AFC Speaks

This is a great workshop which includes both spiritual and skill training for Christian song writing. Most importantly, it reminds us the purpose of writing songs for God in the beginning before diving into the technical skills.

On the other hand, I don't agree with the speaker's comment about "榮美恩主". I think the song's contents do fit the title and can tell people that our God is not that simple. I think it's a very good song because it mentions God's 創造 and 救贖 in the chorus and can bring people to the heart of worship. Anyway, this is just my opinion and I believe it's quite a subjective statement by itself.

The speaker also implies that we should write songs other than the "praise and worship" style since there are already many of those songs exist. I do think he has a good point, but I don't agree with him completely.

I do believe all meaningful Christian songs were inspired by God and the bible tells us to keep writing new songs to praise God because God likes us to do so. I believe that's the sole reason why there are lots of "praise and worship" songs, not that it's easier for people to write them.

I said I do think the speaker has a good point about writing more songs other than "praise and worship" (e.g. more people oriented, confession, healing, encouragement...etc) because the bible does tells us to love God and to love the other people.

Again, thanks for providing such a good workshop and may God continue to bless your ministry!

Thank you minifroggie for the comment and encouragement. Appreciate.

One thing to clarify:
I agree that we need to write new praise songs. Just that when we write praise song, are we just duplicating existing songs? I think by new songs it means finding new ways to praise God, not just a new melody with the old content. We should be creative in updating our language.

Oh, one more thing, about 榮美恩主. I actually know Charles (the writer of the song) and had expressed to him my comments about the song. So I'm not criticizing behind him ;-P

You are right, we should always try to pray and find new ways to praise our God. However, when God inspires us to write non-creative but meaningful contents to praise Him, we should not refrain from doing so.

I mean, there's no doubt we should always try to be as creative as possible to reflect that our God is a creative God. On the other hand, we also need to be aware that being creative is not the main goal when we write songs for God.

The most important thing is(like you have said) that we need to write songs to worship God in spirit and in truth, and secondly and technically, the lyric should fit the melody good enough to make it a song.

Having said this, I want to disagee with your comment about the "As the Deer" too. Hope you don't mind. I think it's ok to alter the melody a bit to fit the lyric if both the melody writer and the lyric writer agree to do so after communication. I would also like to encourage melody writers to be more linient if a better message can be expressed with just a few note changed. After all, our main and common goal is to glory God.

However, I am not trying to encourage people to steal or change other people's songs. My point is to encourage people to communicate with the original writer to find out the possibility.

I know a Christian brother from another church who also has a gift of song writing. He had translated quite a lot English songs while writing many of his own. Personally, I believe he did all this to glory God, not to show off his talent. If you like, you can check out his simple website at: http://www.sarmgut.com/songs/

After writing all the disagreements, I feel the need to clarify my intention. I really think you are an outstanding servant of God and have been using your gifts to bless many people(especially the new generation) arround you. I do admire you to have many God-given gifts that I don't have. I am happy for you though. ^o^ So, my intention of doing all this is just to present a different perspective, and may God make all things work togather to make it good for all of us(Roman 8:28).

I have no doubt about your good intention =->

I agree with you that music writer and lyricist should be in collaboration in creating a song. I strong believe that it should be an interactive process, lyricists influencing the melody, and melody influencing the lyrics, and changes should be made along the way. That's also why I said it is much easier to write both at the same time by the same person.

However, in the case of translating lyrics, we usually do not have the luxury to interact with the original composer. In that case, lyricist should strictly follow the original score. I think it is disrespectful to alter other people's melody without the consent of the original composer.

I used to translate a lot of English praise song too (including As The Deer =-P ) and I understand how difficult it is. But as an artist, I believe that we should set our base line not for our comfort but as a challenge.

Alan, you are right. I agree it is disrespectful to alter and use other people's melody without the consent of the original composer. That's why I want to encourage people to actively contact the original composer to find out the possibility.

Again, from a different perspective, I would like to encourage all Christian song writers to be more flexible when other people contact you to translate your songs. Strictly speaking, we don't really own the songs, we are God's stewards for His songs. If a meaningful Christian song can be translated into more language with trivial note changed, we should be glad about it because we know that more people are being blessed through God's messages.

Yes, from a spiritual perspective, we do not own the songs.
That's why at AFC here we freely let people use the songs that we created. They just need to contact us and register, and they can use our songs in gatherings and we never charge for usage fee. Sometimes we even send music scores to them. But then there are also Christians who do not respect the system and will use your song without even notifying you. It takes a lot of effort to educate the church about respecting copyright.

That's very true. I think all Christians need to have more education about copyright issues and the importance of supporting the Christian music ministry (both financially and in prayers).

In an ideal perspective, I think Christian music should be as easily assessible as the general Christian messages so that God's words can penetrate into every level of our society more efficiently. I mean, we don't really need a strict copyright system to hinder people (especially non-Christians) to get access to God's words although we need it to protect the original credits and contents.

I accidentally came across this blog and found my website mentioned. Thanks minfroggie (though I don't know who you actually are with this log in name:p)

I'd like to share with you that the translations on my website - "Here I am to Worship" and "Above All" are official cantonese translations. Other 6-7 Hillsongs are translated with permission. I am also trying to "officialize" other translations so that the original owner of the song won't feel being stolen from me. At the end, the lyrics copyright will be given back to the owner.

Translating in Cantonese is actually a lot of creativity and fun involved, because of our intonation. I do not mind that the song is not written by a Cantonese writer, because in God's Kingdom, there's only ONE people. I hope good songs by other Christian writers can be shared and passed along.

Thanks for posting the workshop mp3.