Well, that's another Wednesday in the books.

Just finished a conversation with an unlikely friend. To be fair, I don't think we're properly friends or ever will be. I think we'll continue getting along just fine as our paths cross but I don't know if long-term friendship will pan out. We're quite different.

Where we're different, it's stark but where we see eye-to-eye, it's glorious.

It's really nice to chat with someone - possibly the only someone of this ilk that I know - who can (and does) talk and think about music more than I do.

I realise he has many peers in this but for me right now he's acting as a sort of outlet and I'm grateful. He won't let me talk theory but that's OK. We think deeply about music and we both have ideas for shape, feel, flow, color and so we can talk at a level that most people (in my experience) roll their eyes at (even though most of them enjoy the finished product!).

He seems never to run out of interesting things to show me.

When tonight's rehearsal was officially adjourned, I said as quiet-loudly* as I could, "Now play something fun."

*this means I wanted to tune one person's frequency and no one else's.

A kind of "Oh-ho!"-chortle came out and he picked around briefly while I began shutting and covering the piano. Then he launched into what I hear as a IV65/I - V65/I - I. 

I threw my fists up into the air (à la Steve Holt, perhaps) and yelled, "Yes! Beautiful Things! Gungör!"

He plays on, barely looks up at me because he is focussed, a pick in his mouth and he nods assent in time with the music.

The piano cover is almost embarrassingly not one-third of the way messily on before I have decided I need to play along. I leap up to the electric keyboard because this song wants strings. (It begs for cello.)

He played and I joined. I added fat strings and sang a close harmony. 

I...loved it. It may have lasted two minutes but to sing into a song like that with someone else who is singing into it, with someone else who also sees the whole song, also knows the nuances, also knows the original recording well (and ALSO LOVES JESUS-- that is the cherry of all cherries on top of anything positive I'm here writing) ... I'm grateful for that mini-moment.

From that song and until we parted ways downtown an hour later, we chatted about music, ministry, God's goodness, charity work, music again, musicianship, worship, vision and so forth. We talked very briefly about our upcoming coworkership. I settled for a high-five where I would have wanted a handshake and we overlapped our "I'm excited"s that we each pretended was a self-directed musing but was actually very intentionally meant to be heard by the other person.

He played for me a couple songs with highlighted bits and commentary and he heard my scraps of feedback -- an almost-weekly occurence.

I really appreciate someone continually showing me what's "out there" and I appreciate how this must be borne out of a sheer love for music. (He can't keep it to himself.)

There was another mini-moment earlier this evening that I want to say was even more profound. I think it was a bridge that the rest of the band didn't know and possibly after I proposed a key change. So he and I are the only ones playing, trying to gauge singability.

I didn't need to play or sing because he's the lead vocalist and it's his comfort that's paramount. But I sang and I played because I felt like it and I didn't think I'd distract him.

Arguably by the first line he already knew but he kept playing. The singers couldn't join because they'd never heard this bridge (we were about to teach it) and the guitars couldn't join because they didn't know what key we were in yet (we weren't certain). So we were left duetting. There was chatting and some background fiddling but he and I sang and then started singing together.

I dropped the tight harmonies and I followed his lead. I let the piano embellish the guitar and we both let our full passion (for God and for good music) slip out because we weren't carrying the band.

In the context of a full-band rehearsal this shouldn't happen but for tonight I'm glad it did. I tell you what- I have never sung making eye-contact with someone as they sang back at me but it was something. To worship deeply because you have the same heart for Jesus AND the same freedom in music, it's incredible. It actually added something that we were looking at one another. It's deliberate engagement; we were worshipping, not rehearsing. [I'm sad that this is so noteworthy a happening.]

We just sang together. It was together like each voice would be less on its own and needed to be half of a whole. (Like something being greater than the sum of its parts?) What a way to worship.

I am grateful. Really.