Sunday Summary – Music: Feb 8, 2009

This past Sunday was great, at least for me…

It was a Married Life Live weekend in the West Auditorium, meaning I got to hang out Friday, Saturday and Sunday and play great music with great friends, who happen to be incredible musicians…

Talk about a treat!

Are we exhausted? Sure.

Worth it? You betcha!

And we had a great time on Sunday morning, as well. It was relatively straight forward, musically speaking, with a little twist at the end.

For worship we brought back a new song introduced a few weeks ago – “Let God Arise”. This is a newer Tomlin tune that might be old hat for some of you, but we just introduced it this year. I actually like it – it’s kinda fun, and real easy to grab hold of. But don’t be afraid to make it rock!!

After that we transitioned into Blessed Be Your Name, the Matt Redman tune. We wanted something older that was real familiar and also supported our current “Balanced” sermon series. We don’t normally program worship to go with a sermon, but in this instance it worked.

We also pepped it up a bit last year, doing it at 120 bpm with a pretty driving loop, almost verging on a dance or techno vibe. That helped it go seamlessly from the high energy of the first song.

We ended the set with a new song, “Everything” by Tim Hughes. I won’t lie, this might be my new fave… And no, not just because it’s piano-driven

I spent a couple hours last week programming the strings on it, so got deeply imbeded into my brain. So that might have had something to do with it…

But the chords are simple yet tasty, and the melody of the verse and chorus is super easy, which always makes for a good tune for the crowd to pick up on quick.

The only downfall, I’d say, are the 1 million different verbs in the verses. That’s a lot of lyric to remember! Weeping, crying, laughing, waking, walking, gnashing, screaming, running, falling, slapping, whimpering, typing, watching, driving, voting, procrastinating….

We then brought it back in a shortened form as the closer, but only doing 1 verse and the out choruses, and in a more mellow tone – taking out the loop and tambourine, and having the band keep a more meditative, contemplative groove.

We’ll definitely be bringing that one back!

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East Band – Kristian Stanfill, Alex Nifong, Danny Grady, Joe Thibodeau, Chris Arias, Brad Gage, Rosie Pinkerman

West Band – Mike Gleason, Steve Thomason, Daryl Lecroy, Pat Malone, Ashley Appling, Chrystina Fincher, and me!

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Here’s East at the 12:45 service:

What’s YOUR favorite new song?

Sunday Summary – Music: January 25, 2009

Hold On Loosely…

It’s probably happened to most of us at some point. Something we had planned for a while, or had worked really hard on, or were at least really looking forward to got yanked at the last minute.

When I first started working at North Point over 5 years ago, I had something I had worked real hard on get pulled at the last minute. It was probably some music for a title package or programming for a song, or at least something I had put time, effort and care into. Needless to say, I was frustrated. REALLY frustrated.

My boss at the time, Bill DeLoach, calmed me down and let me know something real important about “Creative Survival”. He talked about how, even though the Service programming we do is a big ship, we still need to be able to turn on a dime. That means being flexible and seeing the big picture, right up to the last moment. He taught me about having thick skin and an open mind to critique and other’s opinions. And that there will often be times when we have to give up our work for the better good.

Is that tough to do for a creative person? You betcha.

But here’s what I’ve learned, and continue to learn, day after day, project after project, service after service… Having thick skin is NOT to be calloused and jaded, but rather to understand that an other’s opinion of your work relates to how appropriate your creation is to their overall vision. Their opinion of your work is NOT their opinion of your personality or of you as a person.

It’s tough though, isn’t it, to separate who you are and what you create?

Just look at it this way – people who write bad songs can still be great spouses and parents. And people who write great songs can be horrible spouses and parents.

The greatest band director I ever had was the (Grammy nominated) Jeff Kirk, who directed the Jazz Stage Band and Jazz Combo 1 at Belmont University, both of which I had the privilege of being in for 3 of my 4 years at Belmont. (Man, there’s nothing more inspiring than being the worst member of an incredible band to get you to the practice room!!)

At the beginning of each semester, Jeff would tell the group that when (yeah, not if – when…) you played something wrong or bad, that he would call you on it. And when he did, that it was not a slam on your character or personality, or his dislike of you as a person, but rather a poor choice of notes on your part, and to choose better next time. But if you kept playing those poor choices over and over, then we’d have to talk privately about your character and personality…

And what about an open mind to critique and opinion? Well, first off, an open mind usually means having a closed mouth. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about… It’s having a filter on all the stuff that runs through your head…

Then it means listening. Listening to why that creation of yours isn’t right or the project, or why that song needs to be cut. Perhaps you just didn’t interpret their request properly, or (worse yet) spend too much time investing in something without demoing a rough cut to see if it’s headed in the right direction. Perhaps you need to take a bigger look at a service as a whole, and realize that after revisiting the plan, some things simply don’t fit.

And then, after time, you learn to anticipate what works and what doesn’t.

- How much time and effort is appropriate on a creative project before a trusted opinion is needed to see if it’s heading in the right direction?

- Who offers valued, useful critique that you can build on versus who is naive on the subject? No offense to parents, spouses or co-workers in another Division, but who is knowledgeable enough to tell you if something is actually good or not?

- “See if this is working” goes a long way compared to “I’m done – here you go…”

- Anticipate the level of quality expected. Someone worth their weight will not accept sub-level creative work from you. When you keep refining and reach a level they’re happy with, you’ll know what to deliver first the next time…

These apply whether you’re playing an instrument, singing a song, composing a score, writing a script, acting in a play, painting a picture, or pretty much anything!

Except your taxes. You want to do those right the first time. Trust me, I know from experience….

(OK, long story short, one year my wife and I had 19 different 1099′s and I didn’t know anything about Schedule C or Form SC at the time when I filed. And yes, it is scary when the IRS contacts you.)

So there you go.

Go forth, create with all your heart and soul, but hold on loosely….

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Anyhoo…..

I dove into all that to set up what we did – and didn’t do – this past Sunday.

The plan was to have Andy at Browns Bridge and we at North Point would get the buffered feed. Meaning we had time to do more content at the top of the service.

But we already had an opener, announcements, 2 worship songs and baptism planned – so it was full!

And the opener was a doozy, at least for the electric guitars. One they had to wood shed for hours. Literally hours! Steve Thomason told me he stayed home to practice while his family went to Longhorn Steakhouse and he missed out on a “Flo’s Fillet”. Trust me – for Steve, that’s sacrifice!

But mid-day Wednesday, we got word that Andy wanted to be live at North Point on Sunday to share his Presidential Inauguration experiences, specifically his involvement with the Inaugural Prayer Service. Once we found that out, we all pushed for the video of the prayer to be shown, and he agreed, which was cool.

BUT!!!! That meant something had to go. And in the big picture of things, it was the opener that got the axe.

So you can imagine me texting all the East band guys (especially the guitarists) 2 hours before rehearsal and telling them that the opener got cut.

Were they bummed? Oh yeah. Big time.

But, in the long run, it was obviously the right thing to do.

Oh, and here’s the kicker: The opener was moved to this upcoming week, with a whole different set of musicians having to learn it!

Hah!!

Different singers, different band, you name it. Everyone except the bass player. I just think that’s kinda funny….

And no – I’m not going to tell you what it is. You’ll just have to wait and see…

WORSHIP:

Let God Arise

This is a new(er) Tomlin tune, and we were able to rock it, big time. Actually turned out really good!!

Hands of the Healer

OK, thar she blows…

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East Band – Eddie Kirkland, Steve Thomason, Ben Snider, Earl South, Scott Meeder, John Carrozza, Jennifer Young

West Band – Ryan Stuart, Brad Long, Danny Howes, Wayne Viar, Richard Meeder, Mike Bielenberg, Rebecca Iraheta

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Sunday Summary – Music: December 7th, 2008

We were all over the map planning out this week. Stuff that we thought would work, and was working, got changed at the last minute for stuff that we eventually felt worked even better.

Kinda like a lot of situations: Trust your gut instinct, even after the plan is in motion. If there’s time to change it and it’s the right thing to do, then do it.

So what did we do/not do?

We had originally planned to do a version of “Do You Hear What I Hear” – it coincided with the introduction of the Christmas season, as well as tied into Andy’s wrap up of his “Listen and Learn” series. Makes sense?

But we wanted something different and original, so we put our thinking caps on…

The next day, I pitched a demo of a rewrite of the song. Our music team dug the new additional chorus I wrote, but we all agreed the verses needed some more work, and maybe a different direction (I agreed too!). Todd got the “see what you come up with” assignment, and after a few ideas and some more input from Eddie and I, we had a working concept. Todd’s new verses, my original chorus, and a collaboration of arrangement and form.

So we brought in Ashley Appling and Pat Malone – two of our creative stalwarts – to join Todd, Eddie and I and record a full band demo on the Wednesday morning, to later be learned by an entirely different group of guys that night at rehearsal. Last minute? Yes. Impossible? Nope.

So we were feeling good, right?

Well, an hour later Eddie saw the “Lanny 10B4″ video, which was really funny, but (accidentally) directly referenced that someone was going to be coming on stage in a minute to more clearly explain what he had comedically confused…

So that meant that Lanny did a funny video that set up Andy, but that we were going to try and squeeze a Coldplay/U2 type epic rock tune that was a tie in to Christmas and the message series before Andy actually came up, and so he was going to have to end up explaining the tune, and then reference back to the Lanny schtick from 6 minutes ago.

Yeah, confusing is right!

AND we were cutting a worship tune to do the opening tune, too.

We talked it through, and agreed that cutting the “Do You Hear?” opener was the right thing to do, and that would give Andy the chance to reference Lanny, and we’d do 3 worship tunes.

Plus, we already had a closer to do that wrapped up Andy’s message and series.

But I was bummed. The “Do You Hear?” tune we worked on seemed like it was all for not. UNTIL, in the same conversation, we realized that this upcoming week, Dec 14th, we are planning to do a few pre-service Christmas tunes, WITH Ashley, Pat, Todd and I, and that it would be a great spot to do the tune without having to teach it to a new group of musicians.

You know, that whole “when God closes a door, He opens a window” thing…

So that’s a little story for you on how, even a few hours before Wednesday night rehearsal, and after all the pre-planning and technical meetings, a service can change.

SO….. What DID we do this Sunday after the dust had cleared?

WORSHIP:

All Creation Sing (Joy To The World)

**This is an arrangement that Steve Fee wrote years ago, but finally was able to record it with the rest of the Fee boys and Jason Hoard and release as a single – and it’s now available on iTunes, and will be available on North Point Music in the next few days (including Multitracks, Accompaniment tracks, charts, etc…)

All Because of Jesus

Glorious One

CLOSER:

Revelation by Third Day

We took some musical liberties on this one and kept the chords from Chorus 1 and played them in all the choruses and even the outro. Those chords and vocal harmonies were too cool to do just once

East Band: Mike Gleason, Todd Fields, Steve Thomason, Joe Lee, Richard Meeder, Jared Hamilton, Rachael Gillis

West Band: Steve Fee, Matt Adkins, Heath Baltzglier, Brandon Coker, and honorary “Fee” member for the day Chris Arias

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What have YOU changed lately because it was the “right thing to do”?

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Sunday Summary – October 19, 2008

Not every week is awesome. That’s just something you have to realize.

I think it really happens when you have an average week after a few “better than average” weeks.

And that’s where we found ourselves this week. Nothing bad about it – just, well, average, I guess.

I think it was tough to get into worship the way we had the service designed. We wrapped up Jeff Henderson’s “Illusions” series, and started off by having Earl South – one of our bass players who is also a professional magician – actually do some illusions on stage as the welcome segment.

Earl was fantastic – I mean REALLY good! He’s always doing card tricks and slight of hand stuff for us in the Green Room, so it was cool to see him doing it on a big stage in front of a big crowd.

I think the problem ended up being that the audience was in “watching magic” mode, which made the transition to participatory worship rather jarring.

And then we only did two songs, so by the time their worship blood was flowing, they were being asked to have a seat.

Now we did bring back the tune we used as a closer last week, and the crowd picked up on it real fast – and I think it might be my new favorite tune – Lead Me To The Cross.

We did, however, come out of the message into a worship “response” closer – Jesus Paid It All. And that was cool, and the folks sang, but I think overall I was missing something from the service overall.

OK – maybe it was better than I’m making it out to be. After all, I think I was in an altered state: Our family had had a big weekend with some late nights and little sleep, I’m still fighting a sinus deal, and by Sunday Jennie had caught a stomach bug and was at home puking her guts out, Ella had a fever, and Cooper was being a one year old…

So my family was at home and needed me, but I couldn’t be there because I needed to stay and do some freelance work later in the day.

So if you were attending this past Sunday, you be the judge…

But I thought our Worship Leaders – Chrystina Fincher and Mike Gleason – did a great job.

A few pics from the East…

Oh!!! Also, we launched the Spanish Service this week in it’s permanent home, the KidStuf Theater. They got a big black scrim (fancy word for curtain) to block the KidStuf set, making it a very versatile room for crowds up to about 500 people. With the current attendance of about 250 people, it’s far more comfy than in the giant West Auditorium.

We’re also using North Point Multitracks for the music – full band tracks routed to 8 separate outputs for full mixing capability on the Front of House console.

We’re using a live Worship Leader and background vocalist. It was actually a really cool experience!

Some Spanish Service shots (sorry for the glare)

Laptop running the Multitracks via Pro Tools…

Seth Condrey, Rosie (Iraheta) Pinkerman…

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East Band – Chrystina Fincher, Steve Thomason, Matt Melton, Scott Meeder, Richard Meeder, Chris Arias, Rachael Gillis

West Band – Mike Gleason, Danny Howes, Danny Grady, Brad Gage, Doug “Slug” Mitchell, Bill DeLoach, Rosie Pinkerman

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What did YOU do this week?

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Sunday Summary – Music: October 12, 2008

Ahhh, what a day.

These are the Sundays that make it just a little more fun than usual.

Jeff Henderson, the Campus Pastor (lead dude) for our Buckhead Church campus did a 2-part series last year called “Illusions”. It’s about how God wants the real you, not the facade you’ve created.

Anyhoo, we’re doing the same series and content here this past week, and concluding week. Too bad it’s just 2 weeks, ’cause Jeff is an amazing communicator and this is a great series!

The whole day was a musical extravaganza. Jeff only speaks about 30 minutes or so, and with no baptism this week, we were able to program lots more content.

It started out 6 minutes before the service with a traditional string quartet playing some Romantic-era classical music – kinda moody, certainly interesting. It was some stuff from a “Wedding Music for Quartets” type book, so it wasn’t too weird – but just weird enough

It really set a cool mood in the room (that would soon be shattered!).

They then transitioned into an extended, custom written intro of a son called “Ladies and Gentlemen” by Saliva.

And that’s when things get interesting

Within a split second it goes from string quartet to what is probably the heaviest rock tune we’ve ever done. We’re talking borderline Metallica. And with one of the greatest light shows this place has ever seen. BIG props to Randy Parker for programming that one!

Big Snow and Moxie running around stage, Les Paul’s with more humbuckers than that stage has ever had, and an epileptic’s nightmare light show. So yeah, big opener.

Needless to say, that transitioned seamlessly into worship Actually, Snow did a great job of keeping the energy in the room and flowing it into the energy of worship, so that was cool.

And yeah, worship was fine (although a little deer-in-the-headlights after the opener).

- God Is Alive

- Hands of the Healer

But the highlight of the day was the wrap-up and closer: Jeff did an incredible job setting up a rarity around here – an alter call!

It was actually a great invitation for folks who are tired of pretending to people they are not, and for them to surrender their true selves to Christ.

We did Hillsong’s “Lead Me To The Cross”, which ended up being the perfect tune. Lyrically it was spot on, and we gave it a bit more of an acoustic/broken-down feel. Not so gargantuan, which was really appropriate for the moment.

And the unexpected happened as hundreds of people filled the altar and all down the aisles at each service. WOW!! We did not expect that! I though, maybe 20 or 30 max, which will still feel puny in our big auditoriums. But obviously once in a while God likes doing things different than our little minds give Him credit for…

Well, here are some pics:

West:

East Band – Michael Gleason, Steve Thomason, Brad Long, Scott Meeder, Earl South, Keith Thomas, Candi Pearson Shelton, Big Snow, Moxie Davis, Classy Chick String Quartet

West Band – Todd Fields, Danny Grady, Pat Malone, Ashley Appling, Ryan Stuart, Trammell Starks

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Which of your expectations did God blow away lately?

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