In the Book of Job we find the declaration: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taketh away.”
Well, after recent events I firmly believe that sometimes, at least in this case, the Lord giveth back again. Here’s what happened.
Sometime after I started going to church again, I was asked to play guitar during a Sunday service. I started off playing special songs only on occasion. It was a little nerve-racking at first, to be honest, but I understood it to be a small way I could give something back to God. The songs I played were mostly folk songs with a religious theme or blues spirituals. Playing at church became easier as I went along.
I stopped going to church as a young teenager, so I didn’t grow up with the traditional hymns ingrained in my brain as part of my mental songbook. Most of the old hymns were new to me. Becky would act surprised when I would tell her I wasn’t familiar with a hymn that she, and most of the parishioners, knew by heart. I still enjoy singing and learning the old/new songs.
After some time George, the church music director, asked me if I would accompany him on guitar while he played piano during the entire service. Sounded like a good experience, but I had a problem: I could read music in only a most superficial way.
My brief experience playing cornet in school taught me the rudiments of reading the treble clef, but just as I was getting started with that, I discovered the Beatles. From then on, pop music was the only music that interested me. I found a guitar, but figured out, once I got a copy of The Golden Beatles where printed guitar chord boxes accompanied the lyrics, I didn’t need to learn to read notes and scales. I could position my fingers on the strings to make a C chord or an A minor and sing along with the songs I already had committed to memory. So, attending to my listening ear and following chord boxes was how I learned guitar.
But I told George I needed help translating those music notes printed in the hymnal. Over the years when a piano was available, I had tried figuring it out, essentially translating from the guitar to the keyboard. Not particularly successful with that, but I did learn which piano keys corresponded to my guitar fretboard.
My method of playing along with George entailed watching his left hand play bass notes while using my ear and my understanding of how chording in general worked. (It is still a delight to discover how often church songs and pop songs have elements in common.)
Some hymns were more complicated than my ear could easily follow. Maybe I could have eventually figured it out, but I didn’t always have time to dissect a particular composition. That’s when George would open his hymnal and play the song slowly while calling out the names of the chords he was playing. I would scribble the chords in another hymnal as he played along. This system worked well, and I played along with him every Sunday. My annotated hymnal soon was filled with church music I could follow.
After a while, George moved on to other endeavors and Tammera took the musical director’s position at our church. She has a different musical focus, and soon I was back to playing occasional special music. This was fine with me. I as well as Becky are in the choir so there are still plenty of musical opportunities at church.
About the time George left, Becky and I wanted to rehearse a song the choir was scheduled to sing. I looked for my marked-up hymnal but it was not to be found. I went through all the places in the house where I might have left it. Nothing. I searched at church, even going through every hymnal in every pew. Nada. After weeks of searching, I figured it was gone. That was nearly nine years ago.
Last week Tammera mentioned that she had found a hymnal in the office in which someone had written musical notations. Of course, I wondered if it could be, and after flipping through it, realized it was. Oh, happy day! My special, helpful hymnal, which once was lost, was found.
Now, it could be coincidence. Or it could be amazing grace.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
