When I feel certain about something two things need to happen. First I need to have begun to live it out and second I need to have it affirmed by something external and seemingly random. (Random, is debatable for sure.) Fire Hydrants and Dixie Cups is no exception.
I have begun to live out keeping Jesus commands. And not without fail but I'm not sure sinning should get the focus it does most of the time. Wuh oh, it's starting to sound religious. I'm not, let's keep going.
Matthew 6:33 came up today during small group, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and surely these things will be added to you." Seemingly random but not really. It is external though, as someone else read it. Then, again this afternoon, whilst perusing mewithoutYou songs, Fox's Dream of the Log Flume was playing.
Oh? You don't know it?
Ok.
There's a line when the song has dropped in and Aaron is letting loose this phrase "I charged at the waves with a glass in my hand...". Ridiculous imagery, right? Close your eyes for a moment and picture someone running into the surf carrying nothing but a glass. Quite an ambitious task he's taking on. Whether he's going to carry it somewhere else or drink it I don't know but there's a ferocious passion consuming him and it's going to come down to him and his glass to conquer whats ahead. Or will the Waves conquer him and he will indecipherable from the vast expanse.
At times like now, my insides are on fire with an energy that wants to explode and run raging and reckless into the fury of Gods love that Jesus says He has for me. All the guessing and getting frustrated at getting it wrong so often I just want to be able to go in head first. Now wouldn't that be something? To be consumed and unrecognizable from every end of God's out pouring of love and blessing.
And then there's the other side of this whole experience. Remaining motionless, hoping to be gathered up and put where I belong in Him. Too many f'ing mistakes to count. Too many people I've hurt with what I've said and acted out. Too many addictions. Too many abandoned chances at getting better. I wish He would just come and conquer me. I'd stand there and take it just as long He'll still have me afterward.
Le Vainqueur, The Conqueror. Starflyer59's song Le Vainqueur seems to reflect this same sentiment "I wish You would stake the claim. Turned too far for Your will. And I feel I've failed Your will. And You come later and the Healer makes better and better."
I don't think either of those stances are wrong or that one is better than the other. More that it's indicative of my awareness that what's finite in me must at some point encounter the Infinite.
I eluded to passions when I started this... well, it's in the title anyway. Music is without doubt a strong passion of mine. If I could communicate by musical riff with you I would. Already I've mentioned a couple bands I enjoy. At risk of sounding a bit contradictory to myself there aren't many 'bands' I like but it's songs that get to me. Not even the lyrics most of the time but the melody and harmony that get to me. I like lyrics but I'm terrible at interpreting what someone means. Although I love it when I get the meaning of some lyrics even though it's nowhere close to what the artist/musician intended. (Maybe one day I'll organize some of these)
I do try to write/record music. There's a thumb drive sitting here plugged in with everything I've come up with in the last 20 years. But I hear a song that been around awhile and hear something new or hum a new harmony with it. I'm quite content at times with not finishing my own songs because there's so much good music already out there. Everything from Robert Johnson to the new Black Sun Empire release.
I did share a song with the internet. Twas a remix but it's from my creativity, Unstable by Elsiane. Now I'm not familiar with much of Elsiane's catalog but their new single they put up for contest was inspiring to me and the message echoed with me.
Their original mix of Unstable is gorgeous. I didn't listen to it before starting to remix it because I didn't want to know what it's structure was. Theirs is 126 bpm, I made it 176 bpm. Thankfully the software I use (Reason, if your wondering) doesn't time stretch audio to where it sounds like Chip and Dale when it's sped up. If you've heard the song the beginning is just chopped up vocal parts layered and resampled from the main vocal. You can hear layers of drums brought in as the tune builds up. Those are all original programmed/sampled/recorded breaks. It's all poorly cataloged on this flash drive sitting here but there's more drums on there that I care to listen to. Shuffle and groove settings are what make it feel like the drums are about leave in places... I like that, those 'mistakes', feels like a person playing. The groove is extracted and applied to the bass line.
That bass. It was on the outset just a filtered reese-style synth line played in b minor. What you hear in my remix is what I played note wise. One phrase had an ending I moved the notes around in but it was all played and not drawn in with a mouse. The song talks about moving on after hitting rock bottom and the smooth bass line wasn't cutting it. (Look up Ray Keith's Terrorist on YouTube, the bass, that's a reese). End result was a bass patch I made in awhile ago. For any reason users it's a Thor with static over a de-tuned supersaw, band split with the top end sent through a fold back, summed, then multi-band distorted with another foldback (Mutagen, I think), mids are scooped where the foldback takes effect, 3 parallel band pass filters with LFO's doing stuff in 3/4, 7/8, 1/8 (a sqaure LFO might be switching some of these rates) , some mix of those LFO's are controlling a low pass on the whole thing, some release and decay so it's not waving in your face constantly. *Phew* After mastering I noticed there's a vocally bark thing the bass does before the end of verse one. It's an accident and never occurs again because I never fixed the note length. Can you find it?
The nerd-out above (hope you didn't get too much on you) is all digital computer stuff but a piano, guitars, basses, even a violin, are within reach. Don't me wrong, the tools aren't important. A painting isn't about the brushes and medium like a book isn't about ink and paper.
Music is a passion of mine.
I feel God's joy creating a new tune or listening to one.
Where are your passions? Can you feel His pleasure in you enjoying them?
Matthew 6:33 The Message:
"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met."
I have begun to live out keeping Jesus commands. And not without fail but I'm not sure sinning should get the focus it does most of the time. Wuh oh, it's starting to sound religious. I'm not, let's keep going.
Matthew 6:33 came up today during small group, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and surely these things will be added to you." Seemingly random but not really. It is external though, as someone else read it. Then, again this afternoon, whilst perusing mewithoutYou songs, Fox's Dream of the Log Flume was playing.
Oh? You don't know it?
Ok.
There's a line when the song has dropped in and Aaron is letting loose this phrase "I charged at the waves with a glass in my hand...". Ridiculous imagery, right? Close your eyes for a moment and picture someone running into the surf carrying nothing but a glass. Quite an ambitious task he's taking on. Whether he's going to carry it somewhere else or drink it I don't know but there's a ferocious passion consuming him and it's going to come down to him and his glass to conquer whats ahead. Or will the Waves conquer him and he will indecipherable from the vast expanse.
At times like now, my insides are on fire with an energy that wants to explode and run raging and reckless into the fury of Gods love that Jesus says He has for me. All the guessing and getting frustrated at getting it wrong so often I just want to be able to go in head first. Now wouldn't that be something? To be consumed and unrecognizable from every end of God's out pouring of love and blessing.
And then there's the other side of this whole experience. Remaining motionless, hoping to be gathered up and put where I belong in Him. Too many f'ing mistakes to count. Too many people I've hurt with what I've said and acted out. Too many addictions. Too many abandoned chances at getting better. I wish He would just come and conquer me. I'd stand there and take it just as long He'll still have me afterward.
Le Vainqueur, The Conqueror. Starflyer59's song Le Vainqueur seems to reflect this same sentiment "I wish You would stake the claim. Turned too far for Your will. And I feel I've failed Your will. And You come later and the Healer makes better and better."
I don't think either of those stances are wrong or that one is better than the other. More that it's indicative of my awareness that what's finite in me must at some point encounter the Infinite.
I eluded to passions when I started this... well, it's in the title anyway. Music is without doubt a strong passion of mine. If I could communicate by musical riff with you I would. Already I've mentioned a couple bands I enjoy. At risk of sounding a bit contradictory to myself there aren't many 'bands' I like but it's songs that get to me. Not even the lyrics most of the time but the melody and harmony that get to me. I like lyrics but I'm terrible at interpreting what someone means. Although I love it when I get the meaning of some lyrics even though it's nowhere close to what the artist/musician intended. (Maybe one day I'll organize some of these)
I do try to write/record music. There's a thumb drive sitting here plugged in with everything I've come up with in the last 20 years. But I hear a song that been around awhile and hear something new or hum a new harmony with it. I'm quite content at times with not finishing my own songs because there's so much good music already out there. Everything from Robert Johnson to the new Black Sun Empire release.
I did share a song with the internet. Twas a remix but it's from my creativity, Unstable by Elsiane. Now I'm not familiar with much of Elsiane's catalog but their new single they put up for contest was inspiring to me and the message echoed with me.
Their original mix of Unstable is gorgeous. I didn't listen to it before starting to remix it because I didn't want to know what it's structure was. Theirs is 126 bpm, I made it 176 bpm. Thankfully the software I use (Reason, if your wondering) doesn't time stretch audio to where it sounds like Chip and Dale when it's sped up. If you've heard the song the beginning is just chopped up vocal parts layered and resampled from the main vocal. You can hear layers of drums brought in as the tune builds up. Those are all original programmed/sampled/recorded breaks. It's all poorly cataloged on this flash drive sitting here but there's more drums on there that I care to listen to. Shuffle and groove settings are what make it feel like the drums are about leave in places... I like that, those 'mistakes', feels like a person playing. The groove is extracted and applied to the bass line.
That bass. It was on the outset just a filtered reese-style synth line played in b minor. What you hear in my remix is what I played note wise. One phrase had an ending I moved the notes around in but it was all played and not drawn in with a mouse. The song talks about moving on after hitting rock bottom and the smooth bass line wasn't cutting it. (Look up Ray Keith's Terrorist on YouTube, the bass, that's a reese). End result was a bass patch I made in awhile ago. For any reason users it's a Thor with static over a de-tuned supersaw, band split with the top end sent through a fold back, summed, then multi-band distorted with another foldback (Mutagen, I think), mids are scooped where the foldback takes effect, 3 parallel band pass filters with LFO's doing stuff in 3/4, 7/8, 1/8 (a sqaure LFO might be switching some of these rates) , some mix of those LFO's are controlling a low pass on the whole thing, some release and decay so it's not waving in your face constantly. *Phew* After mastering I noticed there's a vocally bark thing the bass does before the end of verse one. It's an accident and never occurs again because I never fixed the note length. Can you find it?
The nerd-out above (hope you didn't get too much on you) is all digital computer stuff but a piano, guitars, basses, even a violin, are within reach. Don't me wrong, the tools aren't important. A painting isn't about the brushes and medium like a book isn't about ink and paper.
Music is a passion of mine.
I feel God's joy creating a new tune or listening to one.
Where are your passions? Can you feel His pleasure in you enjoying them?
Matthew 6:33 The Message:
"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met."