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Vote “Awaken our Hearts” as Indie Song 2011

Russell Martin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:03:47 +0000

The time has come once again to begin voting for “Awaken Our Hearts”. In October I submitted “Awaken Our Hearts” into the Indie Heaven Indie song 2011 contest. You voted it as one of the top 10 songs for the month of October and thus it was chosen for the finals. Now the time to vote has come again.

I have a chance to win $500, a one song recording session and many other prizes, but I need your help. They combined all the top songs from September, October and November into a final contest chart. By the end of December my song, “Awaken Our Hearts” needs to find itself listed in the top ten.

The top 10 songs on January 1 will be judged by a panel of songwriting experts and one song chosen as a winner.

So here’s how you can help.

1. Go to http://www.indieheaven.com/indiesong

2. Locate “Awaken Our Hearts” by Russell Martin

3. Listen to the song

4. Vote 1-5 stars

5. Forward this to your friends and have them do the same thing

6. Repeat Daily

Join the Facebook Event “I’m Voting Every Day for Russell’s Song ‘Awaken our Hearts’”

You can only vote once per day, but you can vote every day between now and the end of December. Please forward this to your friends, post this link on Facebook, twitter, google plus, linked in. Talk it up with your friends, family, even random strangers.

Caption Please

Russell Martin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:50:03 +0000

Kind of afraid to ask but… Do you have a caption for this photo?

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Russell’s Mobile Blog

Searching

Russell Martin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:37:18 +0000

In one of the boxes pictured… There is coffee.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Russell’s Mobile Blog

Winterfield Concert

Russell Martin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:59:34 +0000

Thanks so much to the congregation at Winterfield UMC in Longview for having me out. We ate Thanksgiving dinner and I shared some music.

The Setlist.. pretty much stuck to it

The set up… this has become pretty standard.. Bose sound system makes it so easy.

Guitar looks kind of lonely back there.

When is the last time they fed you a complete Thanksgiving dinner before you sang?

I invited the kids up to sing “Hey I Love Jesus” although this kind of looks like a version of “Baby Shark”

We got the “Oh how He set me free!” part together though! Thanks guys!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Russell’s Mobile Blog

Why the New Blog Layout

Russell Martin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:42:22 +0000

If you visit forkintheroadmusic.org you will notice that the page template has changed. For a while I had used the arras theme, which I really liked as far as asthetics, however it did not work best for my site. This is for a few different reasons I think

First of all I think my idea behind my blogging has changed. When I started I wanted to be a resource center for worship leaders. I wanted to write articles about leading worship, provide backgrounds etc. It was all business though, no personal. Over the past few years I have sensed the power in being personal. I still want to provide resources, instrumental reflections, and gather thoughts from worship leaders, but that is only one part of who I am. I also love talking about family, communications, my pets, church, and my favorite chili recipe.

Second I want to become more mobile. I have found that when I have to wait until the end of the day to write a post, I generally run out of time or forget about it. However if when an idea strikes I can write it, and post it then that’s better. I can now take photos and upload thoughts directly from my phone using either the wordpress app or posterous. The new layout allows for this easier by not requiring the thumbnail images each time, and looking uniform when updated from posterous.

So what do you think? I’d love your feedback!

Songwriting

Russell Martin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:31:03 +0000

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Russell’s Mobile Blog

My Shared Items 11/02/09

Russell Martin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:56:43 +0000

Each week I receive posts from over fifty different blogs. I collect and read them on Google Reader and thought you might benefit from some of the things I am reading. So here are some of my favorites from this week.

In Happy Hallow…. Harvest Festival, Michael Buckingham talks about ways to use Halloween as an opportunity, not a stumbling block. Yes I know it’s a little late, but file it for next year.

One of my favorite new blogs to follow is Michael Hyatt’s Blog. On 10/30 he shared a guest post from Margaret McSweeny on 12 Strategies for Leadership Success.

And finally TechCrunch, Pandora now offers integration with Twitter and Facebook

If you like, you can subscribe directly to my shared items on google reader.

Also if you have a blog to suggest, please put it in the comments below.

Worship Planning with Google Wave

Russell Martin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:21:34 +0000

I was invited to a google wave “post” or “blip” or whatever it is called, where my friend was writing a blog post, and wanted some fresh eyes to read over it. He posted his thoughts and what happened next was amazing. About ten other people started sharing thoughts, finding spelling mistakes and making corrections, giving alternate ideas and collaborating on the post.

After watching this for a few minutes I wondered if it could be used for planning worship services? What would happen if someone could start a wave with the sermon and scripture, then let people from all over comment, make song suggestions, give links to videos or tell about a skit they wrote that would fit the topic?

Well let’s find out. First let me say that I know not everyone has Google Wave, and I know this process won’t fully work until it is available everywhere, so hurry up Google! But I think there are enough to give this experiment a try.

I have created a wave for a service we are doing on November 8th. If you have wave add me to your contact list and I will invite you to the wave.

My contact is rgmmusic@googlewave.com

Your Favorite Blackberry and Iphone Music Apps

Russell Martin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:27:08 +0000

For about a year the most searched for and viewed posts on my blog had to do with worship backgrounds. That was until I posted a list of my most useful iphone applications for musicians, along with a link to a friend’s post on iphone audio applications.

Since I wrote the apps for musicians post I know that many more applications have come out for the iphone, and you may have different favorites than me. I also know that there are a lot of you out there who use Blackberrys and use apps for them in your ministry.

So here is my question. What applications, for Blackberry and Iphone, do you use in your worship ministry and would recommend to others? List the name of the app and what platform it’s for in the comments below. If you have a link that would be great too.

Asking for Help

Russell Martin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:54:58 +0000

For the past week I have not been writing on my blog. Not because I am tired, or have nothing to say but because I was kinda stupid. I have been looking for a new look, layout for my blog and as I was trying them out, loading and unloading them something went wrong. All the sudden I couldn’t get to anything. Forkintheroadmusic.org just brought up a blank page. Instead of asking for help I tried several days worth of solutions. Download this, upload that, copy and backup, restore… nothing worked.

Last night I gave up and asked for help. I sent a simple email to bluehost.com explaining the problem, which was human stupidity. They sent me an email saying that they had a backup and could restore it if I confirmed my password. Thirty minutes later I was up and running with no problems.

Unfortunately I tend to do the same thing in other parts of my life too. I get into a mess, make a mistake and then I spin my wheels and spend my time trying to fix it, when I should just ask for help in the first place. Maybe that help is from God. Maybe that is from a friend or family member. But the hard part is asking for it in the first place.

What do you have the hardest time asking for help with?