Significant Articles

Our Blog2021-09-09T18:24:33+00:00

Music & Songwriting

A BETTER TRACK RECORD

We said in an earlier post that we’ve had a better track record since we’ve learned to analyze our songs. This is true, but it really isn’t the only reason for a better [...]

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO SUCCEED?

In addition to writing songs, we’ve taught songwriting for years and, in the process, critiqued lots of student songs. We’ve heard all kinds—the good, the mediocre, the disastrous, and sometimes the wonderful. Some [...]

MUSICAL PRODUCTIONS – PART 3

As we were saying last time: Your hardest job is to make the musical, emotional, and spiritual high points in your musical hit at the same places. In our musicals If My People [...]

MUSICAL PRODUCTIONS – PART 2

In any musical, each part of a production must be strong; No sags! It must build to a climax, and have a socko ending—a great finale. Musicals consist of several kinds of songs: [...]

PUTTING TOGETHER A MUSICAL PRODUCTION

A musical production is one of those mysterious things that is greater than the sum of its parts. Each song may be strong in its own way —uplifting, touching, dramatic, fun—but properly put [...]

WINDOW DRESSING: INTROS, INTERLUDES, RIFFS AND FILLS

How important are introductions, instrumental interludes, figures, riffs and fills, and how much attention should the songwriter give to them? Some songwriters leave these considerations entirely up to the arranger, but others like [...]

Devotional Thoughts

USING THE LEASH

“Although Satan’s work is not yet finished and his doom still in the future, God has put a leash on him. He can go only so far and no further. There is the [...]

PITHY POINTERS AND COGENT COMMENTS

We don’t know who wrote this, so we can’t give the author credit, but it’s so funny and profound that we’re going to steal it and wait to see who claims it. Not [...]

THE FATHER’S HOUSE

Have you ever been caught out in a storm at night with a knifeblade wind invading your bones? Or in one of those sudden, raining-sideways, summer cloudbursts that threaten disorientation and drowning in [...]

DOES GOD JUDGE NATIONS OR ONLY INDIVIDUALS?

The scripture says he judges both, especially when citizens agree to practice, and even legalize, that which God plainly forbids. Abraham Lincoln understood this when he issued his 1863 proclamation of a national [...]

THE SOWER AND THE SEED

In the book of Isaiah, the prophet uses an allegory that is later echoed in Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed. The seed is the word of God that produces a [...]

ARE WE MAKING PROGRESS?

Without a doubt! The good ol’ USA is making rapid progress…downhill! Or, as our friend of another generation put it: Walking backwards down the stairs, trying to get higher (Larry Norman). Not news [...]

Go to Top