnea Gabriella Spransy is an award-winning painter and leader of the artist community at the Boiler Room.

What do you think about that? Should the arts play a role in pointing other people to God? In what way? How should creative individuals view their role as believers? Is there a ministry there?

"Large-scale production can create a beautiful environment for people to worship in...I make services that I would want to go to.”

- Whitney George is the creative director of Church on the Move in Tulsa, Okla.

I admit, there is much I left out of this guys response, including the fact that he admits that a large scale production environment isn't for everyone. But what do you think about that? Are churches putting too much emphasis on the "production" of worship? Does production, big or small, play a role for you personally in how you worship? Do you think the church does a good job at bringing art into worship? Is is well executed?

 "Our challenge is just, don't worry about the business component—worry first about the Kingdom."

- Chad Johnson is the founder of Come&Live!, a nonprofit mission organization that joins hands with artists and “musicianaries” to provide guidance, direction and accountability. 

How do artists who are followers of Christ measure success? Is is possible to be accepted into the art community, be commercially successful and be a believer?

"Ultimately, I wanted to create a piece of art that would be taken at face value, that would be judged because it's a piece of art, not because a Christian created it or didn't create it. I believe God has made us to create things—that's what I want to do."

- Nathan Clarke is the founder of Fourth Line Films and the director of the award-winning documentary Wrestling for Jesus.

Is it fair for art to be judged based off of whether or not it was created by a Christian? Is one more influential than another? Can spiritual, Godly things be found in art that was created by people who don't know Jesus?

"The question I have to ask is, 'Did the medium serve the content?'...It happens when we don't think of the story before we figure out how we're going to tell it...We don't start with a turntable and projection and say, 'OK, now we have these things, what are we going to tell?'... I think what ends up happening is that the medium trumps the message because we want to be relevant..." 

- Blaine Hogan is a former actor and the current creative director at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago.

Do Christians do a good job of being tasteful with technology and art? Have churches elevated the medium over the message? Is it possible to find a healthy balance, and if so, how?

All quotes were taken from the Relevant Magazine article, "Is There A Place For Creative Christians?"

The Pursuit of Excellence

And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Colossians 3:17

I heard an interesting story about a very well known worship leader once. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s a good story, nonetheless, and applicable to this blog. Because I don’t know if it’s true, I’m choosing not to include said worship leaders name. The story goes that way back in the day before he was a worship mega star, this individual was living in an apartment complex in the town where he was on staff at a church. He was practicing away at several worship songs in his living room with the windows open. After about an hour or so, a dude that lived upstairs came down and knocked on the worship leaders door. When he opened the door, the guy said in an annoyed manner something to the effect of, 

“Dude, play something different. You’ve been playing the same thing for an hour.”

The problem was that the worship leader had been practicing several songs during that time, not just one song. This served as a wake up call for him, and proved to be an instrumental moment in helping to define him as a worship leader and helping to define his unique style. He was shocked to realize that every thing he was playing sounded exactly the same. His songs lacked creativity and originality, and he was forced to consider if he was pursuing his music with excellence. 

This brings up an interesting question: Are you as a worship leader pursuing excellence? 

I think there is something to be said about doing things well. To go above and beyond in the pursuit of excellence. Not being content to live with mediocrity. I believe God is glorified when we pursue excellence in our ministry, in how we lead worship, and in our musicianship. For worship leaders, this means moving beyond four chords and a basic strum pattern. It means practicing. It means furthering your skill set as a musician, taking it to the next level. 

Excellence is a bi-product of walking in faith. This is not about setting a bar of musicianship that all worship leaders must attain. Excellence does not equal knowing X amounts of chords and being proficient at all major, minor, pentatonic and mixolydian scales. I fully realize that music comes easier to some more than others. Regardless of this, our responsibility is to take the gift we have been given and to pour ourselves into it, pushing ourselves to improve. This is about abiding in the person of Christ. Walking in faith. When you are allowing the person of Christ to work in and through you, then you will find that you are not content to remain in the same place and be stagnant.

Creatively speaking, challenge yourself to think beyond the status quo. Don’t allow yourself to be content to play a certain song the way that everyone else plays it. How can you bring a fresh perspective and creative take to a particular song? As you think through these things, you will find that your creativity will force your musicianship to improve. Your skill level will always be working to keep up with where your imagination takes it. 

If we are truly representatives of the person of Christ, then our actions are a reflection of who He is and what He has done. So if my ministry is anything less than excellent, then that reflects on people’s opinion of who Jesus is. Christ did not live half way. He did not live half heartedly. His love was full and excellent and powerful. Is your ministry and your music that full and that excellent and powerful? 

Life On Purpose

I live in a bike town. I ride about 70% of the time when I travel around my town. If you’ve ever biked anywhere around town, you understand the amount of forethought it takes. When I am going for a ride, I have to plan out the route I am going to take. I have to think about which route is going to be the most bike friendly. What intersections are best to cross major roads. Where bike lanes are and where I may have to share the road with cars or when I’ll have to use a sidewalk. I have to think about how long it will take me to get from point A to point B. What I need to wear based on the weather. Are there any sections that are covered in snow and ice that could very well turn a simple bike ride into a death defying stunt? Choosing to have a bike commuter lifestyle has everything to do with being purposeful.

Creativity also benefits enormously from the artist being purposeful. When an artist begins a new painting, they never start with the foreground and then work backwards. They must start with the background and add layers. This takes a lot of forethought. Attention to color. Which colors are going to contribute to the overall purpose of the painting. They have to consider scale and perspective, what they want the painting to communicate. If these are not considered first and planned for, the sum of all of the strokes will not work together to make a cohesive work of art. And more often that not, the painting just looks awkward.

The same can be said for song writing. For instance, when I write a song, I usually start off with an idea of what direction I am heading before I start writing. The best songs I’ve written have had purpose behind them. That’s not to say that there are not moments that I am struck with a great line or musical idea, and I work to capture that and turn it into a song. That does happen. But I’ve found that most often, if I have an idea for a song, a destination, it’s much easier to fill in the content, and everything works together. Planning ahead often means the difference between great lyrics that add to the overall theme and direction of the song and poor or mediocre lyrics that sound like they were written just to fill space or make a rhyme.

Purpose also helps with arranging. Think ahead. One of the biggest mistakes singer/songwriters make is that in writing a song on their particular instrument of choice, they fail to plan for a band. It is very easy to write a whole song and use an acoustic guitar, for instance, to fill out the music as much as possible. And this works well if it is just you and your guitar. But what about when you get ready to add a band? If your guitar has such a big role, you may find it difficult when adding other instrumentation. The arrangement can often sound too busy and too bogged down. As a writer you have painted yourself into a corner. If you think ahead while you are writing, you can prepare for other music to be included in your song. Think about alternate melodies or riffs that other instruments might play as opposed to trying to do it all yourself. Your songs will sound more professional and less like you hired a mediocre band to back you up for a gig.

Hop on the creative and spiritual purpose-cycle. I just made that term up. Get it? Its a figurative bicycle that helps us to be purposeful. As Christians, we were created to live and act with purpose. Our Creator was completely purposeful when he crafted us together, and His desire for us is to be purposeful in what we do. So pedal on - in how we live, in how we create. We must be intentional in our craft if our responsibility is to communicate God’s truth and grace to the world.

Fly Fishing, Robert Redford and Discipline.

I have an old man hobby. Fly fishing. I can’t get enough of it. I am one of those suckers who saw the movie, A River Runs Through It, and I was mesmerized. It wasn’t just the gracefulness of it all, seeing that brightly colored fly line looping through the air and landing on the water so delicately, but also the nostalgia and purity of it all. And Robert Redford’s voice. It’s as if he was calling to me, telling me to try it. And who says no to Robert Redford? So I decided to take it up, and along the way I persuaded my friend to do it, as well. I figured if I can go bass fishing and fling a baitcast rod and reel around, I could fly fish. Unfortunately, this was a gross miscalculation on my part on the amount of skill required to simply cast with a fly rod, much less actually catch a fish. 

It took me well over a year to have a decent cast, and even longer than that to catch my first trout. Unfortunately, my overwhelming desire to become a fly fisherman didn’t quite match up with my skill level. I realized quickly that if I was going to have any sort of success, I had to invest the time to learn the skills required to fish this way. A new way of casting. Learning to tie flies. Learning aquatic entomology (incredibly nerdy, I know). I had to discipline myself in order to be successful at what I wanted to do.

I believe there are two aspects that have to be considered when it comes to pursuing a hobby or talent. There is the desire side of things, and then there is the discipline side. In the world of creativity, the desire comes from a very spiritual place. It involves understanding how God made us, and it is where our motivation and inspiration comes from. The discipline is the practical, process side of creativity. 

Christ’s desire is to work in and through me to create a picture of His truth and grace to the rest of the world. I understand that He is calling me to submit to His desire for my life. That the rhythm of life that I live by when living the Christ life is a very unforced, very natural rhythm. I understand that my inspiration to create comes from seeing God working in my life and seeing his evidence in the world around me. All of this is well and fine. And I believe that it is probably the most essential part of creativity. The desire to create must be present in our lives. 

But there is the other side of the coin. The practical side. The side that requires discipline. All the inspiration and desire in the world doesn’t make me a better song writer, or musician. Good intentions don’t make me great. What good is my inspiration to create something if I lack the skills to be artistic?  This I believe is the practical side of creativity. As artists, we must be constantly striving to refine and improve our skills. We must be disciplined and work out our creative and artistic muscles.

I cannot just expect to sit down and write a great song if I am not regularly disciplining myself. One of my prayers when it comes to my song writing, and even my understanding of God’s character, is that He would increase my vocabulary for Him. I want to see and experience God in new ways, which provides new and fresh inspiration, but I need to have the vocabulary to accurately describe that which I want to say about God. And on top of that, what good are lyrics without the ability to craft them into something musical? Am I spending time honing my skills not only as a lyricist but as a musician as well?

So what does discipline look like for me as a songwriter? It means practicing my art on a regular basis. A daily basis. That means practicing guitar or any other instruments that I play. It means spending time each day writing lyrics. And also spending time thinking about how to say what I feel inspired to say in a new and different way. In the last several months for instance, I made it a personal goal to be writing more often and consistently. The goal to be writing at least two or three songs each month, as long as I can fit it into my schedule. 

We were created to do things well and quality doesn’t come when we just do things on a whim. It requires purpose, and forethought. It requires discipline. I don’t think that we were called to do things with mediocrity, and I believe that God is honored in our pursuit of excellence. 

I'm A Nerd And That's OK.

I read something a few days ago about the four stages, I guess you could say, of the creative process. I wish I had saved the link so that I could repost it and everyone could read it. If I find it, I’ll be sure to do that. But as I read it, one of the things that struck me was the idea of immersion. In other words, if someone is a creative person, and they want to create things, then the first step in the creative process is to study the medium of your preference.

There is no room for the causal creative if one ever hopes to do something great. Being a musician means that I immerse myself in music. I listen to it, I study it, I practice it, and then I make it. Choosing to be an artist, to exercise ones creativity and do so with excellence, means becoming a nerd to the thing that you love to do. Not just being content with liking to paint, or to play music, or to take pictures, but investing and pouring yourself into it. And this applies not only to what we would usually consider to be creative mediums, but really to anything that we are passionate about pursuing.

Let’s take NASCAR for instance. My brother-in-law works in NASCAR, and he views cars in a totally different way than I do. He is at the pinnacle of his game, and has worked for the biggest names in racing. The way he approaches his job reflects that. When I (or really, most people for that matter) see a car, I think…steering column, gas tank and change the oil. He sees it differently. He and the people in his industry analyze every aspect of the cars that they work with. They get to know every part of it. They know what every part does and use that knowledge and passion for what they do to make the best race car they can. And as strange as it may sound, the way he does his job is graceful and artistic. He does his job with excellence and passion, and there is an art to it. There is something to be said for that.

Most people hear a song and to them it’s something to listen to, something that plays on the radio, something that makes them feel a certain way. For me, it’s a blend of notes and chords and theory and lyrics and ideas and images that all form together into something beautiful. I can’t help but analyze it and figure out what makes it work, and at the same time, challenge myself to create something better than I have before. To push my own abilities and perhaps even do something that hasn’t been done yet. Sometimes I wish that I could approach creative things in a less critical way, but it’s just the way God wired me.

We can only begin to create great things by first becoming students of the things that we love. We have to become experts in our fields. That takes an investment because we will never really reach a point of knowing everything. I believe that the people who do the best things are also those who recognize how little they actually know. We must be committed. We must be in it for the long haul.

God created us to do excellent things. Whether it be working on race cars, or making music, or writing, or whatever. That doesn’t happen if we only half-heartedly pursue what we love. Whatever it is that you love to do, do it with passion and a desire for excellence.