"I Am a Musician!"

There are so many of us, a good number to be precise, and the majority to be exact, who claim (or rather think or are entitled to the truth), that we can sing. In fact, we live in a rather musical society where everyone loves music. Our society loves music. That is the truth. It loves music to the extent that before the end of a [normal] day, everyone has at least sung a song – whether good or bad, Christian or secular – music rings all over our lives.

It is in our generation where everyone knows one or two things about music, a song and singing. Right from the youngest in our midst to the oldest, something about a song or music (regardless of the genre) is known and admired. The resulting effect is always some quality amusement because you see, what makes us have a very strong feeling that we can sing, or that we know music, may simply be because we know some lyrics to a famous song (which may as well only be ‘our’ only famous song) and because it is famous and common (inclusively of course), we can comfortably sing along to it. Sometimes, (and may God forbid), if that song ends up to be our favorite English song, we may crucify it (literally) and appoint to it another key or an altogether remixing accent...

But with all these, we still stand up (at least before our own selves if a congregation may not want to avail) and declare for all to hear (including the trees) that, “You see, I am a musician!”

Again, just because we sung so well in church last month or yesterday, and after the service everyone was like, “Oh my God! Was that you? Keep it up mun!”; and maybe our [genuine] worship team leader went like, “Morris (insert your name), wow, that was something you did on Sunday, mun!”, it doesn’t really translate to us being great worshippers. Not really.

We need to understand that God uses people differently in different seasons as He pleases, and at opportune times, He can use someone out there (which may be us at that time) just to astonish (or humble) the know-it-alls. Got it? So it may be that we are not ‘musicians!’ at all in every moment we declare to all that we are. Maybe we are just in the preparations stage. Maybe we are yet to become the musician we dream of. Maybe.

Maybe because it takes a lot to make a musician, quite a lot of time and a whole lot of things, God takes His time to make His own Musician in us… God thrills Himself in being the slow moving action taker or facilitator. He takes His time to do His stuff. And as mistaken as we may become about many things, like our ability rap or sing and twist vocals, and maybe our ability to ornament our voice(s) on a given day, that doesn’t qualify us to be ‘musicians!’ Just because we are the best back-up or lead vocalists there is in our town and that we can tell a key from another from a far, it doesn’t make us ‘musicians!’ Just because we can play the guitar or keyboard or piano or a certain instrument alongside singing, we are not guaranteed a seat in the park of musicians… It does not guarantee us the privilege of being musicians for God. Being able to hold a microphone and confidently raise a voice before people in order to make them respond to our prodding does not make us anointed singers either! It does not…!

Another support for our ‘profound’ declaration(s) of musicianship is gotten through our easy access to several genres of music today. Because music is all over the place, we have that unlimited opportunity to prioritize our song choices – too many songs means a freedom of choice. And because we have too much music on our finger tips, and that our friends happen to know we love these songs [in these genres], we may just end up being their friend that sings ‘that song’ so well… or their friend that sings ‘just like so-and-so’… And it therefore pushes us into growing up knowing and declaring, “Aaah! I can sing!” “They say/said I can sing, so I can sing!” “I am a musician!” “Yaaaaaay! I. AM. A. MUSICIAN!” Bla bla bla…

That is exactly the case with most of us. We grow up knowing we can sing because a friend, or our mom, or dad, or aunt, or fiancée or woreva, was positive about our voice(s) when they heard us singing a certain song… It excites us, and turns us around. It becomes our motivation. It becomes the string we hang on in order to amplify our musicianship… And I don’t deny it. It is a positive thing. It is a good thing to have people support us. But, do you think we can manage to support and stand up to our musicianship on our own? Do you think we can declare that, “We believe we can make it, because we can make it! Because we were born to make it in such things! Because God has appointed us to make it?” Can we do that? If we can, the safer we may be…

Considering that there are so many musicians today, innumerable musicians, qualification(s) that make one a musician are normally differed. We are excused to think we are who think we are because of our own many reasons – and those reasons are acceptable. It is our life, right? Ain’t this world a relative, inclusive and free world?  Let us be whatever we say we are – even though many [like Morris] may deny it…And I fear adding up our already big number of musicians…because I know I will end up judging myself to favor myself… It happens to all of us, doesn’t it?

I do watch Tusker Project Fame. I watch it not to celebrate the product but to learn some few things about music – for free! I learnt that everyone can sing – in their own way; but what differentiates between a music-singer and a passionately-singing-musician are some few basic things. In an audition of singers, we only need to ask them some few basic questions in order to fully get their musicianship.

Ask them the following questions for example as a partial test (and ask them in the listening of many others) to gauge the confidence they have in what they know they are;

a)     What music genre do you love/prefer most?

b)     Which musician really does it for you that you feel to somehow been partially mentored by their musical style?

c)      Which [one] song can I play you 100 times in a day and you still will need it played more and more?

d)     Please sing the last line to that song without the first lines [in a given key] – give them time to articulate the song first…

e)     Can you back-up any singer singing any key, or do you have problems with backing-up when someone is leading the singing?

f)       Do you have a calling in music? (For the Christian guys)

g)     Which key do you comfortably sing in? Tell us how long you can comfortably sing in that key?

h)     Do you do ‘me alone’ rehearsals with your voice often? How many times (or how long) in a week? How many songs do you do per session? What are the genres you practice most in these sessions in relation to improving your vocal range?

i)       How often do you change your key? What is your vocal range? Can you sing falsettos? (to the male guys). Have you at any time preferred a certain vocal range? Are you able to move from one key to another with ease? Have you ever tried doing so?

NB: These questions may also apply to the instrument players but in a varied scope of questioning…

If you claim to be a musician (or whatever you may want to call yourself) and you still are unable to answer the questions above without much a-do, you still have a long way to go my friend…

The truth is, music is not all about singing. (And allow me to say this even if I have never produced a single song or recorded a song now or passé). Music is more than just a song. Music is deeper than a song. Music is music. Music is about understanding movements, chords, emotion, life, trances, captivations, anger, peace and voices. It is an emotion. It is an art. It is a feeling. It is a desire. Music is so many things… Once a musician understands music, everyone will know that they are musicians without their declaration. Everyone will fell the confidence in their voices, the passion in their singing, the longing in their hearts to become better… All those things speak for themselves if we know who we are and are able to prove it in every way…

This makes me say that if one day God enables me to be in a position to make auditions for a worship team (because that is what I do), I won’t begin with vocal tests. Nope. I will start off somewhere further than vocals. I will begin with the person’s knowledge of their music. I will start with who they are as far as music is concerned. I will want them to prove it to the assembled people around them that they are whatever they claim they are… and therefore making a star (or stars) out of them will not be a big deal; nor will it be a big deal for God to use them – because God is also concerned about skills…

Morris.