There's just so much to tell these days that I sometimes don't know where to start so I'll talk to you about this week's song and some of the headlines.

Before I do that let me say thanks for the response to last weeks effort and the contributions that have come in - I'm already behind in processing and replying to them. Bear with me and I will get back to you soon!

This week's song, 'I am Satisfied', is a joint effort between my wife Shirely and I. It's not really a congregational song but a worship song that could be done in non-church environments.

The reason I wanted to do some material like that is because over the next few weeks and months I'm going to find myself in the strangest of situations.

Next month I'm off with a musicians and artists team to Lithuania (yeah, I had to look it up on the map too!) to work with a Vineyard church there and quite by 'accident' we managed to get booked the play at the premier night club and music venue in the city.

Then in November I'm off to Thailand, again with a team, to participate in an annual intercessory worship festival there in the city of Pattaya. Now the thing is, Pattaya is the epicentre of the sex industry in that country and we have the opportunity to put worship bands into some of the 'bars' (read that as brothels)!

Some of the local churches and ministries there are radically reaching out and expressing Jesus to their community and we get to be a part of it. I'd love to keep you posted on this adventure, if you're not already on my email newsletter list then join below and you'll get to hear all about it.

In the meantime let me have your feedback on song 17 - I am Satisfied.

Video can be seen on blog at www.AndyRogersMusic.com

Powered by ScribeFire.

You guys are 'in tune' with what the Spirit is saying

Ok folks, let me tell you how helpful you've been in this songwriting process.

Last night I had the privilege of leading worship at our first Engage event after the summer break and this time around we had a guest speaker, Peter Stott. Peter is well known in the UK and further a field in 24-7 prayer circles.

As I was preparing my set I had this last minute thought that this would be a good opportunty to try out, live, one of our new songs (yep, my planning wasn't any more 'spiritual' than that!).

So which one to choose?

Well I simply picked one of the songs that seems to have resonated with you, my discerning readers! Song number 6 'All of Creation' became the chosen one.

The long and the short of it was that it worked really well with the worshippers but not only that, it was the EXACT TEXT on which Peter spoke (Romans 8 - the bit about how all creations groans).

Just wanted to encourage those of you who commented on the song (and the others) - you really do seem to be 'in tune' with what the Spirit is saying.

Speak soon - Andy
(Check out the song at http://blog.andyrogersmusic.com/6th-song-of-the-2020-project/)

Powered by ScribeFire.

Week 16 of the 20/20 project and an 'open source songwriting' invitation

Well, here we are at week 16 of the project an this time I've come up with a simple Gospel song with an Americana ballad feel, something I haven't really done before.

I'd like to throw this song open for co-writing, I've got a verse and pre-chorus going on here but not much else at this stage.

I haven't fully articulated what I'm about to share with you before, but this seems like a good opportunity to unveil an idea that I have had for a while.

Open source songwriting. I have this hunch that there is a wealth of creativity that could be tapped into if the the songwriting process could have an 'open source' shared ownership to it.

Here's how I see it working:

I'd like to see a community of songwriters, musicians and lyric writers

One of us has an idea, maybe a lyric and a bit of a melody or perhaps a couple of complete verses but no chorus. We share our embryonic idea and invite others to contribute suggestions. Other members of the community take what's on the table, add their creativity to the original idea and share their version of the song. This process gets repeated as often as necessary until the originator of the idea is happy with the final product. The person who initiates an idea always retains the right to accept or reject other contributions.

So who owns the end product then?

My suggestion is that the person who initiated the project owns at least 50% of the song. The other 50% is equally owned by whatever number of other contributors work was accepted. For example, if the suggestions of three other writers were used in the final song then they each own 16.66% (50% divided by three).

The beauty is that it is potentially win-win for all parties and contributions can be covered by the Creative Commons licensing process which allows free sharing of ideas as long as they are not used for commercial gain with out permission of the owner. This means that ideas contrubuted, whether used or not, still belong to the person who came up with them - yet by contributing them to a project they could create something greater than the sum of it's parts!

Anyhow, I'll write more about this in future - in the meantime here's the song for your comments and/or contributions.

[Song Video is visible on the blog link at www.andyrogersmusic.com]

Powered by ScribeFire.

Here's a 3 week Catch-Up on the 20/20 Song Project

Howdy folks,

Thanks to all of you who emailed over the last few days - your encouragement and generosity are amazing.

The good news is the Laptop is fixable and should be up and running later this week, the guitar is repairable and will go into the capable hands of Geoffrey Craig (a local guitar tech genius with a client list that includes; Nancy Griffiths, Van Morrsion band members, Ash and many others).

In the meantime I'm muddling through with the family PC, negotiating computer time between homeworks and my kids need to be on MSN or Bebo or Facebook etc etc all at the same time! (when I was a kid we did a radical thing - we just talked to each other!). I guess I'm one to talk as I'm a bit of a gadget and internet junkie too.

Anyways, below you'll find 2 videos of 'catch-up' material to bring us back up to speed in the 20/20 song project.

As ever I'd love your comments and feedback.

Here you go.....

(Videos visible on the blog at www.andyrogersmusic.com )

Powered by ScribeFire.