- Dec 22, 2017
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Greetings, all! This post lands somewhere between Christian & secular music, so let's put it in the more general forum & hope the admins approve.
Below is the link to my SoundCloud playlists. If you want to skip what I have to say & just listen to stuff, here ya go! I do want to mention that Attribution is required for my songs, and nothing else. Direct download, share links, use with videos, whatever you want; SoundCloud won't let me not require attribution, but all I want is a link/copy of what you make with my songs. I want to stimulate creativity, so treat these as public domain for whatever projects you wish, and do me the respect of sharing a copy. Sound good?
Alex Kromkowski
To actually address the title of this post (I meander a little, deal with it
):
This is the only song I've made that would be considered overtly Christian. It's a hip/hop/rap song, and I wanted to do a fast, trash-talkin' song, because that sounded fun to do. Being around Easter when I started this, trash-talking death sounded fitting, and I built the lyrics around the most monumental 3-day weekend in history. The explosion sounds are me dropping my keys, recording the sound, and putting on reverb. The bass line came to me a in dream...neat, huh?
Death is a Loser
Yet I try to be a deeply spiritual man, and I don't need Christian lyrics to believe I am doing something Christian. This next one has lyrics that were designed to not be overtly Christian, but hit the idea of doing something greater with what you're doing. I was writing a pop song, and was required to use lyrics, but I didn't know what to write about. Pop has a tendency to focus on parties, shallow love songs, and not much else. Not wanting to do write something like that, but not sure what else to do, this is a lament about not knowing what to write, but also an attempt to inspire others to make something more meaningful in anything they write (with comedy strewn in, just to spice it up!). I think something can be deep, or fun, or even both, but lyrics that are positively mediocre? We can do better.
Can Someone Write Me A Song?
For this one, it's telling a true story, one of my own journey on the South Shore Line from downtown Chicago to South Bend. This is a commute I've done many times, and after listening to Arlo Guthrie's City of New Orleans, the rhythm of the train kept me in the rhythm of that song. So, in the tune & spirit of the folk classic, grabbing my hippie dorm neighbor to play guitar, this is about the train journey I know very well. (Both songs are included; the one that inspired it, and the one I wrote).
On a Night Ride to South Bend
Now, what makes this spiritual? 'Tis just a journey! Lots of people ride the train without a spirituality, and lots of people ride with deep spirituality, but what makes a description of a train ride spiritual?
Look through the Bible. See all the ways people go on journeys. I just finished Numbers, and Chapter 33 of that book gives an overview of all the different places the Israelites went through, Exodus from Egypt through all the different towns, desert, sea, regions. The Book of Tobit is based on a journey. King David journeys, Joseph journeys, Jesus journeys, Paul's journeys take up half of Acts; everyone's on the move sometimes. If the Bible is written very intentionally, every word with meaning, there has to be meaning to a journey. The meaning tends to unfold as the journey progresses, and it's rarely obvious (unless the Angel Raphael makes it so!), but something about motion carries a deep spirituality to anyone blessed enough to see it that way.
On the note of journeys, this was my final project (all this was for a class); it's a big orchestral piece, designed to tell a wordless story about a great journey.
On a Night Ride to South Bend
For the rest of the music, some tells stories, some hits certain genres, few songs have words, but all of it is deeply spiritual to me. I see creativity as a manner of expressing a beautiful belief in a creative God that we are called to imitate. Music is something I have a natural talent for, and using it to the fullest is the best way to say "Thank You". Even before I cared about religion, I've always been creative, and I thought it makes life much more interesting.
Even if it's just instrumental, there's no way to talk about God if I'm not talking, so how can it be Christian? Because I'm not talking about God...I'm imitating Him. Where do you see a tree that says "Made by God"? Where does a beautiful flower, a majestic mountain range, human beauty, a sunset, a lake, anything made by God--where does it have a label, an arrow pointing up, any kind of signature by the Author?
Reading the Word of God in the Book of Nature, I see a God who makes things beautiful, majestic, and special, just for sake of making it so. Some things are made just for fun; why else would the platypus exist? Some things are made just for being beautiful; the butterfly should not be able to exist, being a highly visible, slow creature with no defense mechanisms. But they stand with majestic tapestries of color in their wings.
What do you think? I hope & pray this helps you see that all music is Christian music. God's beauty shines through everywhere, from a great orchestra under Tchaikovsky, to some stupid song a college kid made on a computer (I play bass & trumpet, but the vast majority of the music I made is all digital, played on a keyboard & edited on a screen).
As a final thought, it has long puzzled me why God stopped Creation after 1 week. Someone with infinite ability, power, creativity, just stops making things? Surely He didn't run out of ideas?
But...he stopped only after He made humans. Us. Creatures who are capable of continuing this creative power. "Well, kids, I've done a lot...now follow my lead, rearrange the Lego pieces of the world, and build something magnificent!" Bringing Creation to its fullest is expressed through human creativity. Sounds aren't much to speak of on their own; tie it all together into a song, and sound is brought to greatness it never would've achieved if we didn't develop the trumpet.
See how this works?
I'll stop rambling now...hope you enjoyed!
Below is the link to my SoundCloud playlists. If you want to skip what I have to say & just listen to stuff, here ya go! I do want to mention that Attribution is required for my songs, and nothing else. Direct download, share links, use with videos, whatever you want; SoundCloud won't let me not require attribution, but all I want is a link/copy of what you make with my songs. I want to stimulate creativity, so treat these as public domain for whatever projects you wish, and do me the respect of sharing a copy. Sound good?
Alex Kromkowski
To actually address the title of this post (I meander a little, deal with it
):This is the only song I've made that would be considered overtly Christian. It's a hip/hop/rap song, and I wanted to do a fast, trash-talkin' song, because that sounded fun to do. Being around Easter when I started this, trash-talking death sounded fitting, and I built the lyrics around the most monumental 3-day weekend in history. The explosion sounds are me dropping my keys, recording the sound, and putting on reverb. The bass line came to me a in dream...neat, huh?
Death is a Loser
Yet I try to be a deeply spiritual man, and I don't need Christian lyrics to believe I am doing something Christian. This next one has lyrics that were designed to not be overtly Christian, but hit the idea of doing something greater with what you're doing. I was writing a pop song, and was required to use lyrics, but I didn't know what to write about. Pop has a tendency to focus on parties, shallow love songs, and not much else. Not wanting to do write something like that, but not sure what else to do, this is a lament about not knowing what to write, but also an attempt to inspire others to make something more meaningful in anything they write (with comedy strewn in, just to spice it up!
). I think something can be deep, or fun, or even both, but lyrics that are positively mediocre? We can do better.Can Someone Write Me A Song?
For this one, it's telling a true story, one of my own journey on the South Shore Line from downtown Chicago to South Bend. This is a commute I've done many times, and after listening to Arlo Guthrie's City of New Orleans, the rhythm of the train kept me in the rhythm of that song. So, in the tune & spirit of the folk classic, grabbing my hippie dorm neighbor to play guitar, this is about the train journey I know very well. (Both songs are included; the one that inspired it, and the one I wrote).
On a Night Ride to South Bend
Now, what makes this spiritual? 'Tis just a journey! Lots of people ride the train without a spirituality, and lots of people ride with deep spirituality, but what makes a description of a train ride spiritual?
Look through the Bible. See all the ways people go on journeys. I just finished Numbers, and Chapter 33 of that book gives an overview of all the different places the Israelites went through, Exodus from Egypt through all the different towns, desert, sea, regions. The Book of Tobit is based on a journey. King David journeys, Joseph journeys, Jesus journeys, Paul's journeys take up half of Acts; everyone's on the move sometimes. If the Bible is written very intentionally, every word with meaning, there has to be meaning to a journey. The meaning tends to unfold as the journey progresses, and it's rarely obvious (unless the Angel Raphael makes it so!
), but something about motion carries a deep spirituality to anyone blessed enough to see it that way.On the note of journeys, this was my final project (all this was for a class); it's a big orchestral piece, designed to tell a wordless story about a great journey.
On a Night Ride to South Bend
For the rest of the music, some tells stories, some hits certain genres, few songs have words, but all of it is deeply spiritual to me. I see creativity as a manner of expressing a beautiful belief in a creative God that we are called to imitate. Music is something I have a natural talent for, and using it to the fullest is the best way to say "Thank You". Even before I cared about religion, I've always been creative, and I thought it makes life much more interesting.
Even if it's just instrumental, there's no way to talk about God if I'm not talking, so how can it be Christian? Because I'm not talking about God...I'm imitating Him. Where do you see a tree that says "Made by God"? Where does a beautiful flower, a majestic mountain range, human beauty, a sunset, a lake, anything made by God--where does it have a label, an arrow pointing up, any kind of signature by the Author?
Reading the Word of God in the Book of Nature, I see a God who makes things beautiful, majestic, and special, just for sake of making it so. Some things are made just for fun; why else would the platypus exist? Some things are made just for being beautiful; the butterfly should not be able to exist, being a highly visible, slow creature with no defense mechanisms. But they stand with majestic tapestries of color in their wings.
What do you think? I hope & pray this helps you see that all music is Christian music. God's beauty shines through everywhere, from a great orchestra under Tchaikovsky, to some stupid song a college kid made on a computer (I play bass & trumpet, but the vast majority of the music I made is all digital, played on a keyboard & edited on a screen).
As a final thought, it has long puzzled me why God stopped Creation after 1 week. Someone with infinite ability, power, creativity, just stops making things? Surely He didn't run out of ideas?
But...he stopped only after He made humans. Us. Creatures who are capable of continuing this creative power. "Well, kids, I've done a lot...now follow my lead, rearrange the Lego pieces of the world, and build something magnificent!" Bringing Creation to its fullest is expressed through human creativity. Sounds aren't much to speak of on their own; tie it all together into a song, and sound is brought to greatness it never would've achieved if we didn't develop the trumpet.
See how this works?
I'll stop rambling now...hope you enjoyed!
