Monday, June 28, 2004

Highlights of a great day off--

--the family trip to Opry Mills Mall. We met Kiki's mom and dad there (uncle Sonny and aunt Joye) for lunch. We bough some birthday items and Maddie and Ella rode the fun rides.

--I got to go see a Monday movie. I saw Dodgeball. Pretty funny. I love Ben Stiller. I mean, who couldn't admire the man who ACTUALLY MARRIED Marsha Brady??!!

--Watching Beauty and the Beast with my girls

--A wonderful dinner--Shrimp and stuff--with our friend Amanda Brooks McKinney.

We are making plans for the big birthday celebration this weekend for Maddie. She will be 3 on Monday but we're having a Hawaiian Luau for her and her buddies this Saturday.

I got another draft of the rough mixes. They're sounding better and better. I still love Blessed Be--my very favorite! I am just so relieved that the recording part is over. Now we just have to get through mixing and mastering and we'll be home free! YEEE HAWWW! It's time to celebrate!

Amy Westerman, who sings alto in ZOE, posted a really sweet blog today on her site. Check it out at http://amywesterman.blogspot.com/
The thing Amy left off was that she is one of the spiritual compasses of the group. Amy has the gift of discernment and prayer. I love to hear her pray. I am thankful for her godly presence. She's also pretty hilarious. It's so fun to be family--to laugh together, squabble, pray, cry, worship, care for, and love each other. God is so good!

2 comments:

Dwiggy444 said...

Hey Brandon -

I've been lurking here for a while but couldn't resist commenting on today's entry, so I guess it's time to come out of the shadows... :-)

- Dodgeball, eh? I also saw Dodgeball a couple days ago and enjoyed it. I loved Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn's work and especially liked all the 'bizarro world' humor (the woman's unicorn hobby, the pirate, White Goodman's decoratng style, etc). My only problem with this movie (and this is a problem I have with many movies I like) - I probably can't recommend this movie to many of my friends from church because of the enormous amount of bad language and 'potty humor'. Is this a problem for you too?

- I'm very excited to hear the new Zoe album. I got my hands on a copy of Clarissa's arrangement of Blessed Be Your Name and it ROCKS! I introduced it to my praise team last night and they are also digging it (I think). But two questions:

* Do you guys have trouble with the extremely low pitching of the verse? That low A kinda hurts me... and my altos are dying. :-)

* How do you end the song? The arrangement I have isn't really clear and seems to just 'stop'.

Thanks for all you do Brandon. This blog, like everything else I've seen and heard from you, is very well done and is great testimony about the Christian life. Can't wait to see you and all the Zoe folks in Nashville.

Keep on keepin' on!

Clarissa said...

Dwight -- just so you'll know, I chose to stop it that way because Greg wanted it in the same order as the Tree63 recording, to the best of my understanding. I know it seems kind of abrupt, but there are many different ways you could handle that, including tempo, dynamics, leading in to another song, or perhaps resolving to a one chord if you're uncomfortable ending on the IV chord. Whatever. Don't know what ZOE did with it yet, though.
Plus, you could always pitch it differently! And, I don't know if you've gotten your hands on the Finale file or a printed version, but it's easy to make Finale change the key to your liking. Email me if I can help.