Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Letting Influences In


Sometimes it's great to allow others to influence your songwriting processes.

About a year ago I wrote a song called "If God Could Sleep." I was really pleased with it. It was a boy-head-over-heels-in-love-but-not-sure-if-she-cares type of story about the butterflies of a new romance.

Several months later I had an opportunity to play the song for some families. I was aiming the performance at the adults in the small audience, but noticed that the kids--ages 5 to 9--perked up when I played it. I decided to write a religious-influenced lullaby version (okay, that's a stretch, me writing a religious-influenced song). It worked nicely, and there I sat with two good songs, thank-you-very-much.

I happen to produce a 16-year-old Contemporary Christian singer, Faith, of the band "Faith 11:1." I am a charter member of the band, which consists of C. Aaron Moore as arranger and keyboardist, and me as backup vocalist and guitarist. Fellow producer, Ron Logan, also adds occasional vocals, keyboards and guitars in the studio.

As her producer I am always trying to find or write songs for her to sing. "If God Could Sleep" seemed like a natural, but somehow we couldn't make it work as a 16-year-old singing to a child. I decided to get out the pen and write one more version, a Christian-oriented love song that hopefully had some crossover potential.

To get some different sounds and rhythms involved, I showed Mr. Moore the basic idea and asked him to write an arrangement of drums, bass, orchestra, and keyboard. Mr. Logan added my classical guitar work, as well as some keyboard tweaks and some electric guitar.

All the while, we sent Faith rough mixes of the song to play with. At Ron's suggestion, I wrote a bridge in a place we had planned an instrumental, and finally we brought Faith into the studio to cut the vocals.

All-in-all, the result was far more interesting than what I would have done in the studio myself. You can hear it now at http://www.SingingByFaith.com.

To my collaborators--great job everyone. I love it!

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