Worship Guitar Class Blog

Christian Guitar Lessons Blog

How to have a Worship Party

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There are several references to feasts and banquets in Scripture. One of my favorite parties, this side of heaven, is a Worship Party. I’ve hosted two kinds of worship parties: one where I and friends lead worship and one for guitar students to lead worship.

For the personal parties, we start with a potluck dinner, then end the evening with worship and prayer. I like potlucks because if doesn’t matter if 7 people show or 50 people. There’s always enough food.

Sometimes I print up some of the words to songs so quests unfamiliar with the lyrics can sing along. Every party is different. Several of us participate in leading worship. We take turns leading songs and sharing original songs too.

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Instrument of Praise video

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Instrument of Praise video

Instrument of Praise by Jean Welles

When this blog was first launched, you guys helped me name this song. It’s now one of the songs I’m teaching in Worship Guitar Class DVD 4. Most of the songs in the series are familiar worship songs. In DVD 3, I introduced one of my songs called ‘Gentle Rain.’ It was so precious when a number of you emailed me that it was your favorite song on the DVD and how much you enjoyed playing it!

DVD 4 has 3 of my songs. It also has ‘Open the eyes of my Heart,’ "At the Cross,’ and ‘Shout to the Lord.’ All great songs! What a Great God we have! It says in Scripture that there aren’t enough books in the world to contain all the works that Jesus did. Well, there aren’t enough songs to clearly express how Wonderful and Holy our God is.

I suspect, we will continue to sing new songs in His presence when we are in our Real Home. Meanwhile, we can try to express His Love with the finite minds we have. Hope you are writing new songs too. It’s one way we can try to express our gratitude to Him.

How to make MP3 Files

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If you have a Mac Computer it’s very easy using iTunes. Drag your music into the iTunes window. It accepts several different file types – ACC, aiff and wav files. On the far left top of your screen click ‘tTunes.’ Scroll down and choose ‘Preferences.’ In the preferences window click ‘Advanced.’

You’ll see three option ‘General,’ Importing’ and ‘Burning.’ Choose ‘Importing’ and in the pop up window under ‘Import Using’ choose ‘MP3 Encoder’ and click ‘OK.’ ITunes is now set up to make MP3 files. Back in the main iTunes window, just highlight your song and choose the ‘Advanced’ Menu on the top of your computer and scroll down to ‘Convert Selection to MP3.’ It’s will covert your file.

To find the file look in your iTunes folder or do a search for the name. You can also drag it from the main menu of iTunes onto your desktop. The MP3 file will appear right below the original one.

I’m not so familiar with PC’s and have asked John Dodson to help you for that format. John’s article is below:

Awhile back I wrote an article on how to use the sound recorder to create and save .wav files. I chose that program because the process is easy for the beginner to understand. Now, it is time to move on to a more challenging and rewarding platform. We are going to explore how to use a program called Audacity to import .wav and save to the Mp3 format.

I wish that I could say that converting a .wav file to mp3 is simple. It isn’t but, it doesn’t take a Harvard education either. So, I will walk you through the steps for finding the free program and the library routine you need to have installed on your computer.

First download and save each of these files:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/latest/audacity-win/audacity-win-1.2.6.exe

http://www.webhostxpress.net/%7Emitiok/lame-3.96.1.zip

Put them on your desktop for now.

When you have both files , left click twice on the audacity-win-1.2.6.exe icon sitting on your desktop. The program=s installer will run and prompt you to click whether you accept the licence agreement or not, read it and then select yes. Continue to answer the prompts until the program is installed. Mostly all you need to do is click NEXT.

LAME MP3 encoder – Allows Audacity to export MP3 files.

Next, click on the lame-3.96.1.zip icon Your de-encryption program will start (I use WinZip). I “extract” these files by selecting “Extract” and give it “Desktop” as the destination.

Finally, shake out your aching arms, take a deep breath and…

1.)Relax.  The hard part is done.
2.)Click on your icon for the audacity program if it is not currently running.
3.)The first time you use the “Export as MP3” command.  Audacity will ask you where lame_enc.dll is saved. In this case it is the desktop.
4.)Find a .wav file somewhere on your hard drive and put it on the desktop for the sake of convenience. You may also use the built in Sound Recorder to make a quick “demo” file and save it to the desktop.
5.)In Audacity, select File/open and then browse for the “demo” .wav file you have selected or created.
6.)File/ export as MP3. The first time you attempt to export to Mp3 you will be asked to locate the lame-enc.dll. A pop up window will help you do this step, just remember where you extracted the Lame file to and select that location. Click OK.
7.)Yet another window will popup and ask for information. You will not need to provide anything more than your file name unless you want to do so. Click ok when done.
8.)You will now have a Mp3 saved to your desktop.

Did you notice all the features of Audacity? Yep, that’s correct you don’t have to use the MicroSoft Sound Recorder anymore. Audacity has all of the features of the Sound Recorder and more. You can save in .wav format or export directly to .wav! Play around with these new features and you will soon have some very professional sounding results.

In a  future article if the demand is there I will tell you how to enhance Audacity with new features and special effects. Until then, peace and God Bless. (by John Dodson)

Recording to PC

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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!