Teach Them Well

This blog posting is dedicated to ALL of my former piano and music students who are growing into/have grown into wonderful young men and women. I’m so proud of you all and wouldn’t be the teacher that I am without you. Keep on keepin’ on for the glory of God!

For all of my readers who may be old/retired teachers, this blog is going to make a lot of sense. For all of my readers who are new teachers, keep on teaching and you’ll understand what this blog means soon enough.

A very interesting thing happened to me last evening. As I was checking my Facebook feed, I came across the picture of a former piano student of mine. It was on his father’s page and the picture was of my former student in his college cap and gown and his mother and father. Naturally, I clicked the “Like” button and kept on scrolling.

Then I received a friend request from my former student. Naturally, I accepted (only THEN realizing that we weren’t FB friends).

THEN I received a message from my former student saying simply “Hey Mr. Thomas!!” to which I responded back with a chunky response that included “Hello” as well as congratulations on his college graduation so on and so forth. Then I received a message from him that blew my socks off. He said:

“Thank you! I want you to know that you were a huge inspiration to me in the music world, and last week I accepted a music teaching job in the city of Newport News! I had my senior recital about 2 years ago and it was a success. So even though it was long ago, thank you for the music lessons and knowledge that you helped me achieve back then!”

And when I read this, you could have stuck a fork in me because I was DONE. I just could not stop myself from smiling (aka “cheesin’ “) from ear to ear because THIS IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT! To know that the music lessons I gave this young man almost a decade ago has resonated with him all this time and inspired him to do even greater works… it’s just an indescribable feeling (so much so that I had trouble going to sleep).

ADD TO THAT… this news came at the same time as another piano student of mine, who already has two CD recordings under his belt, debuted his smooth jazz piano skills up at the legendary Twins Jazz Club in Washington DC.

AND ADD TO THAT… this news came on the eve of yet ANOTHER piano student of mine who will be graduating high school tomorrow (THU 5/29/2014) and moving on to Hampton University down in Hampton, VA (my “little Lalah Hathaway”).

The bottom line is simply this: TEACH THEM WELL! Today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders and if you teach them properly, then they’ll carry it with them and do GREATER works (lining up with what Jesus said in John 14:12).

…

…

…and then this morning a strange second feeling hit me that my wife so lovingly confirmed after hearing this Facebook story: “I’ve been teaching for a long time and I’m getting old!”

(but that’s a blog for a different day)

Please Don’t Lie

Think about your answers to the following questions:

1. Have you ever ordered a menu item from your favorite fast food restaurant only to find that the food you were actually served looks nothing like the picture?

2. Have you ever walked up on a person of the opposite gender that you were interested in only to be IMMEDIATELY uninterested once (1) you got a good look at them or (2) they started talking?

3. Have you ever purchased a car because it looked “baller”, but once you started to drive the car you found out that it was a “not-at-all-er”?

Musical concepts apply in our everyday life more often than we think. The three questions that you just read are the everyday life examples that I apply to songs that have elaborate introductions yet those introductions are NOT an indicator of what the song will actually be. You’ve all heard those songs. In fact, the conversation in mind might go a little something like this:

“Wow… I LOVE the intro to this song…”

“…sounds like the singer is about to start…”

“…wait, did the music just switch up?…”

“…this is not where I thought this song was going…”

“…I’m changing the station/turning on the CD player/turning on the iSomething…”

Does that stream of consciousness sound familiar to you? When I took jazz composition in college, one of the things that my professor said about the introductions to a piece of music is that it has to be related to what’s actually happening in the song. Otherwise, it’s not really an introduction.

That’s like if I shake your hand… say to you “Hello. My name is Thomas”… and my name tag says “Bill”.

You see. Not a real introduction. Therefore, to all of my songwriters out there in Blogland, I encourage you to make sure your intro’s match your actual song giving you musical consistency throughout your entire piece. Think of it like this: an introduction is nothing more than you musically letting the listener KNOW what they’re about to get into for the next 5-6 minutes. As a result, that 30 second intro is crucial. How crucial?…

A solid intro indicates a solid song.

A weak intro indicates a weak song.

A weak intro to a solid song indicates an incomplete song.

A solid intro to a weak song indicates a LIE!

(please don’t lie… it’s so unbecoming)

Vertical THEN Horizontal [Part 2/4]

So what do “relationships” have to do with “reality television”? Moreso than that, what does all this have to do with our vertical relationship with God?

Glad you asked. I counter your questions with this reality television script. Check this out:

Father: “Stevie? Stevie? Where are you?”

Stevie: “Oh heeeeey Daddy… so wha ha happened was… I heard you coming through the garden and I got scared because I didn’t have any clothes on… so I hid behind the bushes.”

Father: “Stevie… who exactly told you you didn’t have any clothes on? Did you eat from that tree I told you NOT to eat from?”

Stevie: “Now hold up. This chick Laura that YOU gave me as a girlfriend gave me some bad fruit and sure I ate it but it wasn’t REALLY my fault.”

Father: “Laura?… What have you done?!?!?!?”

Laura: “Ummm… I mean… yeah… I ate the fruit… but it was really a talking snake that tricked me into thinking that the fruit was good to eat… so I ate it… but it really wasn’t my fault either.”

…and scene.

Do you see the makings of a reality television show here? Naked people? Forbidden fruit? The constant blame game where everybody is “justified” in their actions but nobody is accepting the blame for their actions? Well, in case you didn’t know, this scene is a treatment from Genesis 3:9-13–also known as the scripture passage where man messed up paradise on Earth… also known as the original sin.

(just replace “Father” with “God, “Stevie” with “Adam”, and “Laura” with “Eve” and add lots of “thee’s”, “thine’s”, and “thoses-es”)

If you continue reading that chapter, you’ll see where God passes judgement on Adam and Eve for what they did. Ultimately, the rest of the Bible from that point all the way to the Revelation of John on the Isle of Patmos, is the attempt to get back in right standing and right RELATIONSHIP with God.

Stay tuned. More to come…

Broken Bottles

HAPPY NEW YEAR to my WordPress fam. I know, I know… it’s February. I’m a month late for “Happy New Year”… or am I? I wrote this back in December and thought it would be a great way to kick off my blogs for 2014. Enjoy!

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins.” Luke 5:37-38 (NLT)

As 2014 approaches, you all know the commercial rhetoric. A new body. A new mind. A new this. A new that. Basically, a new you. Every year about this time, the promise of “a new (fill in the blank)” fills us with the optimism of doing something brand new so much so that we:

Get gym memberships (that we never use).

Start diets (that we never finish).

Make financial/budgeting plans (that we end up not following through to completion).

Promise to be… well… better (something that’s not necessarily guaranteed).

So what’s the issue? It’s not that we don’t try year after year after year to do better through those infamous “new year’s resolutions”, so what is it? What causes us to try and then eventually settle for a downgraded version of what we originally resolved to do OR just give up all together?

Jesus said it in the passage above. How many of us are guilty of pouring new wine (all the things that we want or would like to do) into old wineskins (ultimately our unchanged approach/method/general way of thinking)?

How many of us are expecting broken bottles to hold what God has in store for us?

So as the new year is on it’s way, don’t make resolutions that are a temporary fix. Instead take a bit of Biblical advice found in Romans and apply it to your daily living.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:2 (NLT)

The KJV calls it “renewing of your mind” and the good thing about that is you can do that all year round. The even better thing is that once you renew your mind, you’ll find that the new wine you want to pour will go into a new wineskin that can handle it.

(just a thought)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!

Merry Happy Christgivingsmas Day

I was in the grocery store yesterday hunting for a few more of those “after Halloween” candy sales (I don’t celebrate Halloween, but I do love a sale). I know it’s late in the month of November for such a hunt, but it never hurts to try. I turned down the “multi-purpose aisle” (you know the aisle… the one with all the random seasonal stuff in it) and to my surprise my eyes are bombarded with red, green, silver, snowflakes, and Christmas themed candy. Keep in mind that not even a week ago, this aisle was almost a barren candy wasteland where Halloween themed candy used to live. Now, it’s Christmas.

Then I had a thought, “Did we even get to Thanksgiving yet?”

I know the marketing gurus in corporate America love Christmas (if nothing more than for the marketability), but it almost feels like Christmas keeps getting earlier and earlier every year. Funny how Christmas gets earlier every year, but daylight savings time NEVER SEEMS TO END.

But I digress…

Consider this… time flies fast enough on its own so we (or the corporate machine) don’t need to push it any faster. When we rush to the destination, we miss the journey and life (as we know and love it) is MORE about the journey as opposed to the destination. Christmas is coming (no doubt about it), but if we zip past Thanksgiving trying to get to the next holiday sale, then we’ve totally missed the purpose of setting aside a specific time to give thanks to God for all He has done for us throughout the year.

Ergo, we sacrifice a spiritual opportunity for a selfish opportunity.

Bottom line, take the time out to GIVE THANKS on THANKSGIVING DAY.

The Miraculous vs. The Minimum [Part 2/2]

“What if God is basing His miraculous on our minimum?”

Keep in mind that this is just an IF question. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-present which means He can do whatever He wants to whenever He wants to do it. Ultimately, this IF question is to get you to think unselfishly for a moment. If we knew that a miracle was based solely on the minimum that we do, how much more would we be on top of doing the minimum. I would imagine that in most cases, we’d strive for “above the minimum” if we knew that a miracle was the ultimate result because human nature dictates that we are, more often than not, a “results driven” species. Unfortunately, our human nature also dictates that we are “lazy”.

Think about every late night infomercial that you’ve ever seen. Something “new and improved” or something that will make something else “a thing of the past”. Advertisers know how to appeal to the “lazy” side of human nature; the side that’s not so concerned about the work involved as much as the results on the back end. The only problem with that is you can only get as much out of a thing as you put into it. Anything that you put your time, energy, effort, and resources towards means that you’re looking for a return on your investment. We can always put that in tangible terms with spouse, children, home, career, money, etc. It should be no different when it comes to ministry (any ministry of course, but music ministry for me specifically).

I can honestly say from my own experience that when I invest into whatever music ministry that I’m working with, I try to give my all in an effort to have the product be the best it can be. Why? Simple. The best products yield the best results. Any “music ministry” is really a “ministry that happens to operate through the medium of music”. In other words, the MINISTRY has to come first. Church is in the business of saving souls meaning that all ministries involved in the church should have the exact same goal. When a soul comes to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, then all ministries involved from the parking lot to the pulpit have done their due diligence leaving the rest up to God to move on the hearts of the people living in a dying world.

Getting souls saved are the results that we, as a music ministry, are looking for… BUT it starts with every ministry member doing their due diligence… and THAT starts with, at least, doing the minimum.

If you’re not doing the minimum, there’s no better time to start than now because God’s grace is sufficient which is why we can take confidence in the scripture that says:

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin…” -Zechariah 4:10a (NLT)

What do you think? Shared wisdom makes us all stronger.

The Miraculous vs. The Minimum [Part 1/2]

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” -Luke 12:48b

I taught a Music Ministry workshop over the weekend and anytime I have the opportunity to do that, I’m always thankful and humbled by the experience. As much as I can, I try to observe those that I am teaching to see what kind of response I’m receiving not necessarily to me, but to the subject matter. The general thing that I come across when I teach is how music ministries are trying to overachieve without either a solid foundation or a foundation period. For example, while most choirs want to sound just like their favorite song on the radio, so many considerations are not taken into account as to why a song is NOT ministered. Considerations like:

1. Relevance to the worship service
2. Overall capabilities of the singers and musicians
3. How long that song will take to learn (because sometimes one rehearsal is just not enough)

…so on and so forth…

Unfortunately, the “song NOT being ministered” part is the only fixation that a choir member may have which can lead to division and strife. While that is unfortunate, this gets moreso to foundational issues as opposed to ability. In order to be “excellent” at anything, you must have a mindset for “excellence”. In my lifetime, I have never seen where an apple seed will produce an orange OR where a mother dog will give birth to a kitten. The Bible says in Genesis 1:11 that “fruit will produce after its own kind” (paraphrasing). If we apply that meaning here, then we can ultimately say that “excellence” produces “excellence” because excellence will produce after its own kind.

Is that to say that your Sunday morning church choir can’t sing what’s on the radio like the people sing it on the radio do?

NO! It can be done, it has been done, and it will be done, BUT that is conditional on the type of foundation that your music ministry is built on. For example, to sing a song above the difficulty level of the overall choir, the foundation needs to be solid. To know if your overall foundation is solid, ask yourself these questions:

1. Do all choir members show up on time for rehearsal? (and YES “choir members” includes leaders, singers, and musicians)
2. Do choir members practice their music on their own time? (because there is a difference between “practice” and “rehearsal”)
3. Are choir members paying attention or being disruptive during rehearsal?
4. Do you trust your ministry leaders to lead you, teach you, and lovingly correct you?
5. Do you take the ministry seriously? (because you’re part of the foundation too)

We’re always looking for God to do the miraculous (which is something that He’s more than able to do), but I submit to you this question:

“What if God is basing His miraculous on our minimum?”

In Terms Of Absolutes

As Christians, we need to view the Word of God in terms of absolutes. There are no gray areas with God and, as Christians, there should be no gray areas with us. We should be like light switches on the wall, either we’re on or we’re off. You either love like He loves or you don’t. You either follow His commands or you don’t. You either pay your tithes or you don’t. You either praise Him with all that is within you or you don’t. If God had any gray areas, then how could we trust Him to do what He promised? That would, in essence, be calling God a liar and we KNOW that’s not true. But don’t take my Word for it, take it to the scriptures:

“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” -Numbers 23:19

“For I am the Lord, I do not change.” -Malachi 3:6

“Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar.” -Romans 3:4

“[I]n hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.” -Titus 1:2

“[I]t is impossible for God to lie.” -Hebrews 6:18

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” -James 1:17-18

What do you think? Shared wisdom makes us all stronger.

When God Says HE Loves You

When God says He loves you, all you have to do is breath in and out to know that He loves you enough to provide the very air that you’re breathing. ACTION! If you need more proof, go outside, look at the sunshine (or even the rain), look at the sky, look at the birds in the sky, look at the trees, the land, the fact that you have eyes to see, ears to hear, noses to sniff, the fact that this planet rotates around a sun with a moon that rotates around the Earth. ACTION! The fact that God can orchestrate all these things and STILL care enough to send His son to die for me and you tells me simply that He loves us more than we can ever know.

What do you think? Shared wisdom makes us all stronger.

How Hungry Are You?

Fried Chicken. Turkey Legs. Roast Beef. Fried Fish. Mashed Potatoes and Gravy. Roasted Potatoes. Potato Salad. Sweet Potatoes. Candied Yams. Rice. Macaroni and Cheese. House Salad. BBQ Baked Beans. Green beans. Butter beans and stewed tomatoes. Black-eyed Peas. Broccoli. Buttered Rolls. Cornbread. Spoonbread. Water. Sweet Tea. Kool-Aid.

Hungry yet? How about this…

Education. Workshops. Seminars. Apprenticeships. Private Lessons. Symposia. Conferences. Study abroad. Research.

Still hungry? Now consider this…

“Work hard so you can present yourself to God and receive his approval. Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15 (NLT)

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about how younger people aren’t “hungry” for anything anymore. In this technological world that we live in, most answers are available at a mouse click’s notice. In the music field, or any other field for that matter, you have to have a hunger to do great things so it’s troublesome to see the effects of an “entitled mindset”. The scripture above says that we are to “work hard” in order to be one “who correctly explains the word of truth”. In the KJV, the phrase that’s used is “Study to shew thyself approved”. Both “work hard” and “study” refer to ACTION (meaning that something has to be done on the part of the “do”er).

Even though this scripture is in reference to the Gospel of Jesus, I’m a firm believer in “scriptural principle” meaning that the principle of the scripture can apply in so many different situations. If you think about it, anything that you work hard at you’ll eventually get good (or even great) at. So consider this:

Think about how many people you know who can “correctly explain” a truth because they have “studied to show themselves approved” in their field of expertise (i.e. – music, medicine, law, business, science, math, English, education, graphics and design, websites, computers, contracting, plumbing, etc).

NOW think about how “hungry” they had to be to go through the process of being the expert that they are today.

And I leave you with this simple question…

How hungry are you?