swahili

So here's a few things to (semi-)make up for the months of absence!

1) Swahili originals

In Tanzania they speak Swahili, so I have been messing around with writing in Swahili, so for fun here's my first attempt (recorded in like 20 min…rockin' the 4-part harmony). Worship songs here tend to be MAD simple and repetitive (e.g "There is no God like you" [repeat x 50] ) and very call-response, so I'm trying to write stuff that they'd be able to do in church. Pretty much trying to go off the Psalms in my Swahili Bible so I know the grammar won't be trippin'… This one is from Psalm 149, the lyrics say:

Sing to the Lord a new song, Sing to the Lord 

(Mwimbieni Bwana wimbo mpya, Mwimbieni Bwana wimbo) 

Sing to the Lord a new song for He is Holy 

(Mwimbieni Bwana wimbo mpya, kwa kuwa yu Mtakatifu)

download: http://www.mediafire.com/?wsgq50d1iua4ug0


And this one my friend Desi wrote and I recorded it for him this week. It didn't have any sort of intro/outro, so I made up the riff I sing in it.


download: http://www.mediafire.com/?yr9f9cchp8jprmq


Don't ask about the verses...too complicated! But the chorus is just saying:
Hosanna, Twakupenda
(Hosanna, We love you)

2) collaboration skillz

my friend / host brother from my Tanzanian family wrote this awesome song and we were messing around and videoed it. Abraham is one of the few people around who can sing dynamics well :) very refreshing to the usual one-volume-only singing of the worship, and I miss singing harmonies with my brothers, so it's been nice to start making some individual music! The words sounds a lot better in Swahili than my English translation!

usituache wa pwekee (Don't leave us alone)

nenda na sisi (Go with us)

usipoenda nasi hatuendi Bwana 

(unless you go with us, Lord, we're not going)


download: http://www.mediafire.com/?705ivv5y7eiv853

And this was the first video we made, before I fully registered his propensity to ad-lib :)

jina lako, kuu sana 

(Your name is very great)

la pita majina yote 

(higher than all names)

jina Yesu la pita majina yote 

(the name of Jesus, higher than all names)


download: http://www.mediafire.com/?0ax6vzvqs5qk3ms

My friend Noella wrote this song and I figured out the chords for her. She's 16, has a fantastic voice and we sing alto on the worship team together.





download: http://www.mediafire.com/?fqh0chajtq2labl

emmanuel

Realized the other day when looking through my videos that in my last video post my hair was about 6 inches shorter than it is now…(blog fail much?) 

I guess I unintentionally took the last year off…

But it's been pretty eventful if I do say so! Graduated college, fell in love, moved to Tanzania… (you can piece together more of the story from my personal blog: lovetheunlovelyone.blogspot.com)

I did put up the one song from Zanzibar, but mostly Tanzania doesn't exactly lend itself to any peace or quiet to record. Definitely no stairwells. Plus my guitar freaked out (weather + traveling) so I wasn't so fond of playing it…finally sent it back to the US with my parents and they brought me a different one. 

So I'll put up something I recorded before I left, a song a lot of people will know, and next week I have a bunch of random Swahili/English fun stuff that I've done here!

© David Reed & Mat Kearney

I don't think I ever intended this video to be seen by anyone, but I found it and the audio sounded good, so I'm just gonna choose not be self-conscious about my Jesus head-banging or when I say Yoda-grammar things on the fly like "God with me, you are."

download: http://www.mediafire.com/?zxww2vu8u0abgex

light the fire

since Tanzanian internet access is limited, instead of videos I'm just going to start putting up free recordings of whatever worship song is on my heart…. and mp3s are probably easier for iPods anyway? I'm quite a perfectionist so in order to even do this at all, I have forced myself to accept the roughness of the quality and limit myself to only 1 or 2 takes…if something's messed up, i'm probably the only one who notices anyway!

my perfectionism is what caused me to epically fail at putting up videos on here this year, like i wanted to….I would go to record something, and do it again and again if I didn't like it, but after a while I'd get tired & my voice would get overworked and I leave to just do it later!

So, enjoy the soundtrack of Zanzibar in the background! No AC here means windows = screens, and the noises of the village waif through the air into my room - bicycles & babies, Islamic prayer calls, roosters, crows & cell phone ringers (….and some of the weirdest sounds you wouldn't believe, I have no idea what creates them..)

i have no real speakers & i'm not great at mixing, i just try to get a balance between what sounds good on my macbook speakers & on my headphones….if it sounds horrible on your speakers/headphones, i apologize!

it's funny that this is the first song I'm putting up, since it's so old (and maybe i'd say cheesy?), but it was just what came out of my heart last night…a cry for the fire of love for God to be revived in me…

like so many things -- any fire, any plant, any relationship, even your physical appearance -- if not tended, will fade and die away. how foolish am I to think that I can ever stop putting my pursuit of Jesus in front of every other activity, desire or physical need

(mediafire download) light the fire

how he loves us

i first heard this song at The Call 7-7-07 in Nashville - we had been out in the blazing sun all morning and afternoon, fasting, not much water, worshipping, jumping around, praying intensely, so at one point I laid down to take a power nap. When I woke up 20-30 minutes later, everyone around me was bawling...quite a strange thing to wake up to. Took me a while to figure out that John Mark McMillan had just finished playing and telling the story behind this song...very moving - I can't find a video of him telling it but if you know of one send it along!

i love this song for its childlike simplicity. i'm playing off off jesus culture/kim walker's version - i think their plucking pattern is on a electric guitar with some kind of repeat pedal on, but i translated it to an acoustic picking pattern, with a slight alteration in the bass

first song recorded actually in the stairwell!


song: John Mark McMillan © 2005 Integrity’s Hosanna Music

download
HQ (computer - 127mb): http://www.mediafire.com/?uiwlwe4zzwj
medium (iPod - 68mb): http://www.mediafire.com/?jlzjodjotgx
mobile (iPhone - 42mb): http://www.mediafire.com/?ixen1jmmwmm

lyrics & chords
http://www.mediafire.com/?owm1l4xmyzl

genesis: you won't relent (seal)

this has been a long time coming...

a couple years ago, my friend abby northcott asked me to record myself playing a misty edwards song for her. i put up a youtube video that a lot of people watched and loved, more people than i ever expected. i was surprised and blessed by all those who messaged me, commented, and shared their hearts (thank you!).

since then, God has been prompting my heart to start a blog to put up similar videos, simply as a service to those who long to connect with Him in worship. my heart has always been that, since God for His own reasons chooses to use my voice to bless others, i want it to reach as many people as possible. this is my offering.

here you will find simple videos of love songs to jesus. downloadable so you can worship whenever you like, with lyric and chord charts so you can play them yourself, if you like.

so to begin: the video that started it... (2 years, 10 inches of hair, and many bottles of hair dye ago). love song in honor of the eternal love of my life.

song: David Brymer, Cassandra Campbell, Misty Edwards © 2007 Forerunner Music

download
http://www.mediafire.com/?y4zz4m1tjog

lyrics & chords
http://www.mediafire.com/?uyzmznjze21


*a note on the version: i am playing what misty played at The Call 7-7-07, before the track was released on cd. at the time, she included the portion from "dove's eyes" as part of the song.

*guitarist note for those trying to improve they skillz: the reason the chords sound more resonant and appealing is because each chord has notes that carry over from one to the next - look at the chord tabs, and notice which notes stay the same. in any song you're trying to do, play around with different chord shapes and see how you can move your fingers less from chord to chord (don't get stuck always playing the same version of the chord--boring!). this is especially helpful in guitar-driven acoustic worship settings - playing chords that share a lot of notes all the way through is less jarring to people's ears and keep a (especially if you have not developed as much finger-strength and have trouble flowing between chord changes).

*****
finally, i just have to share this as well in honor of chinese new year.... you won't relent in chinese? hahaha....praise God for worship from "every tribe & tongue"