This is too cool; I finally think I found my niche in the forum! The forum jester
Thanks for kind words everyone.
You know, after a while, being buried in one church, you tend to forget that there is a LOT of other musicians out there digging it out in the trenches! Fighting the SAME kind of battles too!
After moving from my lifetime home of NY, I have a new appreciation of the definition of the word OLD. In NY, if you were 65, you were considered "old". Not to be insulting, but that seemed to be the general age category of the elderly people I met in my church. BUT, here in Florida, it's a different world! If you're 65-70, you are a spring chicken! I'm talking LOTS and LOTS of 80-90+ oxygen tank old people!
Melissa:
I know exactly where you are coming from! Those folks just don't appreciate how much work and love goes into doing what we do. I've watched your instruments being restored, they are stunning. From what little I know about you from your postings, you probably only want to bring the very best you can to the alter. Both in song AND with instruments!
I've done SO much research and testing in this area, I could probably right a book. Every now and then, we take a DIRT DRY hymn like "nothing but the blood" and "modernize" it a bit. This song we did sort of to the tune of (REACH OUT in the Darkness) beat to it. When our band performed it at a Lutheran church, this old man came and stuck his finger in my face and called us "heretics". And that this kind of "SMUT" music shouldn't be played in a church. I asked him, did you listen to the words? He said he didn't listen to that kind of "****" and that we should be "ashamed" for doing it. I then proceeded to tell him that the song is RIGHT out of the RED Lutheran hymnal that all we did was add some post 1890 instruments to it!
He went DEAD SILENT. He didn't believe me, I had to get the book, open it up and show it to him. My GUT reaction was to belt him with it, but being a NEW Christian at the time, I thought better of it. It seems to be a universal problem with any musician trying to bring some updated music into a traditional setting.
There was one who completely did a turn around and once told me, "I guess it isn't a bad thing, God has been listening to the same old music for hundreds of years, I guess something new isn't such a bad thing". I reached out and hugged this old woman!
Bob:
I feel your pain; the church I'm in now is still in transition. It can be an uphill battle. If you like, there is a book, it is VERY hard to find, and if you like I'll see if I can find another copy of it. It's called ENTER HIS GATES. It is a book of about 300 songs PICKED and APPROVED by a group of Lutheran churches in the mid west that was specifically designed to assist Lutheran churches in making the transition from traditional to contemporary. EVERY TIME I reach into the book and pull out a SIMPLE 4 chord progression song, the "old timers" LOVE them. Our praise team leader recently left for a better position, the job fell in my lap for a few weeks as a voulenteer. I DON'T LIKE BEING A CHIEF; I'd rather be an Indian. They always shoot at the chief FIRST! It's been a heck of a learning experience.
Ok, enough. I have to go get ready for this Sunday....BUT, one more quick story. How I wish this was a private forum at times like this!!!!
Really quick, when our church went to wireless mikes, our Pastor (the sweetest "blue hair" you would ever want to meet) went into the men's room WITH THE MIKE STILL TURNED ON...There were some very FUNKY and embarrassing noises coming out of our PA system! The system was up in the balcony and I was in an outer hall CLOSE to the men's room. I had to make a choice what/how could I silence this embarrassing NOISE as quickly as possible. I broke into the men's room like a Nark and proceeded to tell Pastor what was happening...He didn't understand what I was trying to tell him. SO, I had to burst into the stall, with the pastor on the "alter" and I ripped the mike off of his lapel and turned it off. If he wasn't done BEFORE I broke in, I'd bet he sure was AFTERWARDS!
He told me later jokingly, that if I needed the facilities that badly next time, I should have just used the women’s room!