About
I am first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ, and want more than anything to be more like Him. Obviously, I fail at this more than I succeed, but my failings are covered by grace, and it’s only by grace that allows me to be a child of God in the first place. I give full recognition and glory to God for everything I have accomplished in life, and for all the talents and abilities he has blessed me with.
Second, I am husband to the most wonderful, beautiful woman in the world, who I don’t deserve but somehow convinced to marry me. I once had a friend ask me how I landed her, because she was “way too good” for me, and I still agree, but I thank God she loves me and puts up with me.
Third, and fourth, fifth, etc, I am now the Technical Producer for Christian Fellowship Church in Ashburn, Virginia (a suburb of Washington DC) where Heather and I attend and serve. I received my engineering degree from Texas A&M (Whoop!) in May of ‘07 and moved to the east coast literally the day I presented my senior project. I spent a year as an electrical engineer building flight simulators, but decided to take a different route when this job was offered to me. The engineering and problem solving was enjoyable, but I have always been a musician at heart. I have a long musical history, starting when I was approximately 3-4 years of age. My parents bought me a small toy piano and when I began picking out tunes such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”, they realized that I might have a gift for music and started giving me piano lessons around the age of 5. I continued piano up until Jr. High when I was placed in drums and percussion in the band. Somewhere along the way I bought a guitar at a pawn shop and taught myself to play with a little instruction from my band director at the time.
As if this wasn’t enough to keep up with, I grew up in an A capella church, where I learned the intricacies of 4 part harmony and how to arrange music to fit the needs of a quartet or congregational setting. I was a music major my first year in college at Abilene Christian University, where I continued drums and percussion, playing in the steel band and percussion ensemble. Although I became a Ministry/Psychology major my second and third year, I continued to play in the ensemble, having some of the best times musically that I have ever had.
In August of ‘02, I transfered into Engineering at Texas A&M, where I took a hiatus from any active instrumental group, but found a group of guys and formed an A capella southern gospel quartet called Under His Wing. We traveled around central-south Texas for the next two years as a ministry, singing at various events and churches, and in those times I believe God used us to further his kingdom. I only wish we had taken the time to make a quality recording of our music.
Presently, in addition to all the audio video and lighting stuff and when I’m not producing, I play in the worship band as a auxiliary percussionist, auxiliary keyboardist, pianist, potential drummer, vocalist, and now mandolin-ist. What I play all depends on who’s available from week to week. I lead/co-lead a small worship band for young adults (this is where my guitar comes in) once a month as well, so I stay busy musically. On top of all of this, I’m taking Violin lessons, although I won’t be playing that publicly for quite awhile. It’s definitely the most technically challenging of all the instruments I play.
Some people are amazed by how many instruments I seem to be able to play, but sometimes I feel it’s a curse, as I have never been able to specialize and hone my skills to a professional level on any of my instruments. In my opinion, I’m adequate at several, a professional at none. The other thing that most non-musicians don’t understand is that once you learn the “language” of music, picking up a new instrument isn’t that hard, it’s just applying the music theory to a new medium. Sure, it’s not super easy, but it’s about learning technique particular to a new instrument, instead of having to learn a whole new language again. It’s a lot like people who are multi-lingual. The first non-native language is the hardest to learn, then the second, third, etc gets easier and easier because you start to see the similarities in the structure between languages. Anyway, I digress…
I have many other interests and passions including photography, electronics and gadgets (though I can’t afford most of them), fishing, quality food, good books, and lazy summer days, but if I told you as much about these as I have about my music background, this would be a very long post. I hope you find this site to your interest and may you benefit in some way by visiting. Feel free to contact me at any time with questions and comments, as I love to hear feedback from my petty thoughts. My email is spelled out at the bottom of the page: wes at wakefi dot org.
Wes