Just gotta say I love this thread. Some of the things you all say are so true. The only thing I've experienced that really gets to me is when someone tells me I'm too loud like during talking moments or praying moments in a service.
When I first started playing the organ, like I'd only been playing about 6 months, we had just learned "I've, I've got a praise, I've got a praise, and I gotta get it out, I've got a praise" and we sang it for a youth service. Right in the middle of the song, the keyboard player yells and points downward "TURN IT DOWN!! :x"....I could barely hear myself at the volume I was playing because he was so loud, plus I got drums right next to me. So I did and I couldn't hear a thing.
A couple of years later, another keyboard player and I were playing for the service and during a time when everyone was praying and being sensitive to the spirit, I was playing an average volume I thought...not too loud, but not too soft. And she snaps her fingers at me and gives me this look and whispers turn it down.
Then another time, not too long ago, at the beginning of the service right after we finished the first song, the minister leading the service is talking and all the musicians are playing kinda soft. I thought I was playing soft enough, but my music director says "hold it for a minute", meaning, you're too loud, play softer.
It just irks me like nothing when people try to tell me how loud/soft to play just because I'm the youngest musician there. Then one Sunday's when the pastor's wife plays, sometimes she'll play kind loud and no one says anything to her. Other than those times, I really enjoy playing the organ. I get quite a bit of satisfaction hearing myself play and listening to that leslie sing.
