Reflections on writing worship music

So much worship music that is produced today contains virtually no lyrical content. Simplicity is the name of the game now, with cliched phrases like 'I live for You', 'You are my everything', 'I worship You', 'I praise You/Your Name', 'You are (my) God' cropping up constantly, multiple times in multiple songs. It is my opinion, reflecting on the history hymns and Christian music, that these frou-frou content-less worship songs will not last, and will have a legacy as long as their cd sales are maintained, and no longer.

Many worship songs now sound like they are written to provide a catchy hook-filled 3-minute piece of contemporary indie/rock music, to which the lyrics are just incidental, where the sum message of the whole song is something like 'yeah, we're all Christians and we think God is just really great'. Many Christians who have been at it longer than 5 or 10 years get very easily exasperated at worship music which is so clearly aimed at those whose level of immaturity means they can only relate to very primitive expressions of commitment. The hymns which last are those with a real and compelling message, not just 'yeah Jesus, yeah Jesus, yeah Jesus, Jesus yeah' repeated 18 times with drums and guitar riffs. Ok, I am being facetious, but you get my point.

The hymns from this generation which will last into the next, and maybe beyond, are 'Heart of Worship' and 'Blessed be Your Name' by Matt Redman, both of which have themes of pain and repentance expressed poetically, 'Here I am to worship' by Tim Hughes, which is a simple but beautiful piece of poetic reflection of the paradoxes contained within the story of the incarnation of Christ, and a response of worship to those mysteries. Arguably, Graham Kendrick is the greatest hymn writer of our time (certainly in the english-speaking world) with 'Shine Jesus Shine', Darlene Zschech with 'My Jesus My Saviour', and there are some others, but the one thing they have in common is that they labour over their lyrics. The songwords they write are crafted, pruned ruthlessly and shaped into something which is as good as they can get it. Craftmanship is missing among many worship writers today, and we must strive to get it back.

Charles Wesley is pretty much universally acknowledged as the greatest British hymn writer of all time, and I agree. They lyrics to 'And can it be' just blow me away with their multiple levels, their evangelistic edge, and their sheer originality. Look at verse 4 -

'Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light!
My chains fell off, my heart was free!
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee!'

Just typing in these lyrics, my eyes are welling up with tears. The imagery is incredible; and he is not taking this from the bible directly and just reshaping a passage of scripture (that i know of), he is telling a story, painting a picture with incredible creativity, and casting that imagination and imagery into poetry and song, so that anyone able to sing can participate in the vision. Reading the above verse, I imagine Charles sat in a dark dank prison cell, a dungeon, with shackles, manacles, chains around him, in a zombie-like near-death state. Christ enters the cell in line 3, and His eyes flash rays of flaming light which illuminate everything, break the chains binding Charles, and wake him from his stupor, setting him free in every way. In line 6 Charles follows Christ out from the dungeon into the open, as His disciple. These are lyrics which have lasted for 300+ years, and I have no doubt will continue to be among the most popular hymns in the world.

In this country, some Christians (me included) often feel that we have to choose between good music or good lyrics. If we want to sing worship songs with powerful words and compelling themes, we have to sing them in a dreary stone chapel to a centuries-out-of-date musical style and a pipe organ, and if we want to experience a style of music that is accessible to us, not alien and disconnected from our time and culture, we often have to endure 3 or 4 of the latest worship songs which no-one really knows, which have lyrics that make anyone with an academic mind (or mental age over 15) cringe to sing before we get to the occasional gem which has both lyrical content and enjoyable music. Why should worshipers be encouraged and uplifted only by the music, or only by the words? Why can't we have both? Some of the writers I mentioned above have managed both. A good example is 'In Christ Alone' by Townend and Getty, which is excellent in its lyrics and theology, and also frankly anthemic in its music.

If it works out that there is a way I can run my own personal music business one day, and if I decide to do some work in Christian music, it would be awesome to write something that is widely used and popular, with both content and musical relevance, because that is what we need in British church music, desperately.

An Interesting Article on Getting Signed in the UK

taken from http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onemusicdata/fameacademy/tips/noflash/deal.shtml

Getting a Record Deal

Sending demos to record companies is not a very good way of getting known. You'll end up in a huge pile of CDs on an A&R person's desk and it's very hard to stand out in those circumstances - however good your music is.

If you have a massive following, the industry will come to find out what all the fuss is about. Spend time making your music and live shows amazing rather than mucking about with demos.

Promote yourself properly. Make sure that everyone who's likely to come to a gig knows where and when you're playing, every time you play. Use mailing lists, email lists, local press, fliers and posters to promote your gigs.

A&R people don't turn up at gigs randomly, so there aren't really any places to play to be 'spotted'. Also you don't have to play London to get your name known. A&R people have contacts all over the country. If you're causing a stir, they will find out.

Don't just concentrate on record labels. There are lots of people like PR companies, lawyers, publishers and producers looking for new business. These people get a lot fewer, demos so yours will be in a much smaller pile.

Be patient - it normally take artists a couple of years at least to get to the stage where they're ready to sign. Spend some time learning to work as a group and developing your songs and performance before you divert time into trying to get signed.

Don't be too eager. The more desperate you are to get signed the more likely you are to sign a contract that's not right for you. Take your time and consider each offer carefully. Don't take something just because you haven't got anything else.

With underground styles like dance and hip-hop, labels look for tunes that are happening in the clubs. Consequently, you're better off ignoring the labels and getting your tunes straight to DJs.

A demo addressed to someone by name is much more likely to be opened quickly. Find the right labels by checking the sleeves of records you like. Call and get the name of the person who handles your kind of music.

Phone the person before you send any material. Then leave at least 10 days after sending the demo before you call again and see if they've got it. Give them some time to listen to your music and don't hassle them.

A&R people tend to hang on to promising demos and see what else is sent, so try and keep a steady flow of demos coming. A new recording every few months will keep your name up and show that you're still active on the scene.

Once you start sending out demos, make sure you keep your website up to date. If people like your demo, it's the first place they'll go to see what you're up to and maybe check when you're gigging.

Everyone at every level gets knocked back several times on the way to the top. Don't take this personally and don't be disheartened. One person's negative opinion doesn't mean that much. Keep at it!

A short but very, very funny post...

This made me laugh... had to copy and re-post it!

How to cope with Restless Legs Syndrome

This is a post I have put on the rls.org forum. Restless Legs Syndrome is where your whole body, and mind are tired and want to rest, but your legs alone are virtually shaking with adrenaline from wanting to be used. It is a widespread condition which affects hundreds of thousands of people, for which there is not a medical cure. It keeps people awake half the night when they are utterly exhausted, and so I thought I would post on their forum how I cope with it.

Hello all,

I recently joined this forum, because I have struggled with RLS for around 10 years now, and in this time have learned some coping mechanisms which actually work!

I am now 27, when i was 17 I first began getting restless legs at night occasionally. At age 22 I began putting on a little weight, and so at 23 I took up running to take control of my weight gain. Over several months I got to the stage where I was running 5 miles daily, which made me feel great and helped me lose weight, but also for the first time made my RLS into a daily ordeal.

Previously the issue only flared up now and again, but following taking up running, the issue became a nightly (and sometimes daily) problem. When I was 17-19 I would sometimes do a sprint to alleviate the irritation in my legs, or get on my family's exercise bike, put it on a very resistant setting and pedal as hard as I could until I could go no more, which would work sometimes too, but not every time.

When at 23 things became unbearable, and I was finding myself exhausted yet unable to sleep because of the problem, I decided to break down the issue into its component parts. I was tired physically and mentally, and ready to relax and sleep, but the muscles in my legs were not letting me. So what was the answer? I found that anti-histamines did not help, they made me even more groggy, but did not stop the muscles in my legs from wanting to be used constantly. Muscle relaxers just knocked me out, and that was just overwhelming drugged up sleep, not the natural rhythm of life which I want. My leg muscles were saying 'USE ME USE ME USE ME!' while nothing else in my body was. So I decided to try a few exercises which would use just those muscles so I could relax.

The most effective thing I have found for dealing with RLS is just completely burning out the muscles in my legs with very simple (and totally free!) exercises. The one I started with was as follows:-

Lock yourself in the bathroom, or somewhere you wont be looked at like a nutcase. Then, get on tiptoes, and keeping your back completely straight and upright, bend your knees a little, until you lower yourself to the point where you can feel the irritated muscles starting to burn a little. This can just be a small bend of the knees, or right down to a 90 degree angle knee-bend. Then just hold that position until your legs are totally burned out! It takes a little self-discipline, but if you do this exercise WHILE the RLS is irritating your legs, it is just so satisfying to obliterate that agitated feeling - its like scratching a really bad itch, and making it go away. I find that counting while I do it helps alot, initially I went to 30, and then after a while was up to 100. After so many years unable to defeat the irritation, this little squat exercise (if I held it for long enough) felt so satisfying. It felt like I was obliterating, annihilating the irritating monster in my legs. Often after this exercise my legs felt wobbly and light after releasing it, but it was SO SO SO worth it to have the RLS symptoms gone, and to be able to lie down with all of my body relaxed and ready to sleep, and my legs so burned out that they couldn't do anything to stop it.

This first exercise worked great for a while for me, but as it is an exercise which burns out leg muscles, it is therefore also an exercise which builds them too. So after a while you have to go lower and hold the squat for longer to get the same burn-out effect. I got to the stage with the first leg exercise where I was holding the squat very low and counting to 300, and still not being properly burned out, so I needed a new one. Also, I simply didnt have the patience to wait that long for relief.

The second exercise (which I now use exclusively) is the wall-sit. It involves holding my back against a study wall, with my upper legs horizontal infront of me, and my lower legs vertical to the floor, as if I am a human chair set against the wall. In this exercise my upper legs take the full strain of my body weight, and although it is much harder to do than the first squat exercise, it is infinitely more satisfying and destroys the RLS symptoms more effectively than anything else I have tried. To see a diagram of this exercise do a google image search for 'wall sit'.  I now count to over 100 seconds while doing this exercise, but it works, and I am very grateful.

I have also made adjustments to my lifestyle to cope with RLS. I dont run at all anymore, instead I walk 2 miles a day, and am much more focussed on diet to lose weight. I have to still take anti-histamine medication for my allergies, but have found that the wall-sit is enough to cope with any medication-provoked flare-ups. I keep a normal routine - bed at 11 and up at 8 every day, and I find that if I have excessive stress or constantly broken routines, that tends to make RLS flare up worse than usual, so taking life a bit easier than normal is also a massive help.

I would be glad to hear any thoughts or input :)

Jimmi

Is Jenna Maroney ( 30 Rock) based on Amy Poehler and Tammy Swanson (Parks and Recreation) based on Tina Fey Bossypants?

I just finished reading 'Bossypants' by Tina Fey, her 'autobiography/not really an autobiography/blandly humourous commentary on disconnected parts of her life/excessively political and feminist agenda'. It was actually quite a good, easy read, and at no point was I bored. I did also laugh out loud 2 or 3 times. She does (accidentally maybe) paint a sort-of mean spirited cut-throat picture of herself as someone who sold her soul to be a success, and also interestingly the book leaves out any detail of how she met, dated and married her husband, and almost any detail about how she transitioned from working at a reception desk at a YMCA in Chicago to being head writer at Saturday Night Live, which leaves the reader feeling slightly suspcious about these events which are so conspicuously absent from the book. The picture which the mind forms of Tina Fey from her writing is one of a very clever and funny, but ruthless and ambitous-to-a-fault lady, who you would not put it past to have committed shenanigans in attaining both hubby and job...

This highly judgemental theory I have come to, also helps with my theory that somewhere along the line, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler fell out, and that they are now maliciously parodying one another on their respective hit shows. In 30 Rock, Jenna Maroney is a blonde co-star/co-worker with Liz Lemon (Fey). In the fictional world of 30 Rock, Lemon and Maroney came up through a Chicago Improv Group (as did Fey and Poehler), before both joining the team of TGS (SNL in real life), one as a blonde star (Maroney/Poehler), and one as the writer (Lemon/Fey). At first I thought maybe this was just a coincidence, until I got caught up on Poehler's 'Parks and Recreation', which (is great and) is written and produced by the same guys who made the US version of The Office. I noticed that the demented psiren Tammy Swanson (ex-wife of the almighty moustachioed Ron) looks very like (uncannily like) Tina Fey, and is a cut-throat manipulator who will literally use anyone or anything and do anything to anyone or anything to get her way.

So are Tammi Swanson and Jenna Maroney actually malicious mockeries of one another being batted back and forth like a tennis ball by Fey and Poehler?
Are they actually a bit of best-friends-banter between two enlightened feminists who are having a laugh with one another?
Or am I just reading a whole load of nonsense into something which isnt actually there?
Probably.

Total Exhaustion Wipeout Collapse

You know when you've been working consistently under alot of pressure with very little let up? Ive been doing that since september. You know how sometimes when you've been going and going and going with work, and then you stop and start resting, you sometimes get sick? thats definitely happening to me now.

Ive gone from essay deadlines, exams, driving test, car purchase and the usual pressures and responsibilities of parenthood to the next 4 months (13 May - 13 Sept) of no deadlines, lectures or academic demands, and my body has realized this, waved a little white flag, and collapsed into repair mode. Ive spent the last few days deeling ill, dizzy, depressed and exhausted... its pretty lame. I kinda want to hibernate untill all this nasty-feeling-ness is gone.

Driving Test

Well, today is the 7th of May, and 2 days ago around this time I had just passed my driving test. It was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life. I was more nervous taking the test than I was on my wedding day, than I was on the night I proposed. It was awful. I couldn't sleep the night before, I ended up taking antihistamines to knock myself out so I would actually get a few hours before my 730 pickup outside the college! I spent the entire day before (the 4th) just filling my time with as many different activities as I could come up with to distract myself from being nervous about the test. I have driven a manual car for 3 years no problems at all in the states, and so have a considerable headstart on most learners, but I knew how easy it is to make the 1 'major' fault it takes to completely disqualify myself in the test. The examiner was a small balding bearded round Sheffield-type bloke with a very strong accent who looked like a slightly squashed John Peel. He was nice enough though.

I took the test in Buxton, and passed with only 5 out of a possible 15 minor faults. After the test, Simon my BSM driving instructor dropped me off in Sheffield, where I did a little shopping, then hopped on a train to Stockport and bought a car. We got a 2002 Kia Rio Sedan (automatic - so Sydney can drive it once she passes her test), which is in great nick, has A/C, a cd player an iPod hook up, 44,000 miles on the clock, gets around 37 miles to the gallon, and is easily spacious enough for the three of us and all our stuff for when we go on holiday, or to visit the family back in the North East. All in all, an excellent deal, and a blessing I am thankful for.

Now I can start gigging again, I can get a decent part time job, we can go get groceries whenever we need them (oh luxury!) and we can actually explore the beautiful part of the country we live in. One is thoroughly pleased, what what.