David Zimmer: Hello, and welcome to the Sound Plus Doctrine Podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
Bob Kauflin: My name is Bob Kauflin. And we are delighted today to welcome back to the Sound Plus Doctrine Podcast Fabrizio Rodulfo.
Fabrizio Rodulfo: Wow, great job with that.
BK: Say hi to the audience.
FR: Hi people.
BK: That’s very good, Fabrizio.
FR: Yeah, you’re welcome. I’ve been practicing.
BK: Now in Spanish?
FR: Hola Personas – gente.
BK: That is excellent. We are here, I’m so excited about this, to talk about the story behind Himnos, which is in English, “hymns.”
FR: That’s right.
BK: Thank you. Before we get into that, just want to talk about Fabrizio, you’ve been with us for the “Planning Sundays” podcast.
FR: Yes.
BK: And we talked about bilingual services. Fabrizio works for Sovereign Grace Music, head of media and Spanish resources. And for those of you who don’t know, Fabrizio is really leading the biggest part of Sovereign Grace Music. Most people don’t know this. If you go to YouTube and I just checked this this morning because it’s gone up. Look at our top 20 YouTube videos, 14 of them are in Spanish. Two from En Ti Esperamos made it into the top 20.
FR: That’s amazing.
BK: It is crazy. And we’re going to talk about, take some time to talk about the Spanish resources. And you’ve been with us for how long Fabrizio? How long have you been…
FR: So I’ve been in Louisville for almost 10 years.
BK: Wow.
FR: At the church here and then working for Sovereign Grace Music. I’m on my third year, so.
BK: So good. Well, the difference you have made has been massive. And we wanted to give a whole podcast to just this new album coming out this year, Himnos. And you’re working on a Spanish website which has just come out.
FR: Yeah, it’s live.
BK: It’s so great. Yeah. But before we get into all that, just a little bit of the history. I thought it’d be helpful to walk through the history.
FR: Absolutely.
BK: Of our Spanish albums. This is our eighth Spanish album, which is pretty crazy. And you were a young boy when our first album came out.
FR: Yeah. So when that came out, my mom and I had just joined the church in Juarez. So this album was released in 2002, and we joined in 2001. I was five years old, and I basically grew up listening to that album. Yeah, for all I can remember, we always played it at friends houses. So for me and my friends, it’s like a very nostalgic album.
BK: Sea la gloria solo a Ti.
FR: That’s right.
BK: Which in English is.
FR: All glory be to you.
BK: Yes.
FR: Or Him. To him.
BK: To you.
FR: Is it to you or to him?
BK: A ti.
FR: Okay, so.
BK: To you. I like to help you with your Spanish.
FR: Thank you.
BK: So, yeah, we had these church in Juarez, maybe I think Tijuana at that time. I’m not sure, we had Sovereign Grace, had churches there. And this was just using the tracks from our English albums with Spanish vocalists.
FR: Yeah.
BK: So it was our attempt to just, yeah, serve those churches with the translations that they were using and that was all we did for eight years. Not exactly diving into this. And the next album came in 2010, Allí en la Cruz
FR: That’s right.
BK: With Mauricio Velarde, who was a part of the church I was a part of. He came in just saying, why aren’t you guys doing more stuff in Spanish?
FR: Yeah, great impulse.
BK: And what was the effect of that album? We tried to capture more of the native Latin American sounds on that.
FR: I think it was a worthy effort in terms of the desire to serve people in Latin America with a sound that resonated with the culture and the musical styles that were common to the people.
BK: Yeah.
FR: To the Latin American people at large. The difficulty with that album in particular in terms of music, not songwriting, because I think it’s important to distinguish between the two. There are some good songs in that album. Great songs, great words, great melodies. The problem was that at least the way it was perceived in my church in Juarez at the time, it felt like a forced effort to impose a traditional Latin American rhythm into a culture that had already adopted a more pop, more American influenced music style. So it felt odd and funny. So we never did any of the songs in our chart that I can remember. Maybe we use one for children’s ministry, I think at the time I was serving.
DZ: That would be an effective album.
FR: And you know, it’s. It’s nothing against Mauricio at all. I think again, the desire to serve Latin American churches with a sound that resonates with them is good.
DZ: Yeah.
FR: But in the time we live in and where we’re at as a globe, in terms of the influence that other cultures have upon others, it’s very difficult to do it well. And you know, we haven’t tried to venture into that again.
DZ: Yeah.
FR: But it’s still an ongoing conversation with our churches now that we have many more churches around Latin America. Different influences, we have Churches in the Caribbean of Colombia. We have Bolivia, we have, obviously, Mexico as a nation now. We have dozens of churches there.
BK: Costa Rica.
FR: We have Costa Rica. So every one of these countries has their own musical styles and flavors. And so we’re just talking about how can we maintain the DNA of what Sovereign Grace music is, but make it work in all of these contexts. And what we’ve come to is simple arrangements that highlight the vocals and highlight the words and the melodies.
DZ: Yeah.
FR: Are what’s going to serve best our people.
BK: Which we’re going to get into.
FR: Across all countries.
BK: Yes, that’ll go too deep there.
DZ: Yeah. That’s fascinating, though, because what was the record after that one? Eres Dios?
BK: Yes. That’s the next one.
DZ: Which is funny because that was the first record that I got to play on…
BK: Great Segue.
DZ: Drum Wise and arrange for. And I remember, when I was in college, I studied Latin percussion. And I remember asking Mauricio, hey, can I try some different clave parts or different Latin rhythms? And he’s like, no. And we were like, what if we add this tumbao beat or whatever. He, no.
BK: We got our hand slapped.
DZ: I want it to be a pop album. And so we had so much fun on that record. It’s actually one of my favorite Sovereign Grace records arrangement wise, because we just had like a blank slate.
FR: Yeah, they’re super creative arrangements and they fit that pop rock kind of style very well for sure.
DZ: So interesting, because I think an outsider would look in and go, well, it just sounds like American pop music. What’s going on? And so interestingly enough, that you’re saying what these countries, they’ve caught up to what styles they’re interested in.
FR: Absolutely.
BK: The lesson in all that is that we can be well intentioned. One of the lessons, we can be well intentioned in our desires to serve a certain culture, certain group of people, and totally miss it.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Which is good to know.
DZ: Yeah, totally.
FR: Totally, yeah. And I mean, you know, we live in a time where that is just what most people listen to. And there are some good efforts done with what they call ethnodoxology. But I think that can often be misguided, putting the culture before the actual substance of the content you’re trying to say.
DZ: Always. Yeah.
FR: So you’re prioritizing style over, because that’s what’s most important to people. And it’s actually not. I mean, Latin America what we need is the truths of the gospel being sung clearly with confidence and in a way that’s accessible to most people. And the style then takes a backseat to that. And that’s why we have to ask ourselves how can we best share and communicate these truths that ultimately will be the ones that shape hearts and minds to better praise the Lord?
BK: Yes.
DZ: Yeah, well said.
BK: So we went from Eres Dios to two live albums with La IBI in theDominican Republic which kind of came out of, I don’t want to say nowhere, but I mean it was just unexpected. Their band had come to a WorshipGod conference. They were translating our songs and they had this conference. And did they have a conference at that time? I’m not sure that was the conference, but they said, hey, let’s do a live album together. So we said, yeah. So that was really in the pop rock genre recorded in the Dominican Republic. And those would probably be our two El Dios Que Adoramos and La Salvación es del Señor 2013, ’14. Our two most well known albums.
FR: Yes.
DZ: Yeah. And I could be wrong, but weren’t some of the arrangements like very similar to the English arrangement or English arrangements?
FR: There’s a few songs that are like the Gathering. So like Come Praise and Glorify, Greater than we can imagine. Those are like one to one arrangements and they added a few things and instrumentation is a bit different, but it’s definitely more in the worship world in terms of sonically.
DZ: Yeah, well, the musicianship was stellar. And then you have Jonathan and Sarah Jerez.
BK: And Jonathan and Sarah Jerez. That’s where we met Jonathan and Sarah, I think.
FR: Well, Sarah actually had sung in Eres Dios.
BK: We met them before. That’s right.
DZ: Yeah. Okay.
BK: Our dear friends.
FR: Yes.
BK: So that spawned the awareness that, we should be doing more of this. Translations, I mean it’s all been translations except for when Mauricio was writing original songs up to that point. So yeah, it’s just fascinating to see how the Lord’s brought all this together. Those albums kind of just went all throughout Latin America.
FR: Yeah.
BK: Which was great. So we were finally catching up and thinking, maybe we should do more Spanish stuff. And Fabrizio, your being a part of Sovereign Grace music was the reason we could do all this. So in 2022 we did En Ti Esperamos. And that was in you, we hope.
FR: Yeah. In You We Wait.
BK: In You We Wait.
FR: Yeah, yeah.
BK: And that was with Jonathan and Sarah.
FR: Yeah.
BK: So they just, again just Dear friends. And then 2024, we did Conocer a Dios. Explain that project.
FR: That was a, I would say, a very quick response to we want to have these translations available for people for this new album we’re working on in English. So what’s the quickest, easiest way of making these available and kind of have their own life, a life of their own. And so we decided to do acoustic versions of Knowing God.
BK: Every song on the album.
FR: Of every song. Yeah. And so we released it three weeks after.
DZ: Which is a huge feat.
FR: Yeah. And it has had great response. Even though they’re acoustic versions, I mean, that’s one of the most amazing things. And what we’re seeing is a lot of people are just disenchanted with the, just the popular sound of worship music. And, you have that in English. There’s definitely a counterculture to, and a lot of what we do is that to the traditional. Well, not traditional, to the modern.
BK: Yeah, yeah, traditional, last 20 years.
FR: Right. To the standard, to the mainstream sound of worship, which is fine. We have nothing against it. But I do think there is a sense in which we’re trying to say, okay, that’s not the only way you can do it. And in fact, if you want to help your church sing, why don’t we try to reflect the instrumentation of your church? And so a lot of the feedback we’re getting from Conocer A Dios is there are small churches in, like, Colombia. The most recent I was talking to, and he said, thank you so much for these arrangements. I feel like we can do it in our church. It’s a cajon and a guitar and maybe a piano, maybe a bass. But we have those recordings that say, hey, you actually don’t need 20 tracks, 30 tracks for your Sunday morning. The point is that people sing and facilitating that through the instrumentation, not making it the priority or the main thing. So, yeah, it’s been a great response and, yeah, really excited to keep doing those.
BK: So, because you’re here, things have really kicked up in terms of the timetable. And we’re releasing our third album in three years in Spanish, which is like, what is going on? This is a lot of work, but we love it. And again, it’s due to what the Lord seems to be doing in the Latin American world in terms of almost a revival of a desire for songs that are theologically driven, substantive.
BK: Christ gospel centered, and congregation is singable, not artist driven. You almost want to put that in there. They’re not driven by the style or the personality, the charismatic nature of the person singing them. It’s just these are songs that enable the word of Christ to dwell in you richly. That’s the hope. So Conocer A Dios, this album of 12 hymns, 7 traditional hymns, 5 sovereign grace hymns, somewhat traditional at times. We revised, and I’m going to share my version of how this came out, how this came about. But if you guys, I mean, Fabrizio, I know you’ll have thoughts. We’ve been talking about this for some time. And then we were at, I think this was ’22 or maybe ’23 we were at a conference in Juarez that our church there puts together. I don’t remember what year.
FR: Yeah, I don’t either.
BK: Called Fieles, Faithful to His Call. And we heard a story of someone there who we were singing.
FR: “It Is Well With My Soul”
BK: It is well translated by one of the guys in the church there, Arturo.
FR: Who is also a part of our translator team.
BK: Yes. Which we’re going to talk about in a minute, because I know we haven’t really talked about the work you do in translations, which is one of the key things that you do. And you do it so well. So the guy came out after we’d sung that song in tears and said, I never knew that’s what that song said. And it was this confirmation of some of the things we’ve been talking about, which is the English hymns haven’t always been translated well into Spanish and other languages. And then I met Emmanuel Betances, who at that time was working for Ligonier. We had a conversation in the airport, and I was telling him about this, talking about this idea of doing a Spanish hymns album. And he really encouraged it, said, that would be so great, because you walk into this with a little bit of trepidation.
FR: Right.
BK: These are songs that have been sung for hundreds of years. I don’t know how old some of the translations are, but a long time, they’re in hymnals. And we’re saying, yeah, we think these translations are better. So we thought we should do an album of hymns. So talk a little bit about, before we eventually get to the subject of this podcast, but talk a little bit, Fabrizio, about the translation team that you’ve put together over the years, because it used to be people would email us, I know a little bit of Spanish, and it would just be confusing and very slow.
FR: Yeah.
BK: But it’s, I don’t know.
FR: So this all started in 2020. Yeah, it was 2020 with my dear wife, Courtney. She encouraged me.
BK: Who is from Australia.
FR: Who is from Australia. Not from America. Yes. Very important.
DZ: Or Mexico.
FR: Or Mexico. Yeah, that’s right. And she encouraged me to translate “Oh, come all you Unfaithful.” To record, to put on YouTube, to share with people. Because we had just recorded the English version that year. Maybe it was 2021, but it was around that time when we had just released it. It was Covid. A lot of uncertainty, a lot of death, a lot of sadness. And so she really encouraged me to, like, hey, you should record it. And so I made a translation. I sent it to you, and you sent it to a few other guys. And after that, we posted it. And, you know, it didn’t have, like, a huge response. It had like 2,000 views, which was great. I mean, it’s not nothing.
BK: Yeah.
FR: But at the same time, I was not working for Sovereign Grace Music. I was a member of the church. I was working another job. But I just had the thought, what if we just make this something more established and so…
BK: Systematic.
FR: Yeah. And so I started, I think it was a WhatsApp group with the guys from that email thread where we were going back and forth with a song. And then just through the years, people have come and gone from that team from different countries, like Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, US Panama, Argentina, and Spain. I don’t think I’m missing anybody. And right now, we have about seven of those countries still represented in our team. And, yeah, the goal is how can we make the best translation possible in a way that translates to all of these countries? So as individuals, we have blind spots in terms of culturally, even, in how we speak the language, because it has such a reach globally that there are specific ways of saying things in certain countries, and even within the country, there’s different ways of saying things. And so we wanted to get a diversity of input to make it as neutral as possible to serve the greatest amount of people.
DZ: Right. And wouldn’t you say that that’s sort of like a deficiency that can happen a lot if you just, it’s almost like we take a song and when you plug it Google Translate or when you’re using one person, can you talk about the benefit of all of those people from those different regions?
FR: Yeah, I mean, I’ve translated songs, and I would say I’m a pretty good translator.
BK: You are.
FR: But I’ve sent songs to other guys, and they send things that I’m like, I would have never thought of that. But this makes the song. It’s really an exercise on songwriting, because you have to think, okay, I need to maintain the melodic structure of the original. I need to respect the rhyming patterns or if we have to change it still, we need to maintain the poetic nature of the song. And so you’re thinking…
BK: And then the theological meaning of the song.
FR: And then you’re thinking about theology. So it’s an exercise on songwriting and theologizing all in one. And so the other guys bring their own input and experience and perspectives. And it just makes it a lot richer.
DZ: Yeah, it’s incredible what you guys are doing.
BK: It is.
DZ: My wife is fluent in Spanish and when she hears the songs, she says they’re not translating them, they’re writing the song, they’re rewriting the song in a way where it’s not a one for one. You’re trying to think poetically, creatively, artistically. And it’s a feat. I mean, it’s astounding.
BK: It serves. So you’ll have like 3, 4, 5, 6 people translate a song.
FR: Yeah. And you know, we have a team of, now there’s 12 of us, but not all of us work at all the songs. Sometimes guys are busy and they can’t get to them. And that’s fine. That’s why we have a team. So that at least there’s three or four more people besides myself looking at these translation and saying, yes, this looks good. And after that we have a team of editors who review the translations. So it’s not just us, there’s also another party who has not been involved in all the back and forth. Because we have a lot of back and forths with the translation and they just review it. And these are guys whom we trust, particularly two guys, Sergio Villanueva and Daniel Lobo. So the two of them have actually helped with our translations for years.
BK: And they, let me just say they translate differently. Sergio would be much more poet. He would be the songwriter.
FR: Yeah, he is a songwriter.
BK: I’ve seen some of his translations go, whoa, wait a minute, where’d you get that from? Whereas Daniel Lobo, he was translating every song from our albums just on his own, by himself, without being asked. And so to have those two working together, I’m glad you mentioned them. They’re both so valuable. That’s how translation works.
FR: And you know, they’re in that team because they’re both pastors, they have full time jobs, they have a lot of responsibilities and so do the translators. But they are giving more of their time voluntarily. Hey, we want to be involved in the day to day. But these guys, I know they have a lot going on. I don’t want to burden them with that having to read through, all the texts. And so they get the final version and they say, hey, what about this? And they’re like small things that sometimes become big things. So, we just finished “Be Still, Be Still, My Soul.” And in English, it’s “Be Still, Be Still, My Soul.” But for Spanish, Sergio suggested switching it to “Be Still My soul, Be still.” And then in Spanish, it works better. It just makes so much more sense. It was like, oh my goodness, why didn’t we see that before? And so it’s things like that.
DZ: Yeah. And so often it’s, like, always more beautiful in Spanish.
BK: Well, that’s true.
FR: I like both. I think it’s so poetic and beautiful. So going back to the Fieles Conference when he said, I didn’t even know what this song meant until now. That’s the beauty of translation. And it’s not, I mean, if you think about it in an English perspective, that song was translated from German. I mean, imagine going back to the original German and going, this doesn’t match at all.
BK: Wait, “It Is Well” was not.
DZ: “It Is Well” was in English.
FR: In English, I’m sorry, I’m thinking of another.
BK: Yeah, there’s other ones.
DZ: Yeah, there’s two, sorry. No, not that one either.
BK: “A Mighty Fortress.”
DZ: “A Mighty Fortress.”
FR: That’s the one I’m thinking.
DZ: And “Praise to the Lord of the Almighty.”
FR: Yes, yeah.
BK: You have two translated.
FR: Right. So, yeah, exactly like “A Mighty Fortress.” It’s not just we’re trying to go, we’ll just get the English right. We’re trying to seek the English being correct to the original translation.
DZ: Well, and that did happen with “A Mighty Fortress.” So one of our translators, Karl Sauter, who’s also a pastor in Sovereign Grace in Mexico and was a part of La IBI back when we did those albums, so we have a long history with him. He is actually half German. And so when we were looking at the translation of “A Mighty Fortress,” we were all looking at the English, and he said, why don’t we just look at the German? And so he sent us a translation of the German. And so we’re working with primary sources, so to speak, in that sense of. For example, the first line, A mighty fortress is our God. Bulkward, never failing. Right? That says in English. What he noticed is that actually the German speaks not only in the defense, in the defensive sense of, like, he’s our protection, but also in the offensive sense of we go forth, you know, in the Battle. And so we said in Spanish, we say, “castillo fuertes nuestro Dios espada y armadura.” So he’s our sword and our armor. So he’s both things.
FR: See what I’m talking about, dude?
BK: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
FR: It’s so amazing that you can get so much work done in such a little amount of time. It’s really great.
BK: It is a gift from the Lord and it’s something that actually we’ve talked to other ministries about, because there are a lot of songs other than ours that we would love to see translated. But if you can pray for us on that regard, that would be great. Let’s get into the actual album. We put a band together and we use Andres Patino from Costa Rica, who is a member of one of our churches.
DZ: Yeah. He’s a worship leader there.
BK: Yes. And was writing with us on drums to share the drum responsibilities with David and Ismael Rodriguez from Juarez on bass.
DZ: That’s right.
BK: So we just tried to draw from different places.
DZ: Gaby from Guadalajara.
BK: Yes.
DZ: She’s the wife of the lead pastor there, Choby Estupinian.
BK: And then I was on piano and then you were on electric and vocal. And then Jonathan and Sarah.
DZ: Yeah. Our good friends just.
BK: They are dear friends. It’s such a joy. We mutually love working together.
FR: Yeah.
BK: And they’re so kind of them that they just do these projects with us. They have their own thing that they’re doing with Love it. They love the Lord. Thing I love most about them is just they love the Lord first. They love their family, they love their church. And that’s what makes it such a joy.
DZ: And they’re so humble.
BK: They’re very humble. So, yeah. So that’s the band we put together. We did in our studio and then looking at the hymns. Talk about, so we did seven more traditional hymns. We just sought to find hymns that were most well known, perhaps. Do you have any thoughts on that Fabrizio?
FR: Yeah. I mean, there’s hymns that are super well known. I’m thinking “Amazing Grace.” I’m thinking, Lord, my God. What’s that one called?
BK: “How Great Thou Art”
FR: “Yeah. How Great Thou Art”
DZ: Yeah.
FR: We didn’t do those. I think “Holy Holy Holy” is another one. Those have good translations.
BK: Yes, good.
FR: So we didn’t want to just go for the most popular ones.
BK: Yes.
FR: We wanted to think theologically also in terms of what are some of the holes in our singing theology in the songs that we have. And also even songs that people don’t necessarily sing very commonly. So I’m thinking how firm a foundation. Some people do sing it, it’s on hymnals. But you have more traditional traditions like Presbyterians, Baptists, and sometimes Seventh Day Adventists also have like their own hymnal. So those are the main traditions in Latin America, where you’d find these kinds of songs. But even then, you’re not getting the full picture of what it says in English. And that was the greatest challenge we were facing is I love “Praise to the Lord,” the Almighty, when we sing it here. But then when I read the traditional Spanish translation, I’m like, that’s good, it works. But that’s not actually all that the song is saying. And going back to “A Mighty Fortress,” another thing that I love we got to put in there is in the last verse, there’s a line where he says, the spirit and the gifts are ours through him who with us sideth. And the Spanish one doesn’t say anything about the gifts or, it mentions the Spirit, I think, but it doesn’t say anything about the gifts.
FR: And so naturally, being a continuationist, we thought, well, if Martin Luther said it, you know, it’s gotta be in there. So we were able to put that in there. And so there are things like that where we’re losing on what it actually says. And we’re trying to say, hey, it’s actually deeper and more comprehensive and richer, what you find in these traditional hymns. And I wanted to mention something that I think, I expect will be a deterrent for people in Latin America for receiving these songs.
BK: Yes.
FR: And it’s two things. Tradition and nostalgia.
DZ: Yeah.
FR: And I think people are gonna have to look critically at both translations side by side and think what is going to feed my congregation better?
BK: Very good.
FR: And recognize these songs were not written in Spanish. You know, these translations, some of them were done 200 years ago by missionaries who were starting missions in Spain and different Latin American countries and their efforts, we’re super grateful for.
BK: Well, probably like us initially, you’re just excited something is getting translated.
FR: That’s right.
BK: I mean, in the early years, if someone sent me a text, hey, here’s a, you know, Portuguese translation. Great, thanks so much.
FR: Record it, send it.
BK: Well, someone sent me an arrangement translation one time of “All I Have is Christ” that an artist wanted to do. And the chorus, like, was saying the exact opposite of what the chorus was supposed to say. I’m late for you. And it was just like, no, it is important how we translate. Well intentioned though we may be.
FR: Yeah, that’s right. And so I think people, again, will have to, especially pastors and leaders will have to, if compelled by these translations, train their congregation in not holding on to nostalgia. Because that’s a big thing that I’m seeing, at least in the Latin American world right now. There’s these short songs, and I think you guys call them…
BK: Choruses.
FR: Choruses. So in Spanish, they’re coritos. It’s like little choruses. And there is this nostalgia around them of like, yeah, I remember when I used to be in my grandma’s church and we would sing these and that’s fine, but we can’t let nostalgia drive why we sing songs at church. The point is edification, not just having an emotional experience remembering when we were children. And so I really want to encourage. And we really want to encourage, especially leaders and pastors to train their congregation in we want to feed you, we want you to meditate in the word of God and have it dwell in you richly. And we believe these translations will do that better.
BK: Yeah, and it may take that, because we don’t assume, this is part of the trepidation in doing this album. We don’t assume that the churches who’ve been singing other translations are just with open arms going to say, yeah, finally a new translation. No, we like this translation, but our aim is, as you said, to enable the word of Christ to dwell in us richly. That’s why we sing. That’s Colossians 3:16. Our aim is to bring not the riches of English hymnody, but the riches of God’s word to Latin America in these songs. And that’s what can get lost sometimes not totally, but just obscured.
FR: Obscured is a great word.
BK: And so we want to bring clarity to that. And that’s why we’ve chosen the songs we did, because we think they do fill some of those gaps. They talk about How Firm a Foundation. The Word, “Reformation Song” is one of our songs. But that’s the five solas, you know, that we don’t have many songs about. Yeah, did that one, “Come Thou Fount” of every blessing. Just a song of confession, asking God to move in us. “It Is Well,” just a great song. “Be Thou My Vision,” Yeah, talk about that one. Why translate that one?
FR: Yes. So the most popular version that I could find was our friends, actually, Jonathan and Sarah. And I talk with Jonathan about this because their version has three verses and a chorus they wrote, which the chorus is beautiful. I wish we did it…
BK: No surprise there.
FR: But we wanted to keep to the theme of hymns. And so the verse, I think it’s “Be Thou my wisdom.”
BK: Wisdom and Thou my true word.
FR: That’s the verse that they don’t have. And you know, that verse talks about our union with Christ.
BK: Thou my great Father, and I thy true son.
FR: Thou and me dwelling, and I with thee, one. So we wanted to get that in there. I mean, and the song kind of hinges on the theme of being united to Christ.
BK: Yes.
FR: And so we wanted to have that. And there’s translations out there, but again, it’s the same issue. You’re getting some of the truths there, but not all of it is coming through. And some of it is being kind of changed to be adapted to fit the number of syllables. That’s always the challenge, but we try to be faithful to it.
BK: Yes. All right, let’s talk about the arrangements. And David, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this as well. We did it in studio, not live. We did it small, you know, pretty limited band. I think we did a little bit overdubs. I’m not sure.
FR: We added maybe one or two instruments in some songs, not all of them.
BK: Not big production. Simpler, not complex. You’ve referenced this a little bit, but I’d love to hear you guys thoughts on why not big production.
DZ: Yeah, well, what you said, Fabrizio. Accessibility, definitely. And even when you’re adding instruments like a bass or a drum set or electric, keeping your arrangements, keeping the parts on the simple side, I think serves a lot of people, especially these hymns are so rich in their lyrical content. It’s so much to take in. We’re just sort of laying down like an easy foundation for these truths to sit on and let the vocal, let the lyrics be forefront of the arranging.
FR: Yeah. And I would make a distinction between simple and simplistic.
BK: Yes, good.
FR: And, you know, it’s a hard balance, and you’re very good at that. Just putting the right amount of music without it being like, this is just boring.
BK: Yes it doesn’t have to be boring. It could be creative. In fact, when I listen to these arrangements, sometimes I think that’s better than what we did.
FR: Someone on YouTube commented on the last one, they said, no offense to Sovereign Grace music, but the Gracia Soberana Musica arrangements are much better.
BK: But we did have those two go off of.
FR: Yeah.
DZ: Yes.
FR: And I just say that cheekily, but…
DZ: That’s awesome.
FR: Yeah. And I think one of the things also is in Latin America, and I’m sure this is true of other cultures, but this is just the world I’m kind of thinking of. There is this idea with musicians of Christian music right now is so boring, and we need to make it complex and difficult. And Sunday morning is where you go and you show off in all these parts, because historically, you know, in the ’90s and early 2000s, that was the music that we had at church. And so we’ve gone from that, you know, exciting, different, complex music to boring worship music. And so now what we’re saying is. No, that’s not the point. The point is, are the words understandable? And when we come on Sunday morning, it’s not your time to show off your skills, your chops. Just play a part and support the song and serve your congregation. It’s not about showing off your skill. You can have a concert with your friends some other time and enjoy the styles of music that you love. And that’s great. Even at the church, you can have something for other people.
FR: But Sunday morning, when we gather as a people of God, we are there to encourage one another, to build up one another. And one of the ways we do that is by providing arrangements that don’t distract from the main truths we’re singing.
DZ: Yes.
BK: Yes. And so if you want to build on those arrangements, great. If you have an orchestra, great. A lot of instrumentation, great. But Fabrizio’s point, to your point is that we don’t want that to overpower, overcome, distract from, in any way the lyrics that we are singing, these truths that are life transforming. And that’s our hope for the English as well as the Spanish side. Anything we do, it’s not about the arrangement we do, although we seek to do things creatively.
FR: And excellently.
BK: Yes. But it’s not, catch this.
FR: Yeah.
BK: Watch this.
FR: Check this out.
BK: Check this out baby.
FR: I mean, you said this before if your song is hinging on a guitar riff, then you don’t have a song, you have a guitar riff.
BK: Yeah. Very good. All right, we gotta finish up here. A few things you’re doing outside Himnos. And. Yeah. Just ways that we’re seeking to serve Latin American churches. Spanish churches.
FR: Yeah. So we just, like you said before, we just launched our website, and that is a pretty big deal for us because now we can search songs by themes, by liturgical categories, by scripture references, and this all only our Spanish songs. And so we’re trying to think of like, how can we add songs that we’ve translated but don’t necessarily have recordings for? So we’re working through that. But we also have a blog where a lot of your articles from Worship Matters are living in now and fully in Spanish. And so people can look for those as extra resources on the theology and the philosophy of worship ministry. And we’re working on dubbing the Worship Matters video Intensive, which is a 12 video series that you did based on the book, which the book has been translated and it served a ton of people just from being translated. That’s right. And so we have that book, True Worshipers is another book that has been translated. So we have those two books, the video series and yeah, the blog. So that’s our resources kind of thing. We have our own YouTube channel where we’re also uploading translations of other Sovereign Grace music songs.
FR: That’s right. And yeah, we are seeking to write more songs in Spanish. That’s another desire that we have. Not just translate, which is great. Nothing against translations, but also finding people in our churches and our friends who are writing songs that align with our principles and our values and want to serve the church.
BK: So at some point in the future, we hope to produce an album of original songs.
FR: Yeah.
BK: In Spanish.
FR: Yeah.
BK: May the Lord allow us to do that.
FR: That’s right.
BK: Well, that’s about it, I think. We pray this album serves you and your church and if you are an English speaker and listening to this and you know, have Spanish speaking friends, Christians, let them know about the album. It comes out in July.
FR: July 11th. That’s right.
BK: 2025, and we’re excited about what the Lord might use it to do and so grateful for you, Fabrizio.
FR: Definitely.
BK: For all the work you’ve been doing. And we thank you for joining us and hope you’ll listen in again.
FR: Thanks.
DZ: Thank you.
