Twenty weeks in. Podcast 90 is here.

This week was mostly the light bar.

I got a 3D printer this week so I can keep improving the LED bar. The next step is printed mounts that sit in the piano’s existing fallboard supports, instead of the angle iron pieces I had been using. Those metal ends worked, but I was never comfortable leaving that kind of hardware that close to the piano, even though I had felt tape on the ends.

I also added a second LED strip. Fitting that, plus printing and reprinting the mounts, took longer than I expected. The bar was out of commission for the first two live streams this week. I am still iterating. The goal is the same as last week: a removable rail that shows more of the movement in the music, without attaching anything to the finish or the keys. When it is on, it adds a really cool dynamic while I play.

Carlen Charleston with Jesus MOB is coming over next weekend to record. I have a lot to get ready so Podcast 91 and the shorts stay on schedule.

I have also started using AI to help me keep a journal for my boys. I talk it out. It writes it down. I keep the original recording and only clean up the obvious speech-to-text mistakes. That has made it easier to actually do it, instead of waiting until I have a free hour to sit and type.

This week’s Pray the Bible Short comes from last podcast. It is Psalm 13: an honest lament that turns back to trust. It went up yesterday from the Podcast 89 music.

If the embed is not loading, the direct link is youtube.com/shorts/vr6JFXVHMVw.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 90 appeared first on Music To Pray By.

Nineteen weeks in. Podcast 89 is here.

Six new Selahs this week, along with the first finished look at a project I have been wanting to build for a while.

Our family vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia, was awesome. It was good to get away, spend that time together, and come home with plenty of memories. I could easily turn the trip into a much longer post, but for now I will just say that I am grateful we were able to go.

The biggest visual change this week is the new LED rail across the piano. It is a removable aluminum bar that uses the piano’s existing fallboard supports, so nothing is glued to the finish or keys. A Raspberry Pi listens to the MIDI performance and drives individually addressable lights across the keyboard. The goal is not just to add color, but to let the overhead camera show more of the movement and shape inside the music.

This is the first working version, not the last one. I already have ideas for matte-black 3D-printed clips and baffles that will hide the emitters and focus more of the light onto the keys. I am also leaving room for a second strip once I rebuild the power path for it properly. The current result is exciting, but there is still plenty of room to make it cleaner and better.

Getting back into the rhythm of the morning live streams after vacation has been harder than I expected. If a few extra flubbed notes have slipped through this week, I apologize. I am settling back in, and next week should be better.

This week’s Pray the Bible Short comes from Psalm 25. It has been one of the more-watched prayers in the series, and it is a fitting one for any season when the next step is not completely clear.

If the embed is not loading, the direct link is youtube.com/shorts/JLsfFKj5Tzk.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 89 appeared first on Music To Pray By.

Eighteen weeks in. Podcast 88 is here.

Four Selahs this week, drawn from three morning streams. By the time this posts, we should be home from our family trip, unpacking slowly and recovering from a very full couple of weeks.

Four spontaneous pieces from June 1 through June 3. The timestamps will match the YouTube chapters, and each link goes back to the full morning the piece came from:

If everything went according to plan, we made it home yesterday. After living out of suitcases and covering a lot of miles, this weekend is mostly about resting, unpacking, and settling back into normal life. This is the extra episode I worked to finish before we left so the weekly rhythm could continue while we were away.

I expect the trip will show up here again once I have had time to sort through it. There are stories to tell and probably a few pictures worth sharing. I will include some of those details in a podcast a couple of weeks from now.

I tried quite a few things while producing this episode to improve Piano VFX. One known MIDI timing problem has been addressed, but a longer render still develops enough drift that the falling notes do not stay locked to the real keys all the way through the performance.

For now, the reliable answer is manual. I split the VFX layer by song in Final Cut Pro and use its Retime controls to bring each section back into alignment. It works, but it adds another two or three hours to production. I am still deciding whether that weekly cost is worth it. I do like the finished look, especially now that the camera is directly over the keyboard.

I also used my agent to help create a new set of effects for this episode. They feel more natural around the notes and piano than the flame effects used in the previous two podcasts. That part was fun, and it is one reason I keep working on the visual side even when the timing problem makes me wonder whether I should stop.

There was another improvement this week that will be less obvious on screen. After listening tests on the Disklavier, I refined the MIDI workflow so it changes release velocity only for tight repeated notes while the sustain pedal is down. The rest of the performance stays untouched. It is a small adjustment, but the repeated notes respond more cleanly and the original playing still sounds like me.

To close, here is At The Altar Pt4 from the June 7 TCC Sunday service. Take a minute and let the worship draw you back toward His presence.

If the embed isn’t loading for you, the direct link is youtube.com/shorts/cPmdTpngo14.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 88 appeared first on Music To Pray By.

Seventeen weeks in. Podcast 87 is up.

Seven Selahs this week, pulled from four morning streams — with a new view over the piano and a family vacation beginning in the background.

Seven spontaneous pieces, drawn from May 28 through June 2. The timestamps match the YouTube chapters, and each link goes back to the full morning the piece came from:

I changed the camera arrangement again this week, moving the main view much closer to a true overhead shot. It gives the keyboard more room in the frame while opening up the inside of the Yamaha C7 behind it.

One small change turned out to matter: I had to remove the keyboard cover. Its front lip was hiding the tops of the keys from the higher camera, and the obstruction became especially noticeable once I added the falling notes. With the cover gone, the whole keyboard reads cleanly from above.

The new angle fits Piano VFX much better. The falling notes have a clear path into the real keyboard, and the piano itself stays at the center of the picture.

It also makes the daily streams easier in a way I did not expect. Only my hands are in the shot now, so I do not have to spend part of the morning getting camera-ready. That gives me a little more time with God before the stream and a little less time thinking about the camera. I am happy with that trade.

If everything is going to plan, this episode is posting while we are waking up in Roanoke and getting ready for the last stretch to Williamsburg. We have a shorter drive today, with Natural Bridge and a stop in historic Lexington along the way before checking in at Historic Powhatan later this afternoon.

After two long travel days, I am looking forward to slowing down with Yoko and the boys. Colonial Williamsburg, Busch Gardens, and even a family movie are on the plan before we turn west for home. I staged this episode ahead so the weekly rhythm could continue while we are away.

To close, a prayer from Jude: A Prayer Kept from Stumbling. It is a good reminder that God is able to keep us and bring us into His presence with joy.

If the embed isn’t loading for you, the direct link is youtu.be/EtomQXAfuiA.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 87 appeared first on Music To Pray By.

Sixteen weeks in. Podcast 86 is up.

Seven Selahs this week, pulled from four morning streams — and another busy week of changes behind the scenes.

Seven spontaneous pieces, drawn from May 25 through May 28. The timestamps match the YouTube chapters, and each link goes back to the full morning the piece came from:

A lot of this week was spent moving the systems I use behind the scenes away from Claude Desktop and Cowork and into Hermes. I’ve depended on Claude Desktop for quite a while, but I don’t want one company’s app to be where every project, automation, and bit of context has to live.

With Hermes, the work stays put while I can use different models for different jobs. Claude is still available when it’s the right fit; it just doesn’t have to hold the whole system anymore. If one service is busy, changes direction, or simply isn’t the best tool for a particular job, I can keep working without moving everything again.

The timing was interesting: Grok 4.5 and ChatGPT 5.6 both arrived right as I was doing the migration. I didn’t just test them with a few demo prompts; both of them spent the week doing actual work.

Grok’s long context and habit of following a thread all the way down made it useful for untangling the history and moving pieces. ChatGPT 5.6 has been especially strong on structured coding and exact operational work — the kind where I want it to slow down, check assumptions, and verify what it changed. They definitely feel different, but I can switch between them without rebuilding the desk around them. That’s the part I’ve liked most.

This is the first episode where the new Piano VFX treatment made it all the way into the finished video. The real piano footage is still underneath it; I layered the falling notes and key effects over that footage in Final Cut Pro so the movement follows what I’m actually playing.

Getting there took some experimentation. The effect had to sit with the real instrument instead of covering it, and the dark background, keyboard mask, and edges all needed careful compositing. I’m happy with where it landed, and this is the visual direction I plan to carry into the podcast videos and clips I share across YouTube, Facebook, and X.

By the time this posts, we’ll be less than a week from family vacation. I’m wrapping up the last plans, getting work staged ahead, and trying to leave enough margin that the ministry rhythm can keep going while we’re away.

To close — a quieter live worship moment from TCC’s June 7 service: At The Altar, Part 3. The steadier side view sits above the Meta-glasses view from the keys, so you can watch the same moment from both perspectives.

If the embed isn’t loading for you, the direct link is youtu.be/pmFNNaU-ZMw.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 86 appeared first on Music To Pray By.

Fifteen weeks in. Podcast 85 is up.

Six Selahs this week, pulled from the morning streams as always — and a behind-the-scenes update I’m genuinely excited about, for the curious among you.

Six spontaneous pieces, drawn from two mornings — May 21 and May 25. The timestamps match the YouTube chapters, and each link goes back to the full morning the piece came from:

Here’s the update. When I play live, I breathe with the music — speeding up, pulling back, sitting in a moment. That’s the life of it, but it’s also the hardest part to clean up afterward. The editing software (Logic’s Smart Tempo) tries to map all that ebb and flow onto a grid so the notes line up, and it gets it mostly right — which means I spend a lot of quiet hours nudging the rest of it back by hand.

So this past week I ran an experiment. I took 56 of my own past edits — every Selah from the last dozen-plus podcasts — and had the AI I use behind the scenes (Anthropic’s Fable) study them, to learn how I actually hear and correct the timing, and try doing that first pass itself instead of Smart Tempo. Fun fact: this very episode was one of its test cases.

The result honestly surprised me. Through the middle of a song, it now matches my hand-editing almost note for note. Where it still stumbles is the big turns — the moments where the music changes feel entirely — and one wrong guess there throws off everything after it. So it’s not ready to take the wheel yet; I’ve set it on the shelf for now, and it keeps learning a little more from every episode I edit by hand. But the day a computer can hear a ritardando the way a human does is closer than I expected, and that’s a fun thing to watch unfold.

The back half of July is busy — student camp the week of the 25th (I’ll be helping lead worship), and family vacation right after. This is one of the episodes I recorded ahead so the music and the prayer keep coming while I’m away. If you don’t hear from me for a couple weeks, that’s why — but the Selahs will still be landing each Saturday.

To close — a Pray the Bible short, and a favorite: 1 John 4. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God. There is no fear in love; perfect love casts out fear.

If the embed isn’t loading for you, the direct link is youtu.be/hs665uSujKU.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 85 appeared first on Music To Pray By.

Fourteen weeks in. Podcast 84 is up.

Five Selahs this week, gathered from the morning streams as always. A short note on why this one exists already, and a little about what’s coming.

Five spontaneous pieces, drawn from two mornings — May 19 and May 20. The timestamps match the YouTube chapters, and each link goes back to the full morning the piece came from:

Full transparency: I recorded this episode back-to-back with last week’s, in one sitting. The reason is simple — the back half of July is full. Our family vacation is at the end of the month, and right before it comes Youth Camp. Getting two episodes done at once puts me two weeks ahead, so the prayer and the music keep flowing even while I’m away from the studio. It felt like good stewardship of the time God’s given.

Speaking of camp — our student ministry’s YNG Summer Camp is coming up (July 25–29 at Twin Oaks Ranch), four days of worship, fellowship, and teaching for 6th through 12th graders. I get to help lead worship while we’re out there, and honestly it’s one of the highlights of my year — there’s nothing quite like a room full of students meeting God for themselves. It is always, always a blessing. If you’ve got a student, you can find the details on our church’s Summer at Connection page.

Please keep the camp in your prayers — for safe travels, for open hearts, and for lives changed.

To close — a Pray the Bible short for a busy season: Isaiah 26. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. A good one to carry into the weeks ahead.

If the embed isn’t loading for you, the direct link is youtu.be/Dsk4aAPuW4Q.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 84 appeared first on Music To Pray By.

Thirteen weeks in, and this one lands on the Fourth of July. Podcast 83 is up.

The usual gathering of live worship piano from the morning streams — five Selahs this week — and a few things on my heart for this particular weekend.

Five spontaneous pieces, drawn from three mornings — May 15, 18, and 19. The timestamps match the YouTube chapters, and each link goes back to the full morning the piece came from:

Last week I asked you to pray that God would make a way for my son Sanban to finish his senior year at San Marcos Academy. I want you to know: He made a way. It came together, and Sanban will walk across that stage with the friends he’s grown up with. I don’t take it for granted, and I’m grateful beyond words — to the Lord, and to every one of you who prayed. This is exactly why I keep doing this. Thank you.

This Independence Day is a milestone: 250 years since the birth of our nation. Two and a half centuries — it’s a lot to sit with. However you’re marking the Fourth this year, I hope it’s a good and restful one.

But mostly I find myself wanting to give thanks. Not to a flag or a moment in history, but to God — for His faithfulness across two and a half centuries, for the freedom to sit down at a piano and pray out loud without fear, and for all He has done and is still doing for His Kingdom. Nations rise and fall; His Kingdom has no end. That’s the hope I’m resting in this weekend.

Our church family — The Connection Church in Buda, TX — gathered this week for a Night of Worship on Wednesday the 1st, a sweet time of singing and being together at the start of this celebration week. A few of you have asked lately where I play each week — that’s the place. If you’re anywhere near Buda and looking for a church home, we’d love to have you; you’d be welcomed with open arms.

To close — a Pray the Bible short, and a fitting one for a weekend of looking up in gratitude. Psalm 121: I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord.

If the embed isn’t loading for you, the direct link is youtu.be/lL3RZbnmEaw.

Happy Independence Day. Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 83 appeared first on Music To Pray By.

Twelve weeks in. Podcast 82 is up.

Same as always: live worship piano from the morning streams, cleaned up and gathered into one continuous listen. Six Selahs this week. Not a lot of behind-the-scenes news to report — mostly it’s been a season of life happening off the bench, which I’ll share a little of below.

Six spontaneous pieces, drawn from four mornings — May 13, 14, 15, and 18. The timestamps match the YouTube chapters, and each link goes back to the full morning the piece came from:

Most of my week hasn’t been at the piano — it’s been around the kitchen table, planning the year ahead for my boys. My oldest, Sanban, is heading into his senior year of high school, and my younger son, Jake, is gearing up for another year of homeschool. If you’ve raised teenagers you know the strange weight of a “last first day” coming into view.

Here’s where I’ll ask for prayer, plainly. Sanban’s heart is to finish where he started — San Marcos Academy, the Christian school he’s called home since the fifth grade. It turns out that’s what he really wants, to walk across that stage with the people he grew up with. For our family right now, that’s a real financial stretch. So I’m simply asking: would you pray that God makes a way for him to finish his senior year there? I’ve watched the Lord provide before in ways I couldn’t have engineered, and I’m trying to hold this one with open hands.

We’re also praying about a move that would put us closer to our church family in Buda. So much of our week is spent driving back and forth — services, youth nights, men’s mornings — and the thought of being a few minutes away instead of an hour round-trip feels like its own quiet answer to prayer. More time with the people we’re doing life with, less time on the highway. We’ll see how the Lord works out the timing; it hinges on a few things outside our hands, which is probably right where it should be.

Nothing flashy on the tech side this week. The chapter markers (table of contents) are on every episode now — tap along the YouTube progress bar to jump between the Selahs — and behind the scenes the whole publishing process has quietly gotten more automated. Practically, that just means it runs on its own and I get to spend the saved time where it belongs: at the keys, praying.

To close, a Pray the Bible short — and given everything above, there was really only one choice. The oldest prayer of provision and trust we have: Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

If the embed isn’t loading for you, the direct link is youtu.be/7CUKr47UBmI.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying — this week, especially, I mean that.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 82 appeared first on Music To Pray By.

Eleven weeks in. Podcast 81 is up.

Same idea as Podcast 80: live worship piano from the morning streams, cleaned up and stitched into one continuous listen. Six Selahs this week, and a couple of honest updates underneath them.

Six spontaneous pieces, pulled from three mornings — May 11, 12, and 13. The timestamps match the YouTube chapters, and each link goes back to the full morning the piece first showed up in:

A quieter update, but one I can actually hear. Anthropic just released a new model — Fable 5 — and I’ve been moving the production workflow for this ministry over to it. The results have been honestly remarkable, and the place it showed up most this week was in how I clean up the piano itself.

If you play, you know the sustain pedal is half the instrument. When I record live and the editing software stretches the timing to line everything up, it can quietly blow out the tiny gap where the pedal lifts and comes back down — so a chord change arrives a beat late and the new chord sounds dry, like the room went flat under it. I’d been hearing that all over this episode and fixing it by hand, one pedal lift at a time. This week that became an automatic step: it tightened up nearly four hundred of those late pedal changes across the recording — the ones I used to chase one by one — while leaving the deliberate pauses exactly as I played them. The sustain just connects now. It’s the kind of thing you don’t notice when it’s right, which is the whole point.

We just passed the two-month mark since the relaunch, and I’ll be straight with you: the numbers haven’t moved much. Growth has been pretty stagnant. A few weeks ago that might have discouraged me.

It doesn’t now. Relaunching Music To Pray By has completely revolutionized my own relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ — sitting down at the piano to pray every morning has changed me. So I’m going to keep going, even if I’m the only one who’s listening and praying along. If that’s you on the other end — thank you. And if it’s just the Lord and me for now, that’s enough.

In the spirit of being transparent about how this gets made: I actually finished this episode on June 13 and scheduled it to post a week ahead, today. I’m hoping to get another podcast finished today and recorded tomorrow — partly to see how much faster the new workflow really is now. If it works, you may notice these landing a little more reliably. That’s the goal: less time wrestling the machinery, more time at the keys.

Back to the usual closer — a Pray the Bible short. Here’s the one that resonated most with you this past week, and it fits where my head’s at: a prayer of overflowing hope, from Romans 15.

If the embed isn’t loading for you, the direct link is youtu.be/l6aabmHS4iQ.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for praying.

The post Music To Pray By Podcast 81 appeared first on Music To Pray By.