(This article is the basis for Episode 9 of the BotaCast.)

Who’s the best musician that you know? I used to think that the best musicians were the ones who could really shred. You know, the guitarists who could play more notes per second than I could type words per minute. As a guitarist and a wannabe drummer, I aspired to be just like them. And while I never quite reached the level of musical aerobics that I heard from my favorite hardcore bands, I did learn enough to be able to overplay in literally every worship context I was in. It wasn’t until I found myself receiving feedback from an elite Production Director and coaching from a true next level guitarist that I was shown the greatest skill I could have in my role: restraint.

There is a difference between playing simply because that’s all you can play, and simplicity by design. I have heard many people criticize fast-fingered shredders under the guise of restraint, but these same critics seemed to struggle even making Hillsong’s riffs happen. They were hindered by the limits of their skill, not their skill of using limits.

In my opinion, there are four stages of proficiency.

Here’s a visual illustration: hold out your left hand (palms down) and tuck your thumb in as if you were showing the number four. Your pinky represents level one beginners, people who are just getting started and have a significant amount of progress they need to make. The second finger (your ring finger) represents level two intermediate musicians. They play simply because they lack the skill to do more. The third finger is the highest of the group: these are the shredders. The ones who have put in the time and effort to surpass both the beginning pinkies and the simplistic ringers. The Twos love to insecurely criticize the Threes, and the Threes feel amazing because they can play circles around the Ones and Twos. Honestly, up until my early twenties, I also thought these Threes were the highest echelon of musicianship.

There is, however, a level even higher than this. The last finger—your index finger—is about the same height as your ring finger. These are the next level musicians. These “Level Fours” play less: not because they’re unable to play more, but because they are truly tasteful and skilled in their restraint.

Now you’re probably wondering, “What about the thumb?” Your thumb represents the hand tied behind the back of the level four musician. They are not limited by ability, they limit themselves by choice.

What’s the difference? If playing less is the end result for both, why spend the extra effort gaining skill that’s never going to be seen? The answer is because skill leaks. If a Level Two and a Level Four musician are both playing the same thing, if you listen long enough you can tell which one is just keeping up with the song and which one the song is effortless to play. There are also moments, just little moments, where the next level musician does something and like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, you realize there’s more going on under the hood than you can see on the surface.

WHY LEARN SKILLS THAT YOU DON’T USE?

The first of countless advantages to putting in the work on your craft is creativity. Being able to play the song without thinking frees your mind up to add spice to songs that would otherwise be stale. Good luck having the whole band do strategic hits if your bass player is barely keeping up with the chord chart.

If you want to create a new arrangement, you’ve got to have the original one mastered. If I’m playing lead guitar and want to propose a new lead line for a song, you better believe that I’m prepared if the worship leader says “no thanks,” and requests the album version. Also, what right do I have to write a new line if I’ve never taken the time to understand the musical elements of the original? I wouldn’t trust a home cook to put together a new take on a dish that they couldn’t even cook traditionally.

Being overqualified to play a song also frees worship team members to actually worship. Wouldn’t that be amazing? If your guitarist didn’t have his mind stuck in the eternal void between fret and pedalboard? Or if your band could sing along with the songs? Almost as if the team that was leading worship were actually the ones leading in worshiping. I’m being sassy, but this is an irreverent podcast, so let’s take it a step further.

I’ve known Level Three musicians who would complain about worship songs not being “challenging enough.” And they truly were good players. These guys could tear up a blues freestyle jam, or pull off 500bpm blast beats or out-shred anyone: at least on the four flashy songs that they knew.

But if we took the worship song down from G to Gb, that shredder was in a puddle. They didn’t know the number system well enough to let their skill take them below the guitar nut. It was literally impossible for the blast beat drummer to play for two minutes with no fills. I’m not exaggerating either: as part of auditions I have asked drummers to play an entire song with no cymbals and no fills: most can’t. Don’t even think about asking John Mayer Jr. to just play chords during the instrumental moments. Since we weren’t playing any of the handful of songs that they had plateaued on, the chord charts and music stands were never too far away.

These level threes said they weren’t being challenged, but my challenges to them were to learn the number system and to memorize their music. Imagine being a first place NASCAR champion, but you struggle driving to the office because you never learned how to make a right turn.

RESTRAINT AS A CREATIVE VALUE

This isn’t just external judgement, I was guilty of this too. Proficiency is always on the other side of incompetence. And while we usually think of that as not being able to do something, there is definitely the flip side. Incompetence is also the inability to refrain from overplaying (pardon the double negative). It takes skill both to become musically proficient, and to have the control to hold back.

In my teams, we are clear that restraint is a creative value. It isn’t an optional accessory, it’s fundamental to how we design and execute everything we do. So what if the multitracks session has 9 keys tracks? Which ones are unnecessary clutter in the mix? Which ones don’t work well with our room?

Restraint is not just essential for music, but every avenue of creative expression: whether it’s lighting design, audio effects, or even onstage communication. A lot of people claim to do “more with less,” but restraint is about doing “less with more.” Doing “more with less” is trying to make the most of your scarcity, but doing “less with more” is how fine dining restaurants earn Michelin stars.

Restraint is having features in your lighting fixtures that your audience will never see. It’s creating atmospheres and moments you can take a breath in, not having a flash of light on every snare hit. It’s choosing to not use iMag in an auditorium so small where the pastor is actually bigger in person than he would be on the screen. It’s foregoing haze in a 50 person worship setting. It’s staying with one tight camera shot during the salvation invitation instead of getting those “creative shots” that are probably in reality disconnecting people from the message.

YOU CAN TELL IT’S A LION

This is probably a good time to step off my soapbox and tell a personal story of me getting humbled. I was 18 years old, fresh into the chapel band at ORU. We were in our then terrible rehearsal space, and I was setting up my amp and pedalboard. Now, over the years we made it a lot better in there, but I have permanent hearing damage because of the conditions we played in back then. No in-ears, no drum shield, 100 watt tube amps just chilling next to us. Like most immature musicians, once I had sound coming out of a speaker, I just let it rip. The rest of the team was filing in, meanwhile here’s this freshman shredding away, amp at full volume.

Pretty quickly, our worship director flagged me down and she said just these simple words, “Daniel, a lion doesn’t have to roar for you to know it’s a lion.”

No further explanation. But it successfully shut me up. It was probably a combination of having to stop be able to focus on what that statement even meant, and the revelation that hit me once I did.

I had never thoughtfully considered why I was overplaying. And it wasn’t just in the songs but anywhere I could: before rehearsal, between takes, behind the announcement person. If I was honest with myself, I could confess it was because I wanted my so-called “skills” to be seen. It was insecurity, that if I wasn’t going to be featured in the FOH mix, I would make sure that everyone knew how good I was during the silence. The sad part is that even though I thought I was so advanced because of how many notes per second I could pull off, I couldn’t make it through two songs without hitting a bad note. I didn’t know the number system, I couldn’t tell you what anyone else in the band was playing in any of the songs. I might have been a decent guitarist, but I was a pretty lousy musician.

Let’s finish with a brief comparison of a plateaued level 3 musician and someone who has attained that next level status.

Level 3 Musician	Level 4 Musician
Thinks about only their instrument	Thinks about the big picture of the entire band
Can’t make it through a set without mistakes	Is so well prepared in the songs that they are muscle memory
Relies heavily on the chord charts	Flows in the number system with ear training
Thinks they’re better than the album arrangement	Is immersed in the original before making changes
Has plateaued in their personal practice	Attempts new challenges and isn’t afraid to suck while learning
Fills any space with their playing	Would happily leave the stage if it would better serve the song or set
Has to make sure everyone knows they’ve got skill	Doesn’t have to roar for you to know they’re a lion