Good people, cheer God! Right-living people sound best when praising. Use guitars to reinforce your Hallelujahs!Psalm 33 (The Message)
Holy joy is the heart and soul of praise, and that is here pressed upon the righteous. Thankful praise is the breath and language of holy joy. Religious songs are proper expressions of thankful praise. Every endowment we possess, should be employed with all our skill and earnestness in God's service.Exegesis on Psalm 33 Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible
Some people know, but I haven't really mention that about 2 weeks ago, I finally fulfilled a longtime dream of owning an electric guitar.
Just to share, the first time I wanted to get one was in Sec 3. At that time, I listened to quite a bit of rock music, specifically alternative and a bit of grunge. Bands like Blur, Suede, Weezer, Dubstar. I hardly had any music knowledge back then, but was interested in making music. I experimented quite a bit with "Trackers" - computer programs for composing and arranging music. While I grew to understand the technology of music quite a bit, I never got far with the music of music part. Anyway, I guess I wanted an electric guitar back then, largely because of the rock music I listened to.
The next time I started to dream of having an electric guitar was around year 2 or 3 in NUS. By then, I was a Christian, and already knew how to play the guitar in small groups. Music - listening, playing, creating - was still something I loved. I started to dream of being able to do music beyond the small groups level. I still dreamed of being able to play the music that I listened to. And I thought, one day I will learn to play the electric guitar well enough to serve as a musician in church.
I'm still taking steps towards the dream! There's a lot of work to do before I can get there. This is a huge learning process. I've been reading up, reading up, understanding all about electric guitars - the history, the science, the techniques, the styles, the technology. There's so much more to learn! And practice is important too..
I still remember many years ago when I was stuck in my progress because I couldn't play barre chords. I knew that difficult as it might be, I was not going to get anywhere in guitar-playing unless I could play them. I prayed to God, that He would help me to master barre chords, just so that I could serve by playing guitar. Guess what? The next thing I knew, my barre chords rang true! Hee, so, Father, please help me with my effects, scales, alternate picking, palm muting and improvisations now! In Jesus's name I ask for these gifts! Amen! =D
(Regarding this entry's title: George Harrison of the Beatles has a popular song titled While my guitar gently weeps. If you know a bit about the song, it's somewhat influenced by Eastern spirituality. So while his guitar gently weeps, my Christian guitar shall joyfully praise the Lord! Heehee.. )
