No purpose to play.

I hate attention when it comes to music.  I really don’t prefer to be the center of attention in general, but especially pertaining to music.

While getting dressed this morning, my goal was to just throw something on to get out of the house as quickly as possible.  I sifted through some t-shirts and pulled out an old band t-shirt from probably my freshman or sophomore year of high school.  After putting it on, I began to reminisce about high school band and how much I enjoyed it.  I often get a surprised reaction when people find out I was in band in high school.  I was involved in band from the 6^th grade until my junior year.  My senior year, I just felt like I wasn’t supposed to be a part of the band anymore, so I stepped out of it.  This choice wasn’t easy.  During football season, I would still go to the games and sit in the stands with the band, and cry every time they went out onto the field at halftime.  Even though I wasn’t a part anymore, I was still so proud of them and I still loved everything about my experience in band.

I know God had planned for me not to be in band my senior year.  During this time, my time was more focused on piano (outside of band).  I had been in lessons since I was 7, and all my teachers always pushed me to go to competitions and festivals, etc.

My experience in performing music was never for leisure or just to play.  In band, I was always in a group so my clarinet was heard as part of the whole sound.  You couldn’t distinguish what I was playing from anyone else.  And also, I never played my clarinet outside of band performances or practice.  It wasn’t something fun for me to do just on my own.  In piano, I was always practicing for competitions, or just practicing to try to get to the next level of books.  My experience in playing the piano was really never for leisure or fun either.  Every once in a while I would come across a song or sheet music that I wanted to learn just to be able to play it, but I always had so many other things to learn that it seemed like a waste of time to learn something just for “fun”. 

I never had any trouble playing the piano in front of a set of judges or in front of a congregation at church.  But something that always bothered me was playing in front of friends or family or a small group of people.  When there was a piano in the room and people knew that I played, they would beg me to play something. “Just play something! Anything! It doesn’t matter, we just want to hear you play!”  I always refused.  I still will refuse.  Playing music without purpose or “just for fun” is something that is kind of lost to me.  It makes sense in my head to play for a football game, or for a competition, or for worship.  But playing just to play is hard for me to wrap my mind around, and makes me really uncomfortable. 

I have barely touched a piano since I was on the worship team at XA my sophomore year.  With no purpose to play, I just don’t play.  It is a complete shame that my musical life is so dry after so many years of investment in music.  I don’t know if I will ever have a change of mind in how I feel about performing, or if there will ever be opportunity again for purpose to play.  I have prayed for a long time that my musicality will not go to waste, and I’m still waiting for God to reveal more to me about that.