Greetings Fans and friends!  Please enjoy this 2nd entry on my personal blog!

#2~April 12, 2013: Girl With A Guitar

My sister came over for a visit today and I let her listen to the new tracks Toni Gibson recorded for our CD, plus other orchestrations for songs Nathan and I are still working on. As we were listening, it occurred to me how gifted my son truly is in creating musical living spaces for my songs, and how different my life would have been had I not been blessed with his existence.

I’ve been writing songs since I was 10 years old. The first one was written as an assignment for the violin class I was taking in grade school. My Grammy bought the used violin for me for my birthday one year when she realized that I was interested in musicals and that I seemed to always be humming tunes to myself. Eventually, we traded the violin in in for a guitar because I wanted to be able to sing along with the music I played, and thus I began to fill up notebooks with song lyrics and chords to the songs I would write.

My influences at the time were the folk groups my sister listened to, primarily Peter Paul and Mary. I loved folk music because it often told stories, and I love telling stories with my songs. By age 13 I was singing and playing my guitar everywhere I went, continuing to write songs with my simple melodies. And that is the world my songs lived in until, at around 14 years old, my son began to compose accompaniments to my songs. First he used a keyboard, but when we began to see the depth of his talent and how well his orchestration ideas and my songs complimented each other, my husband began investing more and more in Nathan’s equipment, instruments, and sound libraries until he had his own home studio.

I don’t know how many songs Nathan and I have worked on together over the years, but because of him many of my original songs have been beautifully orchestrated. Nathan always comes up with fresh, unexpected ideas that distinguish his work from typical accompaniment tracks. He always surprises me when the sounds he hears in his head materialize into musical worlds for my songs to live in.

Nathan’s accompaniment has allowed me to compose orchestrated songs for a fully staged musical passion play; contemporary Christian songs; Messianic worship songs; Celtic ballads, and Classical Crossover arias and art songs.

Now with the Chanson de l’Ange CD, for the first time Nathan and I have collaborated on the writing of 2 songs, with him writing the melody and me penning the lyrics. I am anxious to share the beauty, the wonder and talent my son has brought to this project, and I hope also that he will gain more exposure among other independent artists and songwriters who are in need of an exceptional accompaniment for their own original songs.

Had it not been for Nathan’s gift and willingness to put in the hard work of collaboration, I would have remained just a girl strumming a guitar.

Thank you, Nathan! You changed my life!

Greetings fans and friends!

I’ve decided to add a new feature to my Chanson website.  In addition to blogging about my adventures in publishing Chanson de l’Ange elsewhere on the site-I will now be regularly  posting personal blogs about all sorts of things on this page.  I hope you will follow along and even chime in with a comment!

When I first became a believer in Jesus Christ at 19 years of age-I attended a certain charismatic church. This church had a huge population of college age young people who regularly met for social get togethers and worship and prayer/bible study. One summer night we met (over a hundred of us) on large open green space between some apartments. We all sat in a big circle. The guitars came out and people started singing worship songs. At one point somebody started leading out in an upbeat song and people started clapping and singing joyfully. Then we all grabbed hands and started to dance in a circle. It should be noted that back then I was completely green in my understanding of doctrines/teaching. I was just a young girl who had not been brought up in the church, and who had fallen love with Jesus and life, and that was all I knew. Well, as the group danced in a circle, I was so caught up in the moment and so full of joy that I spun out into the inside of the circle and started to twirl and dance on my own, expressing that joy.

As a little girl I had seen and adored The Sound Of Music, and the scene where Maria spins around with her arms outstretched on the mountainside took my breath away. I thought that must be the most beautiful feeling in the world, to feel God’s presence so much that it made you dance, because in the film of course, she was singing to God. That’s how I felt that night in the dance circle.

Next thing I knew, one of the girls who was in leadership at the church took hold of my hand and pulled me backward, then told me I shouldn’t be drawing attention to myself like that. I was humiliated. To be honest, in those moments of dancing, I really wasn’t aware of other people around me. 

Years later I joined a Messianic dance worship group and discovered that dancing before the Lord was indeed a true form of biblical worship.  Funny how life often takes you around in circles until you finally find the place where you belong!

Keep dancing!

Bonnie Anne