I was the only teacher in the county who could do it.  I was the only teacher in the county who had ever done it herself.  It’s the reason I charged more than any other teacher in the county:  I alone could prepare a student for a college audition.

The school of music is not like most other colleges in a university.  You can walk into practically any other with only your high school education and do fine.  You can say, “Turn me into a teacher,” and they can.  You can say, “Prepare me for law school,” and they can.  You can say, “Make me a nurse,” and they can.  But if you are not already a musician of at least some caliber with as many years of private teaching behind you as possible, the school of music will not take you.

My college audition consisted of two tests, a performance, and an interview.  One test was four pages of written theory that taxed my knowledge to the limit—keys, chords, terminology, the ability to analyze a page of written music and then writing four part harmony, both notated and not—in other words, writing out music that was playing in my head instead of my hands.

Another was aural theory.  What’s that, you ask?  “Given a steady beat, notate this rhythm,” at which point the examiner tapped out a complex pattern containing every different kind of note he could fit in, plus dots and triplets.  Then followed a melody of which I was only told the first note and had to write the rest from ear alone, including correct rhythm—eight bars worth.  Then followed several chord progressions which I had to identify by ear, half a dozen or so. 

Then the performance:  a major original piece by a recognized composer.  Mine was the Chopin Polonnaise in C minor, all 7 pages from memory.  But that wasn’t all.  I had to perform “on demand” any of the 13 major scales, four octaves in sixteenth notes at an appropriate tempo with the correct fingering, and all three forms of any of the 13 minor keys the same way, with accompanying cadences, using common tone progression.  Which were “demanded”?  E Flat Major—not too bad—and F Sharp Minor (think, girl, think!).

And the interview?  Who is your favorite composer and what do you like about his music?  (Translation:  do you know anything besides how to play it?)  Who have you played?  (Are you a one-hit wonder—the pet student of your studio teacher because you were the only one who could learn the first movement of the Pathetique Sonata; otherwise “Fur Elise” was the pinnacle of your student career.)          

What’s the point of all this?  When James says, “Be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing we shall receive heavier judgment,” (3:1), he wasn’t just blowing smoke through his hat.  When God listed the teaching objectives in His Son’s body, he included the perfecting of the saints, ministering, building up the body, attaining unity, becoming knowledgeable, becoming stable, learning to love, and growing up to the same height as Christ (Eph 4:11-16).  That’s what he expected teachers in the church to accomplish with their students.  If you think those do not apply to you, especially not if you only teach the preschool class, you are sorely mistaken.

The preparation for my college audition began at my first lesson—when I learned the fundamentals of keeping a steady beat, playing one note with one hand and one note with the other, back and forth, back and forth, while my teacher played an accompaniment that made it sound like real music.  You are doing the same thing when you teach a two year old, “God made me.”  Everything else will lie on that one fundamental principle.

How are your women’s classes?  Are you really studying the Word of God or just exchanging opinions?  Do you know more today than you did last year?  Have you changed your mind about anything?  And the most telling of all—do you handle life better than you used to?  Has your behavior in certain circumstances completely changed based on the growth of your character, or do you still fight the same old battles against sin, and most of the time, lose?

All Bible teachers should be preparing their students to pass one final audition.  If you think those old “read a verse and comment classes” were doing that, maybe you should think twice about your ability—and responsibility—as a teacher of the Word of God.  You are not there to fill the time, to check off the fact that this church has today met it’s obligation to “study.” 

Teaching the Word is an awesome and frightening privilege.  I pray about it before I do it because God will hold me accountable when the time comes for the audition.  If my students don’t pass, then neither do I.

Let a man so account of us, as of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Here, moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. 1 Corinthians 4:1-2

Dene Ward

Because of my membership in three professional organizations and their local branches, my students were able to participate in several piano and voice competitions a year.  By far their favorite was the Florida Federation’s Junior State Convention and Competition.

We discovered this event by accident when I overheard two teachers talking about it at our District Festival, a ratings-only non-competitive event.  So I asked, and after being told about this competition for district-rated superiors, was also advised not to bother taking any students.  “There are as many as 70-80 in each category, and the winners are always students of some retired concert artist or college professor.  You’ll never win.”

My students, despite being from the smallest county in Florida, and a rural one at that, took it as a challenge, and every year after that “going to state” was the goal for them all.  And guess what?  We did win, several times, in several events.  My students had come up with their own little uniforms—white shirt, black pants or skirt, and Looney Tunes tie—and it got to the point that I heard people in the audience say things like, “Uh-oh.  It’s one of the kids with the ties!” when they approached the piano or stood up to sing.  We were not only recognized, but actually feared!

When you make a superior in a group event, like piano duet or piano trio, all parties must attend State in order for that group to compete.  Imagine my surprise when a parent called me a few weeks before the competition telling me that her daughter, who had made a superior in piano duet, would not be attending State Contest.  I knew the partner would be very disappointed.  Then the mother really burst my tea bag when she said, “It’s not like they have any chance of winning anyway.”

What?  As a matter of fact, piano duet was one of our best categories.  And the partner had already won a second place the year before with another partner.  If my students had gone to State feeling like they could never win anything, they never would have.  They won because they believed they could, and worked toward that goal. 

I have heard Christians say some things that sound just like that mother.

“I don’t know if I’m going to Heaven or not, but I sure hope so.” 

“I don’t know if I sinned Lord, but forgive me if I did.”

“We’re only human.  We all sin every day.”

Just what kind of God do these people think we serve?  A capricious, malicious God who toys with us like a cat with a mouse, or a loving, faithful God who helps us in every way He can, including giving us clear instructions for life, the means to overcome sin, and promises that are real?

Do you think Paul went at Christianity with such a defeatist attitude?  Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified, 1 Corinthians 9:25-27.  It sounds to me like he expected to win.

Do you need a little help getting over that defeatist attitude?  Just look at these passages this morning:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:3-5

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:10-11

In case you didn’t notice, when we have a defeatist attitude, it isn’t so much ourselves we doubt as it is God.  Satan is making inroads in our hearts and calling it “humility.”  It isn’t humility to wonder about my salvation; it’s a lack of faith and trust in a God who has furnished everything I need to know that I am saved. 

Who are you listening to this morning?

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 2 Corinthians 3:4-5

Dene Ward

Too many times we studio teachers teach only the instrument, piano and voice in my case, and neglect the other things that make one a well-rounded musician—history, theory, ear training.  So for my students I made up history notebooks focusing on one particular composer each year containing articles, worksheets, and listening labs.  When the makeup of the studio suddenly increased to 40% voice students, I decided to make a notebook with them in mind, one on opera.  Besides, even piano students needed to know about opera.

I began with worksheets on the history of opera and types of operas.  Then we moved on to study the stories of 5 different operas, followed by a listening lab on one of the more famous arias from each opera.  I live in a rural county.  The closest thing to opera any of these students had ever seen or heard was their grandparents’ reminiscences of Minnie Pearl and the Grand Ol’ Opry.  The answers I received on many of the listening labs often made me laugh out loud and taught me a lot about perspective.

“Nessun dorma” from Turandot:  (All the recordings were in the original language of the opera.)  On the question, “Describe the melody,” a 6 year old wrote, “Sounds Italian to me.”  How could I argue with that?

Another question attempted to point out the emotion in the singers’ voices by asking, “Where in the music do you think he sings, ‘I will win!  I will win!’?”  Though it was in Italian it was obvious; even the 6 year old got it.  But one 10 year old thoroughly misunderstood the question and wrote, “I don’t know, but he was so loud, he MUST have been outside somewhere.”

“La donna mobile” from Rigoletto:  “What are the main difficulties of this aria?”  A 9 year old answered, “He’s trying to get a woman, but can’t.”

We could not have left out Carmen, though presenting this less than moral character to children took a bit of discretion.  We listened to the “Habanera,” which is, in reality, a dance.  “Carmen likes to flirt a lot.  How does the fact that she is singing to a dance make it sound ‘flirty?’”  A 9 year answered, “It shows she’s pretty smart if she can sing a dance!”

Because the majority of my singers were 14-16 year old girls, I chose Charlotte Church’s recording over Maria Callas’s version of Carmen.  Charlotte was only 15 at the time and I felt they could better relate to her.  However, this brought about the question, “How is her ability to sing this character likely to change as she gets older?”  Talk about perspective, a 9 year old boy wrote, “She’ll soon be married and she’d better not be flirting with other men!!!!”  But a 16 year old girl wrote--now remember Charlotte was only 15 on this recording--“It won’t be long till she is so old she won’t even remember how to flirt any more.” 

Was this notebook successful?  When I took up the final exams I wondered.  The first question was “Define opera.”  An 11 year old wrote, “A type of music for men and women where you sing real LOUD.”

But I also had them write, both at the beginning of the study and at the end, what they honestly thought about opera.  One 14 year old was very tactful at the beginning of the year when she wrote, “I think people who can sing it are very talented.”  But at the end of the year she wrote, “If this is opera, I really like it.  And I learned not to ever say I don’t like something when I don’t really know anything about it.”

I wonder how many people approach the Bible that way?  They believe it to be a book of myths, a storybook, only a suggestion for how to live, anything but the Word of God when they have absolutely no personal knowledge on the subject.  They have never considered the evidence; they have never made comparisons to other ancient writings that are far less convincing.  We have only 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad but over 5700 copies of the scriptures, and no one ever questions the completeness and accuracy of that Greek epic.  We believe George Washington existed and became our first president.  Why?  Because of eyewitness accounts, the same type of accounts available in historical documents about Jesus.  Even people who accept Jesus as the Son of God, question the validity of the New Testament because it was a translation, yet Jesus himself quoted a translation of the Old Testament, one about as far removed from him in time as the New Testament is from us, and all this barely skims the surface of internal and external evidences validating the Bible.

My students learned a valuable lesson the year we studied opera:  don’t judge until you check it out yourself.  If you are wondering about the Bible, about Jesus, and even about the existence of a Creator, the only logical and fair thing is for you to do that too.

For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And the discernment of the discerning will I bring to nought. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe.                   1 Corinthians 1:18-21

Dene Ward

Things change so rapidly these days it seems impossible to keep up.  I had carefully collected a library of classical music LPs for my students to listen to.  By the time my studio was large enough, with students advanced enough to get much use out of them, I was collecting cassettes.  Before long I had to switch to CDs.  At least I don’t have a collection of 8 tracks collecting dust as well.  Somehow I missed that phase.

The same thing is happening in the church, and I don’t mean changing doctrine to suit the situation, I mean changing the means by which we teach that unchangeable Word, and the ways we edify one another while still clinging to the constraints of obedient faith.

Gone are the charts drawn on white bed sheets and the overhead projectors flashing carefully covered up lists, revealed one line at a time when the speaker moves the sheet of paper he laid on top.  Now we use power point and remotes.  Even my three year old grandson Silas knows to pick up something rectangular and point it at his make-believe screen when he pretends to preach like Daddy.

We must beg people to use the carefully selected library of books we have in the back hall—they are happier with the internet and Bible study programs, not to mention Kindle and Nook.  Even the riffling of Bibles during the sermon has decreased—many now have all 66 books on something the size of a wallet.  You are more likely to hear beeps or mechanized “plops” than the quiet shuffling of pages.

Now the preacher doesn’t just have to raise his voice when an infant begins to cry; he has to raise it when someone forgets to turn off his cell phone.  Now the song leader must wrestle with an audience who not only wants to sing at their own pace regardless of his direction, but with the ones who cannot for the life of them understand or “feel” syncopation.  Fanny Crosby would never have set words to a syncopated tune.

But some things will always be the same.

Children whose parents tell them to “Listen!” will still come up with ways to keep their wandering minds on the sermons, counting how many times the preacher says certain words or writing down every passage he uses, and in that play will begin to memorize scriptures that stay with them for a lifetime.

Someone will still sniffle a bit during the Lord’s Supper, and someone else will momentarily hold up the collection while he tries to persuade his two year old to put the coins in the plate, and the children will learn what is done and why.

A deacon will stand in back and count while another one makes last minute notes for the closing announcements, those precious words that help us “weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice.”

Serious men, in khakis and open neck shirts instead of suits and ties, will still listen carefully to the preacher while their wives juggle their own listening with trying to decide if a requested potty trip is really necessary or just a ploy to get out of this boring seat for a few minutes.

People will still ask for prayers when life deals them a harsh blow, and brothers and sisters will gather round with hugs and tears, and offers of help.

Excited new converts will still sit closer to the front than old ones, listening with rapt attention, diligently taking notes to study at home, and thinking up questions that will keep the elders busy for weeks.

Young parents will be suddenly motivated to attend regularly for the first time in their lives by the responsibility of the small souls God has placed in their hands.

Widows will contentedly sit, patiently waiting for the time when they can meet their mates “at the gate,” as my mother asked my daddy to do just moments before his passing.

Older couples will do as I do, looking around at all the new but still seeing the old in spite of the new, comforting themselves that God’s way still works, even in this perplexing age of technology and unparalleled advancement.

As long as there are people to hear it and hearts to believe it, planting the seed will make Christians spring up out of any plot of good soil.  It has worked for nearly two thousand years now and we, in spite of the wow-factor of our inventions, will never outdo the results God can get with one Book.  If you ever forget that, then look around some Sunday morning, not for the differences, but for the things that never change, and that never will as long as faith exists on the earth.

"O my God," I say, "take me not away in the midst of my days-- you whose years endure throughout all generations!" Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you. Psalms 102:24-28

Dene Ward

I started my music studio when I was 16, teaching students my own teacher had chosen for me from her waiting list.  Every Saturday, 8 little faces showed up at my door for a half hour of piano time each.           

Unfortunately, they were not the only little faces I saw.  Regularly, their parents would say, “I need to do a little shopping.  They can play outside,” and leave their other children in our front yard, usually far longer than a half hour.  I had been taught to respect my elders and couldn’t even imagine telling them no.  I simply sat there and watched both the small pair of hands at the keyboard and the ever increasing number of children running around the maple tree, jumping up occasionally to open the door and quiet an argument or forestall an accident.  How in the world did they ever expect me to do a good job at piano teaching?

Once I married and moved into my own home, the free babysitting stopped.  I was an adult now, and it didn’t hurt a bit that my college professor helped us all fashion “studio policy letters” that spelled out what would and would not be tolerated.  “You are a professional with a college degree (soon, anyway) so act like one and they will treat you like one,” we were taught.  No longer was I a free babysitter for the siblings during piano lessons.

I wonder if our poor preachers and elders need to make a policy letter.  Regularly, the members, who pride themselves on “knowing better” than the denominations about scriptural practices, expect “free babysitting” from the men God has given other duties to perform.  Read Acts 20 with me this morning. 

Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him, v 17.  Notice, we are talking about the elders.  In the same context, speaking of and to the same men, Paul says, Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you bishops (overseers), to feed (shepherd, pastor) the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood, v 28.  Did you catch that?  This is one of at least two passages where all the words for elder are used in the same context.  An elder is a pastor is a bishop is an overseer, and there were always more than one in a church.  The preacher is usually not a pastor and certainly not THE pastor of the church.

 I bet you knew that, didn’t you?  But guess what?  He is not THE minister either.  In fact, it’s a mighty sorry church that has only one minister in it.  That word is diakonos and it is used a couple of ways in the New Testament.  The word simply means “servant” but there was also an official position in the church, special “servants” who had specific duties and qualifications as well.  To make the distinction between that role and the other aspect of service, something every Christian is required to do, the translators created a new English word.  They Anglicized diakonos and made the new word “deacon.”  So sometimes that word refers to those specially qualified individuals who took care of the physical needs of the saints and the church as a whole. 

Yet far more often, that word, and certainly that concept, is used of each individual Christian, as we minister to one another and to the world.  The problem is we don’t want to be ministers (servants).  We want everyone, especially the leaders in the church, to serve us!  How in the world can we expect them to do the job God really gave them when we want free babysitting as well?

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and the love which you showed toward his name, in that you ministered unto the saints, and still do minister, Heb 6:9,10.  The writer is not talking to preachers in this verse, and not talking about them in the next.  You know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints, 1 Cor 16:15.  Could anyone accuse us of being “addicted” to serving?

Anyone who serves is a minister.  Some seem to have special abilities and perhaps we could even say they have “a ministry.” And having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, whether prophecy, according to the proportion of our faith; or ministry, to our ministry; or he that teaches, to his teaching; or he that exhorts, to his exhorting: he that gives, with liberality; he that rules, with diligence; he that shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Rom 12:6-8.  Some have people in their homes more than others; some teach better than others; some have a special ability to relate to the young people; some seem to know exactly what to say when people are in trouble.  Some of us just do what needs to be done when we see the need.  All of us are supposed to be ministers in one way or another, and we should all reach the point that we don’t need a babysitter any longer. 

When someone asks you who is the minister in your church, tell them it isn’t one man.  It isn’t even someone else.  It’s supposed to be YOU!

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be among you: but whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.  Matt 20:25-28.

Dene Ward

Actually, this should probably be Conducting 101, but let’s stretch a point this morning.  Meanwhile you are sitting there wondering what in the world an ictus is and why you should care.

The ictus is the point in the conductor’s pattern where the actual beat occurs.  If you are tapping your toes to the music, the ictus occurs when your foot hits the ground.

My conducting professor would have a cow if he saw most of the conducting patterns we see on Sunday mornings.  Not because they are “incorrect,” but because the ictus usually occurs up around the song leader’s ear, when it should be at his waist.  But few of my brethren are professional musicians, so who cares where the ictus is, as long as there is one? 

That ictus, that stable underlying pulse, must be visible and steady so that we know when to sing.  What drives me crazy is when a leader just waves his arm on each word, rather than each beat, and expects us to read his mind about when the next one is coming.  Give me an ictus!  Even if you begin an accelerando (gradually speeding up) or a ritardando (gradually slowing down), we can still anticipate when a beat is coming and stay together as long as there is an ictus in your pattern.  If you’re just beating words instead of beats, who knows when it will come?

Of course, the group has to be watching the leader for any of it to work at all.  Funny how the ones who recite, “Let all things be done decently and in order,” will sing what they want when they want, regardless what the leader is doing, and do it loudly enough that they take half the congregation with them.  But don’t get me started…

God is the ictus in a Christian’s life.  [The Lord] is the stability in your times, Isaiah said, 33:6.  That word is the same word translated “faithfulness” in many other passages.  God’s faithfulness endures forever, Psa 117:2.

Interestingly enough, it is also the word “steady” in Ex 17:12.  Moses lifted up his hands as the people fought the Amalekites, but as his strength failed and they sagged, Aaron and Hur sat him on a rock and held his hands “steady” for him until the battle was over.  God holds his hands steadily on high as we fight our battles.  That is how we defeat Satan and overcome sin.  It’s how we handle trials and tribulations—with the steady helping hand of a God who never wavers. 

Even if you aren’t a trained musician you can feel the beat.  That’s why your toes tap and your hands clap.  It’s why your head bounces when you hear a tune you enjoy, but none of it matters if you aren’t watching the leader.

God doesn’t leave you wondering when the next beat will come.  Look for the ictus as He leads you.  Sometimes it may slow as the toils of life bog you down, but it will not leave you behind fending for yourself.  Sometimes it may speed up as you run from the Enemy, but it is always there for the ones who care to watch and be led. 

I often listen to music when I exercise.  I find I can go longer and do more than just counting repetitions.  If you are in a particularly difficult time of life, let God’s ictus help you put one step in front of the other, again and again and again, until you have finally reached the end of the trial.  Let it help you keep moving until you achieve the final goal.  God’s steady, stable, faithful hand will lead you on, until you sing that final triumphant note in the song of life.

 I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, "Steadfast love will be built up forever; in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness." Psa 89:1-2.

Dene Ward

While I was teaching music I was a member of several professional organizations.  My favorite was the local group which met seven times a year in members’ homes for business, some high-spirited performances, and a potluck lunch.  Once we met in a house just off the highway, down a lime rock road.  In the middle of the meeting, a rain came up—not just any rain, but one we around here call a “toad strangler,” several inches in less than an hour—they happen all the time in Florida. 

The rain had stopped when it was time to leave and we took off down the dirt road shortcut in a caravan of cars headed to our various studios to meet the students for the day.  Suddenly, the cars ahead of me came to a halt, and ladies started climbing out, gathering together and peering up ahead.  I turned off the engine and joined the milling crowd at the head of the line. 

Water had run across the road.  It had not cut a deep rut, and in fact, was a nice shallow-looking, easily fordable stream, but we had all lived in the country long enough to know you don’t just drive through water running across an unpaved road.  “Someone needs to walk out there and check the road,” was the consensus. 

Have I mentioned that at 35 I was the youngest in the group by about thirty years?  Instantly, all heads turned toward me.  Having been silently elected, I slipped off my shoes and started across the newly created waterway.  I took five firm steps only to have to grab my skirt and hike it up over my knees as I sank exactly that deep on the sixth.  Instantly I had visions of those jungle movies I used to watch on Saturday afternoons as a kid, where the first one in the safari line sinks in the quicksand because, in spite of everyone telling him to be still, he wiggles and squirms and sinks before anyone can even think to cut a vine and use it to pull him out—or if some bright fellow does think of it, twenty people on the other end cannot out-pull the suction of a big mud puddle.. 

A good minute later it dawned on me that my name was being called, and I still had not sunk any farther.  My feet had found a solid layer of hardpan about two feet below the surface so Tarzan swinging to the rescue was totally unnecessary.  I made my way back to the group with the most unladylike thwock, thwock, thwock noises as the suction released with each step.  We all carefully backed our cars down the one lane road, turned around in the driveway from where we had started and went the long way home, down the paved state highway.

Hopelessness in the scriptures is often pictured as “sinking.”  Jeremiah prophesies that Babylon will sink and shall not rise again because of the evil I will bring upon her, 51:64.  Amos warns Israel that they are in for the same punishment: they shall sink again like the River of Egypt, 8:8; 9:5.  And all because of sin.  Even Peter, when he tried to walk on water, began to sink because of little faith and doubt, Matt 14:31.  And truly, just like sinking in the quicksand (at least in the old grade B movies), there is nothing we can do but hope a savior happens along.  Praise God, he has!

The Psalmist pleads in 22:8 Commit yourself to Jehovah, let him deliver you; let him rescue you, seeing he delights in you.  In spite of the fact that, like an ignorant city slicker, we walked out into that mud on purpose, in spite of the fact that we ignored warning after warning, and kept right on wiggling and squirming, and even when we have been pulled out before, but keep stepping right back into the same pool of quicksand, Jesus is ready to hold out a hand and save us. 

Deliver me out of the mire and let me not sink… Let not the waterflood overwhelm me and swallow me up…Answer me, oh Jehovah, for your lovingkindness is good.  According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me; and hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress; answer me quickly. Psa 69:14-17

Dene Ward

When I was teaching piano and voice, besides my own annual Spring Program and Awards Ceremony, my students sometimes participated in as many as seven joint recitals a year, programs featuring the students of several teachers at once. 

Sometimes the students were chosen according to their age—the Young Performer’s Recital was strictly for talented beginners.  It was their chance to shine rather than being lost among a studio’s advanced students.  Sometimes it was all about their music—the Parade of American Music featured students playing or singing the music of American composers.  If his best piece that year was Mozart’s Rondo in D, that particular student was ineligible.

Sometimes a panel of judges chose the students based on their performances in a recent competition.  The year we had five chosen for the Student Day Honors Recital was a banner year for us.  To have one or two chosen from a group of over two hundred students from a dozen studios was a good showing.  Five was almost unheard of.

At the receptions after these events, we teachers always enjoyed basking in our students’ successes.  We mined each other for teaching strategies and resources.  The experience exposed us to more crowd-pleasing music we could use with our own students, and our students to teachable moments we could discuss at the next lesson.  They could see for themselves why I insisted on such picky things as not taking your fanny off the seat until your hands left the keys when a student from another studio stood up without doing so, looking as if someone had glued her fingers to the ivory.  They could hear why long fingernails were verboten when it sounded like someone was trying to tap dance to Debussy and Haydn.  It also worked wonders for parental attitudes—suddenly they appreciated things they had before viewed as silly.

My favorite moments after these recitals came when people approached me with these words:  “I can always tell which ones are yours.”  It wasn’t because they played or sang particularly well—every student at these recitals did that—but not every student performed well.  We spent hours on things like how to approach or leave the piano, how to hold a pose over a final note, what to do in a memory lapse, how a singer should hold the mood until the accompaniment stops, and especially how to bow.  It’s one thing to know your piece; it’s another to be able to present a polished performance of it to an audience.

Sometimes I imagine God as the teacher watching our performances.  He knows we can do it.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me, Phil 4:13.  He gave His Son to show us how.  …because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in his steps, 1 Pet 2:21.  I don’t think it is out of line to think of the angels saying to Him, “I can always tell which ones are yours.”  Isn’t that the picture we get in Job 1?  Perhaps not literally, but in essence if nothing else. 

If life is one big recital, we should learn from the performances of others—what to do, what not to do, why some of the picky things we have always heard are important after all.  We should learn from our own mistakes as well—why do I always miss the same note?!  Your daily practice should take of that.

God is in the audience.  What He wants to hear more than anything is, “I can always tell which ones are yours.”

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 1 John 3:10

Dene Ward

While my students did win solo awards in piano solo, art song, and musical theater, our specialty seemed to be piano ensembles.  The point of an ensemble is not just to play the right notes at the right time, but to make a piano duet sound like one person with four hands and a trio like one person with six.  Not an easy thing to do when one partner plays with a heavy hand and the other with light finger work, one with the ebb and flow of rubato and the other the steadiness of a machine.

My teacher friends laughed at me when they saw all my students make a point to approach the piano together, sit at the same time, put their hands on and off the keys at the same time, then stand together and leave together.  I guess they never thought about whose students were bringing back trophies and whose weren’t.  The point of all that togetherness was to infuse oneness into them.  Your performance starts from the moment your names are called; that single four- or six-handed creature acted as one from then till they hit their seats in the audience afterward.

The performance aspects were trickier.  Who has the melody?  Does the partner have a counter-melody or an oom-pah-pah chordal accompaniment?  Does the partner enter with the same melody a few bars later?  How can the one with the steady underlying rhythm make it stable enough to help the syncopated partner, without overpowering him?  Are the dynamics terraced or interlaced?  How each partner plays his part depends upon the answer to all those questions.  What a lot to remember and listen for. 

I had one duo that excelled at all of this.  They played together for ten years and by the time the older graduated from high school, I was positive they were even breathing in sync while they performed.  They played pieces where one partner got up, walked around the piano and sat down to play again; then later in the piece got up and went back to his original position, all without stopping, without errors, and without one of them falling off the bench!  They played pieces where the one higher on the keyboard picked up his hand and put it between the other’s two hands and then continued playing, without a hitch.  If you were not watching, you would not know anything had happened.  Once they played a piece where one’s left hand was on the black keys above the other’s right hand on the white keys, and they never once got in each other’s way.  Now that’s teamwork.  (Did I mention that Nathan was one of the partners?)

Perfecting the piece was not enough for them.  They even created entrances, with both walking down opposite aisles exactly together and approaching the judges’ bench from opposite directions with a flourish precisely at the same time in the middle of the front row.  At the end of the piece they each crossed the outside hand to bounce off the last note with the inside hand, and held their hands up for exactly the same three count—non-verbally.  They simply knew each other that well.

And I remember my baby duet.  A little stepbrother and -sister act in the Primary 1 category performing “O Susanna.”  When one had the melody the other played softer; when the other came in with the melody, the first one pulled her tone way down almost instinctively, and then back up again when it was her turn.  These were 8 year olds, mind you, and it was flawless, seamless, and so amazing the judges looked at each other as soon as it happened.  I knew then we had it, and sure enough, we did.

That is what teamwork is all about.  You know that old coach’s saying, “There is no I in team?”  Unfortunately, many people still manage to spell “me,” and the team is never as unified as it could be.  Teamwork means doing what is best for the group.  It means constantly putting someone else ahead of me.  It means making an objective judgment of what is most important at a given time and not forcing my issues to the forefront if they are less critical than another’s.  It means not complaining if I don’t have the lead and trying to horn my way in anyway.  It means not whining when I don’t get the praise I think I deserve.  If one of my students had said, “I don’t care if I don’t have the melody.  I am just as important as her, so I’m playing my chords just as loudly,” they would have never won anything.  In fact, they would never have gotten a superior at the district level and not made it to the state competition.  What’s best for me will very often ruin it for everyone else.  And we all need to have that feeling.   If we do, no one feels left out or unappreciated. 

Why is it that we cannot see these things when we are the ones involved?  Are we really so dense?  Is it pride?  Is it arrogance?  Is it our rights-oriented society?  Whatever it is, we need to get over it, so the church can once again make known the manifold wisdom of God, Eph 3:10, and we, through our unity, can cause the world to believe, John 17:21.

Doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, each counting other better than himself, not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.  Phil 2:3,4     

Dene Ward

I never had much trouble sightreading piano music.  You read the note, you find it on the piano, and you play it.  I wasn’t perfect by any means—trying to read music and translate that to a mental keyboard in your mind and then have your hands immediately go to the correct place on the real keyboard in just a matter of milliseconds takes a quick mind and perfect eyesight, neither of which I had even then.  But for the most part I was a good music reader and got the job done, even if I did have to slow the tempo down so I could play in the correct rhythm too. 

Then I got to college theory classes and was expected to sightsing!  Now that is a completely different issue.  Looking at a page of notes and singing them seemed like an impossible task to me.  It takes a natural ear.  If you don’t have one, you have to train it.  I had to put mine through boot camp the entire first year of theory classes.  Eventually I learned to do it—I could look at a piece of music and sing the notes, without accompaniment of any kind, not even chords to keep you in the right key.  I wasn’t any more perfect at it than I was at the piano, probably less, but I was musician enough to pass my tests, classes, and juries, and to make two college choruses and a women’s sextet.

Most of the hymns in our books are written in standard major keys, with standard four part harmony.  They are nothing like the music I had to sightsing in college, so I can usually sightsing them without too much trouble.  It’s sort of like being asked to boil an egg when you have been making soufflés for four years--simple.  Most of the congregation, though, do not have the advantage of being trained musicians and they just sing it the way they first heard it, which in many cases was incorrect. That means that very often I stick out like a sore thumb (or a sour note).

I have tried to sing what everyone else is singing just so I won’t, but I have trained myself so diligently that I can’t.  I’m a musician—I see the note, I sing what I see.  We were singing “When We All Get to Heaven,” the other day, and every time (at least three) I sang it right I created a clash that was hard to go unnoticed.  “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” creates at least five such clashes.  With “Amazing Grace” the list is nearly as long as the song itself.

But you know what?  While I don’t want to cause those clashes, my training makes it nearly impossible to sing the songs wrong, and my desire to please God by obeying His commands to sing makes it completely impossible for me to stop singing.

Isn’t that the way life is supposed to be for a Christian?  You really don’t want to clash with your neighbors.  You really want to “live peaceably with all men.”  But you should have trained yourself so well that you find it nearly impossible to sin.  Sticking out like a sore thumb shouldn’t matter to you.  Yes, it may be difficult, but no one ever promised us “easy.”  We are supposed to be different from unbelievers.  We are supposed to “conform to the image of His Son,” not to the world. It should be a habit by now.

Sometimes when I sing things correctly, but differently, I get funny looks.  Once, a song leader even went to the microphone when that section came up on the next verse so he could sing the (wrong) note loud and clear.  I guess he heard my different note on the first verse and it bugged him. 

This coming Sunday morning, if you hear someone sing a different note than you are singing, maybe you should check the notes you are singing.  Then do something much more important.  Use it as a reminder to check your life.  Could anyone tell you apart from your neighbors, or do you blend right in?  Out there in the world, you should be sightsinging a completely different tune.

But the wisdom from above is first pure—then peaceable…James 3:17.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed…Rom 12:2.

Dene Ward