http://philaud.com/index.php The blog of Phil Aud en phil_aud@mac.com Copyright 2010 2010-07-26T19:50:13-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/andrew_petersons_counting_stars/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/andrew_petersons_counting_stars/#When:18:50:13Z Some time back I was checking out the site of Todd Robbins (the guy who engineered my CD). I was checking out some projects he was working on and other’s that he had recently completed. While going through his site I stumbled upon an artist named Andrew Peterson. I’m sure many of you know of his music, but I had never heard of him. I purchased his “Appendix C” CD and was blown away by his writing. I search for artists who have an ability to move me with their storytelling and challenge me with their musicianship. Andrew Peterson is truly one of the best musical story tellers that I am aware of in the CCM. He is also a part of a site called “The Rabbit Room” that I really like which has thoughtful posts from a number of artists. Recently I was looking at this site while I was suppose to be paying bills or something and came across this video from his CD “Counting Stars” that is to be released tomorrow. I was moved to tears by this song and can’t wait for the CD to arrive in the mail. I thought I would share the video with you here. Hope you enjoy it. 2010-07-26T18:50:13-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/writers_block/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/writers_block/#When:02:09:59Z This is the “b-side” to my last post which may have seemed a little “type A”. The truth is, we all need a little “type a” in our life - but only a little. Any more than a little makes an artist a criminal. So, you’ve become a disciplined artist (is this an oxymoron?).  You write/paint/create at the same time everyday. You are in a good spot and suddenly… It’s been a month. You’ve done your work, yet after four weeks all you have to show is a song that slightly resembles Barney’s “I love you”. You are depressed and anxious. Depressed because the only one who might be interested in hearing your song wears a very large purple costume. Anxious because he (she?) might sue your pants off. This is known as “writer’s block”. This afternoon I read a chapter from Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird” called “Writer’s block” that blew me away. She gives a new perspective: “I no longer think of it as block. I think that is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. If your wife locks you out of the house, you don’t have a problem with your door. The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck, when the truth is that you’re empty”. Isn’t this true? A “block” makes it sound (and makes you feel) like you have lost the gift. You painted, or wrote stories or songs once, but no longer. It’s like the creative villain LeBron James is now blocking every attempt you make and a whole stadium full of people are laughing at you. You feel like they won’t stop laughing either because - the “magic” is gone. No. The truth is that you are trying to get water from a well that is dry and the harder you try, the thirstier you get. I don’t think you can force the creativity when you are empty. That’s kind of like trying to force your kids to make up and “mean it”. So what is one to do? Lamott’s answer may surprise you. She say’s - accept it. “if you accept the reality that you have been given - that you are not in a productive creative period - you free yourself to begin filling up again”. A bit of clarity might be needed here. First, she is not saying stop writing. She encourages her students to force themselves to write three hundred words “just to keep their fingers from becoming too arthritic”. The discipline is still important. Secondly, she is not saying backpack across Europe for six months and go “find yourself”. It seems to me that she is saying to go and find what it is that gives you life in the everyday. At one point when she was going through a dry season she recalls, “I spent a little time at my desk every day…I went for walks and to lots of matinees, and I read. I spent as much time as I could outdoors while I waited for my unconscious to open a door and beckon”. I’ll never forget the first time I met our friends Nate and Lori. Marisa, myself and Soleil (our only child at the time) flew to Minneapolis to spend a few days with them and work on some music. We didn’t have much money. That’s not true. We didn’t have any money, but we knew that this was the first step to getting things rolling on my CD. Some friends of ours gave us some “buddy passes” so we could fly for free. We broke open our piggy banks and got a rental car and hotel room. Actually, as I’m typing I recall our piggy bank looking an awful lot like a visa card. Well anyway, I wanted to get as much done as possible in the short time that we were there. The first night that we arrived we hung out with our new friends at Caribou coffee for a little bit. It was one of those weird “I’ve spoken with you a hundred times but we’ve never actually seen each other” meetings. Luckily, to know Nate and Lori is to love them so it wasn’t too weird. The next morning we went to their house. I had my notebook and computer, and was ready to work. After we talked for a while Nate said, “sing me one of your songs”. He had heard all of my songs before, but I thought I would appease him. I sat at the piano and played and sang one of my songs for him. He smiled and said, “That was nice. Play it again”. I was thinking “are you serious?”, but I decided to just play it again instead of vocalize my thoughts. After I played the song a second time he said, “Play me another one of your songs”. This went on for a while as our wives talked and kids played in the adjoining room. We did some other things too. We went outside and burned some leaves for example. We had lunch and then went to his barn. I thought for sure we’d start hammering some work there. We talked a lot, and occasionally played a little music. I kept trying to subtly drop the hint that I wanted to work, even though I wasn’t totally sure what “work” was suppose to look like. After one of my subtle hints he smiled and said “I suppose you want to get to work since you paid for those plane tickets, huh?”, laughing ever so slightly during the whole sentence the way a person laughs when they know a secret that you don’t. I think the secret that he knew was something that Anne Lamott knew too, “Your unconscious can’t work when you are breathing down its neck”. The secret that he didn’t know was that I didn’t pay for the plane tickets , just the hotel and rental car. Anyway, gradually I became slightly less anal retentive. At one point back at the house he asked me to sing “Deliverer” again. As I sang it he had this idea to shift some sections around (He’s famous for this). I sang it in the new form he suggested and we looked at each other like we had just struck gold. It was an incredible moment. We had a few cool musical moments like that, but I spent a lot of time enjoying Nate and Lori’s hospitality and really getting to know them on a deeper level. Nate is a brilliant singer/songwriter/producer, etc. But he is also a person that seems to know how to live life and not just walk through it with his eyes closed. I went to Minneapolis feeling stressed. I left feeling full, and a crazy thing happened - I went home and wrote four songs. (Apparently I need to hang out with Nate more). When I can’t fly to Minneapolis here are a few things that help me fill back up: -Reading -Sitting around a camp fire with some close friends for several hours -Going to a good concert -Watching a moving movie -Going for a walk or run -Listening to James Taylor’s “One Man Band” during the fall -Listening to Rob Mathes “Orchestral Songs” CD any time of the year When you are “empty”, what do you do to fill back up? 2010-07-17T02:09:59-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/anne_lamott_and_the_art_of_sitting_down/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/anne_lamott_and_the_art_of_sitting_down/#When:01:37:04Z One of the books that I’m currently reading is “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” by Anne Lamott. I’ve read “Grace (Eventaully): Thoughts on Faith” by her as well and came away with some of the same feelings about her (as an author). Feeling one: This lady is really crass. There are a moments in her books that might make you blush. If you’re theologically conservative you will probably think she is the anti-christ. If you’re politically conservative you will probably think worse. Feeling two: She is one of the funniest geniuses I have ever read. She can make you laugh in one sentence and ponder the greatness of God in the next. She is truly; a brilliant writer. So, “Bird by Bird”. I have wanted to be more faithful with my blogging, but I also have wanted to be half way decent. I’m a songwriter - a developing songwriter, but a song writer none the less. I care about putting words together in a thoughtful manner. I’m consistently involved in the “creative process” - in whatever shape that may take. I thought this book might be helpful. I’m about 70% done and have found it to be both challenging and encouraging. Oh, and did I mention funny? Anyway, I’ve recently been in a bit of a “creative slump”. I swore I would never be one of those guys who records a CD and doesn’t keep writing hordes of songs when the recording is done. I have become that guy. There have been a few songs here and there, but I’ve become a bit of a writing slacker. This book has been a reminder that you don’t sit down and write because you are teaming with creative juices. No - you sit down and write because it’s what you do. You have, at some level, been gifted to write. You write because you are grateful. You write because you have a story to tell. You just write. Lamott recalls her father, who was also a writer, tell her the following: “Do it everyday for a while…Do it as you would do scales on the piano. Do it by prearrangement with yourself. Do it as a debt of honour. And make a commitment to finishing things”. That is excellent advice, but also sounds very much like something you would put in a frame. I like her not so refined take on it: “you sit down at, say nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter or you turn on your computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so…you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what the landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind. The other voices are banshees and drunken monkeys. They are voices of anxiety, judgment, doom, guilt. Also, severe hypochondria…There is a vague pain at the base of your neck. It crosses your mind that you have meningitis…Then the phone rings and you look up at the ceiling with fury, summon every once of noblesse oblige, and answer the call politely, with maybe just the merest hint of irritation. The caller asks if you’re working, and you say yeah, because you are. Yet somehow in the face of all this, you clear a space for the writing voice, hacking away at the others with machetes, and you begin…to tell a story…But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started”. It is so encouraging to hear such a famous writer talk about the realities of the creative process. She says that all good writers she knows feel this way. As I read this I think that the “creative slump” is often (not always) more of a discipline slump. Perhaps the question is not, “did I write a song (or whatever it is that you write/create)”, but “Did I sit down”. Sometimes the magic moments come quickly, but most of the time the magic starts in the mundane - in the sitting down. 2010-07-13T01:37:04-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/snapshots/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/snapshots/#When:13:52:03Z I haven’t been too diligent with my “Artist Spotlights”. In fact, I’ve only spotlighted one artist to date - Staci Frenes. There are more artists to come shortly (which I’m really excited about), but I wanted to update you about an exciting new project that Staci will be releasing called “Snapshots”. Staci is unique from several artists that I know with regards to her writing. Many of us write songs for ourselves. I might hook up with other writers occasionally who have a similar vibe and try to write with them (usually with the hope that they will spend the money to record the song which will become a hit and make me lots of money). Staci’s writing is much broader than that. She is an excellent co-writer, but not a “one vibe only” kind of co-writer. I remember sitting in a hotel room with her and Nate Sabin who was producing both of our projects at the time. I was trying to come up with a line to one of my songs that wasn’t quite happening. Staci, on the other hand, randomly says out loud “Does anyone know if a T-Bird came in cherry red”? “Honestly”, I thought, “I am trying to write a line to my awesome song…why are you asking about cherry red T-birds?”. As it turns out, she was co-writing a country song. In what other genre could you use the words “cherry red t-bird”? But this is Staci - a great co-writer. Aside from being a great co-writer for other people’s projects, she also writes for film and TV. Enter “Snapshots”. In talking about this project Staci says, “I wanted to gather together in one place some of my favourite songwriting demos written over the past few years for film, television, and other niche projects with some of my favourite people”. If you are familiar with any of her other projects ("Meteor Shower”, “Nothing Short of Amazing”, or her Christmas EP “Wise Men and Angels") you will find this project very different in it’s scope. This is not “her sound”, but the sound required for the person or project she was writing for. These ecletic tunes are solidly written and really catchy. You can preview the tunes here If you pre-order the CD here you’ll receive some free PERKS and a signed copy of the project (which is set to ship around the end of July)! So…what are you waiting for? 2010-07-10T13:52:03-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/a_greater_story/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/a_greater_story/#When:17:06:05Z I like old people. Some of them like me too. Some do not. I remember one guy who, because of my music, told someone else that he wanted to punch me in the face. But, as it turned out, he wanted to punch most people in the face. I don’t think he was a jerk because he was old. He was just a face puncher. He was probably a face puncher when he was 21. Back to the old people that are nice. I often wonder what life is like for them. A lot of things that seem like very old history to some of us who are younger didn’t really happen that long ago. The Great Depression for example. How does the memory of such a time effect someone today who actually lived through it? How about the segregation of African American people in the US? There are some African American people alive today who were made to sit on the back of the bus, didn’t use that fountain, and had a “special” place in the theatre (there are, unfortunately, far worse examples that could be used). There is an African American man who lived through this sitting outside my office as I type. He is not a face puncher. Such memories shape a persons life and story (they can shape our stories too if we have ears to hear). There are less dramatic events as well. The stuff of everyday life - raising children and sharing life with the one you love, for example. These involve lovely moments (the kind seen in movies) and mundane moments (the kind not seen in movies) like changing diapers, doing dishes, and reading together on the porch at night, which happens to be my favourite of the three. All of these things, big and small, become a part of a person’s story. One thing that all of these events have in common - people. Our lives are inevitably shaped by those around us. Our families and our friends, they were with us in our moments, the bigs ones and the small ones. They wept with us when we wept. They rejoiced with us in our joy. Our stories are intertwined. So, here is something to consider. What is it like when your children, whom you poured your life into leave your home and make their own, possibly even far away (apology to our parents inserted here!)? What is it like to outlive your spouse? I remember seeing an elderly person that I loved watch one after another friend pass away from “old age”. How on earth does one deal with such sorrow? That being said, most of the old people that I meet aren’t downers. In fact, I often find deep faith and hope in them. Many are strong yet tender. I like to be around people like this. They’re inspiring. I also don’t worry about getting my face punched around them. But while I admire them, I’m also concerned about them. I wonder sometimes if much of the church in it’s effort to be “relevant” has forgotten about the elderly. Or worse, has for the most part stopped caring. I heard recently of someone brag about how this super cool (and now very huge) conference they attended started off by having an age limit making sure no one “too old” attended because they were setting their “demographic”. There’s another very influential church that I know of that doesn’t allow you in their choir if you are over a certain age. The reason has everything to do with marketing, of course. If we can’t use old people to sell clothes or cars than how can we use them to sell church? This doesn’t mean that they can’t come to “our” church, it just means that they’re not needed. What is needed, we believe, is what will appeal to “this generation” or whoever our “target audience” is (I have as of yet to meet anyone with a target audience of, let’s say 60 - 85 year olds). Church marketing people call these “entry points”. These experts tell us that this has a lot to do with music. Now, most old people I know don’t have a huge problem with new music. I didn’t say that they like it all, just that they don’t have a huge problem with it. Most of the elderly care very much about “this generation”. They may not always understand them, but they can’t dislike them too much because their grandchildren are a part of it. But, as they grow older and lose people with whom their stories are made, how does it feel to lose the soundtrack to the story too because it has become irrelevant to the people we are trying to reach. A few nights ago I attended an incredible R&B Opera called “I Dream: The Story Of A Preacher From Atlanta”. This preacher from Atlanta was, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr. I will write about this incredible experience soon, but let me jump to the end of show for now. After everyone took their bow, the cast broke into “We Shall Overcome”. We all linked arms and sang along. It was incredibly moving. How much more moving was it for the older African American people who were there? The song was not just about a story they watched, it was in fact about their story. To sing ones national anthem can be a moving experience, too. But sometimes it is more moving than others. For example, I grew up singing the Canadian national anthem everyday at school (in French and English no less). We junior higher’s didn’t tear up each morning as we heard it. But, I remember the flag being folded at my Grandfather’s memorial service. The old men, once soldiers, seemed to have a different place in their hearts (perhaps “guts” it a better word) for our anthem. It wasn’t that they liked this song because it was old. They were moved by it because it was a part of their story. Sometimes I wonder if in our attempt to be cool, we have become like junior higher’s singing the national anthem - bored by the same old song. At the same time, there are older saints who have been through the battle and feel certain songs deep in their gut in a way that we perhaps can not yet understand. While I believe that “traditionalism” can be a problem, I am starting to understand that lack of tradition is as big of a problem (if not bigger). Perhaps it’s not just the old that I’m concerned about forgetting, but also the dead. Is that not part of the fear of the old - the fear of being forgotten? When the flag was folded at my Grandfather’s memorial it was not just the memory of the living soldiers who fought and lived that moved those who attended, but also those who gave their lives. The old songs that were sung or played reminded us of this. I wonder what our church services tell our old people about their part in the body of Christ now? What does it tell them about how we will feel about them after they are gone? Have we received any of the gifts that they have left for us? G.K. Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy says: “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father”. I am not saying I’m doing a great job of this. This coming Sunday we will not be singing any hymns so I feel like a bit of a hypocrite. But, there are not a lot of Sundays that go by that we don’t sing a hymn or two. I don’t sing them out of obligation, I sing them (for starters) because they are good songs. I sing them because they have deep meaning to some of the saints in our church who are every bit as much a part of the body as the college kid sitting close to them. I sing them because I realize that my story is a part of a greater story. This story started before I was born and will go on after I die. I’m a huge advocate of new songs, by the way. I am a song writer and have the privilege of writing songs that are used to help us join our voices together in worship. As a worship planners, my wife and I seek out good new songs and in various genres written by other writers as well. What I’m getting at is this - I am nervous that in our attempt to use worship as a marketing tool (I get a little nauseous even writing that) we have, a) left one part of the body saying (or at least feeling) “because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body” (I Corinthians 12:15) and b) have not helped the church ("this generation” in particular) recognize that their individual story is a part of a much greater story (Meta-narrative). Tradition is much further reaching than music, but since many of our churches don’t participate in other various forms of tradition (saying the creeds, observing the feasts, the public reading of scripture as an act of worship), I felt that this may be a good place to start. To church planters with a predominantly young congregation this entry may seem irrelevant. But I’m not writing primarily about “style” and “worship conflicts”. I’m writing about tradition. What are you doing to show your young congregation that they are rooted and grounded in something greater than themselves? To conclude this really long entry, I would like to quote a brief passage from the novel “Jayber Crow” by Wendell Berry. Jayber at this point in the story was the church custodian and he recalls this experience, “One day when I went up there to work, sleepiness overcame me and I lay down on the floor behind the back pew to take a nap. Waking or sleeping (I couldn’t tell which), I saw all the people gathered there who had ever been there. I saw them as I had seen them from the back pew, where I sat with Uncle Othy (who would not come in any farther) while Aunt Cordie sang in the choir, and I saw them as I had seen them (from the back pew) on the Sunday before. I saw them in all the times past and to come, all somehow there in their own time and in all time and in no time: the cheerfully working and singing women, the men quiet or reluctant or shy, the weary, the troubled in spirit, the sick, the lame, the elders, the young married couples full of visions, the old men with their dreams, the parents proud of their children, the grandparents with tears in their eyes, the pairs of young lovers attentive only to each other on the edge of the world, the grieving widows and widowers, the mothers and fathers of children newly dead, the proud, the humble, the attentive, the distracted - I saw them all. I saw the creases crisscrossed on the backs of the men’s necks, their work-thickened hands, the Sunday dresses faded with washing. They were just there. They said nothing, and I said nothing. I seemed to love them all with a love that was mine merely because it included me. When I cam to myself again, my face was wet with tears”. 2010-07-09T17:06:05-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/peter_and_paul/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/peter_and_paul/#When:01:51:03Z Peter and Paul. How many times have I heard those two names? It would seem like divine providence that they both have a name that starts with the same letter, no? I guess since God changed both of their names, it was. These two men lived several thousand years ago. So long ago, in fact, that they often seem more like fictional characters than real men to me. Sometimes they seem more real than others though. I remember being in Greece several years ago at some of the locations where Paul had stood, preached, and suffered. He felt very real at to me then. But a lot of times he and Peter seem fictional. Peter, the bumbling idiot type who was always saying the wrong things. Paul, the really smart one who wrote a lot of the New Testament but said some things about women that you are nervous to read out loud. Good characters in God’s story, but removed from most of us culturally and all of of us by time. But removed as they may be, they were real. I read earlier today of one of Peter’s last encounters with Jesus. Jesus ask’s Peter three times if he loves him and “Peter was upset that he asked him a third time, ‘Do you love me?” and said, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.’ Feed my sheep” says Jesus (John 21). I can feel this passage deep in my gut. I think any of us who have failed Jesus can. Peter is having to deal with the fact that he denied Jesus three times when Jesus needed him most. I’m sure his words, “even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you” (Matthew 26:33) were ringing in his ears. Peter was humbled to say the least. But, as it turns out, Peter did feed Jesus sheep. And his words, along with Paul’s, continue to feed the sheep. For two thousand years we have been fed by the lives and words of these two men who lived for/in the Kingdom of God: Peter and Paul. Jesus said something else to Peter after he said “Feed my sheep”. “In all truth I tell you, when you were young, you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go.’ In these words he indicated the kind of death by which Peter would give glory to God. After this he said, ‘Follow me’”. And Peter did follow Jesus. So did Paul. And the world has been changed because they did. It is believed that both Peter and Paul were killed in late June of 64 a.d. by Nero. Today in my mid-day prayers I read a homily written by St. John Chrysostom. Here, late in June as I read these words, these two men feel real again. “O holy Apostles, how shall we thank you, you who have labored so much for us! I am filled with admiration whenever I think of you, Peter; when I remember you, Paul, I am moved to tears. My lips are mute when I consider your sufferings. How many prisons you have sanctified! How many chains you have adorned! How many pains you have suffered! How many curses you have borne! YOU bore Christ in your hearts; you refreshed the Christian communities through your sermons. Praised be the work of your tongues. For the sake of the Church your garments were sprinkled with blood. You imitated Christ in all; your voices penetrated a world, and your message crossed all boundaries of the earth. Rejoice, O Peter, that you were worthy to partake of the Cross of Christ; you desired to hang upon the Cross after the pattern of your Master Christ, not upright like the Lord, but head downward, as if you wished to journey from earth to heaven. Rejoice, O Paul, you who were beheaded with a sword. This sword which severed your neck, this instrument of the Lord, is admired by heaven and revered by earth. For me this sword should be a crown, and the nails of Peter’s cross, diamonds for a diadem”. St. John Chrysostom (Taken from “The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime” [Phyllis Tickle]) 2010-06-29T01:51:03-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/a_further_look_at_worship_and_technological_nightmares/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/a_further_look_at_worship_and_technological_nightmares/#When:09:33:33Z Okay, so I asked if any of you had any horror stories to contribute and you kept me hanging. Well, just to show that I’m not the only one...here’s a great Martin Smith clip for you (e-mailed to me by “Nameless Drummer"). If you have some stories - share them. 2010-06-23T09:33:33-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/nightmares_about_worship_technology/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/nightmares_about_worship_technology/#When:12:23:38Z I’ve been a church music director professionally for a little over a decade and I can say that things have changed - a lot.  Part of what has changed, of course, is me.  I didn’t have a clue (musically) as to what I was doing when I first started out.  I remember my transcribing efforts.  First of all, they were on paper.  This, for any beginner is a terrible thing because you mess up a lot.  When you realize that you’ve left a measure out (for example), there are no keystrokes to “add a measure”, so you have to start again from scratch.  Truly, it develops character.  Or insanity.  When I finally learned about Finale (musical transcription software) it took me quite a while to understand the program.  When I finally started getting the hang of things I became bold.  I charted a lot.  Looking back, my charts were terrible.  Not only were they bad musically, but I consistently spelled “rhythm” wrong.  That’s right, font size 24 top left corner of the page said “Rythm Chart”.  I like to think I’ve come a long way.  If not, at least I finally learned how to spell “Rhythm”. I remember trying to purchase charts back in those days.  You could find the piano/vocal chart or lead sheet but that was about it.  I called Integrity music about it one time.  I wanted to purchase some horn charts, but I was told that they didn’t exist because the players just kind of made it up as they went.  Seriously.  I told them they were wrong and if they really wanted to be equipping the church for corporate worship like they said, they would sell me those horn charts.  Since they wouldn’t, I would hire people to chart orchestrations for me and would pay a pretty penny. Now, you can purchase charts. Praise Charts provides full orchestrations for about $35 - Amazing!  You can buy sequences from them as well which I’ve used frequently.  Not only that, but you can actually purchase the “stems” for recordings from another company (Interactive Worship Live).  I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that I can have the horn section (from the original recording) play with me and the band without having a horn player anywhere in sight.  With the use of a “click track” (metronome) in my ear, I can have a full orchestra if I want. This brings me to the real point about this entry - FEAR.  The fear that comes with using time/tempo sensitive material in a live setting.  I use sequences and live tracks often.  But I am usually quite afraid.  While there is a tremendous advantage to having these tools available, there is also the realization that if any one of us messes up, the computer will not get back on track with us.  It is up to us to get back on track with it.  It is the master, we are the slaves. I have had 2 bad experiences.  One worse than the other. 1.  I used to frequent a website called “Homestarrunner”.  I downloaded a set of sounds from it to use with my operating system.  For example, when I would receive an e-mail it would say “eeeeemail.” You have to know the voice to understand how great that is.  Instead of the “bonk” sound that would come up when I tried to do something unallowable on my computer, I had Homestar say “Oops.  You bwoke it!”.  Marisa and I were leading worship at our church one Sunday night about a year ago.  It was a really slow moment in the service and we were about to transition into another slow song.  I moved the mouse to get the sequence ready and hit something I wasn’t suppose to (or something like that).  Apparently I had forgotten to mute my notification sounds.  VERY loudly, in this VERY soft moment came “Oops. You bwoke it!”.  I totally pretended that I had no clue how it had happened.  But, from the facial expressions from some of the worshippers, I knew they watch Homestarrunner too. That was not the bad story. 2.  It was the night before Christmas.  Well, a few nights before Christmas.  I was to perform “Angels We Have Heard On High” with another guy from the church.  The song is an incredible arrangement originally performed by Josh Groban and Brian McKnight.  The song is guitar and orchestra.  I didn’t have the budget to hire an orchestra so I had my friend Sean (fabulous jazz guitarist) transcribe the arrangement and I spent a good deal of time sequencing it (creating the orchestral sounds on my computer to play with live).  It was going to be great.  We went through dress rehearsal and got comments like “that is going to be the highlight of the evening”.  Beware of comments like this.  The drummer, who also happened to be running the sequences asked the question, “what happens if you get off track?  Do you want me to turn the sequence off”?  It was at this point that I realized that I was probably relying too heavily on the sequence as it dawned on me that at one point only the orchestra (read computer) was playing - nothing live.  The guitarist, being wise, said “No.  Keep it playing.  If we get off there’s the section where the orchestra plays alone which will get us back on track”.  Excellent.  In case of emergency - we had a plan.  The concert came and it was game time.  Within the first few measures of the song one of us got off by one beat.  We desperately tried to get back on track but it wasn’t working.  Standing there in front of all those people I was mentally trying to stay calm, but I was totally panicked.  Oh well, we had the orchestral interlude to get us back on track.  One problem.  The drummer saw that I was panicked and thought that I wanted him to shut the track off.  The track went off which left me with one though - “OH NO!  In about 20 seconds all that is suppose to be playing is the track…we are headed for dead silence”.  This ship was going down.  As the verse was ending I did the only thing I knew to do - I walked away to signal to the guitarist and the other singer that it was over.  We had reached the point of no return.  It was the worst 70 seconds of “Angels We Have Heard On High” ever.  The others involved in this catastrophic moment shall remain nameless.  We were in it together. So there you have it.  I use sequences and tracks during performances and even while leading worship, but not without fear and trembling.  While things work out for me 99% of the time, it’s the 1% I worry about - really worry about. Do you use sequences or tracks?  Anybody else afraid out there?  Horror stories anyone? 2010-06-22T12:23:38-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/fixed_hour_prayer/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/fixed_hour_prayer/#When:12:25:58Z I have recently begun an ancient practice of prayer called “The Divine Hours”.  It is also called the “Daily Office”, “fixed-hour prayer”, the “Liturgy of the hours”, and the “canonical hours”.  Given the plethora of titles already mentioned, it’s probably known by other names as well.  This is way of praying goes back at least 6, 000 years.  The idea began from Psalm 119 when the psalmist wrote “Seven times a day will I rise to praise your name”.  So, people started praying seven times a day and at very specific hours.  Today, all seven times are still observed in monastic settings.  But, life outside the monastery is a little different.  Or, a lot different (if you have small children, for example).  So, “the hours” have been condensed by some to include 4 times a day: morning noon evening compline or “the dear office” (right before bed) What the “Divine Hours” consists of is a lot of scripture (particularly Psalms), A canticle or hymn, and formal prayers.  I have been interested in this for some time but didn’t really know where to start.  I bought a book of common prayer a few years ago and didn’t quite know how to manoeuvre around it.  I even had an “app” for it on my iPod touch (Yes, there’s an app for that), but that didn’t seems to help either.  I suppose that I didn’t really try that hard, but I eventually gave up.  I decided to try again and have found two books helpful.  The first book I read is called “In Constant Prayer” by Robert Benson.  I found the first three chapters very helpful but the book could have ended there for me.  The second book that has been an immense blessing to me is “The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime” by Phyllis Tickle.  I have enjoyed hearing her speak previously was really intrigued when I read her book “The Great Emergence”.  What she has done in this book is compiled all of the elements of the 4 hours (the noon hour also includes elements from some of the other 3 hours not observed by those young children) in an easy to use, day by day guide.  She has, in other words, taken the guess work out of ‘how to do this’.  She has also includes a brief introduction which gives one a great understanding as to the history of fixed hour prayer. So, why am I doing this?  What I am finding?  First, there seems to me to be something humbling and grounding about setting aside a specific time to join with the saints all over the world both now and throughout history, in prayer.  This is not just about “me and Jesus”.  I am joining “a great cloud of witnesses”.  I sense that as I pray these prayers.  Interestingly enough, I spoke with two friends (one of whom write about her experience in her blog) in the past week or so who are also praying these prayers.  It is wonderful to know that we are offering these same words to God throughout our days.  Further, these prayers have helped me to re-focus throughout the day.  They probably only take about ten minutes, but those ten minutes really do “baptize my imagination” (thank’s to Eugene Peterson for that phrase).  They remind me that my life is lived in the presence of God.  They remind me that God is still in control. I have been very upset about the oil spill.  Spill does’t really seem like the right word.  My kids spill their cups at the table.  Okay, I spill my cup at the table too.  What is happening in the gulf has truly grieved me.  In the midst of my grief and anger I pray Psalm 95 which is laid out for me to pray and these words strike me: “For the LORD is a great God, and a great king above all gods. In his hands are the caverns of the earth, and the heights of the hills are his also The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands have moulded the dry land”. While I realize the terrible thing that has been done to God’s good creation, I also realize that it is still HIS creation.  This is not the final word.  God will restore this earth one day.  He is coming again. In the very short time that I have been doing this, I have found that the scriptures again and again remind me that I am not in control.  It doesn’t all rest on me.  Despair is not the answer.  “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof”.  And, I realize that the prayers of the saints may have a greater impact in this world than we could image.  I also find that as I ground my day in these prayers, prayer comes a little more naturally throughout the day.  I think this is the goal.  Eugene Peterson writes in his latest book “Practice Resurrection”, “Prayer is not just “saying prayers,” although it is also that.  As we grow into maturity, prayer is the language that increasingly underlies and suffuses all of our language.” Let it be. The prayers only take about 10 minutes to pray.  But those 10 minutes, four times a day, remind of the truth that is great and beautiful, but often hidden by the cares of this world. 2010-06-21T12:25:58-05:00 http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/inscape_part_i/ http://philaud.com/index.php?/phil_aud_new/journal_single_entry/inscape_part_i/#When:12:45:36Z Eugene Peterson is one of my favorite authors.  In the past number of years he has done more to create a hunger in me for “spiritual formation” than any other author.  He recently released his fifth (and final) book in his “Spiritual Theology” series entitled “Practice Resurrection”.  The book is a conversation in the book of Ephesians.  A conversation on church. Today I was introduced to a new term - “Inscape”.  This termed was coined by a nineteenth-century Jesuit priest and poet by the name of Gerard Manley Hopkins.  The term “inscape” has something to do with the word “landscape” but differs significantly.  Landscape has to do with what we can see, and do see everyday.  As I write this post I am looking out of a window in my office at the beautiful landscape outside.  Very tall pine trees.  A baseball field of green grass and rich soil.  Beautiful trees of different varieties in their early bloom.  This is landscape.  Inscape is different.  Connected, but different.  Peterson says, “Inscape is the intuitive sense that what we see is a living, organic form that strikes through the senses and into the mind with a feeling of novelty and discovery.  Inscape is what something uniquely is, that which holds together whatever you are looking at or listening to, gives it distinction - proportions, shades of light, tints of color, shapes, relationships, sounds”. The key to understanding the above quote is to see the line “form that strikes through the senses and into the mind with a feeling of novelty and discovery” in bold print.  Have you ever seen something that you see everyday as though you’ve seen it for the first time?  Maybe seen something “in” it and felt like you “discovered” it?  The literary hero, G.K. Chesteron, wrote this in his book Orthodoxy: “The grass seemed signaling to me with all its fingers at once; the crowded stars seemed bent upon being understood.  The sun would make me see him if he rose a thousand times.  The recurrences of the universe rose to the maddening rhythm of an incantation, and I began to see an idea”. Since reading this, I have often times seen things in nature that I have not seen before.  That is not really true, of course. I saw the wind, and I saw tall grasses before.  But Chesterton was able to “see through the senses...with a feeling of novelty and discovery”.  This, inscape, is the job of the artist.  Peterson says, “Artists make us insiders to the complexity and beauty of what we deal with every day but so often miss.  They bring to our attention what is right before our eyes within reach of our touch, help us hear sounds and combinations of sounds that our noise-deafened ears have never heard...the artist helps us see what we have always seen but never seen, hear what we hear daily but don’t hear, feel what we have touched a hundred times but never been touched by...”. Two summers ago my wife and I were leading worship at a camp.  My daughter Soleil and I got up early one morning and before breakfast sat down on a park by the lake.  It was a beautiful warm summer morning and the sun was shining bright.  I was enjoying Soleil’s presence as we just sat and looked at the lake in silence.  She broke the silence by saying, “Dad, are those fairies dancing on the water?”.  “What?”, I asked.  “Are those fairies dancing on the water”.  She was dead serious.  I looked for a minute and finally realized what she was seeing.  The sun was shining on the moving water.  Because the water was moving, you would see a glimmer of light which would disappear quickly.  She had a way of describing what she saw that opened my eyes to what I saw.  In October of last year my family and I moved to South Atlanta from Toronto.  Before leaving, I played a gig with some of Canada’s best.  I was in way over my head.  Sean Meredith-Jones on guitar, Andrew Stewart on bass, and Larnell Lewis on drums.  Monster’s.  It was an honor to play with them, but just as great to hang with them.  At dinner I was asking the guys about their backgrounds and what they were up to now aside from gigging.  Andrew began to tell me that he not only plays bass, but creates basses.  You can check out some pictures of his stunning basses here.  They not only look beautiful, but sound beautiful.  This too is inscape.  What many of us see as tree or a piece of wood, Andrew see’s as a way to give voice to music.  Here is a part of a beautiful poem by Hopkins: As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow sung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying What I do is me: for that I came. Rodney Clapp, in his book “Tortured Wonders” writes in response to this poem (and scriptures such as Psalm 148, Isaiah 55:12, and Romans 8:18-24), “As Hopkins intimates, “each mortal thing” praises God by being itself...So may humanity either loosen and and free the tongue of creation...or fill and stop creation’s throat with death”. He further says, “This responsibility is a priestly responsibility...In this sense human beings are the priests of creation...mediators between God and creation”. As we see in the scriptures mentioned above, creation praises God.  We can’t hear it, but it doesn’t mean that it is not happening.  Maybe it is possible to “free the tongue of creation” as Clapp says.  Clapp mentions Karl Barth, who reflecting on Revelation 5:8 pens this: “Surely the playing of musical instruments is a...human attempt to articulate before God this sound of a cosmos which is otherwise dumb.  Surely the perfect musician is one who, particularly stirred by the angels, is best able to hear not merely the voice of his own heart but what all creation is trying to say, and can then in great humility and with great objectivity cause it to be heard by God and other men”. Clapp beautifully continues Barth’s thought: “So instrument builders and musicians are, at their best, premier exemplars of priestly stewardship.  Taking up wood and steel, they can fashion them into a guitar or violin, releasing from wood and steel as song with which they were already pregnant but could not otherwise have sung”. I love this.  I remember Andrew warming up before sound check playing “As The Dear” on the bass that he made.  My mind went to that moment after first reading the above.  I have a good friend named Dave Bonfa who lives in Montreal.  Dave is a great singer, song writer, guitarist and worship leader.  After serving at his church for seven years, the people in his church decided to publicly honor him by giving him a gift.  This past Sunday, they surprised him by presenting him with a guitar.  It wasn’t bought online from guitar center.  This guitar was handmade by Pierre Erizias, the bassist who serves with Dave at his church.  Pierre worked for many months creating the “bonfacaster”.  He has a gift for taking pieces of wood creating beautiful guitars (bass guitars until now).  Inscape.  He not only gives voice to wood and metal, but in one sense, gives a new and unique (custom) voice to Dave.  Dave doesn’t keep this voice for himself but shares it with his congregation.  They don’t just listen, but they add their voices and offer it all back to God.  This is a beautiful and humbling thought for me. Inscape happens often and in many ways.  It is a gift.  It is received. “Whoever has ears, let them hear”.  Matthew 11:15 2010-03-31T12:45:36-05:00