TRACKING recap

1. No, there wasn't really a "brawl." I figured that most of you would understand that I was joking. The whole session was great...every song we finished, I'd think "Ooh, that's my favorite." So if you leave a session thinking everyone was your favorite, that's pretty good.
2. Forrest did an amazing job. His tone was fantastic. He rocked the rockers and smoothed out the slow jams. He was as creative and musically supportive as I thought he'd be. His ideas were good and he was willing to try whatever Ross and I asked of him.
3. Ross, once again, did a great job of producing. He's got great musical recall...he can track a whole song and afterward say, "Hey, I think the timing on those notes in the first measure were a little off." That's pretty impressive to hear considering it's thirteen songs.
4. Next week, I'll be tracking acoustics on a extremely nice acoustic guitar and I am crazy excited.
5. I plan on posting a video of the session (w/ no audio though, I don't want you hearing Forrest's stuff yet!) Since you can't hear what these sound like yet, I figured I'd give you a brief little description of how we're doing them.

• MY LIPS WILL SING: Standard arrangement with one slight change after 1st chorus. Studio version will be a little less "spacey" a little more smooth.
• LIKE THE SUN: All the percussion business gives this song a new feel. The rhythm stuff coupled with the chorus Forrest did makes this song flow a bit better and become a bit more subtle in its jamming.
• ALL THE FREED: Can you say funk/blues jam? This one came off great, although significantly different from original version. The riff is gone and the choruses are way more poppy. There are two instrumental breaks that are going to melt your speakers.
• PART OF YOUR STORY: Not much different on this one. A few arrangement changes, but this one is pretty straightforward.
• BEAUTIFUL: I've done this one live maybe 3 times in my life, so we had some freedom on this one. Hopefully our arrangement will be simple and intimate in an effort to communicate with music what we're saying with our words.
• SEARCH AND KNOW: One of my favorites to sing. Lots of rhythm stuff on this one. Interested to see what folks think of this one.
• GLORIFY: Two things are going to stand out on this one. First, Forrest's guitar sounds amazing. Secondly, we're losing the rocking nature of the chorus to make it more vocal-centered. I think it's gonna' work big time.
• ALIGN: Going in, I wasn't sure about this one, but the band stuff shaped up the tune and made it accessible and alive.
• THE CROSS OF CHRIST: Very percussive...hymn like. Nice.
• I AM GLAD: Forrest may have played the coolest guitar solo in all of worship music on this one. It was something to behold. (And if you buy the record, you too can behold it.)
• KING OF MERCY: My, my, my. This one falls somewhere between John Mayer, Jackson 5 and some latenight jazz show on AM radio.
• YOU GAVE SIGHT: I think this song is going to be great. It is nothing like the original version, but I like it. I imagine some folks won't dig it, but some of you weirdos out there are going to think its the coolest thing I've ever done.
• LET IT BE: This one didn't come off as "ballady" as I imagined it, but I really like the end result. It's got some guitar hooks, but this another one where we're trying to be creative without stepping all over the lyrics.