Music

Monday, January 20, 2014
Save the date!

Imperial Boxtruck
Plays May 2, 2014
6:30pm
Calvary Chapel
Southbury

Friday, October 25, 2013

Only Roger and I could meet for rehearsal.  This worked out okay, as we have collaborated the most on the songs and have lots of music to, as he said, “flesh out.”  Crazy how the Holy Spirit has been using us in tandem.  So cool.

Collaboration together so far has been as follows:

Roger’s Song – music by Roger, lyrics/vocals me

Holy Fire – lyrics by Roger, music/vocals me

Roger’s Happy Song – music by Roger, lyrics/vocals me

God’s Loving Fire – lyrics by Roger and me, music/vocals me

That’s a lot, for people who don’t know each other’s music tastes.  I guess he likes Neil Young and, between all the guys in the band, I hear they like the sounds from The Allman Brothers, Floyd, the Dead, Metallica… It’s amazing because I really only am getting an idea of what music these guys have been influenced by, since we started playing together, officially, September this year.

I haven’t listened to music regularly that I myself enjoy, since the kids were born. I refrained from seeking out new music since Brittany Spears impressed people with her little school girl outfit and, sadly, changed the whole girl band music scene.  I stopped listening when I felt original, gritty girl musicians like Alanis Morisette, Tori Amos, Sinead O’Connor, Bjork, Liz Phair, Ani diFranco disappeared… Yes, I’m old.  Actually, I like Astrud Gilberto, Peggy Lee, Karen Carpenter too, from my Dad’s time.

Maybe they’re still playing? The living ones, anyway?

Either way, I am drawn to worship songs now, because they can really keep me and our boys encouraged. I don’t like all of it, but there is nothing like singing songs that remind us how great God is and lift us up. You should hear the boys’ little voices boom. I especially enjoy some of the stuff The Blackthorne Project, Jesus Culture and Bethel church have put out. Hmm, I guess they are my new girl band singer favorites.

Whatever our music preferences, our sound is really coming together and so quickly.  It is incredible how the Holy  Spirit is moving us.  Mark is so good at putting chords to what we write and articulating sounds he thinks work and don’t work.  Tom just throws down drum beats, like he’s played these songs for some time now.  Jordan is really picking up nicely, where we lost our original bass player to his third year of college in Georgia. 

Anyway, Roger and I worked on “Spirit Jam” and it sounded great, even just the two of us.  The music was something that came to all the guys two Fridays ago.  I was about an hour late for practice to Tom’s and they had it, just messing around.

It is the funkiest sound so far.  Very upbeat.  We love it.  The vocals came to me the next day, while being rerouted for an hour from Manhattan over the Queensborough Bridge.  I was a block away from my parking garage and I gained an hour of songwriting and, as usual, sang till I was hoarse the whole ride home. I sent the guys what I had close to 1am, I was so jazzed.

I guess there is a lot of syncopating in the vocals, which is a new word for me.  I think unusual notes and emphasis at odd places is a lot of fun.  I like discordant.  I think my LITTLEseed Program Songs – How We Grow music producer, Barry Hartglass, will not be pleased.  He knows I like the inbeteeen the keys sounds.  Maybe it works outside of the parent and baby music we work on.

Either way, we had a blast with this one.  I thought I loved this song the best, until we started working on “Roger’s Happy Song.”  I adore this one too.  It is eally a feat, not to dance to it.  It is truly so much fun to sing and was made for my voice box to hang out, where it is the happiest.

We would have worked on a third piece but Roger started playing around and “Don’t Throw Me Out” was born.  I thought the Holy Spirit was giving us a break between writing.  Nothing new came through to either of us last week. Though, Mark has a new one with music and lyrics I can’t wait to hear and work on.

In any case, we recorded this piece, as it was coming to him.  It was good!  I was blessed to recieve vocals for it, as early as this morning.  I ran them by him and he was pretty happy with them.  I got to send an acapella version with a full set of lyrics to the guys last night. 
So that brings us to eleven songs, including the new one from Mark.  It’s unbelievable how the Holy Spirit works.  What a muse for these non professional musicians!

We really have to just see how the Lord plans to use this stuff.  The songwriting has been coming to us so quickly, I thought we were being prepped to do something for the community by Christmastime. This could take longer; even years. We are staying in prayer.

It is all so exciting and exhausting.  I feel really spent, between writing songs.  While exhilarated singing, I definitely come down quite a bit afterwards.

We are so grateful to be used this way. We will wait on God’s plans!  So thankful to be brought together like this, to share our love for Him, the work He is doing in us and has been doing in us, our families, our work places and everywhere.  We are truly blessed. .

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Well You’ve done it again. Calvary Arts Collective has been writing music together and is absolutely Holy Spirit filled. Rehearsal Friday was awesome!

We need to stay in prayer. We absolutely rely on You. We don’t know how exactly You want us to use this stuff, but I am entirely grateful to You for giving me the courage to get up and do this.

I still sing pretty softly, apparently, still battle against wanting to use the voice You gave me and hiding behind the band. They really have to turn my mike up or we can’t really hear me over the monitor. They are so kind, so encouraging, so amazing to write Your music with.

Keep me couragous for You. Keep us all well fed with Your Spirit. You have work for us to do. This world is a mess.

The other day I saw a local place offering a $30 “Joy” class…. I don’t understand. The world doesn’t want You but we need classes on how to be joyful. Our self help books abound, and here You inspired Your people to write Your Word so You could help the helpless, You could save the dying…

Before I knew You, I was dying a terrible, sad, self centered, lonely death here on this beautiful planet You provided. I can do it all as long as I control it all. A hamster on a wheel.

Without Your hand on my very life, I can place so much time and energy into empty things. I can get lost in my personal agendas. How much can I accomplish in one day? To what end? For whose purpose?

I can miss out on what truly matters. I can spend time doing for others when really, it is to do for me. Let’s be honest.

“Look at how much my kids need me to do this, that for them, my husband….”

Meanwhile, the time doing can take over the being with. You meant for us to be with one another, relish that time – so short, compared to eternity with You – appreciating Your gift of that togetherness. When I want, whatever it is I can obsess over, You remind me that what I want is to walk with You, in the cover of Your love and grace.

You are teaching me to love family, friends, strangers, even the difficult to love, at good and not so good times. My thirst is quelled by You. How You feed me with Your living water. What nourishment You provide! Thank You for the joy in knowing You now and placing my hope, trust, confidence, my very life, in You.

Thank You for the “Happy Song,” “Pocketfulls of Stones,” “Roger’s Song,” “You’re With Me” and “Mark’s Song.” Our sound is really coming together. You are doing something here. Thank You for the guys in the band.

Bless Mark, Roger, Tom, Michael, Jordan and our families. Protect our time with them. Thank You for the support from our families that we can now meet weekly and, not only to rehearse, but meet with the other artists at Calvary. Guard and lead our time to create, together and apart, through Your inspiration.

I couldn’t stop singing Your songs in the car, on the way home from the city yesterday. I kept missing my exits. But I wasn’t lost; I was busy being found by You. Those lyrics, the vocalization to Roger’s instrumentals that kept coming. That was fantastic!

Only You can inspire me to write while driving on the Hutchinson Parkway. I was getting hoarse, singing outloud, too filled with blissful happiness at Your provision to stop.

You are so great! I adore You and how much You love and wish for us to know You, share our fulfilled lives in You and Your purpose for us, more and more, every day.

Tuesday, August 27

Very happy to share this from another happy “How We Grow – LITTLEseed Program Songs” customer! CDs available in class, New Morning and online.

“I also wanted to tell you that your cd is absolutely magical, especially the Tick Tock song! Colin will stop crying usually within ten seconds of hearing it, it’s insane how well it works! It has become our savior in the car, and he is actually now doing do much better. He will fall asleep in his car seat which is a miracle. We also use it for naps and bedtime as he is associating it with sleeping. It should make it interesting when we start… again, but its working in the meantime! Just wanted to let you know what a big help it has been! 

This past weekend we actually stayed at my parents house, so Colin was in a different room and crib. Each night when he was getting ready to go down I would put on the CD. As soon as he heard it his eyes would get huge and he would smile. So he definitely recognized it!”

Tuesday, August 20

Had our second official Calvary Arts rehearsal last night. So we’ve got two guys on electric guitar, one on the drums, bass and me. I guess I am officially in a band. Crazy.

All new to me, this band thing but I learned new things about how to plug a mike in and out of different cables and that a monitor is another word for the speaker I am supposed to hear myself sing out of. Yey! Learning a new language is good stuff.

We started with Mark’s song which was great. Really easy for me to sing and the guys truly got their individual sounds down. We had done this one before and this time was old hat but exciting to play/sing again.

Next was my “Pockets Full of Stones” song, inspired by Roger’s verse, John 8:7 “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Tom played my phone recording and I tried not to hide under my chair, I was so self conscious. Perfectionist pride is a real old bugger but I fought it, prayed for courage, and stayed in my seat.

I also watched them all listen to it. They were studying it! And then Mark does this fascinating thing which I guess music guys do and he translated what he heard into chords and beats and rattled that off.

The guys all agreed on that and then God just lead everyone to find his sound. Me too with them. The recordings I sent a few times were rough drafts, after all.

After four or five times of going through the song, taking in different suggestions by this guy and that guy to keep, add and transfer this and that, even highly interesting discussions about music theory, artists and styles… the lonely little phone recording turned into a full song.

This is what Barry Hartglass, my super music producer, does in his recording studio but how it happens is normally a mystery to me. Barry insists he walks around in my head after I have sent him a song, communicate the sound, the feel of it, the instruments I hear, and I really do believe he paces in my head at night, working, getting it just right. It stuns me, how God works through him and even paired us up to understand one another so well.

Last night was different in that I got to see God’s fruits come to life before my eyes. It was amazing. We began with one voice and a melody. We ended with something collectively fantastic. I am really pleased at the transformation.

Lastly, we worked on Roger’s song which started out as this sort of backbone as well but developed into this very full body as the guys just listened to him, encouraged him and then they all added their different sounds, trusting in the Holy Spirit’s leading. I am praying on lyrics and vocals and will listen hard to, again, my phone recording of their playing and building on his song.

The whole night was like watching a tiny example of what fun God must have had creating the universe. From nothing, there was something. God just orchestrated a whole bunch of nothingness into this beautiful thing filled with individual uniqueness that,alone, is gorgeous, but absolutely flourishes in coming together. And, to me, it was a heck of a big bang effect too. The musuc played last night was planted within Mark, me, Roger… and then absolutely evolved as everyone, Tom and Michael included, watered, fertilized and helped the seeds grow into songs.

My favorite parts of the night, however, were the beginning and after prayer by Tom and then Mark. When you are hungry for God to use you, people praying outloud, with deep and humble desire to do God’s will in the two hours you are together… you just get so fed with that. To know that we are not only doing this work for Him but as a collective body with Him at the lead is extremely powerful. I just wanted the prayers to keep going.

The nice thing is, apart, we are assigned to pray for one another’s individual artistic gifts. Mark doesn’t know this, but I got him this time around and am praying for his songwriting, multiple instrument playing and incorporating the bagpipes, as he requested.

I am so grateful to have been lead to this calling. I am so encouraged at the reminder I really didn’t have to do anything, again, but drop all my insecurities, past disappointments, fear of failure and falling on my face and just trust Him enough to lean on Him and follow.

“How We Grow – LITTLEseed® Program Songs” Music Sample http://www.greenwomanyc.com/LITTLESeedMedley.mp3 Available online: CD Baby, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Pressed CD: New Morning Market, Woodbury and in class

ALBUM DESCRIPTION Whimsical, visual, tender. Their simplicity reflects parent and child love. Perfect for the parent eager to stop and watch her child grow, filled with glowing pride and anticipation. She is profoundly aware each precious moment ends in memory.  Face to face time will need to end as they know it one day. Reflective and playfully serene, this is neither “grown up” music nor “children’s music” but music for both. It is the artist’s hope that parent and child can get lost enjoying the before, during and the after moments, as the music calls them to return to one another again and again. These songs are a gift wrapped up in a beautiful package of encouragement and moments of togetherness, for everyone to enjoy. REBIRTH All LITTLEseed™ Program songs were written by Michelle Wenis and inspired by “the guy upstairs.” Michelle is eager to share, “These songs came to me one morning, one after the other, after I asked ‘the guy upstairs’ for some direction.  I felt like my focus was going to change.  As they came, I grabbed my phone, recorded nursery rhyme like lyrics, melodies… It was a pivotal moment and I knew it.  Within 45 minutes, I had 14 songs.  They continued to come…  I guess they have been hiding in there for some time.” “Barry Hartglass has made this 21 song CD happen beautifully.  We now share them inside and outside of our LITTLEseed® Program classes.” “This CD is my motherly heart set to lyrics and music, sealed by my maker.”  –  Michelle Wenis