Best Improv You've Seen Recently?
(Re)Finding Your Spark When Life Becomes all Notes, no Music
A few years ago I took up piano lessons.
I started learning scales. Somewhat quickly I was able to figure out how to play little melody lines from a few favorites. And my teacher was pleased with my rather immediate progress.
It felt good. It felt exciting!
Eventually, of course, the scales were not so fun.
The repetition and attention to detail required became tiresome.
How many of us have jumped into a new endeavor, a new job, a new hobby - and the initial spark is exhilarating!? We make more progress that anticipated. Things are firing on all cylinders. The New Years Resolution starts strong!
But then the progress…slows.
The new becomes the normal.
The spark flickers.
What do you do?
One evening during my season of piano malaise I was out to dinner with a group of friends. Eagerly and without a word, one of those friends got up, sat down at a piano in the far corner of the restaurant, and he offered up an incredibly moving piece of improv jazz.
He was up and down the keyboard.
His body was swaying.
The music, the piano, and his body were one.
It brought a transcendence to the entire space!
And it was my spark. No, I was never going to play the piano like him, but I caught the vision again for just what a gift live music is; just what a gift the piano is.
That moment reignited a new season of sustained piano playing.
(Photo by Ebuen Clemente Jr on Unsplash)
There are plenty of people around us who have lost their spark. Perhaps we include ourselves among that crowd.
It’s all scales, no soul.
All quarter notes, no grace notes.
All just-like-the-music-on-the-page-says-to-do-it, no improv.
If that’s you, then yes, I guess it could be that you simply need to press through until the scales turn to soul once more. That does happen.
But also…
What if we took a few moments to look at those around us in the room of life who are playing right now?
What if in our season of tiredness, discouragement or apathy, it was a soul-ful person in the room who might provide our fresh spark?
Which means… what if the most needful thing in our life right now is not another quarter note but eight solid measures of rest?
And as we lift our fingers from the keys,
settle into those eight measures,
and take in the joyful, focused improv another…
…might it be that their offering is precisely the gift we need right now?
Let me add this:
If today you are, in fact, full of soul, grace notes, and improv…
If you sense your life is not just a cover song to someone else’s tune but more and more it is your uniquely jazzed-up offering playing forth…
If even amid the stress, demands, and uncertainties you sense a fundamental enthusiasm and joy about your work in this world…
…then know this: you are most definitely a spark for someone.
Soul-ful music simply cannot be contained. Even if only playing in…
the corner office,
the corner bedroom,
the corner of the community,
the corner of the restaurant or
the corner of the street…
…that kind of music fills the whole space every time.
(Photo by Eric Han on Unsplash)
And so, on behalf of all of us who are most definitely feeding from your gift and do not tell you this nearly enough, hear it now:
We see you in the corner.
We hear you in the corner.
Thank you for being our Spark.
God gives us all gifts in different forms to share. Some our grand, others are very soft and subtle. They are still a spark to someone else observing. The tiniest spark can start a fire. Go out and sparkle like glitter- it goes everywhere.
Hi Pastor Bobby,
Thank you for sharing. I normally like working in the yard but not so much on cool weather days. On these days I turn to my sewing machine for happiness. I put on my music and sew away. Thankful to my Mom for teaching me how to sew and to be happy with small activities.
Thank you for all you do and share with all of us. ❤️