Not a guitar guy

The Music Of Christmas; Steven Curtis Chapman

Mom took care of Cory and Cody J. when they were little boys. Cory was the oldest of the two brothers, by about four or five years, as I recall. At separate times in their lives, each spent a few hours in the afternoon with Mrs. Apland, or S’apand as one called her, after Debbie dropped him off while on her way to work in the afternoon and before Logan picked him up later on in the afternoon on his way home from work. And when my sisters and I got home from school, we got to pretend that we had a little brother. For a while. We got Cory to say the word “shelterbelt” when he was three years old, and I think that was the cutest thing that I’ve ever heard come out of the mouth of one God’s creatures. Cody once asked Dad if he wanted a “havnich” (sandwich) for lunch. Those were golden days.

I don’t know how he acquired it, but Logan happened to come by an acoustic guitar. The J. family wasn’t a particularly musical family, so he asked me if I wanted to hang onto it for a while. I said yes and took it up to my room. And there it stayed for five or six years. I never developed an interested in playing it. The piano came so much easier to me and, in comparison, the guitar required so much more effort to play well. I did, however, learn how to tune it. Now and again I would strum the guitar as I walked by it and it would kill me to not adjust it if it was out of tune. One time, after one such drive-by strumming, I heard that the top string was flat, so I tightened it up and then stretched out on my bed to read a book with Snoopy (our cat) cozying up beside me. Ten minutes later … TWANG!!! … the string broke and Snoopy was hanging from the rafters with three fewer lives than he had just a couple of seconds before. One of the funniest things I ever saw.

Logan eventually came and got the guitar because one of the boys wanted to take guitar lessons. Cody, I think. And that was the last that I had anything to do with a guitar. If I would have started college one year later than I did, then I would have had to take a guitar proficiency exam before being allowed to graduate.

I guess that guitars are just not my thing. Some of the most talented musicians in my iPhone are guitar players. Over the years I’ve heard tell by some of these friends that one of the hardest things to do on a guitar is to accompany a hymn because the chords change almost every beat. A person who can lead worship playing hymns on a guitar is a rarity.

Mr. Steven Curtis Chapman is just such a rarity. He doesn’t cringe from playing the common hymn-like carols like “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, “Angels We Have Heard On High”, “Carol Of The Bells” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful”. His guitar playing, as always, is spot on, especially on a track called “Interlude: The Music of Christmas”. Two selections from this album stand out. “This Baby” contrasts the humanistic similarities, that virtually all young boys have in common, with the divine elements that set the young boy Jesus apart from everyone. “Going Home For Christmas” paints the portrait of a woman the aspects of whom any one of us imagine seeing in our grandmother or grandfather.

I would guess that any musician who is proficient on his or her own instrument can have moments of envy in the benefits of playing a different instrument. A piccolo player doesn’t have to carry very much to a gig, says the tuba player. Why can’t my instrument have as large a repertoire as the violin, asks the violist. If you want to be a truly efficient one-man band, the guitar is the way to go, says the heavy keyboard-wielding piano player. Then I remember how many more notes my instrument has than the guitar. And I’m content. For a while.

Credits: To Cory and Cody J., and all others who can stand as a surrogate brother or sister for those who reach out for such a relationship when a real brother or sister is not available.