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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, of the 4 teams I was hoping would win in the NFL playoffs this weekend, only 1 of them one, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share observations about playing guitar.

Today’s Fun Fact of the Day is: In the four professional major north american sports (baseball, basketball, football and hockey) only 8 teams have nicknames that do not end with an s. The answer is at the bottom of this page.

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What I Learned Yesterday:
I grew up in a home that always had music playing. Sometimes it was my own radio, but most of the time it came from another source. My step brother loved heavy metal music, and everyone knows that you can’t listen to heavy metal music unless it’s cranked up to 11. So if he was listening to his music, we were all listening to his music.

My parents were fans of country music. Every morning as they got ready for work they would turn on one of the local country stations and fill the house with the steel guitar and fiddles. I’ve mentioned before that my dad is one of the very best Hank Williams tribute singers on the planet, so there were many times when our home was filled with the sounds of my dad playing his guitar and singing songs that Hank wrote.

My dad tried a few times to talk me into learning how to play the guitar, but I had no interest in it. To me, the idea of playing guitar meant that I had to play country music like my dad did. I had no interest at all in playing country music. I guess I thought that because he was going to be the one teaching me, but it still kept me from having any interest in the guitar.

When I started touring with a vocal group a few years after high school, I realized that having a guitar would really help break up the boredom of being on the road. So I visited one of my local music stores, and I purchased a good sounding acoustic guitar for $200. I had no idea how to play it, but I was motivated to learn.

There was a guy at my church that was a fantastic guitar player and he spent an hour one night for a few weeks teaching me basic chords and strumming patterns. We learned a few simple songs, and got through the painful stage of building up fingertip calluses. There were two or three other people near my age that he was also teaching, and we worked out a song to play for the congregation for Easter that year. It was the first time I got on stage and played guitar front of other people.

I then started playing for the youth group at the church. We did 3 or 4 songs every week. The youth pastor also played guitar, and sometimes he and I would do some songs together. I wasn’t really all that great, but I wasn’t terrible either. I knew about 12 chords, and about 20 songs.

After a couple of years of playing music for the youth group, I got married and moved to Texas. We soon found a church, but it was a massive sized church and all the musicians were very talented. I had no interest in being part of the band. I did join the choir though.

A few months later, we moved to a new town in Texas. Again we soon found a church. This church was still big, but much smaller than the previous one. There wasn’t really a band, but I did join the choir. One day the pastor told me that he has something he wanted to talk with me about. The church had been making plans to start a second service, and the new service would be more contemporary and have a band. The pastor wanted me to to be the worship leader for the new service.

The thought of it scared me to death! I had no experience leading a vocal team or leading congregational singing. I wasn’t sure I could do it. He and I spoke about it over the next few weeks as we also prayed about it. The job was only temporary, as they church would be starting the process to find a permanent worship leader to lead both the traditional and contemporary service. Feeling like I needed to challenge myself and do something that made me uncomfortable, I agreed to do it. However, I refused to play the guitar. Instead, I would only sing.

Honestly, I wasn’t even needed to play guitar. We had an amazing set of musicians that were fully capable of handling the music portion. This allowed me to focus solely on selecting music and working with the vocalists.

After a few months the church found a permanent worship leader, and I took a rotating spot on the vocal team. I was grateful that the new guy was there to take over, but I was also grateful for the way the experience had stretched me and helped me face fear.

A couple of years later, we had moved back to Oklahoma City and found a new church. It’s the church I now attend. After we’d been there quite a while, the worship leader left to begin serving at a church in Dallas. This meant that our church needed assistance leading worship. Knowing that I had some experience with it, I was asked to fill in.

I’ll make this long story shorter by simply saying that for the last 6 or 7 years, I’ve been the worship leader at my church. I play the guitar every week. I now know around 30 chords and about 175 songs.

Here’s what I learned.

I love firing up YouTube and watching the world’s best guitarists play. Some of my favorites are Jason Mraz, Tommy Emmanuel, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Phil Keaggy, James Taylor, Dave Matthews, and Sungha Jung.

When I look at each of them play the guitar, I watch in amazement. They are true masters of the guitar. I often watch them play a song and think, “That looks so easy! I can do that!” However, once I get the music and start trying it for myself, I find that it’s not as easy as they make it look. There may be parts of the song that I can play, but much of the time there are portions of their songs that I just can’t seem to pull off.

I don’t have any aspirations to stand on a stage in front of thousands of people and play the guitar and I know that those guys all have a skill that I simply was not born with. However, that does not stop me from playing the guitar.

When I picked up the guitar 17 years ago, I never planned on leading worship for my small congregation either. Every once in a while someone will come up to me and say, “You’ve gotten better at the guitar.” I usually thank them and I acknowledge that I’ve gotten better. I don’t say it in a conceited way, I say it in an affirming way. The truth is, I have gotten better at the guitar. I get better at the guitar every time I push myself to learn a new chord or a new song. I get better at the guitar the more time I spend with the instrument and the more time I spend playing it in front of others.

This brings me to a simple, yet valuable lesson for today. That is, we get better at anything in life, by actively doing the thing we want to get better at. We will probably never be the worlds best at the things we do, but we’ll never know unless we try.

More importantly, we don’t need to be the world’s best in order to make an impact. In fact, we don’t even have to be close to the world’s best to make an impact.

What is it you want to get better at? What is it that you want to achieve? Make today your starting point and set aside a consistent time to work on it. Challenge yourself. Find where the border is for your comfort zone, and then step beyond it. Once you’re comfortable again, take another step.

In this way, keep pushing yourself to grow, and you may just surprise yourself by where you end up.

I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.

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The fun fact answer is: Miami Heat (NBA), Oklahoma City Thunder (NBA), Orlando Magic (NBA), Utah Jazz (NBA), Colorado Avalanche (NHL), Minnesota Wild (NHL), Boston Red Sox (MLB), and Chicago White Sox (MLB).

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