Strength Vs. Weakness

I have the privilege of investing in budding young musicians which is one of the more rewarding jobs a musician could have. I love giving private music lessons; seeing that light bulb go on when the stars aline and the "ah-ha!" moment happens. I've developed a teaching philosophy that's changed drastically over the years as I work with students with unique and individual learning styles. It's for this point alone that brings value to private lessons.

I've had over 13 paid, private music instructors which doesn't include producers and professional coaches I've worked with as a career musician. Don't do the math...it's a lot of money. Every teacher was different and had their own niche that made them "special", or the best. I've seen music teachers market their "niche" because they aren't versatile, nor do they ultimately care about the individuality and unique learning style of their students. A full time music teacher needs about 30-40 students to support themselves and it's easier to do the same thing with every students and develop a formula instead of catering to the direct needs of each student. This disappoints me because in my opinion, the value of paying for private instruction is two-fold: first, the information that's being taught, and second most importantly how the information is taught.

Think of it this way, if someone simply wanted to gain information, they could go buy a book on how to play the piano. A private instructor, on the other hand, should be able to make the information palatable and geared to the learning style of the student and more than spoon-feed the information, instill and share a passion for the skill that's being taught. It's the old teach a man to fish - feed him for a lifetime principle.

Within private music education, instead of matching a student's learning style with the correct teacher, I believe teachers should be better equipped and prepared to cater their teaching style to whatever the learning style of their students. A private educator ought to be an expert in their field - it's the point of paying for the education! By definition an expert knows a ton about their field and should be well equipped to help even an advanced student develop their craft.

This brings me to the main point of this post. We've all heard it: focus on your weaknesses because you're already good at your strengths. Musically this translated in my world to my teachers pushing me to sight read and not play by ear. Every teacher I had pushed me to read the music and as soon as they figured out that I simply needed to hear the piece played for me, refused to play for me because it was "handicapping me" from learning how to read music. To this day I struggle to sight read, I can do it, but despite their efforts to force me to sight read by refusing to use my strength, I don't really have a proficient ability to show for it.

All of my students have strengths and weaknesses and I've noticed a much more positive and effective way to help students with their weaknesses. Strengthen their strengths and find more creative ways to teach them their weaknesses. Often times a student's strengths will be strong enough to spill over to their weaknesses without us even having to focus on them resulting in the student teaching themselves.

Had my teachers done this for me growing up I would have spent more time developing and honing my ear and would have worked on developing my improvisation skills. Most of my teachers before college thought that the art of improv was simply an ability to make songs up without sheet music. When I got to college and had years of classes in ear training and improv I realized how much my teachers didn't know, or knew and didn't teach me. Instead of learning chord progression, structure and analysis in private lessons I was practicing sight reading which would have been awesome had I been a ballet accompanist, but my natural abilities and strengths don't make me an ideal candidate for this kind of job in the first place.

All this to say, one of my biggest priorities within private lessons is to help a student determine a direction for them based on their interests, passions and strengths. My job is to expose my students to opportunities and directions music could take them and widen their perspective. Within that, spend time developing and encouraging their strengths. As a career musician I am passionate and excited about music which should be contagious! If I can instill a passion and a desire to learn, a student will begin to teach themselves. If I simply feed information, a student will naturally learn the information and retain it long enough to regurgitate it to get me off their back! This isn't true and valuable learning!

I think these are principles that can be applied to our lives regardless of our craft, whether it be a mathematician, scientist, construction worker, or even a mother. Becoming self-aware is an important step and determining where we are in our walks with the Lord, where we need to be spending our time, and how we can grow and develop! We all should desire to be growing and getting better, regardless of what it is that we do!

Thanks for reading my novel!

Prof. Collin

Back to Creed

January has been a time to punch the reset button. January is December's veggie and juice cleanse which is probably more literal than figurative to many. As we all know January is definitely a let down month: the Christmas present credit card bills arrive in the mail, it's officially winter which means darkness and excessive snow, and the next big holiday to look forward to is Valentine's Day. Let's be honest, who really gets hyped up about Valentine's Day? Red hots are a terrible candy. Generally I think people's attitudes lean toward the negative side and we're combatting the winter doldrums at Grace by kicking it old school.

We live in an entertainment driven society that thrives on amusement. I'm not an etymologist so don't get all Harvard on me, but I do know how to use the dictionary: amuse is derived from the word "muse" which means, "to think." The "A"before it means "to not". Amuse therefore means "to not think." We're a society that thrives on not thinking. I find that kind of convicting yet very true.

This mentality finds it's way into the church where our congregations are well practiced in speculating and observing. From kicking back in the couch watching TV, to sitting in the stands at a ball game we're all great at watching other people do stuff. While worship is something we do privately, corporate worship is something we do together - collectively. It's a participatory activity. One of my greatest fears is worshiping in front of people who are watching, observing and spectating. What do spectators do? They commentate. Watch ESPN. They analyze everything: what the players are wearing, what they ate, even what they're thinking. Worship is not a spectator sport. Unfortunately there are churches and bands that perpetuate and encourage this notion by turning worship services int a rock show and may consequently leave their congregations and audiences behind them, even if they themselves are personally engaged in meaningful, authentic worship.

So this January we're pushing the reset button. Our band has worked hard and put in a lot of hours in December and they need a break and honestly the congregation needs a break, too: a change in routine, a change of pace. Have you ever rearranged your bedroom? Why? Have you ever painted one of your walls a different color? Why? We do this automatically and willfully in many areas of our life, but we are so hesitant in other areas where we might need it the most. We are people, we get comfortable and lazy. According to Dan Miller, (author of 48 Days to the Work You Love, speaker, with a background in clinical psychology) our brains are considered an "emergency organ" and naturally wants to "shut off" when not being used. You've experienced this with muscle memory. Our muscles remember tasks without us deliberately telling them what to do. He tells a story of a professor who practiced this theory on his students by changing their routine: locking the classroom door, stealing their note books and noticed that they creatively produced and excelled their best when he changed their routine.

This brings up an interesting question: is change for the sake of change itself good? There can definitely be negative change - change in a wrong direction that goes against Biblical principles, or that bring damaging or hurtful results, but small change that simply makes us think and disrupts our routine I would submit is very good. Jesus tells us in Luke 10:27 to

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

I want my mind to be widened and my brain to be activated to take in the wonders that the Lord is doing in my life and all around me and love HIM with all of it. I want to be an activated and engaged worshiper. My prayer is that as we engage in worship corporately that we turn off the entertainment, distractions, and focus our natural desire to be amused and allow ourselves to be brought into the presence of the living God.

How in the world do we do this? It's not that hard. Remove the distractions. Our "band" this January is just me and an occasional acoustic player, or perc player. Secondly, change it. Our brains activate when we're forced to think and our routine is changed. Change the stage set - it looks different and might inspire thought or a feeling that we might not have had if it was the same week after week. We're adding in some traditional elements of worship - the Apostle's Creed, the Lord's prayer: words that we remember and preach to ourselves that make us ask ourselves, "why are we standing in this sanctuary? Why are we all singing?" Most importantly, though, we go to the scriptures. Nothing inspires or motivates worship more than direct communication with the Lord. HE is the Word.

As I've challenged the congregation, worship is learned every minute of every day as we do all things to the glory of the Lord as an act of worship. (Romans 12:1) We must teach ourselves how to worship the Lord when we're not at church. Thinking and focusing on the Lord and His wonderful works 20 minutes a week is not enough. God doesn't want us to put on our church hat when we walk through the door, He wants our hearts, our adoration and our attention. As we give Him this, Sunday morning will simply be an overflow.

Feel free to join us. Reset this January.

Here's what it looks like to kick it old school at Grace:






These stained glass frames are styrofoam with a pattern that my buddy Eric created. We projected the image to a wall, traced the styrofoam and used a jigsaw to cut them out.

Gabby's First Snow Day

Jenna said I'm not allowed to call it "baby-sitting" when it's your own child. Since I'm not really sure what else to call it, we'll leave it that for the time being. This afternoon while Jen was at one of her routine pre-natal visits I had some Gabby time. It finally warmed up enough to try out the old sled and the pictures tell you more than I can.

"Yes, Gabby snow is cold. Now leave your gloves on and hold on."



She finally figured it out and I think she started having fun.

No More Dreaded Mondays

Appropriate, I guess, that it happened to be a Monday that I post this! At the recommendation from a good friend, bass player and entrepreneur, Doug Price, I read this book.



Dan Miller is a speaker, career coach and successful businessman who shares his philosophy and thoughts on finding personal fulfillment in your work. He came from an ultra-conservative background and has experienced life with very little and learned how to cultivate wealth. I enjoyed reading and learning about financial success from a Biblical perspective which I feel is rare. (Apart from Dave Ramsey who's main push is getting out of debt). I agree with Dan:

A lot of us hold on to the primitive religious belief that poverty and self-sacrifice are pleasing to God. And many of the nonreligious among us as well have fallen victim to the belief that poverty is inevitable because there's not enough to go around. Too many good people are ashamed of wanting much for fear they may deprive others of having their needs met. But as I see it, the reverse is true. The best way to help the poor is to reduce their numbers by not being one of them.

He reminds Christians that it's not money that is evil, it's the LOVE of money that is evil and serving money instead of Christ is wrong. His biggest push throughout the book is to change people's thinking and help them see that they aren't trapped. I can definitely relate to being in a job that I felt trapped in because it was provision, and a means to an end. He says that America is full of opportunity for passionate, talented individuals who are doing their jobs well. By finding and doing what you're passionate about, provision and wealth will simply follow because people are always willing to invest and partner with individuals who are passionate about their jobs. This is convicting. He asks the question,

Who really is the slave of money, the person who is doing something he or she loves and in the process making $250,000 a year? No, it's the person who, each day, goes to a job he or she hates, just for the money - there's the person who has made money his or her god. There's the person who focuses on and loves money.

His point is not that all of us should be rich and make fortune finding our life goal, His encouragement is that we can find fulfillment, joy and passion in our jobs by using the gifts and talents He's already given us. He promises provision for His children already, we just need to have the faith that the provision comes from Him and not stay in a situation because of perceived job security. Doing what we're passionate about that consequently makes money and trusting the Lord for His provision is the only real job security.

In today's traditional workplace, security is an illusion. when you are working for a company, your fate is in the hands of one person - your boss (or, even worse, the shareholders and executives who see you as fixed overhead, not a person). A decision by one person, one who might not even know your name, can put you out on the street. But in your own business, if you are selling hot dogs on the street corner, everyone of your customers would have to fire you before you're out of business. If you are selling products on eBay, you have 222 million potential customers from all over the world - having one who doesn't like you or your product does not put you out of business.

As General Douglas MacArthur said, "Security is the ability to produce." Your security is in knowing clearly what it is that you do well and then doing that with excellence.

I feel like this is a boring blog post, I do apologize for that. This book is $7 on Amazon and I think you'll really be inspired by it. I appreciate having my mind opened and my perspective widened, I also like knowing that I'm not trapped and that I always have options, it's my choice!

Leading alone!

A friend of mine, Chris Kuti wrote this blog for worship leaders on the importance of leading worship by yourself. Chris explains it well, so read his thoughts for some more inspiration.

The art of being flexible and the ability to think quickly and adapt to your surroundings is an ability that any musician should strive for. Playing in a live band setting requires the ears to hear what's going on around you so you can lock in and add your voice and instrument, not distract from the overall sound and product. It takes practice to train our ears to hear the patterns and chord progressions that we play, but in our practice we must train ourselves to think quickly and continue to be flexible.

I know many musicians who practice hours and hours a day yet can't change or adapt to someone else's playing. As do most things I believe that being a team musician starts in the heart. Growing up as a young player with older musicians I had a huge ego and whether or not I admitted it, what I played I wanted to be heard. This is hard for many musicians, in order to play music publicly there needs to be an audience to hear it. It is often counter-intuitive and a struggle for musicians to want others around them to be heard more than themselves, and to grasp the idea that they are contributing to a collective sound, not simply playing the same group of notes at the same time as the people around them.

Similarly, audiences often have a tough time grasping this is as well and I often have to bite my tongue when people approach me with a concern that they couldn't hear an individual on stage. Most of the time that is probably a good thing and is the actual goal. Unless a team member has a clearly defined solo, or a part that really stands out (drums/lead vocal) the point is to not hear the individual, but hear the final product - the band playing together. Untrained, non-musical individuals typically don't have the ability to pick out individual instruments anyway, especially if the band is doing their job!

As a musician and worship leader I take developing my craft very seriously and look for opportunities to make myself adapt, listen and think quickly. Even though it stretches our band sometimes to think out of the box, or approach a song very differently for the sake of learning how, we do it so that we can get better and practice listening to each other. I also watch and listen to the videos of every set that we play. Even when it's embarrassing and sometimes excruciating hearing myself, and noticing our mistakes, it's one of the best ways to slowly get better.

I had an opportunity to practice being flexible and think differently than normal on New Years. Our band had the holiday off and I lead worship by myself at the keyboard. I notice several things when I lead by myself. There is an element of feeling exposed and alone without the support of fellow musicians on stage, but I actually feel a little freer and less distracted without the responsibility to think about cuing the band and remembering all the correct transitions. It's easier to cover for myself than recover from a train wreck I could potentially lead the whole band into!

I'll be doing this several more times in January which is good because I always need the practice!

Christmas Legacy

So I went digging around in my memory box again today. New Years Eve tends to have that effect on me. There are so many cool moments in my box that I want to share with you, I kind of hope 2012 isn't the end of it. That's selfish, sorry.

I shared with you my apprehension for Christmas this year and the encouragement I preached to myself to maintain the gospel-centricity of Christmas over the return to old feelings and memories of what Christmas used to be. Well it happened (Christmas) and I just wanted to touch base with you on the other side of it.

Jenna made the rounds waking everyone up, even Gabby who Murphy's Law would have it was actually sleeping in (my Christmas present). We crawled out of bed and watched Jenna and Mindy open Gabby's Christmas presents.

Here are a few favorites:











I'm growing up. That should probably be the correct title of this blog. I'm reminded by that as I pull out photographs of a childhood Christmas from my memory box.





I think I'm six years old here and I remember this Christmas well. Mom and Dad did their very best to make Christmas special for us every year and succeeded. They didn't always spend tons of money, but what they gave us was always full of thought. Here I'm opening a set of tools and a tool box. I still have this tool box, it's sitting in my closet holding some music gear. I still have the saw, hammer and a few clamps from this tool set. Each one has come in handy in the last twenty years, building my little house, helping friends with projects.

I think about the term legacy often these days. I've been given a tremendous responsibility and gift from my Heavenly Father to raise and impact some precious souls in my life. Gabby is probably too young to remember this Christmas, but I'm looking forward to next. I'm looking forward to getting to know her and our little son who's name I still don't know. I want to know them well enough to equip them and give them the tools they need for their future the way my parents did for me.

My parents didn't just give me tools, they gave me insight into how a young man grows and develops. I'm thankful for the moments as a parent when I feel equipped, they don't come often and when they do I relish them, just like I relish this Christmas.