TakeCourage's Personal Christian Songwriting Page!

Hello!!

I am an unpublished christian songwriter. For now I mainly write for myself and other christian friends. My main objective is to encourage beleivers in the faith. I have been writing about my experiences with the Lord and the spiritual lessons I have learned for about 4 years now. I am 32 yrs old, married, and have 3 children. I live in Chatham, Ontario, Canada. I attend Windsor Christian Fellowship.

I belong to the ChristianSongwriting.org email list. You can find some songwriting tools, links, info on how to join the email list, and all sorts of other information at that website!

Writing Christian Songs

Writing Christian Songs is the name of a new forum I have just created on Delphi Forums! I would love for you to come and just jump in with a comment and start a conversation about songwriting. You can vote on the poll that I created "Which do you write first?" The choices are lyrics, music, both at once, chord progression, or its not always the same. Just click on one of the 'recent discussions' below and you will be taken to a login page before you get to the actual discussion page.

If you've never been to a delphi forum before, then click on the 'create a new delphi account' link on the login page to register. Once you've registered you have access to post to any forum you'd like to read without registering or subscribing all over again. If you don't want to register with Delphi you can enter the forum as a 'guest' and you'll be able to read, you just won't be able to post.

Chat Info

On mondays and saturdays, in channel #christian-songwriters, I hold regular IRC chats on the CCNet server. CCNet stands for christian chat network, and is an all christian chat server. That is, there are only christian chat channels there. Saturday chats are at 3PM eastern time, and monday chats are at 9pm eastern time.

The first monday of each month we usually have Topic Night. Topic Night is where I choose a specific topic related to christian songwriting to discuss. These are usually lots of fun. Saturday chats are always fellowship chats. (there is also fellowship after we're through with each monthly topic chat) Once we even played a rhyming game! I have started putting logs of these topic chats online to read.

The mIRC program now comes with the chat server we use, the CCNet server (cchat.net is the same thing) so you no longer have to add it to your mIRC program. But if you have an older version of mIRC, I have instructions on how to add the CCNet server.

You can also access the #christian-songwriters IRC channel by going to the CCNet homepage and clicking on 'chat now'. This will take you to their IRC java chat site. The link for the CCNet web site is also below in the General Links section.

Words of Encouragement

This page is dedicated to anyone struggling with their faith in God. Anyone who needs spiritual encouragement, come on over to this page! I really hope something there encourages you in the Lord in a big way!!

Music Theory for the Songwriter!!

I have 5 theory lessons for the Songwriter online! The theory links are below the General Links section. However, these lessons will not teach you how to actually read music. They will teach you to understand how scales, key signatures and chords work, and how to form them. If you learn all of these lessons you should find that they are very useful tools for songwriters. You'll be able to write down the melody of a new song (using the letter note names, not musical notation) on paper and then find the proper chords for them more easily. If a song is too high or too low, you'll also be able to transpose it to a better key for you to sing in.

My Song Page

In visiting my song page, you'll find that the first page is a list of song titles. Each title is linked to it's own lyric page. Some lyric pages also include a Real Audio, and some include an 'about the song' section. Sometimes 'about the song' tells how I wrote the song.. and other times it expounds on the message of the song itself. My hope is that people will find the messages in the songs to be encouraging to their relationship with God.

General Links

ChristianSongwriting.org: You can join the email list from here!
mIRC: Download mIRC here!
Christian Chat Network: This is CCNet's home page, an all christian IRC chat server!
How to add CCNet to mIRC: There are step by step instructions here.
Read our Chat Logs!!: Whenever we chat about a specific topic, it is logged and put online. You can read what other songwriters have to say about various songwriting related topics!
My daughter and I: A photo of my daughter Rachel and I when she was 4.
My Song page!!: This is a list of titles of songs I've written. Each song is linked to a separate page where you can view the lyrics. Some of the songs also have a Real Audio file so you can listen to it. You can either download the file or stream it. Be sure to check out the 'about the song' section following some of these songs.
Real Audio Tips: I talk about making Real Audio stream on your website here without using a Real Audio server. There are tips and great links to various other webpage building help sites such as html tutorials.

Theory Links!

Theory Lessons for the Songwriter!

Theory Lesson 1: Scales
Theory Lesson 2: Key Signatures
Theory Lesson 3: Intervals
Theory Lesson 4: Chord Formation
Theory Lesson 5: Modes