Recently in Web resources Category

There's a few tools that I've learned to employ to train myself in different cultural styles of worship that I can share with the blog readers. Of course, when you work for a church like mine, there's not much of a music budget, so I've had to learn to be resourceful with the awesome power of the web. Here's a few places to get started:

1. iTunes, iTunes, iTunes.
I am surprised that more people have not discovered how awesome iTunes is when you really dig into it. A lot of folks in my church are under the impression that this software is only for iPod owners. In reality, iTunes is just a place to by music that you can save onto your computer for listening, burn to a CD or upload to your mp3 player of choice. iTunes has a great store that can also be an education in music. Start by taking one artist that you know, let's say Kirk Franklin that everyone on the planet is familiar with. Type that into the search and go to his link where you'll see all his recordings and on the right you'll see a list of artist who are similar. So, you can follow those links to other artists and songs all day long, getting deeper and deeper into the gospel experience. Each song plays a 30 second sample which is enough to get the general vibe. If you hear something you like, create a playlist and drag and drop the song into the list. At the end of your session you might choose to buy a few tracks, but you can still learn a lot for free from those little samples.

2. YouTube
You can also go over to YouTube and type in the names of a few artists and you will find scores of videos that are sometimes just the track from the CD in it's entirety. This is certainly not legal to post, but it's there for you to experience if you don't feel guilty about it. You are not stealing by listening to it. Again, if you really like the track, then buy it. YouTube also provides suggestions, and so you can spend all day listening to videos. Check out my previous post to see what the type of videos I'm describing. This is also a great tool for finding African music. Type "African Gospel" or a word like "Nzambe" or "Yesu" into the search and you will get a bunch of videos of African gospel.

3. Internet Radio
Now head back over to iTunes. If you look at the top left hand side under "Library" you will see an icon labeled "Radio". This takes you to a massive catalog of radio internet radio stations organized by genre. This has been fun to discover because the actual radio in my car is pretty lame. Internet Radio takes me back to the days when you would sit by the radio with your finger on record to catch a good song on tape. My sister had boxes of radio mix tapes. What a fun time of musical discovery! Internet Radio is not on demand, but it's another way to open your mind up to what people are listening to who are from another culture. Listening to the good stuff along with the bad means that you are becoming more discerning. You can be conversant in the style so that you can engage with that style in a constructive way. What makes good rap and bad rap? What makes good Soukous and bad Soukous? How does Kirk Franklin's sound compare to Donnie McClurkin?

4. All Music Guide (allmusic.com)
This is a little more intensive. The All Music Guide website has bios on artists, articles on the development of genres, and even album and song reviews. This website is for when you are read to really learn more about the origins of the sounds you hear. It helps you understand the "why" of certain sounds. Pick a genre or even a country and start reading about what music is part of their cultural landscape. This website has been a big source of information for me about the Congolese sound. (I could also recommend Wikipedia for this sort of thing.)

I am greatly encouraged to see that Church Copyright License International has just launched CCLI Urban to very intentionally reach across the racial divide in order to incorporate African American music into their catalog. CCLI is an organization that allows composers to register their music so that they can receive payment for when their songs are used in worship services. Churches pay an annual fee in order to have the legal right to make songsheets, project lyrics, print in bulletins, and distribute a small number of recordings. They have also, in recent years, used their website as a resource for finding music through a service that allows you to download lyrics, lead sheets, chord sheets, and even hymn sheets called SongSelect.

In general, the gospel music industry has for a long time been outside the mainstream. They are not on big labels and are not being published by big publishing companies. As a result, it's very difficult to find sheet music and resources to learn new music. This has meant that gospel composers rarely receive legal compensation for their work from churches. This push by CCLI to encourage gospel artists to register and "Urban" churches to pay for a license is going to help gospel become more available and African American worship to join the mainstream. This will do a lot to help churches become more diverse where they might not be able to find any resources to learn and perform gospel.

Of course, this whole push is financially motivated by CCLI. They know that gospel music is huge and they need to get a cut of the action. Regardless, I am excited. Anything that can grease the wheels of reconciliation is good to me. Their website is an excellent example of specific marketing to shed the image that CCLI is a white-bread organization. They are using Israel Houghton, Kirk Franklin, Kurt Carr, Joe Pace, Byron Cage, Donnie McClurkin and other mainstream gospel artists who are already registered to spread the word that CCLI is good for everybody.

Last week, I set up a Nimbit online merch table in order to sell mp3s, CDs, and other merch should I go into the T-shirt business. (Maybe I can offer some Little Knots gear, too.) If you can't see the store directly under the header, you might not have a current version of flash installed. Also, if you subscribe to my blog in a reader, you need to come to the actual site to see it.

The only product in the store right now is my 2002 CD, "Only One" but having the store up and running before the release of the new CD later this year will mean that as soon as I have something, you can go online and buy mp3s. Play around with the store and let me know what you think. Buttons on the top left side are store, bio, mailing list, and shopping cart. You can play full-length samples of all the songs. If you are in St Louis and you like the samples, come by the New City Fellowship office sometime and buy a CD for only $10. As always, it's cheaper to buy downloads, but isn't it more satisfying to own the real deal?

You can find the same store widget on my facebook fan page as well as my myspace page.

Our contractor finished the work on our house. We are now officially done with the repairs, so anything else that breaks down, fall apart, or rots will be on me to fix.

Today the weather in St Louis is unseasonably warm. I rode my bike to work for the first time since our move (and the first time since daylight savings ended.) It took my about 10 minutes to get to work on my bike.

I'm getting psyced up about our Black History Celebration on February 21. It will be a fun time for all and I hope that we'll get a lot of strangers. This weekend, I made an announcement in which I emphasized to people the potential for inviting neighbors and co-workers. We had a few full-color invitation cards that got snatched up right after church. We printed 200 more in anticipation of people getting the word out. The whole world loves gospel music, and so it's a great bridge for the good news to be communicated.

Me and the fam are flying to Orlando after Easter to hang out with Sarah's siblings. Apparently, there is an airline called Allegiant Air that only flys to a few tourist destinations from small airports. We got round trip tickets to Orlando from the Springfield/Branson airport for $60 a seat. So we'll have to drive about 3 and a half hours first, but it sure beats trying to drive to Florida or paying to fly out of Lambert Airport. Maybe next time we go to Chattanooga, we'll fly Springfield to Orlando to Chattanooga for $120 a seat.

No more stomach flu. No more staph infection. No more medication reactions. But today, my arthritis is giving me trouble again. My wrists are really bugging me.

I discovered this website for people who like to make to-do lists. I'm trying it out for now, but I am skeptical that it will be better than my good old legal pad and sharpy system.

The recording is progressing. We are hoping to have 5 or 6 tracks completed soon. Maybe, I'll just go ahead and stick them on iTunes to see if my fans (86 on my facebook page) would like to buy them.

cool! check it out.

Here's a nifty website for you guitar players out there.

My friend, Tanya found a website that has a bunch of song lyrics and mp3s for a ministry in Uganda. The site features some favorites at our church like "Baraka Za Mungu", "Yesu Azali Awa" and "Kwake Yesu Nasimama". It also has a few songs that I had never heard before including one that I would like to add into our repertoire called "Nitamwimbia Bwana" which means "I will sing to God."

I get a number of recordings or web links from the African members of our church that have songs that they would like to incorporate into our worship. Often, I listen to the recording and determine that it's not a song that we will be able to use. Here's the different criteria that I use to determine if it will work for our worship:

Lots of repetition. We are in America and so we can't realistically expect the Americans in our congregation to be able to handle singing a song that requires us to be able to sing a lot of new Swahili, French or Lingala. Repetition means that we can learn the basic hook like "Yesu Azali awa" and then sing it 4 times in a row.

Can I lead the song? Sometimes I get a song that has very complicated lead part sung by a skilled African worship leader. We have a few really good African lead singers in our congregation, but if a song can only be led by one of them, then it will not be sung very often unless they are willing to always be available to lead it. Instead, if the song has a simple lead part that I can learn, then we can do it whenever I am there which is almost every Sunday. I have a ton of excellent Congolese music that we will not be able to do until we get a really skilled Congolese song leader who will be able to lead them. (Maybe if we could lure Perpetue back to U City...hmmmmm.)

Does the song have anything to say of value? This is always an issue for a song of any tradition, but it is particularly hard to find simple, repetitive songs that have anything of value to say. Sometimes, I will hear a song that I really like, but when I read the translation, I find that it has a very bland message or sometimes says things that are doctrinally suspect.

With those things in mind, I get really excited when I hear a song like "Nitamwimbia Bwana" because it meets all three criteria.

For an example of a song that I really like, but we will not be able to do in church because it is too complicated click here. The song starts about a minute into the video with a very syncopated, non-repetitive, lead part that is sung by two men in harmony! I think it is a very fun sounding song, and I am sure that the words express a lot more than most of our usual "Jesus is great" songs, but I can't imagine how long it would take me to learn to sing the Lingala with all the same inflections and rhythms. I wish I could sing it; I love how the lead seems to just float over the dance beat with such freedom.