The article below is from John Dotson.

How can I record audio on my computer? Have you tried using Windows Sound Recorder? Only to find that it will only record one minute of audio? We will fix that in just a bit.

One minute of audio? What were they thinking?! Beats me but, there is a work around. You will need a microphone connected to your PC. Please check your owner’s manual for the specifics for connecting one to your machine. In general the record jack on the back of your computer (front if your lucky) will be a small female plug of the same color as the male plug end on your microphone (Usually pink in color.)

These microphones often-cost as little as five dollars US in stores that carry computer supplies. Fancy microphones costing up to hundreds of dollars can be obtained and may give a somewhat better tone. But, these less expensive ones will get you started just fine.

First, find Windows Sound Recorder, it may not be easy to find. In Window XP, go to Start/ All Programs/Accessories/ Entertainment Sound recorder. Once, you have found it you can create a shortcut to your desktop by clicking your right mouse button and choosing copy. Your next step is to click on your desktop with the left button and the again with the right mouse button. Choose paste. If everything went ok you will now have a speaker shaped icon on your windows desktop.

Double-click the sound recorder icon that we just put on the desktop. A small window opens with a flat green line and menus for File – Edit – Effects – Help a green line some black arrows and a red circle.

Now that we have a microphone on our machine we need to create a template that will allow us to record more than one minute of audio. Click record (red circle) and let it run silently for 55 or so seconds or until it at the end of the line where the indicator is moving. Click stop, press record again, keep doing this until you have a silent recording of about 3 minutes of length, this is your template. Go to File Menu and select Save as . Save your file as Template. If you have a microphone already you may have recorded 3 minutes of your local weather from the TV! That’s ok. Save your 3 minutes of whatever to the desktop.

Finally, save your work with a name appropriate to your song. Now, you have your 3 minutes of mono for use on your machine…

If you want to put your sound files on a CD you need to start the Windows Recorder with a format quality of 44,000 Hz and 16 bit stereo and you’ll end up with approx. a 40 Mb file for each track. You can then record them onto a CD. The large size of the .wav files on a CD is why you can only get around 21 songs per CD. Always set up Windows Recorder Audio Properties before you begin your session and as appropriate to your use. IE: set up the recorder to 44,000 Hz (Hertz) when you are ready to make a final recording for creating a CD. I hope this will help you to make quality recordings without fancy and expensive software.

Good luck and make beautiful music!

Over 100 songs were submitted for the Worship Contest… Songs for an Awesome God.  Every song written is precious in God’s eyes. It’s been a joy for me to hear all the submissions. It made me cry thinking that these are just the songs in English. How pleased God must be to hear new worship songs sung in so many different languages!

Several beautiful worship songs are now posted at the site for you to hear for both age categories. Here’s a comment from one of the adult songwriters.

Went to the site… Good job! I listened… I am humbled. I’m thinking about voting for someone else. Wow… what a wonderful collection of worship and worshippers!"

Both categories are accessible from – www.worshipguitarclass.com/contest.html

I was particularly impressed with all the Kids that wrote songs. There were 21 submissions in this category. Nine are on the site. I know you’ll be blessed too, just hearing worship from the heart of a child or teenager!

The specific URL’s are:

Age 17 and younger –  http://worshipguitarclass.com/sep-2006kids.html
Age 18 and older – http://worshipguitarclass.com/sep-2006.html

This is the first article since announcing the Worship Contest that deals with writing worship songs. Before you start to write your song, you need to know what you want to say. For the contest, one of the requirements is that you must back up some of your words with a least one Scripture verse.

You may take a verse and sing it. That works. I did that for Psalm 67 in my Friends of the Heart CD. It’s literally Scripture. God’s Word is Active and Alive. It’s good to meditate on it. In a Bible Class I took years ago, they told us to pick a verse and find 30 truths or applications. My verse was Jeremiah 9:23-24

Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.

The first ones were easy to see. We are not supposed to boast. It got harder finding the numbers 25 – 30, but it hit me what God didn’t say. He didn’t say we should boast about His wisdom, His power and His riches which He possesses to the ultimate. No, instead He says to boast about His Lovingkindness, his righteous attributes and to boast that we know Him.

How do we know Him? Take a real good look at Jesus in the New Testament. You now know God. Jesus said if we have seen Him, then we have seen the Father. He said as we abide in Him and His Word abides in us then we can ask whatever we wish and it will be done. (We will desire for God’s will to be done!)

Last week, I sat down and wrote this song based on that passage in Jeremiah and on the observations I saw. I wanted to make the song easy, so it starts in the key of D with the I, IV & V (D, G & A7). This is covered in my Worship Guitar Class DVD volume 2. When you sign up for the Newsletter, you receive an e-book of common chords and the I, IV and V are there too.

Songs often have a chorus which repeats after verses. An easy format could be Chorus, verse 1, Chorus, verse 1 ,etc. For the verses I added a few other chords in the Key of D, this is from that free e-book.

To get on the Newsletter list, visit WorshipGuitarClass.com.  Maybe later I can get a signup box in this blog too.