Through The Hands of Others....

Some of the most powerful stories are the ones told without words.

The music: the lyrics are simple and sweet; with the feel of the arrangement it is very powerful song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcPSGJZwHA4

That's My Girl!

Anyone who really knows me knows how important music is in my life. So I was really pleased when I found out my daughter shares my like for music! We enjoy listening to music together.

She really enjoys the earphones. When she sees them, she tries to grab them so she can hear the music.

I know she likes the music, but I also think she is fascinated with the 'now you hear it, now you don't' aspect of earphones when you take them on and off.

Often when she hears music, she will swing her hand like she is keeping the beat. We also enjoy dancing to sleep or just sitting and listening to relaxing music to help us get to sleep.

Hanging out on the sunny day at the beach this year. Unfortunately the day these pictures were taken, she was kind of miserable with her first cold, but she seemed to soak in all the new sensory information she experienced that day anyway.

Well, I'm off to go listen to some music with my daughter!

Chris Rice

On the special feature DVD of Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie I was instantly interested in Chris Rice's musical performance of Billy Joe McGuffrey. Being impressed with his singing style and natural sound, I decided to review his bonus video on the DVD, The Other Side of the Radio.



Again I really enjoyed the real-instrument sound and musical style, but the thing that impressed me the most was the sincerity in his voice and lyrics. I felt he really did care about his audience.

Now Chris Rice is one of my all-time favorite artists. We bought his Album, "Run the Earth Watch the Sky" and just recently we bought his Album "What a Heart is Beating For."

Not only do I like his sincerity, but I really like his optimism. I listen to his music and feel hopeful and encouraged...and, partially because he is a Christian musician I know his music and lyrics are appropriate for all ages whether or not they are hymns he's written or more secular topics.

(I'm Christian too, but my feelings for Jesus Christ are of such a sacred nature to me, I'm more picky about what Christian music I like--even though I generally like the style of music most Christian artists use, the lyrics and feeling I get when listening to the majority of Christian music doesn't always match up to those sacred personal feelings.)

I am also really impressed with how well he writes his lyrics. He uses a lot of creative metaphors that seem to expand the meaning beyond just the words themselves. I suppose I like it because metaphors are how I apply concepts in my own life.

Here are a few samples of his lyrics to illustrate:

Baby Take Your Bow: Although death can be a depressing reality in our lives, Chris Rice does a good job of bringing out the respect of life's opportunity, the hope of our eternal lives, and comfort when loved ones temporarily depart their mortal bodies until the resurrection:




Lemonade: This song captures the excitement, anticipation, and joy of true, sincere love. It illustrates his sincerity, gratitude, and optimism. I like to think of this song in relation to my wife and me:




Here are the lyrics to those two songs if these unofficial music videos don't work:

Baby Take Your Bow
Chris Rice

We're gonna miss your song and dance
The way you made us laugh
And we're so glad we had the pleasure for a while
But on the other side you'll find a better audience
Just be yourself, and you can't help but make the angels smile

Baby, all the world's a stage
Playwright pens your final page
And then he brings your curtain down
So blow us your kisses and drench our eyes
We'll rise to our feet to wave goodbye for now
So baby, take your bow

The world is lovelier because you had your moment here
And we could see a friend of heaven in your face
And in your song we heard the longing for a distant shore
And now your time has come to go, and so be on your way

Baby, all the world's a stage
Playwright pens your final page
And then he brings your curtain down
So blow us your kisses and drench our eyes
We'll rise to our feet to wave goodbye for now
So baby, take your bow
Your show is over now
It's time to lay your burdens down
So baby, take your bow

Copyright 2007 Clumsy Fly Music (ASCAP) (adm. By Word Music, LLC)

Lemonade
by Chris Rice

So go ahead and ask her
For happy ever after
‘Cause nobody knows what’s coming
So why not take a chance on loving
Come on, pour the glass and tempt me
Either half-full or half-empty
‘Cause if it all comes down to flavor
The glass is tipping in my favor

Life gave me lemonade and I can’t imagine why
Born on a sunny day, beneath a tangerine sky
I live life without pretending
I’m a sucker for happy endings
Thanks for the lemonade
Thanks for the lemonade!

Now take your time to answer me
For the beauty of romancing
Is to calm your trembling hand with mine
While begging love to fill your eyes
I can hardly breathe while waiting
To find out what your heart is saying
And as we’re swirling in this flavor
The world is tilting in our favor

Life gave me lemonade and I can’t imagine why
Born on a sunny day, beneath a tangerine sky
I live life without pretending
I’m a sucker for happy endings
Thanks for the lemonade
Thanks for the lemonade!

I’ve got it made
Rest in the shade
And hold my love
While God above
Stirs wiith a spoon
We share the moon
Smile at the bees
More sugar please
He really loves us after all
We’re gonna need another straw!
We’re gonna need another straw!

Life gave me lemonade and I can’t imagine why
Born on a sunny day, beneath a tangerine sky
I live life without pretending
I’m a sucker for happy endings
Thanks for the lemonade
Thanks for the lemonade!

Copyright 2004 Clumsy Fly Music (ASCAP) (adm. By Word Music, LLC)

A Classical Experience of a Lifetime

note: You may consider playing the video (at the bottom of the post) in the background while you read this post.

I'm very grateful to a very generous friend and his wife who gave me one of the best gifts I've ever received. The gift was season tickets to the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Although its 'just tickets,' my friend knew me well enough to know how much I would enjoy them. Its selfless generosity that truly magnifies the power of the gift...its not just the tickets, its the message communicated in the giving of the gift from the heart that makes its so special. I don't feel I can thank him enough.

To add to the value of the gift, it gave my wife and I an opportunity to do something we enjoy together that we could never afford to do on our own. (And we didn't have to fight kids to sit still through the concert.)

The musical experience was special to me because you can't match live music. Especially music with such complex textures and activity that you can only get from having so many instruments working together.

No matter how good your sound system is, you can't get sound waves to dance from a recording and speakers like they do in a live concert hall. You have each instrument creating its own sound waves from different positions in relation to your ears. You also have the sound waves bouncing off the ceiling and walls at different angles and distances. So the timing and stereo effect of each individual soundwave presents so much depth and detail to the listener. The pure, uncorrupted, and unmanipulated waves from each instrument mix together in organized timing and frequency--sometimes cancelling each other out and sometimes building on each other and complimenting each other. I can't express it well enough how incredible live Orchestra music is-- from a general entertainment perspective to a mental-scientific analysis perspective.

It was so relaxing and wonderful to be totally submersed in the sounds of the Orchestra. I also really enjoyed watching the different instruments and hearing what they truly sound like with all of their overtones and textures. I was amazed at the skill the musicians showed as they executed the pieces with seeming perfection.

If you ever have the opportunity to go to a live symphony, take it! And if you have people in your life that treat you like a king or queen, you will understand why this was such a special gift for me. Thank you, Rich and Ruth!

Note: I really like music surrounding the baroque era (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and others). One of my favorites is Mozart's Symphony no. 40. Although this is no where near live-quality sound, it gives you a little idea.

Finale Notepad

About five years ago I came across one of the best pieces of freeware ever in existance: Finale Notepad. Finale Notepad is from MakeMusic, Inc. who makes high class professional music-writing Finale brand software.

Finale Notepad 2008 allows you to make nice quality looking music by simply selecting the staff layout, the time signature, and key. Then you make your music by clicking on the staff where you want the notes, rests, lyrics, articulation, or whatever you want to include in your music. Here what the toolbar looks like:

You can also import midi files into the program to instantly create the sheet music. I haven't played with that feature much, but what dabbling I've done, took some editing to clean it up, but did a pretty good job.

You can also play back your composition and select different midi instruments with incredible sounding SmartMusic Midi codec (for lack of a better term) to play back different lines of music. This works great for people like me who can't play the piano in real time worth beans. Its also nice when you have multiple staffs to play all at the same time with different timing. Mix that with the different instruments and you can literally compose for an orchestra and hear what it will sound like..

Its amazing to think you could get better than Finale Notepad. If this powerful software is free, it makes me wonder what the $600 Finale software can do!

Free does have its price, though. You are limited to one key (no key changes mid-song). You are stuck with only the most common time signatures and a limited number of articulations. There are a few other limitation, but, quite frankly, I'm not knowledgable enough about writing music to know what's missing. Considering the price, those limitations are easy enough to work around.

Here's a sample of how nice the music looks:

The Real Group

Probably my most current favorite music group is The Real Group.

The Real Group is a five-member a capella group from Sweden. They do a lot of vocal jazz, which I love, as well as some very good, original, and creative contemporary music. Their well-trained voices blend really well, they have excellent technical execution (i.e. the way they use time, dynamics, and general vocal acrobatic ability), and they sound good live. Having experience with live performance vs. recording, I have a lot of respect for vocalists (especially a small vocal ensemble) who can sound as good live as they do recorded.

Here are some videos of The Real Group so you can get a taste. I hope you have the time to listen to some or all of the songs. (There's more on the net and on their website.)

[Unfortunately, Internet flash video quality sort of dilutes a little of the experience. To really appreciate good a cappella music (or any music for that matter) you need the full, crystal clear, frequency range to capture the fullness of the human voice with all of its overtones and depth. Often in recordings and playback equipment the lower frequencies are 'clipped' off leaving kind of a 'telephone' quality. So if you have the means, I recommend listening to them on a system that lets the bass through, otherwise you probably won't hear the bass or baritone. ]

Alright enough technical details. :-)



This is The Real Group's arrangement of the popular ABBA song, "Dancing Queen" featuring Frida from the original ABBA. I've been impressed with the bass vocalist, Anders Jalkéus, because he has a pure tone, bounces amazingly accurately between the notes without 'swooping' to the right note--he also doesn't do the 'growl' bass thing that a lot of contemporary bass vocalists do which makes them sound lower without having to use as much tone.



This song does a good job of illustrating the bass' ability to take big, clean jumps between notes. Although they are Swedish, they have a pretty good command of the English language and I find their English lyrics down to earth and often poetic. Although they all take part in writing and arranging songs, I think Anders Edenroth is on of the genre's most creative musicians. One of the challenges that I love to hear when its done right, crisp and clean, is dissonance. No other instrument can make dissonance sound as good as with the texture of the human voice. Its also a challenge to 'clash' with someone an hold your tone. But when its done with exactness, it creates an incredible sound...its like a whole new spectrum of tones pops into existence at that moment of dissonance. If you study sound wave characteristics, you can understand what I mean.



This song is simple, but has a beautiful feel to it. One thing that is actually very difficult in singing is singing the same note straight over long periods of time without slowly dropping the pitch. Its especially hard to make single notes maintain an energy over time. Breathing is also a very big challenge in a song like this...to hold steady and breath at strategic times so it doesn't disrupt the flow of the song. Then synchronize that with four others. Singing a unison note with multiple people can be almost as challenging a singing dissonance--multiple people matching the same pitch.



This is one my kids really like. I like it too--it's fun. I'm fascinated because the bass sings the lead at such a 'non-bass' level. The Real Group was popular in Korea and did a tour in Korea. Look at how the Korean translators translate "Perpetual Motion Thingamabob." In Korea, they don't have an 'f' sound (they replace it with a 'p' sound) in their language. Just goes to show how confusing English is. After serving my mission in Korea, it makes these Korean tour videos extra special to me.

Actually I learned some things about singing from the Korean language: English has so much slurring which tends to slow down the energy of singing, but Korean is crisp and clean; the consonants have a quick, solid attack and the vowels are an exact, pure tone. Listening to a native Korean speaking is very cool. I've tried to speak and sing English with more clarity when bouncing from consonant to consonant, but it still doesn't sound as clean as the Korean language.

What's You're Favorite Inspirational Song?

You'd think with only 12 notes in the common music scale (17 if you count the flats ) they'd run out unique songs by now. But still new songs keep popping up like dandelions on a freshly mowed lawn. Like panning for gold, every once in a while among the dirt and sand you find a bright and shiny song that holds a lot of personal value to you. The power of these inspirational songs is found in the intersection of personal knowledge/experience, lyrics, musical composition and performance.

With technology the way it is today, we've been lucky to purchase individual songs online to gather a nice collection of personally inspirational music. Below are a few nuggets of gold I've come across lately. I have a lot favorites, but here's one (sometmes two) for each day I'm gone so you can listen to one each day until I get back...or if you are in the mood and its quiet and peaceful and you want to sit back and just listen to some good lyrics and music, you can play them all:



Mark Schultz -- "Walking Her Home" I love songs that capture the eternal nature husband-wife relationships.



Mark Schultz -- "Everything To Me" The lyrics of this song beautifully capture the heroin-ism of choosing adoption when it's what is best for the child.




Ernie Haase & Signature Sound--"Then Came The Morning" This male Christian quartet has incredible blend and power in their singing (you have to if you're going to sing that high without leaving your chest voice.) Excellent voices. The music behind them is well-arranged and accents the feel of the song quite well. Generally, for me, this type of instrumentation detracts from the sacredness of the message, but this particular song, in a unique way, seems to fit well where the song and personal feelings merge. The music, lyrics, harmony, melody and power portrays the hope and happiness of the message.




Trace Atkins - "Arlington" One's selfless and willingness to sacrifice for the freedom of other's always inspires me. The first-person lyrics and the presentation of this song give me the chills when I listen to it.



Luther Vandross -- "Dance With My Father" The sincerity and love portrayed by Luther in this song/prayer is un-matched. Even 'remakes' can't match it.



Emerson Drive -- "Moments" The worth of souls is great! The lyrics are good, but the video adds something to the lyrics.

Pure Harmony From A Church Youth Trip

First of all I need to apologize to all the people who read my blog. The three of you probably looked at the site disappointed to see no new material over the last few days. We went to an annual family picnic over the weekend, but I am back now.

In high school, I was recruited as the last member of a four-guy a capella vocal group. One of my best friends was the bass for the group and he heard me sing to the radio on a church youth trip. We became Pure Harmony.

As Pure Harmony, we would harmonize on the bus as we travelled to Vocal Jazz contests. We sang for receptions and parties. We sang the national anthem for basketball games. We even sang for our High School graduation.

This same friend of mine introduced me to a new music-making life. He also introduced me to Vocal Jazz and Concert Choir all of which shaped my musical tastes tremendously. Our Vocal Jazz Choir often placed or came close to placing at Vocal Jazz contests.

Once at Especially For Youth (a Church Youth Conference), my friend, one of our mutual friends, a friend we met at the conference, and I sang at a talent show in front of a few hundred youth. We started out in unison, then as soon as we split into harmony, the crowd went wild. Hence my claim that I was able to sing in front of a crowd of screaming fans.

Those were the 'Glory Days!'

In all technical and musical terms, we were a step below amateurs, but it was still fun, provided a lot of good memories, and influenced me in many ways. In fact I considered becoming a music major in college.

All this because I went on a church youth trip and a friend motivated me to develop a seed of talent.