FredMcKinnon.Com

Hey Everybody,

So we’ve just completed Day 2 of Arise, the Willow Creek Arts Conference. Overall, it’s been a blast. As I mentioned yesterday, Chris has been keeping a good stream of blog posts and pictures from the event, so rather than rehashing all the details, just check out his blog.

Today was a bit different, as we had breakout sessions all day … so our team was separated.

My first session was called “Putting Music Technology to Work In Your Church”, taught by Steve Young. I walked away extremely disappointed in this session, mostly because it was like Pre-K basic. The first hour was spent talking about the most basic of basic stuff … different types of keyboards, guitar modules, and electronic drums. I’d hoped to jump into some serious stuff about virtual synths, loops, click tracks, Ableton Live, etc … we barely scratched that stuff in the last 10 minutes of the class. It was a bummer.

The other 3 classes that I took were called “Conversations” – these were very small-group breakouts that you could choose as an alternative to the bigger classes. Each “conversations” was led by someone and there would be 5-8 people at the table, just all having a “conversation” about the topic.

“Developing Your Worship Leading” by Joe Horness (previously WC’s Worship Director for 25 years). This was a great class and we tackled some issues head-on that we’re confronting right now at SSCC.

“Building Health Relationships with your Musicians, Singers, and Tech Team” was also a great experience. We talked about ways to keep unity across your music, vocal, band, and tech team – how to empower volunteers, earn and build respect, etc. Some great insights, and well worth the time.

“The Church as Music Publisher and Record Producer” – this was taught my a long-time friend, Susan Fontaine Godwin of ChurchCA.com, and was very enjoyable. As an artist, I’m constantly trying to learn what other churches are doing to empower their songwriters, artists, and other forms or art, while protecting them (and the church) from future copyright, ownership, and liability issues.

Towards the end of Session 3 I got a direct message via Twitter from Lee McDerment, the Worship Leader at NewSpring in Anderson, SC (with Perry Noble and Tony Morgan) … “yo dawg, you in the building, I’m in the coffee shop until 3:15″. Lee and I have spoken on the phone (re: recording in church, etc) and via email several times, but it was my first chance to just hang out w/ the guy. Kudos .. he’s super cool, super humble, and 100% genuine. Glad to make that relationship … and after hearing his rock-out album, I had no clue he studied classical piano like I did!

After the final session, I headed back to the hotel where the Vendor’s Expo is happening – I made a b-line straight for the Sensaphonics booth where they had one of their audiologists on hand doing full in-ear impressions. I got full impressions made of both ears, and in 4-5 weeks I’ll some groovey silicone custom-fit sleeves for my Shure E5 IEMs. I’d had substantial surgery done in my left ear years ago, and the audiologist noticed right away, which was funny – she was like “what happened in there!”.

Chris, Travis, and Bo were in the Expo when I arrived so Chris (always with cam in hand) captured some video of that moment which I’ll post soon. In the meantime, here’s a pic he shot yesterday while we were at lunch …

Would you say we’ve drunk the Steve Jobs Kool-Aid?

More later!
Fred