A Ray

 Chris Gough - A Ray by chrisdgough   A Ray by chrisdgough
Still working on my music...I am picky with what I throw up here, but decided today that I should just put stuff up and worry about getting it perfect later. I have nearly a dozen songs at this point...only a handful are "done," and these won't really be done until instrumentation is dialed in etc.
I was excited to write a song for my wife of 7 years. The seven year itch is apparently causing songs...I think that is a good thing. Rebekah always loved that old song "You are my Sunshine." It stems from her childhood and she has sung it to our kids, has referenced it in her blog title, and generally likes when it pops up. So when I went to write a song for her, I knew it had to include this theme at some level. So here it is, for a person that can always build me up, especially when I need it...my ray of sunshine!
Recorded wonderfully with the cheap stock voice recorder on the iphone.

Brother Levi...a gift?

Brother Levi by chrisdgough
I watched a Ted talk today about the origin of  creativity.  It was inspiring, and quite in line with my meager thoughts on the issue.  It was also oddly coincidental to a recent experience.  Just two days ago I woke up at 5:30 in the morning and wrote a song...start to finish, stealing a guitar riff from an old project.  I called it "Brother Levi" and made a quick recording that morning before breakfast (complete with Simon and Levi running around in the background).  Not knowing how to put audio on my blog I made a quick slideshow of Levi and put the song here in the form of a movie...if you want to hear it moments after writing it...recorded on my iphone...(ok ok no excuses!) My eyes did not roll back in my head, and I was not visited by a visible Dickens-esque spirit, but I will say that the idea was just there, and it was a matter of writing it down. Which I did.  1 Samuel mentions that a spirit came upon David and he played soothing music to the angry Saul.  Many songwriters, (Thom Yorke & Bono immediately come to mind, but I've heard it hundreds of times) profess that they even feel guilty at times taking credit for songs that fell in their lap.
The critical question to ask is, "Who should get the credit," for these waves of creativity?  The Christian worldview holds firmly the Holy Spirit's role in  bestowing gifts upon all people, and cooperating with those who respond to revelation.  In our popular culture, people try to steer clear of giving any sort of recognition to God...and so naturally the credit falls to themselves.  Enter the video...
So, it is twenty minutes long, and the speaker is the author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, she puts forth some very compelling concepts...that seem both obvious and crazy...but watch the video...and then let me know if you have ever had the sensation of "receiving" knowledge, or understanding or clarity or wisdom or an artistic boost of some sort.  It's not arrogant to say you have, but then you would know that had you watched the video!

These are a few of my favorite sings...

I got a Moleskine Music Journal from my wife for Christmas. I had put it on my list, and she came through! It has six sections in it: Artists, Lyrics, Playlists, Concerts, My Life in Music and Music Map. The first two were what really got me interested...

I have been wanting to do a little research on some of my favorite songwriters. There are a dozen or so people that I have a lot of respect for, and who I listen to constantly, that I have never really dug into outside of the albums. I have always loved history, so this is a chance for me to put the two loves together. After watching recent documentaries on the Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, Harry Nilson, Paul Simon, Legends of Motown, Tom Petty, Stax Records etc. I thought it a good exercise to look into the people that are secretly shaping me through their ability to create good music.

While I have been actively playing music for over half my life, I am, for the first time, actually writing music...or at least actually writing lyrics. Its hard. It seems you can either be taken seriously because you are melancholy...or use bright melodies/chords and end up on the cheesy end of things. I like music that both has depth AND lifts people. Fortunately there are good examples of where I would like to be headed.

And so, in a way this research is indirectly on myself. Music is such an enormous part of my life, and these people that I intend to write about over the next couple of weeks I consider my "Immediate Family" as far as music goes. I thought about listing them...but wouldn't it be more fun to just be surprised?

My composition Professor at SPU, Dr. Hanson, told me that you never compose anything new, you simply make fresh compounds out of existing materials. (Or as Carl Sagan put it, "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.") Therefore, half of our job was to dig deep and learn tricks from the greats...I listened to the library's copy of Brahms 4th Symphony probably 30 times one quarter (With headphones and reading along with the score nearly every time) for this class. All of the people I intend to write about will dwarf Brahms in familiarity, and have certainly provided me with any tools I intend to use to make good music of my own.

NoiseTrade Widget

Our band is doing a nationwide radio promotion for 8 weeks starting this Monday. I am excited to see how many of the 350 stations around the country will end up playing Kingdom of Noise? I am happy to let you in on a little free download here if you haven't had a chance to check it out yet!

the end of an era

every tuesday night for the past 5 years i have been playing music at bethany community church. it began with dave myron, josh head and i with a band that we called "Elwood P. Dowd." we only played two shows/parties but we had a ton of fun, and created some really great music. in the last two and a half years i have switched from guitar to drums and have been playing with the Republic. we still will be practicing on sunday nights, but the tuesday night night is over. (sigh) dave and i (dave is in the republic with me, but josh is now playing with emery) had a moment of realization last tuesday night that it was a staple for us for longer then i was in college. and now it is over. the good news is that our band is VERY close to finally putting our money where our mouth is and heading to the studio to record our full length album, I think it is going to be really great, and we have very high hopes for it. we have been reforming and polishing these songs for about 9 months, and just met with jon auer (the posies) tuesday who is excited about our project as well. whether we hire him (or josh ottum, or no one) as producer is our last major decision. all to say, bon voyage tuesday night...you will be missed.