Vandalia River

This coming week marks two years since releasing Heaven and Earth: Scripture Songs for the Old and New. 

This album was the catalyst for converting me from writer-dabbler to writer-producer. Why? Because it was made for 

1. A specific…

Last year at a house concert in Akron, Ohio, I said that I hoped Vandalia River would produce more than just piano music. 

I’m so pleased now to announce “September,” a new work for piano and cello. 

I wish I…

I had a keyboard synthesizer in high school with an onboard multitracker so I could layer recorded sounds. It was pretty sweet technology in its day. In college I told another composition student about it. 

“Don’t use it,” he urged. 

…

Last Friday afternoon, I posted these words on Facebook: 

Get thy tools ready, 
God will find the work. 

- Browning 

The mind of man plans his way, 
But the Lord directs his steps. 

- Proverbs 16:9 

Writing, recording, and trying…

“I’ve heard that kids learn music faster than adults,” said one of my adult students. My own observations from teaching piano are the contrary.* Adults quickly catch on to concepts that grade schoolers take years to mount. 

But the kids…

One way or another, it's back to school month. And one way or another, it's back to music studies for many families. So you'll see a couple posts this month with thoughts on music education. Here's the first serving, something…

I’ve made peace with the fact that a divergence in taste is rarely a cosmic injustice. 

It took me some time. I remember being in a chat circle as a young teenager not long after Switchfoot released their second album…

We drove home from Nutter’s Ice Cream in an unforgettable evening light. Daughter exclaimed at the frozen explosion in the west, issuing a red-pink brilliance so thick it seemed like the sun had literally rested on that corner of Jefferson…

I was three years late to the party. Fortunately, the music’s still going on.

Let Them Fall in Love (2017) was Cece Winans’s first full length studio album in ten years. Her career as a gospel singer had been long…

John Philip Sousa was enormously successful, and it’s not just because of the quality of his music. He understood how to deliver music to people where they already were. 

1. He wrote and conducted for a medium that reached a…

Daughter and I have listened to a bunch of Classics for Kids episodes. I almost skipped the series on John Philip Sousa, though, because he is a victim of his own success. 

Music has many such victims. You know you’re…

Routine is magic. When daughter first started piano lessons, practice happened when Mama said so, and when Mama said so, daughter’s shoulders slumped and her inward being released a plaintive groan to heaven. 

But when practice happened after schoolwork and…