Kim Gentes

Ok, so lets be honest- you have gone out and purchased a ton of those song videos for worship. You maybe have even bought the motion backgrounds and tried to match them to songs with your display software during worship.  The most daring of you have even tried to make your own worship videos from stock photos or (scariest of all) your own photos from your own church or community.  The results seem like they are ok, but its often a long process.  Truth is, to get top quality stuff you have to be (no kidding) an actual video professional.  Well, after a few hundred bucks on stock photos and your venture into buying that "one-size-fits-all video maker program" you are ready to throw in the towel. 

Yep, I hear ya. It's a lot of work for quite limited results.  So when I came upon this super cool next web tech thing, I was more than a little skeptical. (aren't we all)....

Enter- Animoto!  as in, animoto.com ...

The premise is this- make your own music video, of the images/slides against music rhythm type.  But instead of having to do all the work of corregraphy from the music rhythm against the picture changes and motion-- leave it to a web servicem visa vi -- animoto.com ...

Creating a music video takes about 3 simple steps-

1. Upload some images that you'd like to be included
2. Upload your music file
3. Finalize your video.

I sure wish it was harder than what I just described.  I mean after all, I bought Sony Vegas Pro 8, Sound Forge, Cinescore, etc... But those really are the pro-level tools needed for pro level work.. if you just want to get some cool ideas by throwing pictures and music together, then animoto.com is your ticket.

It won't solve all your worship video blight problems for years, but it is a nice respite of functionality amongst a harshly commercialized world of "make a professional video in 10 minutes with our $300 software".... 

Instead, check out animoto.com for free (30 second vids are free, longer is a cost).  It might just be enough of a breather for you that you find you can use some of what you create there.

One last thing that is important to note-- Animoto is free as long as you create just 30 second shorts of music videos.  When you want to produce full length (match the length of the song) videos, it requires you do something with actual cash.  But its really a great deal-- literally only $30 per year and you get unlimited access (or you can pay $3 per video if you really have just a couple projects to do). Hardly seems like its a fee at all!  Really, just try the service out first. Once you see what it can do on 30 second shorts, you will having no problem telling your friends about it.

Kim Gentes

Run by a guitarist named Kenny Goh!  This is an awesome resource for guitarists!

An amazing website of great stuff, done by someone who seems pretty genuine (he's not trying to just sell something)... here are plenty of youtube.com vidoes on his blog, and almost all are his revisions of how to play certain electric guitar licks.. very very good site! Check it out!  Be sure to send your church guitarist here!

http://guitarpraise.blogspot.com/

The Interval Ear Trainer is a great online application.  It runs a series of tests on your ability to hear note changes (which those fancy, schmancy musicians call "intervals").  Even if you don't score high at first, use the tool to keep getting better.  You will find it does help you get a better "music memory", allowing you to more quickly know the interval change you heard.

You should really check this great ear training tool out online.

http://www.musictheory.net/trainers/html/id90_en.html

Here is a very cool inline tool you can use to find the name of chords that you are playing or wanting to play.  You can hit "play" and hear the chord too.  It's a nice little deal, so I figured it might be useful to some.