In prayer, I drifted off to sleep. The next morning I awoke with the idea for the drama fully developed in my mind. I even knew what the title was to be and what the artwork for the cover was to look like! I was so excited I could hardly wait to get to the computer. I felt the idea was so perfect and complete it had to come from the Lord and not from me.
I wrote the script, chose Scripture readings to go with it, and placed the songs in the appropriate positions in the manuscript. Once I had it together, I felt the song I had chosen for the opening song was weak, so I cut it. Now, I needed an opening song and a closing song to tie it all together. I began reading the events of Christ’s birth from the Bible, meditating on them and praying for ideas. The Lord provided and in a couple of days I had lyrics for them. My husband and I set them to music. This was mostly his doing with a little input from me and a lot from the Holy Spirit!
We read the script and timed the songs to make sure it would come in at around fifty minutes or a little under. I edited the manuscript to strengthen it and give continuity and whittled until I had a cantata was that length and until I was sure it was a good evangelical tool that gave honor and glory to the Lord. Next, I copyrighted the songs and script and sent the Mp3’s of the songs and the guitar lead sheets off to have the tracks made. When they returned, we were very pleased with the job that had been done. My husband then learned to sing the songs with the new tracks and made vocal demos of each. Our pastor was conscripted as an actor to help read the script for recording. We now had the raw materials for a cantata for small churches that did not require the ability to read music. It could be presented by being sung to the tracks.
Knowing some might want sheet music for piano, I began to soliciting people I know in the business to find someone to transcribe the tracks into sheet music. Though the person who created them from guitar lead sheets did a wonderful job, they play by ear and could not generate sheet music.
After checking with all of the candidates I had for transcription and meeting with no success—they didn’t have enough time to do it or played only by ear—I checked with a couple of local pianists. Neither had the time nor felt competent for the undertaking.
I began to pray for a solution to this problem because my skills at the keyboard certainly weren’t up to it. The Lord led me to a web site I had bookmarked a few months before when I was pricing the cost of transcription. I checked out the web site again and clicked a You Tube link to see how skilled the pianist was. To my delight, most of the videos were of the pianist playing his arrangements of hymns. After more prayer, I contacted him for a quote. I had a high and a low price in mind. His quote came back higher that the low price I was hoping for, but it was about one third of what I feared it might cost. I thanked the Lord for His provision and sent a vocal demo and guitar lead sheet for a test song off to Los Angeles. It was back within a week. I sent his work to a second person who does tracks for us to have them appraise it. I was told it was good, so the rest of the songs were shipped and the work was completed in about a month.
With the raw materials of the script, sheet music and tracks for the songs and a demo of the entire cantata completed, I began advertising to find a church willing to test it for me with the offer of providing all materials free with permission to make as many copies for a one-time performance. I sent out e-mail, made the offer on Face book, and handed and mailed out demos. A lady contacted me saying she wanted to do it but wanted SATB (soprano/alto/tenor/bass) parts. Another friend I know in the business is arranging those at this time. It is planned Enon Baptist Church in Walnut Hill, Florida will present the cantata, Follow the Star to Calvary, this coming Christmas season. It truly amazes me how the Lord provided at each point of need to bring this cantata together.
|
