Blogs By Benjamin

Paul Baloche describes the process of bringing a song to completion in the episode titled "Finishing Your Song" of his Youtube worship leading series. At the point where many of the features of the song have been written, Baloche points out the need to go back and nitpick each line. While the early stages of songwriting mainly consist of simply putting thoughts and tunes onto paper, this part of the process brings out the technical aspect of songwriting. Baloche mentions factors, such as word repetition, relevance, and, most importantly, theological correctness, that he considers at this juncture of the songwriting journey.  Nitpicking may seem tedious, boring, and sometimes irrelevant, but it's a necessary step to produce a worthwhile product. Baloche highlights the effect of "refining" through the analogy of shaving the fat off meat. Pursuing refinement is part of the pursuit of perfection. Whether it be our songs, our work, or our faith, consistently seeking ...

Paul Baloche talks about crafting music to fit the "feeling of the message" in this episode of his Youtube Songwriting series. He points out that the first step is deciding what type of atmosphere the song is intended to create. For example, his title "Above All" was meant to be an anthemic song, thus he chose a tune that fit its intended purpose accordingly. Baloche mentions Disney as the king of melodies, noting how many of their songs have beautifully constructed tunes that capture a breadth of pitches which earn a place in our memories. Hints of the styles of these well-written songs are prevalent in other genres of music, further highlighting their brilliance.  The idea of being memorable is an intriguing one. In the context of songwriting, the tunes that are generic and aren't creatively put together are the ones that fade with time. It's the ones that are different, seasoned with flair; those are the ones that are remembered. We must seek to find our ...