5th Sunday Worship

When people tweet about it on Sundays and tag their church or worship team I often wonder what makes for a brilliant/amazing worship service/experience.

Yesterday we the worship team at our church were publicly thanked in the service by the minister for the worship. This is as rare as a month with five Sundays.

There’s not a particular formula we follow to get a 'good' result. We put in the practice as we do during most weeks and through warming up on Sunday mornings. 

We are all unpaid amateurs who love Jesus and love music as much as each other (work out what I did there.)

We have a fairly strong core of rhythm and bass most weeks. The music is mainly led from the keyboard and we three keyboard players have different styles. Within the group we have different ideas about; what we like; what works and doesn’t; songs that we like that don’t get picked; songs that we don’t like as much that get picked just a little too often.

My actual personal preparation that I do when I’m on the rota to lead, is for an hour or two on the Saturday:

• play through all the songs, partly about word familiarity and partly muscle memory exercise*
• work out and finalise how the songs in the first set might link together musically if we’ve not already done it in the week
• think about instrumentation, particularly if there are strengths and or weaknesses among the players on the rota
• drink in the words, which is often a deeply personal act of worship and prayer and nearly always for me more meaningful than Sunday itself

I can honestly say I didn’t spend ages praying when I woke up yesterday morning. And as more often than not we were a little late leaving the house for church to get there for the time I’d asked everyone else to be there. My left ear was a little blocked and I forgot my glasses too (*lack of glasses is where the muscle memory practice really kicks in.)

And so I will continue to say it's something of a mystery how things turn out.

The majority of the time we turn up, do our stuff, and someone might say ‘thank you for the worship’ if they are stuck next to you in the coffee queue after the service or if the minister has done a ‘be thankful’-type message.

If we had a prayer/preparation formula that we followed it would cease to be about God. And God doesn’t actually need us to do the work of corporate worship, but He wants us to.

Not a deep piece. Random musings. Just musician, writing here and recording thanks.

my heart will go on

I’m not a Celine Dion fan although I did once go to a concert of hers because someone had a spare, free ticket. And by virtue of tagging along I discovered the music of The Corrs, whose music I do love, so clouds, silver linings.

When our children were in primary school I did a little piano teaching. Celine’s song ‘My heart will go on’ sprang up everywhere at that time, making it a piece that a number of pupils wanted to learn to play. It was actually a great piece to teach balance between hands, with the aim of making the melody line sing against a flowing accompaniment. All too often as students wrestled with mastering notes, fingers and pedals the efforts sounded more like the deep, dark depths of the ocean that Jack Dawson sank into. But occasionally a pupil would master it well enough to perform in the end of term concert.

As the teacher teaching those who were not quite able to master it, the lessons were something of an endurance feat, and sometimes could not end soon enough. I’ve not been put off the song for life, but neither is it top of any playlists.

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2 Chronicles 7: 1-3

When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. ² The priests could not enter the temple of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled it. ³ When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, “He is good; his love endures forever.”

This morning we sang the Matt Redman song based on this passage ‘Lord let your glory fall’. And we sang it twice during the service, second time after an excellent message on Praise and Revelation. I was leading worship from the piano today, so given the time spent practising in preparation at home, warm up practice prior to the service and repeating it during the service I’d ended up singing those words quite a few times.

I’m never bored of hearing these things. It is one of the best ways in which God enables His goodness to sink into my bones, in repetition and rhythm, allowing thankfulness to diffuse into my heart and to know that His love endures.

Not endurance as in long-suffering, resignation, tolerance or sticking it out, but enduring timeless love as constantly encountering, meeting with, persisting and holding on.

Without resorting to cheesy song, He says ‘My heart will go on’ long after yours has given up, cooled off, forgotten or wandered off and I am committed to running after You, whatever.

when it gets too loud

Each weekday morning at the station at approximately 7:29am the tannoy on the opposite platform starts to make the announcement for the next southbound local train. And without fail the London express comes thundering through drowning out all the calling station names. Then all that is left of the announcement after the cacophony passes is an almost apologetic ‘operated by Northern Rail.’  I’ve no idea how the timing manages to be absolutely spot on each day.

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That is life reflection at the moment.  

I know my well-being is not great and hasn’t been for at least a few weeks now. Way too much medicating with chocolate. Life, work and social media feel like they are all drowning ‘me’ out. Half the time I don’t know what I feel, another news topic flares up or a hot subject whizzes around twitter and my senses short circuit.  And the monkey on the shoulder hops from foot to foot jabbering amongst other things ‘you’re just jumping on the back of recent blog posts on depression and mental health, copying others by thinking of taking a social media break..’

Truth be known I’m not sure what I will do, but I am on a list for counselling. I also think I feel for the first time that I’m not totally scared shitless at the thought of darkness loitering again. One of those seasons which comes around periodically and lets itself in through the door for a sit-in.

I want to be able to articulate ‘it’ perfectly but for sure I don’t always know what ‘it’ is

How can I explain what deep down I don’t know?

***

I have also longed to explain how music has often saved me in tough times. How my soul has a deep affinity with interpretation of the dots and lines on a page. I don’t know how a particular combination of sounds (harmonies) in music might move me deeply. That Chopin’s dark thoughts have probably mirrored my own. Perhaps it is the best way for some of those pesky feelings to be dragged up from the deep, from the coal face to the surface?  

Time and again when I’ve turned up and sat at the piano with heavy heart and began to move fingers over the keys, whatever the piece of music may be, I’m not the same as I was before I started the piece. 

When I prepare songs for leading worship on a Sunday it turns out I am not just playing them over to make sure I am aware of how things might flow from one song to the next.The very act of exercising physical, mental and spiritual muscles together is something which irons my soul.

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The whole effort of trying to explain sometimes turns in on itself. 

And the perfectionist pitches in for good measure, screeching grammar, poor choice of words, no good, no-one will understand, too much me, me.

But I do need to create, write, to sift and to dredge. 

And even if I don’t come out with understanding, the creases are a little smoother and the noise is not quite so overwhelming.

the piano

The #concretewords link up currently lives at Nacole's place at sixinthehickorysticks join in with us over there. To find out more about #concretewords, click here

This week's prompt was utterly irresistible and you get me just about as authentic as you will get. 

It is - the piano

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88 keys 52 white and 36 black

Frail, tiny, elderly lady leaning with her arm for support, on the curve of the wing-shaped case of the grand piano. Gently waving her arthritic hands in time to my tentative playing of elementary pieces from the old primer. Her long necklaces gently swaying as she moved within confined space, teaching, imparting and carefully cultivating.

88 keys 52 white and 36 black

Stumbling self-consciously through ‘Solo per cembalo’ for the pivotal grade examination. Teenage hormones crushing confidence, fingers falter and hit right notes at the wrong time. The corner of the eye sees the examiner is disengaged, concurrently absorbed in picking his nose and writing, scratching deeply the scathing remarks into the paper.

88 keys 52 white and 36 black

Realising in mid-teens that I could use the piano to reproduce songs heard just a few times and without needing music. Guided by intuition and a sizeable aural memory bank, I was able to adopt a style allowing flexibility away from written music and enabling freedom to worship in song. It was a crucial juncture, this acknowledgement of a God-given gift and was the spur to re-engage with it fully and go back to piano study after a break of a couple of years.

88 keys 52 white and 36 black

Challenging Nanna to a chromatic scale race from the extremities to the middle of the piano playing all 88 keys in sequence, her ascending, me descending. She herself weakened and recuperating after a bout of pernicious anaemia having spent much time with her terminally sick younger sister. Her hands where the olive, Olay drenched skin had long given up its elasticity, still deceptively agile and we reached the 44^th note in the contest at roughly the same time. Motor skills unused in decades still resident in her dancing digits.

88 keys 52 white and 36 black

University teacher whose often sherry-seasoned breath filled the small, sound-proofed box rooms, where we took lessons. His imagination that paced corridors and opened doors to previously unknown pieces. Favourites were aural impressionist paintings by Debussy and peculiarly, beautiful pieces published after composers’ deaths, where I learned to master the art of complex musical fractions, four against three. ‘Pedal with your ears my dear!’  he often cried, one of the most lucid lessons he left with me.

88 keys 52 white and 36 black

Now as the teacher watching over pupils who wanted to do-it-all. Listening to the Dying Swan, dead already within a few bars. Admiration for the boy whose fingers assuredly flitted with a feisty lightness through the De’il Among the Tailors, but who otherwise never uttered more than a few words. Adult airline pilot who wanted to play Concertos but vanished from the radar within a few lessons. Tentative pensioner, confidence scarred, Jesus her best friend later in life, duetting  together I know Him so well, art never more appropriately mirroring life. In all the learning, pedagogue always being educated by the apprentices.

88 keys 52 white and 36 black

Music is an essence that leaks out of my pores and has passed to the next generation. We encouraged each one of our children to pursue the study of at least one instrument and to learn to love music. As a mother at the piano I was able to help them over the years, sitting with them while they practised, to foster the discipline and for them coming through to nurture their own genetically inherited gifts. (This process was definitely not without tears, tantrums and much wallowing of the artistic temperament on all sides). The blessings have multiplied and each child is today involved with music at their own church. I was in floods of tears the first time I heard our eldest son lead worship (not least because he and I probably had the most arguments about practise but also knowing that his musical gifts have been clearly blessed by the Holy Spirit.)

88 keys 52 white and 36 black

To play the black and white keys for Your glory Father whether alone or with a team of fellow musicians. To play, to sing your praises so Your Holy Spirit enables every fibre of my being, heart and soul to give to others a small portion of what you have lavished upon me. Sometimes creating roadblocks by desiring affirmation from others to boost fragile esteem, for them to say that You have blessed them, so in turn I can feel warm, fuzzy goodness within. Other times feeling overlooked because others' personal preferences are different and another musician is exalted with plaudits. 

But exactly who am I to say how your love, grace and mercy are made known to others? Discordant and hollow piano with broken strings and rotting case is left when Your love is absent.

88 keys 52 white and 36 black

Recently I was playing Abide With Me on the piano to practise for a funeral, where I needed to lead the congregation in singing as well. The hymn has the effect of invoking tears easily, there’s just something about it that does that to me. Perhaps it is having heard it played by Yorkshire Brass Bands (the world's best) or Emilie Sande’s soulful performance at the Olympic opening ceremony. I figured the best thing was to keep playing and singing it out to execute the combination of notes, giving the right weight to rich harmonies and to make the words more habitual so as not to be taken over by emotion.

In the repetitions God suddenly whispered at a junction with only me in the audience, the significance of just these four words ‘ills have no weight’. It is something that I can't explain adequately in words yet, partly because it's one of those situations you need to have lived to understand. So for now I will say it was extremely deep and significant. God is right there in the detail and because he knows me thoroughly the whisper was only for me, in that moment.

And this is why He wanted me to keep playing on so I could hear Him speak.

At the Piano, oftentimes a place of Holy Ground

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After Nanna’s death it seemed appropriate to invest some of the money she bequeathed to us into a new piano. This is the instrument that has so far moved with us three times.

It is one of my most cherished possessions, the Piano.

some thoughts around those words in that song

I went to bed last night hot under the collar and sweaty under the scarf (it was a cold day) about comments and theological discussion over the phrase ‘the wrath of God was satisfied’ from the song ‘In Christ alone’.

I am not a theologian, primarily a pianist who has led worship in some form or another for over 20 years. Worship leaders are well accustomed to frequently more snarky than complimentary comments winging in their direction. Here are just a few of the downers from the years, direct and indirect:

·         a song was played too high, too low, too slow, too fast (surprisingly often by people who have no little or no musical ability)

·         parts of songs were repeated too many times or not enough, there were too many songs in one go, too much of a hymn/prayer sandwich

·         there are too many modern songs not enough hymns, hymns are too archaic in their language and no-one understands them these days

·         the wrong tune was used (not the one I like)

·         how a different song would have been ‘more annointed’

·         you are introducing new songs too fast

·         we sing this song too much, we don’t sing this one enough

I could go on.  

Equally too I have dished out some of the above criticisms when I have been in a congregation and often played them out either in my mind or around the family dinner table. (We have laughed until our sides ached and cried over the years. People in churches you probably have no idea how much ammunition you have provided us with over the years and we have been eternally grateful for your unwitting co-operation!) 

Sometimes negative critique will arise when it’s been a case of enduring a poor instrumentalist hashing their way through something never ending.  Fair do’s on that one.

If I’ve gone to church in a bullish or depressed mood and the music hasn’t done its job of lifting me out of the pit as I feel it should, it is as though the music or God really owes me something on this. Actually He doesn’t. Much in the same way, I am not obliged to play at a certain speed, nor do I think the words of a song are absolutely all there just to be pleasing to someone.

I was delighted to see that ‘In Christ alone’ was included in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s enthronement service. As for ‘the wrath of God was satisfied’ discussions I really can't get my head round what the storm in some sections of the Anglican tea-cup is about. The fact that God’s anger over all the sinful things I have ever done and will ever do was dealt with once and for all on the cross is enough for me.  These words alone far outweigh any lengthy discussion on that short phrase 'For I am His and He is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ'.

I simply cannot craft an argument here that will stand up to knowledgeable theological types and I’m not even going to attempt to. I may be biased, short-sighted, too simple for some folks, but I do have a photograph of the three bridesmaids at my son’s wedding (not to be shared here as they are adults and I do not have their permission). They all have their eyes closed, hands aloft in worship and faces slanted upwards whilst singing these words from the song ‘No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand’.

It's not necessarily logical but it is a perfect image of what I know.

#lentphotos - 29 - spirit

Does what it says on the CD.

"And that's all I have to say about that" (att: Forrest Gump)

#lentphotos - 22 - bettering oneself

One of the downsides of teaching piano is persuading pupils that in order to improve they really do need to play scales and exercises to limber up their fingers.  The scales are not actually just for passing exams.  As well as fine-tuning muscles in the hands, wrists and fingers they help kinaesthetic learning (muscle memory).  In the same way athletes or gymnasts need to perform repetitive muscular exercises for strength and stamina, they aren't just able to turn out a perfect performance without doing them regularly.  

This set of exercises for pianists is often recommended for people who are short on time but want to maintain a decent standard of piano playing.  A group of us who are pianists and were at university together were recently commenting on how difficult it is to maintain a good standard of playing unless you are doing it in some professional capacity.

Leading worship at church it is great to be able to be free from the mechanics of sheet music and to focus on the words we sing.  Because of patterns learned physically linked to the harmonies lodged in my head  for more than 40 years it is something for me that is as natural as walking or riding a bike.  I try not to take it for granted and to be thankful. 

#lentphotos - 05 - a a place to pause

Sometimes at the end of a piece of music there is a ‘cyclops’ symbol above the final note or chord. In the original Italian this is a ‘fermata’ which literally means a hold or pause (full definition here).   It is something of the composer’s intent that has been added to the music.  When it is placed at the end of a piece of music the fermata gives the sense of coming to a standstill and emphasises the completion of the piece.

Pause is nearly always intentional on the part of the person who is doing the pausing.  There may be external factors which necessitate a pause, such as waiting at traffic lights.  But even then the decision to move off is with the driver; whether they rev the engine and accelerate when the lights change to amber or to wait for the green light to steadily move on, it is a personal decision.

Teaching music students how to interpret a fermata is quite tricky when they are young (and the symbol is used, in even the most simple pre-Grade 1 pieces).  I used to teach piano and pupils would question ‘How long is exactly right’? I would mostly suggest as counting one or two longer than the value of the note written.  However over time and particularly if music is studied to a higher level interpreting a fermata becomes more intuitive and the player or performer begins to feel how long is ‘right‘.  At the end of the day for either beginner or experienced, the length of pause is at the discretion of the instrumentalist.

The piece in the photo is the end of a Chopin Etude.  It is one of my favourites by the Polish pianist composer, partly because it is in the key of F minor which appeals to the introspective nature I carry.  It was one of two given to me to study by a teacher so that I could master the art of playing differing values in each hand (this one is three against four).  At end three understated, repeated chords bring the piece to a conclusion, with a fermata over the final chord.  You can listen to the whole piece here.