The Songbook of Our Lives

Music is a wonderful thing. In fact, music is so wonderful that people all around the world learn to speak different languages primarily through music. I have seen this first hand in Iraq as some of our Iraqi Army counterparts can speak pretty good English and when asked how they learned, the answer is almost always music, with an occasional movie answer. It is quite amazing when you think about it as this country has an alarmingly high illiteracy rate. Music often times will make you feel good when you are feeling down or will support your happy feelings when you are feeling up. Music makes biographies of people’s lives. With this in mind, I threw my hat into the musical ring about 2 years ago as I was attempting to get back into music, personally and with no professional aspirations.

Almost 2 years ago, I was part of a “church reconstruction” group that was attempting to change our church for the better. Our church was a good church with people wanting to praise and glorify God. The problem we were having was that some of the “senior leadership” of the church did not want to make changes to assist in the growth of the church. We had had an interim pastor for just over 2 years and the church attendance was shrinking weekly with no positive outlook. This interim pastor was brought in because he was “known” by a member of a pastor search committee formed to bring in a new pastor after our pastor of about 5 years had been called to another church.  As certain individuals began to worry about the direction and life of the church, the plan came out to request a new pastor search committee to find a pastor to fill the church and the community’s needs. The new committee was brought in and the “church reconstruction” group was formed.

This reconstruction group would meet to discuss ideas to bring people back to the church and get people in that had never been in. We met once a week to discuss these ideas with many being thrown around such as spring carnivals, fall festivals, special Saturday events for the kids, and finally music. Music had been a major issue since before our old pastor had left. We discussed how the introduction of modern contemporary Christian music may reach some of the younger folks in the community. This idea of getting younger folks into church was the driving force behind reconstruction so we stuck with that. The problem we had was our music director was not keen about changing the music or even combining musical styles and said he would not introduce the new stuff. So, the musical part had to fall on someone with musical experience, passion, and desire for the new style. With my age, it was decided that person should be me. So, after many days of praying, I felt that God was sending me in that direction.

I had a friend who could play guitar as I remembered it. I sent him a message on facebook asking if he still played and in no time, I received his reply that he did still play. I requested a meeting with him and asked him to bring his guitar and to also look up some praise and worship guitar tabs/chords so that I could see how well it would go. We met and it was amazing how well he could play the requested music. As we sat down and talked, he agreed to come and play for me and I would sing. At that point, we practiced for about 2 ½ hours and it was like God put the right song there, at the right time and it came so easily that practice was not needed any further as we chose the song, “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” by Chris Tomlin. That upcoming Sunday we were to sing this song.

When we got to church, there was some issues with the upstairs air conditioning and we were forced to the fellowship hall. There, we had no accompaniment music other than my buddy’s guitar. At that point, we were asked to do another song. We had only practiced the one song and I knew no other ones right off hand that we could probably do. However, my friend pulled out his guitar and started strumming one and sang the words. It just clicked… God had done it again. So, we opened the worship service with that song, “Holiness” by SonicFlood. The music was an uplifting experience and much praise came from it. Then, we did “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” and wow, it too was amazing and very uplifting. That day… changed everything for me. I realized that I still enjoyed playing music and singing. That’s when I decided to get back into music on a personal level.

I really wanted to learn to play the piano so, I went out and bought a Yamaha keyboard to learn on. I grabbed a hymnal and downloaded some free music online. I also watched various Youtube videos to learn songs. It came fairly easy as I already knew how to read music from my days of playing a viola in my school strings ensemble. The piano was fairly difficult to get started on as I had to self teach myself what note in the music corresponded with what keys on the keyboard. I was able to play for almost a year before getting deployed to Iraq. I had contemplated having my keyboard sent over but changed my mind… I changed my mind once here and I got to see and hear some talented kids play the guitar. At that point, I had decided that I wanted to learn how to play a guitar. So, I asked one of the kids if he could help me learn and he was ecstatic and jumped at the opportunity to teach and play. So, I asked for a guitar for Christmas from my wife and her, being the amazing wife that she is, bought me an Ibanez acoustic guitar for Christmas. I received it 2 days before Christmas but wasn’t allowed by her to open it until Christmas day. So, since Christmas day, 2009, I have been learning to play the Ibanez acoustic guitar. I have had several people helping me out and I have come a long way in such a short time, or so these guys tell me. I am having fun and have been able to learn several songs ranging from Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” to Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Cinderella,” which I intend to either do a webcam video performance to send to my 3 lovely ladies back home, or post on my youtube, or maybe I’ll do a live performance when I get home in April for R&R leave. Maybe, I’ll do all of the above… I haven’t really decided. The song is very touching and means so much to me as a father of a little girl and soon to be 2 little girls. Steven wrote this song after his adopted daughter tragically lost her life in a accident at their home.

Anyway, music is amazing… I have penned a song myself that I am putting the finishing touches on and I plan to play for my church congregation when I get back from Iraq which I thoroughly look forward to doing.  Music has touched my life and taught me a lot about myself. It helps people learn and speak other languages… Music is amazing. Why don’t you go grab yourself some type of musical instrument and learn to play today.

William Cobb
http://whcobb.weebly.com
http://williamcobb.blogspot.com

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13