Written and produced by yours truly, I take scriptural texts and set them to music.
I was blessed to find a super recording engineer who also has become my accompanist in some of my songs and has been a great help on the production side as well, Morgan Parham from Greenlight Studios.
Lost and Found
Using phrases from Luke 15:4-10, I created a song with the theme of the lost being found. This was the first song I tackled in the recording studio and musically the most difficult and most time consuming. Morgan Parham, my recording engineer and I went through many variations of the accompaniment before we were happy with the sound. I am grateful Morgan is such a talented musician and was able to provide the guitar, bass and piano accompaniment to this song.
Joyful Noise
Using all of Psalm 100, I crafted this song to have a joyful, upbeat vibe. The chorus in this song came first and was stuck in my head for days until I finally got the rest of the song figured out and put together. I wanted to include the feeling of fun in this one so I included whistling and even a small section with a toy piano.
A Wise Man
Adding a melodic twist to the primary song, "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man," which was created from Matt 7:24-27, I also combined some phrases from 2 Sam 22:47 and Psalm 62:7 that I felt were appropriate to go along with the theme of The Rock that the wise man built his house on. This was one of my favorite songs as a child and one of my kids' favorites as well.
A Marvelous Work
This song was created to celebrate the coming forth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ including many scriptural prophesies from the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon including the books of Isaiah, Acts, 1 Nephi, Ephesians, Revelations as well as the Doctrine and Covenants. The trick to this song was simply finding a way to honor and highlight as many of the prophesies as I could to help embody the feeling of excitement and hope that comes with these messages.
Men Are Free
Be Still
We Have Prayer
Wretched
Faith Is
Give Thanks
I was inspired by listening to classical Greek and Jewish music, a nod to the cultures from which these scriptural texts originate. A reading of 2 Nephi 2:27 inspired a haunting chant accompanied by drones that transitions into a more upbeat Greek text to reflect likely the original language of Galatians, chanting chapter 5:1 in both Greek and English.
Using texts from Psalm 46:1,2,10, D&C 101:16, and Proverbs 3:5, I felt like this song is the continuation to the song "Be Still My Soul." With a completely different melody and lyrics, I still hoped to embody the same feeling of comfort and faith in God. Be Still My Soul was originally written in German in the 1750s by Katherina Von Schlegel, so I included the original title in German "stille mein wille dein Jesus hilft siegen,"" at the end of my song.
Probably the most techno inspired song of this album, this song has been brewing for a few years and made it's way into the world as almost an art piece that includes vocal recordings of prayers in different languages including Spanish, Aramaic, French, Portuguese, Swedish and Farsi. I want to convey with this song that people of all cultures have their own way of conversing with God/Deity. The more open we can practice being to how we each believe and practice our religious devotions, the better we will see what we have in common with these practices.
Nephi's psalm in 2 Nephi 4 is one of my all time favorite sections of scripture. This song was inspired by a difficult trial I was experiencing and a lament felt true to how I felt inside. But I didn't want to stop the song at just the lament in verses 16-19, because peace comes to an extent, eventually, after each trial. Wanting to leave the listener with a message of hope, I kept going in the psalm to include verses 26 and 30 and an upbeat melody at the end.
Faith is one of my favorite subjects in the scriptures so this was a difficult song to put together because there are so many great verses that talk about different aspects of faith. I was originally inspired by Hebrews 11:1,3 and decided to include verses from Luke, Romans, Isaiah, James and 2 Corinthians to top it off.
An appropriate end to this album, I feel I must give thanks for the inspiration that has given me all of these wonderful songs. This song was actually inspired by going through a difficult experience. The words from D&C 98: 1-3 and 12 really stood out to me one day as I was studying scriptures and brought me so much comfort. The text became my mantra that I repeated as I went through this trial and I felt it was a tender mercy from my Heavenly Father to have been given a deeper understanding of these verses so as to derive comfort from them. I also added Matt 28:20 as it felt fitting.