Worship & Strings

I grew up in a musical family and both of my parents were and have served as worship leaders in the church for as long as I can remember. When I saw my parents rehearse with the worship band one evening at six years old, I went to my mom and demanded (literally demanded) that I join her and my dad's worship band.
"It's too boring watching you from the pews, mom. I want to lead worship with you."

That was when the violin was introduced to me. 

Pretty silly if you think about it, right? I told my mom I wanted to play with their worship band and the violin was given to me.. LOL 

Like most students, I grew up with classical training in the violin. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, you name it. I admired all of the wonderful and genius composers. I admired music. I admired the violin too. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I strived to invest in my musical capabilities through private lessons, music camps, school and district orchestras. 

Music was my tool of expression. I truly loved it. However, while I loved classical music and the violin, collaborating with worship bands was always a mystery to me growing up.

"What on earth is a G Major chord? How do I play that? How can I play that in a way that makes sense musically even though I'm collaborating with a worship band?"

This became a mystery to me until I enrolled in bible college. 

Originally, I was enrolled in the music department at my bible college to study classical music performance. Then one day, little did I know my life was going to change from one worship arts colleague who asked if I could play violin with their worship team for the upcoming chapel service our college had weekly. 

From then, I was surrounded by a different community of music students who were striving to be professional worship leaders. Most importantly, I received guidance by incredible worship music professors who guided me and helped me understand how string players can effectively blend in with the worship band. Since then, more confidence was gained the more I applied the wisdom from my mentors as well as when I collaborated with worship bands more and more both at bible college and at churches in that local area. 

After receiving question upon questions from various people, string player or not, it occurred to me that there are string players that probably need the same guidance that I received.