Cedars, October 2018

October 2018 17 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT A Strong Foundation A behind-the-scenes look at HeartSong’s latest EP by Zach Krauss C edarville’s HeartSong challenges society’s conceptions of the funda- mentals with their new EP, “Foun- dations.” In May of 2018, HeartSong, Cedar- ville’s team of traveling worship bands, released “Foundations.” The band record- ed each song during a live performance in March. Production started at the beginning of the academic year. The production team chose a theme and selected songs to match that theme before the band began prepar- ing. Foundations contains six songs with hymns like “Before the Throne of God Above” and “Doxology,” but it also features more upbeat and modern worship songs such as “For All My Days” and “O Praise the Name.” This EP is significantly shorter than their past 10-song albums. Jim Cato, executive director of Heart- Song ministries, said the reduction in the number of songs is because of requests from students and attendees of the camps they visit each summer. “Over the past few summers, we’ve been getting more and more requests for the bands to replay certain songs so the stu- dents can hear them again,” Cato said. “So going into this year ... we thought it would be better to focus on a few songs and make sure that they would work really well with the theme we went with.” Once the songs for the album are se- lected, the teams each begin arranging the songs to make them unique to HeartSong. This process involves writing parts for the instrumentalists as well as adjusting the vocals to fit each team. Arranging allows the teams to really get to know the songs they’re preparing before performing them live. As the teams arrange, they listen and figure out which songs fit best for each team, they work on and practice these pieces until the live per- formance in the spring. The live performance is open not only to the student body at Cedarville, but also to camps and churches that HeartSong has visited and played for in the past. Record- ing in front of a live audience showcases that the EP is meant for community wor- ship. Many HeartSong members have said that their favorite part of the whole process was doing the live recording. Andrew Hile, senior Bible major and master of divinity student, discussed the significance of the spring performance. “The best part about the process is the live recording itself,” Hile said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into it on the front side, but the purpose of what we do is to serve Christ, and the live recording is an awesome opportunity to do that.” Once the recording has finished, all that is left is to edit the audio. Andrew King, audio production coordinator at Ce- darville, helped to edit the audio before sending it off to a post-production au- dio production company to finish the last touches. The teams have been extremely excit- ed about the reactions of the students to the music they’ve played while on tour. “I realized, as we were playing these songs over the summer, that there were a lot of students who really clung onto these lyrics,” Chris O’Mara, a fifth-year master divinity student, said. “There are things that these kids are struggling with that Ce- darville students are sometimes terrified to even think about, and the fact that we get to interact with that and speak to that through our music has been incredible.” O’Mara said that it was helpful to talk with students at the camps about the lyrics of the songs and why they were impactful. This helped them to start true, Gospel-ori- ented conversations that can lead students in a good direction. “They know that if they talk to us there we’re not going to tell anyone and there won’t be any serious repercussions,” O’Mara said. “So they’ll open up to us about their struggles, and it’s a really good chance for us to use the songs as a touchpoint for the rest of Scripture.” Ashlynn (Kelly) Robinette, assistant director for HeartSong Ministries, said that “Foundations” is meant to establish a base of rich theology and concepts about our never-changing God. “So much about the lives of high school students in our culture today is unsure, unsteady, and in a lot of ways, in- secure,” Robinette said. “Our goal was to remind them of the truth that Jesus will never leave them, forsake them, or break His promises.” “Foundations” was used for the Heart- Song tour in the summer of 2018 and will continue being used during the 2018-2019 school year and 2019 summer tour as the teams work on the next EP. Zach Krauss is a senior pharmacy/music double major from central Texas and cam- pus reporter for Cedars. He loves music, theatre, biology, community, and meeting new people. Image provided by Heartsong HeartSong’s Newest album art. Each song on the album was recorded during a live performance in March. “The best part about the process is the live recording itself,” Andrew Hile said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into it on the front side, but the purpose of what we do is to serve Christ, and the live recording is an awesome opportunity to do that.”