Fork In The Road Music » late

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.

Creative Artists or Praise and Worship Cover Band?

Russell Martin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:17:14 +0000

I was reading through various friends facebook updates when this one by Chuck Harris caught my attention:

“The church does not prize originality, but rather cloning, it does not prize freedom, but control.” Leonard Sweet.

It got me to thinking about how we approach worship music in the church. Do we foster an atmosphere of creativity and unleash our members to use their talent in unique and creative ways, or do we throttle creativity by insisting on playing a piece just as it was recorded by the latest worship band? I admit it is much easier to do the second. I also think that we are encouraged to do so by artists and publishing companies because they make it so easy. You can find now an extensive library of resources where the worship tunes have been charted out to mimic their recording. It is easier to learn the music when CD’s can be listened to and are available for easy reference. I wonder though if it has not just made us a praise and worship cover band. Although it is easier, is it best?

I had been thinking on this topic even before I read the quote above. One of our band members, who had been thinking along the same lines, asked if we could try an experiment. He said that we should pass out a chord chart to a song, and let us come up with the arrangement before listening to it on the CD.

I really want to get your thoughts.

What are the benefits of using CDs and pre-written charts?

What are the benefits of doing your own thing?

Which do you use more often? Why?

What are other ways you can foster creativity with your band?

My Mistake and Our Big News

Russell Martin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:41:13 +0000

Yesterday I posted something on facebook that at the time was a huge mistake. I didn’t realize it of course, but as the day wore on, and comments started coming in I saw the error of my ways. What was it?

Big news for the Martin household. More details later.

I saw nothing wrong. We had big news happening with us. It made sense to me. What I failed to keep in mind is that out of my facebook friends and followers there are many women who were all of the sudden drawing their own conclusions and speculations as to what our big news was. You can guess what they were thinking. Sorry to disappointed but the letter “B” has nothing to do with this announcement.

The news is that we have found and begun the process to purchase a house. It’s a nice starting home here in Texarkana. I’ll post pictures once everything is final. This is a big step for us and a huge commitment. We would definitely appreciate and covet your prayers as we go forward.

I apologize again for being so open ended and allowing for so much speculation my status update. I will try not to do that again.

Video Tips- One Way to Capture Audio

Russell Martin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:08:37 +0000

Video is something I have just started doing at our church. Even though it is new to us as a way to communicate, we are already seeing some awesome results. We started out doing all of our youth updates as a video and have had some fun with that.

To start off with though, all the videos have been kind of funny and light. That changed this past week when our pastor wanted me to video the testimony of one of our members. When doing the funny, light videos it was good to hear what was being said, but with background music and other elements in the video sound quality could be compromised a bit. With the testimony, however, I knew that we had to get the best sound possible.

First you should know we are using two Everio Hard Disk cameras, set up in two locations with different angles. Its a good consumer level camera with a decent microphone. We have not invested in higher quality equipment, extra microphones or any thing else up to this point because we are just getting started and want to build slowly. But I did need to find a way to capture good audio. When telling a testimony, we really need to hear the story.

This is when I got the idea to just use the church sound system. We used the wireless lapel mic as our input. I then captured the audio three different ways. First it was captured by one of the two cameras I had set up; Second it was captured by sending it from the board, to a wireless earphone pack, to the second camera’s microphone input; and third it was captured by a CD recorder running on the sound board. We recorded the interview and I used my computer later to sync up the video, and audio from the different sources.

The best thing would be to purchase a good microphone for the video camera, and I hope that is in our future. However, this way gave great results and did not cost us anything.

Do you use video in your church? If so how? Is it effective? What is your setup?

Big Event for 6th Graders

Russell Martin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:53:00 +0000

This year I get another opportunity to lead worship for an amazing group of kids at a great weekend retreat. It’s called “The Big Event” and it’s our conference 6th grade retreat held November 6-8 at Lakeview Conference Center in Palestine Tx.

Please pray for me as I go, and for all those who will be coming. I am also looking forward to meeting Illusionist Jared Hall who will be there for the weekend.

Texas Conference Methodist Folk.. click here for all the info

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?

Late Night of Praise and Worship

Russell Martin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:36:23 +0000

A week ago I was part of a fun little concert. We decided to host a “Late Night of Praise and Worship” after the evening worship service at Annual Conference. The idea was to provide a venue for some worship leaders who write their own worship songs to share those. We gathered in The Loft at The Woodlands UMC, set up a sound system and then took turns sharing music. The evening started with David Davis who is worship leader at John Wesley UMC. He shared some tracks off his last release, The Light and the Grey, and also introduced us to some new tunes he had been working on. It was great to hear his music. Second Kerri Crocker sang some of her songs from her CD, Reason to Be. After that she also shared a new worship tune that she was working on. I got the crowd up and we sang “Lord Let Your Love” and then the title song from my Unfailing Love CD. I was disappointed at first because we were supposed to also hear from Shelly Wilson. She had been sick and was unable to sing. God had different plans for her, other than singing, because she brought a convicting message for the church. Finally Kerri came back up and we closed with “Breathe”
It was great to get an evening of music and worship shared among old and new friends. Special thanks to the Lonna Nunn, Anna Rhode and the North District of the UMC for sponsoring the event. Hopefully it will be one we can continue to do.