November 5, 2008 – 3:48 pm
So you want to be a touring musician and live the life of… well… of a touring musician.
You want to ride in a Prevost coach… or an old school bus… or a 15 passenger van with a U-Haul trailer… or a Kia Sorento with your guitar sitting across the laps of the three people in the backseat. You want to eat the finest food available, (in other words whatever you can afford with your spare change at the drive-thru at Sonic.) And you want to play stadiums… basketball arenas… mega churches… medium size churches… and churches of a fifty people in ThatOneLightTownYouveNeverHeardOf, Montana. You’re pretty sure God’s given you the talent and ability, drive and desire to turn your love of music into a professional career. So how do you make your dream a reality?
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November 3, 2008 – 9:12 am
From time to time, I’ll meet someone that wants to take their talent and heart for worship before audiences all over the world. For me, conversations like these are always intriguing… and in the process I’ll often ask a couple questions to help me better see the motivation driving their desire. Sometimes I’ll meet someone with a very clear understanding of the work they want to pursue. But at other times I’ll hear signals that the person I’m talking to “romanticizes” life in the Christian music industry in a way that doesn’t line up with reality.
Before I go any further let me say that I’ve never played for a major Christian artist, and the extent of my “tours” involve driving an hour or two to help lead worship with various worship leaders I know. To borrow a line from Bart Millard of MercyMe, my only payment is often “Taco Bell and directions home.” And I’m perfectly content with that. But I’m fortunate to have close friends at all levels of the Christian music industry, from the local artist trying to scrape together the cash to record an album to one who’s a band member for a multi-platinum Dove Award winning artist. Out of discussions with those friends, I’ve learned many things about the joys, struggles and realities of life as a professional musician. And truthfully, most of them can’t see themselves doing anything but playing music, but at the same time their stories have helped me have a more realistic understanding of what their line of work is like… Read More »
October 31, 2008 – 1:43 pm
You may notice WGG doing some funky things today. Well after over a year I figure it’s time for a site redesign, and unfortunately there’s no good way to do it with Wordpress.com (that I’ve found) except to have everyone see every little bit and piece of the process.
If anyone has any good suggestions of ideas that can be done with Wordpress and Sandbox let me know!
October 27, 2008 – 8:00 am
Ok, let’s wrap this thing up, with a couple of resources:
Worship Chords Exposed Chord Chart: First, this is a PDF chord chart of all the chords from this entire series. It’s a nice, neat, clean, handy dandy reference for you to pull from when practicing.
CAGED Reference Chart for the Nashville Number System: This chart’s a comparative reference for each of the five CAGED keys in relationship to their Nashville Number System numbers. It’s a quick and easy guide for changing a song’s key and determining which chords to play after the change.
CAGED Keys Back to Back mp3: Here’s an example of a 1-5-6m-4 chord progression played back to back in each of the 5 CAGED keys. This gives you a good reference of the unique qualities or voicings each CAGED position brings in relationship to the others. The progressions are played in the “CAGED” order so it’s C, A, G, E then D.