Okay. A thousand words it is then, young Todd. Here is a picture of Todd's daughter, presumably taken at his new home in Tyler. See, Todd and his family were, until recently, residents of Lufkin, Texas. A short while ago Todd accepted a position on the staff of a Church in Tyler, and so the move to the new home became necessary. Ordinarily, such information would be of no interest to me. I do not often find myself concerned by the employment and/or residential situations of any of the many residents of East Texas (I should mention that I'm a resident of Houston, and, while there is often animosity between Texans of various regions of the State, such animosity is not a factor in my disinterest), but Todd's move is of passing interest to me based on the reasons given below. As a professional musician, I have over the past decade become more and more involved in the performance of music for worship in the (mostly) Evangelical Churches of the Bible Belt. This has been a welcome addition to my professional repertoire, as I also am a Christian by profession and by the sacrament of Holy Baptism (I do not wish to get into the theological justification for my particular sacramental view of Baptism at this time). By good fortune (or, more rightly, by the good Providence of a Sovereign God--though I also do not wish to digress into an argument pro the Reformed Faith [that which is commonly called "Calvinism" after John Calvin, the Magesterial Reformer and the theology's chief proponent during the Reformation] at this point of my comment) I have found myself not only performing in those Churches which use the popular forms of "worship music," but also being hired to make recordings of the worship songs of popular artists in the genre. It is in that capacity, that of session musician, that I made the acquaintance of Mr. Todd Wright. My good friend and colleague, Ross King (himself a very popular artist both in the "worship" and the "contemporary Christian" styles of music), was the producer of Todd's recording session, and, with faith in my capabilities to quickly grasp and faithfully execute the arrangement of the songs to be recorded, chose to hire me for the session. I awoke early to load up my equipment (drums, cymbals, and the hardware to support them in place), and to make the hour-and-a-half drive to College Station, Texas, where Mr. King's studio is located, being built in the home of his partner and engineer, Keith Sewell, I was greeted by Ross, Keith, and an old friend and associate, Brady Redwine, who was the bassist on this particular session. Ross introduced me to Todd, to whom I immediately took a liking, as he is quite a friendly sort and quite easy to get along with (at this point, careful readers will need to excuse my use of a dangling preposition in an effort to set a colloquial tone to this commentary). We all conversed as I began to set up my gear--hardware, drums and cymbals--and as Keith began to place microphones around the drumset to pick up the sound of the drums and cymbals in an easily controllable (or "mixable") manner. To make a long story short, the recording went well over the course of two days and all involved were very pleased with the results, and blessed by the fellowship and camraderie. We departed all as friends and thus began an ongoing relationship of correspondence via the various media of the World Wide Web (that descendent of the Defense Department's ARPANET computer network). I particularly became interested in Todd's "blog" (a slang term for "web log," which is a journal of sorts in which the owner [or "blogger"] shares his thoughts and the events of his personal life with those who "log on" to read it). I found him to be quite witty and began to, over time, slowly glean some insight into the private life of this man with whom I had enjoyed music-making under Ross King's guidance. I learned of Todd's family, of his job as a "worship leader," of his thoughts about the ins and outs of his particular vocation, and about his love of frivolous Internet (another term for the World Wide Web) content. It has since become a regular part of my Web-surfing (a term for browsing through various addresses on the Internet) experience to check in with Todd's "blog" to see that to what he and his family have been up. I soon overcame my initial timidity as a visitor (often referred to in Internet jargon as "lurking") and began leaving pithy comments in the section reserved for the same in the various postings left by Todd on his blog. Odd as it may seem, the friendship between Todd and I has grown as a result. All of which brings me to the current comment. It is precisely because of my affection for, and interest in the life of, Todd, that I find myself visiting this evening to receive the challenge given in this post's title. The picture of Todd's young daughter is inexplicable to me given the nature of such a challenge, but I take it up nonetheless. (I will digress here for a moment to remark that the said Miss Wright is certainly a delightfully impish young lady, and (given my limited exposure to video footage of the girl) behaves in a most amusing manner when encouraged to do so by her Father.) In conclusion, I would like to thank the reader for his interest in this commentary, and the good people at Google (the owners and developers of the software being used herein as well as the servers on which it resides) for the opportunity to share my thoughts this evening, As well, I would like to thank Todd for the venue in which to attempt to rise to meet it.
4 comments:
Okay. A thousand words it is then, young Todd.
Here is a picture of Todd's daughter, presumably taken at his new home in Tyler. See, Todd and his family were, until recently, residents of Lufkin, Texas. A short while ago Todd accepted a position on the staff of a Church in Tyler, and so the move to the new home became necessary.
Ordinarily, such information would be of no interest to me. I do not often find myself concerned by the employment and/or residential situations of any of the many residents of East Texas (I should mention that I'm a resident of Houston, and, while there is often animosity between Texans of various regions of the State, such animosity is not a factor in my disinterest), but Todd's move is of passing interest to me based on the reasons given below.
As a professional musician, I have over the past decade become more and more involved in the performance of music for worship in the (mostly) Evangelical Churches of the Bible Belt. This has been a welcome addition to my professional repertoire, as I also am a Christian by profession and by the sacrament of Holy Baptism (I do not wish to get into the theological justification for my particular sacramental view of Baptism at this time).
By good fortune (or, more rightly, by the good Providence of a Sovereign God--though I also do not wish to digress into an argument pro the Reformed Faith [that which is commonly called "Calvinism" after John Calvin, the Magesterial Reformer and the theology's chief proponent during the Reformation] at this point of my comment) I have found myself not only performing in those Churches which use the popular forms of "worship music," but also being hired to make recordings of the worship songs of popular artists in the genre.
It is in that capacity, that of session musician, that I made the acquaintance of Mr. Todd Wright. My good friend and colleague, Ross King (himself a very popular artist both in the "worship" and the "contemporary Christian" styles of music), was the producer of Todd's recording session, and, with faith in my capabilities to quickly grasp and faithfully execute the arrangement of the songs to be recorded, chose to hire me for the session.
I awoke early to load up my equipment (drums, cymbals, and the hardware to support them in place), and to make the hour-and-a-half drive to College Station, Texas, where Mr. King's studio is located, being built in the home of his partner and engineer, Keith Sewell, I was greeted by Ross, Keith, and an old friend and associate, Brady Redwine, who was the bassist on this particular session.
Ross introduced me to Todd, to whom I immediately took a liking, as he is quite a friendly sort and quite easy to get along with (at this point, careful readers will need to excuse my use of a dangling preposition in an effort to set a colloquial tone to this commentary). We all conversed as I began to set up my gear--hardware, drums and cymbals--and as Keith began to place microphones around the drumset to pick up the sound of the drums and cymbals in an easily controllable (or "mixable") manner.
To make a long story short, the recording went well over the course of two days and all involved were very pleased with the results, and blessed by the fellowship and camraderie. We departed all as friends and thus began an ongoing relationship of correspondence via the various media of the World Wide Web (that descendent of the Defense Department's ARPANET computer network). I particularly became interested in Todd's "blog" (a slang term for "web log," which is a journal of sorts in which the owner [or "blogger"] shares his thoughts and the events of his personal life with those who "log on" to read it). I found him to be quite witty and began to, over time, slowly glean some insight into the private life of this man with whom I had enjoyed music-making under Ross King's guidance.
I learned of Todd's family, of his job as a "worship leader," of his thoughts about the ins and outs of his particular vocation, and about his love of frivolous Internet (another term for the World Wide Web) content. It has since become a regular part of my Web-surfing (a term for browsing through various addresses on the Internet) experience to check in with Todd's "blog" to see that to what he and his family have been up.
I soon overcame my initial timidity as a visitor (often referred to in Internet jargon as "lurking") and began leaving pithy comments in the section reserved for the same in the various postings left by Todd on his blog. Odd as it may seem, the friendship between Todd and I has grown as a result.
All of which brings me to the current comment. It is precisely because of my affection for, and interest in the life of, Todd, that I find myself visiting this evening to receive the challenge given in this post's title. The picture of Todd's young daughter is inexplicable to me given the nature of such a challenge, but I take it up nonetheless.
(I will digress here for a moment to remark that the said Miss Wright is certainly a delightfully impish young lady, and (given my limited exposure to video footage of the girl) behaves in a most amusing manner when encouraged to do so by her Father.)
In conclusion, I would like to thank the reader for his interest in this commentary, and the good people at Google (the owners and developers of the software being used herein as well as the servers on which it resides) for the opportunity to share my thoughts this evening, As well, I would like to thank Todd for the venue in which to attempt to rise to meet it.
I love John Simmons.
Johnny - absolutely amazing.
Very nice.
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