Sean Bohnet: The Power of Music & The Bohnet Music Academy Dead Men Walking Podcast #177

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Exploring Theology, Doctrine, and all of the Fascinating Subjects in Between, Broadcasting from an

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Undisclosed Location, Dead Men Walking starts now! Well hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking Podcast.

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Thanks for coming along on the ride. Thanks for visiting us at www .dmwpodcast .com, finding out more about us, supporting the show through our snarky t -shirts.

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I've got the new Dead Men Walking shirt on if you're watching this in the live stream. And also we added the verse that it's based on,

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Ephesians 2, dead in our treads passes but now raised to high and priestly places with Christ. So that's what we try to do here on the podcast is glorify

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God. Oh, I just got back from a camping trip in northern Michigan that was fun with the family.

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I had my brother and sister there. My dad came up and visited for the day. We did some steak tips and grilled out and did some swimming.

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So I'm still in recoup mode. But you want to know enough of that, let's let's get into it.

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I want to tell you who's on the other line here. Known for quite a few years, we met down at Fight, Laugh, Feast, I think, geez, almost three years ago at the first one.

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He's the director of Bonet Music Academy, a musical school that teaches music literacy locally in Moscow, Idaho and online through The Voice and many instruments such as the piano and guitar.

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He earned his bachelor's degree from Wayland Baptist University and his master's from the University of Idaho.

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In addition to building up musicians, you may find him listening to audiobooks at super fast speeds. I like that. We've talked about that before in the podcast.

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I do the same thing. And eating his wife's delicious cooking, he also freely gives legal advice pertaining to breaking illegal laws.

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It's Sean Bonet. Hey, Sean, how are you, brother? Hey, I'm overjoyed to be here with you. Yeah, I like at the end there, you say, you know,

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I'll give you legal advice to about breaking laws, not an attorney, but I'll give you my advice. No, no, freely, freely given, freely received.

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So I'll be passing on whatever you need, especially right, especially in constitutional litigation.

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So well, I mean, because you're involved in that lawsuit out in Moscow, too, right? You were one of the ones

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I think that were arrested back during covid. Right. Well, I'm not sure a lawsuit you're talking about because it's all over now.

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Well, I know. I know it's over and you guys won. And honestly, they should they should write a huge check out of their insurance municipal fund to the church.

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But I don't think it's going to go that way. From what I've been reading, it sounds like they went, oh, sorry, we don't know our own ordinances and constitutions are bad.

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Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the basically it's our bad. Here's some money. See you later. Geez.

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Well, you know, you have to keep local, state and federal governments in check. You have to.

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We know that they're civil servants. They serve us. We don't serve them. So I'm happy to see that you guys took them to task and they had to publicly admit through the court system.

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Yeah, you can't arrest someone because they're singing a song in a public square. Yeah. You know, what's funny about that is throughout the whole, you know, really three year legal process, you realize that so much of the system that you're participating with isn't to give you justice, but rather to have some sort of, you know, secondary here.

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How about this? Because, I mean, what would real justice be? Someone comes in and violates your rights.

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What happens? I mean, probably people get fired, some sort of disciplinary action, repentance, seeking of forgiveness.

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I think those things would lead to an element of justice. But none of that happens. None of this.

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None of it ever really happens in situations like this. And so you just kind of settle for some cash, which is like, you know, very anti gospel.

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I think that'd be like, you know, if you yelled at your wife and kids and say, Hey, but I still love you. Here's a vote.

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Yeah, there's really a part like that. Yeah. You know, we won't spend too long on this because I want to talk about your music academy as well.

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But there's only a few. First of all, in the last 15 years, politicians, elected officials have, they have no justice to serve to them.

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They can do pretty much what they want. And then there's really no, that's the word I'm looking for.

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There's really no disciplinary action for them. They get voted in again. They don't get censored or, you know, kicked out.

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And it's a really sad state of affairs to show kind of the class system that we have when it comes to the political elite going all the way up to presidents.

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And then, you know, secondly, I only see a few instances, even if we're talking to old

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Testament law, where there's monetary restitution and that's for, uh, you know, like lost wages, lost income.

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You take someone's, uh, animal that helps them provide for their family. But for, for elected officials, it was much more harsh for appointed and elected officials, even during mosaic law.

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Yeah, absolutely. Justice needed to be served by that person, person being removed and, and other things happening.

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So today what they do, especially with local municipalities, they have an insurance fund, they pay into it by the taxpayers money.

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Then they pay out their, uh, their losses and then they get their insurance, uh, deductible increased.

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And then the taxpayers just pay that higher deductible. So really we, the taxpayers end up losing in the end anyway.

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And it's, uh, it's just too bad because they just need to do, uh, first be constitutional, but just do what they say that in your case.

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And like I said, I don't want to dwell on it, but it was insane. They didn't even interpret their own ordinance correctly.

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I believe is what it was. Oh yeah. I mean, so you've got, let's start, let's start from the higher up mayor, city attorney, right?

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There's people who, you know, my job is no law chief of police and then arresting officers.

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You know, you've got a sort of four layers of leadership and authority locally. Apparently no one has read the law that they're enforced.

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Now get this, how many times will you be taken to court and told ignorance is no excuse for the, yep.

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For breaking the law. Can that work vice versa? No, no, no. Like the,

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I mean, in fact we'll argue against it. Like we're not even, you know, and I think what you were saying earlier about, so in this case we get, what we get is emotional damages.

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Okay. How do you put a price tag on that? Right. You know, it's really not about receiving any money, but rather real justice being done, which like you were saying, you don't really get.

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And so it's just such a goofy, a goofy system. Yeah. Well that's behind you now.

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You guys set a good example. I think at least in the near future, that local municipality will think twice about enacting something or carrying something out.

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Hopefully it taught them a lesson. Uh, somewhat. Well, we'll stay tuned. I'll give you a little sneak peek.

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So I'm serving as a music director at a town just 15 minutes away from Moscow, Idaho called

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Troy, Idaho, just down the street. And, uh, they, they really don't like God.

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They don't like our church. And so they're already trying to stir the pot. And who knows, they might be getting involved with, uh, as I like to say, enforcing illegal laws.

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So I, I, I think I have better hopes for my government. Maybe that's just my, my downfall in life.

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I'm just so positive, but it seems that, uh, you're an optimistic pre -mill.

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What can you do? That's right. Well, I just don't know. You know, the Proverbs say, um, you strike a fool in the simple.

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We'll learn wisdom. Yeah. And I, I believe that. I just don't know if people, if the, uh, the simple are learning wisdom, but we'll see.

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Yeah. So let's talk about this music Academy. I'm a musician. You're a musician. You're probably much better musician than I, but, um, you know, right, right on the other side, uh, well, you can't see where I'm pointing, but this wall right here, there's a nice set of drums and a piano.

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And my kids come out here and we teach them those things and we worship together and learn hymns and Psalms and things like that.

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So, uh, what is the music Academy? First of all, for people listening who don't know, and where can they find it?

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And what do you guys do? Yeah. Well, the music Academy is the dojo. It's the place you come to get your life changed forever.

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I have to say to my students when they walk in, welcome to the dojo, you know, and half the things sometimes that adults say to younger people, they're just, you know, they're just really happy to be around you.

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And they just don't really understand what you say, welcome to the dojo. What does that even mean? Well, and I tell them, well, you know, what happens in a dojo is where you trained, where you roll spar and what happens, you get better and stronger through it.

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But, uh, yeah. So our music Academy, we're, we're changing people's lives and changing generations thereafter, because we're giving people the gift of music, whether it's someone who's never received it.

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It's like, oh, I'm in my thirties. I'm in my forties. And I miss that window where you might normally experience and train in music.

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So we're building, uh, people like that up, but we're also building those people up. They're like, I need to give it to my kids.

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Right. You know, I'm drowning in my work and I'm going to, you know, I want to chip away at, I'm going to, but for this season,

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I need to plow here, but you know what? I'm going to give my kids the gift of music. And so we're training those kinds of people in, uh, music literacy, which is the idea that we are musical people.

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Music is a language for us given to us by God. And we can learn to be fluent in that deeply through the voice, right.

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To use our voice to sing. And then whenever we're making music on instruments, we're connecting that with our voice that we never just become button pushers.

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So we're teaching people how to sing, how to read music, play music, write music, improvise with it, talk about it, everything you need to be a holistic musician so that you don't, um, you know, really, if you think about the old days where literacy in the language was much lower, um, people were, had a lot of limitations.

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Like, you know, the idea that knowledge is power. Well, there's a real truth that, especially in language, like if you can, if all you can do is speak

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English, you go around in life, what you, you, you can already imagine the limitations.

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I can't really read, probably can't really converse about it. Just the idea of lacking of reading is a huge disadvantage.

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How many musicians kind of play by ear only or flip -flop it. I can only read and you can't speak like how much that's like most of you guys out there learning

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Spanish or whatever language you're just, all you do is read, read, study, textbook, do a lingo, but you're not conversing.

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And so you kind of have a lack there. So we're just trying to hit every aspect, make, you know, it's like kind of avocado music training.

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It's holistic. It's good for you. Everything you need, you didn't even know you need and training you and doing it from a Christian perspective.

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Right. So that we know, we know who we are in Christ. We know who you are in Christ, and we know what

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God has said about music. And so we're going to make sure that comes across too. And it's online, which is a sweet thing.

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You know, we're reaching far and wide where, where do, where do people go find it? So they want to see what you're about.

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Yeah. Go, go to our website. It's like shiny and it's like a Cadillac bone, a ma .com.

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So it's B O H N E T. It's like bow net. Yeah. And they,

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MA stands for music academy, not martial arts, bone, a ma .com. And so that's a great place just to get some overviews and information content.

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All right. Well, yeah, we'll, we'll make sure we link it up on the podcast too. So people can go check it out. You know, that analogy just made about speaking and reading.

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I never really put that together, but that is such a great analogy. You know, when I, when I was learning piano my, my teacher taught me how to read music, but I loved playing by air air because you know, it's just more fun.

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There's not that much discipline involved. You can just sit there and figure it out. And I, and I kind of lost that until just a few years ago.

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And I went, man, there's such a discipline in being able to read, you know, especially at the piano where I can see my crescendos and my staccatos.

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And it's, it's just a beautiful, it's like reading a book. It's, it's a beautiful way to express what you're doing.

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And I think you're totally right. You probably need to have both of those disciplines when playing an instrument is both being able to, to read and write, as you said, right.

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Or, yeah, read and speak, which is, yeah. Well, you know, God has made us as very dynamic preachers.

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We experienced that in worship where we talk about, you know, when you go to church, it's not just to go hear a sermon.

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And if you think about church and you judge church based on, you know, the sermon alone, you're missing the part of what it means to worship

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God. Right. Especially because he commands us to sing praises to him. And so already, if we're just now we have two areas of worship, we've got hearing the word preached, but we also have hearing the word being sung by the brothers and sisters.

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You know, but like we have to lift up a heavenly chorus. And so we want to, we already see there's a dynamic action going on in worship.

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We see that there's a dynamic action, how God made us. We have eyes, noses, ears, and mouth.

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And so these are all literacy outlets. I can hear and understand. I can see and understand.

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I can speak, taste, and understand. I can smell and understand. We don't have a lot of smelling of music. That's kind of, that's where the postmill is going to take us, you know.

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Don't you throw that freedom away. I saw you slide that in earlier, don't you? I saw you slide it. I know.

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Right. You know, I don't know. I would say I walk into a room and it's got a nice set of vintage maple drums.

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I can definitely smell music. It'll get me hyped, you know what I'm saying? Or an old

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Kurzweil keyboard, you know what I mean? Or piano. So no, I get it. Open up that hymnal.

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Put your nose in that hymnal. You know how it is. Oh dude. My kids make fun of me because I smell my books all the time.

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New books, old books. I just love the smell of it. I don't know if you're going to, it sounds like you're already disqualifying yourself, but I'm that,

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I open up a book. My nose is going right there. Is that, is that like picking your nose? Is that like, oh no.

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Like if someone, is it just weird or like can everyone do that? It's a sign of intelligence. Okay.

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I just made that up, but that's what I'm saying. Yeah, no, I said it. This is a consensus. All right. You need to read, touch and smell your books.

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Absolutely. I like that. So what kind of stuff do you do there?

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A couple more questions on that. And then let's get into like the power of music too, both spiritually and you know, throughout the world.

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But do you do vocal and instrumental at the Academy? Yeah, that's right. So like our, like our tasty package that we, you know, wrap up and present to you is a, is like a voice.

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The most popular thing is you like a voice piano combo. So voice is the most important instrument that we have on this earth.

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And then I think the piano is the second most important, may not be the one you like the most, but it's the most important because it's so strong.

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It's such like a leadership instrument. It can do so many things. And so when you, when you come in and study with us, we're training the voice, making sure that it's strong, making sure that it's proficient.

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It's not kind of like voice lessons. Sometimes you can, maybe you've had this experience, you know, in a private voice lesson, or a choral setting, or you've seen whatever, you know, television, internet thing where it's like,

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I need more space. It's not so much of, there is technique, like this is what you need to do to, you know, sound good.

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But everyone, and I, and I tell this to students, whether, you know, children mostly who we have or adults too, like you have a good voice.

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Even if someone like, I can't really match pitch, or I'm not super tuneful when I'm trying to sing a melody.

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Everyone has a really good voice. Now, some of these things, like if you're not matching pitch, this gives the illusion that you don't have a good voice, but it's, it's still quality there.

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It's like, if you take a, like a beautiful car and it doesn't run, is the car ugly? No, it just needs to be tuned up and fit.

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So everyone has a good voice that they can keep taking to the next level through like more technical study.

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But I'm just about like, let's sing, you know, folk songs, whether it just be like American folk songs, things that are simple, that are kind of more elementary based, but it's like, if you can't sing, guess what,

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I'm not going to give you a super hard song that you can just fail over yourself. I'm going to give you something simple. Then we also have the folk songs of hymns, like, you know, to us, it's kind of challenging music, but it's meant to be music for everybody.

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Like no matter who you are, if you're a mechanic, psalms and hymns, four -part harmonies, fugue in tune, that's for you, you know?

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So we're teaching people to go, go for it. No, I say, you know what I've noticed too, is people who learn on hymns and psalms are basically starting in an intermediate to difficult level, because if you look at the tunes and the melodies that they used much more intricate than our three or four chord, uh, in major C kind of Hill song,

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Jesus is my boyfriend worship. Right. So it's like you learn on those, if they ever go to sing a modern worship song,

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I'm putting it in air quotes. You go, Oh my gosh, it's almost boring. Simplistic. It's dull.

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I think the Lord wants us not only to glorify and worship him in voice, but the melodic music should, should, should bring us in and we should be able to go, well,

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I can even see the glory in that arrangement and those chords and that structure. Not that we worship the music, right?

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We're worshiping the creator, but I've found even the more intricate putting together of, of psalms and even older hymns, uh, find you in a place to where you could become more musically inclined just because you're, you're using something that that's maybe the next level up than just a real basic.

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That's just my thought, but what do you think? Yeah. And you're, well, you're being taken to, you're being taken somewhere when you're singing, uh, songs that are heavy in our

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Christian tradition. Right. Uh, you know, as, as Protestants, we can be wary of the idea of tradition, but tradition is a good thing when received brightly, just like anything, right.

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Everything that's received with Thanksgiving and prayer. And so music tradition, like we've got men and women, even that's kind of the glory of music is the strong contribution that can be made from all

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God's children, uh, is that we've been given such musical depth and Christian poetry through it.

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Yeah. Not only to train us, you know, this is the sound of the church, which the church should have its sound.

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It should have a distinctness. You should hear something and be like, ah, yes, that's a Christian hymn, you know, like stylistically.

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Right. So like people have labored in that heavily, but they've also then labored in this quality poetry to give you beauty and new sight into the life that you're living.

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And so capturing those things just makes a whole lot of sense. Like, even if you're just receiving it by road, like,

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Hey, let me tell you about the song. And I sing it to you. Like, oh, I like that song, you know, but then we're taking you somewhere with what's written, you know, like some of the best musicians, like you were saying, start now songs and hymns kind of difficult.

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Well, if you're learning to read music through that, I mean, that's a, that's amazing.

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Like if you can read all four parts and just understand what you're looking at start. So that's like a melodic perspective, right.

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Left to right, but also you get vertical harmony perspective. There's so much you can learn and be primed with through those.

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And that's like what I love about when you do good music, like this music, that is meant for the church that's meant for worship is you're being taken somewhere with it, not only, you know, musically and, you know, lyrically, but also literacy wise, because if I just have words on a wall,

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I can't go anywhere with that. But when I've got music in front of me, I can grow in this, right.

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I can be overwhelmed by it. Like most of us that, you know, thanks brother, like too much, but you can go somewhere with that.

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And you want that, you want that with God, you want that with church. You want to feel like it's bigger than me, you know?

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And it's not only in history, but also in skill that's being refined. Yeah. A hundred percent.

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And music is such a, excuse me, powerful, powerful thing. You know,

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I don't know. So I've said this many times in the podcast, so I'll keep it brief, but I grew up very young in church where it was very legalistic.

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It was the eighties. Uh, it was the Jerry Falwell, uh, ATI, a Bill Gothard, kind of like what the

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D the Duggar special right now. We, we had that for a few years when we were homeschooling and it was like, drum beats are bad and syncopated beats are from Satan.

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And, you know, you know, was sat down and said, you know, you can't play Keith green on the piano, uh, because he's ahead of the contemporary

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Christian music. Right. So it was it was very, so it gave me this skewed view of music for a very long time to where it's like, well, if I sit down and play great balls of fire on the piano, cause

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I love boogie woogie, but I'm not, I'm not singing the lyric, but I love the, the blues riffs and that, right.

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Is that a sin? Is this, that is, is music neutral? Is it, you know, where does it come from? I've now landed on the fact that, that obviously arts are, um, to glorify

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God and we use them to do that. But music is a very powerful thing. And I want to talk to you about this because we see it in the secular music is used for all kinds of, uh, we can get off into the weeds if you want into, you know, enchantments and spells and they, you know, in, in beats and, but it's used to, to, uh, push forward a secular agenda.

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Obviously music was created for us in worship to glorify and worship God. Uh, you know, you even look in the

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Bible and some would even interpret and say, you know, Satan was, uh, the angel of music or beauty of chords and music.

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And then you think, huh, the only angel in heaven that thought he could challenge an almighty sovereign God was the one that, that, that, uh, created beautiful music.

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That, that seems to be pretty powerful thing. So we see the power of music, maybe speak to that for a little bit in your experiences.

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Obviously we spoke to it a little bit in the, in the church and what we do in worship. Do you see music being used as a powerful weapon outside of the church and how do we even combat that as Christians?

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Yeah, there's no doubt that music is powerful. Everyone knows this innately, right?

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Like, Oh, I, you know, I get this one feeling when I hear that one country song, it brings me back 20 years.

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Or, you know, when you, I mean, what do you think when you hear, uh, amazing grace, you know, played on the bagpipes or something like that?

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It's like, right. When you hear that, it's just like, Oh, you know, I've got goosebumps thinking about like, it, you know, it takes you somewhere.

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It takes somewhere holy, but also you have music that takes you somewhere fun, you know, and you enjoy that.

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So, you know, the, we have in scripture and we have, you know, from the ancients and we have from the church fathers and we have from the all speaking to the power of music to lead emotion and have sway over our spirits, right?

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So that's just a non -negotiable. Um, and so what that can mean is it can, it can be fitting for many types of circumstances.

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So you can have music that is powerfully enhanced the worship of the triune

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God. And then you have music that can powerfully enhance a wedding ceremony, a funeral ceremony, you know, a good

24:04

Friday night. All right. Summer. We got the beers with the boys, maybe some guards breaking out what music you're going to play there.

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Yeah. Um, we, you know, we can sing a hymn, but we can also put on something fun in the background or music that enhances a dinner party, a dinner party that's really formal.

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And then you have music that can enhance a dinner party. That's more informal. Sure. And so music's going to come around and powerfully take what you're doing to the next level.

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And it's going to speak to it. Right. So if I play something that's not fitting for the occasion, then

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I'm not, my music's not speaking for me. Or like if I show up to church and whatever inappropriate, you know, clothes, or if I show up to a wedding and whatever inappropriate clothes that's speaking.

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And so there's power there. So we know that music can have sway over our emotion and our spirit for good or ill, mostly related to fittingness.

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And that's kind of this next idea of what you were saying about is music neutral? Can Christians enjoy the boogie woogie?

25:09

It's like, yes. I mean, it's just like a classic thing. Everything has to be received with prayer and thanksgiving.

25:16

Everything has to be received with intelligent and proper order in place. You know, there's a place for a t -shirt.

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There's a place for a collared shirt. There's a place for a collared shirt with a tie. There's a place for a tuxedo. And there's a place for everything in music too, because you're supposed to be normal with music.

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Just like you're supposed to be a normal person. You're supposed to be normal with music. And so what do

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I mean by that? If you are like, no syncopation, no backbeat, no electric guitar, that's not normal.

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And likewise, think about it like this. If every conversation you have with someone is like a gospel conversation,

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I've got to turn the conversation and share the gospel with them. That's just not normal. Now that's someone who's coming from an independent fundamental

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Baptist church. Well, that was me. Every time is share the gospel, turn the conversation.

26:12

Okay. But that's different than thinking I want every conversation to have the aroma of Christ.

26:18

Yeah. As you go out into the world, yeah. That's right. Preach the good news. The power of God and the power of his word can be present in every conversation

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I have, whether I'm talking about politics or grass or music or what's the best flip -flop option.

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But that doesn't mean, and now did you ever think how the two thongs of a flip -flop come into one, kind of like the two natures of Christ, but he's still one person, you know, non -divine.

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It's like, you know, you just like insert awkward Jesus Juki here. And so anyways, we don't have to be so Jesus Juki with our music too.

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We just know how to properly order things. And it starts with doing, you know, church music and family worship, right?

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Like, I think if churches miss that, you feel, I don't know if I'm just making stuff up, but you kind of have the sense of guilt or something's missing in life.

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And so you kind of have to like, I want to get a little works righteousness or legalism here to make sense of things.

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But if you feel secure in what you're doing as a church or family, where you're going musically yourself, where your family is going musically, all of a sudden you enter into freedom, right?

27:33

You enter into an ability to know, how can I properly wield all this powerful music? No, that's good.

27:40

Yeah. I, you know, and I would make a distinction. Tell me if you agree that I think there is a difference between the psalms and the hymns and the songs that I sing to the

27:52

Lord, especially on the Lord's day in corporate worship versus the songs that I may listen to, um, and just enjoy because melodically or structurally

28:04

I enjoy them. And it's something that can be entertainment, but also be glorifying to God.

28:09

I look at those as kind of two separate, they're all under the category of music. You know, general Simpson once famously said to Satan on the seventh and the cord and the diminished note, because if he does,

28:21

I'll go down to hell and we'll plunder it back all for the glory of God, because we own, we own the arts as Christians, you know what

28:28

I mean? And we glorify God with those. But, um, it took me quite a long time to understand that it wasn't just a black and white issue with music, meaning this is good music.

28:38

This is bad music. It also meant like you said, I can sit out on my deck, um, smoke a cigar while I'm reading

28:46

Ecclesiastes, um, trying not to, um, fall into a light depression because I'm just kidding.

28:53

No, it's, it's all pointless. He says it's all, but yeah, but, but I got some, you know,

29:01

I got some Eric Clapton going on in the background, Mr. Johnson, you know what I mean? Like, like I can enjoy that.

29:07

Uh, and it is a powerful thing. And I praise God with that. If I hear, you know, even a queen song or a, or a, you know,

29:16

Billy Joel song or something like that, I can say, God, thank you for, for at least in that common grace and common glory of using that person to, to at least, uh, to, to allow me to hear those type of chords and stuff like that.

29:30

Now there's obviously some songs I'm going to stay away with because of the reason they're written, the lyrics that they have in them, the, the, you know, the agenda it's trying to put forth, but something that's poetic.

29:40

I'll even have my kids listen to like Bohemian Rhapsody, for instance, we go through and we'll listen to that.

29:46

My kids are 13, 11 and nine, and we'll listen to the whole thing and they have it memorized and we'll go, okay, let's, let's talk about what this is.

29:52

Well, what is this man singing about? What struggles is he having? What's his worldview. And then of course we get into the music and the chords and the tempo changes and all that, which is,

30:03

I think, um, very striking, but I've made a, you know, like I said, I grew up in a legalistic kind of church where it was non -denominational, but by all means, it sounds a little bit like you were, it was like fundamental

30:14

Baptist for all, for all reasons and doctrine. And it took me a long time to understand that, that, um, to, to grow out of that and kind of go,

30:22

Oh, you can't, you can't go listen to, you know, like I said, uh,

30:27

Elvis Presley or, uh, you know, or, or Johnny Cash, which gosh, Johnny Cash is probably one of my favorite artists, especially the late stuff.

30:34

When, when, when he came back to the Lord and was just like, yeah, what, what I, I wasted a life essentially.

30:40

But, um, I don't know, I'm rambling here, but I don't have a real question. I was agreeing with your point on that. I want to run into that ramble just a little bit.

30:47

Have you seen Johnny Cash's, uh, hurt music video? Oh, it was been a while, but yeah,

30:53

I saw it. Yeah. I mean, that's talk about a, um, you know, work of art, but also something that speaks to his repentance.

31:01

That's a phenomenal, like the message and art of the things, even it's, and it's folk, right?

31:07

So someone like a Johnny Cash, wonderful artists, what he did with that music video or, you know, his team rather just masterful, but masterful at, you know, at that simple, straightforward level, even though there's depth to it.

31:23

And so I think kind of what you're saying about the, uh, the legalism flow and enjoying, you know, things to the glory of God is back to this point of just being a normal person and being understand that what has

31:38

God called us to do in the cultural mandate, take dominion. Okay. So taking dominion is the spreading out of the gospel.

31:47

It's not just holding the gospel and burying it. And so, you know, we're called to go and build a deck, you know, make a nice lawn, create, you know, create bells for worship cathedrals.

32:03

And, but, but also like to take dominion of, you know, all spices and all flavors of food of all turns of phrases and language, but also, you know, every melodic shape and harmonic structure and music too.

32:17

Well, each one of those has to be sort of broad and diverse and expansive because guess what?

32:24

That's how God made the world. Like, if you look at creation, you know, look at these weird, not weird, but like odd looking creatures in the sea, you're like, what an interesting, dopey looking fish thing that no one ever sees.

32:37

Or if you look at these strange lizards and these wonderful butterflies and, you know, ferocious, uh,

32:44

Hornets and something, you know, this flying ginormous ant thing. I don't know what these species are, but you just see such a creativity in God's world.

32:54

You see such a, in, in the, uh, you know, the nature that sits still and also the nature that moves and creatures, but then you also see the creativity in us.

33:02

We've got amazing, you know, senses, like we already talked about. We have amazing brains.

33:08

And so general revelation tells us go make something amazing with music.

33:16

You see the sound, right? This, this moving, this vibration of, of bodies go, go in like sandbox with that.

33:25

Like, what can you think of? You know, like we, we do this in way of transportation and architecture.

33:30

Go do that in music too. Yeah. I would say too, that our country, uh, benefited from like even the

33:38

Renaissance and the arts were based on kind of a, uh, a Christian moral principle.

33:44

And for the last three, 300 years or so, um, the West has benefited from that.

33:50

And now we have seen the kind of decay or the decaying, I think, or taking the

33:56

God out of things in Western society. And it's also reflected in our art. You know, I saw,

34:01

I saw a meme a couple of days ago and it was because, you know, that's what I based all my theology and doctrine on his meme.

34:07

So, uh, just kidding. I saw a meme and it just showed a street lamp in London in the 1700s versus a street lamp in London.

34:16

Now in the street lamp in London in 1750 was this gorgeous work of art, you know, all this, this metal work and iron and right.

34:26

And then today it's just a pole and a little led light and it looks horrible. And you just go, wow, because music and art reflects the glory of God and everything it does.

34:35

And in so many ways, we can have a two hour podcast just on, if you understand music theory and you start looking at how there's math and God interwoven into music and how the pentatonic scale is universal.

34:48

I don't know if you've ever seen videos on that. There's a gentleman that goes around and he'll just, he'll just say one note and then give a second note.

34:55

And then he'll hop on the stage and the whole, the whole, you know, the whole audience who has never met him and doesn't know what he's doing automatically knows what notes to go to because of that.

35:06

Right. It's, it's built into us. We just know it. Uh, so, so there's a very universalist thing about, um, music as well too.

35:15

And when I say universalists, I'm not talking theologically. I'm talking God created us, created us a certain way, created music a certain way.

35:22

Obviously it's to glorify him. How do you think a believer who isn't musically inclined, someone comes to your academy and they go,

35:30

I'm a believer, right? Church member, whatever, friend of a friend, I have zero music intuition.

35:37

Uh, what would you say they're missing and where would you start them on their musical journey on how to,

35:43

I would say even see God in music? Yeah. Well, the first thing

35:49

I would tell them is that they're, um, not missing anything really.

35:55

Like there's, there's nothing wrong with them and they're not missing anything save maybe like, I wish I would've started earlier.

36:00

Right. Like that, that's kind of the beauty of how God made us.

36:06

He's a musical God. He sings over us. He commands us to be musical.

36:11

And so he's put that within us. He's put language in us through, you know, verbal English, Mandarin, but he's also put the language of music in us.

36:20

And so it's just like he gave you a bicep, you know, everybody has a bicep, you know, unless you have some very odd, rare medical case.

36:29

Like one of my favorite things to dispel this idea of tone deaf, you, you don't know anybody who's tone deaf.

36:36

You probably know more people with rare diseases than, you know, people who are tone deaf because a small percentage of people are tone deaf.

36:46

Now you can have a person who's like my ability to match pitch and to sing a song and people are, you know, like, boo, you know, your family, right.

36:56

The stage or tells you to stop singing. Maybe that's where you are, but that's not because you're tone deaf. That's just because you're out of shape musically.

37:03

Right. That's because, you know, it's like looking at a toddler, you know, a little baby that can't walk yet and be like, there's something wrong with it.

37:12

What mom would do moms do this all the time or parents. It's like, I just don't know. They're not, they're not doing this or that yet.

37:18

Something's wrong with them. And there's like, there's nothing wrong with them. Like they are made to walk. They were made to talk.

37:24

They were made to use their fine motor skills. And so we're all that like musicians, but there's, you know, some of us are 40 and toddlers musically.

37:33

Yeah. So there's nothing wrong with you. It's just like, we just have to develop what hasn't been developed yet.

37:39

And so where does that begin? Well, it kind of starts with that encouragement. So much of being a music teacher, especially to adults, especially the children is giving them confidence is giving them encouragement in this task of making music because it's very intimidating.

37:58

There's so much to learn. Think about all of the words, you know, in English, think about all of the, the conversations, the lectures, the books you've consumed.

38:08

That's it's a lot, right? Well, there's a lot to learn in music. There's a lot to do in music. There's a lot of things that you can't do yourself yet, but it's just, that's the point yet.

38:17

And so it starts with the encouragement. Like God, God is musical. He has made you musical. There's nothing wrong with you.

38:23

You can do this. We just have to start on the right course, get some discipline and like, basically like lose musical weight, right?

38:30

Generally everybody, even if you're overweight, you think like, oh yeah, I'm fat, but I can lose weight.

38:38

Like it might be hard, but I can do it. It's the same thing with music. So it starts with that kind of confidence builder encouragement.

38:44

And then it goes, we jump right into the voice. Like we need, we need to make sure you know how to explore your voice.

38:51

Your voice is a very huge terrain. You know, it's like the United States are so much, you can do so much with your voice.

38:58

Now, can we like focus in and, you know, harness and channel some of the main things like high and low?

39:05

Like, can we explore that to get you comfortable and then get you to a place where you can match pitch and then get you to a place where you can sing simple songs and then complex and complex.

39:15

And then the voice is working. Now, how about those ears? Can you hear which sound was higher?

39:22

The first sound or the second sound? The first sound and then so you, you kind of, all right, I get my ears involved, right?

39:28

Training that literacy outlet. And so then it just, then we're writing stuff down or writing music down.

39:34

Oh, you heard that? Well, guess what? That high and low sound. There's a symbol for that. There's a name for that.

39:40

Here you go. It starts out super binary and simple, and then you're reading it. And then you just grow in all those areas.

39:46

That's kind of like the, where I take people. You know, and that's all good too, because there are some people that I've met that have said that, oh,

39:54

I'm tone deaf. I can't do that. And then it's like, if you just sit them down with someone who knows how to teach them, they go, oh, wow.

40:00

I can carry it to now. Sometimes it's frustrating. It might take someone a couple of years versus someone three weeks, right?

40:08

There, there is different levels of where you can catch on and kind of some, some train quicker. Just like, you know, some in the gym,

40:14

I got a friend that he can gain weight and lose weight at will. I think I'm going to be 20 pounds heavier this summer.

40:21

Oh, I'm going to get back. Yeah. Three weeks later, he's all ripped. You're like, what the heck, man? I wish

40:26

I could, right. I could do that. So, so there's that. But, but it's also interesting.

40:32

And I think you might agree on this too, for those listening, if you're thinking about getting into some type of instrument or vocal, you start to realize how they're all kind of interconnected as well too.

40:43

It's like, if you start with vocal and you're learning scales and you're learning how to you know, there was one thing where it took me three years to really do something with my voice.

40:52

And then I talked to a voice teacher. I've never had any vocal training and he went, oh no, you just do this tip up and I go, oh my gosh,

40:58

I would have saved me three years of trying that. If I just went to an expert who said, there's a technique for that. I thought I had discovered something in my voice.

41:04

He goes, oh no, we teach that. That's how you do it. But they're also interconnected. I always tell a funny story too of, you know,

41:12

I grew up playing to a metronome. My dad would smack my hands if my arpeggios were off beat.

41:18

Right. But I had that tick tock tick. Right. So I got really good at tempo. And then that was from third to like seventh or eighth grade.

41:25

I took piano and then kind of taught myself. And then later on, got into drums, was in a band in my early twenties.

41:31

We're recording at a studio. And the producer goes, okay, we're going to put you on a click for the drums.

41:37

I go, click, what's a click? And he goes, I did, you know, I, I had like three drum lessons at that point, but I could,

41:43

I could play, you know, he goes, oh my gosh, this is going to be a long day. Kind of rolls his eyes. Right. So he puts me in the booth.

41:48

I put the headphones on and I hear this. I go,

41:53

I go, why is there a metronome in my, right. So I rip off, I, you know, I rip off a, you know, one, one set of it.

42:00

And he's like, I think we got it. He comes back. He goes, I thought you said you didn't play to a click. I said, oh, you said click.

42:05

I thought it was a metronome. I grew up playing to a metronome. I know he goes, oh my gosh, you gave me a heart attack.

42:10

He's like, I thought we had a drummer that couldn't keep tempo. And I did it in one take just because you know, it all fits together.

42:16

And then there's dynamic and piano and guitar, where you can pick up on voice and drum and wind instruments.

42:22

And, and I just absolutely love how it all kind of fits together. So I would say, and I think you might agree to anyone listening that goes, Hey, uh,

42:28

I want, I want to do something musically. Don't put it off, get into at least one thing, even if it's vocal.

42:34

And I would even say vocal is probably the, where it starts. Like if you can, you know what

42:39

I mean? If you can train vocally, cause it can be very overwhelming to be 35, 40, 45 years old.

42:45

And you're going, oh, I'm just starting. Mary had a little lamb on the piano or I'm, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm just picking up a flute or I'm just picking up a guitar, but it's once you do, you start to see not only

42:57

God in music, but you start to see how interconnected it is and how perfectly woven music is not only to each instrument and in each craft, but also to,

43:06

I see you can make some comparisons in life. You can make some comparisons in math and physics. And I don't know,

43:11

I just think it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Yeah. And I mean, just teeing off what you were saying there at the end, what you'll find about music is once you, once you like get into it, you start to get set free.

43:26

You realize that connection and that's a very encouraging thing. You're like, if I can sort of bring this in with the boys, if I can bring this in with the piano, when

43:36

I go to learn the guitar, I go to learn the guitar.

43:41

I'm a, I'm already ahead. Cause I kind of, I have a foundation, especially if you're learning music, like a language, instead of like an individualized silo, you're, you're set to, oh, this is all just grain all in one bucket.

43:55

You know, this is all just melted into one another. Like, that's the way to learn music.

44:01

And that's why I teach music the way I do. So you see that now, you know, it can have a slower quality to it because it's like,

44:08

I'm trying to train independence and, you know, leader, like basically music leadership in the students.

44:14

But then you're like, what goes further? You know, it's like, I can invest in this way.

44:20

It's like a slow return, but it's compounding. And so it's a win at the end of the day versus, you know, an in and out investment, you're going to get more out of the long -term, you know, better process driven away.

44:34

And so therefore you can find encouragement when you're playing Mary had a little lamb, you know, like people have a issue with that because it has this elementary facade to it, but playing

44:45

Mary had a little lamb is a very complicated thing.

44:50

Like it's, or, or hard rather it's, it's simple, but it's very hard now, but we don't kind of have that when we learn another language, like if I'm teaching you

44:59

French, I just teach you Bonjour. You know, you're like, Oh, I can kind of say some things in French, you know, and you're like, this is kind of cool.

45:07

Yeah, that's right. But I think that means listen to the music. Yeah. I figured I'd throw that in there.

45:13

It's kind of music, right? Music. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I was close. I figured it was appropriate for the episode.

45:19

Go ahead. You were on a, you're on a flow there. I'm going to start using that little extra butter on my steak with a

45:30

French it up. Oh yeah. That's the, that's the secret to hype. If anyone didn't know, you just say some sort of random phrase, you catch me on a sporting event.

45:38

I don't know what I'm saying, either encouraging or discouraging, but it's like, Oh yeah.

45:45

Put that boy in the oven and then sprinkle him some grass. Let's do it. You know, let's French it up. Yeah. Let's French it up.

45:52

So you'll find like in language is exciting to do the simple thing. Basically you just find that excitement in music.

45:58

It's like, okay, I'm singing rain, rain, go away. But you know what? I'm engaging with it in a, in a way that's difficult, right?

46:06

Like, okay. Sing rain, rain, go away. That's fine. Now sing rain, rain, go away, but mute every other beat.

46:12

Rain, go, come other. All of a sudden

46:17

I've just been mentally. And so there's a way to, you just created a Kanye album. Put a beat behind that brother.

46:25

Let's go. When you do that, you, there's, there's something, there's a way to push yourself even with simplicity, you know?

46:35

And so I think when you, when you lean into that, as you're getting into something that's probably emotionally and spiritually difficult, because there's a lot of pride, honestly.

46:46

I mean, cause you're like, I'm an adult. I should be able to do this. It's like, yeah, you should, but you're not. And so just call it for what it is.

46:52

It's like when the big person gets in the gym, it's like, yeah, guys, I'm the big guy here. I am, but you know what?

46:58

I'm here. Right. Right. Yeah. All right. So let's wrap this up, man. Our time just flew right by, but let me ask you, do you do this as a musician?

47:05

I will listen to a song and it gets stuck in my head and I can't get it out or not stop listening to it until I sit down either on the drums or the piano and figure it out.

47:14

And then it like gets out of my system. This happened to me with, um, uh, what was it? Uh, wolves, werewolves of London, right?

47:23

Right. And I'm like, what is he doing there? So of course

47:28

I had to sit. And then as soon as I figured it out, it's like, I forgot the song. I'm like, okay, I'm good. It's, it's out of my system. I kind of have that, you know, like, uh, um, do you, as a fellow musician, do you kind of have those hooks in your brain where you're like,

47:40

I got to either figure that out or listen to it until I understand it or teach it? Or is that just unique to some musicians or just to me?

47:49

No, you're, you're not unique. This is common. Uh, because what that is, you're just, you just shared everyone.

47:55

I'm sorry. I'm not unique. John said, I'm not unique. You guys, uh, preach it, but to your advantage, you just shared the secret.

48:05

You're the secret. Okay. If anyone gets that earworm, that's, you know, earworm.

48:10

I like that. Yeah. Right. How you get it out is what you're doing. You can't dive into it and figure it out.

48:16

Now for me personally, maybe I overcorrect when I listened to a song, I'm just immediately trying to figure it out.

48:22

You know, like I'm at a Saturday concert with my family this last week and I'm like, all right, what key are we in?

48:28

All right, good. I like what progression I'm working with here. Now let me see if I can soul fetch this melody real quick. All right.

48:34

Yeah. Oh, I like that. You know? Um, but also you're, you're, you're the meme with all the stuff coming out of their brain, like the physics stuff.

48:41

Yeah. Yeah. Right. You're listening to music. Can't even enjoy it. Yeah. And this is like, this is like my final plug for learning music.

48:48

You hate long road trips, you know, their heart. Well, listening to music's great way to pass the time.

48:53

But if you listen to music and every song is flying by and you're just trying to like catch everything about it, man, that's a great way to pass time.

49:02

So if you're looking for a good pastime, become a musician. All right. As we close out here,

49:08

I want to play our newsy news clip for you because I want as a musical expert, you tell us, yeah, this is a, we use this in our segment.

49:15

Uh, Jason and I put this together. This is a singing falsetto. So as a musical expert, we want you to critique this as a, as you leave.

49:22

Okay. You ready? Tell us what you think. Yeah. See, we got a little good falsetto on the end there.

49:38

Yeah. So here, I'll tell you why that's good. Yeah. So you've got the, uh, you kind of have the full grunge.

49:49

It's like speaking voice, like you're like half singing. And so that resonates to the common man, right?

49:54

If you come in nose, nose, nose, nose, nose, no, no, that's not, but you're giving way too good of a,

50:02

I was, did it as a joke and you're like breaking it down. I'm ready for the next. I love it.

50:09

You did well. All right. Give us the final word, Sean, as we sign off here, uh, about music or the

50:15

Academy or whatever you got going on. Um, let Yeah. Well, we're here to help you.

50:21

We're here to help your family become musically literate. We're here to help you establish something beautiful now and for generations to come.

50:29

And you just have to know that Ray, I'm about to get my little Joel Osteen action on like, God is musical.

50:35

You are musical. God created you to be musical. He has set a desire in your heart.

50:41

He has said to you, I'm very careful about saying who wouldn't go to heaven. I just think that only

50:47

God can judge a person's heart. Amen, brother. That's Joel. That's Joel on, uh,

50:53

Larry King saying only God can judge a person's heart. I'm not, I just, I'm very careful about saying who wouldn't, wouldn't go to heaven.

50:59

I just think that only God can judge a person's heart. You mentioned

51:04

Joel Osteen, so he had to do the job. There's nothing wrong with you musically, right? If you think you're toned up, you're wrong, right?

51:11

That's like, maybe it's a little too aggressive, but that's like saying like, Oh, I can't be saved. You know, like there literally is an element to it.

51:19

So, so stop. So stop calling yourself toned up. Stop discouraging people who are, you know, if you've ever called,

51:26

Hey Sally, you know, I'm sorry. And you know, ninth grade choir when I say, you know, have some musical repentance.

51:35

And, um, you know, if you're musical, keep, keep pressing on, keep trying to push yourself and in the ways that you, cause everyone, we're weak in all these different ways.

51:43

Like, Oh my spot or my, you know, get stronger. And if you're not start, you know, and you can figure it out, go to YouTube, come to a professional, just do something.

51:53

Right. I love it, Sean. Thanks so much for taking some time today with us and talking about this.

51:59

Obviously we're going to link everything up. Uh, when the podcast drops, you guys can check out his Academy. Um, I'm sure you can follow him on social media.

52:06

We'll make sure we link those out too. Where are you at most active on social media? People want to get, get ahold of your or follow you.

52:12

Yeah. I like to hit that Instagram and Facebook. Okay. And it's just, what's the, what's the handle?

52:18

Yeah. So for the Academy, it's bone AMA at bone AMA. So just the same website domain.

52:24

And then I'm Sean bone. I think I'm Sean O'Shea. I think it's my, uh, cool name. Yeah. All right, brother.

52:30

Thanks for being here today. We appreciate you. All right. God bless. See you soon. Yeah. Hey guys, thanks again for listening to another episode of dead men walking podcast, visiting

52:39

DMW podcast, following us at dead men walking podcast on all the social media sites, except for Twitter.

52:44

It's real DMW podcast. They wouldn't give us the dead men walking podcast handle, but it's all linked up there.

52:50

You can follow us, uh, interact with us, leave us a voicemail on the website, whatever you want and talk to us about maybe some shows you'd want to see coming up.

52:57

We like listening and hearing the feedback and saying, Hey, why don't you have this person on? Or maybe you could talk about this. We do like that as well.

53:04

And as always guys, remember the chief end of man to glorify God and enjoy him forever. God bless.

53:10

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