I am good at learning music, good at sight-reading, and good at playing any sheet music in front of me, but I have never been good at playing by ear. I have always admired those able to pick out any familiar melody and play it with confidence, chords and all, at a moment’s notice, without the aid of printed music. If I had tried that back in my earlier days, I might have eventually come up with something close to the melody, but it would have been interspersed with random, awkward, painful notes as I hunted and pecked for the correct ones.
I refused to torture the congregation by subjecting them to such a fiasco. I needed music in front of me. Notes, chords, key signatures – all printed on paper and sitting on the music stand.
So what to do about sudden requests? I could have tried memorizing a broad selection of music, anticipating any conceivable call from the pulpit. But instead, I memorized the sections of the hymnbook and chorus book where appropriately meditative songs could be found. Then I could quickly turn to any number of vote-taking, prayer-backing, baptism-watching, thought-inspiring, or special-offering-grabbing hymns. In later years, I also gave up my insistence on only playing hymns or songs in the book, and trusted in chord progressions and snippets of melodies from familiar tunes (or just from my head), and could put together “something soft” without too much effort. In other words, I had built a foundation to stand (or play) on.
Foundations are a wonderful thing. Instead of floundering about with no idea where to turn, we at least have a starting point if we have a foundation. We may still be a bit weak in more advanced areas, but we’re not totally lost.
Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.
2 Timothy 4:2