I remember I was 16 or 17ish, before that I had no knowledge about music. NO INTEREST in music and/or playing the guitar. In fact, I think most people would laugh at me if I told them I was going to learn how to play and tour with a band one day. I hated church and standing during worship music. I hated singing, I wanted no part in it.
How it begin:
My parents were starting a Spanish Christian church on top of a mountain with a couple friends. (For those who don't know, I'm tri-lingual) It was a very small church, maybe 10 adults total and just a few kids. One of the kids there plated a Fender American strat, he was only playing a few months but knew a good amount of licks and had a good sense of rythym.
His name was Raphael, and he somehow convinced me to ask my parents for a guitar. My dad who was and still is considered a wealthy man, told me that I had to promise him that if he bought me a guitar I would have to commit to it. So I promised and tried my best. He bought me the cheapest thing who could find which was of course a Squier Strat pack, for Christmas, which came with a tuner, cable, set of strings, and a 5 watt solid state Crate amp. Everything was terrible quality and yet I fell in love with it and still have it til this day.
So I tuned it up, brought it to the top of the mountain and my friend Raphael taggt me the opening link to Weezer's Island In The Sun. So we did that for worship and that's all we did for a few weeks. I know thats not a worship song, hell, it's not even a Christian song but we were kids. And we were trying.
What happened next:
Fast forward a couple months and that church of course died off. People lost interest but I was still trying to play and all I played was some two finger rock chords, my dad liked that I was playing but asked "Is that all you can do?" And I simply said "Yes". So he located guitar teachers and paid for me to get lessons. It taught me all I needed to know about music theory and really did open my mind. I learned scales/modes, how to play by ear, music sheet, chord charts and tablature. And all that good stuff.
Fast forward 10 years later after that and I looked and played different. I had grown confident in my playing as well as my singing. I played at the country's biggest churches and opened for Stryper, Slipknot, Tenth Avenue North and others. I was also in a band that toured and I am proud to say that I played in every state of the USA except for 2 states (Hawaii and Alaska). It wasn't long after that Elevation church asked me to play with this church plant team.
Where we are now:
Playing steadily for a well known mega church on Sundays and help out with various smaller churches when I can. I'm almost 45 and I specialize in worship on guitar. Something I once hated.. but it's strange how we change, evolve, and mature over the years. Now I'm working my dream job so when some people try to troll me on forums and pretend I don't know as much as I actually do, my wife and I chuckle a bit
