Sunday, March 10, 2013


When you are a musician playing in a venue, you put your trust in the sound guy.  Tom or Steve or Joe is responsible for your ability to hear yourself and other band members, the balance of sound between you and the other performers, as well as everything that the audience hears.  The only problem is that Tom is usually far from the stage in the back of the venue.  Those lucky enough to have a sound check before the performance may get a few seconds of across-the-venue talk with Tom but communication is almost always done through the musician-created language of hand signals. 

Among the cords and instruments covering the stage is the most important communicative device available to you: wedges, also called monitors, which are speakers that perform instant playback of the live music.  The musicians are each miked individually but each musician can form their own compilation of the live parts through their wedges; therefore, a musician can hear a lot or a little of their own sound and varying levels of the other musicians. 

It is important you to hear yourself at every moment of the performance.  If you cannot hear your own sound, you may be playing or singing out-of-tune or ahead or behind the beat.  In a venue, whether large or small, acoustics can present a deceiving sound.  Because of this, you and other musicians can always communicate with Tom.  He is responsible and always waiting to help you get what you need through your wedges.  Any performer can order more volume of lead vocal or backup guitar so that they can get a better picture of the situation and adjust themselves accordingly.   An aware musician and their communication with the always-aware Tom can make for an excellent performance. 

Like a musician, we are entitled to constant communication with a perfectly aware being to ensure our correctness or find our necessary course correction.  Prayer, like hand signals to Tom, is relatively simple to learn; yet, in the heat of the moment, many of us forget its usefulness, similar to the nervous or unprepared performer who fails to remember their easily accessible resource.  When we, the unrehearsed musician, can decide to call upon the powers of Heaven, we can receive abundant guidance and find our way.  We are already fluent in the divine language of prayer; we simply must remember to use it to our greatest advantage.

Every person has a divine entitlement to the reception of personal revelation.  Prayer works because God is listening.  The Church is true.  

"And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call."  -Joel 2:32

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