My wife, Dana, and I have been married 19 1/2 years now. We actually fell in love on a mission trip to Ukraine with our church (The People’s Church, Franklin, TN, now Church of the City). She was singing and I was playing trumpet. Our whole life together, music has been a big part of what we do. Over the years, individually, we have worked on hundreds of songs, arrangements, collections, musicals, films, tvs and movies. Dana has contracted, produced and sang on countless kids projects since she was a kid (and now our kids are singing/speaking on projects). I have been fortunate to compose, arrange, orchestrate and produce everything from movies to video games to musicals and even an illusionist show.

Both of us have created tons of children’s music on our own. But it seems like over the last few years, more opportunities have arisen for us to create music together.

Collaborative Process

Working with a partner to create any kind of art is a collaborative process. They should really talk about this in college music programs. They REALLY should.

What do I mean?

I mean that you have an idea for a song..and..well..it’s awesome.. BEST. IDEA. EVER.

And your partner looks at you and well…it’s this emoji 

A number of options exist when you get the ‘meh’ look.
1. Go watch ‘meh’ clips from The Emoji Movie

2. Fight for your best idea ever..it’s yours and it’s the best and if you argue long enough, your partner will finally see the brilliance of your idea and give in.

3. Ask yourself, “Why is it that this person that I trust so much and truly has our (together) best interests at stake isn’t completely crazy about the idea? (especially since there have been other times she’s said “Yes! That’s it!” I wonder if that means there’s an even better idea just around the corner if we dig in and search for it.”

Door #3 (and #1)

If you can find the urge to resist Door #2 above, then, well…

This scenario actually happened with Dana and I on our Christmas musical with Brentwood Benson (Crazy, Busy, Peaceful Holy Night).  (Door #3 not the drinking of the wrong holy grail cup of Christ and melting in a way that is not exactly up to modern day CGI but was pretty cool back then)

We came up with that title and theme for the musical and knew we needed a song called Crazy, Busy, Peaceful, Holy Night. I was messing around with ideas for the song and came up with what I thought was an awesome hook for the chorus. Awesome. YES…AWESOME. And Dana gave me the ‘meh’ face. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out why she wasn’t blown away with it, to let go of my ego and truly hear what she was saying. And well..she was right. Back to the drawing board.

Fast forward a week or so and we were decorating the tree for Christmas. I started playing this groove sort of idea on the piano (right hand push pop thing) and she started humming a chorus. We both looked at each other, I grabbed the phone to record it so we wouldn’t forget and that was it! We had our idea for the song.

If you’re curious, here it is:

It is a true blessing to work with your wife creating music

I am incredibly grateful that I have the amazing opportunity to create music with my wife knowing that BOTH of us have the desire to create the best possible music we can to help kiddos sing about Jesus and share His love to a hurting world. #blessedman

And I’m really glad she gave me the ‘meh’ face on the first version of  the song that you will NOT get to hear.  <insert smiley face here>

If you are curious about our children’s musicals, they are available through Brentwood Benson Music.


Here’s the link for our Christmas music Crazy, Busy, Peaceful, Holy Night

Here’s the link for our Easter musical The Cross of Christ