toddwright:band

Actually gearing up for the possibility of a brand new CD!

Working on plans right now to go into the studio in March 2010 or so to record a new worship project. At this point, I’ve got plenty of songs, but I’m not quite sure they are the right songs.

Asking folks to pray for both the fundraising and songwriting to go smoothly. Thanks for stopping by.

FOREVER FAITHFUL
I’ve had a lot of folks ask how the recording process is going. That means a ton! Kirk and I made a lot of progress in the first week. Kirk laid down electrics, bass and a drum track - all in a 24 hour period!

Now, for the bad news…Kirk had to move! You guys don’t know Kirk, but he’s currently looking for a a job (economy!) and had to move to Longview. Longview’s not terribly far away, but it’s really too far for us to travel back and forth tracking. At this point, Kirk is finishing up the song as best he can.

Now, for more good news…a couple of my pals back home in Lufkin, Blake Stewart and Justin Romack have stepped and said they’d take the tracks from Kirk and finish them out with some live drums. And we all know that live drums are awesome! Kirk is still busy finishing up, but I’ve got high hopes. We’ll try to

THE CROSS OF CHRIST
A little over a week ago, I got my demonstration version of my song that Word Entertainment just released as a part of “See The Morning,” an Easter choral collection. I was thrilled to find out that most of the songs are Getty/Townend songs, which is good company when it comes to songwriting. I’ve yet to see any royalties and won’t for quite awhile, but it has been a fun ride already!

DAY 1 

Met w/ Kirk around 11:45. Took about twenty minutes to get mics and mixes set up and we got rolling.

We went ahead and tried to get good takes rather than ‘scratch’ tracks. Once the song is nearing completion, we can redo acoustic and vocals if there’s something the original tracks aren’t working well. We did 3 full guitar takes and 3 vocal takes, which should be enough to edit down to something useable.

We worked on the guitar riff, which Adam Fischer originated. We had a live recording of the band playing it w/ Adam on electric, so we fired that up so that Kirk and I could make sure we remembered the riff correctly.

We also talked about drum arrangement stuff for a little while. At this point, Kirk will continue to refine/edit drum mixes and start laying electric tracks. Next week, we’ll throw bass on and get Kristen (my wife) in for backing vocals.

I hope to have the thing finished by mid-October so we can get it out to the world!

This info will technically drop late Friday night (9.18.09) but all of you TWB site visitors get your stuff way before everybody else!

Friday night, I’ll post a vlog promoting a brand new project I’m undertaking. Over the next 3-4 weeks, I’m going to be tracking a solid demo version of my new song, “Forever Faithful.” Once the song is done, I’ll be releasing it as a free download (w/ companion chord chart) at numerous sites as well as at Bethel’s iTunes page.

I’ll be tracking w/ Kirk Bozeman, a great guitar player and skilled engineer in his own right! I’ll also be doing video updates throughout this very quick process so that folks can follow along as we build this song from the ground up. As always, you’ll be able to find those videos at the youtube channel.

At this point, there are still some questions…

I’m not totally sure how we’ll approach drums. We have a lot of different options, and we haven’t committed to any of them.

Primarily, the last few days have been thinking more arrangement things…how many tracks of guitar do we need, what sort effect/texture elements are needed, etc. We’ll lay down rough tracks of acoustic and vocal next Monday (9/21) and I am really excited about it.

I’ll post tomorrow’s video over here at the band site as well as other spots and hopefully we can spread the word!

I don’t do a lot of gigs, but when I get the chance, I try to be as wise as possible with the opportunity.

Doing worship gigs is a difficult thing for most of us, simply because there are very few constants. Think of it like this: if you’re a well-known worship leader/band, you can pretty well both the size and types of crowds you’ll have.

However, when you’re just an independent dude leading worship, you never know if you’re going to be singing for 9 folks or for 200. Since that’s so very unpredictable, worship leaders often benefit from understanding and respecting certain systems or ‘knowns’ about their gigs.

This week, I’m leading worship for a college event. On Wednesday, I’m doing a big kick-off for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes here at the University of Texas in Tyler. I still don’t have a very good idea of how many kids will be there, but experience and study has taught me that there are few things that are likely to be true about this gig.

Mostly Dedicated
College gigs differ greatly from younger “student gigs” and primarily because the make up of college gigs is often way less evangelistic.

What do I mean by that?

Very simply that high school gigs tend to have a higher ratio of kids who don’t know God than college events. (Please note that I’m speaking from my experience with smaller events. Please don’t tell me how lost people got saved at Passion or something, okay? I’m just talking about my little world here.)

College events tend to be contain more “saved” or “Christ followers.” Logically, it make sense.

For almost any high school event within in a church, there is the parent factor. Meaning that many of those students are there because there some sort of family influence…Mom or Dad drove them to church, or made them come or are involved in some other ministry happening at the same time.

That’s not a bad thing, but it does often mean that the possibility for a majority of that crowd to be completely uniterested in what you’re doing is substantial.

College gigs are much different, simply because college students are relatively free to do what they want. If they’re at your Thursday night Bible Study at 9:12pm every week, it’s because they want to be.

Because of this difference, worship leaders at college things can probably plan on the freedom to go a bit longer in the set. When leading a crowd that’s obviously making a choice to be there, understanding their investment can make a big difference in how you pastor them in worship.

Here’s our set for 9/9 at the BSM on Patriot Street @ UT Tyler.

GLORY TO GOD FOREVER (B)
We’ve been doing this Steve Fee song at church (both in Sunday service as well as youth) and it’s great. I think it’s a strong, consistent reminder to keep our hearts and minds focused on God’s glory…something we all need!

LET GOD ARISE (B)
I’ve been continually impressed with how crowds have picked this song up. Not only is it a great thing to sing, but the guys I play with do such a great job of making this song their own.

KING OF MERCY (F)
Hey…it’s a TWB gig, why not do a TWB song, right? I bumped this one to F to make a bit more singable for me. Luckily, key of F works for congregations, too. I’m excited about this nice, mellow groove.

GLORIFIED IN ME (F)
Is there a better song than this Ross King tune? Probably not. It’s funky and fun, easy to sing and a simple truth to celebrate. Love the song.

Between now and Wednesday, I’ll be talking a bit about what sort of things I tend to think about when taking on a ‘college gig.’ There are some things specific to those sorts of events that are always beneficial to think about in preparation.

Proud to announce a TWB worship gig coming up on September 9th.

We’ll be playing the fall kickoff for the Fellowship of Christian Atheletes at UT Tyler.

The normal meeting place for the FCA is currently under construction, but we’re very happy to announce that the brand new BSM building on campus is allowing us to meet in their space!

It’s a great facility and we’re very excited to lead worship there! If you or somebody you know is a student at UT Tyler, tell them to come on out!

BSM
9/9/09
7:30-8:30pm

There are a few things I’m good at:

1. Drinking Diet Dr. Pepper.
2. Staying up late.
3. Blogging.
4. Thermonuclear engineering.

Okay. One of those is a lie.

But since I do have a passion and some skill for blogging, I’ve decided to start rerouting www.toddwrightband.com over here to the Tumblr page.

Why? Well, let’s face it…the actual site isn’t really doing anything for me.

Probably spend some time today seeing if I can get that to work…that way if I get some visitors, maybe they’ll see more of the everyday stuff and not just one picture of me. Everytime. Doing nothing.

Which I’m also quite good at doing.

Working on a few different ideas…

1. A new record. Dang it I want to do one. But I don’t have the songs for it. Or the money. I could probably raise the money, but I’m just not sure my catalog is ready.
2. Gonna’ try to kick off a new “ToddCast” like I did last year.
3. Liking all the cool video ideas these days at Bethel.