Is Humble Musician an Oxymoron?   All to often I hear musicians complaining about playing in there respective congregations. I have even found myself frustrated in playing along with other musicians, when their style or approach was contrary to my own. I am of the opinion that many of the issues could be resolved by healthy forms of communication. However, the fact of the matter is many believing musicians, atleast the ones I have dialogued and spoken with, are not at a place in their walk were the lines of communication can be opened. With boots dug deep into their respective positions a mexican stand-off ensues and no one wants to budge. Your’s truly has found himself at this very place, and even when I released my will in order to accomodate a worship service, I held a grudge in my heart.

As musicians we need to recognize that foremost we are followers of Christ, and find our identity in that very fact. As followers of Christ we must take upon ourselves the daily task following Him. It sound all good at first glance, but the deeper we look into this concept the more we begin to understand that, there are steps involved in this daily process that may not be so appealing.

“And he said to them all, ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Luke 9:23

First, we must deny ourselves. Wait one minute, Rev! What exactly does this entail? It literally means we must lose sight of ourselves and our own ambitions. Trust me without self-denial, the rest of Jesus’ statement is not even in reach. Many have quoted this scripture to me, and conveniently left the self denial out, probably because in fact they haven’t been taking up a cross either.

Second, take up his cross daily. Many would interpret this to mean, they should bare burdens daily, as Christ bore ours on the cross.  The truth is Christ came to free us from our former life, into a new life, that only can be accomplished by way of the cross.  He tells us in Matthew 11:28-30:

28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Our second objective is to in fact, recon ourselves dead to sin, and resurrected to new life.  Without such a concience effort, we will never properly follow Christ.  You see as a selfless musician you must truly lose site of yourself, and let Christ take center stage in your heart.

Prayer:  Father, not to sound cliche, but I want to decrease that you may increase in my life.  Help me daily recon myself dead, and alive with you.  You are a awesome Father, Lord, and Friend.  There is truly no one like you.  Give your musicians a heart to lead by example, and show forth your goodness, in your congregations across the globe.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

I was writing an entry into my personal blog this morning, when I thought to myself, this scripture applies perfectly to my maturation as a musician as well.  So I began to type out a variation of my thought geared towards my fellow musicians.

I tackled this subject some years back in a devotional entitled, Frustrated?  My purpose was to give bass players who are frustrated with their musical progress, hope that in time things will get better.  Judging from the feedback I have received on the site, I feel as if the words hit the mark.  Now, I am writing to encourage those who feel as though the progress has stopped, and they simply are not improving as musicians.  Don’t lose faith.  Don’t give up.  It’s all a part of the process.

In my personal blog I wrote:

Have you ever waited patiently on something to take place in your life, only to receive notice, that it would be delayed?  How did it make you feel?  Often in our walk as believers we trust in a trustworthy God to deliver a promise in our life only to experience delay in the things we hope for.  Almost certainly every believer has had to endure some sort of delay when it comes to our spiritual growth in God.   If we are not careful we will find ourselves, moving away from the grace in which is so prevelant in our salvation, and we begin to find ourselves working for those things in which we desire.  The sense of accomplishing works for Christ only momentarily, provide a source of fulfilment when we find our heart condition, is quite possibly more saddened than our previous encounter.

What are we to do?  How are we to get out of this cycle? According to the proverb, it is only when that desire is fulfilled, that I will experience something greater than my present situation.  Right?

I am persuaded that too often I have misunderstood the process, in which God uses to mature, and strengthen me.  God knows exactly what I need, and he uses deferrals, in my life, that I might see  “Life” through the eyes of Christ.  When we are sick we seek medical assistance for those things that ail us.   When Our hearts are sick we attempt to self medicate bye things that often make the matter worse, instead of trusting in God who hears and heals.

Some of you guys may be thinking that’s great brother, but what does that have to do with my musical maturation.  My response is nothing and everything.  We all know that musical talent can be found in believer and non-believer alike.  Talents can also be found in part-time believers, but that is a “Whole-nother” post unto itself.  The only thing that separates christians, is that we are sanctified as a gracious act of God towards us.  Sanctification, simply means “set apart for a purpose”.  In the context of this post, that purpose is to play our musical instrument unto God.  The same measure we are yielded in our daily life, is the measure God see’s when we come together as a local congregation to worship him.  Let us turn our affections to Him as we worship, and not on the set of skills we are able to bring to worship.  Am I saying, don’t practice your craft? Heavens, No. I am saying, don’t let it be a point of frustration, because you think you should be further along.  Instead, focus on experiencing God, past the other frustrations in life.  Even if your playing doesn’t sound any different in your ears, you will feel a deeper connection in your heart, and the talent will eventually catch up.

Prayer:
Father, help me to understand that you are not bound by time, nor are you driven by progress reports.  Your ways are truly above my ways, and beyond tracing out.  I can’t understand how you operate, unless you give me revelation.  Lord, I thank you for sending your son Jesus, to fulfill the Law.  I thank you for extending your grace towards us, because it is truly amazing.  Lord, continue to give insight and revelation so that your child will be edified.  Teach me to trust in your my king, and not the scales or runs, I bring to the sanctuary, where your people assemble to meet you.  Increase my capacity to listen to your heart, rest in your grace, and seek you in the things of life that often go overlooked.  Take your rightful place in the thrown room of my heart, teaching me to love your ways above all else. In Jesus Name.  Amen.

 We get our english word worship from the combination or two words.  The first being worth, which is defined having value.  The second is the suffix -ship, defined as something which shows, or possesses.  Therefore there can be no worship without a value being placed on something.  

As musicians we must understand that worship begins well before we pick up our instrument to play.  It’s not associated with a particular time in service, nor is it something we do solely on Sunday morning.   If we are not careful as musicians we can find ourselves infatuated with the idea of worship, although missing the origin of where worship begins. 

Worship begins in our hearts and is carried out with our lifestyles.  We should not settle for anything less than pure worship, that touches the heart of God. 

Prayer: Father I thank you for the opportunity to worship you with my life.  I count it an added bonus to be able to serve in your house as a musician, when you church comes together.  Lord I want my playing to be an extension of a life dedicated to serving you.  That when others hear your child play they will be able to experience our love in every note.

In Building Scales: Major Scale we utilized numbers to identify the intervals within the major scale. These numbers or intervals help us to identify from which degree of the scale a note is being generated, in relationship to the note played before.

This is often referred to as relative pitch. The identification of the relative distance between notes allows us bassist to know where to place our fingers to play the appropriate note. Each interval in the scale has a distinct sound one from the other.

As we begin to practice hearing these intervals, our fingers begin to gravitate towards certain sounds. Coupling this technique with humming or singing the intervals of the scale will accelerate our ear training.

Excercises:
1 – 3 – 2 – 4 – 3 – 5 – 4 – 6 – 5 – 7 – 6 – 1 – 7 – 2
Then try going backwards.
Or then alternate the direction you play the intervals in.
1 – 3 – 4 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 6 -4 – 5 – 7 – 1 – 6 – 7 – 2

you can use this as a blue print, and start jumping bigger intervals.
1 – 4 – 2 – 5 – 3 – 6 – 4 – 7 – 5 – 1 – 6 – 2 – 7 – 3

Your ear will begin to hear the differences in the intervals, and your hands will begin to gravitate towards the sounds you hear.

We will take a look at two specific components of music to identify that will  help you be well on your way to playing  any song by ear, called Interval recognition and Chord recognition

Interval recognition is a very useful skill in order to deterime the melody of a song, musicians must have some ability to recognize intervals. The ability to tell how two pitches relate to one another is referred to as “relative pitch”. One very useful method of developing releative pitch, is to associate each possible interval with the first two notes of a popular song.

Chord recognition works in conjunction with interval recognition. Hearing the harmonic structures that support the melody of a song is chord recongition. Musicians often practice hearing different types of chords and their inversions out of context, just to hear the characteristic sound of the chord. They also learn chord progressions to hear how chords relate to each other in the context of a piece of music.