Drumming and Freedom

I was at a big Christian festival-ish thing last week, and firstly I should say it was epic. Secondly, I’d like to share two stories about drumming that I really really love.

Number One.

The banjo player from a band called Rend Collective Experiment - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N3h0BKV6gw - told the story of how he got into performing music. His dad was quite a successful, well-renowned  musician in churches in Ireland and England, and his son was obviously keen to play as well. But then, more surprisingly, when he was seven years old – and not particularly a prodigy – his dad made him the drummer in his band. This well-respected, serious artist started turning up to churches and performances with a seven year old kid carrying some drumsticks. And the son, now a bit more grown up, said this: “I wasn’t very good, and I’m pretty sure the music was nowhere near what it could have been – but I loved that he put the people before the perfection.”

And I loved that story because it is genuinely just what being Christian is like. God is immense. We are – Barack Obama and Bear Grylls included – spectacularly inadequate. We’re like seven year olds enthusiastically failing to keep in time with the intricate rhythms of redemption. But we are his seven year olds. He adopts us as his kids and loves us so much he wants us to come on tour with him – and yeah we mess up the music most of the time, but he just loves that we’re up there with him playing our hearts out.

Number Two.

Early on in the week I was mildly annoyed by the fact that when we were all together singing and worshipping God, the big projectors with the words on also had live video feed of the band playing on stage – I was annoyed because I was trying to concentrate on Jesus but I found myself just watching the guy with the guitar all the time. Anyway, near the end of the week, my attitude changed because of this one, five second shot of the drummer. The camera cut to him just as a quiet bit was ending, and he was just sitting there, kind of relaxing, just doing the bass pedal with his foot. And then suddenly, at just the right moment, he comes alive, takes up his sticks, and smashes out this huge fill and goes into some crazily fast complicated beat for the chorus. And I saw this and I was just blown away by how free it was. He wasn’t sitting there, concentrating hard, thinking about which drums he was supposed to hit in a minute, and in what order – he was totally relaxed, and then he just picked up the sticks and went crazy, and it sounded awesome. And you could see when he was playing that he was just giving it everything he’d got – he was throwing his soul into that kit, he was holding nothing back. I know I’m sounding a bit pretentious but honestly, watch a good drummer really drum, it’s incredible.

Anyway, there’s a point to this story as well. When I was thinking about how awesome this guy’s drumming was, I thought about what I would be able to do at that drum kit. I’ve never learnt the drums, I’ve never practised – I’m quite musical, but I just haven’t put the hours in. And if you told me to “just go for it” with a drum kit, I would smash things for a few seconds, and it would be a bit fun but I’d feel quite stupid because it would sound horrendous and I wouldn’t know how to actually do anything fun or interesting or whatever. I wouldn’t be able to freely throw my soul into that drum kit because I just have not practised. I have not trained. And it struck me (if you’ll excuse the very slight pun) that I make a fairly big mistake quite often.

I know that Jesus came to set us free. To make us free people. And a lot of the time I act like that means he wouldn’t want me to do stuff that’s really hard, or frustrating, or tiring, or boring. Because I’m free – I don’t have to do that stuff, right? But actually, I looked at this guy pick up those sticks and go crazy and I thought, I’m not as free as I could be. If he’d come to drum lessons every week, or practice every day, and declared that he was free so he could just sit there and hit things randomly, however he pleased, then he would not be able to play like he did that night. He had to stick it out through hours and years of drills, and exercises, and practice pieces that made him want to find the composer and smash his head between two cymbals – but that discipline has set him free. And if I want to be able to actually live the epic, wholehearted, powerfully beautiful life Jesus offers me, then I have to train. I have to be disciplined. I have to spend time with him and learn from him even when I find it boring, practice things and un-practice other things even when it’s frustrating, serve him and his loved ones even when it’s exhausting. Because of course I am already free – but I want to be like that drummer. As free as he made me to be.