Shirley sent me this request today: Please ask your readers to let me know where I may find songs taken directly from Scripture. One of my favorite collections is the six CD’s recorded by my good friend, Mark Altrogge. They go under the title “Hide the Word.” They’re a contemporary pop-rock style and use both the NIV and ESV translations. SEEDS Family Worship is another collection of four CD’s that are well produced and geared towards families. They use the NIV translation. If you’d like to recommend any Scripture songs, let us know. But please only suggest ones you’ve actually heard. Include the name of the project(s), translation of the …
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What a Savior Free MP3 and Chart
I’ve received a number of e-mails asking for the new version of the hymn “Hallelujah, What a Savior,” that we taught at the New Attitude conference, music and chorus written by my son, Devon. I promised a while back that I’d post them, so here you go. The original version was by Phillip Bliss, an American hymn writer who died at the age of 37 in a train accident. Devon’s version is called “What a Savior.” It keeps the reflective sense of the verses, but adds a celebrative chorus that expands on Christ’s work and expresses our desire to offer our lives to proclaim how great our Savior is. We’ve sung it on Sunday mornings at Covenant Life, and …
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Finding the Right Key to Sing In
Chris recently wrote me to ask a question about the tension between congregational-friendly keys and leader-friendly keys. I have a upper-mid range tenor voice and though I can sing lower fairly easily, I find that if I transpose a song to a “congregational friendly” key the song loses energy, sometimes significantly. I want to serve the people in my church well and I am willing to put up with less energy if they are more comfortable singing along, but if the time of singing is musically flat, I wonder if it may be more detrimental to the overall “experience” (for lack of a better word) than to have people stretch vocally or sing in parts. …
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The Piano in Contemporary Worship, Part 1
Last summer at WorshipGod11 I taught a pre-conference seminar for intermediate level pianists to help them develop their skills while playing with or without a band. In recent years I’ve taught more on the theology of congregational singing than the practical aspects. But I still enjoy teaching on the practicals. So here’s a video of the first installment, with notes included below. Piano in Contemporary Worship, Part 1 from Sovereign Grace Churches on Vimeo. General Principles Excellence. Excellence in all dimension of worship expression, including music, must not simply be defined by cultural standards of sophistication, but …
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Want to Become a Better Songwriter? Here’s Help
Over the years we’ve offered numerous seminars on songwriting at the WorshipGod conferences, taught primarily by Steve & Vikki Cook and Mark Altrogge, but also by guests that we’ve had at the conference. I thought it would be helpful to put them all in one place, so here they are. Whatever stage you’re at in your songwriting journey (and we never seem to “arrive”), I think you’ll find something here that will inspire you to be more faithful with your gifts. Mark, Steve, and Vikki will be returning with more thoughts for songwriters to this year’s WorshipGod conference: The Gathering, Aug. 10-13. I expect the website and registration …
