Hello Nashville!

It's Sunday afternoon. The birds are chirping outside, preparing us for a new day of tracking! The CD is underway, and it's going to be a fun process this week as we focus on guitars, bass and drums. Chad and Elissa are nailing the guitars, and I will handle the bottom end.

Right now we're at Kent Hooper's house doing guitars. He is also mixing the project, but not yet...first thing's first! We got to pull the song together and add instruments, vocals, and probably other things as creativity sparks.

Yesterday we finished a conference called the Girls Ministry Forum at LifeWay. Downtown Nashville is a great place, but we mainly saw a few square blocks of it walking to and from our hotel to the venue. I learned so much this weekend, it almost felt as if I was attending and not leading worship. But the times of gathering for worship together were incredible. God's presence was real and tangible.

We met so many girls and adult women who had a great calling for ministry, simply normal people serving and volunteering at their church. They were all about giving - not getting. Serving is only through giving. I learned that in a fresh way from these women.

I'm so glad God gives us opportunities to grow even as we lead worship and "give" out. I enjoyed going to church with the Hicks family and just absorbing this morning. Now for some music...

Becca

A Day at the Studio

Check out some photos from our rehearsals and recording sessions at Matthew "Fallenti" Fallentine's studio! We cranked out bass and drum tracks to 3 songs, managed to have lunch at Chilis and took breaks watching funny YouTube videos (which somehow make us better musicians).

The bass cabinet was put in the bathroom, the secret to a great sounding amp. I think the tones we got were as smooth as Garnier hair products. -B

Update on the Songwriting Process

Well folks, the songs have come together. This week we start rehearsals, tracking throughout the months of February and March, and I'm excited just thinking about it. Here are some snapshots that Chad took while we co-wrote with Don (producer) at the Tipps' house here in Colorado Springs!

Do you think there are enough Apple products in this room?

Don rockin' the piano...lets face it, he plays better than me.

Thinking deeply (I look mad, but I'm really not!)

Stay tuned! :) - Becca

Monday Morning Songs

How does a song come about? Every song has a different way of arriving. The most important thing is that a song begins with inspiration and that we let the inspiration ride as far as it can go.

Today, Becca came over to my house with the purpose of polishing up a couple songs for the new album. It was majorly cold outside. Everyone says we are expecting a blizzard, but so far just a few flakes of snow have shown up. This is good songwriting weather.

We gathered in my little home office. Okay, not much inspiration here besides the Compassion International calendar I have hanging and my iTunes folder. I have demos of all the songs in progress and we listened through a couple times. Becca suggested we write a bridge for this song which is currently called “In You Alone”. With the theme of the song in mind, the bridge needed to communicate something that the rest of the song wasn’t already saying... Something that maybe we haven’t said yet in any of the other songs for this upcoming album... Or even the album before! Here is where a lot of songwriters hit a wall. It has to be something new! Well, thankfully, something new came. It was new for me. I can’t tell you what it was exactly in this blog, but I wanted to sing it over and over again. This is a good sign.

Becca was jamming on the guitar, changing the chords around a few times. I was interjecting thoughts. How about... No, what about... Thankfully, we are the kind of sisters who can handle each other interrupting and tossing thoughts right and left. This is a creative process we have down! I sang the melody and Becca brought a sweet harmony that engaged the lyrics.

What fun we are having! Becca and I haven’t always written together. I used to be a solo songwriter, but now I’m much happier writing with someone so I can bounce ideas back and forth.

More songwriting will happen on Wednesday or Thursday I imagine. That is, if we don’t get that blizzard everyone is talking about.

-Elissa

(the pic above is from our time with our Producer, Don K., songwriting for the new album a few weeks ago!)