I Cannot Sleep Without The Radio On.

Circa Survive captivates me.  Circa Survive should not captivate me.

 

I am trained in my snobby musical ways to hate bands like Circa Survive.  Their guitar parts are cheesy and Satriani/Steve Vai-ish and song after song everyone’s tone doesn’t change on on any intstrument.  Vocally, Anthony Green sings every song the same way he sang the last one, pushing his vocals higher and higher, Mars Volta style.  So why do I like this band?

• Deep lyrics that make me ponder
• Catchy, pockety drumming
• Fun, predictable, technical guitar playing
• Satisfying melodies
• I loved seeing them live even before I heard their recorded music

 

There it is.  Say what you will about them, Circa Survive is in my brain and in my earbuds as I cram for my final tomorrow.

I have a shameless soundtrack.

I’ve just recently noticed how important the soundtrack to my life is to me.  You know what I’m talking about.  The songs that are always in your head.  The songs that make you feel something wherever you are.  Songs like “Reset” by MuteMath, or songs like “At Your Feet” by Jason Morant.  They play all the time and they give you a certain walk when you go somewhere.  

 

My soundtrack is shameless.  I BLARE music in my mind.  All the time.  Everywhere I go.  Sometimes it’s music of my own creation.  Never recorded.  Sometimes never even played.  But it exists in my head for God and I to enjoy.  Other times I’m looping a guitar part I’m working on for a song the band’s playing on Sunday.  For example I’m trying to conquer the guitar solo in “Walk the World” by Charlie Hall for this worship night we’re having on Friday.  The solo is GREAT but way above my level of guitar playing.  Today in Calc class my teacher was wearing a MuteMath shirt, so naturally the whole lecture I was re-playing MM shows I had been to in my head.  The intensity, the creativity, the light-smashing.

 

Music is better to me than any drug.  It’s a high that never goes away.  This is why it is imperative to listen to good, wholesome music that honors God and pushes the limits of human creativity and expression.  It becomes your soundtrack.  It becomes you.

So it turns out I don’t know anything about installing pickups.

I recently bought a Lace Sensor Red pickup for the bridge position my Tele.  I got a great ebay deal on it and was really excited.  Turns out I bought a Stratocaster pickup instead of a Telecaster pickup.  Doesn’t fit.  So now the questions are…

• Can I install this in my guitar anyway?
• Will it sound stupid if I do?
• What about installing it under the pickguard as kind of a “ghost” pickup?
• Should I just find a different pickup for the position?
• If so, what are some good, bright, loud pickups for the bridge?

Help me out here guitar mentors of mine!

And my song will be I love You…

Tonight I was watching the olympics at my friends Dru and Chris’ house.  Sean Johnson had just been awarded the gold medal in gymnastics at age 16 and was holding back tears of joy.  An interview came a bit later, in which her trainer talked about how when she came to his gym in West Des Moines, Iowa at age 6, he asked her “How good do you want to be?”  Ten years later her answer to him had become a reality as she stood on the podium with a gold medal around her neck, hearing the Star Spangled Banner play over the sound system in a gigantic Olympic gym in communist China.  

 

Playing electric guitar came into my mind, like it tends to, and I thought to myself. “If at her age she had  developed to be as good as she set out to be, through intense training and dedication, I also can be as good as I want to if I do the same.” Of course I didn’t SAY those words to myself, but that was the thought process.  So here’s the truth.  Let me get it out there.  I want to be a really good guitar player.  Like Johnny Greenwood good.  Like Omar Rodríguez-López good. Like Michael Guy Chislett good.  Here is why I want to be that good at electric guitar.  Honestly and sincerely I do not want my talent or inability to play to hinder my creativity in worship.  If I hear it in my head and feel it in my soul I want to be able to communicate it through my instrument unhindered.  

 

It’s selfish because I want the satisfaction of being able to seamlessly play the things I hear in my head that I think are great.  It’s selfish because it means a lot to ME how good I am.  It’s honestly not to impress anyone.  No Bull.  I’m not concerned with what you think about my talent or lack thereof.  I need to know that I’m good enough.  It’s selfish because I want to be talented enough to make a living of playing guitar so I don’t have to waste my time doing something else I don’t care about.  I would spend all day at even the best desk job thinking about playing electric guitar.

 

But here’s why it isn’t selfish.  The biggest reason for my wanting to be a fantastic electric guitar player is that I want to communicate my love to the father and I know of no better way to do so, set aside giving my life for his glory.  In my situation, the passion I have in my heart is music.  Not uncommon.  When I try to run from it I get unstable and cranky.  It’s my love.  It’s my outward love to God.  My life’s a lovesong to you.  If I can make a sound that comes from my whole being, if I can make noises and pick the notes that move you, then I am all I need to be as a musician.  If I’m all I need to be as a musician, than I can easier worship with all that I am as a person.  Then it can bless other people, too.  But honestly for nobody else, if I can make sounds that come directly from my love and God is blessed directly, than I have found my portion in life.  My song, my sound will be “I love you.”  I think that sound is crazy and loud.  I think that sound is unbridled and unheard of.  I think it sounds like home.  I think it sounds like hope.  Maybe I am arrogant, but I am not arrogant in this.  Christ is worth my whole life’s efforts.  I would lay it all down and seek after music if it were his will for me.  It may or may not be his will for me, but it burns in my heart every day.  

 

“How good do you want to be?”  I’m a six year old right now in the world of guitar playing, not terribly talented, but being trained in my passion one step at a time.  Ten years from now I want to be standing on a podium receiving the enormous reward of my work.  The biggest reward possible in the world of worship and electric guitar playing.  The reward of chains being broken, lives being healed, eyes being opened, and Christ being revealed on a massive scale wherever the Lord chooses to put me.  If my podium is a stage on a tour, in my little home church , in a studio booth, in a local venue, or in a staduim packed with youth desperate for God, I believe I will see my efforts rewarded.  Because I have said “For my inheritance give me the lost!”  

 

This is why I want to be a really good electric guitar player.  Does that make sense?

He is Jealous for Me.

Tonight we had a worship service in my town, Fort Complacent. We called it “The Vespers Service”, and I’m still not sure what a Vesper is (maybe someone can enlighten me?).  The night was really fun.  Our worship leader’s dad, Grant Pahlau, has been playing guitar for probably like 30 years.  At some point in his career as a guitarist, he came into ownership of this amazing 1965 Fender Mustang.  A really cool and unique sounding guitar (check out the band Mew to hear one).  So basically he let me play it, and I really loved it.  There were a lot of times where I couldn’t figure out how to switch the pickups to get a sound I wanted, but there were moments where the guitar’s character just jumped out all over the place.  So fun.

Another interesting part of the night was when we did “He Loves Us”.  For the first time in my history I got to lead a song for college kids, and I feel like this was a really good song to get started with.  I pulled this song off of Sean’s iDisk a few months ago and it’s been in my head since, redefining the way I think about God’s love for me.  We did an easy simple brushes-violin-acoustic-JD’s slide/delay/nonsense version of the song that went really well, and a LOT of people responded to it, just as I had prayed for.  I got a few warm compliments on my singing and leading, and left feeling really warm and loved.  Not just by Fo Co friends either, I really really know that I am loved by Almighty God, and that is irrefutable evidence to his extravagant affections for me.  Get some.

After the song was done and the atmosphere was unusually saturated with worship, I felt as though I had some kind of wonderful chemical in my blood making me feel amazing.  I haven’t kissed a girl yet, but I imagine that this feeling was better…because girls get jealous and it stops being fun.  I know for sure that HE is jealous for me, and that feels way different.