Building Your Band

A better conversation about music, with David Loftis and Peter Bulanow

Grant Norsworthy | Prancing, Stancing, Left And Right Glancing

By

A Grammy-nominated, Dove Award-winning musician (formerly with Sonicflood and Paul Colman Trio), Grant Norsworthy is also the founder, owner, content developer and principal instructor for More Than Music Mentor, providing online and on-site training to equip church singers, instrumentalists and technicians for artistic excellence and authentic worship.

In this captivating podcast episode, we talk about why Grant wants to use music to connect with people more than he wants to just play cool music that interests himself. He deconstructs the word “worship” for us, and reminds us of a larger definition for the idea (Romans 12:1-2, James 1:26-27 ). This larger meaning impacts our lives most directly offstage, but also informs our music in very significant ways – how we perform it, voice it, arrange it, and even how we prepare for it.

Grant shares two overarching lessons from his time with Sonicflood:

First, music is more powerful than I ever realized, and more capable than I ever realized, at helping people connect with God…. in a way that has eternal significance.

Secondly, the act of singing songs to God in and of itself is not worship. To call us a worship band singing worship songs is actually to misuse the word worship. “To worship God” is a lot bigger than that.

Also, Grant confirms what I thought was my idea ;-), that the sound engineer is the MOST IMPORTANT member of the band.

Grant’s youtube channel is an incredible resource. For more Grant goodness follow him on Twitter @grantnorsworthy, Facebook /grantnorsworthy, visit MoreThanMusicMentor.com / GrantNorsworthy.com and check out the GrantNorsworthy/Blog.

Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and support the show by rating us and leaving a comment. Have a question? Leave a comment below or connect directly with us!

Dan Cuomo | Something’s Wrong With That Click Track

By

Dan Cuomo joins the show to share his thoughts, wisdom and experience playing rock drums, getting signed to a major label (40 Records) and touring Europe, and then deciding what’s next. Today you will find Dan playing modern worship drums in churches all over the DC/MD/VA area.

I hold Dan up as an example of exactly the kind of drummer you should see in your local church. By Dan’s own admission, he isn’t a technical drummer – which is precisely the point: you don’t need a technically trained jazz fusion drummer with intricate grooves and insane chops to sound great. Rarely do I see a situation where I think a musician needs more skills / more chops for the band or song to sound better. Rather, I often think a musician needs to better understand the essentials of what needs to be played, and needs to understand their role with respect to keeping time and creating space. Dan is your encouragement that you don’t need better players, you just need to find folks willing to play less and listen more in order to serve the song.

He must become greater; I must become less. John 3:30

For more of Dan Cuomo, find him on Facebook & Twitter, and pick up Steph Cuomo’s latest project on iTunes.

Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and support the show by rating us five stars and leaving a comment. Please leave your questions and comments below!

Season 1 Remix | Kaleidoscope Edition

By

While recording and editing the first 18 episodes of the podcast, I began to notice some of the content commented on some of the other content. I began to think how awesome it might be to hear these ideas back-to-back, remixed into a super-episode, which would demonstrate both the importance of the ideas, as well as some of the different ways they’re approached. When my amazing wife suggested I do a “kaleidoscope” edition, I poured through all 18 episodes, finding clips to put together, resulting in this fascinating overview of Season 1.  Special thanks to all my guests who shared their quality content.

If you missed Season 1 of the Building Your Band podcast, this is a great way to catch up! It is also an invitation to go back and revisit specific episodes.

I would love to hear your comments right in the Soundcloud stream or below in the comments section. For all the episodes past and future, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher!

Season 2 will be coming soon! Please contact me if you would like to be featured!

“Almighty“- Produced, Mixed & Mastered by Peter Bulanow | http://meltingearth.com

Featuring: Taylor Carson | http://taylorcarson.com
Additional Vocals:  Eileen Graham | http://eileengrahammusic.com
Cello: Michael Thomas | facebook.com/CelloMT
Bass: Aron “Teo” Lee | facebook.com/teo.lee

Special thanks to all the musicians for their collaboration, and to Dan Rebeiz (http://danieljackproductions.com) for his advice and mentorship.

Jay Smith, ‘Cathartic Worship’

By

Guitarist Jay Smith spends 45 minutes with us pretty much not talking about guitars at all. Instead we discuss worship, art, venue, and the role of music in the church. If you like discussions that go deep, you won’t want to miss this one.

To connect with Jay in DC, visit our convergence.org

“Eminent”; composed, arranged and produced by Jay Smith

If you enjoyed this episode, check out guitarist, Dan Rebeiz, and small church worship leader, Jayson D. Bradley.

Brandon Peoples, ‘Back Pew Baptist’

By

Brandon (keyboardist for Break The Fall) talks to us about his thoughts as a “Back Pew Baptist“, sitting in the rear of a church, helping with the tech program, watching, and thinking about why we’re doing a lot of the things we do in church.

This podcast all started with a thoughtful tweet (and my followup blog post / analysis called ‘Throw-away songs’):

Connect with Brandon on Twitter & Facebook.

Check out his Church (especially if you’re in Rayville, Missouri), his amazing band Break The Fall (Amazon, iTunes), and if you ever wanted to master Propellerheard Reason, check out his extensive Reason Tutorials.

God’s Great Dance Floor by Chris Tomlin (Amazon | iTunes).

Pete recommends: Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decisionmaking

If you have something you’d like to share with the church on the Building Your Band Podcast, please contact me.