Finn Harald Røed - blog archive 2018


December 1, 2019
My new Christmas song "Choirs of Angels" is now out on YouTube. It will also be available on Spotify and all the other major music streaming services within the next few days. It is "A song about the only everlasting Christmas gift: The birth of Jesus Christ", based on the gospel of Luke, chapter 2. I am thankful that I have finally released a Christmas song celebrating that the Son of God was sent to earth. It is the start of the fullfilment of God's promise to all God's creation, to open a way back to him through Christ's great atonement. This single is my only music release in 2019.

See more info and downloads for Choirs of Angels on this website.

November 15, 2019
I have now finished the recording and mixing process of my new Christmas song, "Choirs of Angels", and look forward to releasing it as a single on approximately December 1. It will most likely be accompanied by a brand new music video on my website and on YouTube. This will actually be my only release in 2019.

The upcoming inspirational album will most likely be done early 2020. I am now recording nbr. 7 and 8 of the 10 songs I wrote late 2018 and throughout 2019. This will be something different, something special, and I feel grateful for having been able to write and record the music and lyrics for this album.

October 12, 2019
In a not too distant future, cell phones will be obsolete. There will be no need for walking around with a so called smart phone in your pocket. Not for making phone calls, not for paying bills, surfing the net or not even for gaming. Instead of talking about the next iPhone, the attitude will rather be "whyPhone?". Why carry a phone, if all of it's functions may be integrated into your body, available at any time. By connecting a micro chip / a microscopic computer implant to your brain, somehow wired to your eyes' retina, you will be able to see whatever the micro chip is running. In other words, the retina connection will replace the need of a screen. You will see whatever the chip would have sent to a regular screen of today. Instead of (or in addition to) seing what happens outside the body, your eyes will, in a reverse manner, see what today's cell phones would have sent to your cell phones screen. You may control the apps by commands, either with your voice, or by pre-defined thought commands. An extra controller implant, for example on your arm, may also be a possibility.

I have never heard anyone talk about this before, but searched the net briefly about it to check as I was writing this. I did not immediately find anything concrete (though the chances are big this is not a new idea), but I did notice that there is a relatively similar idea being developed for blind patients, so called bionic eye brain implants. Anyway, I just wanted to write this down as a future reference. I'm not saying if such implants are a good idea or not, but I do believe it will happen, and that it will take over the need for and the marked for cell phones as we know them today.

September 21, 2019
A couple of weeks ago I recorded the fifth song for my new, faith inspired album. I am now working on song nbr. 6, which is a brand new Christmas carol: "The choirs of angels sing hallelujah". My plan is now to release the new album by early December, hopefully together with a music video for one of the songs.

June 22, 2019
I have come to the conclusion that my life has a purpose that I have stood against or even fought against for decades. I believe my purpose and mission in life is to share the gospel and beauty of faith in God through my music talent, in a style and with lyrics that broaden the perspective and meaning of life way beyond the influence and power of the physical or tangible world we're all so caught up in.

For years I've felt a strong, inspired need to document and testify of my deeply heart felt faith, my trust in God and how He has influenced every good and right choice I have ever made, as in contrast to my less good choices. Nevertheless, I haven't written or released music with faith based lyrics since I wrote nine songs for the Norwegian history play "Hearts of the Fathers" in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints back in 1996. On request I later added an extra song to the play in 2000. Before that I had written a music play called "You will receive" (a conversion story) in 1992, which included five faith promoting songs. Except from that, all my work has been commercial, with practically little or no mention of faith or the spiritual sides of life whatsoever. In other words, it's been almost 20 years since I slowed down just enough to listen to the inner voice restlessly asking me to use my talent (1 Peter 4:10) to honor God, while I still can.

I strongly believe there is a spiritual world that we cannot see, hear, taste or smell. I have experienced it's reality several times throughout my life, but not with my physical senses. The spritual world is just as real as the physical one, but it requires us to focus on something else than our worldly routines, career plans, greed, lust, pride, selfishness and physical needs in general.

The spiritual world is a wonder of God's universe. I think of it as a parallell universe, invisible to us without the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. My experience in life is that I become happy, harmonic, balanced and peaceful every time I respond to the Spirit's whisperings, and stay close to our Heavenly Father through prayer, reading the scriptures, going to Church and letting Him inspire me to see the happiness and harmony I receive from keeping the commandments. I know the hurting difference between living life with and without God. I know from experience the peace and blessings that come from accepting and receiving the gift of Christ's atonement and it's healing powers. I know the freedom that comes with both forgiving others and being forgiven by God through Christ, and I know the void, loneliness and darkness in life that come from the opposite.

Since the Autumn of 2018 I have felt strongly inspired to proclaim my faith experiences and the gospel of Jesus Christ through my music and lyrics to all who may listen. Within me the hope and wish to serve God has grown steadily, and, despite of my iniquities and short comings, I have accepted that He is asking me not to waste the talents and gifts he has given me, but rather be a tool to inspire other souls to let God into their lives, so they might experience the beauty of harmony, strength, focus, change of heart, change of mind, change of choices, change of perspective, and the meaningfulness that only faith and trust in God, the gospel of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation is able to offer to all mankind.

If one or more songs on the upcoming album can touch the heart of only one soul, bringing him or her closer to God, it will be all worth it. I can only do my very best, and trust that whatever happens next, it all has a purpose way beyond the pop and rock music I have written and relased for the past 20 years.

June 13, 2019
I am humbly excited and grateful. Message wise, the upcoming faith based album will contain the most important songs I have ever written, and honestly maybe even my first truly meaningful album seen from a larger perspective. This week I recorded two of the songs for my planned piano & vocals based album: "The Road to Paradise" and "Stay with me". These songs have a whole different meaning and purpose. It's like I'm finally doing what I have been supposed to do my whole life. Everything has been pointing towards this, I just haven't accepted it until now, and I'm only starting to realize what it means.

The music style will be a huge contrast to what I have done the last couple of decades or so, but to me piano ballads are familiar ground. I started out writing music on my parent's piano as a young boy, and lots of my newer songs have been originally written the same way, but then arranged and recorded with other instruments. The album will have 10 brand news songs, all written between October 2018 and June 2019. Within the next 5-6 months the final result will be ready for all to hear.

March 26, 2019
Due to some major changes in my life since early January, I haven't been able to find much time for song writing or recording. Still, I have written the lyrics for some of the songs, but that's about it. I miss my nice studio in Kristiansand, but have to learn to live with the current very simple and cramped studio setup in the appartment where I am living just outside Oslo. However, I still plan on finishing my album nbr. 9 (syntpop/rock), AND an album with reflective, spiritual, contemplative, faith centered ballads. First of all, I hope to release one or two singles within the next 2-3 months.