We are so excited to share that you can now get your copy of “Enter His Gates” on iTunes today! This project developed into a focus on psalms and other scripture passages of worship. It contains 16 tracks, 3 of them are instrumental selahs, 2 of them recorded live at our church, some of them new arrangements of old tunes, and the intro track was begging to be something special.
I had this idea months ago about a way to introduce the entire album, but I put it on the backburner to see if we could get everything else done. With a day left before deadline, I couldn’t get away from the thought and so we went with it, and we had to go for it very quickly (so quickly that unfortunately, Jamie Strutton isn’t given trumpet credits on the album notes, because it wasn’t recorded before the artwork was done).
So, let me explain to you the story behind “Psalm 150.”
The first half of the song is reading through the last psalm recorded in Scripture. If you notice, the first paragraph speaks of praising God as it concerns to location and reasoning. For that portion, I just had a pad underneath my voice. For the second paragraph, the psalmist gives different types of instruments with which we can praise God. What’s interesting is the first few instruments are regal instruments normally designated for kingly courts. The second half of instruments are usually associated more with the common folk with which all people had access. It then ends on “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!” No partiality here – everything that has breath needs to join in!
As my voice reads through the chapter, we begin to add each instrument mentioned as we progress. The trumpet first comes in with the main melody. We then created a lute and harp sound (which was different than our current understanding) with a high-pitched guitar and hammered dulcimer. The tambourine enters. The most complex part was figuring out how to record dancing, but some placed stomps and claps really give the track a unique feel and is probably my favorite moment on the entire album. The “strings” were more of a full guitar sound, so we introduce that. The pipe enters in with a beautiful part, then comes the many cymbals.
The song suddenly breaks after verse 6, where some crazy vocals begin and sing the beautiful truths of verse 6. John, Peggy, Nancy, Amanda, Angela, and myself had a fun time putting together the many parts interweaving during that time.
It turned out to be a great thesis for the entire album, and if you would like to take a listen, you can do so here:
Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.