My youngest son is in a Christian Youth Band at a local church organized by his guitar teacher. Over the course of the last 2 1/2 months, I’ve watched this group of young musicians go from individual players to a harmonized group.
It’s been an amazing transformation especially consider that they only practice together 1x per week for an hour. They have their first “concert” next month and will be playing two of the six songs they’ve learned together as a group. They seem to be taking this in stride and don’t appear to be nervous at all. Of course that may change when the audience changes from a few parents to a whole congregation.
Tonight they spent their time fine tuning and tweaking each persons specific musical contribution. We, as the audience, were asked to offer up our own critique. Suggestions were made for reducing certain instruments sound and increasing others in order to create a more balanced sound.
There was a moment when the young man on the drums was seeking guidance for a good alternative intro section to give the other musicians a more prominent focus. My husband, who had not been to any of the previous sessions but happens to drum as a hobby, turned to me and asked, “Should I offer my suggestion?” I said, “Yes, you’re definitely someone who could offer guidance.”
As a result of the contributions of the Music Director, the young musicians and their parents the newer tweaked version of the song is a better fit. Sometimes we need to know when to offer contributions and other times we need to know when to seek it.
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