It is very rare for me to write a piece quickly and have it be worth anyone’s time. But sometimes the meaning behind the sound in my head is so obvious that it takes very little time to make it into a coherent musical unit. One Sunday afternoon I sat down to put a few initial ideas down and ended up not stopping for eight hours, resulting in the first draft of “The First Song”. After meeting with Dr. Lorenz (my teacher) twice about the work, tweeking the formal structure, and perfecting notation for the improvisational aspects, I finished the shortest piece I had ever written.
The length of The First Song was determined by the use I had in mind for it, but its transient nature also contributes meaning by leaving the mystery of romantic love a mystery. My main goal was to tell my wedding guests exactly how I felt as the woman I wanted to marry walked down the aisle to become my wife, but the piece works very well without the visual aspect being present. It is a simple depiction of what happens in a man’s heart the first time he sees the woman that God is about to give to him. It didn’t need to be long, because this emotion in its specificity happens once in a lifetime and is very short.
It’s apparently also very predictable (although this does not detract from the emotion but rather intensifies it with anticipation). Because this life changing emotional experience had been foreshadowed on so many different occasions it was surprisingly easy to predict accurately. The very first note in particular was a very obvious one: A single sharp and high pitched percussive strike on a grand piano with the sustain pedal engaged in order to bring the entire sound spectrum of the piano into a subtle state of anticipation to depict the literal physiological reaction of a man’s heart when he sees the object of his deepest and most passionate affection from a distance. I’d felt this many times before when seeing Liz from a distance and to describe the emotion musically was very simple. From there it was simply a matter of imagining her walking towards me with the intent o giving herself to me and (I to her) for the rest of our lives.
The flurry of nervous tremolos and glissandi following the first note describes the excitement I had while anticipating my bride’s walk towards me. The way I use the sound spectrum here is designed to be a direct reaction to the first note’s sympathetic resonance just as the anticipation of Liz walking towards me was the result of seeing her. I think it is also important to point out that I use the black key pentatonic scale to color the sound with a slight stereotypical oriental impression. This was motivated by Liz’s patriarchal Chinese heritage, but I masked the color because it’s very hard to see that she’s part Chinese.
The next minute or so of the piece describes the anticipation, nervousness, and wonderful joy I felt as she walked towards me. I could do nothing but bless God and rejoice in my bride’s beauty, the richness and depth of her spirit, and her love for me. The various components of the sound are designed to fit together in such a way as to put into the mind of the listener a snapshot of the passionate and complex mixture of emotion This texture builds and comes to a point at which it can no longer be contained and collapses out of necessity. The bride has arrived face to face with the man rejoicing before God over her, and his joy must be contained in a permanently lingering conclusion that will be preserved for as long as they both live.
Long story short, I love my wife.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
It’s been a long journey putting this new project together. Now that I’ve had a chance to sit back and see how it has turned out I am confident that it was certainly worth the effort. I’d like to take a moment now to help you understand what I’m hoping people will take away from it at the surface level:
This has been a challenging year for me (emotionally) because I’ve deeply questioned the value of my life pursuit in music, the value of my faith in God (which has become stronger than ever), and the value of my very existence. This project is the result of that questioning. As you listen, search for the questions I’ve been asking in the music. Don’t look for the answers because they’re not there; The composer hasn’t found them.
A technical note: There are lengthy transitions between some of the tracks that are meant to bring the project cohesion. Listen to them as part of the project.
I hope you enjoy it on the surface level. I’m looking forward to helping you dig deeper into it soon. Thank you so much for your continued support.
Purpose hides and so we seek it. But somewhere on the way we find beauty and realize that the purpose of life is the process of searching for it.
Special thanks to my freinds Cassie and Eva for their help with recording this CD. Buy it so that they can get paid!
One of you says, “I follow Martin Luther”; another, “I follow the Pope”; another, “I follow Baptist doctrine”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was the Pope crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of the Baptist denomination?
C.S. Lewis describes the Christian denominations as a single house with multiple rooms. If you are part of the house, you are living for the same purpose and with the same life direction (seeking a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and behaving accordingly). However, every Christian gravitates towards people with the same specific doctrinal beliefs. Lutherans are in one room, Evangelicals another, Anglicans another, and Roman Catholics another. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s a big book and we’re going to disagree on how to interpret it. But the problem comes in when these different groups refuse to leave their rooms and associate with other people in their family. This behavior doesn’t encourage people from the outside to come into the house and enjoy a relationship with Jesus Christ themselves (which should be our greatest concern). On the contrary, it discourages them from entering and is actively counterproductive to the work of the gospel. Not to say that we have any power over the effectiveness of the Lords work, but he does want his children to be obedient. I Corinthians 1:10, “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” Then Paul says this again in Philippians 2:1-2, “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”
Unfortunately, all of the various denominations are so set in their different doctrines that they have deprived the body of Christ from necessary diversity. For example, Baptists don’t tend to associate with Pentecostals because Baptists are stiff and reserved while the Pentecostals are hyperactive and emotional. When people of these types don’t worship together, the Baptists become too stiff and the Pentecostals too emotional. Worshiping God must have aspects of both thoughtful meditation (Psalm 119:27) and of joyful noise (Psalm 98); Baptists and Pentecostals need each other in order to not take their natural tenancies too far. Different denominations contain different types of people, and these different types need to each other in order to maintain healthy and well balanced worship. In other words, denominations create extremes.
Getting God’s people to come back into the commons area of God’s house is going to be quite a challenge. In fact I don’t really see how its even possible. But where humans fail, God will succeed. Not only that, but he will succeed while using us to do it. That being said, I don’t quite understand the implications of the idea that I am now going to present to you. I see how it could work, but I know that it is not going to happen the way I think it is. Only God can move in the hearts and minds of his people to having the response necessary in order bring the body of Christ back together again. All I can do is present an idea that God has put on my heart. What God does with it in your hearts is up to him.
To bring all the churches together something must develop that members from all of the various denominations can be a part of. Higher education is already doing this to a large extent. For example, Cornerstone University (where I did my undergraduate studies) has more than 45 denominations represented in its student body. After growing up in a Baptist environment my entire life, this was an incredible opportunity for my ideas to merge with the view points of students from other backgrounds. It resulted in me actually getting into God’s word and discovering truth like I’d never experienced it before. This is the type of growth that could happen should Christians find something comparable to this in their own communities. Unfortunately, higher education can only go so far since it is very expensive and it is completely unreasonable to hope for a Christian university in every geographic context. It is also unreasonable to expect private elementary and high school education to accomplish church unity since this targets a fairly narrow demographic.
Music education is very peculiar. Because of the performance orientation it has, it drives people from very different backgrounds into that same room to enjoy an intellectually rich presentation together. Since the audience is typically connected with one of the people performing, and the people performing are connected to one another, these performances result in social connections that would’ve been impossible any other way. In this way music education has the power to bring random people together in order to strengthen the relational context of a community. But then make everyone in that room a passionate believer in Christ Jesus, and the result isn’t just a well connected community. What results is a well connected church that otherwise did not exist provided that this program does not exist only in a single church. And this finally brings us to the point I wish to make.
Create an inexpensive and Christ oriented music education program in a community that is connected with every church in that community, enroll representatives from every congregation to participate, back it up with prayer, and encourage every congregation to observe the resultant artistic presentation, and you will see entire church bodies uniting starting with the individual layperson and working its way up into the leadership.
If you live in the Lansing area and would like to see this happen, look over the plan in my blog entitled “The Church’s School of Music” and contact me to let me know you want to help make this happen. If you don’t live in the Lansing area but you would like to see this happen in your community, be bold and give it a try.
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Thank you all so much for your support by inviting people to join the Facebook group. I’ve been pretty overwhelmed by the results so far. To the newcomers, thank you for joining us and taking a look at what God is doing here. Feel free to invite your Facebook friends to the group yourself. You can find instructions on how to do this in the post from last week.
May God continue to work out his plans in completely unpredictable ways.
What exactly is this website? On the one hand this is clearly a business that is struggling to succeed. On the other hand this website is clearly seeking to be a ministry that has already had a positive influence on quite a few people and in that regard has been very successful. Whatever this is it’s not a church because I’m selling CD’s on iTunes and CD Baby, and it’s not really a business yet because it is not currently profitable (which as we discussed in January I can’t be doing for very much longer).
I try to make what I do here an overflow from my worship of Christ. It mostly turns into music, but sometimes it winds up on this blog too. Then again, as we saw in January, I sometimes fail at this. But overall, most people seem to agree that this website represents Christ and is a very relevant and potentially a powerful ministry. So why isn’t this thing exploding with people wanting to hear my work?
I’ve been struggling with this question for over a year, and there are several explanations. One is that most people I’m close to seem to think of this as something I do for fun that I use to pass the time in a constructive manner. It’s not. For over a year I’ve been hoping and praying that God would grow this into something that would supplement an income for me. I haven’t really made this as clear as I could have, but I hope that I’m making it clear now. This doesn’t mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I’m upset with anyone for misunderstanding.
I was hoping what would happen is that the people closest to me would help by inviting their Facebook friends to my group which is associated with this website (the group most of you probably linked to this post from). But most people didn’t help me in this way and I’ve discovered that there are several very good reasons for this to happen:
People didn’t understand what I was asking them to do. They either did something that wasn’t what I meant or they became frustrated not being able to figure out how to invite people to a group.
People intended to help me out by inviting people to the group but they just kept forgetting. When I reminded them, they did what I do and put it off until I gave up reminding people. Then they forgot for good.
A few people left the group because they were sick of getting reminder emails. Try to compare this problem with the last one and find a solution to that one!
Many felt that inviting people that they didn’t think were interested would be annoying and intrusive. I understand this perspective, but I want to emphasize that I’ve sought to make this website a place for people to not only hear good music, but to hear the gospel. If the gospel is being proclaimed and the music is of a high enough quality to be worth most people’s time to at least check out once, I see no reason to not tell them about the website unless my theology is completely off the wall. So invite them anyway and let them decide whether or not they’re interested. If it’s the worst thing that happens to them today then they have a very blessed life.
So if you don’t mind, I’d like to try this again. Only this time I want to communicate very clearly:
You don’t owe me anything. I’m asking you to do this because I need your help and no other reason. I very much need and appreciate your support. Please help me.
I want this website to be my career and my ministry. I’m very serious about this and I want to make sure you realize that if God wills it I would like to devote my life to this ministry. Please partner with me and help me do this.
I would appreciate it if you all to kept a close eye on me and let me know the moment I do something that I shouldn’t (Clearly bad theology, arrogance, a stupid piece of music, etc.).
Facebook is an explosively powerful tool in the hands of 50 people (I think that’s about how many people are going to read this post). If everyone that reads this helps me make this happen, you will see this thing take off.
If there are certain people you’d rather not invite, then don’t invite them.
Please do this right away so that you don’t forget. I would really appreciate it.
The only problem left unaddressed now is the problem of not understanding Facebook well enough to do this for me. Here’s how you do it:
If you are not a member of the group yet (you get the emails just by being invited), click the join button (or respond to invitation).
Once you’re a member, just below my picture (upper left) you’ll see a link that says “Invite people to join”. Click this and you’ll see every person that you are friends with.
Click on every person so that they are all highlighted. Once this is done, click “send invitations” towards the bottom of the page.
Thank you all so much for doing this. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever.”
“Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month”…When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”
“Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
CD Baby ($4)