My grandfather

At the morning service today we sang "Mi padre (My father)". We were in the church in Malvarosa and the pastor was talking about how God comes to us as a father. So my song fit very well in the service.

Again Thorine and Stella played the flute, and this time I also played the drums with the worship team. Always new challenges! :)

A couple of days ago we were at the house of some friends, and there David mentioned he was encouraged to see God as his father, not his grandfather. That is so true. A grandfather is usually somebody that comes in and out of your life's situations, but a father is involved in everything you do (in one way or another). You can love your grandfather, but he is not as close to you as your father. God wants to be your father.

"When I live my life against your will
You tell me that you love me still"

Mas canciones

Yesterday was a day of composing. From morning until evening we were more than 20 people in the church on Quartz street, who composed new songs and worked with old ideas. I think it's so cool to meet people who want to write new songs for european gospel choirs. Some of the people who were there yesterday were new to composing, but other people have written many songs, and I have heard songs that I hope will travel around the world. The best thing, if you ask me, about the spanish composers is the desire to glorify God in music. In my home country many great christian composers are tired of church music, and don't know how to find words to make worship songs fresh again. I think we have a lot to learn from spanish composers!

Dunka Dunka

"Dunka Dunka" music is what old swedish people call the music of the young that they don't understand. My problem is that nobody understands my taste in music. When I was a kid we could not listen to my "Dunka Dunka" music in the car because it was "disturbing". Now, when we drive around in Spain, my own kids don't want to listen to dad's "Dunka Dunka" music, because it's "disturbing". Is it just me or are we a generation who have to use headphones if we want to listen to our favorite music, so that the older or the younger people don't complain?

Worship

I have lead worship in christian fellowships only a few times. It is something I love to do, but I am not sure if it is my gift. Most of the songs I write are songs about life, which of course includes God a lot, but only a few of my songs are songs of worship. For me it is easy to direct a choir or an ensemble of different musicians or even an orchestra, but to be the worship leader in a church I think I still have a lot to learn. Maybe it will come to me soon?

Tonight I practised worship songs with my friends in Malvarsoa, and I felt really good to be a part of it. I will also join their praise team at the service on Sunday, but Ruben will lead the group, which he is very good at!

Minutes

In Santo Domingo, our little "pueblo", there is a school where the students get their education in english. Our friend Alina works there, and today she had invited me to speak to one of her classes. I just took a walk down the hill, and came into a school which is very different from Karolinska skolan, where I work in Sweden. But I think I was able to communicate with the 14 year-olds that I met today. I spoke about why I work with music. Then I also taught them "Minutes" and explained the idea of that song. I will have another class on friday and I hope it will be just as fun!

Oh happy day

Our friend Sara is always invited to sing wherever she comes, and now the people of Valencia also know her voice. Or at least the people of Coro Gloria. Sara teamed up with the choir and did some good old gospel. "Oh happy day" of course, but also "He's got the whole world", my arrangement that Sara does the solo part for on the Joybells CD. We also tried to remember Jericho, and got a lot of help from Eva who turned the song into a nice duett with Sara. I just enjoyed listening.

Quiremos dar te gloria

We wrote a new song today. I had my first composition workshop with Coro Gloria today, and in a few minutes we had the basic idea for a new song. It was only a small part of a song, but it was fun to see what we could do with it.

I tried to present some things that I believe are important when you compose music. It was a lot of interesting questions and good thoughts about how to compose from the other singers and musicians. On saturday we will meet again to spend the whole day together composing. Maybe there are some complete new songs after that?