Key Charts and the Bible and Its Music

  

I love music, I have always loved music. When I was a small boy I had a little portable record player and small vinyl records, some records were yellow and others red. I would play my records in my bedroom or our living room; but I also remember going down to our finished basement, putting the player on the floor, putting a record on, lying down next to the player…and listening to the music, and listening….and listening…and falling asleep. The music took me to many places in my imagination, and it was peaceful, O so peaceful. The music and songs were for children, and I was a child, but as I child I learned to travel and travel I did…and travel I do…with music the travel guide and the transportation and the projectionist.

 

When I was in elementary school I took clarinet lessons, but nothing really came of it, possibly because we moved when my parents split-up and my concentration was scattered; focusing on anything was hard when we moved away from all that I knew in my little world.

 

When I was in my mid-twenties and living in Orlando, I worked the nightshift in a grocery store alongside Phil Simonds. Phil was a graduate of Brandeis University where he majored in music. He was a pianist and gave piano lessons during the day. Since I loved the piano and had messed around with pianos in churches and in friends’ houses over the years, not really knowing what I was doing, playing (if you can call it that) by a combination of ear and written music, I asked Phil if he would teach me some piano basics, which he cheerfully agreed to do.

 

I don’t remember much of my visit to Phil’s home other than sitting at his grand piano, him pulling out a key chart and putting it up on the keyboard, and then explaining to me how to use it. He also gave me a red Thompson’s book for learning piano and worked with me on proper hand and finger positioning.

 

As it turned out I learned to play the piano (using the word “play” loosely) by playing cords with my left hand. I kept the key chart that Phil gave me; even once I learned the keys and scales it was good to have it in the piano bench “just in case” I forgot something. I also had charts which laid out the scales for me to practice. Knowing the scales reminded me where I was on the piano, and it let me know what cords went with what scales – you might say that it reminded me of what my lefthand could and couldn’t do with the notes my righthand was playing.  

 

The reason I’ve been thinking about key charts and musical scales and cords (I also had a key chart for my clarinet, which I picked back up as an adult), is that they became a part of me, much like the Bible. Every musician I’ve ever known (and I am not a musician) has been into music 24/7 – it is something they have no desire to turn off. Some musicians can be obsessive to the exclusion of everything else, including people…but then I’ve known businesspeople like that too, and sports junkies. When I am around musicians just getting to know each other, I love hearing and watching them and especially listening to them play with each other. I’ve learned what to expect and I enjoy the ride.

 

The Bible, in some ways like music, is in my soul. Every morning when I pick my Bible up and open it, I look forward to what I will see, to how the Holy Spirit will speak to me. I have been reading and pondering the Bible for fifty-six years and God’s Word is more alive to me than ever, its depths and heights more moving and beautiful with each passing day. If I begin reading a Biblical book that I haven’t read in quite a while I’ll think, “O, I’ve missed this.” And if I am reading a passage I read every week or month, I’ll think, “O, how sweet this is again.” Or, “I never saw this before!”

 

I so love how the Bible speaks as One Voice, and presents One Image, and draws me into koinonia with the Trinity. I love its harmony and melody and infinite arrangements. I love its many genres – from giddy laughter and joy to somber repentance and reflection, to gentle caressing love ballots. Unlike key charts, which once we learn we need not refer to again, the Bible calls us to live in it daily, hourly, with every breath. To not read the Bible daily, to not meditate in it, to not learn to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to us through its passages (musical scores) and to not cross pollinate with others is frankly foolish for the professing Christian. Yet we tend to satisfy ourselves with others telling us what is in the Bible, which means – no matter how we might protest this statement – that we are satisfied with others living the Christian life for us, we will live it vicariously – no matter how much we deny it.

 

This is akin to someone who listens to music played by others declaring that he is a musician. While we are not all called to be musicians, all followers of Jesus Christ are called to learn the music of the Bible, to live in it, to share it, to cross pollinate, to see Jesus Christ throughout the Book, and to grow deeper in the Scriptures with each passing year, month, and week. When we gather together we ought to be sharing some new cords we’ve learned, some new arrangements, some new musical (Biblical) insights – for if music is constantly alive for the musician, how much more ought the Bible to be alive for the Christian?