the $5 philanthropist

Just getting to know different people in my industry. I have not met this fellow, but I have seen him on TV and now have been linked to him recently because of his charity resource Give Meaning.com. Interesting to see his take on a few things in this video.

Happy New Year

As a rule I think our family is very representative of our demographic as it relates to Christmas activity, although we have a couple more kids then most (4). Trips everywhere. My parents, Stef's parents, seeing friends etc. Unfortunately, after a very long stretch without a break, we all got sick, three of us worse than the others, nyeesh. I think I am looking forward to being back in routine.

A year in review, that will have to come later, I haven't had time. I haven't had enough time to think about the year coming up either. The next couple weeks are going to busy charting a route for some big goals this year.

Here is one of the many top 10 lists of New Year's resolutions people are considering.

I think the big difference between achieving and not achieving resolutions is the plan. To write down some things we hope to accomplish is significantly different than implementing a plan by freeing up time, resources and money to accomplish those goals. Really, resolutions like weight loss or growing spiritually are life changes and require significant adjustments. Change is visible, if we don't do anything visible to move towards change, it won't happen.

Feeding Hungry Kids

So I generally try to separate day job and this personal/music related blog, but this is news worth sharing.

The story is actually quite long, so I will cut to the climax. One of things we have been trying to do more of at FTC Canada is partner with others to help kids here at home. We are doing this a couple of ways, but here is one of them. In partnership with the Meeting House, The Salvation Army, The Freeway, the Hamilton Dream Centre, Parkview Alliance Church, Oakridge Bible Chapel, Lakeside Church, Koinonia, Hamilton City Kidz, and Faith Baptist FTC Canada has provided for the delivery of almost 700 Christmas Food boxes by Christmas this year. Our partners above are either connecting us to, or delvering the the food boxes to those in need.

• 200 of them are going to single mom families
• 200 are going to one of, if not the poorest, neighbourhoods in Canada
• 50 are going to 16 year old orphans under government support with no families
• and all of the rest are going to families with children who are in need.

Through our partners, kids in Cambridge, Hamilton, Brampton, and Oakville will be helped.

Trying to raise awareness and support for children in Canada and around the world is not a glamorous or easy job on a day to day basis. But when initiatives come together and do good, it is very rewarding.

Merry Christmas!

Selling Music (Part 1)

If you are reading this right now, you are a part of a very small community that checks into my thoughts and goings on from time to time. Thanks for that. It ebbs and flows. I have had as many as 600-700 in a week, and as few as 300. Generally, I think it is probably the same people that make up the 400 hundred on my email list. I also assume that the majority of you own something I have produced. I have no way of knowing, I am just guessing.

I have been reading and have been challenged a lot lately about what "business" model or delivery method would be best used to sell my music. I don't have a big fan base, but ultimately it is my sales that let's me produce more and different music, something I love doing. My expensive hobby. A hobby that is a micro business and palatable for my family because it basically pays for itself. Although it is a hobby, in a way, it is also a life's passion, so I am constantly trying to figure out ways to make it less of a stress and make the producing and releasing side financially easier, and I guess in the end cheaper for my "clients" and maybe even more profitable for me.

I have outfitted myself with "a studio" in my basement, and the first release from that is my current Christmas single. It represents an electronic production (e.g. no real instruments, except some guitar) and also an electronic release (download only). I have sold some, and I am very happy with the quality. I consider it good quality independent material that lets the song and the singer show. What more can I do.

My next release is more ambitious and will be a full CD with live production (all instruments live, drums, bass, piano, guitar if any etc.) It will also be released both digitally and in CD format.

I think it is both a liberating and hard time to be a musician right now. On the one hand, I have the ability to create some very interesting and high quality material from my own studio. On the other hand, selling music has become more difficult because price points are so compressed, and the duplication of music is uncontrollable. Ah well. All you can do is try to be open, creative and hope that you will be able to create some income from the art that you create so you can keep doing more and better.

Christmas Dreaming

So the single for Christmas is out. You can hear a sample below or on my homepage, www.cliffcline.com, or click the link to the right on the sidebar. You can also purchase it for $1.50 for instant download for your iTunes etc. through the links on my homepage.

It should also be on radio as early as tomorrow on Joy 1250 in Oakville. I didn't release it as early as I wanted, but that is life, so I do not know how many more stations it will hit, next year:)

Regardless, a portion of proceeds from both radio and download purchases goes to feed children through FTC Canada. Also, I am supporting Trinity Western University with a portion as well.

Fun to give and create, Merry Christmas!

Testing a Player

Powered by Podbean.com

I am looking at adding a player to my website and was trying it here. By the way, if you like these tunes you can always buy them from cTunes on the main site!!:) Great Christmas gift non?

Christmas Single

So I have been burning it at both ends a little the last few weeks. Not only has work been busy with travel and extras, I have been pushing hard to release a digital only original Christmas Single. Not to mention two jazz gigs last weekend, the quartet and the duo.

Production on tight lines has been hard enough, but it is also my first taste of the mixing process and I have more empathy to some of the time lines put on my last producer with far more tracks and instruments to mix, for a whole CD!

Alas, I plan to send it off to mastering tonight, and then I will try to release it for digital sale and download by the end of this week. I will keep you posted.

More Studio Time

Another night in the studio, not as productive as I would have liked. It is serious crunch time for a small project. Hopefully tomorrow will produce more finishing results.

Remember Me

What an intense period of time. I have producing every minute I get a chance, but even those have been fewer than I would like. The day job took me to Vancouver, BC last week and I barely got on the plane before I fell sick. Long days mixed with sickness, then home to a funeral, then the crash for a day, then back to work. In the last couple of weeks I have been to Peterborough twice, Vancouver and London, ON twice.

Anyway, all that to say that the next week is big on many fronts so I am hoping to release some news in the next week or so. Until then....

New Things Coming

Ok I am not great at the blog, so inconsistent. The good news is time away from the blog is equating to musical output. I am hoping to reveal some great news in the next few weeks…no it is not that I have finished my CD at long last, but it is a development anyway.

Location complications prevented last Saturday’s planned piano session for the new CD, but as I mentioned it did not stop other musical creation, so all in all I feel fine. I will keep you updated in the coming days.

Trinity Western University

So I had the chance to go out with some old friends from TWU last night. It is funny how strong the bond is to your Alma mater, the memories and the people. So much personal growth and formation happens during this time, and the relationships seem to be able to withstand huge gaps of time between visits because, when positive, the original experience carries such weight in your life.

All that to say it was a great time.

On another note, it is great to be back in Burlington. It has been less than three months, but I feel like we are starting to re-integrate into life. When I came home great friends were there hanging with the family and we hung out some more. Feels like home to me. Reminds me of a song.....

Working Through Worship (Music) Part 2

It has been a long time since my first post on this subject, and a lot of songwriting and "art" creation has taken place since then. One big difference for me since that time is I have actually had the chance to visit several churches and experience some very different worship environments. It has, in fact, confirmed in me the theory that we are missing a part of the mark when it comes to creating music that reflects all of the humanity that we might, maybe should, be bringing to God in worship.



For example, there is a general lack of lament, repentance, meditative or self examinational lyric present in worship services. The actually mood of the music generally never leaves "positive" land. It IS worshipful, but it one dimensional. I think the problem here is that as we try to reach for authenticity as churches (it is a buzzword used a lot anyway) that we are not representing all that most everyone experiences with consistency. There is a need to worship the way we do, with positive, upbeat lyric, but there is also a need to mourn over the state of the world, our personal worlds and the bad stuff that is going on. Even if we are just talking about our own shortcomings as it were. I DO NOT know how to implement this. I feel that it needs to be done. Not all the time, but in balance.



More of a musing than a conclusive thought I know, but just some observations.

link to Part 1

Some Movement

The last two weeks have been pretty good as I try and balance this crazy life right now. I finally spent a good part of a weekend mixing and finished the rough mixes of the drums. That is to say I still have some "micro" editing to do, but it is a beat or bar here and there, not whole songs.

So with twelve songs feeling pretty good, it is time to start recording the piano which should begin in the next few weeks and hopefully not take too long...heard that before haven't we.

I am going to be recording on a baby Yamaha grand that my in-laws have which is sweet. I love playing it, and it sounds great. The acoustics of the room should be good as well, and the set-up of their house might actually allow me to do some interesting things if I can get my hands on enough mics.

Great Time at St. Giles

Here is a pic of me a Bryn MacPhail, Senior Minister at St. Giles Pres. in TO. Sunday morning was great. Definitely good to be in a different environment and experience liturgy done well. Had a great time hanging out as families as well after the service with some burgers and dogs.

This Weekend / Email Updates

I will be at St. Giles Presbyterian this Sunday doing solo worship music. Bryn McPhail is the Senior Pastor there and a great preacher. The service will be traditional, the sermon will be great, so come out and say hi if you are into the traditional thing. (info)

I have joined the FanBridge gang for email updates, so if you want to signup, I plan on sending one update a month to keep people informed better.

Looking for a Church (Part 2)

Have I become a consumer of church products? In our effort to find a church we have, of course, gone to several and have started to return visit to some that seemed to offer the most promise. Then..disaster strikes. A Sunday experience resembling poor (meaning distracting) production value, vacuous content, and a lack of passion and focus that was very discouraging.

Hey I was a Pastor for five years. I know it is hard to hit every time, but scale and resources should be a factor as well.

Here is the rub. When did we all become such shiny, happy people holding hands. Life IS hard, for most (ALL) people. The Jesus I know lived that same life, maybe more on the rough edge than most of us. He did not start a shiny happy church, he started a real front line church, that dealt with the pain, social strata issues, hard issues of what truth is. Truth, that word that we seem to almost believe is relative, but is in actuality for all of us anything but. I know no one for whom life is perfectly relative. There is no relative bubble. We are all humbled by an absolute at some time or another.

I guess I am looking for authenticity, a buzz word with preferences attached I suppose. I have seen it, but at this point, I still haven't found what I'm looking for - at least as it pertains to a church.

Jarry Seinfeld, Business Coach?

I am in a time where the to do list looks longer than at any other time in my life. It is astounding. I am trying to stay calm and approach it like cramming for exams in University. A thousand pages a night for eight nights straight, each night a different subject, and then, well hopefully successfully done. Back then I think procrastination had something to do with it, now a days, sheer volume and multiple pressures.

What is a guy to do?

Well, although this is a little simplistic, it reminds me of the focus that can reduce the stress associated with having mammoth tasks to complete and limited brain space to do anything but, well do just do it.

Who knew, Jerry Seinfeld - business coach.

Hey Preacher Man

So I spoke at a college today about FTC (where I work) and how one can engage in community outreach.

My approach was to give 6 perspectives on life, as it were, to help the students contextualize what they should be doing for the poor in our midst.

Perspectives:

1. The current state: over 10 million children die every year from hunger in the world
2. What is my story (baggage) that effects my perspective on this matter (Gen X)
3. What is there story (Gen Y)
4. What about a leader's perspective on addressing issues www.jimcollins.com
5. What does the Bible say?
6. The great philosopher Jerry Seinfeld's thoughts

My boss asked, "So did you preach?"

I responded, "well I think I talked about the issues and introduced them to FTC Canada."

He said, "I think you preached, I know you, you always preach." (paraphrased)

I am going to take that as a compliment:)

The Van Man (the end of the story)

So Honda did not totally disappoint. I called up head office in Canada to discover that the warranty (extended) on my van had expired, one month ago. The transmission had fried and i needed a new one.

Long story short, they agreed because of the cars good service record (I did my trany changes) and because I am a loyal Honda customer (my other car is a civic) to pay for the parts if I covered the labour. Let's just say, that gave me the acceptable good side of the deal.

The bus is back, and with four kids, we need it!

Back Home

A short little one stop tour, my specialty I suppose, to Windsor ON and back to Heritage Park Alliance Church where I visited last year. Great fun to go back to a place where you have been before. Saw most of the folk that I worked with last year and then met some more new friends.

The church itself is pretty slick in a good way, well run and the sound and lighting side of things is very strong, a great venue to play without having to fight any of those side issues. The sermon was on worship and the songs were fun to play. I had actually never played four of them. A good challenge and some nice tunes. It was book ended with some great upbeat tunes and having a pro drummer backing us up was a highlight.

So Thanksgiving and then a return visit to St. Giles in Toronto. I as hoping to be promoting the new CD by now, but I am happy to get out playing again as I ramp back into the production phase.