Pro day
I led worship this morning. Gotta brag on my crew. We had such a ‘pro’ day. What do I mean by that? Well, pros usually come prepared. It’s best to be prepared. But for a variety of reasons, we couldn’t be. Half of us were playing together for the first time, or the first time in several months. Our drummer was coming back from having a baby—long hiatus. Our bassist was coming back from six weeks in Japan. Our pianist was back from a lengthy trip to Africa. One of our vocalists was new, a guest with us. It was the time-change, too, so of course we were all late. Lost an hour.
We also played two new songs and one original. Could have been disastrous. We walked in, line-checked, hit all three songs just by calling out the numbers: “6 5 1, 2 1/3 4 1 5…” no fuss. We ran through each song once, went and got coffee and talked through each song: “Key of Bb, it goes verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, chorus, bridge…” After talking through it once, we got up and rolled. No mistakes. No drama. No hiccups. No fear. We just balled.
Why?
Because we’re pros. A pro…
Can handle numbers being thrown out on the fly
Knows his or her instrument
Listens
Listens
Listens!
Can play in any key
Listens!
I’m proud of my team. It wasn’t always this way. We used to have to go through lengthy hours-long rehearsals, felt like trudging through wet sand, but now we prep as best as we can on our own and just do a run-through and a talk-through walk-through. We used to have to change keys multiple times, now our vocalists know their range. We had people who hadn’t learned the Nashville Number System, and now, over time they’ve learned it and are aces. It took time. We used to struggle to get decent monitor mixes, now everyone is an ace at dialing in their own personal monitors via their phones in the Mixing Station app.
We ball.
We sounded better than fantastic; it was the best.
I love my team.
It takes time. It takes doing life together. It takes making allowances for life, for work-trips and mission-trips and nursing babies. It takes patience and grace. It takes a culture of commitment to one another and to excellence in communication with one another. It takes LISTENING to one another. Most of all, it takes keeping your cool, not treating this like it’s some great drama. Show up, have fun, play out, listen to what others are doing… yeah. That’s so pro.