Creative Foment

The photographer said, "look straight ahead," but this alley was not an alley to be looking straight ahead...as we quickly found out!

After spending time on the lament, and not wanting to stay mired in the “what is not happening,” I am going to launch into what would move the state of AP music forward. I am doing this not because I think I am an authority on the issue, yet a year and half ago, we purposely set out to present praise & worship material that was tastefully different.

I think there are 4 key components (there may be more) to increase freshness and quality. They are:

1) Originality
There is an obvious need for material that comes from the passion of the heart. Songs where lyrics are deeper than the superficial, that stretch the genre rather than conforming to the present, that one can tell there has been thought applied, and that communicates in a timely fashion. Original, new material is more attractive than the redoing of popular songs.

2) Production Values (PV’s)
There are a variety of approaches. There is the low budget, low production value offerings that gets “something out there,” there is the higher cost project that utilizes a professional studio and musicians, and then there are those that end up in between. The problem with the low to mid PV’s is simple…you can tell! That is why it ends up on the shelf after one play through. A good sonic test to ask is, “would this song or project be worthy of airtime play?” If I thumb through my ipod or mp3 player, and the sonic difference between my song and all the other songs is great to gargantuan…I know there is work to be done. However, I don’t want to make it sound as if getting a great sound for a decent price is impossible. The real key is finding someone with an understanding of what it takes to make a great sound that will work with you. You could spend a fortune and get junk, so it is not ALL about cost as much as it is solid PV’s.

3) Theme or Thought
This subject is directly related to PV’s, as with most studios there is only a short amount of time to lay rhythm tracks and vocals (usually two – four days max, otherwise it gets costly). Thus, there is little time to actually “build” a thought musically, thematically, and package it. The artist grabs some songs and the studio plugs in a certain formula, i.e., here is a contemporary song, here is a Latin one, how about southern gospel tune, well why not a jazz one too. This leaves the listener confused. So what is the answer? Either you find someone with plenty of time to hash out particulars and buy in to what your doing (we found Terry Stewart and Simon Productions www.simonpro.com), or you have your ducks in a row when you go to a studio with a clear strategy so they conform to your thought, as opposed to you conforming to theirs. Either way…it is a lot of work, but we must get beyond the cheap, cave sounding offerings. It’s’ a dead give away.

4) Retained Identity
Can you still feel, no matter what type of project, an Apostolic identity? We are intrinsically different and we don’t need to become what the secular or even Christian industry is to put out quality music.

Any refinements, disagreements, or comments? What would add or detract from this rough rubric?