A unique mix of music and lyrics from all over: the music is a bit of Elliott Smith , Guster, Eddie from Ohio, Toad the Wet Sprocket and some roots-Americana-pop in the Tom Petty/Tracy Chapman/Neil Young vein. The Lyrics: a mix of original and historical (and by that I mean anything in the public domain, ranging from 500 AD to the late 1800's). The genre is mainly acoustic folk-pop, with lots of hand drums, violin, recorders, keys, piano, and a mix of a few other things. There are also several original 'classical' pieces.
The songs suggest various moods, from joy to sadness, longing to resolution, introspective doubt to outspoken faith.
The CD's were recorded both at the church in a 'studio setting' and during the worship services (thus the names on the disc). Please note, they are mixed media - so if you pop one into a PC it will bring up a web page with information, credits, charts of the songs, and liturgies from Sunday services. You can play the CD with any media player on your PC, and it works fine in any CD player.
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This CD is a picture of a community - filled with diverse, broken, humbled people bound by faith and grace to our savior Jesus. What you hear is an effort to put words and tunes to the love we find growing in our hearts, for the Father, for one another, and for the city of Seattle. At Green Lake we have tried to let our worship encompass the whole of our lives - on this disc you will hear prayers, cries, and songs from our worship. Our liturgy strives to bring out both the eternal and the immediate, the historical and the contemporary of the Bride of Christ, the church. There are words and texts from hundreds of years ago, and from the last few years. The music is, for the most part, contemporary - a way to allow us to sing of the great love of God in our everyday language and culture. It is an effort to give this community, and this city, a voice with which to praise God. Most of the music was recorded live over the past year, during the worship service, and mixed afterwards. So we present these recordings as just that, a record of the worship of God at Green Lake.
Disc 1: Wednesday: Rehearsal These tracks were done at a recording session in the permanent facility the church owns on Linden Avenue in Seattle. We thought it was appropriate to set these recordings aside since they have a more 'prepared' feel about them.
Disc 2: Sunday: Worship These are the tracks that were recorded live during our worship at Ballard High School. The only exceptions are the vocal ensemble pieces, which were recorded live at our Linden Ave. facility. We felt these belonged here, since the ensemble is an integral part of the worship experience. They are presented here much as you hear them in the worship service, interspersed within the other music and prayers. All of the music you hear is what it was that morning, with all the noises, cries, prayers and feedback.
There are a great many resources on these CD's. We have tried to give as much information about who we are and what we do in our worship - put either of these CD's in any computer and you will find our liturgies, our music, information about the people on the record, and more.
Green Lake Presbyterian Church strives for excellence in it's worship, and we believe a blended approach more accurately reflects both the historical and contemporary, the transcendence and immanence of the triune God. We follow a liturgical structure taken from several different sources,
The Recordings:
For those of you with a degree of curiosity, we relay the following information - please don't laugh too hard!
All the recordings were done with a pair of Alesis ADAT XTs, with a few AKG C1000s and some other miscellaneous microphones.
Disc 1 was recorded initially in December 2000 at the Green Lake Permanent facility, with additional recordings done by Nathan and Rick in their respective basements or the church facility. Most of them were mixed on a pair of headphones, with the only effects available being a Boss delay pedal and an Alesis 3630 compressor.
Disc 2 was all captured during worship services over the course of a year, which is why in many of the recordings you will hear a good bit of background noise (our thanks to the children of Green Lake for lending their voices to the odd quiet passage here and there). For about 98% of these recordings we did no additional overdubs - not because they didn't need it (many of them did) but simply due to not having enough time. Give the fact that this disc is mostly for the 'family', the odd note or rhythm was put up with simply so we could get the music into the hands of people asking for it. Where there was a good take, or something unique about a recording, but we felt it needed additional work we fixed it mainly so it wouldn't be a distraction. These recordings were mixed in various stages at Rick's basement and the Green Lake facility. We were able to expand our effects a bit by using the sanctuary and the bathrooms as echo chambers (we got a few odd looks with that one), and finally we were able to secure a Yamaha Promix 01v for several of the tunes.
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