Original song: “At Rest”
October 26th, 2005 by Travis Swan | Posted in New Music, Song Writing
As I stated at the end of my Picking Songs post, you can just skip the weeding out process of picking worship songs by writing your own.
Everyone has different methods of writing - when I’m by myself I tend to do the “walk around the room playing my guitar and sing random stuff” thing a little too much. Writing in community helps my productivity - I actually prefer to do the majority of my writing with other people - although too many people will just turn into a big non-productive jam session!
Methods change from song to song, but generally I start with a concept and a chord progression. I’ll often sit and do an extended study on the concept with a concordance. The song I’ve linked to at the bottom of this post started with a conversation I had with one of the pastors here - discussing believing God and being able to rest in Him, regardless of the circumstances. He suggested I look up Psalm 116. I already had a songwriting session scheduled for the day with one of my band members, so I took the chapter in, and this song ended up coming out. I especially liked verse 10, “I believed, even when I spoke, ‘I am greatly afflicted.’” That verse became the line, “even when I’m broken hearted, though in pain I still believe.” The music came quickly, as did the lyrics, and a few hours later we had a song.
Immediately after writing a song I record it. Otherwise I’ll forget it completely. I’ll just record a simple acoustic track on my computer and lay down a vocal track, not trying to be perfect or anything, just enough to get the gist of the song. Later I take the recording to the rest of the band, who then critique it, help adjust awkward parts, and come up with a whole band arrangement to introduce the entire church to.
Here’s the mp3 file of “At Rest.” Feel free to use the song however you like, the chord chart is here.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2005 at 9:37 am and is filed under New Music, Song Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Nice work, Travis. I’d love to see more original stuff from folks out there!