Personal Narrative: How Music Changed My Life

It is the day before Christmas Eve, and I am shivering--not from the cold, but from my restless nerves running rampant throughout my body. I inhale a sharp breath as I hear the final chord of the choir’s final anthem, and I take my first few steps on stage. Our worship leader, Doug, begins reciting scripture to the congregation as I grab my cold bass guitar. My gaze settles upon the hundreds of faces with gazes seemingly fixed on me. My stand light makes a crisp click that reverberates through my head when I turn the switch. I grab my bass pick, and I am ready to play the instrument I have spent years learning. Before I started playing bass in the adult praise band at my church, I had been playing guitar for five years. I started on a three-quarter-sized

My sister had played guitar before me and had also sung for the youth group for about a year before I joined. The guitar parts were more advanced than I was used to and took a few months before I could comfortably “tread water.” However, I was determined and kept improving. Those first couple of months of playing for the youth praise band proved to be extremely beneficial in the improvement of my guitar skills. My skill, along with my overall enjoyment, increased drastically. The youth group’s music improved, but without a consistent drummer or anything to balance out the high notes, we had reached our

I heard an announcement from the adult worship leader, Doug, that their bass player had just moved away, and I saw my opportunity. While the downstairs youth group draws between 20 and 30 people, the main congregation of the church upstairs usually is composed of between 150 and 400 people, this depending on the day and service. The upstairs praise band play more songs, and the songs are more complicated. This was going to be much harder, but I knew I was ready. I arranged an interview with Doug, and he explained the system of auditioning. I attended two or three rehearsals, and one week I brought my bass and ran through the whole set list with the band. It did not go well. The selections that week were seven songs I had never heard before, but because of my previous experience with worship music, I adapted well. I spent hours practicing for the Sunday morning performance, and it all paid off. I was part of the praise band for my