Vacay [Part 5/6]: Family Is Everything

This blog series comes from a recent vacation that my wife and I took. Had time to clear the old noggin and here’s the “bloggy goodness” that has come as a result. Enjoy!

When I got married, I inherited the following: another set of parents (the state calls them “in-laws”, but I consider them another set of parents), one additional brother, two additional sisters, three nieces, and one nephew. I’ve been married to my wife for 7+ years meaning that I’ve been around my “familial inheritance” for at least that long (but definitely longer than that). In a nutshell, room and board for our vacation was covered by my wife’s brother and his family–a part of the immediate family we don’t get to see very often because they live a good distance away from us.

That wasn’t the case this time… and it was pretty awesome!

You never feel older than when you go to visit two neices and one nephew that used to be “knee-high to a duck” and can now “look you square in your eyes” because they’re so tall. On top of that, just catching up with everybody was fun. Seeing where everybody is in their lives, goals, dreams, aspirations, achievements, progress, and everything else in-between. So you can imagine that when it was time to go how difficult it was to say goodbye. I mentioned in the last blog about “tearful goodbyes”, but the great thing about a “goodbye” is that the next “hello” will be that much sweeter.

There’s nothing like family and I love mine dearly. Doesn’t mean that everything is great all the time, but it also doesn’t mean that everything is bad all the time either. Family are the people who love you enough to love you through it all.

So to all my readers out there, you should take a minute to send a little neighborly “Hi!” to your family today.

Time to L.E.A.R.N.!

TODAY’S CLIP: In case you don’t know, I’m a fan of Star Trek. I don’t get into the semantics of “Trekkies” versus “Trekkers”, I just like the franchise. Of course, as a musician, I love the music too. Therefore, I’d like to present to you one of my favorite tension based musical passages in the Star Trek movie franchise (at least to me). This is “The Klingon Battle” written by Jerry Goldsmith from “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”.

On a personal note, I love soundtracks from movies (and TV shows) back in the day like this because the music lets you know who is the good guy, who is the bad guy, and when they are at odds with each other. The music follows the ebb and flow of the storyline and so much of that idea has been lost in our modern day movies/TV shows. To me, the musical content has been stripped away and reduced down to unrecognizeable themes that are ONLY intended to evoke emotions.

For example, can anybody sing the theme to “Lost”?

But I’ll bet you can sing the theme to “Full House”… right?

OK… that’s enough of my soapbox. Listen to this clip, grab a Bat’leth, and get to swinging.

As a musician, 90% of what you do is listening. Music is too much of a universal language to get stuck on one dialect. Therefore, today’s blog is dedicated specifically for you to LISTEN (to the clip provided), EXPAND (your thinking on music in a way that you may not have considered before), AND ROCK NOW (with more musical knowledge added to your repertoire)!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to this song. The video included in this blog is only intended to bring musical awareness to the reader.

What I Did Over My Summer Vacation

I am thoroughly convinced that every teacher who ever assigned that writing assignment on the first day of school was stalling for time while they got the rest of their REAL curriculum together.

…but I digress…

With the summer coming to a close in just a few days, I thought I would use this “What I Did Over My Summer Vacation” premise to recap all of my ooey gooey blogging goodness over the summer months. Therefore, I shalt take the title of all my blogs (with the exception of the “Time To Learn” series) and give you a three word synopsis (aka “3WS”) describing my thoughts/feelings. Of course if you’re interesting in reading any of these blogs (and I definitely encourage you to), feel free to click the links on the vertical toolbar to the right and help yourself. Check it out:

JUNE 2014

The Dark Room (Parts 1 and 2)
3WS = Unprofessional Church Musicians

Purpose By God’s Design
3WS = Charles Stanley Devotional

The Faithful Few
3WS = Less Is More

The Real Gospel Challenge: WHO and WHY
3WS = Sing For God

Working In The Shop
3WS = Workshops Do Work

JULY 2014

Double Booked
3WS = Schedule A Break

The Inbox (Parts 1 through 9)
3WS = Funny And Interesting

AUGUST 2014

Challenge Is Inevitable (Parts 1 and 2)
3WS = Don’t Be Complacent

Church Is NOT A Hospital (Parts 1 through 3)
3WS = Church Is Church

The Paomnnehal Pweor Of The Hmuan Mnid
3WS = Fearfully, Wonderfully Made

What I Did Over My Summer Vacation
3WS = Clip Show Equivalent

CONCLUSION

I think the conclusion here is that for as much as I love music, there is a whole wide world of subject matter to explore both musical and non-musical. The main thing to remember is that regardless of what you’re reading or studying, just make sure that you never get complacent in your learning. A laugh, an “Ah Ha!”, an “I’m going to use that”, or even a “Really?!?!?!?” are the very things that help us to grow.

That’s what I did (on WordPress) this Summer. What about you?

Challenge Is Inevitable [Part 2/2]

Where I live there is a Christian radio station that carries a talk radio show from 4pm-5pm during the weekdays. When I got off work and jumped in the car, I would always catch the tail end of that show by default because I love the 5pm-5:30pm program. The first time I heard the last bit of it, I was not impressed for a great many reasons, but the main reason being that it felt like the host was bashing everybody and everything and then justifying it with scripture. In my mind, he had a “way out there” controversial standpoint.

Therefore, I would get into the car and say to myself, “I guess I’ll see what ‘Looney Tunes’ is talking about today.”

Here’s the interesting thing. To listen to the last 5 minutes of that show outside of it’s context and judge the previous, unheard 55 minutes based on JUST the 5 minutes that I heard was an unfair assessment. One day I left work early and caught a good chunk of the show which made me listen further to check for consistency. Now, understanding where the host is coming from, I can understand (and sometimes even share) the viewpoint that he’s using which is the Word of God.

[SIDENOTE: The sad part that I had to repent on was that I heard the Word and didn’t even recognize it.]

I think that’s the biggest thing with receiving a challenge of this nature. People get so bent out of shape when they hear a counter to their point, but is it because:

(1) they just disagree so wholeheartedly OR

(2) they aren’t solid in what they believe and don’t want to be challenged?

If anything, a challenge to who you are will do one of two things:

1. Make you even MORE solid and unmoveable in what you already believe.

2. Make you re-evaluate everything you thought you believed.

For example, those of us who are saved by the blood of Jesus need to be #1 all day everyday, but if a “wind of doctrine” has you leaning towards #2 then you need to study more, research more, and do the leg work for yourself to prove to yourself what the truth is so you can lock into the #1 position. I’ve read stories where staunch athiests who tried to disprove the existence of God end up giving their lives to Christ because that’s where THEIR research led them.

Bottom line, don’t be complacent where you are. A challenge only makes you stronger and the best thing to do is to prepare for one because challenge is inevitable. I’ve been challenged with the speakers that I’ve been listening to over the last couple of weeks and challenge tends to fire me up. If nothing else, challenge will make me talk my wife’s ear off because of the sheer impact it had on me.

Always remember that precious diamonds are made out of pressure (and lots of it).

Challenge Is Inevitable [Part 1/2]

I think we all know the saying “Change is inevitable”. Basically, change is going to happen whether we like it or not. Change can be good. Change can be bad. The universal truth is that change happens and, even more than that, change is inevitable because nothing, aside from the love of God almighty, ever stays the same.

But what about challenge? Can challenge be grouped into the inevitable category?

Over the last few weeks I’ve been listening to a lot of speakers on YouTube who are speaking on their passions. In case you didn’t know, YouTube is a wealth of free knowledge DEPENDING on what you’re looking for. As long as it’s educational and not pop culture, you can pretty much get it for free. Education is not of significant value, but pop culture movies, especially those containing high volumes of sex and violence, cost money to view.

But I digress…

When is the last time you were challenged? Not physically per se, but challenged on what makes you who you are? Why do you do the things you do? Why do you act the way you act? Why do you believe what you believe? Why do you feel a specific way about this, that, and everything in-between.

A physical challenge is simple. Either you can, in your own strength, do a thing or you can’t. That’s all dependent on your physical ability. However, a challenge to your beliefs, values, morals, thinking, acting, spirituality, religiosity, etc. is different in a lot of ways, but it still shares that “dependent on your abilites” part. Moreso than that, nothing brings out a challenge of that magnitude more than a counter to YOUR point OR a controversial declaration.

Perhaps this is why we like to hang around people who are just like us because there’s little to no challenge AND, to some degree, we all like to hang out with variations of ourselves. After all, who knows you better than you?

This post is not to blast your circle of friends (because everybody needs one of those), but what happens when you receive a challenge that calls for you to dig into the inner-most parts of you to generate a response? Could you do it? How many of us could truly handle a challenge to what makes us who we are?

Double Booked

First let me start off with this. I had an AWESOME WEEKEND!

Second, let me say that I was EXHAUSTED today.

Here’s what happened. This last past weekend was the result of advanced scheduling. In other words, I was scheduled to teach a 3-day workshop over the weekend… which I did. I was also scheduled to spend time with family and friends on day 2 of the actual workshop… which I also did. As a result, my schedule this last past weekend was non-stop (not to mention the full work week leading up to the weekend).

Here’s the lesson: THERE MUST BE BALANCE. Your body cannot sustain constant motion forever and eventually requires a rest period. So just remember that if your schedule is packed to the gills, go on and schedule a break.

Sounds silly to say and oh-so-basic, but if you don’t do it, no one else will do it for you.

The Real Gospel Challenge: WHO and WHY

For those of you who may not be aware of the most recent Facebook trend, allow me to fill you in. “The Gospel Challenge” is where FB members take video of themselves singing their favorite gospel songs AND, afterwards, issuing a challenge to their vocally inclined friends.

And to be totally honest with you… I’ve been loving every minute of it. That’s probably due to the fact that most of my FB friends are actual singers and musicians. That always makes it easy.

But I had a thought about all these Gospel challenges going around. I was talking with my wife and asked the question “What if BET picks this up and turns it into an actual TV show?” (thinking along the popularity lines of “Sunday Best”) Then I thought about it a little further and this is my conclusion.

If BET (or any other network) were to turn the Gospel challenge into a serious TV show, then that disproves the need for auditions. That, in turn, leaves no way to narrow a pool of contestants to vote on, narrow down to just one, and raise to “idol” status only to be ignored and tossed aside once their national popularity has decreased.

The bottom line is that there are more people out there with real God-given talent than we realize. Moreso than that, those same people are more concerned about singing for the glory of God as opposed to the glory of man. So while I am enjoying this Gospel challenge thoroughly, I am issuing this charge to all singers:

Make sure you know WHO you are singing for and the reason WHY you’re doing it.

The Faithful Few

**This blog is dedicated to the singers and musicians of Untitled Praise.**

And He said, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it?” (Jesus speaking) “It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR can NEST UNDER ITS SHADE.” -Mark 4:30-32 (NASB)

One of the things that I’m learning more and more in my old age is that a lot of people doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of success. In fact, some of the greatest successes in life happen as a result of small things. A huge forest fire comes from only a tiny spark. Tall oak trees come from the smallest of seeds. The tallest or biggest atheletes come from the smallest mixture of human genetic material. So on and so forth.

As I get older and older, I am learning this lesson more and more specifically in church music. Whereas I do LOVE a nice, big mass choir, and have spoken about the power and impact of such an entity in previous blogs, I do not take anything away from smaller groups like praise teams/ensembles because there is definitely a place for them as well. There are countless examples in the Bible where God will take the smallest or seemingly most insignificant person or thing and turn the world upside down. Think about having faith the size of a mustard seed.

Now think about how big an actual mustard seed is.

#exactly

So to all the praise teams, praise ensembles, gospel quartets, church bands, etc who make the music happen on a regular basis without a lot of numbers, don’t think that God can’t take what you think of as small and turn it into something that will impact the world for His glory in a BIG way.

In my musical experience, I’d rather take a faithful few into “battle” as opposed to an uncertain multitude.

The Dark Room [Part 2/2]

“Let all things be done decently and in order.” -1 Corinthians 14:40 (KJV)

Continuing on from the last blog post, I shared that one of my BIGGEST annoyances in the church is when musicians invite themselves to play when no one has invited them to play. I also shared FIVE INSTANCES WHEN NOT TO PLAY so now let’s discuss let’s recap FIVE INSTANCES WHEN YOU SHOULD PLAY:

FIVE INSTANCES WHEN YOU SHOULD PLAY

1. If you have been specifically requested to do so by a person in charge of the music.

2. If you have been specifically requested to do so by a person in charge of the music.

3. If you have been specifically requested to do so by a person in charge of the music.

4. If you have been specifically requested to do so by a person in charge of the music.

5. If you have been specifically requested to do so by a person in charge of the music.

Very simple in its construct, but, surprisingly, very hard to do. And I hear the question running through your head Mr./Mrs. Church Musician reading this blog:

“But what if there are absolutely no musicians with the prospect of none coming?”

This is definitely a common occurrence in the African-American church, which, I believe, is the reason why church musicians are bold enough to invite themselves to play in practically any situation. I still say that IF that is the case, you still need to talk to someone in charge and ASK if they need musical assistance. A simple “Do you all need help on keys?” or “Do you mind if I play the drums?” goes a long way and shows a level of respect as opposed to just running up to an open instrument simply because it’s open. Even if it is the case that there are absolutely no musicians with the prospect of none coming, consider these questions:

“What if that church has a praise team that sounds like “Take 6” or “Sweet Honey In The Rock” and doesn’t need musicians?”

…or…

“What makes you so sure that you know ALL the music sight unseen/sound unheard?”

…or…

“How can you be sure YOUR playing style is something that the singers can follow?”

So on and so forth. Do you see where this line of questions leads to? There is a huge difference between confidence and arrogance. As a musician, you should definitely have confidence in the musical abilities that God has given you, but never be so arrogant (aka “prideful”) in your musical abilities that you think you can “Superman” any situation and save the day. Remember the scripture in Proverbs:

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty* spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18 (NIV)

*Interesting to note that one synonym for “haughty” is “arrogant”.

Also remember that when Superman was being “super”, he caused a lot of collateral damage that DC Comics never explained how it was fixed or whether it was fixed period.

So is it possible that prideful or arrogant musicians are causing musical collateral damage because of pride? If that’s the case, how is that decent and in order according to the scripture?

P.S. – If you don’t know who “Sweet Honey In The Rock” is, you definitely owe it to yourself to look them up on YouTube. Awesome female a cappella group.

The Dark Room [Part 1/2]

“Let all things be done decently and in order.” -1 Corinthians 14:40 (KJV)

And now for the question that will be the premise of this blog series:

How often do you walk into a completely dark room, close the door behind you, and just stand there hoping that the flashlight app on your phone will light up the whole room (assuming you have one)?

I would imagine that most, if not all, of you out there in Blogland would say “Not often”, “Not at all”, or counter with “Why would anyone ever do something like that?”

And guess what? Those are the appropriate responses.

A HUGE pet peeve of mine is church musicians who invite themselves to play when they haven’t been invited. The “dark room” scenario is the closest real life parallel that I could come up with to illustrate this phenomenon. I’ve only experienced this in church and, after so many years/decades of being a church musician, this is still one of my BIGGEST annoyances. Therefore, for my own sanity, I thought I would put down in “writing” times when it is appropriate to play and times when it is NOT appropriate to play in a given church service… and for the sake of my sanity (yet again), let’s start off with when NOT to play:

FIVE INSTANCES WHEN NOT TO PLAY

1. If there are already musicians in place and you don’t know/recognize any of them, DON’T PLAY.

2. If you don’t know/recognize any of the singers, DON’T PLAY.

3. If your thought/intention is to just “follow along”, DON’T PLAY.

4. If you haven’t rehearsed with the group, DON’T PLAY.

5. If you have NOT been invited/requested to play, DON’T PLAY.

Even a musician with the best of intentions is introducing an X factor when they voluntarily push their musical services into a situation that doesn’t require it. These five common sense instances are a great litmus test to KNOW through and through when NOT to play because the goal (ESPECIALLY in church) is for all things to operate decently and in order.

And yes… “all things” means “all things”. Selah.