Category Archives: Blog

I was bored the other night, so I thought to myself, “Hey! I’ll just record an acoustic worship album”. I want to release something with the songs I’ve written so far this year – so just songs written in the last 6 months. I also did a cover of “Always” by Kristian Stanfill. There will be 8 songs total on the album.

So, I set up my stuff and got to work. I’m putting the finishing touches on this thing – I’m excited about how it sounds so far. It’s simple – just acoustic and vocals.

Here’s a preview:

… and another!

And a look at the cover:

I’m not sure what to call this thing, and I’m not sure if this will be the final cover. I spent all of about 30 minutes putting it together. What do you think? Like it?

Also – I recorded videos of all the songs, so I’m getting ready to do a YouTube dump. I’m not quite sure how to release this thing. I’ve got audio, video, and I’m thinking of doing some kind of digipack kind of thing with lyrics and the inspiration behind each song. Maybe chord charts, too.

I’m definitely going to put it up on NoiseTrade. What would you do? Got any creative ideas for me? Also – be sure to subscribe here or follow me on Twitter or Facebook so you’ll know when I release this thing.

I’m part of the 2011 Songwriting Challenge going on over at The Songwriter’s Cafe. One of their partners is Worthwhile Worship.

Worthwhile Worship is pretty simple. You upload your worship song ($30 fee per song), and it gets reviewed by industry professionals. Here is a list of their reviewers. If your song is good enough, it may get published! That’s pretty awesome!

Every month, the fine folks from The Songwriter’s Cafe choose a song from the songwriting challenge and it gets submitted to Worthwhile Worship for free. I feel very honored that my song “Though I Walk Through The Valley” was chosen for March.

I finally got around to uploading the song to Worthwhile Worship, and it’s currently being reviewed.

Anybody have any experience with Worthwhile Worship? How did it go?

In our church, we are starting to see a lot of people who didn’t grow up going to church. This is a really cool thing! But, these people don’t know all our “church songs” by heart, so my pastor and I were kicking around the idea of recording a worship album of the most 15 used songs that we do and giving it away for free.

This kind of a project is really easier than it sounds. The worship band(s) know the songs by heart, so recording them will actually be pretty easy. Licensing isn’t all that expensive. For 15 songs and 100 sales (or giveaways), you’ll have to spend just over $300 using Limelight to handle the licensing. If you ask for a $3 donation for each CD giveaway, you’ve basically covered your costs.

I can see a few plusses for doing something like this:

1. People learn the songs. They get to play the CDs in their car or plug the music into their mp3 players and listen whenever they want.
2. People would take ownership of the songs. This would feel like something they are uniquely a part of. It’s the worship band at their church putting out an album of songs they get to sing along with.
3. The band gets better and playing the songs by recording them.

The minuses are the cost and the time involved. Those are minimal in my opinion. We are looking at doing the recording like a studio album rather than a live album. Our live recording setup isn’t quite fine-tuned yet.

What do you think? Something you’d do at your church? Done this before?