Donna’s Blog

I finished the bridge and sent it to B.  And I worked out a melody I like for the song with T. & E.

I sang that stuff right into my lap top, converted it to an mpe3 file and sent it on its way!

After WAJ is over, it feels like it’s time for the homework to begin.  But it’s the best kind of homework.  I’ve got pages of notes to read over, I’ve got songs to finish, and co-write opportunities to explore.

This week the assignment is to finish a co-write that was started with T. & E.  T. had a great hook for a song and we pretty much finished the chorus and found what direction we wanted to take the verses.  We’re going to try all “get together” via on-line this Thursday night and finish it up.  I’ve been doing my “homework” and working on some possible ideas for the verses.  I went ahead and emailed those out so that T & E could look at them ahead of time and make changes, or completely scrap them and go another direction.  I’ve decided that is a good part of the process…..the scrapping of ideas…..because it usually just takes you in a better direction, somehow.  It’s all about “does this work” or “does this work better?”  It’s about not being satisfied until it’s right.

That’s my other assignment this week.  The song I shared with B. at WAJ still lacks a bridge.  B. sent me a demo of the music and I love what he’s done on the piano.  I wrote a bridge yesterday, but I’m still not sure it is exactly what needs to be said.  It’s like I know there is a killer line out there somewhere, I just have to keep hunting for it.  Some lyrics just jump out at me, like they are begging to be written, other lyrics like to play hide-n-seek, like they know they are going to be written, but they enjoy the chase.

I wish I had a picture with all the Color Guard (that holds the flags) and the Dance Line (wearing their white gloves and dancing around their white stool) and the band when they are standing in their diamond formation….it is pretty awesome.

It is so great to see the kids rewarded for all the hard work they do.  Marching Band is not for sissys.  You have to not only be a muscian, but a performer as well.  The band is supposed to sound really amazing as they play their instruments, and also entertain you as they cover the field with color and sound. 

And the kids work at memorizing their parts and perfecting their sound every day in class, and then they work three afternoons a week at learning to be better performers and march in lines, arches and diamonds.

These kids are dedicated and love what they do.  The sad thing to me is that some of the parents of these kids will never come out to watch them perform.  They will never attend a single football game or buy a ticket to a festival and or even watch the video on youtube.  They have no idea what they are missing!

I hope she doesn’t read it today, cause we’re getting ready to head off to a band competition.

It is my life right now; sort of like those maps you see at rest stops that say “you are here.”  Right now, it’s pointing to a band room at Valdosta High School.  That’s pretty much where we meet every Friday night to leave for football games and several Saturday mornings to leave for Marching Band Festivals.

The awesome thing is that we didn’t have to leave at 6:30 this morning, because our band festival is here in town!  We’ll meet at the band room at 1:30 today, march in the competition this afternoon, take the kids out to Ryan’s Steakhouse and then head back to the band room by 10:00 P.M.  Pack the band uniforms away for the week and do it all again next weekend.  Or something like that.

“You are here”.

I’ve loved listening to them since I was little.  I don’t know how I discovered them on t.v.–my folks weren’t big movie watchers, my brother was always outside and my sister was into whatever was playing on the radio.  I remember when the Kasey Kasum Top 20 came on, she would be parked in front of the radio listening to every song.  She had literally tons of notebooks where she’d written the lyrics down to every song she loved.  But I was parked in front of the tv watching old movies and falling in love with those songs. 

I was in a melody class at WAJ and we had a chance to listen to some old songs and talk about the way the lyric and the melody were married so beautifully.  According to my WAJ notebook, marriage of a lyric and melody mean “how the two fit together in a logical cohesive way; a good marriage is essential to a song’s success; this is sometimes called prosody.”

There is no mistaking that when it happens in a song.  It’s like the lyric and melody from the Sound of Music.  When Julie Andrews sings “The hills are alive with the sound of music”….the melody goes up and holds on the word “hills” and her voice soars and it’s like you are right on top of the hill with her.

Or the Irving Berlin song, “Cheek to Cheek”.  The melody line is “dreamy” and pauses when Fred Astaire sings “Heaven, I’m in heaven”, but then it picks up excitedly when he sings “And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak”…..so it makes you feel as if your heart is truly beating faster.  Perfect marriage of melody and lyric.

It has totally made me rethink my writing.  When I write a song, I always have a destination in mind; a place I want to take the listener.  I know I’ve thought about that lyrically, but I haven’t paid close enough attention to that melodically.

SO…….I made a great co-write connection this weekend.  I met B. at the writing retreat this past May and we found out that he lives just a couple of hours away in Jacksonville.  We talked about how cool it would be to get together and write……but that was all we did.

On Friday, P. and I were taking a break from classes and saw B. playing the piano in the sanctuary.  We decided to go see what he was playing.  We sat down and chatted for a while and then he asked if we’d written anything new.  I told him I’d written a new song a few weeks ago and played it for them.  They both loved it and then B. asked if he could play it while I sang it.  He plays by ear…..so he’s one of those sickening people who can hear and song and play it right back!

He started playing and the cool thing was that he added some really nice chords to my melody.  It’s amazing how sticking a 6th on a chord (or something like that), can totally help to create the right feel with a lyric.  We sat there and sang it over and over.  It sounded so amazing.  Before we left on Saturday night, he found me again and asked if we could go back into the sanctuary and play it one more time!!  He was heading off to Las Vegas for a few days for some work, but promised when he got home Thursday, he’d make me a demo in his studio.

We decided we definitely need to keep a good thing going.  So we’re going to book some dates on our calendar, otherwise it won’t happen.  He’ll travel here sometimes, and I’ll travel there.

He told me he often has melodies in his head with no lyrics.  I would love to see if I could work on that!  And I would love to see if he can tweak a few melodies that I’ve put to lyrics.

We’ve been listening to the writers teach in various classes for a day and a half.  We have been exposed to some of the best advice we’ll ever get.  We’ve taken notes, we’ve tried to soak it all in and we hope that the one tidbit of wisdom we need to get us to the next level will hit us between the eyes so we don’t miss it!

We knows these writers are good, but we are about to be even more amazed by the time the evening is over.  Anyone who has been to WAJ before knows how great Friday night is and you wish that you could adequately explain it to the new WAJers……but you just wait…..cause soon enough they will be sitting there with their mouth hanging open, too.

The writers say that it is nerve wracking for them.  Most of the writers (i guess) are not performers.  They are too busy writing.  So to sit on the platform and perform their song in front of a live audience may make them a tad uncomfortable……and I can certainly understand that……but I’m so glad they do it anyway!

It is such a great moment when they start sharing about their song.  It almost feels as if the room changes, and for a moment you can imagine that you are a writer, as well.  You are on the “writing floor” at Brentwood-Benson building to do some writing and you hear some music coming from one of the rooms.  You open the door to see who it is and it’s your writer friend.  He tells you he’s just finished a song and wants you to hear it.  He’s telling you what inspired the lyric and begins to play.  

The song starts off with a great line…..the kind of line that makes you hold your breath to see what is coming next.  It doesn’t matter that he isn’t a great singer or pianist, because the song has already become your story and you can’t wait to hear the end.  You try to imagine what the last line will be, but you can’t.  And when you hear it, you know it is as perfect as it needed to be.  And you can’t believe that you got to share in such a special moment when the writer is naked and exposed and you feel naked and exposed, too.

My friend Chris is in the middle somewhere.  She and I had sort of “met” on the WAJ bulletin board and had a chance to co-write via email a few months ago.  It was great to finally get to talk to her in person.  She is as nice and as genuine as I thought she would be.  You know how you meet someone that just has a “kindness” about their spirit?  That’s Chris! 

I also got to put a couple of faces with names I’d seen on the board as well, like Wendy and Cheryl.

I got to run into “old” pals….like Brian, Gina, Christie, Melissa, Trish, Phil, Donna, Ed, Steve, Nick, Allie, and tons more.

It really feels almost like a family reunion.  I can’t wait to find out what has been going on in the lives of these writers…because it is the journey, after all, that inspires the song.  Some people I sit down and talk to are in the middle of a dry season in their life and are at WAJ for some inspiration.  Some people are celebrating a recent success in their writing life.  But whatever it is, it is great to be able to share it together with people who “get it”!

I got the coolest news Thursday night that I wasn’t expecting.  Dave took us out to dinner before the conference started to celebrate some of the cool things that have been happening with his writers.  Gina had received a Singing News nomination for one of her songs, and Tricia has a cut on Mark Harris’ new project.  Then Dave said, “and we’re also here to celebrate Donna’s first hold on a song.”  

NO WAY!  I thought he must be joking, but then you don’t joke about a thing like that!  Turns out the Lefevers want to record the song I co-wrote at the writing retreat in May called “If I’m Willing.”  I think Dave said they might be recording it before Christmas.  This is way cool and I am still in shock. 

It will start somewhere around Thursday morning.  My suitcase will be packed, my travel mug will have a special blend with caramel in it and I’ll be on the road to get to the Jacksonville airport in time to catch my 12:30 flight to St. Louis.

It’s finally time for the Write About Jesus (WAJ) conference.  I attended my first one in 2003 and then went back in 2004 and 2005.  I had to miss it last year for the first time and I have been looking forward to WAJ 2007 ever since then!

My dear friend, P. will meet me at the St. Louis airport at 1:30.  We met in 2003 when she was attending WAJ for the first time, too!  We had just come out of our first critiquing class on Saturday morning and we started chatting on the way to the bathroom.  We just hit it off.  I felt like I’d known her forever.  We were both relatively new at the writing thing and talked about how scared we were to be there.  We hung around the rest of the day and exchanged phone numbers before we left. 

We did keep in touch.  Her family even stopped in Valdosta one summer on their way to Florida and we met in a restaurant so our families could finally meet each other, and the next summer our family stopped in and spent the night in Arnold, MO with P. and her family on our way to a nephew’s wedding!

It will be good to see her Thursday and spend the next few days with her.  I’ve loved seeing how God has blessed her writing ministry.  She’s just recorded her first CD this month!  Cool!

Friday and Saturday will be spent in classes and there will be a lot of note taking on my part.  The classes are amazing because of the clinicians who teach them.  They seriously love writing songs and they seriously love sharing about what they do best!  When I first thought about what it would be like to meet successful songwriters, I never pictured the generous group of teachers that are at WAJ.  Honestly, they are incredibly gifted and some of the nicest people you will ever meet.  

There will be a concert Friday night where the writers will sing songs that have been “cut” by an artist, and then they’ll sing a new song that is about to be pitched…..or maybe a personal old favorite of theirs; one that they don’t necessarily expect to get cut, but knew they just had to write.  It’s always an amazing night!

There may be an opportunity to do some more co-writing which would be totally awesome!  Several of the writers from the writing retreat I attended this past May will be at WAJ.  (was that really five months ago?)

Today will be spent tying up loose ends at work and then rushing home and making sure that I have everything packed that needs to be packed.  And there will be the last minute trip to Wal-mart to pick up the things that I’ve forgotten.  I need to go buy a new book to read on the plane. 

I thought that by being a “grown up”, you had to have all the answers.  Isn’t that how you got grown up?  Isn’t that how you survived college and finding a job and having a family?  Didn’t you finally arrive at a place where you could pretty much say, “yeah, the answer to that is….”?

All the grown ups sure sounded like they knew what they were talking about.  Mom and Dad always seemed to have good answers.  My teachers seemed pretty confident in what they were doing. 

I figured the magic number must be around age 25.  Or maybe 28.  Somewhere around there.  But definitely before you hit 30.  Because by the time you were 30, you were already on your way.  So you must have had to have it “figured out” a few years before then, at least.

So really…….how can life be more confusing now?  How can questions be looming out there that I thought were already answered?  How can faith that was tested and firm, feel like it is becoming shifting sand?  How can the mirror reflect someone that I’m not sure I know?