Christmas is my favorite time of year!! I try and put my decorated, over priced, christmas tree up as early as possible and leave it as long as possible. I truly squeeze the holiday of all it’s worth. One of my joys durring this season is the ability to listen to Christmas music so freely and regularly. If you were to come across me in my car, house, or even working out at the gym with my IPOD you would most definitley find me avidly listening to some Holiday tune. Music moves me and I find Christmas music moves me even more. I was litening to Natalie Grant’s Believe album. It is filled with Christmas goodness. As I was driving home last night track 8 came on which is a medley of 3 different songs, Silver Bells, Savior Came for Me, and O Holy Night. The song is over 8 minutes long. But it is a beautiful rendition and as I had my heater blazing and my teeth chattering from the cold, track 8 rounded the corner of the final tune, O Holy Night. I suddenly found myself turning up the volume until it was as loud as I could physically stand and I simply listened, before I knew it I felt something wet on my cheeks and realized tears were falling down my face. I was taken aback by my response because I have listened to this song many times before, but I believe this was the first time that I not only listened with my ears but with my heart (as cheesy as that may sound). As the music built with anticipation and a full string orchestra blared in the background, the words echoed on, “Christ is the Lord, Oh praise his name forever. His power and glory everymore proclaimed. Fall on your knees & hear the angel chorus, oh night divine, oh night when Christ was born, oh night divine… oh night, oh night divine.” I was moved to pull my car over and get out on my knees in adoration for my Heavenly King.

I know Christmas music can be cheesy and definitley over done, but I would hesitate in being so quick to label all Christmas music in such a way because I believe there are songs such as the one above that describes the importance and greatness of what Christmas represents, that will cause all who hear to acknowledge the divinity of our Saviour who was born on that blessed Christmas morn. As I am observing as of late, some Christmas songs have lyrics that should not simply be reserved for one part of the year but should infiltrate all other genres of music because they are powerful and true!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed 

Related posts

• Review: Sovereign Grace Music: Savior (1)
• Bono talks about his revelation of Christmas (0)
• Worship Evangelism and why it isn’t working (3)

I was sent Sovereign Grace’s latest Christmas Album, Savior, to review by Worship Matters blog. I’ll be honest, my expectations were not that high considering the genre. Christmas music is most often a broad road of lyrical cliche surrounded by cheesy instrumentation and bad group vocals. There are a few exceptions to that terrible generalization and thank God for those exceptions. So I tried to clear my head of any expectation and listen with an open mind and heart. I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. I’ll give a song by song blow, and then my overall summary. I go with a 5 star system, 5 stars being great, 1 star being not so great.

1. Christ the Lord is Born Today - Pleased to hear a good acoustic guitar mix, recorded very well. Production on this song is really spot on, the Christmas bells weren’t over used, I think they really helped the song. Vocals are great, harmonies are well placed and the melody is interesting while remaining singable. Lyrics are a traditional rejoicing in our Savior’s birth, glad there’s only 3 verses and didn’t go way traditional with 8-9 verses. Mission accomplished on this song, glad to start this record off on a good note, let’s hope it continues. (4 stars)

2. Hope Has Come - Dang, why did they use that drum sample. It sounds straight out of a Casio keyboard Radio Shack gives away in their business card drawings each month. And not in a cool, retro, “yeah we were trying to get that sound” sort of way. Really any sample but that would have done. Mercifully they stop it at verse 2, now I can get back to seeing if the song is good. The chorus is nice, it’s not terribly interesting, but it’s pleasant and engaging. Here come the group vocals, sounding pretty good at first, wish they would have only sung on the “Alleluia” lines, got a little over bearing there for a bit. The ending to the song is very strange, doesn’t seem to fit the progression or vibe of the song, a little out of left field. (2 stars)

3. Emmanuel, Emmanuel - 3rd song in a row with an acoustic guitar into. Hoping this pattern breaks soon. Like the pianos on this song, strings are borderline over used. Not quite ready to say they are yet, but dangerously close. But overall the production is good. This is quite lyrically jam packed, a lot to get out in the verses. Chorus gives a nice change of pace. I like the melody on the final “Emmanuel”, wish that would have been more of a centerpiece in the chorus. (3 stars)

Read the rest of this entry »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed 

Related posts

• Christmas music… overdone or just began?! (3)
• Delirious and Hillsong United release new albums (0)
• Video: Tim Smith interviews Bob Kauflin (3)

Kendra Rohl, 5′2″, 100lbs of fury

Current Position: vocalist on Life Connection Church’s worship band

Church History: I was raised as a Christian and knew the Lord at a young age. I don’t remember actually going to church until I was about 9 or 10 years old. My mom would do bible studies at our home and I remember feeling connected to God, as much as my immature mind and heart would allow me to at that time in my life. The first church that I really remember going to was the Santa Barbara Vineyard and I pretty much stayed with the Vineyard until moving here to Arizona. I remember the first time I walked into the Vineyard in Santa Barbara. The church was an old converted theatre and it had a very cool vibe, or at least it did to a 10 year old. There was a full band on stage, people dancing, singing, shouting full of passion and it looked like a lot of fun and there was something authentic about the emotions they were expressing. I remember wanting to be a part of that immediately and since my friends who had brought me were a crazy bunch we jumped right in not even fully knowing what it was all about. I loved
the freedom there was to express my love for Jesus in song and it made a big impact on me, I feel like it was the start of God giving me a heart for worship.

Artistic History: I have always been a lover of the arts and all things creative. I think I was put in a dance class as soon as I could walk and was singing and playing piano shortly after that. I grew up on stage in everything from recitals to musicals to singing for a 17 piece swing band and anything in between. I know that God has given me a passion for music and all that goes with it which is why I feel so incredibly blessed to be a part of a church that has a desire for the creative arts to be a part of our service, outreach and expression of worship. I don’t really know how to express my deep love for music and dance into words, it’s something that comes out of such a deep place, I guess it would be best described as my spirit. I know that God has placed that in me and is constantly challenging me to step out in new ways in worship though music, song and dance. It’s a scary and exhilarating journey, one that I’m privileged to be on looking forward with great expectation for what is to come.

Musical taste: My musical taste is all over the board I really just enjoy good music whether that is rock, country, hip hop, jazz or anything else but here are some of my favorite bands/artists.

• U2
• Counting Crows
• John Mayer
• Norah Jones
• Snow Patrol
• Coldplay
• James Taylor
• Michael Buble
• Diana Krall
• Marc Broussard
• John Mark McMillan

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed 

Related posts

• www.ourrisingsound.com now active! (2)

Just published a new poll asking What responsibility to worship leaders have with their tatoos? You can select multiple answers. I’m really interested in peoples thoughts on this. Please answer the poll and comment on this post with your thoughts and hopefully you have some scripture to back up your position. (Wondering if I should just post Leviticus 19:28Leviticus 19:28
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am Jehovah.  

here and save everyone the trouble). Nah, I’ll let each prepare themselves. I’ll wait to post my position after I get some good responses.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed 

Related posts

• Worship Evangelism and why it isn’t working (3)
• Video: Christian persecution in Egypt, meet the Zebeleen (garbage people) (1)
• U.S. religion: even “Christians” see other ways to heaven (1)

Gibson has released a self tuning guitar, they gave it the unfortunate name of ‘Robot Guitar’. How that name passed any level of critique is beyond me. It’s so very typical of the first iteration of any tech advance, where the name overplays the hand. Sooner or later this feature will probably be standard in most guitars and the name won’t make any reference to it. But for now we’ll be stuck with this I suppose.

I’m glad Gibson took a crack at it. If done well it could be a very useful feature. They packed it into a Les Paul which makes sense, with a name like Robot Guitar you’d almost expect a new model. Gibson claims Billy Corgan and Peter Townshend are already ‘using’ it. Using could mean Gibson sent them a free one and they opened the box and said it looks pretty. So I don’t know how much weight you can give that claim.

Robot Guitar Ultra Machine Deluxe auto-corrects strings out of tune and can store up to 6 different tunings. Also has a really cool way of setting intonation. You can checkout videos of it in action on Gibson’s website. I’m really impressed actually, looks well done. Robot retails for $2,900 which is pretty dang hefty. I’ll wait for the feature to become more standard.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed 

Related posts

• New foot controller on its way (1)
• My stage setup, instruments, software, etc… (2)
• Working “Reason” into worship, drum loops, synths and other crazy things (3)