Session Number 1!
This is the first of, Lord willing, many more episodes of the CMB Podcast.
In this episode, I simply cast a little vision about http://christianmusicblog.com, the podcast, and my background leading up to CMB.
Listen to or download the podcast here, and check out the detailed show notes below….
[powerpress]I’ve been meeting a lot of people I would have never met had it not been for the internet and this whole CMB idea. And these aren’t just random people I’m meeting. They’re people of faith who make music.
They’re just like me! Well not just like me, we’re all each uniquely created and made to compliment each other, but we have these two primary things in common.
1) We like Jesus a lot… and
2) We like the process of music making.
And all of us would probably say that our relationship with God and our music making are significantly connected.
So I’ve met these people from all kinds of places… South Africa, England, Texas…
There’s a real example of meaningful connectedness through blogging… and that’s the hope for this new blog.
There are a few things I’m hoping to make clear through the new blog:
christianmusicblog.com is not only about the CCM phenomenon. “Christian contemporary music”
I want to challenge people to think differently about what Christian music is….
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not going to throw stones at the CCM industry. There is a lot of good that has come out of it.
But I want us as music makers to put on our thinking caps, and explore what it means to make music Christianly.
Herald Best wrote a book called Music Through the Eyes of Faith. I’ll be talking a lot about this book once the site goes live.
It has really helped me a lot in understanding these things….
We can swing the pendulum one of two ways:
- We can do the sacred/secular divide
- We can flatten it and call all music equal
Both are wrong.
With CMB I want us to hit the nail on the head, striking the right balance of how to view music making from a Christian perspective.
In order to grow in our music making we must get highly practical and actionable
I think too often in christendom we don’t have enough of the practical… I believe in solid theology and the amazingly transcendent doctrines of scripture, but I think there must be a place to talk about real life ideas and help each other in the smaller day-to-day things.
I believe that right doctrine and correct views of scripture and theology if applied correctly will result in a very practical way of living…
So in our case music making, is a great example of how these two things can meet. Music making is technical, it’s nuts and bolts and craftsmanship, it’s systematic, structured, and strategic. It has meter, it has form…
Yes it’s filled with inspiration and can certainly be spontaneous and unpredictable…
But think for a second about what is actually happening in these moments of seemingly free-spirited unstructured-ness? ….
You learned a skill somewhere down the line. Your spontaneity isn’t without form. You are applying skills that you learned at one point or another to launch from.
I’m not talking about being rigid. I’m referring to a perfect union of inspiration and preparation, into one integrated whole.
A life giving practice of doing, living, and breathing, creativity.
So in order to see that happen, I want to add value to people of faith who make music with practical ideas ways of being more creative, resulting in being more prolific
AS WE’RE GETTING STARTED
I’m wanting to specifically serve songwriters. There’s a reason for this.
Everyone knows when you start out in music. You usually learn other people’s music. Which is important. If you play on the WT at your church.
Not everyone needs to be a songwriter. You might be called to be a great bass player or keyboardist that supports great songs written by great songwriters, but you ought to at least know what makes for a great song and what makes for a bad song…
…And if you’ve never tried to write a song, you ought to at least give it a shot.
And don’t base your whole experience as a songwriter on your first song…
SO… as we get started here we’ll be discussing the specific music making world of songwriting.
THE PODCAST
Now… Here’s what you can expect from the CMB podcast:
I plan to bring on respected songwriters as we get started with songwriting.
I’ll have conversations with them about their creative process and how their faith makes the difference for them. We’ll talk about the stories of how they got started and any advice they may give to folks who are starting out, wrestling with writers block, and needing encouragement…
The interviews themselves I’ll try to keep to about 30 to 40 minutes. Perfect for your commute, your workout, your yardwork… However you wanna fit it in.
And that’s the lovely thing about podcasts. You can listen whenever you want and not miss a thing.
I hope to do these as regularly as I am able, but writing for the new site, doing video production, and recording these sessions is a fair amount of work.
But I’m glad to do it, because I believe in what we’re doing.
A LITTLE ABOUT ME
My story in a nutshell, with easy bullet points! 🙂
- First song at 12 on moms piano
- Playing guitar at 14 with dad as worship leader in my church
- Got into playing with bands after high school (no college)
- Ended up in Nashville
- Ended up in North Carolina
- Played with Mali for 5 years… big events small events… etc.
- Been writing praise and worship songs for a while
- Married for 5 years to my wife Katie… 9 month old son
- Currently I’m working with LWC doing media, web, music, youth,
- For more visit my personal blog at natefancher.com (EPs and Recorded music)
All of this has lead up to this point at CMB…
For those of you who have signed up on our list:
I wanna say a big thank you…
It’s been a joy getting to know you through email. I haven’t been able to connect with everyone, but I try to do my best and at least read every email that comes in.
If you are listening to this and have not signed up yet, simply sign up below…
So join us!
I’m currently building relationships with music makers and have very pleased with people’s feedback and simply getting to know them.
That’s it for this episode…
Thanks for sticking with me…
If you listen to the audio I give you a gift by the way… 🙂
In the next session of the CMB podcast I speak with music publisher, songwriter, singer, awesome bass player… Rick Cua. Don’t miss out!!