Hark The Herons Is Born

About a year and a half ago I started collaborating with an old friend on some of the songs she had written and on some songs I had written. Our first writing session went so well we decided to get together again. Well that process has repeated itself many times over the past year and eventually turned into recording sessions. We realized we had the makings of a band/group/artist or something anyway so we thought we should name this thing. Naming a music group proves to be a difficult task, you want something clever, memorable, meaningful, available online, etc. After some time we came up with the name Hark The Herons. We live in Cambridge Ontario where the centrepiece to the city is the Grand River. It's curious how many times you can drive over the river and not really notice the beauty of it but when you slow down, stop and sit for a while or go for a walk, you'll start to notice things like the majestic herons. We liked how Hark the Herons sounded somewhat like a call to slow down and not miss the beauty of what's right beside us. We ended up writing a song called Slow Down that speaks to this exact thing.

Well the songs are recorded and we're putting the final touches on the artwork right now. We expect the album to be available in itunes and amazon and all the other online sources by May. Here's how the cover turned out. We love it!

For a preview of the songs, we decided to post some of them on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/harktheherons

They typically end up there eventually so why not be the first ones to post them? And why not something slightly better than just an album cover. So we've been working on camera shots with no camera movement that fit in with the music and the whole idea of Hark The Herons. We've got three songs posted now and will continue to post over the coming weeks. Take a listen, let me know what you think!



Bend, Break
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rOYamT6_98





Canadian Heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvDDBX3Rzc4





Rich Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw67aJ9FoS0

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Chirstmas Music, Sping and 11 Years of Marriage

The last few weeks have been quite busy as you can observe by my lack of posts! Fun busy though. We (Downhere) completed recording our first Christmas album. I gotta say it's pretty dang good. It will release in September and is called How Many Kings. We recorded some traditional Christmas songs a few of our own and a few that are just a little wacky. We had fun with it for sure! Marc wrote a post after it was completed.

Then during my home time Sherri and I have been busy working in our gardens. Our gardens, the ones we own! I'm still a little in awe about owning our own property. It is such a gift to be able to own a home. So for our first spring in our home we have been out in the garden quite a bit. I've been able to get my espaliered trees planted and pruned and tied up. A Macintosh apple, Honeycrisp apple and a Redhaven peach tree. We also planted a couple of blueberry bushes to go with our strawberries and raspberries. I'll post some pictures soon. We've planted and transplanted lots!! And the vegetable garden is still to come. I think we'll plant that next week as we have a frost warning still even tonight.

Then this past week Sherri and I celebrated our 11th anniversary! I can honestly say without a doubt this past year was the best one of our marriage and I'm so excited to see what the future will bring for us and our family! Sherri you are a wonderful woman and I feel blessed beyond all measure to have you in my life let alone being my wife! I love you! Sherri did a post about our 10th anniversary last year which we celebrated in style. This year however, only dinner and a movie. Oh well.

GL

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Lessons From Nashville - Follow Up Part 2

In response to some of the other comments here we go!

Kathryn said:

"man and woman in relationship together reveal God"

Is this referring to marriage or just how men and woman are as individuals? and how they each have a 'half' in themselves that becomes a 'whole' when they relate to each other?? I suspect maybe both.

This was a quote from Dan Allender. I think what he was getting at was that when we are in relationship, especially a married relationship we reveal God. When we come together as husband and wife the two become one. This is a mysterious thing that we don't completely understand but somehow, sometimes it makes complete sense. I think this is a window into understanding the 3 in 1 triune God; how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be one. At times this makes complete sense to me too but mostly I just can't comprehend it. I don't think this was the only aspect of the married relationship revealing God we were to understand but it is the part I took away.

I'd like to also mention another quote I missed and I'll need to paraphrase it as I didn't write it down.

"In a marriage you experience the Hell you won't have to endure and the Heaven you don't deserve."

Holly and mgb were wanting to hear more about creating as a Christian. One quote I had there was from Reed Arvin and it said this:

"There is confusion in the Christian writer between earnestness & soulfulness."

I think it took me a while to understand what he was trying to say. I say that because I fear I won't convey his thoughts well but here goes. By earnestness he is saying that the Christian writer is saying, "I'm trying to convince you by how much I mean what I say, or sing." This almost feels like a sales pitch.

"C'mon, God is really great. Really, He's so good, you'll love Him!"

Earnestness tends to come more from the head than the heart, a way of explaining why you should believe the lyric. Soulfullness however, comes from the heart. It's more of a human to human conversation. Maybe even more of a statement of how you are feeling with no attachment of 'you should feel this too'. I'll attempt to provide an example that ties into the previous one.

"I saw the birth of both my boys, I felt the magnitude and weight of the mountains around me as I once tried to run up one, nightly I hear my wife say "I love you" before I fall asleep. At all of these occasions the greatness of God is so obvious to me."

So rather than try to convince you about God's greatness I tell you from my heart what I know to be great about God. And this I think, is what Reed was getting at. This also is what he feels is missing from so much Christian music.

I hope that gives you some insight into what I learned last week. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to revisit it and hopefully help plant it a little deeper into my mind.

GL

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Lessons From Nashville - Follow Up Part 1

I had some great comments from my last post and wanted to try and address them.

First off Carla said this:

"Skill has been displaced due to it not being necessary. What is necessary and most valuable today are ideas."

Is that what IS necessary and valuable, or what has been DEEMED as such? Is it referring to musicians or the behind-the-scenes aspects of music production?

This quote was from a "writers retreat" for musicians so that is the context for everything.

This was a quote from Reed Arvin. I'll try to do him some justice here but my words will not be near as eloquent. Reed received his Masters in piano performance so he knows what it is to spend countless hours practicing, perfecting his craft. Nothing can really replace a human playing a piece of music perfectly but the truth is that with technology where it is today the skilled player isn't nearly as necessary.

For instance, I record a piano part for a demo (I am not at all a piano player). It's sloppy, there are wrong notes, it's not quite in time and I wasn't able to play the little 16th note run I wanted to play. After playing it, I select all the notes and choose quantize from my menu in my software and the timing is all lined up. I can then go in and draw in all the notes I wanted to play and delete the ones I didn't! I had a great idea for a part but not the skill to play it. However, with the use of technology that skill is not needed. If I only had skill to play the part and no idea I would be nowhere. I think that is the gist of what he's getting at. Anyone with a Mac has Garageband and with that the ability to make some pretty decent sounding songs. The same is true for video. "Skill has been displaced, ideas are what's valuable."

Next comment, cousin Sue said this:

"Never hurry, never rest." I think I understand the point of what is trying to be said here, but I disagree with how it's stated. Yes we need to make the best use of our time and I agree that hurrying and rushing is bad as it tends to lead to carelessness and mistakes. However, I strongly disagree with the never rest part. I think the Bible clearly gives us a mandate to set time apart for resting. God did it, Jesus did it, we're told to too. Am I misinterpreting?

This was also a quote from Reed Arvin. I have to agree with you here Sue and I think Reed would as well although I can't speak for him. If we think about this statement in relation to the writing process it makes more sense. The idea here is if you always hurry you'll never rest and if you always rest you'll always need to hurry. So the way I look at this idea is that I need to stay consistent in my writing. Spend a little time every day on it. Sort of like training for a marathon. Just a few steps everyday and next thing you know you have a small library of music you can work from. That's my interpretation.

I'll respond to the other comments in my next post!

GL

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Downhere Chords

If you are looking for chords and lyrics to some of our (downhere) songs, like How Many Kings or Here I Am you're just two clicks away. Go to our web site - http://www.downhere.com/ then click on "guitar chords/lyrics" and there you will have it all. We've been hearing from people asking about chords to How Many Kings a lot lately and I see people often end up here from searches so hopefully this makes things real easy! Enjoy! For all my American readers Happy Thanksgiving!

GL

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Joel Auge

Here's a "new" artist to check out for those of you who haven't heard of him. Quick history lesson. About 9 years ago Joel's first band, Capstone, appeared on a compilation album along with Downhere and my first band Hot House. It was called the Warehouse Mix. Actually, Thousand Foot Krutch was also on that compilation. Capstone had a couple of great songs on there. I always thought they deserved way more recognition. It was actually the same World Vision artist retreat that I met the Downhere boys at where I also met Joel for the first time.

Anyway, he's got some great new songs and Integrity has picked him up and are helping him with this new release. Joel got a bit of a break this week. Check out the Christian & Gospel section of itunes for a free "Discovery Download" of one of Joel's songs (U.S. customers only). Go Joel!!

Or just go to his myspace page to listen. Tell him Glenn sent you!!!

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