The Unsung Rules: Musical Etiquette as Sacred Practice in an Age of Disrespect

**1950s Memphis**

The cracked linoleum of Manassas High's choir room absorbed decades of sweat and sanctified sound. In 1957, two futures took shape: Isaac Hayes, fingers finding his first blues progressions on the battered piano, and my father, already torn between the pull of the world and the call of the cross.

The story goes that during football tryouts, Grandpa stormed the field like a prophet in work clothes, gripping Dad's shoulder pads mid-drill. "Boy, that’s evil!" he thundered, escorting him straight to church—where Dad would spend every evening and weekend, playing for revivals and prayer meetings until his fingers ached. Meanwhile, Isaac—struggling through algebra—would slide into the desk beside him, whispering, "Let me see your paper, man," as Dad scribbled answers between memorizing hymn verses.

**The Contradiction**

While other boys spent summers at soda shops or baseball games, Dad was on the road playing revivals, camp meetings, and Sunday services—three nights a week, sometimes four—returning to school each fall with revival dust still on his shoes, late to register and left with the dregs of electives: shorthand, typing, the clattering typewriter keys a dissonant counterpoint to the sanctified rhythms in his head. By graduation, he'd mastered two survival tools—the piano and the ledger book—though only one earned applause.

While Isaac dreamed of radio hits, Dad was already living a paradox: touring with fire-breathing evangelists, playing hard gospel that saved souls while the preachers raked in offerings. He slept in backseats eating cold oatmeal, learning the unspoken contract between musician and ministry: You could shake the rafters with holiness one night and get shortchanged on pay the next morning.

Those same clerical skills that kept the revival books balanced would later keep him stateside during Vietnam, assigned to a Marine administrative unit while others shipped overseas. The military recognized what the tent revivals often overlooked—his sharp mind for organization was as vital as his musical gifts. Where church leaders saw just a piano player, the Corps saw a man who could track supplies, manage schedules, and process orders with the same precision he brought to hymn arrangements.

That tension—between sacrifice and exploitation, reverence and hustle—is why musical etiquette matters more than ever today. When a TikTok star samples a hymn without crediting the 90-year-old who wrote it, or when a worship leader calls a veteran musician "out of touch" for requesting a rehearsal, they're not breaking new ground. They're repeating history's oldest sin: taking the labor and losing the lesson.

**The Living Rules**

**Rule #1: The Offering Plate Principle**

Dad approached church music with covenant faithfulness—the same integrity he expected from leadership. While some musicians chased higher fees, he served churches that honored their word, even if payment came slowly. But when 'next week' became 'next month,' he treated broken promises like flat notes—unacceptable in God's house. His quiet exit when congregations forgot 'a workman is worthy of his hire' (Luke 10:7) wasn't protest; it was testimony. True worship values both spirit and labor. Today, when young artists accept "exposure" as payment, they're not being humble; they're breaking the chain of value.

**Rule #2: The Oatmeal Clause**

If you're eating cornflakes in a motel while the preacher dines on steak, your band mates better know. Dad's groups lived by this: Whoever finds a meal shares a meal. Modern musicians ghost collaborators over Venmo disputes, but true community means transparency when the road gets lean.

**Rule #3: The Altar Call Decorum**

When the doors of the church swing open during "Just As I Am," your hands become an extended invitation—not a performance. Dad taught us to watch for that first searching soul stepping into the aisle, letting our chords soften into open fifths like arms reaching out to steady the broken. Last month, I heard an organist thunder through a salvation moment with showy diminished runs, his pedal tones shaking the stained glass while seekers trembled in the pews. The old mothers would have walked right up and closed the fall board on his fingers mid-verse. When heaven's gates crack open, our job is to hold them wide—not polish the hinges.

**Then and Now**

Yet I've also seen Gen Z worship leaders revive the "3-Beat Pause" as a mindfulness practice, letting silence breathe between verses. Jazz collectives now use Discord to debate chord substitutions with elders, screens glowing like digital campfires where Monk meets MIDI. The future isn't abandoning etiquette—it's translating it into new tongues.

At a Brooklyn studio last winter, a 24-year-old producer stopped a session to ask the 70-year-old bassist, "How would you have played this groove in 1972?" The resulting track had twice the pocket—proof that the saints still speak, if we mic them right.

**The Challenge**

So here's your assignment from the Memphis saints:

1. **Notice one friction point** this week where tradition could help. Did you interrupt? Assume you knew better?

2. **Ask the old-timers**: Find someone who played through the Civil Rights era and ask, "What's one rule you won't compromise?"

3. **Hybridize it**: Take their answer and adapt it. Replace Grandpa's jersey-grab with a text reminder: "U playing for God or likes?"

The rules aren't shackles—they're the hidden harmonics between then and now. Isaac knew that; his later albums dripped with church cadences. But first, he had to sit in that algebra class, cheating off a boy who couldn't skip church to even try the devil's game.