MusicFlorida Recap
So...our trip to Florida this year was not the best with high temperatures in the low 40s all week, Zachary with shingles and Ashton with sinus and ear infections. On top of that, our hotel room at a luxury hotel was more like a Motel 6 or Super 8 except that we had ceramic coffee cups and glass water cups (I guess that is what they consider luxurious). Wendy spent her days between the cramped hotel room with sick and hurting kids or driving them somewhere to eat meals (because luxury hotels do not have free breakfast buffets but their food prices are certainly outrageous). She did take them to Downtown Disney by herself for a few hours and to the Florida Mall once. She definitely wins the "Patience of Job" award for keeping them happy and relatively comfortable all week.
As to the conference...
The facility was by far the largest we have had: nice open area for viewing vendors and a separate area for meals which Shure paid for (probably with all the money we gave them last year for new microphones). The first meal was a simple box lunch, but the rest were very nice with great service. The ballroom was very comfortable. We were not squished together so that you had to squeeze past every time the over abundance of water and coffee hit you.
The extra space made for more difficulty in hearing others singing, however. And I noticed that it was also more difficult to hear the sound system from the back half of the room (an important thing when most of the music uses CDs or DVDs. It was much easier to view the projection screens, although there was a need to project the clinicians images up on the screen more often due to the distance from the back to front.
The biggest complaint that we had at the conference was how cold the hallways were. It felt like we had to walk through the frozen tundra to get to the vendors, restrooms, dining area, etc. We also had to keep our coats on in the ballroom because they could not keep it warm enough. I guess we cannot blame the hotel too much since they are not used to such cold weather for more than a few days at a time in that part of Florida. We joked that the ad about heated pools must have meant they were solar heated, because the water was ice cold (As you can guess, we did not use the pools).
The important part of this conference for me are the music reading sessions. While I found the music I needed, I did not feel that there was as much exciting new music as in the past. I imagine that the publishing companies have had a hard year as about 1/4 of the music was from 10 or more years ago that they brought out as "classic" anthems or "best sellers." I joked that what "classic" means is that they haven't made enough money from that anthem yet, so they want to repackage it and try again.
I always enjoy the David T. Clydesdale sessions, but this year he only had one for some reason. Clydesdale usually brings such passion and fire to his sessions. John Jennings switched from Word to Lillenas (but I love his comments regardless of which team he is on). We also missed the Lillenas drama team which was notably not present this year. Marty Parks was not present either. Jay Rouse and Randy Vader are still with their company, but they are now distributing through LifeWay. One of the clinicians reminded me so much of Steve Carell's character for Evan Almighty that I had trouble not laughing at almost everything he said or did.
I think some of my favorite comments from clinicians were:
As to the conference...
The facility was by far the largest we have had: nice open area for viewing vendors and a separate area for meals which Shure paid for (probably with all the money we gave them last year for new microphones). The first meal was a simple box lunch, but the rest were very nice with great service. The ballroom was very comfortable. We were not squished together so that you had to squeeze past every time the over abundance of water and coffee hit you.
The extra space made for more difficulty in hearing others singing, however. And I noticed that it was also more difficult to hear the sound system from the back half of the room (an important thing when most of the music uses CDs or DVDs. It was much easier to view the projection screens, although there was a need to project the clinicians images up on the screen more often due to the distance from the back to front.
The biggest complaint that we had at the conference was how cold the hallways were. It felt like we had to walk through the frozen tundra to get to the vendors, restrooms, dining area, etc. We also had to keep our coats on in the ballroom because they could not keep it warm enough. I guess we cannot blame the hotel too much since they are not used to such cold weather for more than a few days at a time in that part of Florida. We joked that the ad about heated pools must have meant they were solar heated, because the water was ice cold (As you can guess, we did not use the pools).
The important part of this conference for me are the music reading sessions. While I found the music I needed, I did not feel that there was as much exciting new music as in the past. I imagine that the publishing companies have had a hard year as about 1/4 of the music was from 10 or more years ago that they brought out as "classic" anthems or "best sellers." I joked that what "classic" means is that they haven't made enough money from that anthem yet, so they want to repackage it and try again.
I always enjoy the David T. Clydesdale sessions, but this year he only had one for some reason. Clydesdale usually brings such passion and fire to his sessions. John Jennings switched from Word to Lillenas (but I love his comments regardless of which team he is on). We also missed the Lillenas drama team which was notably not present this year. Marty Parks was not present either. Jay Rouse and Randy Vader are still with their company, but they are now distributing through LifeWay. One of the clinicians reminded me so much of Steve Carell's character for Evan Almighty that I had trouble not laughing at almost everything he said or did.
I think some of my favorite comments from clinicians were:
- "You could easily learn that song in one rehearsal or less" Mary McDonald.
- "Those lyrics don't even make any sense, but that doesn't matter with Southern Gospel music because people who love God know what they mean." John Jennings - sorry John if I didn't get that quote exactly...I couldn't write and roll on the floor at the same time.
- "I never knew just how many opinions church members had" Randy Vader describing his three months filling in while his music minister had surgery.
- "I read a translation the other day of the verse [Matthew 18:20] which said, 'Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I AM is one of them.'" Randy Vader.
- "Discipleship is not a byproduct of conversion, but conversion is a byproduct of discipleship." Dave Williams quoting Henry Blackaby on Matthew 28.
- "Just as long as I am not the guy" David T. Clydesdale explaining to the church he recently went to as pianist that he did not want to be the person that everyone went to with complaints.
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