FAQ's

What is El gozo de Jesús?

El gozo de Jesús is a music album containing 13 songs sung completely in Spanish. This album includes favorites like Placentero nos es trabajar, I Stand All Amazed, and original medleys.

Why did you create the album?

While serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Nicholas would often hear from Spanish speaking members that there was not enough Spanish music in the church so he decided to create his own studio and produce the Spanish album himself.

You can enjoy the music on iTunes, Pandora, and Spotify by following the links.

The Full Story

I started this project when I started attending college at Utah Valley University (UVU) and with no monetary support, I found ways to pay for college and to create this CD. At times I would be working two or three jobs to scrape by, and it was hard! There were many times I wanted to throw this project in the trash and never pick it up again. I didn’t and I’m grateful I was continually encouraged by family, friends, and God to keep going.

I started off with no recording equipment of my own. I would ask my friends who had access to a free recording studio at a neighboring institution to reserve it just so I could lay down a few tracks. It was difficult because we had a short time limit. Eventually, I realized using the free studio was too difficult and I needed to come up with my own solution.

I went to a home department store and bought sound board, door hinges, carpet padding and wood and built my own studio. I couldn’t afford professional sound dampening acoustic panels, so I used egg cartons donated from my friends as my sound dampening material. I found the music stand at a thrift store and to this day I still have no idea what it was ordinally meant for, but it holds my music well so it’s my music stand.

I built the studio between homework and jobs. It was a lot of work to finish. I couldn’t decide how to paint the exterior of the studio so after some thought I decided to leave it blank and invite musicians to write inspirational messages on the walls.

With my homemade studio I was able to record with no time limit which helped make recording session far less stressful. I purchased the recording equipment and Googled a few videos on how to make recordings. I found out that recording music was far more complicated than just standing in front of the microphone. After recording the songs, I purchased audio mixing software to process my tracks. It was a huge learning curve, and I spent a lot of time on YouTube learning how to properly use the software.

The goal I had from the beginning of the project was to include two particular hymns in the album. The first was ”Placentero nos es trabajar” commonly known as ”In the Sweet By-and-By” and a rendition of my mission song which is a mix of ”I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go” and ”We’ll Bring the World His Truth.” I hired an arranger to bring my vision of these two songs to life as well as the song, ”I Stand All Amazed.” I am delighted to present these original songs to you and hope you enjoy them.

I hope you are inspired by my journey and enjoy the music. Continue to work toward your goals and I am confident you can accomplish them.

Cheers!

-Nick