RIGHT DIRECTION, WRONG LANE — Rebekah Van Tinteren

A few weeks ago, I was driving home on a road with one lane in either direction when the car in front of me suddenly veered into the oncoming lane for a good few seconds before pulling back into the lane in front of me. (Luckily, there were no vehicles coming in the opposite direction.) It then carried on as though nothing was unusual. I thought it was odd but left it at that.

A few days later, a little further down the same stretch of the same road, and with a different car, it happened again. This time, I knew to pay attention and I said out loud, “God what are trying to show me here?” (It was perhaps presumptuous of me to assume God was involved in a potential head on collision just to make a point.) Surprisingly, and without missing a beat, I heard these words: “You are going in the right direction, but you’re in the wrong lane.” I intuitively understood that this re-direction related to my musical expression.

Pause.

I instantly had SO MANY questions. (I know other over thinkers will be sympathetic to this moment in my timeline.) :)

So, there is more than one lane?

How many lanes are we talking about?

Do the lanes have different speeds?

How do I know which lane I’m in currently?

Am I swerving between multiple lanes?

How exactly do I choose the ‘right lane’?

And more specifically:

Is this in relation to musical genre? (I work, teach and play crossing genres.)

Should I teach more for financial stability? Or, less so I can focus on original musical output?

Should I curate more concerts of my own original music? Or, not at all?

Should I say “yes” to traveling more? Or not?

Am I supposed to move into a different musical direction?

Is this about working more or less for others’ projects?

Day after day, I scribbled all my questions and thoughts to try and understand what I had seen and heard onto the pages in my journal.

About a week later, a little further down the same stretch of the same road (where a middle turning lane begins leading to the road towards my house), a semi trailer in front of me veered into the turning lane maintaining its speed, and then at the last possible moment just before the turn off, swerved back into the lane it came from. Too fast. Wrong speed. Wrong lane.

I paid attention. “Lord, what haven’t I learned from the last week about what you are trying to make plain to me?” I went straight to my bible and randomly opened it to Proverbs 4:23:

“Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.

Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.

Do not swerve to the right or the left.” (NIV)

There are many good things I could do. Things that are more than worthy of support or things I even have the natural skills and training for. As an independent artist there are SO many lanes I could take to broaden and upskill - all “necessary”, “ vital”, and “career building”.

So… how do I choose? Here’s where I’m at….

Firstly, (apart from my daily processing in my journal and re-reading the passage from Proverbs 4 on repeat), I booked a session with my good friend, vocal coach, podcaster and artist mentor JennyRebecca from Artists Rising Co. Although based in Berlin, she happened to be doing a show the next week in my city. She had me write down all my musical ‘lanes’ and then said that artists need to have just three focuses. A maximum of three - which I did! Here they are: Connected performing/releasing sound, creating and expanding audience.

Strangely, just after I identified my three focuses, I had 2 trips and 5 concerts cancel. I also decided to cancel (for now) a live concert I had been dreaming up. Narrowing my focus gave me clarity and the ability to let go of bookings I had no control over. I know where i need to spend my time and focus.

I also did much soul searching to remember some truths from my journey:

God never wanted me to copy. About a year before moving to California and then through the writing and recording of my very first album, every time I went to play music with vocals on CDs or the radio, I heard God’s voice say, “No”. This only stopped at the release of the album a few YEARS later. When I asked what that was all about, I heard God say, “I didn’t want you to copy”.

My creativity - the ability to create from nothing or spin off from an original idea - is within me. It is not transferred from others to my voice. I cannot always express my creativity working on other artist’s projects. I am more authentic when my idea, the development of my idea and the delivery of my idea comes through my voice.
My voice can be written (blog), sung (songs), played (violin melodies) or spoken (workshops etc). When I wrote my first album, I had literally lost notes in the middle of my vocal range. I was praying about who could sing my songs and I felt God say, “You are”. I worked hard and I recorded my songs.

Although I was never taught to be creative or how to think like a creative, and no language of this nature was ever used in any of my musical training growing up, somehow, learning to live and express myself in creative ways has become a vital and life-giving part of my personal musical expression. It makes me happy.

As I write this, I glance back to the beginning of Proverbs 4 and this phrase leaps off the page:

“Pay attention… I give you sound learning.” (Verses 1-2)

I smile knowing that for everyone else on the planet, this sentence means that the advice is reasonable, reliable, solid and sensible. But for me, God is literally giving me SOUND advice - a re-direction in my musical focus and output. God is again teaching me the importance of learning to release MY sound.

What about you?

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