I spent my summer discovering how hard it was to use my talent at guitar to lead young people in what we call a praise band. The music we played as a band would be in the "contemporary praise and worsip" genre.
First of all, in a praise setting you want to be sure that your band members are there for the right reasons and are spiritually sound and aware.
Second: In a band, you typically want to make sure everyone is on a similar skill and experience level on his or her particular instrument.
Third: People have to get along in order for the band family and atmosphere to be healthy and productive.
Once the music begins to emerge, every mind that is controlling an instrument has to fall into a rhythmic pattern of beat, melody, harmony, and vocal pitches.
If all this comes together accurately, you might be succesfull in leading worship in a pure manner.
Being in a band is awesome, but can be very stressful, especially when you have the weight on you of knowing that it shouldn't be about your performance, but about leading people in performing worship for God. That's a heavy responsibility. All along though, in the back of your mind you know that if your performance is off, people aren't really going to be focusing on what they should be, they will focus on: "What the heck could possibly be stuck in that guys throat?"
Through my constant involvement in playing and singing in front of groups and crowds this summer, I have overcome my fear of singing and playing in front of only a few people, outside of an official setting. Singing in a microphone on a stage for me is much easier than propping a boot up on a chair in a living room for some friends to gather around and hear you go at it. Every time my roommates would ask me to play a song in the living room at a gathering, I would either change the subject or have to suddenly be somewhere else. Holding a guitar in front of my father is always awkward, because he says..."Play me a song son!"
"No Dad."
"Play a song or I won't pay for college!"
"Dad, I don't know any songs."
This can continue anywhere from 15-45 minutes, and it usually ends in a grumpy father and a half played, nervous tune that I would be ashamed to call music.
I have decided that from now on, if someone asks me to play, I'm going to start singing and playing before they can finish the question. I got the opportunity to play guitar while a girl sang in an empty sanctuary last Sunday. She had one of the best live voices I have ever heard in my life, but she was so reluctant to singing because she didn't know what song to sing, or what key to sing it in, or blah blah blah. Once she finally sang, I knew that she could have sung the Communist Manifesto and it would have been great. From now on, if I'm asked to sing or play, I'm doing it without hesitation. The awkwardness of trying to avoid playing when asked, but eventually doing it after thirty minutes of pressure can this easily be avoided. If you have a small amount of talent on an instrument, you can entertain enough. Moreover, if your music isn't magical, people will forget about that note you missed within an hour. So what? Anyone who makes fun of a person who is trying to learn the skill of singing or performing probably can’t sing happy birthday. In that situation, you hand them the guitar, or microphone, and say..."Your turn."
Six strings and typically a minimum of eighteen or so frets can produce so many different sounds and combinations of notes and chords. Music is truly an insane "movement" (<----this is how I like to describe it) that I'm not sure will ever have an ending. I don't think that one day somebody will ever be able to say, "That's it. People have composed every possible note and sound that can be made." It just won't happen. Get ready for new and more exciting sounds coming your way.
Demonstration of truly amazing musical composure and swagger:
