This song is an exercise in patience, restraint, and delayed gratification. It is based on a parable of Jesus, has progressive atonement theology, avoids gender bias, and encourages bodily response beyond just singing. It was written from a deeply personal perspective, when faced with shifting sands all around me, who do I turn to, and where do I make my stand? The words are just as meaningful for me today as ever.
It takes 5/8 a long time to process through a two-chord progression in 4/4. If you're a math person, have fun with that. One cool thing about it... it makes each song section unique. It also helps the song last over ten minutes.
Originally written in 2003, I have performed this song hundreds of times in churches. Only recently have I been recording and mixing it in my dining room. And I have a laundry list of unfinished issues with it.
1. No auto-tune vocal correction. It needs it.
2. No elastic audio rhythm correction. Also needs it.
3. No large diaphragm condensers. All dynamic mics. Not good.
4. No automation.
5. No mastering.
The list of compromises is long. But I'm tired of waiting for things to be perfect. I hope you enjoy it.
This is my second-ever music video editing project. It's another original song written by myself and Heidi Davis. This one is also from the musical "The Ripper: Song of the Knife."
Recording for this song went a little easier. The drum parts are simpler, the instrumentation is stripped down, and there is no guitar solo. I had to record bass and guitar direct (in my breakfast nook), so the tones are all in-the-box (Pro Tools).
I do like the Waves GTR plugin though. It has several PRS presets that sound great, offers multiple mic and cabinet arrangements, and has lots of stomp effects that get the job done. I used it for both guitar and bass tones.
I took my first video editing class back in 1996, and soon after I began working on a local television show using a Commodore Amiga with Video Toaster (until we upgraded to an Avid nonlinear system). It only took 22 years for me to finally edit my first music video.
We recorded all the video in one evening at the Bach to Rock music studio in Tanasbourne. My son Luke did all of the videography. We followed a scratch track because I had not finished the final mix for the song. So I had a lot of work to do to get the song mixed AND edit the video together.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver deserves a lot of credit for their reporting on the American criminal justice system. I put together a comprehensive playlist of all the issues they've covered, including police, public defenders, prosecutors, judges, and prisons. If you don't believe there is a need for sweeping criminal justice reform, watch all 20 videos. You will change your mind.
Hunting. It is the temporary return to human predatory dominance in the wild. Be it by rifle, shotgun, bow, blade, or bare hands, hunting is predatory.
But what if animals were equal with humans? What if, because we have technology, we humans were able to find a way to survive on this planet without ever killing animals? Is that what Sikhs hope that humanity can achieve? Check out this page for an interesting spiritual discussion on killing animals in self defense only.
I mean, when we are our best selves, don't we try to only kill other humans in self defense, or the defense of others? There's not another good reason, is there? If you take a baseball bat to my car, I'm not allowed to shoot you, am I? Only if a person's safety and/or life is involved, right? This is what we all understand?
From a determinist view, false prophets are allowed to exist by God. Do they therefore serve some purpose? Perhaps false prophets exist to push the church off of its doctrinal certainty? Do they not inspire the church to study the scriptures, to develop arguments and debate them, and to ultimately discover new realities that would have otherwise remained hidden beneath a warm blanket of blessed assurance? Yes they do.
I deny the charge of false prophet. But to those who claim otherwise, I respond with an offer of dialogue. Let's study and debate our scripture together. Perhaps we will discover new realities together?
On http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/semper-reformanda/ it says this:
I am going through figuring out a cloud backup solution for my Pro Tools data, thinking I have it figured out now, and I'm watching the files begin the long, arduous process of syncing. This derails my current recording project temporarily as I resolve this important and neglected issue.
I did do some tracking of my guitar solo for the upcoming A-side single that I am releasing with Torchsong Entertainment. There is also a B-side (obviously), and that still needs to have all of the instrument tracking, plus drum editing, plus vocal channel and all that...
He proposes an experiment where a person is shown a painting while simultaneously having their brain stimulated in the "painting liking" areas. His intuition is that the result of the experiment would be the person liking the painting. He then goes on to state that such a result "will tell us that all emotion is simply what gets stimulated in your brain and what does not. All belief systems that are not evidence based would be triggered by simply what gets triggered in your brain and what does not. And so that is all I think in the future of neuroscience." (6:29)
I just rediscovered this. It's me using my personal favorite guitar amplifier, a Top Hat King Royale combo, hand built in TX, all tube 35w Vox AC30 Top Boost clone. I have it running through a '90s era Marshall 1960B 4x12 speaker cabinet with stock 75w Celestion speakers. I'm playing a Paul Reed Smith PRS Standard 22 guitar through a BOSS CS-2 Compression Sustainer pedal and a BOSS DD-3 Digital Delay pedal. A Budda Bud-Wah kicks in at the climax(?). I am playing to a wonderfully slow, bluesy, Pink Floyd style backing track through a killer pro PA in a room acoustically designed for small rock concerts... And then I just did a couple of one-take improv solos and recorded them through the webcam on my Macbook using Photo Booth and the built-in mic. SMH.
Ever since I was young I wanted to figure things out. I always asked why. I was inquisitive about everything, but I was especially fascinated with nature. I wanted to know what everything was. I have a bookshelf full of nature fields guides and natural science books I collected as a kid. Knowledge felt powerful to a powerless child.
I caught a black widow spider in a jelly jar when I was in first
grade. I caught lots of animals as a kid. I made a traveling zoo with my
red wooden wagon by filling it with jars full of all the creatures I
could catch. I took it around the neighborhood and asked people to pay
me to see it. So yeah, I thought every black spider I caught was a
"black widow."
