Producing You are Exalted

Cross to Crown Record from Collin Stoddard on Vimeo.
Buy You are Exalted here.

This is a project I am proud to have produced and helped write, thanks to the executive producer Doug Goodin for your vision, leadership and talent that made record become a reality. Cross to Crown is an incredible ministry that resources churches by encouraging and equipping pastors through their seminary, books that they write and publish, and their music.

I appreciate and support the intentionality that went into creating You are Exalted. While hand-crafting, shaping and massaging the process and continually looking at the horizon is a long and sometimes painful process, it lead to making this record a huge success. One of the challenges of the creative process with any new artist is the amount of dialog and conversation that goes into discussing the heart, the message and the sound of a project. Most artists (even those who have never recorded a project before) have an idea of their sound and can fairly easily be identified by picking up a guitar and singing a few words. While Cross to Crown had the heart, vision and a general idea of the musical style, I was creating and aiming for a sound that we only had a description of and not necessarily a sonic example. This process takes a lot of trust for everyone involved: for Cross to Crown to trust that I hear what they're expecting to hear, and that I can deliver it, and for me that they'll like what comes from a tracking session! God was evidently involved in every process of this project and Cross to Crown was one of the best and easiest ministries I've ever worked with and I look forward to our next record together.

A little inside information about talent on the record, Adam Silverman played drums and I always appreciate his talent and contribution to almost everything I work on from my time in 33Miles to producing projects. We've known each other for a long time and it's a blessing working with someone who knows what to play when I don't know how to explain it. Cal Joslin who helped start the CCM group Sidewalk Prophets and I went to Belmont played bass. Matt Reviere, a session guitar player currently touring with 2012 Idol winner Scotty McCreery who I also went to Belmont with played acoustics and electrics. Tyler Ewing is an Emmy Award winning composer and the most talented arranger I've ever met and and he provided the string arrangements and tracking (I also went to Belmont with Tyler....) Jason Hall is an audio engineer who I refer to as a magician and mixed and mastered the record. (Sigh...yes, I also went to Belmont with Jason.) PS, You're welcome, Belmont, my next student loan payment is on the way.

Go buy this record! This year is filling up quickly for me in my studio. We are settling into our new house in Firestone, CO and my studio is now up and running it's new location with lots of new projects on the books.

St. Joseph, MI

While spending hours of preparation loading up the car with gear and diapers for a concert with a family of four inspires excitement and adventure, it's not the easiest and most stress-free way to tour. As I recently found myself rearranging car seats and wedging strollers between my road cases in the back of our SUV I remembered traveling with all dudes in a tour bus with a massive trailer packed with merchandise, gear and often a massive sound system. While I miss playing with a band of fantastic musicians, I prefer the small SUV with my cute little family.

Even better are the dates close to home. Several weeks ago I spent an early afternoon playing Tetris at the back of our MDX. Poor Gabby had to share her seat with a piano. Every time I have to move a keyboard I ask myself why I didn't choose to play the violin or guitar?



Even though the rain made the load in slightly obnoxious, we found ourselves ready for a great night with good friends. What better way to spend a rainy evening than with a group of friends at a concert?



Other advantages of having a show close to home is the ability to invite a network of cool friends. Always thankful for my friend and creative counter part Kyle Pierpont. Having a good photographer in one's inner-circle is always a good idea.









A one man show is tough and not my preference by any means. Toby Mac is probably the best example of this philosophy of business and has been very successful at it. He's the first to admit that he's not the most talented guy on the bus and purposefully surrounds him self with people who are better than him to make his concerts what they are. Any one who's seen Toby and the Diverse City band would see that. A band compensates for a player's weaknesses and potential lack of preparation. When you're by yourself, there's nobody to hide your mistakes behind. You also never get a break. There isn't a guitar solo that allows a few seconds to step back and drink some water and catch your breath, or a trash can ending to to give a few minutes to think of your next joke. It's also tough to remain entertaining for 80 minutes. When I'm hiding behind a keyboard, it's tough to visually stimulate an audience. I try to come out from around the keyboard a few times a night, but I always feel the pull hurry back behind my shield.




A band will come, but this has been a tremendously rewarding and challenging way to travel and play concerts. God has been so gracious to us in this, we've helped facilitate over 60 children sponsored this year. Considering the size of my typical audiences, this is a tremendous blessing.
If you've come to my shows, thank you. If you're thinking of having me to one, pull the trigger. Do it. Do it now. I can't wait and look forward to seeing you soon. Christmas is around the corner and I can't wait to share some Christmas music with you.

Collin

I'm Still Kicking...

Hey friends. I hope you haven't missed me too much. The last time I wrote to you was in May. This has probably been one of the busiest seasons I've ever lived through but God has been so faithful and done so many things I have to share with you. The last image I left you with was of my two delightful Blue Spark microphones in front of my Yamaha piano. For two weeks I tucked myself away in Brookside and recorded a full length solo piano record called Songs from Brookside in the small hours of the night when my babies were sleeping. It's available for download on my website, I hope you check it out.




If I could title a book about the past few months it would be, "Starting a Solo Music Career in Thirty Days: The Wrong Way to Do it." As a pianist first and foremost I've always lacked the project that represents who I am that says exactly what I want in the most honest and raw way I know how. This is Songs from Brookside. I've had these songs in my head for years without the time or capability to record them and now that I have one of these (capability) it was time. Every creative self-help book (trust me, I've read many because I need so much help) explains the importance of setting deadlines for yourself to accomplish goals and I had a natural deadline set itself for me.

Three weeks before Father's Day an opportunity presented itself for me to easily step away from my duties at Grace and finally having a Sunday morning off, I unashamedly invited myself to my good friend Jeff Castello's church, Crossroads Community in Goshen, IN. Jeff has always been a tremendous advocate since our introduction five or six years ago when I traveled in 33Miles and often stopped at Crossroads. Pretty awesome church. I've always wanted to have a CD release concert there but never had a CD to release...minor problem. With the time and excuse to promote a concert and lead worship with them on a Sunday morning I put the pieces together and Songs from Brookside was born.




Jeff connected me with LeSea broadcasting and simultaneously set up an interview at Studio B on the Harvest Show, a live Christian morning talk show. An awesome opportunity to share my music and share my heart for this new season of music ministry as a solo artist...something I never thought I would ever hear myself say. Check out clips from my time on the Media>Videos section of my website.




Well, a solo piano record is great, but the majority of my concert consists of me telling stories and singing songs about my family and what God is doing in my life. I'm so glad I finally finished Songs from Brookside, but with several shows lining up through the end of summer and into the fall I needed to track my vocal record and the day after my CD release concert I started tracking Fight For Me, my five song EP which I have been more proud to collaborate on then any other record I've ever done. This is not the $80,000 recording budget of my 33Miles records and on my shoe string budget I wasn't sure if I'd able to make something work and with the help of some awesome friends sharing .wav files over DropBox, tracking is finally done. I got the first mix back last Wednesday as I was driving to church and listened to it from my iPhone in my truck I laughed hysterically as I swerved back and forth and clapped my hands!

I called in a huge favor with Adam Silverman who I played with for years in 33Miles who now tours with Idol runner-up Lauren Alaina and he knocked it out of the park. My good friend Cal Joslin who plays bass for SideWalk Prophets tracked acoustics and bass, and Tyler Ewing played cello. Jason Hall, a friend from college is mixing and mastering and he is a magician. I am so honored that these guys believed in my project and offered to lend their incredibly amazing creative ability to make this what it is. I can't wait for you to hear this. These guys made me sound so much better than I do on my own and I'm so glad to have something that I don't cringe at when I hand people!

I've partnered with Jeff Castello more officially and he has been lining up shows through the fall, I seriously can't believe it. I'll debut Fight For Me on a run of shows to Colorado starting August 5 and I'm anxious to hold it in my hand and make people buy it. I hope it communicates how faithful God has been to me and how much He is teaching me utter dependence on Him.

Another major blessing in this new seasons has been our home base at Grace. Working with a pastor and boss like Jay who understands my creativity and supports my music ministry is a tremendous blessing. Pulling double duty keeping my worship arts, tech teams and now taking over more staff administration duties has been challenging and Jenna has been such a tremendous support giving me pep talks, talking me off many ledges, and held down the fort with a two year old and a three month old. Can you believe that? I'll post pics of my beautiful family soon because I have so many stories that crack us up daily with these little people that I know you'll get a kick out of, too. Here Gabby and Palmer are helping me edit vocals.



Alright. Best update I can bang out on keyboard in a few minutes. Can't wait for you to hear Fight For Me, I'd love to come and share it with you LIVE at your church!!

Collin

Songs from Brookside

My view from the past few days.




Songs from Brookside is a collection of solo piano songs recorded in my studio which overlooks a bend in Christian Creek which by Colorado standards is more like a river. I've heard there are trout in it, but fishing it is not the purpose it has in our lives right now as our time is filled with raising a family and developing a worship arts community. These songs are my way of processing our place in time today, and I look forward to sharing them with you.

I'll keep you posted when the record is done, but I'm shooting for the end of summer!

Open for Business

One of the most important components for my studio finally arrived last week. Gabby was almost excited as I was and graciously "helped" me by standing on the box marked "fragile". Good thing she only weighs 26 lbs.





She was a huge help with my least favorite part: picking up all of the little peanuts. Why do they even make those? Answer: to entertain my two year-old. This killed a good thirty minutes of our morning while Mom and Palmer slept.



I don't think I'm alone in my need for an inspiring space to create. That becomes a challenge when an increase in kids creates a decrease in space in a rental home. Nevertheless I sunk my teeth into one of our spare rooms. Come on, I'll give you a tour.



This makeover cost me $15. This was leftover paint from work that was the wrong tint anyway, so I saved it from the trash. My boss roasts coffee and last time we went to the green coffee place I rummaged through the coffee sacks and picked out the ones with the prettiest pictures to create these isolation panels. I upholstered them to some 1/4" plywood over leftover batting that I found laying around. The curtains were on sale at Target which was the only real expense. Take that HGTV.





Also I can take a nap when I get tired from writing songs and stuff.

Some of my gear:

15" MacBook Pro, 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5 with 4 GB ram
Presonus Firestudio 10x10 Firewire PreAmp and Audio interface
Logic Pro
Mackie HR824 Monitors
Yamaha S90ES Keyboard
Yamaha MX100B Acoustic Piano (Predecessor to the U1 with a Disklavier module)
Blue Spark Cardioid Condensor Mic with the Blue Pop (I still need its' pair for stero recording)
Larrivee OM3 acoustic

I'm working on some fun projects which I'll be sharing with you soon!

Welcome to my studio, Mackie!

In all sense of the word I've been a "professional" musician since I was fourteen years old and I remember my first paid gig well. Some friends who were a little older than me played in a classical music trio for weddings and special events and had a gig come up that they couldn't take and called me to fill in. It was a wedding reception at a classy bed and breakfast in Manitou, CO called the Cliff House. I thoroughly enjoyed myself for the two hours that I was supposed to play and enjoyed it even more when the event planner handed me a check for $250. That led to numerous weddings and receptions and then to a steady gig at the Gaylord five-star resort and hotel, The Broadmoor.

Even after years studying music in college and then having my albums available at any large music retailer I have always struggled with financially investing in my trade as a musician. Tools are necessary for our jobs as any skilled tradesman accepts. Even as a starving musician in Nashville I started a business with the cheapest start-up cost possible as a window washer. I went to Home Depot and spent $49 on two buckets, a squeegee and a pole and the cashier had to pry the cash out of my hand.

I'm slowly accepting the reality of adding to my musical tool belt and I bought this Mackie HR824 pair a few days ago and added them to my work station. These guys are amazing!

A Day in the Life...

When worship pastors are comparing notes one question topic that often surfaces is the logistics of our jobs which we all strive to systemize to make our lives easier. Worship and creative arts positions in average sized churches typically require an individual who is creative, organized with administrative ability. In my experience it's tough to find one person who exemplifies all of these qualities (I know which ones are my strengths and weaknesses!) which is why programs like Planning Center were developed and created.



There is a reason that Planning Center is the number one service planning program available today. It's (to put it simply), amazing. Short of actually being my brain, Planning Center is the virtual house that the logistics and administration of my worship ministry lives in. From all of my devices I can plan and manage services, schedule people, download and administer mp3's and charts for services, see which musicians have actually viewed them, track how long the service is actually taking, and so much more. Additionally, with Planning Center's accessory program Music Stand I can click a button and view my service plan, charts and mp3's on my iPad at my keyboard on Sunday morning.



Since our church can't afford iPads for all of our band, they are left in the dark ages with actual paper which isn't actually a negative, as I can't find a great iPad reader that works perfectly with my chart system.



I've been extremely proud of my musicians who have made the jump from traditional, completely useless music charts to the Nashville number system. With a small amount of music theory knowledge, any musician can pick up this system which all churches ought to be using. I will write another blog on the Nashville Number system with more insight, but there is a reason why this system is used and embraced by all music professionals in Nashville.

The only negative is that it requires me to print off two sets of charts, one for my band and the other for my vocalist. Those who are playing and singing look at two charts which takes practice, but easily mastered.



The vocalists lyric sheet is really only necessary for practice so they can take notes and learn their lyrics, but they are encouraged to use the stage display for any lyric reminders during the service so it doesn't look like they're reading.

Without going into a lot of detail the band number chart lists a place to write in the key and beats per minute for the click (these are the only things that can potentially change depending on set list), and then the actual chart. Each bar that will be played in the song is represented on the chart which leaves no room for excuses in the band members for not knowing the order of the song. Applying numbers to a scale in a key allows for players to transpose in their head and play the chart in any key necessary. More normal chord charts write in a chord letter ambiguously above a word on the chart which really doesn't communicate any information to the player. Number charts can be written as specifically as possible to notate grove, irregular chord changes and keep everyone on the same page. This is especially helpful for playing a brand new tune such as an original tune without a recording.

Your band might balk slightly at having to use a different system, but once they know and understand it, you won't want to use anything else. Ask any member of my band!

Strength Vs. Weakness

I have the privilege of investing in budding young musicians which is one of the more rewarding jobs a musician could have. I love giving private music lessons; seeing that light bulb go on when the stars aline and the "ah-ha!" moment happens. I've developed a teaching philosophy that's changed drastically over the years as I work with students with unique and individual learning styles. It's for this point alone that brings value to private lessons.

I've had over 13 paid, private music instructors which doesn't include producers and professional coaches I've worked with as a career musician. Don't do the math...it's a lot of money. Every teacher was different and had their own niche that made them "special", or the best. I've seen music teachers market their "niche" because they aren't versatile, nor do they ultimately care about the individuality and unique learning style of their students. A full time music teacher needs about 30-40 students to support themselves and it's easier to do the same thing with every students and develop a formula instead of catering to the direct needs of each student. This disappoints me because in my opinion, the value of paying for private instruction is two-fold: first, the information that's being taught, and second most importantly how the information is taught.

Think of it this way, if someone simply wanted to gain information, they could go buy a book on how to play the piano. A private instructor, on the other hand, should be able to make the information palatable and geared to the learning style of the student and more than spoon-feed the information, instill and share a passion for the skill that's being taught. It's the old teach a man to fish - feed him for a lifetime principle.

Within private music education, instead of matching a student's learning style with the correct teacher, I believe teachers should be better equipped and prepared to cater their teaching style to whatever the learning style of their students. A private educator ought to be an expert in their field - it's the point of paying for the education! By definition an expert knows a ton about their field and should be well equipped to help even an advanced student develop their craft.

This brings me to the main point of this post. We've all heard it: focus on your weaknesses because you're already good at your strengths. Musically this translated in my world to my teachers pushing me to sight read and not play by ear. Every teacher I had pushed me to read the music and as soon as they figured out that I simply needed to hear the piece played for me, refused to play for me because it was "handicapping me" from learning how to read music. To this day I struggle to sight read, I can do it, but despite their efforts to force me to sight read by refusing to use my strength, I don't really have a proficient ability to show for it.

All of my students have strengths and weaknesses and I've noticed a much more positive and effective way to help students with their weaknesses. Strengthen their strengths and find more creative ways to teach them their weaknesses. Often times a student's strengths will be strong enough to spill over to their weaknesses without us even having to focus on them resulting in the student teaching themselves.

Had my teachers done this for me growing up I would have spent more time developing and honing my ear and would have worked on developing my improvisation skills. Most of my teachers before college thought that the art of improv was simply an ability to make songs up without sheet music. When I got to college and had years of classes in ear training and improv I realized how much my teachers didn't know, or knew and didn't teach me. Instead of learning chord progression, structure and analysis in private lessons I was practicing sight reading which would have been awesome had I been a ballet accompanist, but my natural abilities and strengths don't make me an ideal candidate for this kind of job in the first place.

All this to say, one of my biggest priorities within private lessons is to help a student determine a direction for them based on their interests, passions and strengths. My job is to expose my students to opportunities and directions music could take them and widen their perspective. Within that, spend time developing and encouraging their strengths. As a career musician I am passionate and excited about music which should be contagious! If I can instill a passion and a desire to learn, a student will begin to teach themselves. If I simply feed information, a student will naturally learn the information and retain it long enough to regurgitate it to get me off their back! This isn't true and valuable learning!

I think these are principles that can be applied to our lives regardless of our craft, whether it be a mathematician, scientist, construction worker, or even a mother. Becoming self-aware is an important step and determining where we are in our walks with the Lord, where we need to be spending our time, and how we can grow and develop! We all should desire to be growing and getting better, regardless of what it is that we do!

Thanks for reading my novel!

Prof. Collin

Leading alone!

A friend of mine, Chris Kuti wrote this blog for worship leaders on the importance of leading worship by yourself. Chris explains it well, so read his thoughts for some more inspiration.

The art of being flexible and the ability to think quickly and adapt to your surroundings is an ability that any musician should strive for. Playing in a live band setting requires the ears to hear what's going on around you so you can lock in and add your voice and instrument, not distract from the overall sound and product. It takes practice to train our ears to hear the patterns and chord progressions that we play, but in our practice we must train ourselves to think quickly and continue to be flexible.

I know many musicians who practice hours and hours a day yet can't change or adapt to someone else's playing. As do most things I believe that being a team musician starts in the heart. Growing up as a young player with older musicians I had a huge ego and whether or not I admitted it, what I played I wanted to be heard. This is hard for many musicians, in order to play music publicly there needs to be an audience to hear it. It is often counter-intuitive and a struggle for musicians to want others around them to be heard more than themselves, and to grasp the idea that they are contributing to a collective sound, not simply playing the same group of notes at the same time as the people around them.

Similarly, audiences often have a tough time grasping this is as well and I often have to bite my tongue when people approach me with a concern that they couldn't hear an individual on stage. Most of the time that is probably a good thing and is the actual goal. Unless a team member has a clearly defined solo, or a part that really stands out (drums/lead vocal) the point is to not hear the individual, but hear the final product - the band playing together. Untrained, non-musical individuals typically don't have the ability to pick out individual instruments anyway, especially if the band is doing their job!

As a musician and worship leader I take developing my craft very seriously and look for opportunities to make myself adapt, listen and think quickly. Even though it stretches our band sometimes to think out of the box, or approach a song very differently for the sake of learning how, we do it so that we can get better and practice listening to each other. I also watch and listen to the videos of every set that we play. Even when it's embarrassing and sometimes excruciating hearing myself, and noticing our mistakes, it's one of the best ways to slowly get better.

I had an opportunity to practice being flexible and think differently than normal on New Years. Our band had the holiday off and I lead worship by myself at the keyboard. I notice several things when I lead by myself. There is an element of feeling exposed and alone without the support of fellow musicians on stage, but I actually feel a little freer and less distracted without the responsibility to think about cuing the band and remembering all the correct transitions. It's easier to cover for myself than recover from a train wreck I could potentially lead the whole band into!

I'll be doing this several more times in January which is good because I always need the practice!

Christmas at Grace

I would venture to generalize that Christmas time is perhaps the most challenging month for a church worship pastor/music director. Compared to the rest of the year, December has so much emphasis put on it: typically more visitors at the Christmas Eve service, expectations for what songs are done with a modern or traditional approach, all for one month! Even though the congregation grits their teeth when introducing new songs (every week!) I still sing them. They always come around. A typical Sunday morning comment I hear is, "I didn't really like that song the first time you played it, but man, I can't get it out of my head now. It's really good!" Told you.

Christmas feels different though. So much work goes into learning obscure arrangements from desperate artists trying to put their own unique spin on an over-sung carol. Christmas songs aren't easy to begin with! All that to say, in the church world where staff members wear numerous hats and it's already a struggle to look two weeks ahead it feels like an uneconomical use of time to designate so much attention to one month.

The same presents a similar challenge for the touring industry as well, but perhaps the redemption for all of the hard work is that a Christmas tour can offer a large portion of an artists income for the year. The difference between a Nashville Christmas touring act and a church band presents quite a challenge as well. A touring band by profession doesn't need as much preparation or extensive rehearsal time to pull off a polished production like a church band does. Even with extensive practice time and easy arrangements a church band will often still struggle to pull off the polished professional sound of a studio recording or a professional act.

This is a bigger issue than Christmas music alone. Civilians (my composition professor at Belmont called normal, non-musical people) cruise around in their cars listening to auto-tuned, quantized, professionally mixed and mastered tracks which they grow accustomed to and become in their listening ear their standard for normal. The same civilians step into church and as the band fails to sound anything like what they hear pumping from their Bose system in their Escalade they become critical and disengaged. Of course there is the Biblical call to worship that criticizes civilians for not engaging with their hearts and showing up at church for the show and this should challenge us all to worship regardless of the sound, or the professionally musicality of the band.

Our responsibility, however, as worship artists, leaders and bands is to push our musicians and bands to maintain quality and excellence in everything we do. The charge to our congregation to worship regardless of what we give them is great, but we need to step up to the plate and musically help the church keep up with the standard that technology is advancing to. This is more philosophical than practical which is a direction I quickly get over my head in, but being a part of my philosophy of worship ministry I'll mention it briefly: historically the church and Christian industries have followed secular trends which has removed the church and Christian leaders as trend setters and industry leaders, especially in the entertainment world. In our small community in South Bend, IN where my band consists of extremely intelligent hard-working engineers, computer analysts, doctors, steel workers and salesman, my challenge but desire is to slowly set a new standard of excellence at least at Grace that leads our community in a new appreciation and respect for the arts. Pray for me!

I promise I didn't say all that as a disclaimer to this video of some of worship a few weekends ago, but if it helps as one then I'll take it. Here's our attempt at making Christmas carols relevant, fresh, but not overly difficult for the band. What you are about to witness is a "standard of excellence" set by a single standard definition camera and a board mix. Pure beauty. Hopefully the whisper, "hypocrite" doesn't escape your partially opened lips as you watch with a furrowed brow trying to comprehend what's happening. By the way our church name is Grace. Extend it.



Collin

New Pop Screen!

When Blue mics came out with the Blue Spark recently, I jumped on the chance to own a quality mic with the Blue name on it for such an economical price. It has turned out to be an excellent purchase and it looks so cool! I use it for vocals, guitar and piano primarily and it has captured excellent detail in every application. In addition to the superior quality microphones, one thing that Blue excels at is their design and marketing. The extra thought and creativity of their design and packaging are inspiring in this day when utility and economy is typically the goal.

When tracking vocals for 33Miles the most popular mic in Nashville studios tended to be either the Blue Kiwi or the Blue Bottle with the interchangeable capsule which are $$2,000-$6,000 microphones. The Spark uses the same technology from the same manufacturer (obviously), in a smaller, simpler package for $250.

One element of the Spark's creative design is that it comes with this cute little pop screen that showcases the Blue logo. Looks so cool and I thought I was getting a pop-screen with the mic. While it helps attenuate and neutralize some pops, a lot still make through. (Maybe I'm an extra emphatic singer...or that's why people back away from me when I'm telling a story...)



Anyway, I needed a better pop-screen and found Blue's, "The Pop" which I'm thrilled about. With a price tag of $30 on Amazon and it matches the quality and design of my mic, I had to have it. It looked too cool to not share with you!



Let the singing begin! (The soundtrack to the videos on my blog were all recorded with this mic if you want to hear some reference! (Jesus' Power over Death, Jesus' Power over Nature, Jesus' Power over Demons).

I'm going to go filter out some pops!