email love

I'm after it at the moment.

Last night I sent out lots of emails about Bob Kauflin's visit to Brisbane. I think it will be a really good event* and I want lots of people to come. But I feel like a spammer.

Receiving email love (a 'thanks, looks great, I'll spread the word' type reply) makes me feel all warm and gooey and less like an obnoxious spammer.

It took 8 hours to receive some email love from last night's session.

Feeling it now.

Oh, and I am actually pretty excited about the twists this year. You should all come. I'll be doing the Brisbane evening, then flying to Sydney to catch those ones too. Good times.


* There's lots of big christian events on at the moment. If I could only pick one to go to, this would be it. But don't tell anyone that I said that.

wow!

Just listened to one of our songs from Emu's new cd which will be released next month. It sounds really good. Better than any of our stuff before. Can't wait to hear the whole album.

Come to twist next weekend for a taster.

twist material written!

I've got too much stuff to say, but most of it is written down and it all feels kind of obvious. Maybe I'll just hand out my pretty handout and we can have a chat or do songwriters' show and tell.

sh!

Don't tell anyone yet but preparations for the first ever Brisbane twist music ministry conference are underway.  It will be fantastic.  All the cool people will be there doing very cool things.  The uncool people (me) will also be there and we'll be having such a great time that we'll forget to wish that we were cool too.  It'll be the kind of event we'll file away in our minds and rave about when we're 108 and senile.  Don't say anything now, just smile smugly when you see it announced in the sky (or on your church bulletin) and remember that you heard it first here.

Sydney

Andrew and I had a fantastic couple of days in Sydney. Andrew is still there - stressing about an assignment he has to put in tonight. I'm home alone for the week, realising that I can't do basic things like unlock the downstairs to get to the washing machine... Can we hold out till Friday?

Highlights of the weekend
1. Going round the harbor on Lara's dad's boat with Philip and his UK friends, Lara and Ben.
2. Introducing Andrew to my emu friends.
3. Having such a great time that Andrew and I both forgot it was my birthday. Surely, the best kind of birthday.
4. Singing at twist. Always good, but a little different this year. More piano - and a very nice piano, very nicely played.
5. The songwriting discussion thing that I was a part of with Micheal M, Rob S and Philip P. Jodie McNeil interviewed us and we chatted together about the songwriting process. We were worried it could be a bit self indulgent and boring for people to listen to but it was heaps of fun - for us at least! MM showed us the evolution of come hear the angels sing - which was so interesting, Rob introduced a new song (it had some nice alliteration), I spoke about traction in lyrics and Philip told us his AABA + x factor method.
6. Micheal Jensen's workshop on musical styles and church music and stuff. All good fun to argue over what it means to transform cultural styles for the gospel... Remains to be seen what practical use the discussion will be.
6. Fish and Chips at Manly. Thai with Rob and Claire.

MJ on musical styles

This looks fun. I'm sorry I won't be able to be there - I'm part of the writing workshop at Twist.

Will I see any of you there?

I twisted!

It was fantastic. My 5th twist. Possibly the best. Highlights?

• Singing with 100 people who love to sing, being led by minimal (but exceptional) instrumentalists.
• Staying up late watching Andy Judd and Sarah Bailey muck around with one of my lyrics and set it to music. Amazing process. Andy played chords and Sarah made up stuff over the top. After a couple of hours we had a demo verse and a demo chorus (they didn't match so well, but it's a start.)
• Leading the songwriting elective. Was heaps of fun. Watch out for up and coming songwriters!
  
• Eating more junk food in one weekend than I've eaten in an entire year. There was chocolate everywhere.
• Being at the beautiful Port Hacking.
• Coming home to find that my blog's continued without me!
  

twist

Twist music ministry conference in on soon. Dominic Steele is teaching. The music is always great. There will be a free 'J is for Jesus' concert for the kids. It will be a fantastic weekend.

I'm running three of the many workshops: Music for preschoolers (Saturday), Changing the musical culture of your church (Sunday) and Lyric Writing (Monday). I've done the first two for the last couple of years, but lyric writing is brand new. I'm quite excited about it. I'll be talking about things I love: rhyme (in all its wonderful forms), meter, fresh expression, biblical teaching that engages the emotions, processing and theologising our experiences of God so that they can edify others.... Is it just me, or do others find this stuff exciting too?

Andy Judd from Garage Hymnal offered me this little rhyme to use to explain the significance of iambic metre. Read it out loud stressing the capital letters and you'll understand.

i WANT to BE a SYLL –a- BLE,

with EM -pha- SIS on TWO;

but IF you SHOULD put STRESS on ONE:

the LINES will SOUND like POO.

Now try it the other way round…

I want TO be A syll –A- ble,

WITH em -PHA- sis ON two;

BUT if YOU should PUT stress ON one:

THE lines WILL sound LIKE poo.


Cute, hey? Come to Twist and learn to write like that!

Anyone planning to be there?