Doxology

Niiice.

Logos Benefit Concert

Check it out.

Logos 30 Year Birthday Benefit Concert Trailer from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Helping You Realize Your Untapped Love for Classical Music

I laughed as Benjamin Zander explained the glory of "one buttock" piano playing. And I'm not embarrassed to say that I wept when he played the final chord of the Chopin prelude. This presentation is a twofer. It is at the same time a lovely apologetic for classical music and a prime example of true communication. If you watch the lecture you'll most likely laugh and you might even shed a tear, but you won't think the same about classical music again. This guy is a-mazing. You can enjoy the video for yourself here. Let me know what you think.

HT: Rachelle ("Good-morning Rochelle") Johnson

I Heard the Bells

Peace to you!

I'll Be Home For Christmas (in beautiful 3-part harmony)

Merry Christmas!

Music, Poetry, and Prose

(Exodus 15:2) The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

The Creator God of the universe has a very intimate and fundamental relationship with music. Note that Moses and the children of Israel did not declare "The LORD inspires my singing." No, they sang, "The LORD is my song." If this is true (and it is) then Peter Kreeft's statement (see below) cannot be construed as mere hyperbole.

"Music is not ornamented poetry, and poetry is not ornamented prose.
Poetry is fallen music, and prose is fallen poetry.
Prose is not the original language; it is poetry made practical.
Even poetry is not the original language; it is music made speakable, it is the words of music separated from their music.
In the beginning was music."
(Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien, p. 162.)

HT: Justin Taylor

Jesus Makes All Things New

He is risen! Here is a little Resurrection Morning music. Enjoy!

Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted

My favorite Good Friday song is an old hymn entitled Stricken, Smitten and Afficted. You can listen to my version of it here. Alleluia, what a Savior!

The Shadow of the Cross

Several years ago, during family worship, we read through Elisabeth Elliot's biography of Amy Carmichael entitled, A Chance to Die. Shortly afterward I wrote and recorded this chorus entitled, The Shadow of the Cross, which you can listen to here.

(HT: Brittany Johnson)

The "Wise Guys" at Trinity Teens

Andy Millard, Patrick Tilly, Cole Loomis, Caleb Aumell and Jordan Ghiglia.



Jason Helsel on D'Jembe.

Guitar as Rhythm

I often remind my guitar students that the world can be very neatly divided into two categories: "guitar players" and "cattle." If you are the former, the video below is a "must see." If you are the latter, just keep mooooving along little dogie.

Who Has More Fun Than People?

Niiiiice!

During the 1970s and early 1980s, Larry Carlton was a busy session musician in Los Angeles, making up to five hundred recordings a year, including albums by Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, Quincy Jones, the Partridge Family, and Charly García's Clics Modernos. His loopy, dazzling guitar work on Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" from their 1976 LP The Royal Scam has been listed as the third best guitar solo on record by Rolling Stone Magazine.Enjoy.

The Wise Guys

I've been teaching guitar on-and-off for about 25 years now. But I have never had the privilege of instructing anyone like the four "little dudes" that I am teaching right now. Andy, Patrick, Caleb and Jordan are the funnest, hard-chargingest, go-for-it students that I have ever strummed with.



Last Friday night we played at the open-mic night at Cafe Mela here in Wenatchee. It was our second (and best) outing. We played the Monkees' "I'm a Believer", Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down", Larry Norman's "The Outlaw" and finished with CCR's "Proud Mary" (with an artistic nod to Ike and Tina Turner's arrangement of this classic number.)

For now, at least, we are calling ourselves, "The Wise Guys." Mostly because we're not very. But, all things considered, we're having a whale-of-a-good-time in spite of ourselves. Rock on.

Djembe Joy

As someone once noted: "Scratch a guitarist and you'll find a frustrated drummer." A friend of mine has loaned me his djembe (an African drum) while he finishes law school in Virginia (thanks Jess!!.) What a hoot (the djembe, not the guy.) Color me "scratched and found." To paraphrase Eric Liddell (in Chariots of Fire) "When God made me, he made me rhythmical, and when I drum, I feel His pleasure." This video does not feature djembes, but it does portray the bodily joy of hitting objects that go "boom" and "kack" and the communal joy of doing in concert with others. Enjoy.

Christmas Acapella Fun and Artistry

These guys (Straight No Chaser) are amazing! Merry Christmas.