Christmas Lullaby

Hey, y'all! :) (since only one of us really says "y'all", do I really need to say who this is? ;) )

Just wanted to let everyone know that there is a new clip added to our playlist to the right: Christmas Lullaby is now the first song in the list. When Raluca was at Stamps-Baxter School of Music, she e-mailed me and said, "How would you like to do a Christmas song?" I thought the idea was a great one and asked what style of Christmas song she was thinking of...she suggested a lullaby, and so voila! here is a Christmas Lullaby. :) (I know, real original title and all... *shrug*)

As you might hear on the Lullaby demo clip, I'm having some mic issues (sorry!), so though we have a couple other songs written, we have no demos of those yet. Anyone have a good suggestion for a good, but inexpensive, mic that works well for recording on the computer?! :)

Pictures

(photo credit: Amber Miller)
OK, here are the pictures, etc. from when Raluca and I met last Sunday in Chicago. :) All photos are credited to Hannah Michelle L. unless otherwise marked. Thanks, Hannah! :)

A quick rundown on our day:
Hannah (a mutual friend of ours) and I met Raluca at her church in a Chicago suburb Sunday morning.
(photo credit: Amber Miller)

We hung around for a little bit talking, met Raluca's aunt (a sweet and beautiful lady! :)), and then loaded up in my car to head to the house of another mutual friend, Heidi.

They fed us in fine style and then we stayed at their house for the afternoon, talking, laughing, taking pictures, and playing a game called "Loaded Questions". (quick bit of trivia: Raluca's favorite childhood meal was spinach (her grandmother's spinach, she was quick to specify!), and my favorite breed of dog is Rottweilers. Just FYI. :))

(photo credit: Haley Miller)

Then we went to Heidi's church, which is where we sang "Love Did" (see video in post below).

After church, we hung around for a little while talking to my sister Amber and her friend Kezia, who had driven over to hear us.

And we had a fun little "tailgating party" in the church parking lot with Heidi, Hannah M., Hannah K., Raluca, and myself--all members of the Ernie Haase & Signature Sound message board! :)

During this "party", Curious George got to meet a Romanian. :) (my sister and I brought my brother's monkey with us to take his picture around Chicago.)

Then Raluca's aunt came to pick her up and we parted ways with more than a little sadness. But a WHOLE lot of joy and good memories! :) It was a fun day, for sure.

Raluca and her aunt, Mihaela

(photo credit: Haley Miller)
Hannah and Raluca

Haley and Raluca

We did it!

We finally met! :) It was so much fun!
And...we sang together! :) A mutual friend of ours (whom we also met for the first time on Sunday) asked us to sing one of our songs at her church Sunday night. We sang "Love Did", and aside from some technical difficulties it went pretty good! My sister video taped it for us, so here's the video on YouTube...and I'll post pictures as soon as I get around to it, including an updated profile picture of us actually together. :)

And now...

Hey, y'all! :) Haley here...

Well, so...what are we up to now??? *ahem* We are in the midst of conjuring up and carrying out plans to actually meet --in real life, face to face-- in Chicago this next weekend!! :) Oh, yeah...this is going to be SO fun! :) My sister Amber and I started talking back in January about taking a trip to Chicago "sometime at the end of June/beginning of July", and then we found out that Raluca was also going to be in Chicago at the same time!!! So of course there is no way we are going to be that close to each other and NOT meet. :)

So...just thought I'd let y'all know. Just in case anyone cared. Or maybe just 'cause I am SO excited I had to tell somebody, even if it's just some imaginary person out there that I *think* is reading this blog. :) (Although, our little "where our visitors are from" thing down there to the right is telling us that we have visitors from, like, all over the U.S., so... *shrug*) And, we will be sure to take, and post, pictures. And maybe video. Y'know, if we do anything fun or exciting. :)

Long time, no post...

Hey, y'all!
Yes, we are still alive... :) Sorry for the long silence, but then, we don't really have much to report. We do have another new song, Still Painting Beauty, and once we get a demo made of it the new clip will be added to our sweet little playlist in the top right corner.

Beyond that, we're still waiting for God to work and to lead us. We're reading/researching music publishing and how all that works, etc. But we're not in a huge rush to do anything right now because we don't want to run ahead of God and don't really feel like we have definitive direction from Him about what we should do next. We're trying to find the balance between "doing our part" and waiting on Him! :)

So, anyway...that's pretty much what's up right now! God bless y'all! :)

New Clips, New Song!

Hey, y'all! :) Haley here...
OK, I finally got clips of the *new* versions of the Dancing in the Rain and Love Did demos in the little player over to the right. So, if you want to hear them, click on that.
Also--there's a clip of a brand new (well, new last week anyway!) song called Choose to Worship. The demo for this one was mixed by Raluca, she did the instrumentation of course, and the vocals are done by a friend of hers, Valentin Muresan. Check it out, they did a great job! :)

A couple things to note about the playlist:
One, the songs are in the order in which they were written--Desert Places, Dancing in the Rain, Love Did, and then Choose to Worship. Also, I have it set to *not* autoplay, so if you want to listen to the songs you need to click the play button (the triangle at the bottom of the player). And, once you've set it to play, it will keep playing, repeating the clips, until you tell it to stop.

May the Lord bless each of you richly, and may you have a great weekend as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and King!

Happy Easter!

Hello this is Raluca! I haven't been able to post lately, but Haley encouraged me to share this with y'all :)

I'm going to play this song (and others as well) in a concert Saturday night and I did a quick recording of Via Dolorosa.

Here's the link
http://www.trilulilu.ro/sigsoundfan/0338eac3a790db

Happy Easter!

P.S. In my language (Romanian) we don't say "Happy Easter", we say: "Christ Is Risen!" and the reply is not "Happy Easter to you yoo", it's "Indeed He Is Risen!" :)

Ephesians 3:20-21

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

I think if we had a theme verse, this would have to be it. Not only is God able to do so much more than I could ever imagine (and I have a great imagination! :) ), but He is doing more than I ever dreamed. I just wanted to write songs; He wanted to have me write songs--with someone on another continent! When we give our God-sized dreams to God, He makes them even bigger. And then He makes them come true! How great is our God!!! To Him, and Him alone, be all the glory and honor for anything good that comes from our lives, and specifically from our songs!

Father, You have been so good to us! And Your goodness just keeps on pouring...I am so amazed and humbled by Your work in our lives! Thank You, thank You, thank You, and may You receive all the glory!

Recording fun :)

Hey, all, this is Haley...Saturday, my family and I went out to some friends' house to play, fellowship, meet their newest baby...and record new demos! :) Mr. Astle graciously allowed us to come out and use his "studio" to make some good demos of Love Did and Dancing in the Rain. Well, he actually did all the "making"; we just sang! :) I had a great time! And, I figured I'd share some of the pictures with y'all.

*note: just in case anyone cares...none of these were actually taken while we were singing because the mic would have picked up the clicking sound on the camera. :)*

Momma sang the back-up tracks

Me :)

Our enthralled audience...my dad!

And, last but certainly NOT least, Mr. Astle, our host and "producer" :)

Many, many thanks to Mr. Astle for doing the demos for us, to Mrs. Astle for feeding us (she is a really good cook! :) ), and to the Astle kids for playing with the boys while we were recording. Y'all are the best, we love you guys!

We'll get clips of the new demos put in the playlist on here soon!

Why Me?

Hey, y'all! This is Haley. I keep coming across these verses that seem so perfect for me right now! The other day, I was reading back over our story in these posts and I couldn't help but wonder: why me? Why would God choose to use me as a vessel to communicate His message to the world? I'm just an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life. I just serve an extraordinary God! As I was pondering all this, I read this verse in a "verse of the day" e-mail I get:

2 Corinthians 4:6-7
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

The answer to my question, "why me?" is just this--because God. Because God wanted to use me. Because God called me, chose me. Because God loves to use "earthen vessels"--ordinary, everyday people--to show His extraordinary love. Because that way, it is clear that all the excellence is God alone.

Why me? Because God.

Those who wait on the Lord...

Isaiah 40:31 is one of the most popular, frequently quoted verses in the Bible. And I think it's so applicable to where we are in our adventure right now.
I love the context around it:
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31)

God's power and strength is as limitless as He is. And it is that strength that He offers to those who will wait on Him. This promise is not just for anyone who is waiting, but those who are specifically waiting on Him. Our job is to make sure that while we're waiting, we're focused on Him, praising and serving Him in all that we do.
This waiting period is not a time of sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, but of actively seeking and pursuing God's will for us--and our music.

Anyway...I just came across these verses again in my devotional this morning, and thought I would share my thoughts! :D

God bless each of you as you wait on Him!

--Haley

Prayer Time

Hey, this is Raluca!

Haley and I were so confused about what to do next and we decided to pray together over IM! I never prayed over IM before, neither did she. But it was very interesting! We decided an hour when both of us could be online at the same time and we started "writing" our prayers (so the other one could read what she was praying). Of course, the prayers were dedicated to God Himself!

Gotta run!

Raluca

P.S. Haley, I finaly figured out how to post a blog LOL

Now What?

I wanted to point out the cute little circle music player over to the right. If you click "play" on that you can hear little clips (about 30 seconds) of the songs we've written. Bear in mind, these clips are taken from the demos we've created, and are at varying levels of "professionalism". All the instrumentation on all the demos is done by Raluca. The Desert Places demo was mixed by Raluca, and the vocals are done by a friend of hers, Oana (pronounced "wanna") Ciucanu (I have no idea how to pronounce this one). The other two, Dancing in the Rain and Love Did were mixed by me (Haley) and the vocals are also done by yours truly. We're hoping to get some better demos of those done soon.

So, now what? That's the question we're asking ourselves right now. Neither one of us really knows what we're doing (ignorance is bliss, right?!). At this point we're praying, praying, praying for God to show us what comes next, what He wants us to do and when. We don't want to rush ahead of Him, or lag behind Him, but to walk closely by His side.
James 1:5 says "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." Would y'all join us in asking God to give us wisdom as we seek to follow Him?

Raluca's story

My name is Raluca, I'm 16, I'm from Romania (somewhere in Eastern Europe....) and I'm a huge EHSS fan!
In 2007 I "discovered" my gift of composing. Well, I was writing songs 10 years ago too, but those were just simple tunes, nothing worth listening to! :P First I started composing instrumental music (piano solo with soundtracks) and then I thought "Nobody listens to this kind of music....I should try writing SONGS (with lyrics)". The lyric part doesn't work for me...sorry, I just CAN'T write lyrics (well, I can write silly poems, stuff like "Silly Songs With Larry" from Veggie Tales, but in my language...since in Romania there are no professional groups like in the USA, I had no chance of writing a song...). My Mom advised me to take a public-domain poem and put music to it. I did...after one week, we sang it in church. I was so thrilled....the first time somebody sings my song!!!

As for my piano-solo pieces, I played them in my school and people were excited about them, but my wish was to write songs WITH LYRICS.

In 2008 I went to Ben Speer's Stamps Baxter School Of Music where I took some piano and songwriting classes. I had the privilege to study with Sue C. Smith who writes songs for EHSS (I was so shocked, I could hardly believe it!) and she taught me a lot of things about merging the music and lyrics. At that school I met a good lyricist and we started working together, but after writing a couple of songs, we didn't keep in touch...and I also gave up the idea of becoming a composer. I started writing my own lyrics, but it took me a lot of time..... and they're not as good as any other lyricist's.
I joined EHSS's Message Board in early 2008 and made a lot of friends! In August-September, a nice girl showed up and joined this big awesome family! I knew her as "giveasmile" until she wrote her name in her signature, "Haley"--and the rest is history :) OK, wait I'll write it :P

Somebody started a thread about sending songs to EHSS and I posted "Oh, I'd love it if EHSS sang my songs" and Haley replied: "And I'd love it if EHSS sang my.........hmm.....poems? *rolleyes*" When I read that I was like: WHAT??? Ta-da! Let's send her a personal message...and request some lyrics...>:) (I meant....POEMS!)She got kinda curious about it......she sent me a poem called Desert Places, and as I read it, I was thinking "Wow, I really feel this way these days! This lyric is great! Thank you, Haley!" I wrote a simple melody, I didn't want it to be very fancy, 'cause the message was so simple, so I had to keep it all simple! :) (as musicians would say...keep it "singable!")

God is good! I think He has a LOT in store for us!

Haley's story

Hey, y'all! :D
Welcome to our blog!! This is Haley...for this first post, I'm copying and pasting our stories of how we met, etc. from off of my personal blog.

Here we go: my latest "this HAS to be God!" story. Warning: this could will be long!!! Just remember that I warned you. :D

I thought about making you all groan by starting with "On May 16, 1986, at 11:04 PM...", but I don't have to go back THAT far for this story, so I won't.

I am going to back up a little ways though. I've been scribbling bits and pieces of "poetry" pretty much since the time I could write. Some of those first ones are great for a laugh, and no--you can't see them. When I was 13 or so I started writing "real" poems, concentrating on the rhythm and rhyme and trying to actually make them sound good. And I was officially in love with the beautiful, lilting sound of poetry. One problem: poetry is rapidly going out of style. As my dad once said, "The poets of today are the songwriters." So, my dream became to be a songwriter. Again, just one problem: I had plenty of words, but I could not for the life of me write music. Trust me, I tried. A lot. When no one else was around. :D

Since it seemed like I was never going to make "songwriter", I tried to be content with writing poems. I started compiling little homemade books of them each year and giving them to people for Christmas. My poetry has always been a very personal thing, a product of my walk with God, my journey in life. It wasn't really meant for others. I was just giving it to certain people because a) I had no money to give them anything else and b) they were my parents, grandparents, and closest friends and I figured they'd like anything I wrote. :D Imagine my surprise when people started telling me that the poems were blessing them somehow!!! It took a while, but I finally came to realize that, through God (and HIM alone!) words that I wrote could touch others just like others' words had touched me. So, I kept sharing the poems I wrote.

Over the last few months, I've felt more and more strongly that somehow, I was supposed to be writing songs. Reminding God that I can't write music wasn't having any effect, either. This was the dream He had given me, what was I going to do about it?

Way back in June last year, the boys and I were in San Angelo for a visit and went by the church to see Pastor Jim and Debbie. While we were there, Pastor Jim got his guitar out and sang for us a new verse he had written to "Your Love, O Lord" (a song done by Third Day). The whole song is taken from Psalm 36, and Pastor Jim made a comment just in passing about there being a "third verse" there but he didn't have time to write it. Well, I read the Psalm and found what he was talking about right away...and it wouldn't let me sleep that night. So, I wrote a third verse and gave it to Pastor Jim. The congregation sang the song, with both new verses, in church on Sunday, and it was one of the most surreal moments of my life, hearing people sing words I had written by the grace of God. It wasn't a prideful feeling, just...a very blessed, very "this-is-so-right" kind of feeling. And my dream was set in concrete. :D I still had the very big problem of getting music for the words, though.

In July, I joined the Ernie Haase & Signature Sound message board and starting making some great friends from all over the world, united by our love for this awesome quartet.
In October, EH&SS released a new CD/DVD project called "Dream On". The first time I watched the video, I cried listening to them sing the title song...
Dream on! When the world just doesn't believe; God has promised never to leave you alone!
Dream on! Follow hope wherever it leads; in the seed of dreams, there's the promise of the dawn!
Dare to listen for the music, keep on following the star; morning can't be far! Dream on!
It was so perfect for where I was, almost ready to give up on my God-sized dream. And through listening to that song--and a few teary conversations with God--I realized that I was standing in the way of my own dream. I kept offering questions and problems and excuses when God just wanted me to trust Him and be willing. It's like He said to me, "Haley, you sound like Moses! So many excuses, so many questions, so many seemingly reasonable reasons to stay in your comfort zone! Just trust Me, little one!"

'Course, I kept arguing for a while. Here's an excerpt from my journal one night:
Note, arguing with God never really works very well! To every problem I could come up with, He simply replied, "just trust Me." Rather like hitting a brick wall! An awfully gentle and lovable brick wall, though!
Finally, God got me to a point where I was willing to say, "OK. You show me what to do one step at a time, and I will follow. Even if it means that, somewhere down the road, I'm going to have to face rejection...or my fear of 'famous-people-I-don't-know-personally'." :D Once I got to that point, I found myself finally at rest and really excited about whatever the future held. Here's another excerpt from my journal:
I look ahead, "dreaming on" with a crazy mixture of excitement and terror. My future is in the hands of a very good, always faithful, loving, absolutely unpredictable God--who wouldn't be terrifyingly excited?! Or maybe it's excitedly terrified... :D

Fast forward to January 10, 2009. Somebody on the EH&SS message board (see, I did have a reason for mentioning it earlier!) started a conversation about song writing, and I jumped in with a brief comment that I loved to write lyrics, but hadn't ever been able to put music to them. Next thing I know, I get a personal message from Raluca, a high school student from Romania.

She wanted me to send her my "favorite" poem that I had written (favorite? Who has a favorite poem they've written?! The most recent one is usually my "favorite"! :D). My curiosity aroused, I sent her one and asked why she wanted it. She told me that she wanted to try putting music to it. And I became excited. VERY excited. This HAD to be God!! I had not sought this out in any way, and here it was. From Romania!!!

A few days later, she e-mailed me sheet music and a beautifully done soundtrack to Desert Places. WOW!!! Let me tell ya, folks, Raluca is very gifted. The song is beautiful and her musical ability is impressive. And, I'm even MORE excited. :D What are we doing next? Well, beyond fine-tuning Desert Places and working on another song, we don't really know. We are convinced that this is a God thing, and it would be wrong to just keep it all to ourselves. But, we're still working on where we go next with all this.

I have just one more bit to say...a couple days ago Raluca and I were instant messaging (isn't technology great?! :D) and talking about the song and how amazing it was that we'd "found each other". Raluca said she'd tried many times to write lyrics and hadn't really been able to, and I laughed as I told her I'd tried to write music many times and had totally not been able to. Her response? "We match!" Perfectly put, Raluca. :D Only God could orchestrate things to where a girl from Texas and a girl from Romania (yes, I am still floored by all this!) could get together and write a song. God-sized dreams do come true!!

In that same IM conversation, I said something about how I'd hesitated over the lyrics to send her because I worry about my poetry being too "personal", too much "for me" and not really making sense or mattering to other people. She so sweetly pointed out the simple truth that that is the very thing that makes a good song. Then she made me cry. She said that when she got the lyrics from me, she had felt like she was kind of in a "desert place", and that the lyrics helped and blessed her as she was writing the music. And that, my friends, simply HAS to be God!