A lot of people in the Christian music sphere probably know that the David Crowder Band released the first single last week for their upcoming album. The song they released is called How He Loves. Less known among the Christian music community is that the song originally written by John Mark McMillan. The story behind the song was that a great friend to John, and fellow youth leader, prayed one morning to God and said that if it would shake the youth of the nation and start a movement, he would give his life that day. He died that night in a car wreck. The next day, this song was written. Now, this song has really built up a lot of momentum since it was written. I believe it has received the biggest boost from Kim Walker and Jesus Culture version. We even played last August at one of the Heart of Worship events at Community Covenant.

Now, the thing is that the newest version of the song, released by the David Crowder Band, changes up one of the lines of the song. The lines that originally sang, “So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss” got changed to “So Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss”.

Now, copyright law allows very small, minor changes to songs so that they’ll better fit the circumstances in which the song is played. And, this is a very minor change, it’s one word during a verse. But, defining a kiss as sloppy and wet makes it seem very different than unforeseen.

In regards to this specific song, I love the original lyrics. I love the imagery of Heaven just showering love on the earth, and to me, unforeseen makes it seem like a polite peck on the cheek that people sneak in on a first date; which is not the way God feels about us. He’s absolutely crazy about us and wants us to know it! So now, my question to you is a two pronged question.

Which lyric do you like better in this specific case? (Sloppy wet, or unforeseen.)
And, are you okay with changing of lyrics of songs? (Or do you hold to the belief that it was written that way for a reason?)

I’m hoping that we can get some differences in opinion going here and that’ll lead to good discussion on the subject.

d

p.s. Here’s a video of John Mark McMillan sharing the story behind the song and then singing it.

Okay, here’s what you do. Open up iTunes and go to your top twenty-five most played tab and then post the top ten most played songs on your iTunes. Don’t change anything, don’t try to play a song 12 times to get it into the top ten or to drop a song out. This is not your top ten favorite songs. You can add a disclaimer at the end if you want to. For example, “Okay, so the reason Hit Me Baby One More Time is on there is because I share this computer with my little sister and it’s her favorite song.” I’ll go first.

1. Majesty (Here I Am) – Hillsong United – More than Life
2. Came to My Rescue – Hillsong United – United We Stand
3. Til I See You – Hillsong United – Look to You
4. Take All of Me – Hillsong United – More than Life
5. All For Love – Hillsong United – Look to You
6. Always – Hillsong United – More than Life
7. More than Life – Hillsong United – More than Life
8. Awesome God – Hillsong United – Look to You
9. Sing (Your Love) – Hillsong United – More than Life
10. Consuming Fire – Hillsong United – More than Life

*I’m a little surprised by this list. Not so much the band as United is easily my favorite band, but the choice of songs. I would have thought that the songs would have mostly been from United We Stand/All of the Above rather than More than Life/Look to You. Who knew?

Okay, your turn. Post the top ten songs played in your iTunes.

d

I’ve had Chris Tomlin’s cd, Not to Us, for quite a few years now and I’ve noticed that it’s always one that I return to when I want to soak, relax, and just be with my Creator. I’ll put this on the iPod when I’m laying in bed, or on a plane, or any other place where I can just take a step back and put my focus back on Jesus.

I know I’m not the only one who does this, so what cd, (not band, not song, can’t be a mix cd or a playlist), do you put on the iPod to turn your eyes upon our Creator? Let’s see if we can get some responses from those who read this and maybe get a few good music suggestions going.

d

I’m going to start giving guitar lessons! If you or someone you know would like to learn how to play guitar, or already play a little bit but would like to take the next step in their skill level, come see me and we’ll work on developing your skill in playing through rhythm, chord knowledge and progression, chord variations, effects pedals and more.

Give me a call if you’re interested or spread the world by emailing this link to friends or people you know who would be interested. Use the little share/save button at the bottom of the page to share this page with those who would benefit from it.

Shred on,
d

This is my pedalboard. This along with an amp is what I use to get the sounds I want and need when playing guitar onstage. The way it works is I play something on my guitar, the guitar sends a signal through cables to the pedalboard, the signal then runs through each pedal on the board getting morphed, shaped, and manipulated accordingly. After running through the pedals, the signal then goes to the amplifier which has a microphone set up in front of it. The signal then goes from the mic, to the soundboard, and then finally to the house-speakers which is what the general public hears. It takes every part of this chain working fully for it to sound good; when one thing isn’t functioning properly, the whole sound suffers.

January 18, during the last Heart of Worship event, I noticed that my guitar started sounding different, and not in a good way. I brushed it off as a fluke thing, “it must have been a power issue” I thought and didn’t think anything of it after. The next time I pulled out my gear and set up for a service, I noticed that it sounded terrible. There was no volume, everything sounded flat and had no depth. After some time-consuming tweaking, I was finally getting a good sound out of the gear, but I was still frustrated at the issues that were surfacing. The next time I set up the gear, sound check for the Easter service, everything sounded worse than ever. But after a lot of huffing, puffing, tweaking, and maybe a few other words ending in “ing”, I was able to get a workable tone that got used for the service. Afterward, I had no choice but to take everything to my laboratory, (my house), and find out why and what was causing my guitar to sound so dull, (known as tone sucking). I think that it might be helpful to draw you a picture so you have a better idea of what I’m describing.

At first, I thought the problem was with the guitar itself. But I ruled that out after playing through a different setup with the same guitar and it sounded great. Next I thought it was the Route 66 pedal, (the upside down house looking one). So I took all of the pedals off of the board, which were all attached to the board via industrial strength velcro, and disconnected them from one another. But before I tested out each pedal individually, I plugged my guitar directly into the amp, giving the purest signal possible to the amp; it still sounded bad. I came back later and played around a little bit, plugging the guitar directly into the amp, this time, it sounded better. I looked and noticed that I was using a different cable than I had been using. I plugged in the old cable: bad sound. I plugged in a different cable: good sound. “AH-HAH!” The cable that had been running from my guitar to the pedals wasn’t working properly anymore and was thus sucking a large amount of tone away.

Relieved that I had found the cause of the tone-sucking, I then proceeded to kick myself for not checking the cable before I completely dismantled my setup and thus have to go through the labor of re-sticking everything and connecting them, running cables over stuff, under stuff, and into stuff.

The moral of the story is this: always make sure to check your cable connections before doing a complete overhaul on your setup. You can most likely change a few words to apply this lesson to other areas, but I’ll leave that part up to you. I have to get back to reapplying the pedals to the board.

and get a new cable
d

Here’s the video of Come to Us that was played at Heart of Worship a couple weeks ago for those of you who couldn’t make it, or would like to see it again.

That night was such a great opportunity and God’s hand was all over what went on, not just with this song. Hopefully this is the first of many songs that will be written by this community of worshipers that will draw people into the presence of God.

Dustin

What happens at practice doesn’t always have to stay at practice. Below is a video of what goes on when we practice for events like Heart of Worship.

Thanks to Inga who was in town and had her camera to record all of the footage I used in this video. There’s another one that’ll be posted tomorrow or Monday that’ll have the debut of Come to Us on it.

Dustin

I love the song None but Jesus, written by Brooke Fraser. And for some reason, lately, whenever I pick up my guitar and start to play, I eventually end up playing and singing this song. The words to this song simply allow one to just sit and be with God. It’s kind of got a soaking feel to it while still being a very corporate and singable song. That might be one of the reasons that I like it so much. Have a listen and watch the video.

Hopefully this song will bless you like it does me.

Dustin

Remember this post? Well, after being reminded by a friend, I wanted to give an update about the progress of writing the song that I mentioned in the other post. In short, the song that I have been working on for the last month is all but finished. (Which is pretty much saying that it’s finished without actually saying that it’s finished.)

I was able to write this song in a couple hours of writing spread out over a monthlong period. I feel that this song almost wrote itself; I think that this is because of God’s hand in the start of the process and this being a song that needed to be written. In the last week, the finishing touches were put on it as I met with Jesse to show it to him. We tweaked a couple things, changed a few words, and came up with an order that we like for it to flow and sound and feel the way that it’s intended to. I’m very pleased with how this process has worked out and with the finished product. I’ve written really bad songs before, and this isn’t like anything I’ve written before. It’s real. It’s raw.

The official debut of the song will be at the Heart of Worship event: More than Conquerers on January 18 at Community Covenant. It’ll be one piece of what is going to be an amazing night of worship and encountering God. I can’t wait to see what God does with this song, the worship night, and with this whole songwriting thing.

Thanks, Mindy, for reminding me to post this update. I hope the news was to your liking .

Dustin

Is right here…

la la la…

Dustin