Idea: Open Christian Music Project

[micah]

Hi,

(I debated putting this in The Petra Zone or off-topic, but with Petra's retirement I think it's somewhat more on-topic here.)

It's been on my heart a lot lately to 1) have more Christian music with seriously in-depth Bible-teaching lyrics, and 2) have more Christian music (worship and otherwise) that is free of copyright restrictions for those who simply want to use it to praise God.

You may be familiar with the idea of Open Source Software -- software which is usually writen by a community of interested people, and is available free to the public, including its source code so anyone can learn from it. I got to thinking, "why not try something like that with Christian music?"

I don't think it is "bad" per se that modern worship leaders make a living from what they're doing, but it disturbs me that legally you can't play hardly any modern song without owing someone something. It also (legally if not practically) places a few hurdles upon widespread distribution, if the point is to get it to as many people as possible. It just seems to me that this takes a little bit out of the worship experience.

I also think there are a lot of Christian "lay-people" out there that occasionally write songs, or have ideas for songs but don't know how to write them, and have no intentions of any kind of profit. How about a place for those people to gather together and see what they can put out?

I am envisioning a Wiki-type system. If you don't know what a Wiki is, for one, think Wikipedia. It is a place where any member can add and edit content, and it keeps track of all the changes. When someone has a song idea, he can start a Wiki topic with some sample lyrics. Others can improve it. Eventually, a consensus could (hopefully) be reached on the version to release.

The idea is that songs produced in this manner are not public domain, but could freely be performed and recorded by anyone. It would have a fairly strict focus on 1) praise & worship songs, and 2) general Christian songs that teach Biblical truth in an entertaining way.

So, I'm just wondering what people think of this. Would it be possible to get a large community of Christians to contribute songs to it?

If people think the idea is good, I could set the thing up and host it. The resources are available.

Thanks for any thoughts!

[brent]

It's a good idea in theory. But the fact is, and guys that do only praise and para church music publishing like Rick Cua will tell you that there is more cheese music and cheese writers than there is good.

There are already numerous "share ware" sites for church music. You would be re-inventing the wheel. In the USA, it is always a good idea to copyright material. It is always a good idea to cover your behind. Consider a crooked person taking a free song, and making a hit with it. The songwriter should be credited and paid. What if someone church keeps singing and reproducing the praise teams lyrics and charts, putting the lyrics on IMAG screens after the song hits. That church is lawsuit material.

It's too spooky for me.

Churches already pay a blanket license fee. The fee is not a sliding scale. The worries are a moot IMO.

[adrinux]

My band is recording an album. the songs are done (great songs )
but they are with no lyrics. that is the hard thing. It's not easy to write good lyrics. lyrics that speak to the hearing one.
honestly.....If a wrote a good lyric I would not distribute it freely. I would record it and have all copyrights of it because if it ever make sucess I would be famous ( it's not that I want it to) and if any artist wish record it, he would have to pay me.

I just think that writing songs is a hard thing to do and you shoud not distribute it freely.

that's what I think about it.

[crossways]

micah,

I hear and understand what all of these guys are saying. and I don't disagree.

However, If what you are proposing isn't costlyor too time consuming for you, then I say do it and see what happens. The songs built on this site might never be used by anyone but us and that would be great. Maybe one of us would take a "cheesy" song that all of his friends and petheads helped with and use it in church or at home. That would be awesome - who cares if would be radio-worthy.

The Palms say to creat new music. Jesus told us to pray, not with flowery, long diatribes, but instead to speak to God plainly and from OUR hearts.

I think more people should write their own worship music, because then it will be "more than a song in itself". It will be their own words of praise and adoration.

So I say that if your intent is to get people praising God through music on a more personal level then DO IT!

I think it's great!

[crossways]

adrinux,
I write the lyrics for my band, and I think I do a fairly good job. Often I use lyrics that have going for someone elses song and think "why did I give them those lyrics?" However what happens to me is that I get very motivated and creative and come up with a better set of lyrics.

I think the more you write the better it gets.

[Preacherman777]

It's not a bad idea, but it seems to me that you would have to protect the songs somehow in order to keep them free. I mean if they were just out there for anyone with no protections of any kind, what would keep someone from coming in and taking a song and putting a copyright on it themselves? Suddenly the song is no longer free.

Still, I will say this, I am a song writer and I would be willing to contribute to such an effort, if there was a way to ensure the songs would stay free.

[brent]

Let me clarify something. I did not mean for someone to take cheesy to mean non radio quality. There is plenty of cheese on the radio. I don't see how radio came into play. When I mentioned Cua, it was in the context of the conversation. He is publishing church prasie and worship music, not producing radio programming. I meant cheesy to mean sucky. If you put a sucky song in front of your people, even with the best musicianship, it will tank. Not only must the song come from your heart, but is should come from the heart of God, and be something that the people can sing with knowledge and authority.

However, I know that many praise songs make liars out of people and are scripturally incorrect. I was working in a conservative Baptist church, while they were singing a Pentecostal/Charasmatic song about lifting holy hands, and dancing right now, yet they were prune faced and stationary. Days of Elijah was rock and roll for these people.

Because I have seen that often, I am for writing your own stuff. I am the head audio engineer at Church of the Resurrection, Leawood, KS. We have 13,000 members, and a great music program. From what I understand, it is much cheaper for them to write and compose music for special occassions in house. So they actually hire composers to do ministry and event specific music for the band, orchestra and choirs. The people dig it, because they know that the music, drama, video, audio and stage sets are all original ideas born out of the church.

Some of you guys have small churches with different needs. You are in a great position, because you can be plyable, and turn with the moving of the Holy Spirit faster as a corporate worship group. So writing music should be done I think. I just wouldn't rely on the web based idea, because there are many crooks in ministry. Cover your rears. You have no idea who might be contributing a copyright protected tune or lyric. Who is going to do the research? This will be daunting endeavor IMO.

As for the radio praise and worship. The reason that some of us don't dig it may because of our spiritual health and/or relationship with Christ. It may seem like a milky song. But if we study the radio praise and worship, you will find that it appeals to more people than something wordy from scripture. Why? The global church is inifantile. So, they will like the simple things.

My point I guess is that there are very few people that can write a Mercy Me song. It takes that type of person, and a good producer and composer that can polish it off, and make it great. That song, like many others will get old (it is for me, because I mixed them in 98 and heard it then). Yet, while some people leave it behind, someone else will come along and have a new revelation of God's greatness as a result of it. So, if not everyone can right a great milky song, how much more difficult would it be to write a deeper song that appeals to the masses?

Keep it simple. Let it be born out of your individual needs and direction. Don't preach. That's not your job. You are a facilitator. Find out where your people are, where they need to go, and sing about who can get you there. Let the pastor lead the way. He is the local shepard. Thats my two cents.

Our church is having a Leadership Institute in September. We will cover all of the technical and ministerial aspects of ministry. Go to our site for more information.

www.cor.org

[micah]

For the record, I'm not saying that produced songs should necessarily be public domain material (although maybe they could be as long as there is a way to prove that it was in the PD before some bozo tried to copyright it). I'm thinking sort of a Creative Commons type copyright/license. Sort of like the GNU General Public License is to software.

As for covering our rears, I think it is important to make any contributors sign something saying that all their contributions are either their own personal material or known to be in the public domain. They would need to legally accept responsibility for that. I'm not a lawyer, but I think it's a reasonably common practice.

Adrinux, your answer is rather surprising since you use Linux! I would expect a Free Software person to be more interested in this! Of course, it doesn't mean you have to contribute.

So I say that if your intent is to get people praising God through music on a more personal level then DO IT!

Yes, I think that's a significant part of the goal.

I think a very good "sub-project" of this would be to write a song based on each of the 150 Psalms. I've heard it said that the Church was most victorious when it used the Psalms as regular praise/prayer material, and I don't disagree. Obviously that would require a lot of people and/or time.

[micah]

Oh, and...

but they are with no lyrics. that is the hard thing. It's not easy to write good lyrics. lyrics that speak to the hearing one.

Yeah. I think I've had some fairly good ideas and some good lyrics, but I haven't filled them all in yet. Hopefully the distributed nature of this would let other inspired people fill some of them in.

I just think that writing songs is a hard thing to do and you shoud not distribute it freely.

Well, I bet you're glad Linus Torvalds didn't think like that.

[callbeyond]

Micah...good idea....BUT....what about taking it a step further and just create your own label. Go after artists and musicians that really have something to say, and a genuine heart for God and worship and get thier music out there. Submit singles to churches and see about concerts and worship events. That is what I want to do, to help other young worship leaders write and lead people in worship. I have vision of HUGE worship events that are strictly for lifting up God, not the artist.

I see what you are wanting to do, but possibly transition it into something that will get people involved such as churches and venues that are more geared towards praise and worship. That's where it's all gonna end up anyway. We were made to worship, and worship unlocks the door to everything that we desire from God.

[adrinux]

Yeah micah. I'm glad that Linus doesn't think like me.
But he is very inteligent and He likes to do it.
He got talent in doing his perfect kernel!!!!
If I had talent in writing lyrics I would distribute them to everyone who wanted it.