This is the song I want to play for the musician's jam next month, if I can make it that weekend. For the technically curious: I sang it and played simultaneously on my new-to-me Washburn guitar, recording it on my Samsung Galaxy SII phone using the app PCM Recorder and the built-in mic. Did no post-recording manipulation, as I don't really have the programs for that.

There. Happy now, Abby? :D

I've thought for months, maybe years, that I should probably consider getting an electrified acoustic guitar. I've played guitar for some time, yet always an acoustic, and when I play for church it's always been on that same acoustic, with a little passive pickup fitted into the soundhole. That's changing. I finally went out and bought an acoustic-electric from one of the local pawn shops (the reputable one). The shopkeepers told me they'd just put out a lovely Washburn acoustic-electric that day ( here's specifics about the model ), and when I played around with it, I realized it would be a good bet for what I was looking for. Good acoustic sound that still sounded acoustic when plugged in (at least, more than some acoustic-electrics). Sometimes I wonder how to tell the difference between simple serendipity and genuine Providence. Is there one? This was one of those times I wondered if God hadn't inspired me to look for an acoustic-electric at just ...

It's been a big, busy, exciting weekend. Saturday was my state's press association's annual awards luncheon, and I got an award. Not just one, though. Three ! All I knew going in was that I was getting something, but I figured it'd be third place in some itty bitty category. But I actually got a little certificate for being... punny. That and the other particular awards I got were completely unexpected. (But the award for being punny was the best. Remember, editors love puns. Especially in headlines.) And then today, I played piano . In front of people . And without reading music (because my musical-note-literacy is limited to reading one, maybe two, notes at a time). After years of plinking out notes and chords and then broken chords on the black and white keys, sans lessons, it's finally paid off. (Meaning, when church has absolutely nobody else to play the Christmas carols in December, it's not quite the disaster it could've been. :D )

I've realized a groundbreaking fact this week. All the great composers were German! Bach. Mendelssohn. Handel. Mozart. BEETHOVEN. Wagner. Etc. Granted, there were also good composers who weren't German. Tchaikovsky, to name one. And Rimsky-Korsakov and Vivaldi. But it simply astounds me how many of the traditional classical composers weren't Russian or Italian or French. They were German. Weird, huh?

Owl City. You know, the guy who made it big singing about fireflies. I really enjoy the Owl City project ( several albums ) and musician Adam Young's early acoustic project Sky Sailing. I'm intrigued by the sparing commentary he posts on his blog . His unashamed commitment to orthodox Christianity, and Reformed theology, no less!, inspires me. (He tweeted "Ephesians 2:8-10" tonight, for goodness' sake!) But sometimes I wonder if I'd actually want to be around him in person. I can't decide.

I've been hanging out at a few music jams over the last several months, getting to know some of the local talent and sharing mine with them. (Which is a silly way of saying, taking turns playing guitar and singing with them.) And this week, one of those fellow musicians asked if I wanted to play a set at a local craft fair. There were several other folks there performing before me, and I knew them all -- knew their style, was comfortable with it -- and figured, hey, a small-town craft fair can't be that busy, especially toward the end of it. So I said, sure, I'll play and sing for a half-hour or so after you all are done. I walked in and realized, there's vendors . and people eating lunch . and more people . Since when did so many people hang out at small-town craft fairs? Anyway. For me, it's one thing to play guitar and sing in front of people I know, like at church. It's one thing to play guitar as backup for another singer, musician or group. It's ...

I hosted a dance party for a few middle schoolers from church last night. Besides providing the wood floors to dance crazily on, my task was to select appropriate, upbeat songs for them to dance to. This is the result: A YouTube playlist. I'd embed it, but apparently Blogger isn't enabled to do so. I definitely threw a few throwback songs in there for good measure. The W's "The Devil is Bad," N*Sync's "Bye Bye Bye," and the Numa Numa song (properly named "Dragostea Din Tei")... The girls got a kick out of watching me and the other chaperone dancing and singing to these '90s and '00s songs they'd never heard of. (They also squealed with delight for many of the other songs. I felt rather accomplished and in touch with middle school culture, oddly enough.)

When I moved to my new job/church/apartment/life, I decided soon after that I wanted to learn to play bass. That’s because my church has one bassist who’s just beginning the instrument and plays every other week. The media coordinator was all for my giving it a try to fill in the gaps on the other bassist’s off-weeks. First of all, they had to get the strings replaced on the church bass. Once that was done, it could hold a tune and it made sense to start practicing. So I lugged the thing home after church last week, agreeing to try it out and perhaps start playing with the church praise band the following week or three. So, first time I plugged it into a small amp and played with it, it was surprisingly easy (thanks to a YouTube video tutorial ) and I fooled around with a few songs out of my old rock’n’roll music book and my worship song collection. I mainly had to practice remembering what notes could be played where. That’s the biggest difference between rhythm guitar and bass – o...

As I posted earlier, my weeks have been busy… thus I have not posted links (or anything else). I shall attempt to rectify the omission starting today. (“Rectify the omission” is one of my favorite sentences.) How little sleep can you get away with? – nope, not 5 or 6 (or 7). 8 it’s gotta be, unless you’re a mutant. (NYTimes Mag article) Is sitting a lethal activity? – another article in the NY Times Magazine, but this one about the importance of fidgeting and not sitting down all the time. This is your body on chairs: Electrical activity in the muscles drops — “the muscles go as silent as those of a dead horse,” Hamilton says — leading to a cascade of harmful metabolic effects. Your calorie-burning rate immediately plunges to about one per minute, a third of what it would be if you got up and walked. Insulin effectiveness drops within a single day, and the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes rises. So does the risk of being obese. Humility without heirarchy: How submission works ...

I just got back from a day of newspaper layout for the college newspaper. As the managing editor… I stay the longest. But I also enjoy my work, which is probably the only reason I’ve survived this long in my major. So, the rest of the day will likely be filled with writing papers and a novel, running to Wal-Mart, and possibly watching a movie. So much has been going on this week that I haven’t done nearly as much online reading as I normally do. I’ve been writing a novel, trying out (and getting a small part in) the school’s musical, and of course gearing up for another issue of the school newspaper. Oh, and taking the senior test. Glad that’s over. Social Scientist Sees Bias Within – from the New York Times: psychologists are overwhelmingly liberal. Who’da thunk?!? *sarcasm dripping* (Via World blog .) A Self-Referential Story – This is a sentence that tells you the link goes to a story sounding like this the whole way through. This is a sentence telling you that it is funny. Thi...

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me / A partridge in a pear tree. On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me / Two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree. So, I know that the Twelve Days of Christmas come after Christmas and before Epiphany (January 6th, I believe), but I never know whether the “First day of Christmas” is Christmas Day proper or if it’s Boxing Day… Anyways, I’ve had two family Christmas celebrations so far—one with my dad’s side of my extended family, and my immediate family Christmas. My most exciting gift was a passive guitar pickup for my acoustic guitar. (Google Images is handy for this sort of picture.) I got to use this pickup yesterday at church, where I play guitar for our praise team, and boy did it sound MUCH better than trying to mic my guitar with a normal mic! And this way I didn’t have to worry about hitting the mic with my hand while strumming. The last family Christmas—with my mom’s side of our family—is this S...

I’ve written before about my sporadic search for good Christian music to sing along to. Or, what I would consider good Christian music. I have my own ideas about what that label requires, and they have lately been crystallizing into solid form when before they were only hazy hunches. I want non-cliché music. That’s all. (Warning: a very long post follows.)

And I’m supposed to be at work tomorrow morning, 7:45. Why am I up? Oh right. I’m in college. I do silly things like this. To update: I got suckered into being lead singer for a class band at my college’s upcoming celebration of Latina culture. (I’d write Latino culture, but la cultura is a feminine noun.) I had to write a difficult article for my college newspaper’s website about the suicide of a student at my college. And I have enjoyed being back with some of my best friends at college. Just sayin’, I love singing in Spanish about as much as I love singing in English. I’m at the point (have been for a while, actually) where I can simply think the meaning behind the words without concentrating on what the words are saying. I know these songs well enough, and the language, that I can get beyond the mere words that convey the meaning. It’s fascinating.

Consider this children’s song I heard today, while visiting the second Family Camp this year: “I think I’m gonna throw up I think I’m gonna throw up I think I’m gonna throw up My hands to the Lord.” There’s more, too. Full video of lyrics with the music is on YouTube, of course. Slightly more commentary below it. Really? I don’t think I’d especially want my kids scampering around my house singing that. (If I had any. Or if I babysat them.) My mom thinks it’s cute for little kids (think kindergarten through 2nd grade). It seems to me like it’s making a mockery of praising God. Something just doesn’t feel right about this song. Then again, I’m also not seven years old, nor am I a fan of bathroom humor.

I have thought, before, that to translate a song would be a wonderful experience, even a way to worship God with my Spanish talent. And now I know. I've loved this song for years: And I thought to myself, this past Friday, that it would be a great song to translate into Spanish. So I made my best effort to produce a Spanish lyric faithful to both the original song and to the Biblical passage from whence the English song came; and in addition to that, I tried to make the lyric sound good, to sound like it was supposed to be that way originally (instead of being a translation clumsily fitted to the original tune). So, I looked up the verses in two different Spanish translations (the NVI and the RV-1995 ) to try to write the lyric as close to the Bible verse phrasing/words as possible. Then I wrote a version, and didn't like it at all. (I still have it, however, in my e-mail.) I re-wrote most of it as various ideas, words and phrases, came to me.... and here is what I ...

Today in chapel, the worship leader for today introduced us to a hymn I'd not heard before, "Thine be the Glory." Apparently, it's second only to Amazing Grace in popularity (or familiarity, shall we say) in England, from where this guy hails. I also discovered another song written by the same duo that wrote "In Christ Alone." I shall soon be learning that one. :)

I just found a Spanish (as in from Madrid) group that I really like. They were together in the seventies. Oh well. They have an awesome version of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" though!

Today in class, we got to listen to a lullaby (because we're studying Latino music this week). And then, one of the discussion questions was to think of some songs that we'd had our moms sing to us when we were little--our own lullabies. I came up with two from Mary Poppins ("Feed the Birds" and "Stay Awake") almost immediately, as well as a song called "Sleep little dream princess." There was also a song based on Psalm 5:1-3, and the song from Dumbo when we were really really little (which I don't remember much of, but would recognize if I heard it), and.... Well, lemme think. Now that I sit down and try to remember the other songs, I can't! I'm pretty sure there was another one that mentioned the moon. Yes, I'm sure there was... it's right there and I can't recall it... something about going to sleep, and then when you wake we'll be here... Ack! Don't you hate it when you know a song but you can't recall it at ...

My goodness, last night was sooooo random. Story first, then intro to country music browsing. First of all, my student group studying here in this Central American country decided to cook dinner for the special speakers that came this week for chapel. See, lots of people at this institute were signing up to host them for dinner (i.e. take them out to some random restaurant), but as of Tuesday morning nobody had yet signed up to take care of them Wednesday night, and one of my fellow students suggested we do something for them. Originally the plan was to take them to a local restaurant, but we changed our minds and decided to make something ourselves. (We're college students. This was cheaper and would be just as delicious!) So last night, we convened in the institute's kitchen (which we were allowed to borrow, fortunately!) and made ourselves a large batch of heavenly alfredo, and heated up some rolls as well. So, after chapel last night, we sat down to a delicious dinner of al...