To A Different Beat

I hit a milestone today. Today I finally and officially survived my proper Sunday Service debut. I'm finally a part of it, this world of musicians big and small. A mere year ago this wasn't even fathomable. There is a good reason that I signed up for the Youth stream for this year's Hillsongs Con. A little less than a year ago, it was absolutely unthinkable for me that I will ever be any sort of a musician in this lifetime. And yet today I finally am. From this point on, when I hear people talk on the street say "muso", I can smugly smile and say to myself, "Self, that includes you." So now, a recap.

I had long expected this day, from the moment Lucko set me the date. That was nearly a full month ahead. I had practiced and practiced, intent on cementing the basics more than anything else, very slowly moved up my comfort zone 20bpm to where it sits now, at 100. I was expecting this day to come, in hot expectation and burning desire, and like a caged beast my soul growled day and night, "Let's rock!"

I make no excuse. I wasn't impressed with my performance today. I knew it was going to be a challenge. This week started with my side-job needed to be done. Halfway through the week, I was caught off guard with a hole in my plans: my body broke down. Wednesday morning it was, and by the evening I broke Ko Den's commandment: I took panadol. I had to do anything to get to practice on Thursday night in as best shape as I can. I woke up okay on Thursday, got to practice fine. Then I sat behind the drums and found a piece of myself missing: my creativity was lost. It was right there that I came to understand why people say that most (positively) creative people are happy people. I felt that most of my energy had been used just to keep my body going, so much that I had nothing left to spend on extra stuffs. The feeling was the first casualty. Nevertheless I managed to squeeze out some good moves, I thought. Friday was a disaster. My body broke down so bad I had to take a sickie. I was better on Saturday and by Sunday I was functioning. But the feeling wouldn't come. I had been overtaken by the dynamic duo of sneaking assassins of the soul: Doubt and Pressure. With my body broken, I couldn't put in anywhere near enough final practice that I had wanted. And without realizing it, the pressure got to me. I only realized it on Thursday night, as I lay awake in bed after just three hours of good sleep, all these things that I could use to play better came flooding into my head. It repeated itself on Saturday night. I realized it too late.

I survived Sunday Service. I played almost solely by memory, nearly nothing by heart. I couldn't even feel the atmosphere for most of the service. I escaped with barely noticeable mistakes, thank God. I played the closing much easier, much more enjoyable. In saying that, we didn't practice the closing, so I had no memory to use there, I had to play by heart. It was a bit of a comfort zone for me playing like that. A shame, I thought, not being able to enjoy the majority of my debut that way.

Had I been healthier, I thought, or had more practice, who knows. But put it another way, what if I *had* arrived on this day in perfect condition? I can only guess. I might end up cocky, much less thirsty for improvement, much less reliant on God, and maybe I'll rely more on my hands and tricky skills than the heart and atmosphere, pure and simple.

I went home after the Service and caught some sleep before I went to work. That was the fastest hour and a half I experienced in this past week. A few hours later at work it sank: I made it. I survived this day, and it seems that the only person who have anything bad to say about my performance is myself. All that is left now is to wait for Julian for the footage of a third of my play, and get Adit to look at it and give me feedback. I expect him to be especially harsh on me, because otherwise I wouldn't learn very much. But that'll take another week at least.

All in all, objectively speaking, I think I did alright. I survived despite the odds. I didn't enter my battlefield a star-decorated general. I crawled and clawed my way into the trenches, and didn't come out with a clean uniform. I came, I fought, and I'll be back another day. And then I went home, and I was satisfied.

Through our rising and falling apart
we discover who we are