Version 1 was uploaded on Tuesday, 29 June 2010 12.30  Do You Want To Improve? Every musician is presented with the challenge of how to improve their capacity for creative expression. That is the goal. To be able to use your instrument, be it your voice, your guitar to articulate the melodies and rhythms that you want to hear.
The key to improving is recognising your weaknesses on your instrument, and not shying away from them. Rather, face them head on. This may require a great teacher, and is certainly something that any musician should be considering, regardless of ability or experience. A good teacher will point you towards areas for improvement, and give you strategies and practice techniques to move forward.
Here are just three areas to consider:
1) Ear/Reading Often a musician will be more proficient at one of these and the other will lack somewhat. Listening to a song and working out the parts on your instrument is a great way to learn to play what you hear. This is a really helpful skill for playing within our team, but also writing parts for songs. I would encourage any musician to work on reading music also, both chords and notation. You may be surprised at how this can take your playing forward, if nothing else, in the form of discipline.
2) Timing
Every musician, dare I say vocalist, should own and practice to a metronome. Start by singing, playing a song you already know. Break it down into small pieces ie an intro riff or verse melody, and practice one of these with the click repetitively for at least 2 minutes. Work on articulation, precision and rhythmic accuracy. Change the tempo and try the same line again.
3) Creativity Practice being creative. Improvisation and writing parts, making melodies on the spot is one of the great aspects of music. Like any other aspect, practice improves your ability to create what you want to create. I recommend doing this with other musicians. One of you might play chords under a singer/other instrumentalist and then switch it around. Practice coming up with parts over different chords. Buy a recording device, and you can do this anytime.
Enjoy the process of honing your skills and opening new possibilities for creative expression on your instruments.
Living An Authentic Life by Sarah Morgan (Hillsong) I love that when Jesus wanted to teach us something about worship he used a promiscuous women to do it. Jesus has this way of shattering our made up images of who He is and the perceptions of God we create in our mind. The bubbles we build around ourselves, the perfect exteriors we like to portray, the things that we wrap up and declare sacred and holy…nothing of this phases Jesus! The story of the woman at the well in John 4 teaches us about worship. The issue at hand was not where the Jews or Samaritans were worshiping in terms of a physical place but HOW they were worshiping. It’s hard to imagine, but Jesus tells the woman that the worship of her people is lacking, because it actually matters whether or not we know the One we worship. John Piper has this great comment about worship where he says; “Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of Biblical worship”
If there was one thing (ok.. so there’s many!) that I was passionate about, I think it would have to be living an authentic life. To me, that includes everything that I am and do and say. It looks like ministry, and work and knowing God but it also looks like friends and family and time out to chill and have fun in life. Balance is one of those words that we tend to have a bit of an aversion to, but somehow I have become very aware that I can’t do authentic living with out some sense of the B word in my life! True worship involves both spirit and truth. The Spirit is the how of worship and the Truth is the whom. Our worship to God (the songs, the cries, the everyday responses) must come from a real place in our heart and be based on a true perception of who God is. Because it won’t come as a shock to you when I say that you and I both have the ability to worship God in vain! We have all heard the bit in Isaiah that talks about a people who honour God with their lips while their hearts are far from him (Is 29:13)…and we’ve all been there. But I think you and I know in ourselves when our hearts have arrived at that place. Sometimes it’s because we’re tired or too busy or just feeling a bit dry- but other times it’s because there’s stuff going down in our lives. I desire nothing more for our team and the worship of our church that it would be a true and authentic cry to our God, representing real and whole lives of people that are courageous enough to journey the ups and downs of church, family and personal stuff; That we would fellowship with God and one another “in the light”, realising that we all have a very real path to travel that involves negotiating sin and our own God given humanity- but that we would choose light instead of darkness (1 Jn 1:5-10). I read a statement a little while ago that said “concealed sin keeps us from seeing the light of Christ”. Imagine if we dared enough to be a worshiping community that dealt with the real issues of our hearts and who weren’t afraid to feel the real emotions of life…and imagine if we chose our responses so wisely- even if that meant raw friendships, tears of honesty, accountability, counseling, or even taking yourself off the platform for a season to work through the issues. John 4:23-24 in the Message puts it really well, “It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.”
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