Sight Reading

People have been coming up with analogies to explain life forever – life is like a box of chocolates, life is like a tube of toothpaste, life’s a dance, life is a highway – and the list goes on. I suppose everyone sees life a little differently since I’ve never personally experienced a cocoa-flavoured fluoride-paste kind of day. I have, however, come up with a bit of a metaphor that fits my present paradigm.

Life is like an orchestra; one director, hundreds of instruments, thousands of parts, all working together to create a single, masterful, marvelous piece of music. Our director – the conductor, composer, producer and audience – has poured out His heart into writing each musician their own unique part. He knows the score inside out, and is acutely aware of everything going on in His music. He can hear every harmony, every perfect progression and movement, every vibration of our instrumental voices... and every wrong note we play.

Life would be so much easier if we were contented with playing the music given to us, but we musicians are a prideful, fickle bunch; generally unsatisfied with playing second fiddle, second horn or third clarinet, whatever the case may be. The fact is that our parts come on a cycle and we won’t always get the melody that we think we deserve. The fact is that sometimes the music we play is designed to compliment or emphasize another part. The fact is that we don’t know what’s coming. We don’t know the score.

You see, there is no time to practice for this performance. Life is 100% sight reading. As long as you pay attention and play your part with passion, flipping pages and changing keys as directed, you’ll be fine; if you’re flat once or twice, the piece will continue unharmed. It’s in the whole-note moments when the pace and slows and the melody mellows that we musicians get fidgety. It’s when we think the piece is getting a little predictable that we find ourselves in trouble. We get distracted, disengaged and restless, and just when you think you’ve got it figured out, He triples the tempo and gives you a solo! You’re left struggling to catch up, and usually looking foolish.

But when the music works... when everyone is completely engaged and we are playing together without competition or envy or spite, when we are perfectly tuned and when the balance is right... those are the moments that make everything worth it; tension evaporates as the glorious tapestry of harmony, melody and counter-melody overwhelm the senses. There is nothing else in this world that can compare to a well played life.

Block out the distractions in your life that are drawing your attention from your sheet music, listen carefully to the parts being played around you and make sure that you are keeping in tune and in rhythm with them; but most importantly and above all else, keep eye contact with your conductor. He is the one who will guide you through the rapid and the slow, the tricky and simplistic. He knows what you are capable of, and though he won’t write you something that you can’t handle, He loves to challenge and surprise. He’s conductor, composer and fellow musician; guiding us all through the symphony of life.