The guy on the bass is Planetshaker’s bassist Mark Peric and if you are wondering, yes the guy doing nothing on the swivel chair is Planetshaker’s iconic lead singer and worship leader Henry Seeley.
I was pretty impressed by this guy’s playing when I chanced upon this video when a thought, or rather an observation hit me. Most of us do know the kind of music that Planetshakers generate; youth appealing, new age, loud and in short – rocky. Many a times do we associate a musician’s “skill” with the kind of music they usually play and in even more instances do we go “Huh that guy plays metal are you sure he knows a thing about jazz?”
True, it is sad that many musicans do not fully make use of their entire technique/skill library into the songs they produce, some merely playing to please while others are too afraid to deviate but we should never look down on other musicians because their music seems “more inferior” than ours.
Even in many cases, musicians tend to overdo things. We levites, songwriters, arrangers etc always look for means and ways to make our music different from the guy next door, we put in every effort to ensure that our music stands out while sometimes, more really is less. Doug mentioned to us 2 weeks ago, “the hardest thing for a musician to play is silence.” I will not digress further into what he said because I simply can’t. You have to interpret that line in your own way.
I’ve been listening to many of Hillsong’s old albums recently, By Your Side, Blessed, You are My World, For This Cause etc and each time I listen to those songs, I am amazed at how the songs are written, how the musicians never fail to deliver the songs to their best potential and how the worship leaders bring about the anoiting and the holy spirit into the congregation. Songs from that era are really one league apart from today’s songs.
Remember the song “Sing of Your Great Love”? I think that song has the simplest and the ‘least amount of words used’ chorus in the history of gospel (and maybe secular) music.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord…
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord…
4 simple, common and widely used words in our Christian environment but yet those 4 words make such a huge difference in that song. Whenever I listen to it on the bus, I’m really mesmerised by the music occationally I just feel like singing those words out. As Greg said, long bus rides and ministering music make good time to reflect.
For those who have not listened to that song, please do. For those who don’t have it, ask me.
Musicians, work hard. Pianists practice your chords, guitarist work on your scales and licks, bassists get your slaps and foundations right, drummers play tighty and put in appropriate fill-ins because ultimately even if we do not use these skills in every of our song, it is still a form of worship unto God. And as we get better, as we strive to play better and more, our music will get better.
And only when our music gets better, will we seek to play less, because less is more.
