Taking an Honest Look
My husband and I are friends with a Methodist pastor. He’s an incredible guy – always thoughtful and deliberate. While visiting over Christmas, he described the music situation in his parish, and made the following comment: “This may offend you, but I really don’t care if we have a regular pianist or organist. After all, worship is the people’s gift to God, and if the people play the accordion and the spoons, then that is what we should use in worship.”
As a professional musician, it is so easy to jump into a defensive mode about my role within the church. But then it occurred to me: how many organists don’t have the time or willingness to prepare? How many church musicians merely do the minimum in a week-to-week role? (Especially in the context of a minister who is laissez-faire about the music.) How am I to defend the importance of organ music when so many organists are unengaged with their tasks?
So here we are, with a rather odd cycle, which has no good outcome until someone (ahem….like the church musician) re-engages. It’s why I made my “Being Better” series.
There are some careers where the world will constantly tell you how important your work is (hello, firefighters). Unfortunately, church organist isn’t always on that list. And it is up to us to find within our musical souls the push to perfect our offerings to God and the church with renewed creativity, determination, and grace.
Being Better: Introduction
At any rate, most organists work in isolation. There is no daily interaction with a group of similarly-trained colleagues, no opportunity for a promotion within the company, no environment bolstered by interactive creativity. At the core, an organist pursues daily tasks of work and study in a vacuum. Enthusiasm, especially of the unbridled kind, must be sustained purely by an inner drive; in fact, it must be produced and distributed in prodigious amounts to congregants and clergy. And in this environment, it is simply too easy to plod along, doing the same thing as last week, doing as little as possible to squeeze by in one more week, with a promise to try harder next week.
My intention for the “Being Better” posts is to suggest a checklist of concrete action items. For most church musicians, it has been a long time since we’ve had regular instruction, and these checklists are intended as a check-up. I’ve done most of these things; some are on my to-do list. Here are a list of upcoming topics which reflect the variety of areas which we combine to do our job:
– instrument checklist
– practice discipline
– organization
– congregational relationships
– pastoral relationships
– institute new weekly habits
– rethink the role
– professional standing
– know thy repertoire
– talk it up: announcing programs