“Abide With Me” Now Available!

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Amazon, Christian, Christian Music, Classical Music, Crucifixion, Faith, God's Word, Google+, Guitar, Hymns, iTunes, Jazz, Jesus, Music, Music Blog, Presbyterian, Songwriting, The Bible, The Cross

Announcing my latest Single for the ongoing project #HymnsForSoloAcousticGuitar is now available! “Abide With Me” is now on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Apple Music, and all other major music retailers. There are links below to listen, purchase, and share or you can Click this link – Newsletter – for the story behind this release as well as artwork and more. I pray that this release is a blessing to you!

iTunes

Amazon

Spotify

Hymns For Solo Acoustic Guitar Webpage

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It’s Live! #AccordingToThyGraciousWord

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Acoustic Guitar, Christian, Christian Music, Classical Music, Facebook, Faith, God's Word, Google+, Guitar, Hymns, HymnsForSoloAcousticGuitar, iTunes, Jesus, Music, Music Blog, Presbyterian, Recording, Songwriting, The Bible, The Cross

Today is Release Day! My first “Hymn For Solo Acoustic Guitar” is available digitally at all major retailers and streaming services. This is a day I’ve been looking very forward to because of one of the great benefits of this release is – Peace from the chaos. 

In a time where we have busied ourselves with whatever we can crunch into 24 hours that seems important at the time, we are losing one of the most important things to our health, well being, and eternity – Quiet Time. 

It it my hope that the Hymn “According To Thy Gracious Word” will make you pause even for 2:40 of your life to reflect, reset, and focus on what’s most important. Even though music is what I do for a living, the power of these great old Hymns has been very moving in their creation. A time of purpose, re-dedication, and taking in what is now.

Let me know how this song blesses you. You can email me at rockin@rhonvanerman.com. There will be a “Behind The Music” video soon and more releases in the coming months. There are links below to some of the major digital retailers and Spotify. Other companies will be added in the coming days. As always, thanks for listening and supporting my music!

Blessings,

Rhon

iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/according-to-thy-gracious-word-single/id1296625188 

CD Baby – https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/rhonvanerman5 

Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/user/rhonve/playlist/0KdY4Ah7dDhtYIMCwFU1mo

Website – http://www.rhonvanerman.com/Hymns-For-Solo-Acoustic-Guitar.html http://www.rhonvanerman.com/Hymns-For-Solo-Acoustic-Guitar.html 

 

 

#HymnsForSoloAcousticGuitar

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Acoustic Guitar, Amazon, Christian, Classical Music, Faith, God's Word, Google+, Guitar, Hymns, HymnsForSoloAcousticGuitar, iTunes, Jesus, Music, Music Blog, Recording, Solo Acoustic Guitar, Songwriting, Studio, The Bible, The Cross

Yep, that’s a hashtag. A virtual way of following all the releases, videos, photos, and more for the singles I’m about to release digitally. I’ve even started a special page on my website dedicated to this release here – Hymns For Solo Acoustic Guitar. So we’ll call this a virtual CD. There will be new Hymns released about every 60 days or less in an ongoing project that I hope will add peace, clarity, and a fresh listening experience for you! Please bookmark, share on social media, and add these songs to your playlists on Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and more! And if you’re a bit nostalgic, you can buy each track too! I will be creating a video soon about the story behind this project.

The first Hymn will be “According To Thy Gracious Word”. A hymn that we sing A Capella quite often at Presbyterian Chapel of The Lakes Church. The guitar is tuned differently to give a Celtic drone with the melody being played at the same time. The dynamic starts low and builds to the 3rd verse with an intimate verse 4 that builds to a harmonic peak. It was quite cool to arrange! The release date for this first Hymn is Thursday November, 2nd and will be available on all digital retailers and streaming services.

One of the unique qualities about this adventure is I’m doing it all from start to finish. Like cooking from scratch. The arranging, recording, mastering, artwork, copyrighting, licensing, upload, and PR! (I’m tired already!) Not so I can wave my flag, and not only to keep costs to a minimum (although that’s awesome!), it keeps everything real, like it is in Church when we sing it, or when I sit back in the Lazy-Boy and put in my earbuds to just listen and get two minutes and thirty-nine seconds of peace! This allows me to be even closer to God because I’m laying everything in His hands on these releases. That…is the place I need to be!

I truly hope this music will be a blessing to you and hope that you will write to me and let me know your thoughts. Here’s my email rockin@rhonvanerman.com 

As always thanks for reading and listening and blessings to you!

– Rhon Van Erman  www.rhonvanerman.com

 

 

Rest Or Stress?

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Christmas, Christmas Music, Christmas The Reason, Facebook, Google+, Guitar, iTunes, Jazz

That is the title of the song, right? “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”, not “God Stress Ye Merry Gentlemen”. And yeah, what bout the Merry part, do I have that? And what am I Merry about? The here and now, or the Hereafter? Intriguing questions as the 25th of December inches ever closer. An even better question come the 2nd of January when all is said and done.

The CD, Christmas The Reason, was recorded purposely without words to let your mind ponder the meaning of Christmas. Your personal quiet time. Sitting by the tree at night, or early in the morning before everyone gets up. Rest from the go here, and go there. Rest from the stress.

One of my favorite things to do during December is to get some windshield time. Probably from my road days, but it helps me to mentally and spiritually breathe. A different kind of quite time. My arrangement of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” was written with this mood in mind. Like a nighttime drive in the city, with the snow gently coming down and the Christmas lights reflecting from the business windows. The air perfectly crisp but not too cold. Driving around neighborhoods looking at all the lights. Kind of makes you feel like a kid again. And as it says, “to have a child like spirit”. That’s something I never want to lose.

This is post #2 for the inside look at Christmas The Reason. Don’t forget to push the play button on the video above. It will play the song while you read this post. And please comment to me and share this blog across social media or email. And as always, thanks for listening!

– Rhon

Email me at rockin@rhonvanerman.com 

What Would A Singing Angel Do To You?

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Angels, Capture Me Again, CD, CD Baby, Christmas, Christmas Music, Christmas The Reason, Facebook, Google+, Guitar, Guitar Solo, iTunes, Jazz, Music, Music Blog, Music Video, Reason, Rhon Van Erman

It’s here! A month of celebration and reflection upon one of the greatest events to happen in History. The tree, decorations, Church, family parties, shopping, going and going and…..numb….”I’ll be glad when this is over so I can”….

Ugh! What happened? Would an Angel walking in your downtown singing “Hark The Herald Angels Sing” put it all back into perspective? Would the general public even notice, or think “That’s one of those weird people who say Merry Christmas”.

I embarked upon the recording of a Christmas CD in 2013 in a bit of a scurry. However, once I got started, doing an all instrumental album (yes I still call them that) allowed the Spirit of the songs to come forward and let my soul breathe a bit. To ponder on “The Reason” for the celebration.

This is the first of five blog posts that will feature a video/song from the Christmas The Reason CD.  My main objective was to create a work of songs that would impart contemplation. One of the cool things with the type of video I’ve created, is that you can read this while listening. So you can push play on the video and scroll down and read. This will be an “inside the music” perspective of why I decided on these particular songs and what they mean to family, friends, fans, and myself.  What is my reaction and participation to this event? One of my favorite times to listen to this CD is late at night when everyone is asleep, close my eyes, and let the tension of the world calm down. Something we all can use a bit of.

I also hope that you will leave comments not only about the music, but your thoughts and experiences from this most wonderful time of the year. I have played thousands of songs and “gigs” in my life but the greatest and most fulfilling notes are the ones I offer to the One who gives the notes. Please share this with your friends, family, and others, so we may be better connected in this gift we call music.

Merry Christmas!

– Rhon  (email me at rockin@rhonvanerman.com)

“Capture Me Again”

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“She stole my heart, not long ago.

Now it’s time for her to play the thief again”. (Verse 1)

Ah the Honeymoon. When all is right with the world and the only cares we have are for each other. Sleep in, then sleep some more. Eat, drink, be merry, and be happy to be married. If only this could last forever. Right?

Well, this is the first day of the Honeymoon. Sometimes the second day brings some odd characters to the mix. Expectations being one character. The hope that day two will be just a great as day one, or, better yet, exceed day one! There are other characters in this story you probably know all too well if you’ve been married for longer than two days. Whether we want to admit it or not, we can be a bit selfish with our better half. And that is what you call them, right?

Capture me again is written about getting back the Honeymoon and keeping it. Yep, it’s possible, but we have to keep it alive. Remembering that love, just is. It’s not a job with a clock in card. And when life caves in around us, there is a place we can go that makes it all go away, your better half’s arms.

There is a play on words with the lyrics to this song that uses stealing, incarceration and such, in a good way… read the lyrics at this link – http://www.rhonvanerman.com/Capture_Me_Again_Lyrics.pdf

Remember when all you could think about was how soon it would be until you saw them? That’s it. Keep it alive!

– Rhon

“As Close As You Will Get”

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Risks, you take them everyday. No risk, no reward. Some small, some take a lot of give. Those who give, get.

There comes a point in the heat of the moment that you have to take a chance. Deciding on a relationship, a dream to chase, a job change. Not a blind leap, but a leap of faith. When you don’t know the outcome and you wish you had a sign. But sometimes breathless, you have to choose. This could be it. Because, “this moment just might be, as close as you will get, this side of heaven.”

These are lyrics and thoughts taken from the writing of the song “This Side Of Heaven” from the Revolution CD. I hope that this song will be an inspiration to “live” your days and not wait until it’s too late. And in addition, to be able to say if it didn’t work out that you gave your all and have no regrets!

The lyrics to the entire song can be read from my website here – Lyrics to “This Side Of Heaven”

Thanks for reading. Blessings

Rhon

http://www.rhonvanreman.com

“She Cries Love” for #ThrowBackThursday

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Hard to believe I can use the song “She Cries Love” for a Throw Back Thursday feature but this song has been in release for 18 years next month, which I think puts it into the aforementioned category as well as makes me not feel 20 anymore!

This song was released in November of 1996 and is from my first CD that is self-titled. This was back in the ages when we were using what is called ADAT, a tape based digital format for recording, that was “cutting edge” for it’s time and the CD was still in it’s infancy. My, my, how far we’ve come in such a short time! As far as the throw back goes, back then there were only huge, rest on your shoulder types of video cameras. Or at least, a hand held 8 mm cam that was a bit awkward to negotiate. So for this #TBT I’m using the CD cover pic as a static image and letting the song play in the back round of the video to give it that “older” vibe, and besides, I just didn’t have the gear or budget it would’ve taken 18 years ago to make a video like the award winning “Revolution” video done in 2013. The cool thing with new technologies is that I will be able to upload all the songs to YouTube from this CD so you can listen to the songs in their entirety! If you have a YouTube account please add them to your playlist. And if you haven’t purchased them, all the songs are available on iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, and at http://www.rhonvanerman.com

“She Cries Love” was written in third person about falling in love and doing everything you can to make it happen, keep it happening, and not getting your heart broken along the way. The focus is a from a woman’s perspective, but as we well know, it takes two to tango and make it work. So this song can relate to either gender. My main writing influence for this song musically is the band Journey. Their sound is something I naturally gravitate to.

Sit back on your Thursday and watch, listen, and reminisce. And if you have this CD (record), or saw me perform it live, leave me a comment and share your memory!

– Rhon