Today I convinced a bunch of kids to become songwriters.

I brought my instruments to camp and enchanted the kids for about 25 or 30 minutes. The banjo and the dulcimer are just strange instruments to begin with, and all things strange and unusual are guaranteed attention-pilferers. You need such things in order to keep the attention spans of 12 youngin's whose main problems are loose teeth and not enough cookies for snack.

Granted... this group was creatively minded. I think children are massively creative as a general state of being, but these kids... they made up all their own games and played them for hours. I think they all played collaboratively at selling pretend ice cream for at least 45 minutes straight. (I might've played a role in purchasing the initial double-scoop of Rosewood-flavored ice cream. The generous store owner made me try a sample before I made my purchase, though.)

Anyone who has worked with kids for even half a day can tell you that children crave role models. They look to you. They take their cues from you. If you are silly and relaxed, the kids are going to have a great time. Apparently, they are also going to copy everything you do, because you are just really great for some reason that you won't be able to fathom.

So after I played a few of my own songs, and improvised a few on the spot, they immediately wanted to write their own. And they didn't forget about it. Over the next few hours, they wanted paper, and pens, or crayons. They wanted the paper stapled into booklets so that they could use it to collect their lyrics. They came to me with their songs and they sang them or wanted me to help them sing them. They were stories about clowns and fish, or songs about contradictions (yes seriously), or about how the camps at this park are the best (!!!). They wanted to collaborate and put their songs together.

They were awesome! I was really honestly floored by some of the songwriting talent in this camp. One kid was improvising lyrics, callback lines, with perfect rhythm and pitch that was all in one key.

It really made me think about some of the stuff I write... or don't write. Some of the things God pours on my heart which I ignore because it doesn't conform to my own standards. God said, my songs look and sound like all kinds of things, who are you to ignore the songs I ask you to write? I love those songs just like you love the songs these kids are writing.

Thanks God.

Feast

Well, I did it. Four songs in a row. What's called a "feast" in 50/90 or FAWM terminology. A feast is anytime you write multiple songs in the same sitting.

A couple songs, I couldn't tell you what they're about even if I tried. ("Unfamiliar Places" and "Bound Away") But the last two are about an abandoned bandana that I found while wandering the streets of Newark, and the Emerald Ash Borer, which is very much a threat to our ash trees.

All these ideas are related in that they've been kicking around my head for a little while, so I made a stab at focusing on completing a bunch at once. It was a good experiment and I'm pleased, but the problematic bit is the bit where I sit around on the computer and wait for comments. I need something to eject me from the internet.

Anyway, I've been going back and forth with various commitments. Time is precious and I haven't sat down and focused on an album, but I can sit down and spend all day writing songs. Also I still haven't got a website or anything fancy like that. I can blame it on the tighter work schedule I've got, but I know that's not all of it. You do what you want to do, ultimately, and I guess I just don't know what I want with music right now. Part of my problem is that I haven't lifted up most of it in prayer. If it's not time for an album, if that's just an idea I've got in my head that shouldn't happen right now, I'm fine with that. But have I even asked? No.

So there you go.

The fever pitch of my day job will go down drastically in three weeks when our camps end. I'm planning some stuff, including A) an appointment so I can get a really cute haircut ^^, B) vacation days for later August. I'm really looking forward to it.

I wrote it, but it's not mine.

Nothing currently happening in my life reflects what's going on in this song, so I have to admit it's from God to me for someone else.

Sweet Life


I've been posting other stuff, too, that I didn't feel was noteworthy enough to talk about on the blog, but here's the link to the rest of my 50/90 material. I'm 6 songs in, probably a little behind but I'm still optimistic.

50/90: The videogame connection

Every musician has founding moments.

One of mine was stumbling across a particular set of MIDI files, compiled by my brother. He'd downloaded hundreds of tracks from various versions of Final Fantasy. As I listened, I just got more and more entranced by the music.

At the same time, my honest-to-God prevailing thought was this: Pff, I could do this!

Nobuo Uematsu has a quote, which I can't find... he essentially believes in writing what sounds good. Which is a LOT LOT LOT different from what you learn when you study composition. Still, studying composition and music theory is really important. As a person who advocates music that sounds good - it's important to also write studies for purely academic purposes and to analyze other musical works.

Anyway, I took this memory and decided to draft ten ideas for short tracks for a made-up RPG I imagined in my mind. Here's the third track.

Click to listen to "Mischief."

I don't think I even like it entirely, but it was SO. FREAKING. FUN. to write.

I love this.

Doubt

All right. I need to stop with this posting-an-entry-then-taking-it-down. Thing.

All's I wanna say is that it seems like I have walked in doubt over my musical gifting for. ev. er. I wanted to say it without seeming like I was whining, too.

I don't think that doubt is always a bad thing. I've had it happen where God took peace away from certain options during times of decision, and it has helped to shepherd me in the right direction.

To be sure, sometimes it is a bad thing. Sometimes doubt needs to be bulldozed.

For me, music is a really broad area. Years of study and all. Not bragging. Just saying... I finally get that my understanding of music is extremely deep and broad, and it's not something that everyone has innately. So when God gives me an instruction like, "hey, go do music"... that's kind of like telling an engineer "hey, go make things."

I think what I've done is confine songwriting to guitar, banjo, lyrics, a set form, a nice melodic line, and some catchy riffs. And I think I'm really unsatisfied in those confines. So if the role of doubt is to bust me out of the four walls I've set around my God-given creativity, that's probably not a terrible thing.

50/90: First Blood

I don't know how this came out of me. Thank you, God.

Branded

2 Kings (Another Bible interlude)

I don't know a lot of the background here. I've been reading Kings lately and I just love this.

2 Kings 6, 8-17 (NIV):

8 Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”

9 The man of God [Elisha, a prophet] sent word to the king of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.” 10 So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.

11 This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”

12 “None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”

13 “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.”

14 Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.

15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.

16 “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

17 And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. I think he lived his life knowing this all the time. The servant gets just one glimpse of Elisha's everyday reality, and it's only his reality because of his relationship with the Lord. I think Elisha lived his life knowing, not in an abstract sense but a real and definite way, that God's protection was always there in greater numbers than the opposition.