couple of questions
1.when did you start playing (age)
2.when did you start playing songs correctly
3.when did GOD take your playing level up(After how long since you started)?
4.When did you become good enough to carry a service?
5.What exersises you use for your fingers?
(Hannon.......)(made up)
6.Did you start by ear, training, lessons?
I started playing when I was about 11.
It depends what you mean by "playing correctly." I seem to play "correctly" on days without a "Y" in it. Seriously, I can't really remember (it's been over 40 years).
God has taken my level up several times. The first was in college. It was the day I learned to sight read. I was able to sight read reasonably, but it never was a "life or death" situation. In my first year, I was selected to be available as an accompanist to high school students, who did not have an accompanist, who were auditioning for the music department. It was no longer just my derrière on the line if I messed up. It was nerve racking, but I pulled through with flying colors -- Praise the Lord.
I did not have the opportunity to regularly play for a church until I moved to S. Texas when I was 28. There I was organist and later also choir director in a United Methodist Church for 10 years and then a small non-denominational church for another 10 years. While I was probably technically ready several years earlier, I wasn't spiritually ready until about that time.
I started out with classical lessons. But my early music education was rather eclectic. For a couple of years I took lessons from a gentleman who taught everything -- piano, organ, banjo, guitar, cello, harp, etc. He would actually have group lessons of these diverse instruments at the same time. This is where I got a good dose of ear and he literally beat rhythm into us. [Pardon the pun.]
Also, since I didn't start out in the school band when the others did, I later joined in 9th grade when the band director was looking for a string bass player. So in High School, I learned string bass, bass guitar, tuba, and bass clarinet (I would learn whatever instrument the band directors needed at any given time. I was never a master at any of these other instruments, but I got a lot of good experiences with them. I was also the pianist for the jazz ensemble, which solidified my love of jazz.
