Van Gogh, A Mummy, and Impressionistic Guitar Playing
- fletchermilloy
- Mar 22, 2018
- 5 min read
February I was chilling doing a lot of introspecting. March I met and played with as many people as I could. And within a couple weeks an accomplished musician said something to me that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget:
“Every day your talent is either improving or declining.”
It started to stress me out. Eliminating stagnation as a thing in my guitar playing throws comfort and complacence out the window. If that’s true then shouldn't I be practicing for hours on end every day? I could, but planning to do so would be setting myself up to be discouraged by the impracticality of it. While trying to not starve, launching an indie band, and going to school full time with a leadership position, that type of approach would be impossible.
However, I started becoming hyper conscientious to the small ways I can grow my musicianship on a daily basis. Whether it was listening to a record that is outside of my comfort zone genre-wise, jamming with somebody that challenges me or asking musicians about what they are learning on their instrument.
For some reason impressionism came into my mind. Its a style of painting and writing that uses cloudy vague details to strengthen an ulterior art piece.
Think Monet and Van Gogh for painters, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad for writers (if you haven’t read it, its basically Apocalypse Now set in 1800’s Congo).
So many of these nuances and lessons that I am presented with on a daily basis can be applied to guitar, just like how those small and undefined brush strokes and paragraphs were used. With enough of them added to my musical understanding, the bigger picture of what is created will be truer to who I am as a musician more so than any solo I could slave over for days on end.
I took this impressionistic style of viewing things while reading the bible. Cause I don’t know, but I got this feeling like when I finally meet Jesus he’s going to be this absolutely nasty guitarist. And I can’t imagine He gave me such a love for this instrument and reading without giving me stories in the bible that I can apply to my playing.
So John 11. Dude dies, Jesus makes him the first ever mummy. Taught me some cool things about guitar and life. Pretty legit, lets get to it.
Preceding this, Jesus just did one of the raddest mic drop sermon’s outside of the temple in Jerusalem by saying “I and the Father are one.”
Library’s have been written off of this sentence alone, so basically all you need to know is he said that he was God, the Jews at the time we’re definitely not okay with it and wanted to kill him. So he crosses this river called the Jordan. Kind of like those old school video games where if you hopped in the water the bad guys couldn’t get to you, yep, Jesus was the first gamer too.
He is somewhat safe, people aren’t trying to chuck stones at his head. Then he finds out his buddy Lazarus isn’t doing so great and says two things.
“This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Okay, music analogy time. Jesus just gave us the chord progression of a song: “This illness does not lead to death.” No matter what happens, we know that we’re going to be jamming on this truth.
And the time signature: “It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” The entire purpose of the events about to take place will be brought back to this.
After he says these things, he decides to go to where Lazarus is: Judea, the place he just escaped from.
Now this is a long story, very impressionistic in details, but the part that really stuck out to me was the juxtaposition between the faith of Martha… and literally everybody else.
Thomas totally has faith, when Jesus suggests returning he’s the guy saying, “Let us also go [back to Judea], that we may die with him [Jesus].”
But if you’re familiar with how the story of Thomas progresses in this book, you’re probably aware of how he kinda has a hard time believing dead people can live again.
He's cool with doing the hard work that comes with growth (going to Judea), but does he really believe that improvement will happen? Practicing your instrument without having the faith that you will become a better player will lead you down a road of continuous discouragement that eventually leads to... dun dun dunnnnnn: burnout.
Jesus arrives in Bethany about 2 miles outside of Jerusalem. Martha runs to him immediately (Mary sits back at home distracted by her grief): “Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died, but even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
Now Mary says the same thing: “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But then she stops and weeps.
Mary believes Jesus had the power, but she constrained his timing into a box. I don’t blame her, like bro if somebody’s dead, they’re pretty dead. But when you shut out the only One who can raise things back to live, those talents, environments, situations are going to stay that way.
Martha gets it, she understands, "Alright, this song is a bit weird, all I have are these chords, this tone, this gear to work with. But I know that Jesus is life (growth), not death (stagnation). And that trusting in Him will not only improve who I am and those surrounding me, but my art form as well, because he promised that death is not where this story ends."
Verse 44 rolls around. Lazarus has been in the tomb for 4 days. Probably smells like the time I spilt a Venti sized Chai in my car when it was 118 degrees outside and forgot to clean it up (it was lethal).
Martha, embarrassed, brings this up. "Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days."
Or the Fletcher translation : "Am I really ready for what God is going to do? Maybe I didn't practice enough, I don't have the right amp, or a string broke during the first song and I NEED it for the lead riff thats coming up."
Jesus says: "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the Glory of God?... Lazarus, come out."
Jesus doesn't offer stagnation. He offers growth, and the more we chase after growing as a person in him, the more our talents will be perfected into a way that he designed and intends them to be: completely unique to ourselves and unshakable in the foundation he promised we'll find when he is the root of everything we do.
Shorter playlist this time but not gonna lie its pretty fire:
http://spoti.fi/2pxCr5c
Animal Spirits - Vulfpeck
Never Ready - Xandra Gunnell
Go! (feat. Mai Lan) - M83
Emerald Rush - Jon Hopkins
Back Pocket - Vulfpeck
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