tambourine man

I have the job of leading the music at our church. I usually play keyboard (eeek! yuck! eugh!) because the piano that was stationed in the music room of the school we meet in was removed, thus leaving me with the not-so-tasty options of (a) playing my guitar, which I'm not very confident on at the moment, or (b) playing the dreaded keyboard.

Of note here is that I HATE keyboards. Whoever created an electronic piano was out of their mind. They sound awful, they don't feel right when played, and they're really tricky to deal with.

Anyway, I had this dream last night (Saturday night). Crazy dream, out of no where, but worth a chuckle this morning when I woke up and remembered it. I dreamt that I got up early to get to the school and was feeling rather unsure of whether I had remembered everything. (I went to bed with some loose ends still awaiting being tied up in the morning - printing up the music for the other musicians, burning a CD for the PowerPoint slide show...etc) Upon arriving, there were loads of people around, and I got chatting. Somehow, I suddenly realized it was really late, and that the sound system wasn't set up, and I hadn't done a sound check, and I hadn't even run through the music with the other musicians. PANIC. I tore into the room we meet in, and looked around. There was mass chaos everywhere. The room was packed with junk that the school must have thrown into the room, and with the junk were about 4 or 5 pianos. I immediately went to work trying them all out to see which one was the nicest sounding one. I picked one, wheeled it over to the group of about 15 guitar players that awaited me. I then realized I only had one copy of the music. Then I realized that the service was about to begin. AAAARG!!

I think I woke up at that point.

I was not nervous about today, nor did I feel anxious about anything to do with the service. It was utterly random to have one of those dreams.

When I did get to the school, all was calm, and my usual few musicians showed up and were ready to practice nice and early. All went smoothly at first.

Then, as people were starting to come in and get themselves some coffee, I noticed a certain sound. Tambourine, shakers, and other noisemakers were being passed out to all the kids. Right on, I thought, that would be fun.

Then the service started. I had a certain boy right next to me holding a nice, bright tambourine. As I tore into the first song, and the noisemakers started in, I could hardly hear anything. I almost laughed at the moment. I couldn't hear the guitar players behind me, the singers next to me, much less my own voice.

And this boy next to me, he went to town.

At first it was piercing, and I could hardly keep from wincing. Then I paid more attention to what he was doing. I could hardly believe it. He was doing all the tricks you see people do with tambourines, the hard hits on the beat, the quick shakes leading into the next line, and he was paying close attention to the calmer moments in the song and coming to life during the choruses. He was pretty good at staying on the beat too, which saved me! It was hilarious. I was so impressed, and yet I could hardly keep from laughing!

The rest of the music continued in the same way, and I felt it went really well. I don't think I had ever heard such volume in that room before, but it was great.

SO PLAY ON TAMBOURINE MAN!