Walking Wounded

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Music is absolutely vital to my life. I can’t live without it. If I was deserted on island I would make my own instruments. I played piano for 6 years from age 6-12. I played the Violin in 4th grade and the Viola in 5th grade but that was short lived. In 8th grade I started playing the bass. Why? Well, I wanted to be a punk rock star of course. I was in a band called ‘Gung Ho.’ There is actually a video of one of our shows out there somewhere (I’ll have to get a hold of that somehow). That band only lasted a couple months though.

In high school I played bass in our youth group band. We basically turned praise songs in to rock songs. Lots of distortion. Lots of noise. One of the nights we played we had about 100 people show up to youth group (usually a crowd of 40). My biggest memory was playing Amazing Grace to the tune of House of the Rising Sun. Some of the parents had a problem with it though and we only got to play it once. We actually led worship for a couple churches. It was tons of fun. There’s a video of that band floating around somewhere too (another one I’ll have to find).

My senior year of High School I got an acoustic guitar for Christmas/Birthday (I got a lot of combined gifts like that with the two dates being so close together). I had finally found my true love. I’d played guitar many times before but it was also a short-lived experience at a friend’s house. I played at least an hour every day. I completely taught myself. I didn’t even have a book or anything. I knew a lot from playing bass and things I’d picked up from friends. However, basically I just randomly selected strings to hold down until I found a combination that sounded good. I played a lot but always just messed around.

It wasn’t until my 2nd year of college that I actually starting writing songs and singing with them. As often the case with song writers this was a result of a heartbreaking girl story. Music became my emotional release. When I play I make it up as I go and make up lyrics as I go depending on what’s on my mind that day. I actually have to really try hard to write a song because I get bored so quickly. This has a gotten a lot better recently. I’ve actually recorded some which you can check out at my purevolume site or my myspace site. Those recordings are mostly just messing around though. I really want to record on my own but haven’t yet found the time to invest into it. I am working on writing songs, though, so when I do record I’ll have some songs ready.

Another big part of my playing music is music and worship. To backtrack a little bit, my first year of college I played bass in our band for our church’s college ministry. This was lead by Bruce (the man famously known at RTS for putting the catechism questions to music). My second year of college there was no more band and just a guy named Joe and his acoustic guitar. This is when I learned guitar chords (yep 2 years into playing before I actually learned what a C, G, D etc. were and how to read them). I played acoustic guitar with Joe and learned a lot of how to play ‘praise’ music from him.

The second semester of my 2nd year Joe left and I was left to lead the college group music on my own. I was terrible. Well, maybe not terrible, but things were definitely rough. However, it was a rough stage I had to go through to get to where I am now. Also, our college minister at the time, Ru, taught me how to pick songs for a worship set. This became a very handy skill. I continued to lead worship for the college group for the next couple years and eventually became quite good and comfortable at it.

Now I help play music with the church band at University Presbyterian with Jonathan Noel. I play the acoustic and sing. I’ll also often play the bass if it’s needed (which I thoroughly enjoy). I’ve learned tons from playing with Jonathan and am hoping to keep learning more from him. I lead worship one week on my own (I had a band behind me but lead myself).

I have life long musical goals. I don’t know which of them will be accomplished but I’ll post a list here and X them off as I do them. This list will probably grow with time.
(X) Record a song
(X) Play a Show in a band
(-) Get paid to play a show
(-) Record a themed EP
(-) Record a full length record
(X) Lead worship at a church
(-) Play a song of mine at an open mic night
(-) Play a solo show of my songs
(-) Have someone pay for my recorded music
(-) Have an indie online following
(-) Play a coffee shop
(-) Have someone else sing along with a song of mine
(-) Write and record a worship song

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