Music

How You Can Be on Your Way to a Successful Today

My daughter pleads pretty please won’t I do it, so I brush the dust off my oboe to play for her school music class. While I’ve played for audiences much scarier than third graders, it has been years since I pushed the keys on this instrument. I need to scrape rust off my notes.

So I open Barlow’s The Winter’s Passed and prop it up where the piano music sits. After I take my seat on the bench and bring the instrument to my lips, memory takes over as notes fly out the bell. My technique leaves much to be desired, but I have musicality, and good musicality covers a multitude of sins.

The melody may be flawed, but at least it’s alive.

As I sway with the tune, I remember how just like technique and musicality, hard work and talent move in tandem for most things. No doubt, talent makes the learning process easier. But with hard work leading the dance, you can coax talent into becoming more sure of herself.

When my second son entered the world eleven minutes after his brother, my first thought {after the rush of relief} was What do I know about raising boys? I grew up part of a trio of daughters in a girl heavy extended family. But hard work covers a multitude of I-don’t-know-what-to-do. The daily hard work and practice of mothering soon had me an expert at little boys, too.

Whether we are revisiting an old love or finding our way around a new one, may we not let our lack of ability scare us. May we allow hard work to lead. And may we pray for God to bless us in the process as we strive to live a melody flawed but alive.

What are you working hard on these days?

January 24, 2013 3 Comments Filed Under: Fruit, Music, Writing

What Will Make Your Creativity Really Soar

By Kristen

As an artsy gal who graduated from college with a music degree. I know all about the technical and emotional {artistic} components of music. And I am thankful my strength lies in the emotional aspect as that is the thing that makes a piece soar. Without it, music sits lifeless, dead. One can master technical precision with practice, but the emotional component is either there or it isn’t. Well, I suppose with practice it can be learned, too, but you must be willing to draw the emotion out from inside you, letting it own the music. Do this and the listener is engaged. Technical perfection is exciting, but it alone won’t make the listener feel anything.

Isn’t this the same with any kind of creating? All creative endeavors have a technical and emotional component. Whether we’re playing music, writing books, decorating bedrooms or arranging outfits, we want the end result to make us and maybe others feel something. Perhaps empathy, joy, sadness, or beauty. It depends on the creator and her own style of art. Either way, I’ll take messy, imperfect art to emotionless art any ol’ day.

Any creating I’ve ever done – albeit music or writing or redecorating my living room – I’ve done to encourage. And on some level, don’t we all create to encourage? I want my writing to encourage your soul by bringing you closer to your Father. You want your music to encourage my mood by making me cry or dance. She wants her living room makeover to encourage her family’s spirit by giving them a beautiful, comfortable place to relax. Any way we slice our creativity, we desire emotional engagement rather than technical perfection.

Oh, and yes, we can certainly strive for both emotional engagement and technical perfection. And really, we want both to be as present as possible. But generally one of those things is not going to be a strength, and if I’m going to err, I’d rather err on the side of emotional engagement. Besides, perfection is just so…so exhausting. And perfection simply won’t make your creativity soar. Letting a piece of your heart own the project will.

What is your favorite kind of creativity? Do you struggle with making it perfect? How do you let that go so your creativity soars?

March 23, 2012 8 Comments Filed Under: Hodgepodge, Music, Writing

The Music of Your Season

By Kristen

In a way, it was my best friend. Heaven knows we spent hours and hours together. I didn’t talk to it, but you can bet your boots I talked through it. As well as sang, laughed, and cried through it. True, I showed up on campus with many a classical music faux pas, like pronouncing Mozart “Moe-zart” rather than “Mote-zart.” I butchered other composer names, too. But play their music? I could do that.

Most technical things like difficult rhythms didn’t come naturally, I had to buckle down and tackle those bad boys til they did. But I could bring out the musicality in most anything. And because I had a natural bent to make people feels something through my music, I got a college degree in music education with my instrumental focus in oboe.

I performed some after college, taught private lessons, and taught in the public schools. But then babies came and cross country moves piled up alongside diapers, so I traded that love in for another one: staying home with my wee-watts. I still bring out my music time to time, but for the most part my oboe remains perched on a shelf.

Then I attend a live performance of George Fredric Handel’s Messiah with full orchestra and choir. When I hear the oboe’s silky smooth tone, it seems the heavens open and I remember a part of me from long ago. In my mind’s eye, I’m right back to sitting principal in my short black dress with the lace sleeves, simultaneously sweating from nerves and bursting from joy.

I started to miss my former self, the way I could get all caught up in creating art through sound. I looked at my daughter smiling from the music and my sons {mostly} listening, and then I remember how very much I love this season, too. Not that I couldn’t gel the two together, parenting and playing or parenting and teaching. I used to. But I don’t feel led to re-open that door right now. Later, who knows? Now is just now, not forever. I get a kick out of watching for what new seasons hold while being thankful for today’s. Each season – each day, really – is a uniquely orchestrated song. All my yesterdays, todays and tomorrows coax me into playing the song He orchestrates for me.

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ…”

Colossians 4:2-3

May you look around and find joy and gratitude in your song of today while watching for the music of tomorrow. And as Emily says, find the life bursting with the mystery of God. His music is in every moment.

And in case you don’t know the oboe from your elbow {most folks don’t unless you’re a bit nerdy like me}, here is a little introduction to it {played by someone much better than me}:

Happy to link up today with Emily’s Tuesdays Unwrapped.

first photo credit

December 6, 2011 20 Comments Filed Under: Encouragement, Family, Music

Music for a Monday {From This Valley}

By Kristen

Y’all wrote some sweet, thoughtful comments about Sara, and I give each of you a mighty big thank you for them. We continue to pray with her and her family as they wait in expectation.

And we rejoiced like nobody’s biz when our sweet friends made it home safe and sound. To see their children almost bust a gut waiting for them to deplane? Too precious for words. At our airport, you can see arriving passengers well behind security, so the kids knew their dads were coming long before they could get at ‘em. The millisecond those uniformed men’s boots were outside security, all kids took off like a shot and jumped into swallowing arms. Beautiful.

So here it is Monday again and my week stretches long before me. I’m looking at piles of laundry, dust, legos, and doll clothes. And other stuff, too, like appointments and obligations both fun and not-so-fun. In case you find yourself waking up to a hard Monday where Friday looks far and away, this song will give you a boost of “I will make it!” It’s by The Civil Wars {Oh my stars, how I love them!}, and it will bring Jesus close. As you listen, may you feel His swallowing arms around you tight!

From This Valley

Oh, the desert dreams of a river
that will run down to the sea.
Like my heart longs for an ocean
to wash down over me.

{Chorus} Oh, won’t you take me from this valley
to that mountain high above?
I will pray, pray, pray
until I see your smiling face.
I will pray, pray, pray
to the one I love.

Oh, the outcast dreams of acceptance
just to find pure love’s embrace.
Like an orphan longs for his mother
may you hold me in your grace.

{Chorus}

Oh, the caged bird dreams of a strong wind
that will flow beneath her wings.
Like a voice longs for a melody
oh, Jesus carry me.

{Chorus}