The Sunday Musician

In my two previous posts on this topic—Finding Moments Onstage Part 1 and the brilliantly, intuitively titled Finding Moments Part 2—we talked about the conditions that need to be present for a ‘moment’ to happen:

• Comfort with the material
• A good monitor mix
• The need to pay attention (these moments don’t respond well to the cold shoulder)

Lastly, in my noble opinion is permission. You need permission to try things, permission to ‘go for it’, to make mistakes, take chances and generally feel like there isn’t going to be a meeting on Monday if you make a mistake. Not only do you need permission, but so does the audience.

Who will give you this permission? I will, for one, but it probably won’t carry much weight. (What the heck, try it! Say, "Ed says it's okay". See where it gets you. If you'd like, I'll ship you a WWED (What Would Ed D) bracelet) Ultimately, it’s the audience that gives you permission. First, probably, you’ll need the understanding and permission of your pastor, fine arts director, or whoever is ultimately, publicly responsible for this. They’ll need to say, “It’s okay if you make some mistakes.” Or they could just consult the bracelet you gave them.

Then you can get on with the business of building a relationship with your audience. I know, I know—saying “first have your pastor be okay with this” is like the old Steve Martin joke about how to make a million dollars and never pay taxes: Part 1) go out and get a million dollars.

How you’ll get your pastor/elders/movers-and-shakers on board, I’m not sure. He/she/they need to know you have the congregation’s best interests at heart. They’ll readily agree, in principle, until the first time you do something really out there, and then they’ll say, “Well…I didn’t know you meant THAT…”.

I might be exaggerating, but you get the point. Before you go ‘trying things’, at least have a talk with the leaders.

Okay, AFTER that, you need the audiences permission, and the way to get that is by giving them permission to be comfortable with whatever you play. You do this…ready, ready…by being comfortable with it yourself. Be okay with your mistakes, be okay with one week working better than another week, and the audience will okay with it too.

Once they’ve begun to get the idea—that it won’t be the exact same thing every week, you can relax and begin trying those things you’ve always wanted to try. Or things you think up right on the spot.

Let me give you an example. I have a friend named Dan who is a terrific Dobro player, plays a mean harmonica, and sings. The thing is, he’s unconventional. He’s a little unorganized, can’t really read a chord chart, and sometimes, well…he nods off. I think the world of him, but I knew that if I had him onstage, I needed to keep and eye on him. So when he was on with us, I'd try and put him right next to me, remind him what the next song is, remind him he needed a G harp because the next song was in D, etc. And he was always a wonderful, colorful, Kentucky-hills addition to our sound.

The benefit of having him right next to me was the implied endorsement--the audience trusted me, so they were okay with Dan. Then one week he was on by himself, sort of. He had a spot playing behind a drama, or something, and then played all the way through communion…or something. Anyway, tension abounded. The whole thing bombed. He didn’t have permission, because I wasn’t up there to give it to him, and the audience wasn’t giving it either.

It’s about trust, and you have to take time to build it.

So there you go! Keep the material easy enough, get a good mix, watch and listen, give yourself permission to try new things, and you’ll be finding those little moments more and more often.

There is one shortcut…I hesitate to suggest it…but if you're feeling lucky...

Do a terrific job of bombing one week—say, play Great is Thy Faithfulness as a Death Metal piece, then shave your head onstage and confess that you once parked in a handicap spot, and you want to get re-baptized to make up for it (that ought to do it!)—and the next week everyone will be so relieved you’re only doing sixteen banjos and an oboe, that they’ll go along with anything. It only works once, but it works reeeeaaallll good.