Something we discussed in class today was the idea that the music we listen to and love runs a fine line of predictability and unpredictability. When I think about this, I think of the usual structure of songs that is familiar to me: verse 1, chorus 1, verse 2, chorus 2, bridge, chorus 3. The… Continue reading Predictability & Unpredictability

When we create, we don’t actually have to invent anything, because we use things that already exist and create something unique with them. We take things that are already there, like language, notes, and tangible things, and we group them together to come up with something new. It is like our activity to take a… Continue reading What it means to create

The lesson on Thursday the ninth really hit home a point within me: There are so many other ways to learn than just reading a textbook or listening to a lecture. As we were sitting in the room, listening to the music and singing along, it really spoke out how much these songs are able… Continue reading A New Way of Experiencing

Today I read a very interesting academic essay by Casey Cep titled, “What We Can and Can’t Learn From a New Translation of the Gospels.” This essay made me think about the discussions we’ve been having in class, and it also made me think about my own discomfort when it came to translating/paraphrasing scripture last… Continue reading Translation

As someone who has experience songwriting, I didn’t anticipate the challenge of transposing a text from the Bible to popular music to be quite as difficult as it was.  To start, I thought that picking a text first would make the process easier, but this proved to not be the case.  Sure it was easy… Continue reading Transposing Challenge

After class on Sept 9th, I felt a much better understanding of how to go about attaching a Biblical text to a common melody.  Over the weekend while working on this assignment, the basis of how to successfully paraphrase this text became more clear to me. Once I was able to put together my choice… Continue reading Common Meter’s Better Understanding

I had never thought about the fact that creating anything new does not necessarily mean you must start from having nothing. You already have all the materials you need to create, all you must do use the materials that are present in a new way. It is an interesting way to think about creating something… Continue reading Creation and Using Materials Already Present

When beginning my song for the final project this week, I ran into a website called, “What Does the Bible Say About Music?” It lists over one hundred verses that speak about music. I found this to be quite interesting. Did the disciples expect God’s people to rejoice in him by singing? While this is… Continue reading Bible Speaking About Music

In class we briefly talked about how we started to write our song, whether you started with the melody and then put words to it, started with the words then put the melody to it, or wrote both at the same time. I answered that I did both at the same time. However, I was… Continue reading Method of Songwriting

Trying to set a Biblical text to music is more of a challenge than I expected. When we were working on this is class on 09/09, I thought the task was not going to be as difficult as it was. However, I kept getting stuck. I did not want to choose a tune like the… Continue reading Song challenge