Samples of Mark Pettigrew's Music
This section contains links to some MP3 files consisting of music I recorded at Column 1 Studio in 1990, direct to DAT (with no external processing, and no subsequent audio mastering) after sequencing the tunes using a simple setup consisting of a Yamaha KX88 MIDI keyboard controller, a Yamaha QX3 standalone MIDI sequencer, a Roland P330 rackmount digital piano module, a Korg M1R rackmount multitimbral sound module, and a small MIDI patchbay which enabled me to control the Roland, the Korg and the QX3 with the KX88. All parts here were recorded solely by myself. All tunes here (except for "Amazing Grace") were written solely by myself.

One of the interesting aspects of this project was that I was able to record the music direct to DAT at the recording studio even though I left my KX88 at home. All of the actual performances had been created and sequenced already in a spare bedroom. In fact, if I'd had a decent mixer and my own DAT (digital audio tape) recorder, it's likely that I wouldn't have had to go to the studio at all. Once I got to the studio, I plugged in all the cables, adjusted the audio levels, loaded the MIDI files by inserting the diskettes I'd saved them to, hit Play on the sequencer and sat back and listened as the sequences were recorded to digital tape. It's a pretty cool way to record an album of instrumental keyboard music. It relieves a lot of stress, compared with trying to get the parts just right in the studio while the clock is ticking and one is being charged as much as $100 an hour by the recording studio.

A Child At Play (971KB) is a tune that was designed to take advantage of a Roland P330 "honky tonk" piano sound. For those who don't know, that's a term used to describe a "tack piano" such as movie makers have often used for movies scenes set in "Old West" saloons. Did they really use tack pianos in Old West saloons? Beats me. I'm guessing that they often didn't, although I suspect that the pianos were usually out of tune. (Piano tuners who knew what they were doing probably weren't all that common out west.) But let's face it, if you have a bunch of guys throwing chairs at each other and breaking bottles over one another's heads, a tack piano is just about the only type of piano that could cut through that kind of noise.

I'm not quite sure why I called the tune "A Child At Play". I think it was just a reflection of the vibe I got from the tune itself.

When you hear the beginning of Amazing Grace (2.41MB), your first reaction may be to think that the piano sound is really pretty bad, in terms of its tonal qualities. Well, believe it or not, the excessively dull, reverby, slightly out-of-tune piano sound in the first verse was deliberate on my part. It reminded me of all the lousy upright pianos I'd played in church basements throughout the years. It was meant to evoke those memories. But don't worry, I didn't use that sound throughout the entire tune. I like to think that the different variations which occur as the tune develops add a little spice, and dare I say it, a little soul.

Down Under (3.55MB) is so named because it reminds me of the water dripping from the ceiling in one of the many large caves in my home state of Missouri. As a kid, I often got to visit caves such as Marvel Cave and Fantastic Caverns. Marvel Cave is a huge cave located at Silver Dollar City. When they give you a tour through Fantastic Caverns, they don't walk you through the cave, they drive you through the cave in a Jeep! Missouri is the land of the big caves. Kentucky has its share of caves, too, including the granddaddy of all caves, Mammoth Cave.

In some cases, tunes evolved as the result of my playing with the preset sounds on my Korg M1R rackmount sound module just to see what I could come up with. This was one of those cases.

After I created this MIDI sequence, I used to like to set the sequencer so that it looped back to the beginning when the tune ended, so that it would play continuously for hours. I'd set the volume fairly low, and use it to create a restful soundscape for myself. You can do the same thing, using Windows Media Player or a similar program, by setting the Play mode to Repeat. Just be careful not to bump your head on the stalactites!

Hard Times (4.02MB) is an instrumental version of a song I wrote when I was in high school. I lost the lyric sheet in transit (when I really was going through some pretty hard times), but I still remember some of the lyrics. It was basically a song about how we tend to forget to thank God when things are going well, but we blame God when things are going badly. The point of the lyrics was that we ought to give credit to God for the many blessings he bestows on us, and we should remember those blessings when things aren't going well, in order to keep things in their proper perspective. Admittedly, that's sometimes easier said than done.

NOTE: There's a soft but audible click about 3/4 of the way through this tune, and for the life of me, I don't recall hearing it on the original DAT. It isn't horrible, but I hope to edit it out with audio editing software if I ever release this recording commercially. There are a lot of other things I'd like to do as well, in order to add sonic fullness which the entire recording session somewhat lacks. A BBE Sonic Maximizer works wonders on all of these tunes, I have found. That processor is available in plug-in form, for digital audio editing programs such as Sony SoundForge.

But hey, the recording could be a lot worse. I could have made it with one of the original Tascam 4-track cassette studios, such as the one Bruce Springsteen used when he recorded the album Nebraska.

How Am I To Know? (3.44MB) was another song (with a bit of a bebop flavor) which eventually turned into an instrumental tune. The lyrics were originally written as a rebuttal to those whose lyrics are so cryptic that you have no idea what they are trying to say. I know that some people think that indecipherable lyrics are the mark of genius. I am not one of those people. If no one can tell what you are trying to say when you sing, what's the point in singing? I don't see why clarity of communication should be any less important when writing song lyrics or poetry than it is when writing prose. Expecting one's listeners and readers to work hard to try to figure out what you're saying is just plain lazy, in my opinion. Often, it's a coverup for the fact that the writers really don't have anything meaningful to say at all.

I generally like this recording, particularly the part where I play the vibraphone part in sync with the piano part. But I'd like to re-record it and use a much better flute sample for the last verse. The flute sound on the Korg M1R which I used for this recording was better than previous instruments had offered, but it was still pretty lame compared with the sounds which are available now, 17 years after I made these recordings.

Hmm. I heard a slight audible click at one point in this piece as well, when listening to the MP3. It's definitely something related to the process used by the guy who converted the DAT to MP3 format for me. (I'd have done the conversion myself, but I had no DAT machine. These days, DAT machines are pretty hard to come by. But they were cutting edge recording technology in 1990, when I made these recordings.)

Jesus In Harlem (1.86MB) is another instrumental tune with a bebop flavor. I love the sound of nylon string guitar, but I would have preferred for the guitar part to have a bit more bite on this recording. The best way to accomplish that is to create a composite guitar sound with both nylon string guitar and steel string guitar sounds mixed in together, but the M1R didn't have sufficient polyphony for that approach, as I recall.

The sequenced "finger snaps" I used for percussion were designed to evoke memories of a scene I remembered from West Side Story, where the gang members came swaggering down the street, snapping their fingers. None of these tunes were quantized in any way, nor did I loop any parts. I basically used my Yamaha QX3 sequencer as if it was a tape recorder, except that I occasionally took advantage of the ability to go in and edit sequences note by note later on. But eding was a real challenge on the Yamaha QX3. It just had a scroll wheel, a keyboard and a tiny text-only monochrome display. Not at all like a computer based digital audio workstation equipped with software such as Sonar 6. So there are a few instances of slightly sloppy timing in this recording, in terms of the "finger snapping" percussion part. Then again, no one can accuse me of making the tune sound robotic. It was organic and imperfect, that's for sure!

Johnny Do-Good (3.68MB) is an instrumental version of a song I wrote when I was in high school. I do remember all of the lyrics to that song, and I'll try to remember to share them with you some time. The title was an obvious take-off on the title of the classic Chuck Berry song, but the lyrics were entirely different. The song was about the futility of trying to earn one's salvation. The chorus went: "Well, watch out, Johnny, watch out. You're gonna work your way straight to hell. And on the Judgment Day, you're going to wish you hadn't tried to make it by yourself." In other words, it was a blues rendition of the primary theme of the book of Romans.

No one will ever confuse the drum parts on this piece with drum parts played by a top-notch drummer, but I thought they were still pretty good, considering that I recorded the drums by tapping out those sounds on the keyboard of my Yamaha KX88!

Jumpin' Jazz for Jesus (1.19MB) never did have any lyrics, but I like the alliterative title. Like "How Am I To Know", the tune has a bit of a bebop feel. I used the nylon string guitar sound for this tune, too. I had fun synchronizing the melody line from the guitar with the same line as played on the sax sound.

Love Will Prevail (2.20MB) is one of my favorite tunes. It's a smooth bossa nova tune with a second, contrapuntal line weaving in and out of the melody. Of course, I can't play the contrapuntal part when I play the tune live on a real piano, but that's one of the fun things about overdubbing with an audio recorder or a MIDI sequencer. One can play duets with one's self, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the groundbreaking work of jazz pianist Bill Evans.

Oddly enough, Make Me An Instrument (2.44MB) is not an instrumental version of a song which once had lyrics. I say "oddly enough" because the main melody line sounds like it mimics the timing of the title, and it seems as if I could develop it into an actual song. I just never got around to doing so. But the title has a kind of double meaning. I could be talking with a maker of custom musical instruments, asking the person to make a musical instrument for me. Or I could be talking to the Lord, asking the Lord to make me an instrument of his peace. The latter was more of what I had in mind when I named the tune.

Rachel Weeping (3.58MB) was such a sad tune that I felt it needed an equally sad title. And what could be sadder than the slaughter of the innocent babies ordered by Herod at the time of the birth of Christ? Nothing, unless perhaps one is talking about the slaughter of millions of unborn children in this country in the name of "choice". James Burchaell wrote a pro-life book about the abortion issue, entitled Rachel Weeping, and I was thinking of that excellent book when I named this particular tune.

Surprised By Joy (1.54MB) is another tune that was inspired by a book title. In this case, the book was C.S. Lewis' autobiography, which told how he had converted from atheism to Christianity. A joyful title demanded a jaunty, jazzy tune.

The Missionary (6.40MB) is another one of those tunes which was created as the result of my exploring the possibilities offered by a preset sound offered with my Korg M1R. I haven't seen "The End of The Spear" yet (and that movie hadn't even been made when I recorded this music), but I was thinking of those types of movie scenes when I wrote this ambient piece of background music. Think of riding down the Amazon river in a dugout canoe, piranha fish swimming directly beneath your boat. Think of a jungle native dressed in little more than a loincloth, with a painted face and a spear or an arrow aimed at you as you approach his village. Think of a village comprised of headhunters who sometimes impale their victims. Those are the kinds of challenges missionaries have willingly faced in order to take the gospel of Christ to all corners of the world. That was the kind of picture I was trying to paint with this tune.

The Taste Of Mercy (2.73MB) is an example of a Roland P330 piano sound layered with some other sounds from the M1R module. It's a nice way to create a sound which has the punch of the acoustic piano along with other sounds to sweeten up the mix a little bit. As I recall, the woodwind sound I used was an oboe sound.

I can easily envision an airbrushed CD cover designed to depict this title. It would be a giant honey dipper, reaching down from the heavens. God's mercy, after all, is just about the sweetest thing one can imagine.

This Tainted World (2.43MB) was originally named "Angst for The Memories" (as a slight spoof on the old Bob Hope song titled "Thanks for The Memories"), but I thought it sounded a little bit silly, so I changed the title to "This Tainted World". Either way, the tune itself conveys a sad, world-weary feeling, which is the feeling I get when I contemplate the manner in which this world has been thoroughly messed up as a result of our sins.

Tri-Lite (Part 1) (3.37MB) is a piece with a feel which is somewhat reminiscent of the type of jazz/pop hybrid one sometimes hears on the radio. One of the interesting things is the key modulation, which moves in a downward direction, unlike the majority of pieces which modulate in an upward direction in order to supposedly increase the drama. Upward key modulations do indeed have that effect, but they're become so common that they're a cliche, especially in some evangelical circles.

Tri-Lite (Part 2) (1.48MB) is a somewhat shorter, somewhat mellower version of Tri-Lite (Part 1).

Triumph (2.60MB) sounds just like its title, in my opinion. This is one of the most dramatic pieces I recorded back in 1990.

Listening to the repetitive piano part I played with my left hand in the bass, you might be inclined to think I looped that part. I wish! Looping would have been much more comfortable. As it was, it was often all I could do to get through this piece. My left hand sometimes felt like it was about to fall off by the time the piece had come to its end, and it occasionally cramped up as well. But it was worth it, I thought, because the repetitive left hand part gave the piece a sense of drive. And the dramatic ending reminded me of some of the classical piano pieces I'd played when I was younger.

Wipe The Tears Away (2.42MB) was originally titled "A Mellow Tune", but I decided that was just a bit too generic. This tune is somewhat sad, like "This Tainted World", but not as much so. It resolves in a way which suggests that the peace of Christ will overcome the pain of this present existence.

Blog Article about Mark Pettigrew's Music
This link will take you to a blog article I wrote, in which I discussed my musical background, including the development of my desire to serve the Lord with my music.

FURTHER NOTES ABOUT MY MUSIC

     As I write this, I am now 50 years old. My musical foundation consists of nine years of classical piano lessons, which began when I was 10 years old and continued on into my college years. I have literally been playing the piano for four decades.

     Music has been one of the greatest sources of joy in my life, and also one of the greatest sources of frustration.

     Make no mistake about it. Making good music is hard work, both in the sense that it can be physically exhausting and in the sense that it can be emotionally draining. But one eventually gets to the point, if one has opportunities to practice regularly, where music becomes so fused with one's internal being that one sometimes experiences moments where the music just seems to flow effortlessly. This seems to happen most frequently when one is playing a high quality instrument instead of trying to fight an instrument which simply doesn't feel or sound the way it ought to feel and sound.

     It is possible, during such moments, to make music which is so good that it seems to come from somewhere else altogether. During such moments, a person who is attuned to the spiritual realm can feel a renewed awareness of the presence of God, and a renewed gratitude that God would bestow such a marvelous gift upon a mere man.

     The sense of frustration comes from the fact that such moments occur far less frequently than one would prefer, due in large part to the inability to practice on a high quality instrument on a regular basis. That inability is often attributable to financial limitations which prevent one from being able to purchase and regularly access an instrument which is adequate for the purpose of reaching one's potential. Or at least that has been my own experience. Musicians who have been more fortunate than I have been may have difficulty relating to what I am saying here, but I can only speak from my own experience.

     Lack of regular access to a good practice instrument has plagued me for years. On a few occasions, I have found churches which were able and willing to furnish me with access to a good piano on which I could practice, but changes in my life circumstances have hindered my ability to continue to take advantage of those opportunities. In some cases, the reason has been that my work situation no longer offered a schedule which was conducive to practicing the piano at the times when the piano at the church was available for practice purposes.

     Even if one has a really nice piano on which to practice, a piano which one cannot easily take from one gig to the next is pretty useless in terms of pursuing a full time music ministry or career, no matter how wonderful that instrument may be. Unfortunately, relying on the assumption that one would invariably find a suitable instrument when invited to perform at a particular Christian church or coffeehouse would be a mistake. I've played on many a piano which was poorly tuned or poorly maintained. You cannot imagine, unless you're a talented pianist who has tried it, how frustrating it can be to be asked to produce a high quality music performance on a badly tuned piano with broken keys, missing or broken strings, poorly adjusted actions, mushy hammers and other significant problems. Even when I've been fortunate enough to locate an instrument which had been tuned and maintained well, there have been many times when the instrument itself just wasn't up to the standards of quality which were necessary for a truly effective performance.

     Issues pertaining to amplification have also been factors in terms of public performance. In the context of a solo performance or a performance with other unamplified acoustic instruments, an acoustic piano can sometimes hold its own (especially if it's a large grand piano). But the rock & roll era brought about new challenges for pianists. For a piano player trying to be heard in the midst of a performance by a rock band (or even a pop or jazz band in which many of the instruments are amplified), an unamplified upright piano just doesn't cut it. During the late seventies, piano pickups from companies such as Helpinstill and Barcus Berry enabled players to amplify pianos in a way which did not suffer the feedback problems common to pianos which were amplified with conventional microphones. But of course, they had to be installed and adjusted at nearly every concert, and they still only sounded as good as the instruments to which they were attached.

     Back in the early and mid seventies, the closest thing to a portable piano which could be easily amplified was the Fender Rhodes. It had a nice sound which could be useful in the context of a band, but no one with a good ear would ever say that a Rhodes sounded like an acoustic grand piano or that it was really adequate for a solo performance of piano music. The same thing could be said of other portable pianos of the day, such as the one made by Wurlitzer. Most other electric pianos being made at the time were little more than toys. The Hohner Clavinet was a pretty cool instrument (particularly in the hands of a musician such as Stevie Wonder or Herbie Hancock), but it was even less like a piano than the Rhodes and the Wurlitzer.

     In the late seventies and early to mid eighties, Yamaha, Kawai and Helpinstill all tried to address the situation by building and selling semi-portable instruments which used real piano strings and hammers. They sounded a lot more like real pianos than their predecessors, but they still didn't really capture the essence of their nonportable counterparts. Their strings were too short, and their bodies lacked the resonance which plays an important role in creating the sound of a real acoustic piano. Yet, they were still very heavy, bulky instruments. As in the case of the popular Hammond B-3 organ, a person with one of those "electric grands" really needed a strong back and a van or truck with which to transport such instruments to gigs. On top of that, such "portable grands" needed to be tuned before practically every gig. That was a daunting and time consuming proposition.

     Digital sampling, first introduced with the Fairlight CMI, changed all that. In the Boston area, Raymond Kurzweil adapted sampling technology in order to create digital pianos which came closer than any previous instrument to sounding and feeling like real pianos. Other manufacturers, such as Roland, Korg and Yamaha, soon followed suit. I knew as soon as I saw some of these first digital pianos that I wanted and needed one, but it was quite a while before I was able to afford to buy the equipment I needed.

     At one point, thanks to money I borrowed from my mother after she inherited assets left to her by my grandmother when my grandmother died, I was able to purchase a Yamaha KX88 MIDI keyboard controller (with 88 weighted keys), a Roland P330 digital piano module, a Korg M1R rack mount sound module and a Yamaha QX3 standalone MIDI sequencer. That equipment enabled me to create some MIDI sequences which, given the technological limitations at the time, sounded very nice.

     Then I came into hard times financially, and I ended up having to sell that equipment, which was heartbreaking on account of the difficulty I had had in terms of getting the money with which to buy such equipment in the first place. Since that time, I've been able to buy a couple of additional keyboards (neither of which was adequate in terms of substituting for a real piano), but overall, it's been a struggle for me to obtain what I needed in order to make the most of my musical talents.

     One of the main reasons I began to dream of a place such as the Christian Artists' Resource Center was that the practice facilities available to financially struggling musicians such as myself just weren't adequate. It occurred to me that I couldn't be the only person on the planet who was experiencing such frustration. It occurred to me that one way to address the issue would be to create an organization for the purpose of procuring high quality practice facilities and instruments which could be shared by all of the organization's members, regardless of whether or not they were still in school, and regardless of what their personal work schedules might be. (For a person working a normal 9 to 5 job, access to practice facilities which are only open during those hours is pretty useless.) Later, my vision expanded to include many other options for Christians involved in all areas of the arts.

     In terms of music equipment, my short term personal goal is to be able to purchase a good digital stage piano (probably a Yamaha CP300) which will enable me to practice regularly, record and sell an album of my music, and eventually play gigs which may come my way as the result of recording and distributing that album.

     However, my long term goal is far more ambitious. I want to use funds procured by ArtisticChristians.com through various means (including donations, as well as the sales of various products on this web site) in order to fund the acquisition of a building containing numerous modular soundproof practice rooms, all equipped with high quality digital pianos, digital audio workstations and other equipment which would then be shared by all local members of the NAAAC (North American Alliance of Artistic Christians).

     Musicians need more than just places where they can practice. They also need venues where they can hone their live performance skills. Churches can and do often serve that function, but they are often very limited in that regard, for several reasons:

1. Music styles vary greatly from one church to the next. Churches which focus primarily on traditional hymns often offer very limited performance opportunities for musicians who prefer to play rock, jazz, blues and other types of contemporary music.
2. The music which is played in worship service is almost invariably "worship music", whether it's traditional or contemporary. Opportunities to play overtly evangelistic music (particularly in cases where one's definition of such music is expansive enough to accommodate instrumental music or music which is on the cutting edge) are rare in traditional church services. For example, "Why Don't You Look Into Jesus?", by Larry Norman, was an extremely effective piece of evangelistic music. Lyrically, it was on the cutting edge, inasmuch as its lyrics directly addressed some very serious social issues from a Christian perspective. But it was really meant to be played in a coffeehouse or music festival or college concert, not in a church worship service. Musicians who feel called to play such music need local venues in which to do so on a regular basis.
3. Very few churches offer opportunities for musicians to be consistently and frequently paid for their musical contributions, unless they are listed as church staff members. Thus, most of the musicians who regularly perform in church services are forced to work at outside jobs in order to support themselves. This substantially reduces the amount of time they are able to dedicate to their art. It therefore has a negative effect on the quality of the art they are able to produce. Ideally, therefore, a venue for Christian musicians should not merely offer opportunities to perform for the public. Those venues should offer opportunities for such musicians to actually make money with their music! Judging from the responses I often get from church leaders, the idea that people should actually be able to make money playing Christian music is an incredibly radical and dangerous concept. But that's what it's going to take if Christians are ever to regain the ground which has been lost in our culture.
   There's more than a little validity to the old saying that "you get what you pay for". The mere fact that a musician is a Christian does not mean that his or her expenses are lower than any other musician's expenses. Good musical products and services are expensive, and that money has to come from somewhere. It's all well and good to offer a well-equipped venue where Christian musicians are able to perform on occasions, but unless they can earn enough money to be able to buy the instruments they need in order to go "on the road" with their talents, they will be extremely limited in terms of where they can take their music.

     For the above reasons, the facilities at the Christian Artists' Resource Center would also include Gallery 1212, an art gallery which would double as a Christian coffeehouse. Gallery 1212 would provide a venue where Christian musicians could regularly perform, and where they could share their faith with unbelievers and with fellow Christians from throughout the region, in a setting which would be accessible even to those who have spurned traditional churches in the past. Some musical events would be free (for the benefit of those who could not otherwise afford to attend), but other events held at those facilities would be structured so as to enable musicians to receive proper remuneration for their musical contributions, so that they could have a realistic hope of attaining their career objectives.

     The Bible says that we as Christians ought to bear one another's burdens. Frankly, I don't see that happening very much in today's churches. The frustration I described earlier, in relation to my own music, could be accurately described as a burden I have borne alone for many years. Won't you please help me to bear that burden? Please do whatever you can do in order to address my material needs and the material needs related to my Christian ministry of the arts so that I can help many other people to experience the joy of creating high quality Christ-centered music and listening to such music.

     For more information about how you can get involved with the Christian arts ministry at ArtisticChristians.com, please send me an e-mail message. My address: mark_w_pettigrew[at]hotmail[dot]com.

... Mark W. Pettigrew
    Webmaster and Christian Renaissance Man