art

trying to balance my time between school, ministry and doing that wed gig has been taxing at times.... through this time the age-old question has resurfaced again: what's the value of music, or more general, art itself?

i mean, if we are to do everything to the glory of God and for His purposes, perhaps i can say that school is for equipping myself and preparing myself to make a living so that i can serve Him, while being a good testimony in the process (ideally - not that i keep to this very well), and for ministry the idea is also there. but what about pursuing music? is it just making some sounds in a dim cafe, producing vibrations in the air? perhaps the least i can say is that i can thank God for the gift of music and enjoy it in the process. the next step may be to communicate this pleasure of music to others. but how to communicate the God behind all good things? Or is it a long term thing, when people see your life and hear your music and are able to give credit to God? or perhaps, more practically, it helps in improving my musical sense so that i can better contribute to playing and training musicians for the worship service? or even, can a Christian be a Coltrane? that is, attaining profound spiritual heights through music? why does music feature so strongly in worship through the ages?

(is there a difference between a cook giving gastronomical delight and a musician giving aural enjoyment? or maybe a cook is there for the basic survival need of food? or why did God bother to create so many pretty flowers, majestic mountains, deep, strange, glowing undersea creatures which we may never see, and give us taste buds so subtle and varied? any pragmatic reasons?)

many questions.

at the same time, i think, if i'm doing this then i'd better set a good testimony of how a Christian musician behaves, and i think it will certainly differ in certain respects from the 'norm' of a typical jazz musician.... need to be really aware of this...

well, in the meantime, have decided to do 4 more gigs - one more month, and after that, we'll see about it. need to pray for wisdom in e meantime...

friday gig...

just had a gig at the cafe today... really made quite a lot of mistakes, both me and the singers. was actually quite tired even before the whole thing - felt lethargic and not very alert - and i guess it affected my response during the performance. a few wrong chords, not remembering whether to repeat lines for some songs, etc. well, good thing Amos didnt really seem to have any complaints - maybe the other groups were worse...

anyway, finally got my pay today for the 3 gigs in july - a meagre amount, really - not even peanuts, as they say... but at least it is something to show for my dad, who kept remaining skeptical abt whether Amos would actually pay or not... but may not carry on this thing long-term, esp if the jazz thing with Tim and Joel actually works out... It's equally meagre pay but slightly more enjoyable and rather more fulfilling to actually play jazz. More challenging also, having to take so many solos, but i guess it's a much needed stimulus for my improvement... dont think i've improved much during the whole of the past year when i stopped playing jazz...sometimes it really takes pp who are better than you to really push you to improve. not to mention the pressure of performing live. but this pop thing is really tiring, esp with having to learn all the new songs...

well, hope that i wont do it for glorifying myself. hope that whatever i have learnt can be useful for God in some way or other. and hope i wont have to do any more friday gigs. already told Amos that i couldnt but he wanted it just this time, for the singers to experience a larger weekend crowd. As it turned out, there was little difference from the weekday scenes. had a nice little surprise though...