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its been interesting at urbana, i hate to say it when people ask me “how has it been so far?”…truthfully? not too sure how to answer that one, i just say its ‘ok’, the seminars have been quite disappointing in that they’re either mistitled and what they talk about does not match the syllabus given or they’re just talking about things we already know (ie: you should keep straight accounting records because that is what a Christian should do…..what?! even a secular run business should keep straight accounting records because that’s the law!!), plenaries have been good, especially by this one person: jeff van duzer.

fast forward: this post was not meant to be an indepth post but merely a brief update as behind me are jason, alfred, and liu all sleeping, and i’m the only one awake, it’ll be a long session as we ring in the new year tonght, i should catch a nap.

lesson from urbana: nobody can escape fatigue.

happy new year TPX.

(edit: added photo)

PS3s being traded for Wiis
DS Lite favored over PS3?
Oh poor Sony.

Here’s wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

Esp in Japan! Too bad Jason couldn’t be here for tonight’s wii/transfer party.

Lates!

so lately, jason and i have been singing your bass part randomly every time i see you, and so we decided to record it, no we’re not drunk…do…do dooo ….wonderful maker..

So.. on Tuesday night we sat down (YFA, Eric and I) and watched the Worship Band Workshop DVD (led by Paul Baloche) and it was short.. but had a lot of good ideas.

Baloche starts of course with the main reason for worship and where our hearts ought to be. Nothing completely new, but the DVD has a lot of promise to inspire the NTCAC worship teams to a higher level of musical standard (somewhere above noise.. I kid). The greatest is the two counter-examples that the band plays.. one is of NO dynamics (haha hello NTCAC!) and the second is of inconsistent tempo (hello NTCAC again! except we dont slow down again).

Baloche presents some basic ideas, but hopefully in a way that those who aren’t so dedicated/committed to worship will at least get some kind of clue. He talks about not playing so much, about playing bass/mids/treble and staying out of each other’s way. They’re pretty simple and I think we could implement them in a fairly rudimentary way. The biggest culprit at NTCAC is definitely the piano (bass/guitar/drums tend to stay out of each other’s way naturally) playing all over the place.. and way too much.

Anyhow.. last night I watched the band interviews (only 10 mins :() and they also reinforce some good things, like being spiritually supportive of the leader, being attentive etc. Just things which should be “common sense” but really need to be reinforced.

The only downside of the DVD was the 15-20mins which were just Baloche’s team playing songs.. and taking up valuable talking time :p

It was pretty funny after watching it, Eric saw the “light” and was really gung ho on setting a high standard, a level of musical ability that we should strive for.. and YFA kinda reminded him how he just shot down the whole idea at the EWC meeting a week ago. In about 15 minutes Eric went through exactly the same thought progression that we’ve been going through, except we could quickly explain why it wasn’t possible.. and what middle ground we settled at heh.

It really all comes down to committment and heart. I mean.. talent or no talent, if you don’t even commit to the team, to practicing, to the ministry.. then it’s not going to happen by itself by “God’s grace”.. My countdown of.. 1 and 1/2 year until we can form a TPX worship team is on the wall :p