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!

Alright, I Admit It.

That's right, I'm coming clean. The Swedish store which is the envy of all our small spaces has found a special place in my church stage. It always has. I'm not sure if it's the cute pictures that explain how to screw the thousands of pieces together, or the fact that the products last almost as long as my attention span. I just love Ikea. The beauty is almost exclusively in the low price of everything. When I walk in to the blue and yellow utopia I practically stifle shouts of, "YES, I'll take five of everything!!"

Last week I think I did buy five of every lantern to create our new stage set. This will carry us through the summer with a general theme of light and bright summer colors. Honestly, this stage rides a little too close for comfort to my personal guidelines of keeping it neutral and non-distracting. Just like our approach to worship styles, performance, and music selection my goal is to inspire and add to our worship experience while minimizing the attention on the band. With pops of bright red, chrome and a drum riser this is further then I will go in the future! Thankfully the lamps warm up the space and make it more bright and cheery than distracting.

My staging budget is only $100 per month, so changing every quarter allows me $400 per set and we've never exceeded it thanks to Ikea and a resourceful team.

















It's been an uphill road over the past two years building the worship arts team at Grace. Seeing more and more talented artists come forward and offer their gifts and time to engage our church in visual worship with each big project makes the long weeks so worth it. After finally finishing this involved set of engineering how to hang these panels from other panels, one of our associate pastors texted me Saturday night at 10pm. He asked me if the panels on one side were supposed to be on the floor of the stage. Answer: no. Thankfully my sister Linsi was in town visiting and after a long night of re-engineering how to fasten our panels we made them safe for Sunday.

There are two 1/16" inch cables running through pulleys fastened to angle iron on the top of the the white panels. This allows us to hang props more efficiently. Our new challenge was fastening the styrofoam lantern panels to the cable which is done by glueing two furring strips to the back of the styrofoam and running the cable through eye screws screwed into the furring strips. We crimped lead fishing weights to the cable to stop the panels from sliding down, but they didn't hold. After it fell we screwed the cable to the furring strip which seemed to do the trick.

My mockup ended up being pretty close!

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!

Palmer Charles

I am a blessed man. As my family grows, I see more and more how graciously God navigates and guides us through seasons. Through each transition I am more overwhelmed and thankful for His generosity to me. First, God entrusted me with the most beautiful woman and Godly wife that I could ever hope to be partnered with. Then, two years later our lives were rocked with the addition of little Gabriella. As we prepared to ease ourselves into the terrible two's our lives were rocked yet again with the anticipation of another little one! Just when we thought we were gaining some traction and perceived "control" over our lives, God gently reminded us again that He is in control and has incredible things in mind.

Palmer Charles was born a week before his due date early on a Saturday morning on March 31. What an indescribable experience to go through with my Jenna. After nine months of restless sleep and lots of back-rubs the day came when we miraculously witnessed the split second moment of a person joining us in the world. It truly is indescribable, the formation of a beating heart inside the womb, then the few flutters of movement which gradually turn into visible kicks: undeniable evidence of life that only our Creator can give.

God wasn't lying when he said there would be pain in childbirth. I praise God numerous times everyday that I am not a woman and childbirth is a perfect example of this! It's so humbling watching Jenna willingly experience the pain of childbirth for the health and good of our baby. Jenna sweetly says that there is now way she could go through childbirth without me, but really all I do time contractions, hold her, breathe with her and whisper encouragement into her ear. Inside I'm gritting my teeth and wondering how much more of this I can handle before I yell, "Give my son the juice!"

The most humbling moment came after Jenna had been in intense active labor for several hours and had transitioned into the large jetted tub at the birthing center. The warm water worked like magic and allowed her a few seconds of relief between contractions. I knelt by her side holding a wet cloth on her head and letting her squeeze my hand. I timed contractions and constantly told her how proud of her I felt. As the contractions came on so quickly it was easy for both of us to feel out of control which is the toughest part of natural childbirth: purposefully losing control and letting the mother's body do what it was created to do!

As the contractions came on strongly and quickly Jenna felt overcome by them and even our Lamaze breathing began to lose it's effectiveness. In Jenna's worst moment of feeling completely out of control she simply cried out in prayer, "Lord help me, I can't do this on my own!"

Do you know how badly I want to be the one who cares for my wife and assures her that no matter what she can rely on me and I can carry her burdens? I wish I could describe how humbling it was to watch my wife intentionally experience pain and as it became harder than she could take her true colors showed and she went to her Rock. I hope that in my worst moment that I would turn to my Creator. Jenna taught me an invaluable lesson in this moment: in our hardest trials, cry out the Lord. Our suffering may not even be for our benefit (although in God's sovereignty we know that all things are). He might be doing a work in us for everyone else to witness. We don't know if our midwives were believers but they stood back and watched us labor together, and saw Jenna turn unashamedly turn to her God. I know they saw something different in my wife.

Although those intense minutes seemed like hours they ended just like that. Jenna told the midwife she felt like she needed to push and in a few short minutes we heard a baby cry and Palmer was placed on Jenna's chest. We both cried.

After the cord stopped pulsing giving little Palmer the last of his needed blood supply from Jenna, I told the midwife that I'm not the guy who needed to cut the cord, there are medical professionals for that. She laughed and generously stood in the gap for me.

The next few hours were perfect, we held our baby (Jenna) and slept (me), and our midwife bustled around our room cleaning up, taking temperatures and vitals from both mom and baby and let us rest. Within a few hours Jenna's strength had returned and after a quick picture with our midwife were on our way home.

Before:



After:









Although Pro-Life isn't an intentional theme of this blog, it's the most obvious message that Palmer's beating little heart shouts more loudly than I can. Palmer was a person from the moment he was conceived. God saw his unformed body. (Psalm 139). He will be inconvenient, expensive, and cause all kinds of trouble but He is made in the image of God and it's my privilege and honor to be called his dad and introduce him to his Heavenly Father. It's not our decision to avoid the 9 month pregnancy that his little life required, or to decide whether or not that little fertilized egg should have a chance, or a matter of women's rights. It's about a little person that God chose to breathe life into. It is worth it, all of it. I'm so glad my parents thought the same way about me.

Thank you God for Palmer Charles.

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!