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There's a new song I just finished recording and put onto the music page on this site. This recording was with Presonus' Studio One recording product and the Audiobox USB device provided with it. There are five different tracks combined into the recording which made it challenging to do. My prayer is that you enjoy it and think of Jesus while listening to it!

This is such a wonderful time of the year for everyone both young and old to experience the joy of Christmas! If you'd like to have real and lasting peace besides this once a year celebration, you need to know and have a relationship with the One who is the source of life and the reason we celebrate this season: Jesus Christ! Amidst all of the misinformation and confusion that our world throws at us, the one source of absolute truth is the Bible. The second book of the New Testament was written by the first century Doctor Luke. He tells the wonderful story of Jesus' birth: ”At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished,“ ‭‭Luke‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭18‬ ‭NLT‬‬ https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.2.1-18.NLT Have a Merry Christmas and God Bless you and your family from mine and Gentle Haven Music Web Design! And, if you'd like to hear Linus explain to Charlie Brown in Peanuts what Christmas is all about, I've added it here.

My friend and drumbox buddy Garry Myers and I have launched a new combo endeavor called: Treble Clef. We will be playing 'Outside the Box' of Church when we get the chance and will be posting our gigs and setlists online. Check it out here:

Paul Baloche leads worship with Michelle Shepherd on backup vocals Yesterday, my wife and I returned from Tacoma, Washington where I attended the 20th Christian Musicians Summit. If you are a Worship Leader and have never attended one of these, you need to! I had the pleasure of attending with the bassist from our Worship Team as well as the Audio-Visual Technician from another church in town. We had a blast! My wife asked me what my favorite part of the summit was. I said: the WORSHIP! How often can you worship with fellow musicians? It was like being in the throne room of God Himself! Please understand though that I love to worship with everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. This was just a very special time ordained by God Himself to call similar talented people to join together in worship, learning, and expanding the kingdom of God through music. What a pleasure it was! Norm Stockton playing Christian Jazz Fusion After the morning sessions were done on the first day, Norm Stockton formerly of Lincoln Brewster's band, gave an artist showcase. His five-string bass was lit up by tracks he's recently recorded called: Grooves and Sushi It just goes to show that worship music isn't limited to straight 4/4 three chord songs. Worship Team Discussion with from left to right - Bobby Hartry, Norm Stockton, Brenton Brown, Aaron Blanton, and Ed Kerr One of the most enjoyable highlights of the summit was the Working as a Band discussion. This was led by Brenton Brown who wrote the song: Everlasting God. It stressed how important it is to first, listen to God. Second, listen to each other, and third, play as a unit without stepping on each other. Very cool! Another session that was mostly for electric guitar players was hosted by Bobby Hartry. His discussion was generally about the setup he uses when touring as can be seen below. Bobby Hartry with one of his touring pedal setups Something that Bobby said that I found interesting was that he uses three different overdrive pedals to get different sound out of his performance playing. He also bemoaned the travails of flying to different gigs as he used to play a Gibson SG for many years. After one flight on an airline, the headstock on his SG was broken off. He now uses a steel attached neck with an older Stratocaster body. Such are the challenges for traveling musicians... Sigh There you have it! That's my summary of the summit which really only covers a small amount of what we all experienced. There were also vocal workshops, leadership lectures, AV technical discussions and vendors willing to share their products and experiences. I encourage you to check out the Christian Musicians Summit when you can. It's definitely worth attending and there will be another in 2023! God bless, Matt

This week I will be attending the Christian Musicians Summit! I'm looking forward to it and will be publishing an update on this blog about how it went, what I learned and any inspirational messages I can pass along. Stay tuned...

I've recently embarked on an adventure with a friend of mine from forty years ago. We've not been in touch for more than thirty years, but through the magic of technology, we reconnected recently. My friend Dave is a very gifted flautist, saxophone player and writer. He retired from the teaching profession a few years ago and like most musicians, is still involved in writing new songs and learning new technologies because they appear every day, practically every minute it seems! Dave is using a virtual studio done either through an App or their website called SoundTrap. SoundTrap is similar to other Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) in use including Studio One that I utilize on my desktop. The difference is that it's an online studio rather than a stand alone DAW. You can send a nudge to another musician to join you in the studio for a virtual recording session any time. At this point you're probably wondering what this has to do with the title of this post. Good question! Having worked with numerous writers and musicians over the years, I've found there are some very basic similarities. The first commonality is gifting. Every writer I've known had a gift for writing. This is what I call divine providence. God in His wisdom gives everyone gifts. This one I believe is a gift. The second commonality is a creative drive. Musicians, writers, poets, and others HAVE to create! It is in their soul to produce something creative. The third common attribute is the desire to hone their work product. It comes under the adage: If you want to do something well, it requires a little blood, sweat, and tears. Lastly, each one of these craftsmen or craftswomen never think what they created is good enough. It can always be better. Sometimes it falls under the perfectionist trap, but that's another topic for another day. This article is really a simplification of the creative process and how individuals execute it. Each person is going to go about things differently, but there are some commonalities as I've outlined. Now I'm going to encourage you to get at creating some music yourself! You may never have a vast audience of listeners as some do. However, you can still enjoy creating something you can call your own! * As a side note, there are other blog articles on this site that can help with becoming a better musician or writer.

On Thanksgiving Day, my Dad went home to be with Jesus. I'd like to honor his memory by posting his obituary here. I will miss you Dad! John A. Goolsby – September 13, 1934 - November 25, 2021 Beloved Husband, Father, Grandfather and Great-Grandfather John Goolsby passed away peacefully into the arms of the Lord on November 25, 2021, of a short-term illness. John was born on September 13, 1934, in Stillwater, Oklahoma and later moved to San Bernardino, California with his parents, Omar and Ruth Goolsby and four siblings. He met and dated the love of his life, Carolyn Rae Morgan, while she was a senior in high school in San Bernardino. John was accepted into the United States Naval Academy in 1954. He traveled to Annapolis, Maryland, to begin his military service and education, and competed on the Navy tennis team throughout his four-year program. A few hours after John’s graduation, he and Carolyn were married at the Naval Academy on June 4, 1958. John’s first assignment took them to San Diego, California and their two children were born in the Navy hospital at Coronado. John’s early assignments included serving aboard the transport ship USS Lenawee and the light cruiser USS Helena. The family moved to Ventura County in 1962 when he went to work at the Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station missile target programs. John was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1973 but continued his career in service working at Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station and in national defense programs until he fully retired in 2011. John and Carolyn moved to Camarillo in 1970 and spent the rest of their lives there. They loved their neighbors, friends, church, and Camarillo’s beautiful weather. They also loved to travel and enjoyed cruising and land tours all around the world. Their favorite trips were to Australia and New Zealand, and cruises around the Hawaiian Islands. John cherished his wife, children, and grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife Carolyn in February 2021. His survivors include son Matt and Carolyn Goolsby of Dallas, Oregon; daughter Lisa and Ed Ekers of Red Bluff, California; grandsons Tyler and Jonathan Goolsby, great-granddaughter Hennessy Morgan, and brother Lloyd David Goolsby of Yucaipa, California. Graveside services with military honors will be held on Monday, December 20th at 2:00 pm at Conejo Mountain Memorial Park in Camarillo, California with a reception to follow locally at their church, Trinity Presbyterian at 3 pm.

Summertime is well underway this year here in Oregon and there's been little rain for months. Things are very dry which makes for good outdoor activity, but not so great if you like water sports. We like our outdoor activities in the Pacific Northwest because typically it can rain for 9 months of the year. It seems to have changed in the past few years though. And while we don't look like the Mojave or Sahara Deserts, we do have some serious weather issues. The interesting correlation between physical dryness and spiritual dryness is a lack of something. Water tends to bring purification and energy to life and especially helps flora and fauna. Spiritual dryness can come from a lack of Spiritual connection to our power source: Jesus and the Holy Spirit! You're probably wondering why a musician's blog is talking about dryness? Well, it has everything to do with life, love, and inspiration. When our spiritual life is dry and we're not seeking to get it filled up, we can't be the vessels of God's love. It shows up in everything we do. Think about it for a minute: You've no doubt seen a lackluster performance of a band, comic, book reading or something that just seemed, well, boring. If it didn't hold your interest, then why were they doing it? It's the same in our spiritual lives. We need Holy Spirit power! Now I'm not recommending giving up. On the contrary, I'm urging you to get reconnected to the original power source and get back to a fulfilled life! King David in the Bible had done egregious sins when he committed adultery with Uriah the Hittite's wife Bathsheba and then had him killed. Nathan the prophet confronted David with what he'd done and David wrote in confession Psalm 51. Especially poignant are the following verses: 1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. 2 Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. 3 For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. 4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just. 5 For I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. 6 But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there. 7 Purify me from my sins, wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me— now let me rejoice. 9 Don’t keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. 11 Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. You may notice that I particularly highlighted rejoice, clean heart, loyal, and joy. They naturally go together because when we have that nurturing from Holy Spirit and His power, we have these fruits in our hearts. It may take a little effort, but isn't it worth having a healthy heart in life? Of course it is and you can do it too by listening, loving and obeying God and taking Him at His word! Then you can literally enjoy walking (or surfing) on water! Bend, Oregon Old Mill Area Waterway with Surfers

Hello and welcome to my blog! Since this is the first post of 2021, I’ve taken quite some time to think about what I would write. By now many of us have fatigue from the last year of staying home and seeing so many with masks on. This post won’t touch on any of that. No, this post is meant to encourage your inner artist to experiment and create. Last year a friend of mine introduced me to a new amplifier. I don’t endorse products though so I won’t mention the manufacturer or name. But, I will say that it’s a practice-sized amp with a multitude of effects. What‘s exciting is that it can be easily used at most any venue. It’s lightweight, only about 15 pounds and comes with both Google Android or Apple IOS apps. I had been waiting to see if our church was going to be able to meet in person again before I bought one, but that hadn’t happened. You see, I wasn’t totally satisfied with sound I was getting on the ‘livestream’ we were recording once a week. My current guitar effects were giving me this sort of sound: But, what I really wanted was this: Well, there was a solution! Now that I’ve got the new amp, I can practice ‘coloring’ with more vivid effect. I can also add riffs in between singing, bridges, choruses and the like. This is where the artistry comes in. The best way to see how your musical coloring sounds is to record it. Utilizing an inexpensive midi computer interface to a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) is the quickest and easiest way to hear how you sound. You can even take an audio file stripped of different parts as they demonstrate on YouTube and add your own parts. You can also go to sites like the Free Music Library and download prerecorded tracks to play along with. Now, this is where you have to be motivated to get out there and start improving your sound. After all, you do want to be the best you can be, right? A little sweat and some ‘wood shedding’ with your ax should get you there! I will chat again soon with you. Let all glory go to God!

First of all, if you haven't been on my website before, welcome! And for those of you returning, welcome back! In the last 11 months, our lives have changed dramatically. What seemed commonplace just last year is now ever-changing. This causes disruptions in things we used to do on a routine basis and expectations that we had of life are continually in flux. Now though, I'd like you to take a minute and look at the picture here on the right or above on a Smartphone. What do you see there? You may be having thoughts about other things that need to get done right away or you may be struggling with a decision that you have to make. But God is calling us to something better. He's reaching out His hand to offer us life to the fullest. As Jesus said in Matthew, Chapter 28 verse 11: Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." I've been reading a book by a Christian Author named John Eldredge. The book is titled: Get your life back: Everyday practices for a world gone mad. In addition to the book, he developed something for smartphones called the One Minute Pause app. It may seem ironic that a Christian counselor and author who's struggling with personal space and boundaries would develop yet another time consuming app. But if you think about it, since technology is consuming so much of our waking time, using it to help remind us that we need to put margin back in our lives makes some sense. After all, according to research John did, he states that we consume an average of 10 hours daily of media. Imagine that, 10 hours! This amount of consumption causes so many problems for our inner peace and ability to just process information normally. It affects our sleeping patterns and daily routines and causes us to be like Pavlov dogs whenever we hear a familiar 'ping' or 'chime'. Just to be clear, I'm not endorsing any of John Eldredge's work. I am recommending that we all get back to our lives without getting drug into the daily drama of this rattled, tattered world we live in. How you do that may look completely different, and that's good! As I was contemplating what to write on this blog posting and I was feeling nudged by the Holy Spirit to write it, I realized that being a musician has many similar parallels to life that could help demonstrate how to do this. If you're a musician or just a lover of it, you can understand this. Every piece of music that I enjoy has a similar format: an introduction, verses, a chorus, perhaps a bridge, maybe an instrumental solo, and an ending. A well constructed piece of music also has different dynamic highs and lows as well as varying rhythms. Isn't this like your typical day? You probably have a typical quiet waking time, then a pattern or rhythm of getting into your day, a couple of pauses or breaks, another perhaps intense time, then a letting down of your hair, and finally a closing time. At least, this is probably what it USED to look like! It may be very erratic and fluctuating now, but guess what, you can get into a regular rhythm with God's help! Here's the hard part - it's going to take some effort! You're going to have to deliberately decide that you want to change some ingrained habits. One of the ways I do this is by deliberately choosing to put aside the iPad, the iPhone or the computer and spend quiet time. It's incredibly freeing! By the way, I'm not saying this will be easy. It is possible though with a little effort. It also means changing some of our belief systems that may be saying: "That text is probably very important." or "What if I miss that important stream?" Do you see how that can trap us into believing in false hope? It can be very draining. What you can do is what I've been doing - enjoy God's creation! Even if you can't get away from your desk, you can take a few moments to look at something beautiful. God created so much beauty around us and we constantly miss it. With a little effort though, we can start seeing it again. You'll be surprised how your heart and mind will start to react when you do this. I was so surprised that I wrote a poem that I'm sharing at the end of this post. Please be encouraged today that God loves you and He wants the best for you. He also wants you to experience the joy of His creation every day! My pause I paused and watched the clouds today; They blew gently in the gray skies. Three birds flew over, hearkening to each other, Come, let's go this way. As I watched and listened, I heard God softly whisper: "I love you" in the swaying of the birch leaves. How easy it is to miss such simple things - the falling rain, the gentle breeze. He makes creation anew each day. Let's stop, pause, and say: I love you too!