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Manna: New co-writing project released
In 2018/ 2019 I got involved in a songwriting project at church. Just a couple of people who love Jesus and writing songs coming together to write. It was such an organic process of sharing what’s happening in our lives and then praying and writing together. By being part of this project a dream of mine – co-writing with other like-minded artists came true. We started recording the songs end of 2019 and the project was about 80% done when COVID hit. We continued recording from home last year and finally we had 6 songs completed by March this year. Most of March and April was consumed by getting the…
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My week attending The songwriting academy’s 555 Challenge
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Week 14: Beskermer van Israel
One of my favourite verses in the Bible is Ps 121:4 that says “Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep”. This verse has calmed my racing thoughts many times assuring me that God is in control. So many times over the past year we’ve been bombarded with scary news and I’ve felt overwhelmed many times, but time and time again God has reminded me that He is not sleeping and is still in control. This gives me immense hope. I wrote the verse and chorus a few weeks ago and just didn’t get around to recording the idea. This week I completed the song and also…
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My week attending The songwriting academy’s 555 Challenge
I did the 555 Challenge course by https://thesongwritingacademy.co.uk/ this week. It was really inspiring and breathed some fresh air into my writing. I really enjoyed to see how down to earth the presenters were even after successful hit songs for super well-known artists like Dido, LeAnn Rhimes, Westlife and the list goes on. I learned so much this week and was reminded how easily we can connect globally these days with other songwriters/ producers etc. We had daily webinars and assignments and a community page to share and comment. I would highly recommend it. Thanks to Martin and the rest of the panelists for making this course available at such…
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Manna: New co-writing project released
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Week 12: Ek sal hier wag
This week’s song is about waiting. Not something I’m good at and there’s a lot of it going around. Waiting for schools to open (they finally did this week!), waiting for vaccines, waiting for normal life to return, the list goes on. And all the time we’re waiting, God is still working in us and around us. This is a prayer about submitting to God’s timing and recognising that He is working us into His bigger picture. He is creating a symphony requiring not only my little part, but all the parts to work together for the sake of beauty. In terms of songwriting techniques, there’s quite a bit of…
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Week 11: As die virus weg is
This week I wrote a fun song with my girls about all the things we’re going to do when the virus finally goes away! We used the loops on the iPad Garageband app again and had great fun arranging our song. Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash
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Week 10 – Hier by ons (vers)
We all have songs that we love while we’re writing them and then they turn back to pumpkins when dailight comes. This week I thought I finally had a verse for a great chorus I wrote awhile ago. But, alas, in dailight they did not seem such a good match after all. One thing I have learned, though, is that no lyric or song idea ever is a waste. It might just come back to you in a co-writing session as you search for a verse or some lyrics. Sometimes you can take lyrics and just write a new melody later and suddenly it works. So, here is this week’s…
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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…
