I once heard a very smart songwriter say that he had adopted a fellow novelist's approach to her craft - "to be a good writer, you've got to be a reader."
I think that's probably true. I find that the people in my life who have written truly amazing songs are folks who actually listen to A LOT of music. They're constantly reading, listening, asking questions, analyzing phrases, word choices - all in an effort to learn more about what makes a song truly come alive.
My personal theory is that any songwriter worth his or her salt will work at this discipline - the analysis, the listening, the long hours of thinking and trying and replaying songs in his or her head. Knowing this about me, it's probably no surprise that one of my favorite aspects of traveling around to lead worship is finding out what songs people are doing and digging in their respective churches.
Knowing what someone listens to can tell you a lot about the person and knowing what a church sings can tell you a lot about them.
From what I can tell, though, my readership around here is a varied one and I'm positive that many of you are singing/celebrating tunes I've never even heard of. So, I figured I'd use this little blog of mine to find out what songs YOU'RE digging. What worship songs are moving you, impressing you and staying stuck in your head?
(And Johnny, try to keep your votes to something post-18th century, okay? It just makes all of us feel dumb.)
5 comments:
Besides you and Ross, I find a lot of useful worship music coming from the Indelible Grace folks. And my best friend Frank is writing good music for his congregation at Crosspoint in Katy. We're writing music at Holy Trinity but most of it has a specialized liturgical function you wouldn't be interested in.
What's got me thinking A LOT is the article by DW I linked to over at my blog. I tend to agree with him that a lot of the genre of music in which you and I operate does not meet the Bible's criteria for congregational singing.
And Kemper's setting of the Gloria in Excelsis kills.
I'd definitely agree with the value/utility of the music that Indelible Grace has made...and on that note, I've recently acquired some of the music from Red Mountain Church out of Birmingham, AL, and I'm really enjoying it.
They take old hymns that no one has heard of (mainly from a hymnal called "Gadsby's Hymns") and create new tunes. It's a really good effort, in my non-professional musician opinion.
I've heard Red Mountain's first record. Heard they were doing another one soon (or maybe just released one?)
Try to find a 1900-ish version of "Hymns Ancient and Modern" from the English Book of Common Prayer. The hymns back then were only listed as lyrics. There's some great stuff. I'm going to be writing a setting for "The Litany of the Four Last Things" and for an Ascension hymn.
And Red Mountain is great.
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