Where words fail, music speaks. --Hans Christian Andersen
That's exactly how I feel about piano/classical/church music. It touches the heart in ways words cannot. There is tremendous power in the music we subject ourselves to. Beautiful music has an amazing ability to bring the Spirit into our lives while degrading music has that ability to drive the Spirit out. I strongly believe that music is one of the deadliest weapons the adversary has in his arsenal. I know. I've been there. Not too deep or too heavy, but enough that I thought I couldn't live without it. Like all things, music is a wonderful gift God has given all of us if we use it in the right way, in moderation. In our house, New Age piano trumps rock-n-roll any day. Period. Enough said.
The other night Tyler and I treated our kids to a Jon Schmidt concert, right in our own backyard . . . well, not literally. One day I was browsing his site and happened upon his upcoming events and saw he was coming to Tooele. I knew immediately I had to take my kids, and the $5 tickets were a steal.
Awhile ago my gracious mother presented her ticket to me so I could see him perform in Price when I was home one weekend. After that initial concert I knew I had to introduce him to the family. I had heard him before, but the concert made it so much more alive, and several weeks later I took Ty to a performance at Thanksgiving Point.
This last performance was very intimate, in a minuscule performance hall, and the sound was superb. Jon Schmidt is labeled a New Age artist, but a New Age artist who turns that sound upside down by adding a little classical or rock-n-roll. His music engaged my kids who were dancing and clapping and loving every minute of it. And the best part of the evening was the advice he gave to the kids in the audience: If you want to become good at anything, you have to put the time into it whether it's the piano or basketball or dance. He challenged them to try and practice 10 hours for one week and see if that did not make them better musicians. High fives to him.
Jon Schmidt, you're welcome to play any time at our house, preferably live and on the grand piano we don't have. But we'll take the mp3 version as well.
1 comment:
I wish I could have taken Jonathan there. He heard him outside at a scout thing, but an intimate setting like that must have been powerful! He plays lots of his songs.
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