4.3.20

I am on YouTube now

I have posted a couple videos to my YouTube channel now. This first one is a copy of the sermon I gave on December 15th. My next sermon will be later this month on the 29th.


I have also been setting up a little studio to record video and audio as a means of trying out vlogging as a medium instead of blogging. A good friend of mine at work chided me constantly about my ranting over IMs, and how I needed an outlet that wasn't him. Blogging can help with that, but the written medium doesn't really promote a lot of interaction nowadays and what's the good of discovering truth, or what I think might be truth, and not trying to share it?

If I have an idea and it can't be tested in any way, how do I know if it's any good or not?


If written or spoken, I at least have evidence outside myself that I am trying, that I am creating, that I am not just passively consuming and wasting time with vanity.

There is value in anonymity for some, but I am going in the opposite direction. Since our culture is not merciful or concerned with truth, I'd at least prefer to be damned for who I really am and what I am really doing, than to end up victim of a complete fabrication. I don't get to choose how others would remember me, but what I do does play a role.

An example is that I recently started playing bass guitar again on Sunday mornings at church as part of the band. The other videos I have posted fall into two categories that will eventually grow. The first is "practice music" pulled from the roster of songs we perform at church but I don't have a good recording in the key we play at to practice with in my own free time. Below is an example of a recreation of one of those songs to serve that purpose.


I don't have any vocals on it yet because I am a bit lazy and a bit scared, but the track works to practice with, and I could provide my other band members renders of the track with their portion muted so that on their own they could also practice their part and be better prepared for Sunday.

The second category is "jam session" background tracks. The drummer in our band showed me Evan Marien's work, as an inspiration for something that we could do together:


Essentially, Evan does some production work and then he and Dana Hawkins add in live performances of bass guitar and drums to "finish" the song out. Inspired by this, I created the first ambient/background track for us to experiment with that ourselves:


Now, what this has done is drove me to do a few things. First, I dusted off my license to Ableton and got it updated and started playing with it again. I also installed Shotcut to take these audio tracks and marry them with some random image from the internet to then upload a video to YouTube. The whole thing is still amateur because I am new and inexperienced, but it's much more active than playing video games or watching a favorite TV show yet again.

I am also having to learn things, often through watching YouTube videos. There are few things as humbling as learning, to admit that I don't know or I can't do something, and then submit my mind to the instruction of someone else for a time, so these things have all been positive.

Next Tuesday the drummer and I will be getting together for our first jam session, and I hope to have at least one more track of my own prepared by that time.

Preaching, playing, creating, and then trying to remember to share that and encourage others to join in as well or to pursue their own versions of it. What are you doing to be active and creative?