Turn Your Testimony Into Song

This may sound counterintuitive. Or rude. I mean, nobody wants to be called part of a "herd." Yet, I've seen it play out as truth many times in my 20+ years as a professional composer. It comes from the old-school founder of the Nightingale-Conan self-help company, Earl Nightingale. One piece of advice he gave over and over again applies directly to our Sacrament Meeting music, and the fact that if you take all the primary songs, hymn arrangements, etc., and toss them in a bucket, you'll find...

Writer's block is the worst. It can be awfully paralyzing and make you feel as creative as a sack of potatoes... or worse. You start doubting yourself, and even doubting the inspiration you felt when you had the idea for the song or piece you're working on. What I've noticed, though, is that writer's block can be overcome regularly, and with increasing ease if you lean into a crucial element of the creative process. I recently saw this "unlocking" process with one of my students. But before I...

Want something fresh to keep your music engaging and evocative? Have you tried playing with modes? "Modes? What the heck are modes?" Let's use a great John Williams example to think about this. Modes are scales. Actually, it's just 1 scale presented in 7 different ways. For example, you can play a C major scale 7 different ways. C to C, all white keys. D to D, all white keys. E to E, all white keys. F to F, all white keys. G to G, all white keys. A to A, all white keys. B to B, all white...

When you're tired of the same-old, same-old chords you tend to use... When you need a little inspiration for new ways of connecting the little black dots on your page of music... One never-ending source of inspiration all of us writers of Sacrament Meeting music should keep our eyes and ears on is the great John Williams. I'm on a bit of a John Williams kick at the moment, as my dad's orchestra is about to have our 1st concert weekend of the season, and it's an all John Williams program. The...

For a nice bit of Sunday listening today, let's go to the granddaddy master, J.S. Bach I've been studying a bunch of his Chorale Cantatas lately. A Choral Cantata is a cantata based on a hymn tune ("chorale" is Lutheran for "hymn"). A really famous one is "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." The original hymn was composed by Martin Luther himself in the early 1500s. In each of the 8 movements of this cantata, Bach takes the chorale tune (hymn tune) from Luther's hymn and presents it under...

Seeing my students succeed gets me SOOOO excited! Yesterday, I had so much fun watching them succeed with a new-ish system I've been using. It gives me so much joy to watch this, and so much excitement for others to try it out for themselves. Let me set the stage a little: For a few years, I've been super happy with the results my students get in our Primary Songwriting Workshops. The system we use to go from blank page to finished primary song in 8 weeks just works! And I've got nearly 100...

Richard Elliot, principal organist at the Tabernacle, told me just how excited the full-time organists were when Ryan Murphy took the job at Temple Square. Why? Because he's a real organist. Apparently, he supported himself during grad school as a choir-director-organist at some Christian denomination or other in Boston. So, every Sunday, he was playing the organ WHILE directing the choir. That ain't easy. Richard said they were excited to play his music because he could empathize with them...

There are many things to consider when writing a descant. In my experience, most people don't think enough about what I consider to be the 1st and biggest decision to be made when writing a descant. To demonstrate, let's listen to 2 original hymns by the great British composer, Hebert Howells. This is a 5-verse hymn. You might prefer to listen to just verse 1 and then skip ahead to verse 5 to hear the descant. As you listen, try to pick up on some key characteristics. There are too many to...

Anytime you're writing a piece for choir piano, it can be tough to give the choir enough support. That's because the piano is a percussion instrument. As soon as you strike the keys, the sound diminishes. The only way to crescendo is to play MORE notes. That's why, some of the time, the best piano accompaniments for choir are quite active. But writing for the organ as the support instrument for a choir is VERY different. It's not a percussion instrument at all. In fact, it's kind of the...

You might wonder... "Why even bother writing a choir arrangement?" For me, it's about a lot more than music. Participating in choir singing saved my testimony in high school. Here's the story: I won't go into detail, but I was pretty unhappy in high school. Thankfully, there were some pretty powerful testimony moments that helped me through those times. The first occurred during the summer before my freshman year. My stake participated in the Oakland Temple Pageant as a part of the 500-piece...