God Put Song In All Of Creation

May 1, 2009

Something I’ve been doing on and off for years during ‘ministry time’ in gatherings & conferences is, instead of praying for folks, sometimes I simply sing over them, sing scripture, sing what I see or sense in trying to discern what the Holy Spirit is doing at the time.

The effect has been profound.

I got this recent email from one of our translators at the Vineyard Worship conference in Lithuania. There seemed to be many there living under a heavy weight of depression so we invited anyone who could identify with that to come forward and we played and sang over them.

Here’s what Adone said:

I also wanted to share with you an amazing thing that has happened to me. When you guys invited people who feel heaviness inside to come out in order to play worship music over us, I did because I’d been living with it for a long time. I didn’t feel anything particular happening at that time but during the next two days the heaviness that I used to feel gradually left me completely. I used to pray that God would restore the joy I once had but he did something different – he gave me a new joy.

Worship & prophetic music can be a powerful thing. In fact my understand of it’s effect was really helped by something I read on Dave Wainscott blog a while back.

He quoted this.

While searching for the chemical origins of life, Shsumu Onnu found something unexpected: a waltz. Bored with tedious mathematical equations, the geneticist decided to convert chemical formulas for living cells into musical notes. He figured listening to the complex genetic codes, rather than staring at them, would make elusive patterns easier to detect. In the process, Onnu discovered genes…carry a tune. The tunes he found were not just the interesting random notes which other scientists had predicted…Onnu found genuine music…sometimes with an uncanny similarity to the works of great composers.


Translated into sheet music and performed on the piano, a portion of mouse RNA…sounds like a lively waltz. Except for its quicker tempo, parts of the mouse RNA Waltz are dead ringers for passages in Frederick Chopin’s “Nocturnal Opus 55.”


The musical score within a cancer-causing oncogene sounds somber and funereal, while the gene responsible for bestowing transparency on the lens of the eye is filled with trills and flourishes…When Onnu translated a funeral march by Chopin from notes to chemical equations, “entire passages appear identical to a cancer gene found in humans…the same patterns
which govern the movement of planets and galaxies also appear in genes and in music.” -Dr. Jill Niemark

Amazing – what do you think?


House Concerts – Am I Coming To A Living Room Near You?

March 6, 2009

How do you fancy hosting a live concert in your home? I’m planning House Concert tour with a bit of a twist.

Firstly What is a House Concert and how does it work?

A house concert is quite simply a live music performance in someone’s home. You invite your friends and acquaintances over to watch a live show. Each of your friends donates a few bucks/pounds/euros (depends where you are) for the privilege. You then get live music in your home. Your friends get a personalized, relaxed environment to experience great music.

It’s a rapidly growing phenomenon. In a New York Times front page article a number of years ago Dave Nachmanoff, a singer-songwriter from Southern California, said “Part of the reason for the boom of house concerts right now is people are so hungry for community but lacking in ways they can get together with other people in an intimate or friendly way that isn’t commercialized,”

Why Do A House Concert Tour?

A few weeks ago after a brief conversation with a friend in church all of a sudden it made sense to do a house concert tour.

In all the years I have been doing this (over 20 now – yikes!) I have led worship, sang, performed at local churches, big events with thousands attending, conferences both big and small, yet week-in-week-out most of what I do happens in small intimate settings. Small group in our home, sessions at C-HOP (local intercessory worship gathering) – it’s in these more intimate settings that the Lord’s presence seems more tangible, peoples lives are transformed as a result of God doing something in the room, in the intimacy of a few dozen folk gathered.

Don’t get me wrong I’m open to doing bigger events but I’m excited by the prospect of recapturing something of the early church model of house to house worship gatherings.

Where Will I Be Playing?

This is the exciting bit – it literally could be a world tour because you get to decide where I play, it could even be in your living room!

I’m asking you, my newsletter subscribers, MySpace & FaceBook friends to consider hosting or help organize a local house concert where you live. If you’re interested in that let me know where you are and based on where the interest comes from I’ll try to join-the-dots on the map and see if I can make it work. You could be in USA, Australia, Europe, UK, Ireland or somewhere else.

Seriously, nowhere is off limits to be considered.

What Can You Expect At One Of These House Concert Sessions?

You can expect passionate ‘Ethno-Celt‘ flavoured music and songs that have worship at the heart but can also be accessible to folks who are not yet followers of Jesus.

Here’s the twist. Each gig will be recorded, for a live album of the best bits and all the hosts and helpers will get a credit on the recording. Sometimes spontaneity is the highlight of these sessions and hopefully the recording will capture these unique moments.

I’d Love to Hear From You

Would you consider hosting or helping organize a house concert in your neighbourhood? 

If so I’d love to hear from you, wherever you are on the planet – ask me for my ‘Hosting A house Concert Kit’.

Comment below or email me.

Cheers – Andy

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Bono – A conversation on Christianity…

November 6, 2008

When I was a student U2 were local boys just starting to make some ripples on the local & UK music scene. Shirley & I went to see them play Maysfield Leisure centre in Belfast way back in 1982 (before it was knocked down).

There was already something ‘other dimensional’ about their songs and sound.

I’ve come to realise that they are probably the most high profile ‘guerrilla worship’ band in the world.

Thanks to Dave Wainscott for finding this clip of some of Bono’s quotes on Christianity.

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Bono – A conversation on Christianity…

November 5, 2008

When I was a student U2 were local boys just starting to make some ripples on the local & UK music scene. Shirley & I went to see them play Maysfield Leisure centre in Belfast way back in 1982 (before it was knocked down).

There was already something ‘other dimensional’ about their songs and sound.

I’ve come to realise that they are probably the most high profile ‘guerrilla worship’ band in the world.

Thanks to Dave Wainscott for finding this clip of some of Bono’s quotes on Christianity.

Embedded Video

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Bono – A conversation on Christianity…

November 5, 2008

When I was a student U2 were local boys just starting to make some ripples on the local & UK music scene. Shirley & I went to see them play Maysfield Leisure centre in Belfast way back in 1982 (before it was knocked down).

There was already something ‘other dimensional’ about their songs and sound.

I’ve come to realise that they are probably the most high profile ‘guerrilla worship’ band in the world.

Thanks to Dave Wainscott for finding this clip of some of Bono’s quotes on Christianity.

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Got a songwriting question for Kathryn Scott?

September 12, 2008

I’ll be interviewing Kathryn Scott on the subject of songwriting for OpenSourceSongs.com and rather than dreaming up questions that I think might be relevant to the subject of Christian Songwriting I thought I’d survey you guys.

So here’s what I’d like you to do. Leave your question(s) in the comments section below and I’ll get Kathryn to answer them.

If you’re on my mailing list you’ll get to hear when the interview is published.

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Do we really need more worship songs?

September 9, 2008

Worship music in America and the west is now an ‘industry’.

That’s not necessarily a condemning statement after all Jubal, the first musician documented in Gen 4 was listed with his brothers by their professions. One brother was in agriculture, the other in manufacturing and Jubal was ‘the father of all who play the harp and flute’. It’s what he did for a living which, by the way, included fathering, mentoring and developing other artists too.

But any time you get an industry forming then the mixed motives of human nature kick in to some degree. Sometimes the industry has to self sustain and churn out product just so that it continues to exist.

So do we really need any more worship songs? There are more being written and distributed now than in any previous generation.

When wrestling with this here are three thoughts that found their way to the conscious part of my brain.

1. God likes songs. The biggest section of His book is a collection of songs.
2. If the universe’s main function is to display His glory (Ps. 19 ) and it’s expanding at an accelerating rate then it seems that even creation cannot contain enough expressions to voice worship to its creator.
3. The very last statement of the Gospels says: Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.  I think the same is true of worship – there can never be enough expressions of response to the love of God.

Maybe I’m justifying to myself yet more worship songs being added to the mix but here are a few samples of the new ones including a 4/4 guitar driven version of ‘Be Thou My Vision’ that has proved popular in night clubs, festivals and even churches!

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I Need A Volunteer To Help Finish The Worship Album

August 30, 2008

I need 1 or 2 volunteers to help me finish off the album
download.

I’m nearly there with the pre-release version but I’ve had
a last minute idea that I want to include in the ‘Mercy
Tracks Me Down’ album.

I’ve been thinking of ways of adding more value to it and
figured that it would be useful to include the chord charts
for the songs and power point files for worship leaders to
use along with the downloads.

The problem is I only have this done for a couple of the 10
songs, some of the others are handwritten on paper.

So here’s my offer: If you (or someone you know) would like
to create the chord charts in a MS word doc and/or the Power
Point files for the lyrics then I’ll get you a free copy of
the album, both the download and the CD which will be
released later. Oh, and you’ll get a credit on the album
too!

I can email you the handwritten chords. On some of the
songs you’ll need to listen to the songs to match the words
to the chords which means you’ll need a musical ear to do
that.

If you’re interested give me a shout.

As soon as I get this done the album is good to go!


Does God Sing?

July 13, 2008

On the new album I have recorded a version of Amazing Grace with a refrain in between some of the verses which goes ‘Grace is the song, grace is the song, grace is the song He’s singing over us’.

Here’s a great explanation by Bob Kauflin about how God sings over us.

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Automatically transpose song chords to a new key!

May 17, 2008
This has to be one of the coolest and most useful sites for musicians, singers etc.

You paste in the lyrics and chords to any song, tell it what key you want it changed to and hey presto, at the click od your mouse it’s done!

http://logue.net/xp/index.htm

Let me know what you think.