it’s free music time of year.
mr. munoz & i have 3 songs for you to toss into your christmas playlist.
i hope you enjoy them.
last year my friend luke mundy suggested that we make a christmas ep to give away on our blogs.
it was a little last minute, but we decided to go for it and i am very glad that we did.
we had a wonderful time getting it done for the 2008 christmas season.
this year the tradition continues with the Noel ep.
4 songs, free to you, that you might be reminded of the precious gift we received from God, who sent His only begotten Son to live, die and rise again.
all for us.
not enough gets given away for free these days, so Noel (along with the With Us EP) are available at no cost, no spam and no strings attached.
many thanks to sean munoz for partnering with me on this year’s project. his creativity, musicality and friendship made the process tons of fun, while also helping me learn some things along the way.
sean and i hope you enjoy the songs and, most importantly, we hope that they remind you of Jesus.
blessings and merry christmas!
click to download the Noel ep
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6972920[/vimeo]
say hi to baby p.
he’s happy to meet you.
hi there.
got a new song for you friendlies out there. had this one in my notebook for a long time now, but finally worked out the last verse…so draft 1.5 is officially done! definitely have some areas that i’d like to change musically, but that’s what a worktape is for don’tcha know!
i figured it’s easier to listen to something with some video to watch simultaneously. so with that in mind (combined with the huge popularity of google street view) this morning i recorded the drive we take from home to church each day.
hope you enjoy the sights of hanford.
lyrics below.
blessings and maranatha.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6520388[/vimeo]
SING GLORY
You made the sky and wrapped it around us
Divided the night to give us the morning
You fashioned the light to fall down that we might see
You chiseled the earth to give us the mountains
You planted and grew a beautiful garden
You filled us with life and spoke to us face to face
Sing glory
Sing glory
The Lord is glorious
You gave the ark to rise in the flood
You gave the ram in place of the son
You sent a man to lead Your people free
You humbled the kings and guided their moving
You sent holy feet to tell of Your coming
You spoke from Your place in songs and words and dreams
Sing glory
Sing glory
The Lord is glorious
You came to earth and traveled among us
You wept and You laughed and showed us Your goodness
You healed and You blessed, You touched and You fed and You breathed
You suffered and died to give us salvation
You sent Your hope to every nation
You redeem souls from death for eternity
Sing mercy
Sing mercy
The Lord is glorious
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if you’re a blog long enough you start getting email requests from marketing companies to talk about books or music on your site. it’s an effort to get stuff out there to we oh-so-influential blog-readers.
usually i ignore these emails, but today i decided i’d give the Desert Music Group a fair shot and listen to the mp3 they sent me to review.
the song is called To Know Your Heart by an artist named Brent Anderson.
have a listen:
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on the lyrical end, the song has a very psalmy feel. in an era when it’s much more popular to focus on the “i’m depressed and don’t know what’s going on in the world” psalms, it’s nice to hear a song that’s more in the tradition of the “i love God and i’m going to extol His greatness” psalms. that said, the lyrics are very familiar in the sense that they are a bit predictable. on the good side, a congregation might pick this song up fast, on the other side…we’ve heard this before. but that’s not, in and of itself, a bad thing.
musically the song is basic, which is often times to be desired for corporate worship songs of a certain genre. there is, however, an interesting unnatural chord about a third of the way into the song that made my ears prick up.
i like the piano hook at the beginning, as well as how the verses are a back-and-forth between two chords, but then build into a more developed progression during the chorus.
on the production end, the song has what i like to call a very ‘maranatha music’ feel. the strings are a bit too unrealistic for me. but, then again, i personally think that if you’re not going to give me convincing fake strings, just switch to a synth pad or something. the very cheap, almost plastic sounding strings on this song make me think of somebody jamming on a korg keyboard with lots of bright green and yellow buttons on the top. just my opinion.
the vocals are a bit too disjointed for me. by that i mean, the lead vocal and the choir vocals are a bit too out-of-sync. i understand the idea, but it just becomes distracting due, in part, to the production value.
otherwise, the track is generally lush and has a few good ideas throughout.
so, if i was to grade this song, i think i’d give it a qualified B-. the song itself may not be in the genre i prefer, but it is pretty good at what it does (if that makes sense).
you’ve listened…what do you think?
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last week i set out last week to write a song that was reminiscent of the Jesus Movement style music that i grew up hearing. not always the best way to write music, but i don’t think it’s always bad necessarily.
songs like ‘i love You Lord’, ‘sanctuary’, ‘psalm 5′ and ‘come let us worship and bow down’ were a staple in my upbringing. i loved singing them as a little guy and i still love singing them today.
the beautiful thing about these songs is their ability to convey incredibly powerful and intimate thoughts about the Lord with only a few words. that was my goal with Glory Hallelujah.
threw this worktape together in a flash, but felt like sharing it with you. hope it’s a blessing and would love to hear some feedback.
sorry, podpress is broken.
as always, feel free to listen, download or whatever.
have a nice day
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i like playing guitar. i bet you do too.
unfortunately, we all plateau in our abilities. it’s a drag, but it’s the nature of the beast.
if we don’t keep stretching ourselves with challenging practice we’re not only going to stop getting better, but i notice we actually get more sloppy at our musicianship.
we don’t want that.
one of the things that always helps me to get climbing again is studying more chord variations.
there are lots of programs and websites out there that can help you with that, so hit google.
or, you can hang out here and get chord-variation sheets as i produce them.
25 variations per sheet.
happy practicing!
–
so, since we’ve officially left Montana it seems to me that Montananza has ended. now, we journey home by way of yellowstone national park. and NATIONAL IT WAS!
but, before today’s update i have to tell you about something AMAZING we both forgot to report on from yesterday.
before church we moseyed into the continental breakfast at the best western for a quick bite. there were a few other people filtering in and out. the continental breakfast was exactly what it always is…some soft-bruised fruit, 2 kinds of cereal (since one is bran based the other must be what? rice based. of course.), slightly-cooler-than-room-temperature milk and the gnarly waffle maker you use yourself. you know the kind (at least if you ever ate in a cafeteria), the batter sits in the little wax-paper cups, you pour it in and flip the grill, wait 2:40 and then DING! you have one half-burnt, half-goo waffle, because after all your batter separated into 2 parts in the cup…the first part is the flour-based meatiness of the future-waffle, and the second is the botulized egg/dust/fly corpses that sits on top.
then, as we are eating, some montanans come in and one of them braves the waffler. after the not-so-pleasant ding they open up the machine and look at their somewhat golden brown waffle, waiting to be eaten. one of them remarks, “ooh that looks nice.” to which the maker of the waffle says, “of course it does…this is montana…YOU AIN’T IN SAN FRANCISCO!”
what does that mean? what does that mean? can someone please tell me?
aside from that…i ate in the fpu cafeteria for 4 years. 4 years. and i’d rather die than eat one of those waffles. the manufacturer was the same as the one we had there. and…i mean…come on. i would rather never eat again than have to eat 1 half of 1 half of one waffle off that machine.
but come on…what does that mean? or did they close down all the 5 star restaurants in one of the most metropolitan, world-renown cities in the world?
but that was yesterday…this is today:
montana gave us an offering of rain this morning, which i didn’t mind at all. plus, the defaced subaru has seat warmers and a rear window wiper…so we were living high on the hog today.
rain gave way to this:
lots of driving and lots of wild. yellowstone did not disappoint (though, try as i might i could not find any yellow stones…but that’s ok for the following reasons…).
we drove down the east side of the park from the northern entrance (not the old faithful side, the other side). we were impressed at how often the terrain and feel of the park changes. but yeah, for my first time it was really fun…especially because of these guys:
yeah…we were about 10 yards away from this herd while we watched them roll in the dirt…scamper around…and threaten to walk into the road, stopping traffic indefinitely. I LOVED IT! was definitely the high point of the day for me. there are few things i enjoy more than big, woolen land animals meandering around the countryside.
we stopped at the roosevelt lodge for lunch…which was good. drove, drove, drove, saw some sulfur pits that were bubbling with anger and boiling water (smelled like home), drove, drove, drove, then suddenly saw a TON of people stopping quickly on the side of the road just outside the park. everyone was just staring into a field…so we stopped…and after a few minutes here’s what we saw:
that is a picture of 4 grizzly bears, a mama and her 3 cubs. it was amazing. they moved so fast (and quietly really) and were SO large. we loved it. i was a little sad that nearly 100 people were there, probably freaking our teddily friends out, but it was super rad nonetheless.
so yeah…great day. 12 hours of driving and some really neat wildlife. some other stuff happened, but i’ll leave that for kelly’s post.
time to turn in…another 12 hours of driving tomorrow, then home wednesday. the trip is far from over, but farewell montana. sorry you hated our car so much.
i leave you with this, one of our neighbors at the hotel tonight.
this guy is ready for something. i just wish i knew what it was.
blessings.
thanks for visiting
© 2012. Jesus Is Extravagant
