Women Teaching Women

Jake pulled his '97 Ford Ranger into the familiar parking lot. As the smell of greasy fries filled his mind with thoughts of food, he found one open parking spot for his little truck and was soon making his way inside, under that famous golden double-archway. The line was long; he got off work a little later than normal, and that put him behind that great throng of people that he usually beat to McDonald's. Oh, well. He could wait. As the line diminished, Jake occupied his eyes with bright yellow and red bricks in the wall and black-and-white photos of the clown with children who were now grandparents. No one came in behind him, and soon he was left alone facing the cashier. He knew what he wanted, of course. A Big Mac, a Pepsi, and a six-piece McNugget. Yum. The cashier was quick to ring up the order, as if he had lots of experience. As he was about to drop a Jackson-faced bill into the cashier's hand, Jake recognized him from underneath his red visor. "Rodne...

Two months ago, my husband and I were in California, staying with his parents during our Christmas break. And I was bored. Totally bored. Bored and without direction and purpose in my day-to-day life. While talking with Megan via phone one day, she suggested using a calendar and schedule, but not in the old, traditional way that I had given up after graduating from Bible school. She pointed me to bullet journals, habit trackers, and other methods of making my planner fit my needs. I fell in love with this new system and began filling it up right away! I had purpose and direction in my long, lonely days. Fast-forward two months into the present, and I am now on the opposite end of bored! I don't have time in a day to get bored, and where does my scheduling fall in these days? It saves me so much time and anguish! I write down everything, and when (yes, when) I forget, I don't have to fret about it. To spark ideas in your mind, whether you are in a stay-at-home-long-d...

    At the end of this series, I hope you have a true desire to write a good, God-honouring song (or songs!), and I hope you have tried your hand at it by now. I hope you have picked up some ideas for inspiration, instruction to help you actually carry it out, and tools to make it useful and good. The last thing we need to talk about is the essential “Now what?”           We have a pretty little song with perfect words and rhymes, but what are we supposed to do with this song?           The answer to that question depends a lot on you and your circumstances. Consider the purpose of the song: Why did you write it in the first place? I could spend paragraphs discussing what you could and should do with it and why, but I will spare you that and make an easy-to-read list for you: ü    Keep it personal. Use your music in your own personal worship to voice your ind...

 By this, I mean primarily “On what medium”, but let’s discuss the physical location while we’re at it! What is the appropriate place to write a song? Surely you remember Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham”, where he says you can eat it in a house, with a mouse, on a train, in the rain, etc., etc., etc. It’s the same with writing music! There is no mystical prayer closet or pipe-organ or study-dedicated desk that you  must  have in order to write great music. If you are sitting in the DMV when a stroke of poetic brilliance hits you, grab a post-it or receipt from your purse and jot down your idea. Of course, you will probably transfer your idea to a more appropriate medium when you get home, but for now, you have that idea captured! Besides, what else are you going to do at the DMV while you wait? You can always play the “try not to make eye contact” game. That’s lots of fun.           So, now let’s talk about the medium. Any...

PUTTING TOGETHER MUSIC AND WORDS Finally, we are at the final part of the “How” question of making music! Here we are talking about agreement, which involves putting together the words and the tune. It seems as if that would be easy, but there are three main points that we need to be aware of when combining the tune with its words. 1.     Agreement of Meter Remember back to the section on “meter” in part one of the “How” posts; maybe it would be good for you to just pull it up and read it again quickly. Of course, when we put our words to music, we must fit the number of words in with the number of notes in the tune’s melody. But there is something else about meter that I did not tell you before. There are different kinds of meter, basically represented by these two: “Iambic” and “Trochaic”. Iambic meter means that the stress is on the even-numbered syllables, while Trochaic means that the stress in on the odd syllables. I will use examples to help you unde...

TUNES           Since the tune is the glue between the words and our mind, it is important to make sure our musical tunes follow some basic guidelines in order to be good-quality and memorable. So, let’s look at some tools that will help us in the realm of making tunes! (Again, I am not a music-professional-anything, but I have learned a few things over years of listening, playing, and writing music.)           If you have never learned how to  read  music, I highly recommend that you do so before you try to  write  music (after all, who ever heard of an illiterate author?). Take some time to dedicate yourself to the study of how music works and what all the lines and dots mean; it takes a bit of learning, but it’s probably not as difficult as you would expect. I am writing this blog based on a basic understanding of music and musical terms, so it would be helpful for you to already know the terms I will use....