By Julianne Petersen
Growing up on stage, you quickly learn that there are two kinds of soundchecks: the ones that last five minutes and the ones that last your lifetime, your newborn child’s lifetime, and your newborn’s child’s grandchild’s lifetime (i.e., a very long time). Shoved in a barely-fit-us corner of a pub in Ireland, my family was experiencing the latter.
!!!SCHEKRHnasodfjasdiIEFSLDKJbirdsarefakeAOWIERUASJDK!!!
Screeching feedback silenced the pub chatter as hands moved from pints to ears. Confused eyes glanced at our sound system as though the whole thing were about to bust, but I knew exactly what happened. Despite gripping my finger pick with a death clutch, my mandolin, yet again, played too soft for the microphone.
Our red-faced soundman adjusted knobs and moved the mic until it was touching my strings, yet still the problem persisted. Finally he erupted in his thick Irish accent, “Tha’s it! She’s not like Thile, or even tha’ lad in the next room. Ye can at least hear the strings of real mandolin players!”
Fifteen-year-old me felt the truth of his words stinging sore in the back of my throat. I knew exactly what the soundman was thinking—real mandolin players drove the band's rhythm. My fingers whispered.
…
I’m sure there are several things you’d assume about a bluegrass kid. First, I’ll address the elephant in the room: Yes, my parents never allowed me to watch Hannah Montana. Still, going from “family band life” to “Baptist suburban life” often felt like wearing a wig in both worlds.
Invitations to church pool days and that weekend’s sporting games were generally met with “sorry, I have a show.” In turn, the farming responsibilities of my bluegrass friends was a lifestyle I found entirely foreign. Constantly rotating back and forth between these two distinct cultures was like switching languages. While my church friends bought shorts from Target, Mom bought my shorts in the boy’s section (“the only shorts long enough these days”). No matter how long my boy’s-section-shorts were, they were still too short for the beholding eyes of bluegrass moms. Most stark of all was how little of each other’s language the two cultures knew. Half of my friends found the new 24-year-old mandolinist hot, while the other half worshiped Zac Efron. My bluegrass friends were debating if a band was still “bluegrass” because they’d—God forbid—added a piano, while my hometown friends confidently considered “bluegrass” to be any song with a banjo.
Once you’ve been in the culture long enough, you understand what bluegrass is and isn’t. My family always walked this line. In a community that values the ability to master an instrument, we focused on vocals instead. And then on a personal level, there was me and my cracked voice. Online comments flooded in with, “why can’t she just sing straight?” Those who enjoyed it called my voice unique and vulnerable. The people who I always agreed with boiled it down to, “she can’t sing.”
Walking off stage felt like failing a test everyone knew you should have passed. I didn’t know half the amount of bluegrass my friends did. I could not play my instrument the right way. I could not fix my cracked voice. It all added up in my head that I simply wasn’t a real musician.
…
The tension I held growing up in the bluegrass community echoes my experience of growing up in church. Both bluegrass and the church are shrouded in traditions that can only be understood by stepping into the culture and practicing its ways.
I remember the glory I used to see in my friends as they were baptized over the years. They’d come to Sunday school a half hour late, crowned with freshly wet hair. They’ve done it. I would think to myself. They finally understand what it means to be a Christian. As for me, it was always just out of grasp. I would beg myself to tears some nights, praying the right prayers for God to come into my heart. Years later, I am confident in my salvation. Yet still I wonder, what does it mean to be a real Christian?
…
The bluegrass community has this certain magic that leaves you fuller than before. Middle-of-nowhere festivals with familiar faces. Fast-paced fiddle tunes serenading square dances late into the night. Jam sessions full of the old and the young all sharing the same songs. The kindest and most down-to-earth people I have ever met, all in one place. You could be the biggest name in bluegrass, but never let the fame stop you from learning the names of your audience members afterwards. All are welcome to learn the language, but few could ever change it. In so many ways, this is good.
In so many ways, this is changing.
What many don’t know is that deep in the roots of the genre, bluegrass founder Bill Monroe had a piano in his band. The standard sound of banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, upright bass, and dobro was the beloved sound he finally landed on. Though he began as an experimental musician, purist bluegrass musicians would consider any song played in the name of bluegrass outside of Monroe’s standard to be a musical heresy.
As the genre grows, younger musicians have begun incorporating contemporary songs into their set lists. My family, in particular, performs music that does not entirely belong in the standard bluegrass mold. This angers some, but often these heretical songs act as a bridge that welcomes people into the bluegrass community. While the community continues to cherish the standard bluegrass sound, innovation allows the bluegrass tradition to remain alive.
…
There are two types of deconstruction in faith. There is the kind where you hold your faith into the light and see the ways in which you have outgrown such a practice. In this case, you critique your past beliefs until the only solution is to leave them behind. The other type of deconstruction takes place when you hold your faith into the light and decide that you love it enough to be willing to adapt it. Remaining faithful to a tradition does not have to mean complete conformity. Rather, it involves practicing and nurturing the tradition within it.
Sometimes, I imagine an early Church Father — St. Augustine perhaps — walking into my old Baptist Church. Would he faint? Yet still, he is quoted in our sermons. Over time, some denominations change their pews to chairs and hymns to Hillsong. Some raise their hands in worship while others shove them in their pockets. I’ve found that most who grew up one way tend to prefer the other. At the core of all these forms, to be a Christian means seeing and adoring the Father through the person and work of the Son and, furthermore, knowing the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, to be a Christian is to humble oneself before the cross and worship the Triune God. This truth was recognized by Church Fathers thousands of years ago and remains central to the Church today. Among centuries of adaptation and change, that alone remains.
…
Still in the pub but a couple hours removed, it was my turn to sing. My brother was introducing me to the audience, but I kept my face toward the ground in a silent protest. They already know I’m a failed mandolinist. Isn’t it a bit cruel to let them find out about my voice? The tear stains I had been hiding behind older siblings felt sticky on my face. Spotlights shine sick when you know you don’t deserve them, and I would have done anything for the audience to recognize how deeply I knew I was a fraud.
The song began with just the guitar and my voice. Once again, the pub chatter died down, but this time they were watching me. I didn’t dare look into the audience as I sang, but for the first time the silence felt appreciative. “Ye’ve got the Irish lilt,” someone told me after the show. Although I hated my voice for being different, the difference was what made other people love it. Throughout the years, there’d be different reactions when I sang—all strongly in favor or opposition. The part of myself that pure bluegrass musicians hated, was what allowed others to be brought into the tradition.
In the age of deconstruction, there’s a scream-worthy amount of differing versions of "real Christianity." Some honor God by refraining from alcohol, others toast their wine in God’s name. If sixteen-year-old Julianne could have a conversation with twenty-year-old Julianne, she’d scoff at my views for being too soft. And who knows—perhaps the thirty-year-old me will agree with her. Throughout this process of being humbled by my ignorance, I’ve learned that when we cling to anything outside of core doctrine as unchangeable truth, we damn ourselves into ever cheapening that which is true and good and beautiful about the Christian faith. The church remains despite our constantly changing culture. What might seem to some as warring against the practice, could be the very thing that keeps it alive.
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