Transcript included below…
I believe stories are a wonderful way to convey a perspective, or to shed light on an important truth.
And if you’re new to Guitar Serious Fun, welcome to story time. People who know me know that the Lord has blessed me with a lot of experiences on my musical journey. And I love to share a lot of those stories here.
Some of these stories are humorous, some are frustrating, but all are worth considering, because I’ve learned from them, and perhaps you can too.
When my Gear Threw me for a Loop
I performed a mini-tour recently where I had to pivot and change my plans just before I went onstage. This was because I was unable to leverage my creative looping approach in my performance.
If you’re familiar with my live show, you know that as a solo guitarist, I like to stack and record multiple sonic layers with my instruments and voice to create a live texture that sounds like a full band. This is just as fun to create as it is to experience.
But something was not working with my onstage mixer for these shows.
Every time I tried to layer sound, after just two loops, everything became distorted and sounded, well…bad. I felt helpless and annoyed, but I chose not to let this technical challenge get the better of me.
I pivoted. I changed my song sets to feature more of my ballads and stories, and less of my innovation on the guitar.
I still played well and brought elegant guitar artistry; I just didn’t loop. And when I got home, thanks to a good friend of mine who has some mad tech chops, we were able to do some testing of the gear and to isolate the problem.
For inquiring minds, I had somehow turned up the aux knob on the loop channel on my onstage mixer, thereby sending the loop signal back into itself and consequently overloading it. This is what had caused the overwhelming distortion in the loop.
Initially on this tour, I was quite befuddled and annoyed, but once I had accepted that my tech circumstances weren’t going to change in time for these shows, I calmed down, put on my “game face,” and gave some great performances.
What’s more, I didn’t let the audience know about any of my technical struggles; I just played well for the Lord.
Had I chosen to bring the audience into my frustration by apologizing all over myself, I would have made it all about me, and these audience members probably wouldn’t have been able to focus on the message as clearly.
At these concerts, the people were really blessed. They told me so, both with their applause during the shows and with their words of affirmation after the shows.
One couple who came up to my merch table, whom I hadn’t seen in almost two decades, took time to share how grateful they were. I asked them what their favorite part of the show was.
The husband, who has a whimsical sense of humor, said, “My favorite part was the whole show…and my least favorite part was when it was over.”
Looking back at the concerts on this mini-tour, there was a great temptation for me to ask myself, “Couldn’t my shows have been a lot better if I had been able to loop?”
But as my wife astutely pointed out, I had plenty of good material to offer them, and perhaps it was by the Lord’s hand that I wasn’t as innovation-focused in my performance, and more message-focused.
It had also become clear that the demographic that was at these shows was a bit more “seasoned,” and had a longer attention span than some of the “youthful” audiences I’ve played for.
The “youthful” audiences I’ve served often need me to keep things at a pretty brisk pace, constantly changing gears to keep them engaged…which is fine.
But the “seasoned” folks tend to sit more attentively, and they made up the majority of the people at these concerts.
People wept. They nodded with empathy. They smiled. They were moved. They were ministered to.
And as I thought about the message-driven songs I subbed in for the looping songs, I got the sense that the Lord wanted me to share some ballads with this demographic…and had I been focused on looping, I might not have done that.
Perhaps there were people in these audiences that really needed to hear those ballads. Perhaps the Lord moved in these circumstances to allow for those messages to be shared, not just in spite of my technical challenges, but because of them.
Because of the Lord’s provision, I was able to bring some great shows to some listening ears, and to share a wonderful message with some tender hearts.
And although it was good for me to think through the challenges and to pivot, it would not have been fruitful for me to dwell on the fact that my loops weren’t functioning.
Stewing over this and wishing that I had been able to innovate, and wondering if the audience would have “liked” my show more would have been a waste of energy.
So…I glanced back to learn from my experience, but then I spent most of my energy looking forward.
We are not Coroners
I did an event one time where I was the featured musical guest. It was a benefit concert where my portion was to share a set of my original music.
Part of the process, after the event was over, was to talk with those who had brought me out, to review all the aspects of the event.
I don’t have any issue with that process. We can always learn, and I’m constantly trying to place myself in a posture of asking what I can improve upon.
But these folks chose to use a term to describe this debrief process that I wasn’t overly fond of.
They called it the “post-mortem.” That’s a pretty morbid term, right?
Nobody had died. The performance had gone very well, people had given generously to the cause. The experience, all in all, was very life-giving.
As guitarists, we’re not coroners – we’re not trying to determine the cause of death. And in this case, there was no death. As a matter of fact, in some ways, the joy and the message lived on, even after the concert.
So I suppose I was a little confused by the expression of a “post-mortem,” even if it was offered tongue-in-cheek.
My preferred term would have been: a “debrief,” or a “re-cap,” always with a view to looking forward to the next endeavor.
This “post-mortem” discussion was designed to look back at the event, to analyze what went well, but especially what needed to be improved on.
I took their cue and glanced back, but once we had checked all the boxes, my choice was to look forward to the next endeavor, with a posture of hope and anticipation.
Failure is an Opportunity
Having technical challenges, musical memory lapses, or any kind of struggle during a concert can be frustrating, but the Lord can also use these circumstances for His glory.
Once, my main guitar ran out of battery power in the pickup, and because I didn’t have a spare battery, I used my secondary guitar as a lifeboat.
Do you think I packed a spare battery next time? You better believe it. But what I didn’t do was belabor the fact that I couldn’t play my main guitar for that show.
Even though I was annoyed by it, I glanced back, looked forward, and moved on.
At a wedding, I played some worship songs where I literally blanked on the words. These were well-known songs, and I really wanted to lead them well.
I was memorized…or so I thought, but ended up “composing” some lyrics on the fly. Not my finest hour of sharing music, but definitely an opportunity to learn, and to work harder on the memorization side of my music.
Memorization is a whole topic that I may get into down the road. It’s one thing to play memorized by myself, and quite another to play memorized in front of an audience.
So, when I make mistakes onstage as a guitarist, I can glance back at them, and still look forward.
As opposed to saying, “Well, I really botched that song in performance,” I can say to myself, “I need to practice that song more for next time, and I know exactly which parts.”
Expect the Unexpected
I did a concert one time where a friend of mine came backstage to greet me just before I went onstage.
At first, I thought this was just a friendly greeting, to cheer me on as I prepared to bring my message in song.
But he had a level of urgency to his voice and posture, and this was made evident when he promptly told me that a fellow guitarist (whom I had known and followed for many years) had just passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack.
This really affected me emotionally, as you might imagine. The first 30 minutes of my show were an absolute blur, because I was in shock, and grieving.
This individual who had shared this news with me was a dear brother in the Lord, but perhaps he could have considered the context, and especially the timing of that conversation, before approaching me with such heavy news.
Perhaps if he had been a bit more objective, he would have waited until after the concert, or even a day later, but he, too, was grieving, and perhaps wanted to have some sort of emotional fellowship with me so we could sit together in that.
But I had a show to perform.
I couldn’t have predicted that bombshell. It wasn’t even on my radar. How do we plan for something like that? The reality is that we just may not be able to.
The Lord still used me in my performance; I was still doing good ministry, but as I glanced back at that experience, I decided that as I looked forward to the future, I either needed to sequester myself backstage before my shows so as to mentally prepare, or more realistically, to develop a sturdier posture in the face of the unexpected.
Perhaps I’ve grown in my ability to sense if someone is taking a conversation somewhere that isn’t needed just before a show.
It’s been many years since that conversation, so without knowing for sure, I think I’m emotionally aware enough that I could navigate tragic news like that…hopefully relying on the bringer of the news to consider the timing of the conversation.
In a season of my professional worship leading, I used in-ear monitors. It was within the first week of using them that I experienced an unexpected occurrence.
Here’s how it went down. We did the Sunday morning sound check, the rehearsal, and everything was running smoothly. But just as I was inviting the congregation to stand for the first song of the first service, my direct report walked into the auditorium.
He was my boss, and he was there to check on things and to observe how the music was going. But I didn’t see him walk in.
Do you want to know how I knew he walked in? My sound guy grabbed the “talkback” mic at the sound board, and just as I was strumming my guitar and about to sing, he said, with a little cheekiness in his voice, “Hey, your boss just walked in.”
Those spoken words went right into my in-ear monitors, for me and me alone, at a pretty strong, cozy volume.
Helpful information? Sure. Good timing? Not really.
Doing that would be like coming up to a golfer, just as they were about to tee off on the U.S. Open Tournament, and whispering into their ear during their backswing.
Needless to say, I was a bit distracted, and my first few words came to me with a lot more effort and concentration.
Glancing back, I took the opportunity during a “post-mortem”…sorry…a “debrief meeting” to gently ask my sound tech to use the “talkback” mic during rehearsals, and only in case of an emergency during the service.
He got it – though not a musician, he was tuned in enough to realize what would have been more helpful.
After that, having glanced back, I looked forward to the next Sunday of worship, and we established our technical and musical rhythm.
It didn’t become a thing – it was something neither of us dwelled on, but both of us learned from.
When someone in the audience does something unexpected during my show (and these kinds of things have happened more often than I can count), I can glance back, and still look forward.
Instead of saying, “Man, I was so distracted when those kids in the front row got up and danced during my set – they nearly derailed me,” I can say to myself, “What a great opportunity to enhance my concentration skills. I need to try practicing my guitar at home while my kids are dancing in the front room.”
There will always be unexpected things that happen before, during or after our performances or worship leading opportunities.
These are all opportunities to grow. Nelson Mandela said, “I never lose. I either win or learn.”
Right?
The stories I’ve shared with you today are not failures, if we take the opportunity to learn from them.
In a way, struggles (like the ones I’ve mentioned) are actually more educational than successes.
Think about it. If we experience a challenge, there can be all kinds of helpful details to examine. We can look at what happened, and learn from it.
But it’s important to glance, and not to linger. To beat ourselves up emotionally for something that “went wrong” is not productive. Negative self-talk can really hinder our ability to thrive.
We also need to have a teachable mindset, and to trust that the Lord knows what He’s doing more than we do.
Who do we think is in control? This affects everything we do. If we think that we are the ones in control, we’ll make decisions based on that.
But if we are being led by the Holy Spirit, because we trust that the Lord wants to move through us, we will live differently, perhaps holding things a bit more loosely.
Obviously, we need to make plans, but we also need to be ready for how the Lord might move.
Proverbs 16:9 says, “In a man’s heart are many plans, but the Lord determines his steps.”
We have an enemy who wants nothing more than to accuse, to hinder, and to cause us to doubt ourselves.
But instead of allowing fear to overtake us as we do our good Kingdom work, let’s learn, grow, and find the joy of the Lord, even when, and especially when, things are difficult.
We can do this by trusting Him…and we can press on, having serious fun, by glancing back, and looking forward.
Today was another great story time. I hope you were encouraged, challenged, and inspired a bit, as we talked about how important it is to glance back at our challenges, but also to look forward to future possibilities.
Perhaps you’re glancing back at your recent guitar adventures, wanting to enhance your playing for the glory of God, as you head into an unknown future.
If you’re looking for some solid wisdom and encouragement in a like-minded community setting, please check out GuitarSuccess4U, our one-of-a-kind online guitar experience. You can head on over to GuitarSuccess4U.com, where you can learn all about what’s waiting for you.
I’ll see you next time - looking forward.
Share this post