Encouragments for Songwriters

If you care about church music, go here to read some great thoughts by Fernando Ortega on writing timeless, quality music to be sung by the church. Ortega's been a hero of mine for a lot of years, both in his original songwriting, and in his arranging of classic hymns. My own ideas about re-arranging and playing hymns have been influenced by him a ton.

Even if you're not a songwriter, Ortega's thoughts are well worth the read, just to get a glimpse of what goes into writing quality songs meant for congregational singing. Unfortunately, a pretty large part of the modern Church hasn't required too much of her songwriters. It's encouraging to see guys like Ortega (one example of quite a few at the present time) who are being really thoughtful and purposeful about how they write for the Church.

There's more to come on this topic - stay tuned!