I'm calling it "Solace"

Over the past few months, basically since I returned from Standing Rock in late November, I've put a lot of my mental and creative energy into music. I've played music, written music and led people in worship for over twenty years, since I was about 17 years old. Started playing guitar at about 13. Today I actually get paid to play music for our church, Alyssa and I love doing that, but we also dream to get back to creating music outside of the church setting. Over the past few months I've been able to write more music than I have in the past 10 years combined. Experiencing Standing Rock, the devastation of a Trump presidency and what that means for and about our country, and the difficult struggles that my family is going through have all probably played a significant roll creating a need within me to write and play music. Most recently, on Ash Wednesday, actually, I began recording an album of ambient instrumental music. I was inspired first by Nils Frahm, but he's way too talented a musician for me to copy. His music has taught me the importance of simplicity and minimalism, even when you CAN play something much more technical. Second, on Ash Wednesday, at The Open Door's contemplative service, I was introduced to Moby's recent release "Long Ambience1: Calm, Sleep" a beautiful, meditative work of around 4 hours of music. It's extremely simple, no melodies, just auditory textures, layers of sounds, beautiful chords moving so gentle one cannot discern one chord from the next.

So, I've been taking my turn creating something with my guitars that is meant to be simple, minimal, relaxing and pleasing to listen to. Some of it is more complex than what Moby's album, some of it builds a bit more and have a bit more expression. But I think it fits in with the genre of ambient artists that I have been learning from lately.

Again, if you're like me and suffering these days as you discern a way forward for your work of justice and peace in this world, or your struggling to help a loved one through a particularly difficult time in their life, or you're going through a particularly difficult time in your own life, I encourage you to create. Don't try to be perfect or compare yourself to others who are better at your craft of choice, create for yourself, create for the sake of creating, and when you do that honestly and thoroughly, I promise it will be a blessing to others as well as a blessing to yourself.

I'm calling is Solace, recordings forth coming!