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Week 8 – Ek moet swyg
“Ek moet swyg voor U heerlikheid, Ek moet swyg en U almag prys Wanneer U aan my genade bewys Ek moet swyg” This week’s song is a Christmas worship song. I had written the chorus in 2017 with the idea to use it together with Psalm 8 out of the Afrikaans hymn book (Die Liedboek). When I started writing the verses for this new song, it just fitted together so well I decided to use it here instead. The whole song talks about the world and our response to the Christmas message – darkness that has to flee before the Light of the world; nations that will bow before His…
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Week 7 – Kortpad deur die Vrystaat
There’s nothing like the long road ahead of you – kilometre after kilometre of flat farmland and time and space to think. Except if you have to dodge trucks on the N1… So, we decided to take a shortcut through the Free State this year on our way down to the coast. We even drove some dirtroad due to Google maps’ recommendation of the shortest road. Well, it turned out that the shortest road was indeed the prettiest and I really enjoyed driving through the Free State. As a little girl we always went to my grandmother’s farm just outside Edenburg and there I learned to love the Free State…
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Week 6 – Fall (instrumental)
I often sit down at the piano and improvise and never actually record these moments. I would say this is some of my most creative moments where there is no end goal or structure. Emotions can just flow into notes and melodies can evolve in whatever way they want to. This week I recorded a short improvisation session. I call this “Fall”, because it feels like the season. And of course it starts off in a minor key, my favourite colour to improvise in.
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Week 5: I will remember
This week’s song was inpired by Psalm 57:10 (Msg) that says: “I will remember every time I look up. Every cloud is a flag to your faithfulness”. I love the idea that we can look at different things in nature and it reminds us of attributes of God or what he has told us in the past. When I first got the idea for the song I wrote about a page of ideas for possible lyric angles. None of it rhymed, it was just thoughts around the topic. I then went to the piano and wrote the first verse and chorus. This was end September. For me the hardest thing…
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Week 4: The stream – instrumental
You can’t force inspiration, but you can always create an environment for it to spark in. Most of the time a song comes during a time of relaxed playing or singing when you weren’t really planning on writing anything. It is definitely a good habit to set apart some time to write, but I find it’s much better for me to rather think of it as just time to make music. This afternoon I was playing guitar and when you listen to what I wrote now, it will be obvious that I was playing some Sting songs. Guitar is not my main instrument, so the best way to learn I’ve…
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Week 3: Daar is niks
I wrote the chorus and bridge of this song back in April after 4 weeks of lockdown. I was inpired by the verse in Romans 8 that says that nothing can separate us from God’s love. It was one of those late night reflective moments that meant a lot to me personally and I played this chorus often through-out these times. I had a rough idea for a verse, but it just did not work well. I love trying to paraphrase Scripture into song, but the challenge is always making the words sound personal and not like a sermon. The melody of the verse was also a challenge since the…
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Week 2: Jakarandamat
There’s something about the rythmic footfall of jogging that creates an automatic drumbeat to compose to. And if your surroundings are beautiful it really helps with inspiration. This time of the year the Jakaranda trees transform our neighbourhood into a green and purple painting and it feels like you’re running on a purple carpet as the flowers fall down on the ground. Thanks to some lyric ideas from Carien and Rachel on our Saturday morning jog, this song was born. I had fun playing around with a drum loop in Ableton and used one of the Sundaysounds keyboard patch presets to create the idea of jogging footsteps and movement in…
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Week 1: Ek sal sing
Sometimes when you lack inspiration to write it helps to change instruments. My main instrument is the keyboard/ piano, so when I’m looking for inspiration it sometimes helps to pick up the guitar. This weekend we went away to the Bush and I grabbed my 8-year old’s Ukhelele to take with since there was no space in the car for my steel string. I only knew the few chords I’ve taught her so far, so it was lots of fun learning some new ones and playing around. This led to some chord progressions that sounded cool and a chorus for the song. Lyrically I was inspired by our churches’ online…
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The idea behind the blog
In South Africa, Lockdown in 2020 came in 5 stages. We’re finally in stage 1 which is the least severe, but the opportunity to make music has been limited. We’ve all been recording worship music for services and broadening our recording skills. At the same time it’s been an opportunity to think about what makes us tick and what we’re called to do. All the deep ponderings that we ponder when all that’s familiar has changed. I’ve realised that writings songs keep me sane, but that in the absence of people to sing them to I need some sort of goal to keep writing. And that’s where the idea for…
