What you MUST know when you start on a new instrument

Hello, everyone!

Psalm 141:3 “Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD, keep watch over the door of my lips.”

What a week it’s been! The official launch of the Play Drums for Worship course, going back to teaching drums again in a systematic and organized fashion… boy, I feel like a 15 year-old, back in my secondary school band room, looking at the faces of the new intake of percussion recruits again!

And despite the obvious difference in age, the zeal and desire to learn is there, whether we’re talking about the secondary 1 boys from half a lifetime ago, or the new students of the Play Drums for Worship course. To all you students who have taken the bold step of starting to learn a new instrument, congratulations! I hope that you will enjoy this journey with me and your fellow students.

One thing I keep seeing and want to talk about is this: many people starting on learning a new skill spend time talking about their mistakes. For example, “Oops, I missed it!” or “Salah!” (the Malay word for “Wrong!” or “I got my wrist/body/drumstick position wrong.”

And if you do that, stop it.

Now.

Why? Because, first, I’m the teacher, I can tell when you’ve made a mistake Some of you know I can hear a mistake from across the classroom. There’s no need for you to tell me. :-)

Next, when you talk about the mistake, at a subconscious level you are reinforcing the mistake. Trust me on this: in all my years of teaching experience, I’ve seen that if you keep describing and talking about your mistake you get better and better at making that same mistake.

So what should you say? In class, either you ask me how to do something correctly, or when you understand what I am saying you echo me “I’m to hold my stick THIS way? Got it!”

And when you’re strumming, playing the rhythm on the keyboard or doing the stick exercises this is what should be coming out of your mouth:

“One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and…”

Use your mouth to count out loud, and decide that your hands will follow your counts. Keep your counts steady and your playing will eventually conform to them. Got it? :-)

Proverbs 10:19: “when words are many, sin is not absent…”

And guard your words at home when you are practicing. If you can’t say anything good about your playing, keep counting aloud. Your hands will eventually conform to your counts.

So have a great week practicing! And think through what I just shared today in this email, you will find it applicable to many other areas of your life too.

Gotta go. Do uphold me in prayer. I’m starting my next round of marketing efforts for the Play Drums for Worship course. Pray that I will be directed to the right people, and that the right people will be directed to my classes, that I may serve the people God wants me to serve.

Ok, be blessed!