song of the week - alleluia, sing (david crowder*band)

i'm getting really excited about doing some of the upcoming songs that we're doing at catalyst. had an awesome time on saturday listening to the new crowder album and having some ideas about when and how we can do the songs.

thought i'd do a quick vid to show how to play of the new songs. we're gonna do this song at christmas and change the line "risen king" to "newborn king" to keep it in the theme. it's gonna be a lot of fun. hope this helps you out.

how to play: rain down

a song i wrote, part 5

last year some time, levi and i went to prayer time with some nazarene pastors and my father shared a short devotional and it really touched me. i don't really know what the devotional was about but it moved me to write a song. everyone spread out over the entire sanctuary and began to pray: some were kneeling at the altar, some were sitting in their pew, some were standing in the back, some were prostrate on the floor.

what did i do?

i pulled out my palm treo and began writing a song. we did it at catalyst a few times but haven't played it for a long time. i'm excited about bringing it back next week.

i even recorded a "how to play" last year and had a guy ask for the chord charts. i worked on some of the loop for it today and thought i'd throw the demo on here for you guys to listen.

listen or right-click to download HERE.

also, here's the "how to play" video too.

abner's a freak

so, we're doing a song by my buddy abner at church on sunday and i'm convinced that he is a freak. the chords that he uses are not like anything i've ever seen. go to his myspace and click on the song "letting go." it took me nearly 3 days listening to the song over and over again to figure out what some of the notes are. the one that takes the cake is the F (add #4, 2, 6, maj7). he's the man.

i remember when we were writing some together, i learned how to play minor 7 and major 7 chords pretty uniquely:

Am7: middle finger= E 5th fret, mute the A string with the pad of your middle finger, ring and pinky=5th fret on D and G strings

Amaj7: middle finger=E 5th fret, index=A 4th fret, ring and pinky=6th fret on D and G strings.

it totally helped when i started playing israel houghton stuff at my last church. a lot of john mayer stuff utilizes that formation as well, but he adds a 4 to the chord:

Am7(add4) he would use his thumb for the low note and his index to play the 3rd fret of the B string

the best part about these formations is that they are all moveable. once you have your fingers locked to those positions you can move them to any fret and it would work.

short chord lesson:
there are 8 notes in an octave. the first and last are the same pitch just higher or lower. so if you were to number all the notes, 1 & 8 would be the same and 2-7 would be the notes in between. now a regular chord is 1-3-5 so if there are any other notes in the chord write the number so you know. hence a C2 chord has a D in it, while a Esus4 has an A in it (it has sus because it sounds unresolved. usually you resolve the chord back to the basic 1-3-5). then you can also deal with # and b, major and minor, but thats the basics.

how to play - shout arise

click here to hear the entire song.

how to play - Jesus, prince of peace

click here if you want to listen to the whole song.

please leave a comment if you do this song at your church.

enjoy.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

how to play - He is alive (alleluia)

i love this song! we've done it a few times and it really has great movement. my favorite verse of the hymn is the 3rd (we do it as the second).

lives again our glorious king, alleluia
where o death is now thy sting, alleluia
once He died our souls to save, alleluia
where's thy victory boasting grave? alleluia

it is just so poetic! if you want to see how the entire song goes click here.