Don’t give up the lessons…
A friend sent me the gen today about a new Internet phenomenon called Microsoft Songsmith. It's a piece of software produced by Microsoft which auto-generates a backing track and chord sequence to a set of vocals sung into a computer. Too good to be true? Sure is. In fact it's the best argument I've ever seen for just taking the lessons and – yes! – learning to play an instrument. I read somewhere the other day (forgotten where) that new research has demonstrated that to acquire a skill with complete fluency (like learning a language, playing an instrument etc) you need to do it for three hours a day, most days, for ten years. That, I'm thinking, is roughly what I did as a kid.
Still, if you want to check out Microsoft's miraculous means of bypassing all that hard work, go right ahead! But first, you should know that this is what it did to Roxanne. It will make you laugh or cry, or possibly both.
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author musician theologian
Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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