MikeLewisMusic

Well, I'm back after over a month. It's been a pretty hectic month for me, and a lot has changed.

First off, I am no longer in a band of any sort. I quit both With Intent and the Praise Band. As I outlined in my last blog, I indicated that my personal life has been getting really hectic. But, I was going to let God sort this out for me. The tone of my message was such that I thought that God would somehow lay out a path for me that would let me continue with music.

But, with three young kids (ages 4, 2 and 10 1/2 months) and increasing practices, gigs, performances, and whatnot, I was finding myself leaving home for untenable amounts of time. My wife was getting impatient with me, and to be honest I was becoming mildly anxious each time I had to leave home to practice or gig.

The With Intent practices were very time-consuming affairs. Because Ed lives up in Valley Center (a good 38-mile drive through a mountain, about 1/3 of that drive is a 2-lane highway) travel time was a good 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Coupled with the fact that practices were on weeknights meant that I had to drive through rush-hour traffic up the I-15 North, probably the worst freeway in San Diego during rush-hour. By the time I would get to Ed's I would be wound up and usually in a bad mood. Even though we did not have a permanent guitarist or drummer, Ed was still lining up gigs. We would get substitutes, practice furiously, and then play. All of the gigs were in the North County. The short of it is that the time and travel was too much burden on my family.

This was coupled with the Praise Band at my church (Northminster Presbyterian Church) and this was becoming a time-burner too. We would practice weekly on Tuesdays. Because my wife would get off work late, I would usually have to rush to church and then practice. Performances on Sunday would be more time spent away from the family as I usually had to arrive at the church early to rehearse before the service.

My wife was understandably losing her patience. So we talked about it, and I decided to quit the bands. At first I was very disappointed, but I thought long and hard about it, and I realized the kids came first. So I put in my notice to the two groups. I had one commitment to perform in With Intent at the Metaphor and I fulfilled it even though I couldn't attend the final practice. I had a blast, it was my last gig, and at the end I annouced how much I appreciated Ed as a friend and a bandmate. Of all the people I've played with, Ed was truly the most supportive and the one guy who never BS'd me. I really appreciate that and I am honored that I was able to play in his band. I wish him well. One of the subs we had that gig, Tony Vigo, will remain with Ed, but he is still looking for a drummer and now a bassist. I wish them well. Ed tells me he may shelve With Intent for awhile and look for gigs as a drummer. Keeping a band together is hard work.

As far as the Praise Band goes, they've been having very fractured practices. People are not showing up. One of the things I was good at was keeping on people and reminding them about rehearsals. I have volunteered to keep doing this, but Elisabeth (the Music Director) won't take me up on this offer, she feels I will be burdened. But this is something I can do from home or my office, the only issue I had was a time issue specifically relating to my time away from the family and the homefront.

Now all this said, a few weeks has passed since this has gone down. And remember what I said about God and how he keeps pulling me back into music? Well...

Again I am amazed at the power of God. I've always considered myself a songwriter first. I became a bass player because I was good at it, and I found guitar to be a struggle. Once I quit the bands, I thought a good way to keep my head in music was to tool around on the acoustic guitar (I own a Gibson Hummingbird, very nice guitar) and work on songwriting. Eventually I want to put my music down on 4-track, and I have a nice little ZOOM PS-02 that I can use to do that.

Anyway, a funny thing started happening. I always had this concept of "MikeLewisMusic", but I didn't really have a definition for it. But as I played on the guitar, I found myself somewhat adept at it. These past few years of intense practice and gigging has helped me to improve as a musician. I have absorbed a lot of knowledge through playing, reading up on the internet, and most of all, through the people that I played with. So I started rearranging all of my songs into a certain key. Some songs were rewritten musically. I started molding them into a cohesive sound, mostly revolving around the key of G. Putting all of my songs into a common key helped me to vocally find my voice as well. I was surprised to learn that I had a pretty decent tenor voice, and through this range I had the potential to not be an off-key wanker. I still have a lot of work to do on my voice, but the framework is there.

So, I started working on original tunes. I have about 20, and I started carving out a cohesive setlist as a singer-songwriter. The key I selected got me to thinking about how I could make the music sound fuller. So I tooled around with the idea of open G tuning. I read about it, but I didn't want to go that far, I liked playing the chords I was familiar with (especially since I rearranged my songs with some alternate chordings I came up with), so I created an alternate tuning - I would tune the E and A strings to G and G, and then tune the other four strings standard. So now, with my songs played in the key of G, I get this wonderful, full-sounding wall that at times sounds like two guitars. Additionally, I was able to stumble into a lot of blues-licks I could incorporate into my playing. With the dual-droning-G's at the bottom of the sound, it sounds great. This revelation actually only happened in the last two days. Wow. I have work to do, but I'm really excited, I think I'm on the verge of a real breakthrough with my playing, and it truly is "MikeLewisMusic". I'm creating something personal and fresh. I can't put the guitar down it seems.

So now I come back and have to give my thanks to God again. I was shortsighted, and desperately trying to hold onto my old musical habits to the detriment of my family. Once I honored God by honoring my family, He honored me back with these gifts. I am always humbled by these events, it truly shows me again how blessed I am and how God always provides for me if I just let Him.

So now musically I work on my guitar playing. The Hummingbird is the best instrument I own and I love it. It's truly a joy to play. And I can't wait to pull it out again and start working on some more MikeLewisMusic.