Life to the Fullest

Limbo

Photo Credit - Cayusa 

I’m back! I figure its about time for a life update, at the very least. I do have to admit my eagerness for writing has faded significantly since this blog began. Forgive me?

I am counting down the days. Days until I leave for Memphis? 44. Days until I get married? 140. Days until I become tired of the present? Well that happened a while back. The trouble with countdowns is the way my mind then is limited to seeing each day as a hindrance to me reaching my bright future. In an environment where I am separated from my goals only by time, contentment is hard to come by daily. I have for a long time been frustrated with my job. I am thrilled that I had the opportunity to work where I did for the last year, as my coworkers are fun, energizing people. In contrast however, the fact that my primary role in database design is something so far away from what I envisioned myself doing that it feels like I am trying to run sprints into a headwind while wearing a parachute. I struggle to see where the work that I do there will benefit me as I head forward into teaching. The selfishness in that statement hurts me, but I can’t deny that it has a tight grasp. The best way I have found to describe my current state is an analogy to the state of limbo. I have no control over my current state, I just have to wait it out. I want to reclaim each day as something exciting, a gift to be fully utilized. If you have any thoughts to share, I’m open to listening.

Writing a Successful Christian Pop Song

DISCLAIMER: This is a mild rant. Sorry to those who are offended by this. If you take it as a personal condemnation, my apologies, but that isn’t how it’s intended. I will explain more in my next post where my cynicism/snobbery comes from. I don’t intend this as an indictment against any part of Christianity itself, but rather just an expression of  some frustrations with the way my faith is sometimes portrayed in a public view. I know several people who write wonderfully creative, brilliant music interwoven with the message of the Gospel. This isn’t for or about them. It is more a reaction to my ability to sing along with almost every song that comes on the Christian radio station over 4 years after I could no longer stand to listen to those same stations (among other things).

There’s a reason I don’t listen to much music on Christian radio. There’s many reasons actually. I was an avid listener in my early teenage years, but gradually came to realize what constant listening to the Christian station was eroding from my perspectives. At any rate, in my admittedly cynical perspective, I once again listened to Christian pop radio while home for Thanksgiving and came up with some attributes that contribute to lasting power on the Christian airwaves.

1. Keep it Simple - As a songwriter of popular Christian music, your equivalent of winning a Grammy is to have your song sung at a Passion conference or some other gathering of many Christians. Sadly, many of your listeners are terribly tone deaf. Those that aren’t are trying not to flaunt their good voices for fear of being too prideful. To counteract these negative forces, you need simplicity and familiarity (see number 2). Also, simple songs about Jesus can easily help people forget His complexity and we all want a version of God we can keep in a manageable little box.

2. Make sure to reuse metaphors and phrases from previous Christian songs. Classic favorites are mountains, rocks, fire, water, etc. People don’t have to stop and think about the true implications of a symbol or phrase in a song when it sounds like something they’ve heard before. That leads to a quicker uptake into the mainstream Christian market.
3. Finally, taking step 2 a bit further, you could just set a psalm to music. It’s proven effective. If however, you fail to follow number 1 and you choose the wrong psalm, it may be too complex or unsafe for the listeners’ tender ears and therefore may lose airplay.
4. Use synthesizers early and often - while gratuitous synthesizers took a break from popularity in between their heyday in the 80’s and their resurgence in the electronica/hip hop subgenre of pop music today, they never left the pop Christian scene. The problem is that there isn’t much of a comparable subgenre of Christian music in which this works. There are a few artists that can skillfully integrate Christian themes into good hip-hop/electronic music, but those aren’t the ones that radio stations latch onto.
5. Add a layer of choir vocals - as proved on many successful Christian tracks, using choirs for backing vocals in part of the song is the Midas Touch (not in the car care company way). Enough said.