The following is an excerpt from my book, Advice for the Modern Worship Musician.

We have to be musically mature, much like we are emotionally mature or socially mature. When we were children and adolescents we were quite the opposite; we were immature. We did what we wanted, usually did not understand the consequences behind our actions, and were completely oblivious to much of what was happening around us at the time. Economics, politics, and world issues were either non-existent to us or too boring to even want to know about.

And there’s no problem with this at all, it’s called growing up. Our society cherishes and strives to preserve that childlike innocence for as long as humanly possible. We all had to go through it and most of us have made it out of that stage of our life in one piece (for those of you still finding your way, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, I swear!). I certainly wouldn’t expect a nine-year-old to understand the compound interest on my mortgage or the fixed APR rates on my credit cards because a nine-year-old probably wouldn’t comprehend that stuff, nor even care about it for that matter. What does a nine-year-old care about? What does a nine-year-old want to do? Play? Have fun? Not go to school? Do whatever he or she wants to?

Are you catching on to this? Let’s apply this concept to music now. Ask yourself, How old am I musically? Seriously. How old are you? And I don’t mean how many years have you been playing, because that is two different numbers. The number of years you have been playing does not equate to your musical maturity, just like adulthood maturity does not follow any specific set of numbers. For instance, I truly believe that I became an adult at the early age of 16 when I began gigging professionally, got a job, graduated high school a year early and started going to college. Most teenagers at this age are anything but responsible. Heck, I have some friends who are now in their mid-to-late-twenties and still have not matured  into adulthood yet. Maturity comes at a different age for everyone, sometimes earlier and sometimes later.

So back to my question: how old are you musically? Are you a musical infant, brand new to the world of the sonic art form known as music? Are you a musical child, carefree, still experimenting and searching for what’s out there, feeling unaware of the endless possibilities you can achieve? How about a musical teenager – do you think you actually know something? Think you’ve got it all figured out, that you’re better than most, and that you’re high school band is really gonna “make it?” Or are you a musical adult, fully aware of his roles and responsibilities to himself and his band mates, completely capable of taking care of business?

Ask yourself, and be honest, because just like the path to adulthood everyone around you already knows your level of maturity by what you show them in your actions. Do you really want to know your musical age? Ask someone that you play music with, they’ll probably give you a very accurate response. Growing up is painful, it isn’t easy, and it’s something that we all have to go through one way or another.

But we all grew up, didn’t we? One day we got past our adolescence and there is hope yet for us to mature musically. The important thing is that we continue to grow. The minute we stop doing that is when we stop progressing; we stop getting better. And honestly, who wants that? I’m here writing this at the age of 24, and though I sometimes wish I could go back to the simpler days of my childhood and relive it, I’m glad that I can’t. I’m very happy with where I am today, that I don’t have to deal with school or bullies, with girl problems and student loans… I like being where I am now and I hope to continue to grow into the man that God has chosen me to be. I do wish that gas prices would go back down to where they were when I first started driving, but you can’t win ‘em all!

So all this talk about the process of maturity and how it is necessary to grow as a musician; how do we actually do it? How do we make sure that we are still growing? Well it’s quite simple: keep playing and seek knowledge in the process. Just like your path to adulthood evolved from the daily grind of living each day, you need to keep playing music (preferably as often as possible). If you continue to do this, you will naturally grow. And don’t put gigging off to the side until you think you’re ready, because you won’t ever be. Start playing with other musicians now and keep studying; keep practicing. Keep listening and learning!

Now of course this will take a long time for some, and an even longer time for others. However, there is a short cut. There are a few things that you can do to speed up the process if you choose to pay attention to them. Just like a high school math class, you can choose to take the short cut, to pay attention to your math teacher and learn all about variables and percentages at the age of 14. Or not. You’ll learn all about it one day when you apply for a car loan. When I was younger my father tried to explain some things to me that I would need to know one day, and to be honest I don’t remember a lot of them. And to this day I still call him up and ask him to repeat the things I know he told me at one point in time, like how to apply for a credit card, whether or not I need an oil change, or what to do when I get home and find ants all over my kitchen. At the time I was probably too immature to take notice, but now I’m listening. Will you listen?