Christmas Music 2011 #2 Eclipse

Another new Christmas album that came out this year is by A fantastic Accappella group that I have been enjoying for a few years.  This is their second Christmas album and sixth album overall, it is called "It's Christmas Time"  The band is made up of six guys:

Paul Hansen

Kevin Jones

Jake Despain

James Case

Dan Kartchtner

Shayne Taylor

 They have been singing together for about ten years and really have a great sound.  They started singing together when they were students at Utah State University and have had a couple changes in personnel since.  The members of the group are almost all return missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having served from Bangkok Thailand to Vancouver Canada.  Most are married with children and all love to sing having long histories of singing individually and in groups.

 Here is a video with a very quick summary of the songs on the new Christmas album. It is only a minute long:

Here is a full version of one of their songs from the Christmas Album
Do You Hear What I Hear by Eclipse.

This last video is a promo video that has a sampling of several of their songs both Christmas and otherwise.  It is fun to get an eight minute smattering of the various types of music that they sing. 

Hope you enjoy their music as much as I do!

Christmas music 2011 #1: Matthew West

I was surprised to find a really great Christmas album from an artist I was only minimally familiar with.  I had run across one of his songs a while back that I included with one of my Manly Man Trainings that you can view by clicking here.  From that little exposure I knew he was a Christian song writer and singer but I didn't really pay any more attention than that one song. 

For me Christmas music time starts early and I start looking around for good new Christmas Music coming out around the end of September.  Matthew West's album: The Heart of Christmas, was one of the early entries, so I listened and was impressed and I downloaded the album.  I have listened to it quite a bit this season and am more impressed the more I listen. 

Matthew West was really excited about baseball when he was a child.  He played baseball through High School where he hoped to get a baseball scholarship to a university.  Instead he ended up with a music scholarship to Millikin University in Illinois.  After graduation he put out three independent albums before signing a contract with a studio to produce future albums.  Also after graduation he was offered a deal to write songs and he has written some songs for famous singers. 

In 2002 he forgot his keys and was locked out of his house.  In his effort to break into his house he ended up cutting his left arm severely and blacked out.  He awoke to Spanish speaking construction workers praying over him.  He was taken to the hospital and told his chances were slim that he would regain full use of his arm.  However, he did indeed regain full use and continues playing the guitar and singing. 

In 2007 Matthew started having some difficulties with his voice that soon required surgery to repair.  Once again his career was threatened and it was unknown if he would be able to get back to singing.  Following the surgery he was prescribed a two month period of no speaking.  Fortunately he was able to recover and resume his singing career.  During that time a documentary was made of his situation entitled "Nothing to Say".  Not surprisingly his next album was called, "Something to Say".

Matthew West has been married going on ten years and has two daughters.  Being a family man and a person who has gone through difficulties in life may give him good perspective as he continues to write and sing that are able to touch people and change their lives. 

His Christmas album: The Heart of Christmas, came out this year and has a few traditional songs done well.  The real strength of the album is the Christmas songs he has written that will be new ones that we will enjoy years into the future.  Below I have put the videos from three of them.  Enjoy!

Day After Christmas by Matthew West

Give This Christmas Away by Matthew West

One Last Christmas by Matthew West

Monday Music #7: Octappella--Anthem to My King

I am a lover of Acapela music.  Acapela music has more of an impact in Christmas themed music and what I'll call humorous music, but it is also getting quite a presence in Christian music.  This particular song is put out by the male acapela group Octappella and unusually has a female soloist for this song.  Mindy Gledhill is the soloist.  Both Octappella and Mindy Gledhill are LDS singers. 

Octappella and Mindy Gledhill: Anthem to My King

ANTHEM TO MY KING lyrics

Holy Father with humble voice I raise

An Anthem to my King

May the Heavens find a way to hear

Those words I cannot sing

Lord with everlasting praise will Thee I worship endless days

Let this voice of gladness bring glory to thy name

Lord with everlasting praise will Thee I worship endless days

Let my voice of gladness bring glory to thy name

Father, our grateful voices raise an anthem to our king

May the heavens write on every heart

The words we cannot sing

Lord with everlasting praise will Thee we worship endless days

Let our voices of gladness bring glory to thy name

Father with grateful voices

Now we raise an Anthem to our…

Holy Father with grateful voice I raise

An Anthem to my King

Guest Blog: Every Voice Needed

This past Sunday, I watched the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's weekly broadcast, "Music and the Spoken Word."  I've always had a powerful connection to music. I sing it, play it, hum it, listen to it, and occasionally even write it.  Music inspires me, comforts me, and evokes strong memories for me.  But my ears were not the conduit for the message I was to receive this day.

The television cameras focused frequently on those singers in the middle of the 350-member choir, especially at the seam where women and men stood shoulder to shoulder, the animated figure of their conductor superimposed over the junction of blue gowns and black suits.  But on one sweep of the cameras, I noticed several choir members on the outermost edge of the upper row.  As I considered their relative distance from the limelight--so to speak--it struck me that these choir members on the selvage of the chorale are just as vital to the group as those placed front and center.  Their contributions are no less important, meaningful, or substantial, just because they are not always as visible. 

This experience brought to my mind a poem by Carol Lynn Pearson titled "The Cast".  I typed a copy of it onto a 3 x 5 index card close to 40 years ago, using my mother's old manual typewriter.  (Most of the people who may read this have probably never even used an electric typewriter, much less its predecessor!)  I still carry that card with me in my scriptures.  Here's the poem:

"I lost the starring part in Our Town to Linda, a girl not half as good as me, who kept her eyes down for the whole tryout, and even stuttered.

"When the cast was posted and the high school drama coach saw me reading it through my tears, he put an arm around me and said, 'Now look--things are not always as they appear.  This is not Broadway.  It's an educational institution.  We're here for two reasons: to put on a show and, more important, to help people grow.  Someday you'll see.'

"So Linda played Emily, and she didn't even stutter.  And I was third woman at the wedding, watching and wondering how he knew what she could really do if she had the chance.

"Since then I have guessed that God, being a whole lot smarter than my high school drama coach, might be offstage sometimes with an arm around a questioning cast: 'Now don't try to outguess me.  Sometimes the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  And I've got my own reasons.  I need some strong ones to star and some strong ones to stand back.  And I'm going to put out front some you might not choose.  But you'll see what they can really do when they have the chance.  Mortality is an educational institution.  We've got to put on the show and too, we've got to help people grow.'

"As I walk through the scenes, watch the costumes move, and listen to the lines of the powerful, the weak, the rich, the poor; I look at the leads with less awe than most, and at the spear-carriers with more.'"

So the next time you're doubting your contribution, your role, your impact or your value, I hope you'll think of those singers in the last seats of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  Your voice too is needed; keep on singing! 

Susan Boyle

We did our best

Our language is so interesting.  I'm thinking of when we talk about doing our best.  Most often we refer to doing our best as a consolation.  We might not have won, scored well or were not chosen, didn't pass the muster but we did our best.  Usually when we talk about doing our best it means we didn't do as well as we would like.

I taught my kids that if they did their best then they didn't have any reason to feel bad regardless of if they won or lost.  I made sure to tell them before the game or competition as well as after.  I tried to help them see that the honor came in doing one's best not in winning.

Tonight the three of us went to the hospital to visit an old friend from church.  We were told she was in the hospital and that she needed some visitors.  Unbeknown to most, the last time she was in the hospital, I had not visited her.  She is a curmudgeonly like soul.  She chided me later for not visiting her and we agreed that the next time she was in the hospital that I would visit.  Or at least that is how I remembered it.

So when I found she was in the hospital, I remembered my promise and spoke with the family and we went to visit.  She has MRSA.  So we had to put on gloves and wear masks in her room.  That lasted until the nurses showed up and I noticed they were not using such precautions and then they told us we didn't have to wear the masks as she wasn't contagious.  Nice to know.

Back to when we arrived she quickly reminded me of our deal, the one where I promised to visit.  Except she remembered it differently.  The deal was that I would come to visit "if she called me".  Hmmm.  Did that mean that since she called she didn't want me to visit?

So we talked and had a good time.  She thanked us for visiting and I could tell she was on her best behavior.  We told her our intention was to sing for her as we like to do when we visit sick folks in the hospital, but with the face masks that was difficult.  She didn't seem to want us to sing and was happy to talk.  When the face masks were taken off we again broached the topic of singing.  None too enthusiastic she agreed we could sing if we wanted to.  We did.  She thanked us and said we sounded okay and she knew of course we had done the best we could after all.  I guess that was fair considering she didn't really want us to sing to her anyway, but is struck me as so much like her.  Trying to be nice but out pops a little game leveler.  It is hard to irritated when the person saying that is sick in bed and I am healthy able to go sing to more appreciative audiences if I choose.  We laughed all the way home.

As we left her room, only, of course because a respiratory therapist came to give her a treatment, I couldn't help but say as we left:  " By the way, no need to call!"

Ha!

Christmas Tradition part 5: Caroling

Tonight we carried on with another of our Christmas Traditions, that of going caroling.  We made a few minor changes to our tradition tonight.  For one we cut down on the number of homes we went caroling to.  We had noticed over the years that it begins to get a little stressful when you are running across town to 15 or 20 homes to sing to people and give them some goodies.  We weren't doing this for stress so thought that reducing the number would help.  It did. 

Secondly with the added time it allowed us to be a little more flexible.  That is when it crossed our mind to sing to someone else nearby one of the families we had planned to sing to we had the time and were able to do so. 

We also invited more folks to sing with us and we enjoyed having the added numbers and got to do something fun with our friends as well.  We sang to a number of folks that we hadn't seen in a while and they seemed to appreciate the singing.  We have enjoyed singing over the years to friends and letting them know that we still remember them and care despite the fact that our busy lives might have made it so we don't see them as often as we once did. 

Tonight one family had told us in advance that they wanted to have us in for some warm apple cider and some goodies so we went to their home last and they had some great cookies, cider and crackers and dip.  There were eleven of us and we even sounded pretty good.  One of our company enjoyed the time away from her family with one of her children since over the last few months with her husband deployed she has spent her days with her four young children and enjoyed being with adults that didn't require her to change their diapers. 

Our family has always loved singing together thanks to my wife's great music skills and we have had this tradition for many years where we would share our modest abilities with other's to help them feel the meaning of Christmas and the fun of the music.  Now we are including more of our friends to sing with us which makes it even more fun all around for more of us. 

Surprise reminder of Christ

This is an awesome video. It brought tears to my eyes as I imagined what it would be like to have been there. What a surprise and a reminder of what is important this time of year. And to watch the people enjoy it and then participate in the singing. Awesome. Take a look.