Tried a "full band" version of Forever Faithful at youth on Wednesday night. I liked it okay. Felt like there was some strength in it, but I think I'll end up cutting the bridge.

On the way home from rehearsal tonight, I actually wondered if I could somehow use those bridge lines in the recurring post-chorus progression (riff.)

Not sure...need to try it with my guitar.

Tracking...finally!

Just wanted to pass some info to those of you who follow this site. At the end of May, I'll be tracking three tunes with my pals Blake Stewart, Adam Fischer and Justin Romack.

I'll probably be blogging/vlogging/journaling the process over at Todd Blog, but the basic run-down is this.

1. I'll track scratch vocals/guitar w/ click in Garage Band and get those to Blake (engineer) as well as Romack (drums) and Adam (guitars.) I'll send some arrangement notes and then those guys will stay either remembering or coming up with parts.
2. I head down to Lufkin for a few days. Romack will track drums, then Adam on guitars the next day. At this point, Adam will also do the bass tracks. Later on, I'll do final guitars and vocals.
3. If I'm pleased with the outcome, I'm still not totally sure how to promote/distribute/create buzz around the tunes. We'll see.

Songs are:
AND HIGHER
FOREVER FAITHFUL
WAITING FOR ME

The New Record

For you RSS folks, this post will appear here as well as over at toddblog. Please forgive the double-posting.

Over the past few months, a few folks have asked me about recording a new record. No large outcry by any means, but rest assured I have been thinking a lot about a new album how to go about it. Here are some of my thoughts about the process.

SONGS: Plain and simple...I just don't have enough songs for a new record. I've got four or five that I feel pretty confident about, but the rest of them are either unfinished or just don't measure up yet. I also had been working under the assumption that when I went back to track a new record I would do as many "new" songs as possible. In this case, I'm using "new" to describe songs that I have yet to use congregationally. While this is great for creativity and excitement and even marketing, the plain truth is that worship songs need to be sung. I need to get these songs in front of people...to adjust them and arrange them...heck, even rewrite them if need be! Of course, since teaching new songs to a congregation is already a tricky process, it might take me awhile to unveil these tunes and see how they go over.

CULTURE CREATION: I have this dream of doing something way different with the next record. I think we can all agree that music is going through some significant changes these days. Online distribution, pay-what-you-want and DIY attitude are creating both opportunities and obstacles for new music creation. I'd love to this next record as a non-record. In fact, I have this dream of dedicating my time to tracking tunes under-the-radar and then unveiling them in some sort of subscription system - this would essentially be taking a "TV" approach to music creation. I create a larger body of work and then ask folks to invest in some way (payment, sign-up, referalls, etc.) in an effort to receive these songs in some sort of subscription format. The challenges here are numerous. Trying to track a large body of work like this would probably require a song-by-song recording process which would be difficult to pull off in a given studio. Grassroots marketing is a fickle field at best, and I'm not quite sure I could garner the sort of "tribe" following needed to create some sort of sub-culture allure.

There's a chance I could utlize my SongDiscovery community blog to maintain a song catalog, but I'd also have to find another way to make songs available for non-SD folks.

MONEY: Raising money for a record doesn't concern me all that much. I feel pretty confident that I could raise enough funding for a record...I'm just not sure that I want to right now. Fundraising takes time and energy, and I barely enough of those two for everyday life!

For those of you who pray for my ministry, pray that I'll be wise and creative and a good steward of God's gifts. If you've got ideas (no matter how crazy) on how the next record can do something different in it's approach or application, feel free to share in the comment box!

I can't believe it! I finished "Forever Faithful." I wrote a third verse and a bridge...I sent the tune off to a pal to work up some riff options for me, but overall, I think the tune is done.

I actually had to put the song into an upcoming setlist so it would force me to finish the song. Haven't spent much time writing as of late...still working my country ideas and a couple of worship things.

I have been getting lots of good feedback lately...folks at church digging my tunes, buying them from iTunes and even a worship leader in Texas who found my email to ask for more charts! Yeah!

Busy time, but hopefully I can work some more writing soon.

MORE SONGS

Developments:

1. Sort of "rediscovered" an old song of mine called At The Name Of Jesus. Thinking about writing a second verse for it...I have an old demo and I've had a few people actually use the song in worship. I'm worried that it's a bit too random lyrically.
   
   
2. I'm going to go ahead and finish Forever Faithful. I've decided to schedule it for worship in February as a way of forcing me to finish it. It needs a third verse and I would LOVE to write an amazing bridge section. I'll probably wait on the bridge, get the tune into worship as quick as I can and wait and see if a bridge develops at some point.
   
   
3. If you check the "songs in process" section to the right, you can see a few song ideas I'm developing. In addition to that, I've decided to try to focus Figure You Out and Counting Every Blessing as more CCM tunes.
   
   
4. The SongDISCovery deal with The Cross Of Christ has been fun. I've seen a slight increase in traffic to my Worship Leader webpage, but seeing other progress is probably still a way off. There's a CCLI payoff in February, but there's no chance that the magazine would effect that yet...if anything, I'll start seeing more activity in the August payout. Might possibly see a spike in iTunes over the next few months, but that will be awhile.
   

IF I HAD TO PICK

Thought it might be interesting to look at the songlist and ask myself which songs I'd pick if I had to make the EP tomorrow.

Of course, this forced me to look at my finished tunes. (In addition, I realized that if I was actually making the record now, I know I'd be able to finish the tunes tonight!)

Here's what I'd pick if it was time to start tracking....

1. AND HIGHER (D)
2. GIVEN TO ME (G)
3. MY SAVIOR (A)
4. WAITING FOR ME (F)
5. FOREVER FAITHFUL (G)
6. ONLY LAMB (E)

I feel the strongest about these - they're the most memorable/hookiest, I have the most arrangement/production ideas about these, and I think they've got the most congregational appeal.

WHERE WE ARE

So far, I've had two very good conversations about taking on a new project.

Conversation #1 - Ross Strader, Senior Pastor

My conversation with my boss was a good one. He had some great questions - mostly about cost, planning, turnaround on a finished product. These were great questions for me to think through and it gave Ross S. a chance to get a handle on what I'm suggesting.

Ross had some great things to say about fundraising...it put my mind at ease regarding trying to save enough money to do a record or EP or whatever this thing will end up being. Now, it's not like somebody's gonna' write me a giant check or anything, but I do feel a sense of peace about rounding up funds to make this happen.

Conversation #2 - Ross King, Producer

My second conversation was with Ross King, my friend and the guy who produced "All The Freed." I had emailed Ross K. a few days ago with some logistic questions and he was very gracious to call me back as soon as he could.

At this point, there are still many things "up in the air."

1. First off, how "good" do we make it? Do we approach this smaller-type of project in the same way we would do a full-length album? Do we have it professionally mastered? What sort of players do we use? Hired guns? Friends who work cheap? These may seem like silly questions, but for a record that will probably be an online release, I'm not sure how much investment it needs? Ross had great thoughts here. It was basically one thought: people deserve quality. Do it up right.
   
2. Secondly, is it too soon? In February, "All The Freed" will be one year old. Not many artists are back in the studio after one year. With a song coming out on SongDiscovery in January, is it foolish to start a new project when the first one might actually pick up in sales and exposure? The reality is that I probably wouldn't start this for another 4 or 5 months...which would probably put us close to the 2yr. period between albums, which tends to be pretty normal.
   
3. Third, how many songs? If I'm able to raise the money (and I think that would be pretty easy) how many songs do you put on an EP? And if it's more than 5, would I just want to go ahead and do a full album's worth of material? Ross also said to leave room for new songs...on the off-chance that I write one during the recording process...the number of songs is still perplexing me a bit. As an additonal question, I wonder what an EP does to overall workflow...if I make half-an-album, would it be hard to wait a long while before a full-length? Would it be better just to wait...raise money and do it full-length?

These are some of the things running through my head. If you look at the songlist to the right, you'll see a lot of unfinished stuff. So that's a real priority right now...get a pool of songs good to go.