Arts Personality

NOEL GRASS, KENYAN PIANIST, PRODUCER AND COMPOSER

On the path to discovering God THROUGH MUSIC

We would like to hear your heart concerning music, God, and your personal journey of discovery.
Let’s say I’ve had an inclination to God ever since I was young. When I was around five or slightly younger (my mom was explaining this to me) I had a problem reading. I couldn’t read at all and I would fail my exams. One day the teacher said to me that I’m junk, or something and I will never make it past university. I went home and cried to my mom and asked her, “Mom, does God make junk?” The first thing that happened was my mom said, “No, God doesn’t make junk.” I said, “Ok, then let me lie on your chest, and then you’re going to read to me.” The funny thing is, I told her what to read for me and it was King James Version of the Bible, not that it makes things any easier! Now, when she read to me, I understood. I literally understood everything from creation to … I don’t know how, something just unlocked, and from then on I just started understanding everything. I took it from a Biblical sense. I just start seeing those things of geography and – although I was terrible at geography and history – but it opened up to me and that’s how I began understanding. The second thing that happened was, I do not know why, but when my mom was expecting me or whenever I used to go to her clinic, she was a pediatric dentist, there was always classical music, Don Moen and Michael W. Smith and a Christian group Family TV used to show a lot playing. I used to be so intrigued: ‘how does one play like that? It’s so amazing! Wow!’ I don’t know if my mom and God were always in communication, but God has His own sense of humor. I also found a piano there. I decided to start fiddling around with it and that’s how my journey began.

From the age of six, I would create and compose my own music. I grew up listening to a lot of hymns and I would take the hymns and then remix them in my own style. That made me happy. Growing up I found that there was always this inclination towards music and the person who made this happen was Dino from Family TV. The way he played amazed me. Then I started listening to Jimmy Swaggart, it was music that I could understand, I could somehow feel it but I couldn’t comprehend it as such, but it just spoke to me. In the process of the journey, I heard it said that if you want to make it in the world, you have to conform to it. I started going into classical music, not that I’m saying classical music is bad – everyone has their own gifting – but I feel like I somewhat deviated from my music.

Mine was what I was meant to do, to just create and find a way of using my emotions to share my music, rather than making it solely for a singular purpose. The other music has all these rules and demands to make it in their way. I went into this other music, but funny enough I somehow still excelled in it. I was even with my sister; we performed together at some point. I went on to secondary school, and everything changed. People were insisting on the way that one should play. Now, I used to transfer from school to school a lot – without losing my grade – but I didn’t understand why. Then one year I took a break from music at year 11- and I think it was a forced break because every time I would come home for the holidays and play my music, I would feel uplifted. Looking back, I think I was removed from the previous school I was in, and everything was just washed away as though I was being told ‘You need to go back to your path’, but you see at that time I didn’t realize it. Now, when I look at it, it makes sense.

Unusual mentorship
Before I went into university, there was a period where I had someone who mentored me musically. He never told me about finger techniques or hand posture, he just said, “You have to play with feeling, that’s the way you communicate, music is a conversation.” I wondered, ‘What kind of lesson is this? This is insane it doesn’t even make any sense at all. It has no value to me. I feel like there’s no value for my money.’ But when I look at it right now, I’m grateful because I have my touch, one that is unique to me and me alone. After mentoring me for 3-4 months, told me, “Now you can become a teacher.” I was puzzled. ‘Now I can become a teacher? What do you mean? I don’t understand.’ He said, “Yes, you can now start teaching my students.” I was really astonished. I used to think he was lazy, but when I looked at his music and when I listened to his music, it was so beautiful. He composed two classical pieces, one which covered the whole frequency spectrum of the piano; not a single note was left untouched. And that’s ingenious. It’s not easy to come up with a piece like that; it even emulates things like thunder and water.

Then I went into university. That was the highlight of my life because my music took a whole different tangent. I would go for classes, then I would also go for auditions for music, get gigs, that’s like pocket money on the side and I was fine with it, because it was working out. Later it reached a point I became conflicted and I told myself, ‘Ok, I don’t understand what is going on.’ It became about playing to impress other people and that, of course, will get you nowhere because the main aim is to please God, and pleasing Him through YOUR gift. I discovered that once when I was at a standstill in my life. Everything took a deep dive for me in 2013. There was the whole story of boy meets girl, girl meets boy, girl leaves boy for another person, boy is heartbroken. About a month before that, my dad had passed on. I think I was confused. I went into a dark state and my music took a shift. I tried to understand and conceptualize this feeling, but I could not. It’s not something that you just normalize.

At some point I would sit with my mom and talk and she would say, “You know what, Noel? I don’t think I could go through what you went through at your age.” That really surprised me. During this period, I said to myself, ‘Ok let’s see what happens.’ But you see, when you operate with ‘let’s see what happens’ it’s a negative, because you don’t really trust God as such and I spiraled down so fast. I would walk an adjacent path to the one I’m supposed to walk and it would make things so difficult for me, but the one thing that I always remembered (because I used to think that to God I’m irredeemable) the one thing that I always remembered and one thing I believe till today has kept me close to God, is the music.

For me there was just this way that music has this connection to God and it helped me. Thankfully, even though I was going through all that, I was still trying to hone my craft. Through that pain and through that hurt as I was honing my craft, something came out. I discovered what kind of music I would want to play to help people. I discovered what kind of music I would want in order to help me go through. What would make someone just be themselves and what would make me be me in the long run. And because of learning how to love myself again and find music that will heal people and help people, that’s what led me to go into different events. And that was my mistake. I thought that I could help people, I’m going to get money but I’m still going to help people. But I found out that I was only denying myself something, because it became about competition. How good are you? How amazing? How well can you play? I kinda got lost in it. This is a path I’ve gotten lost on so many times and coming back is always the painful bit, because it’s like you have to start again from the beginning. Recently, I had to start again from the beginning and because of that, I stopped a lot of my events. I decided to become a brand of my own in the context of the music that I would want to create, not for my sake but just from my heart and from what my spirit tells me.

It’s important to be in tune with the Spirit of God, because the Spirit of God I feel is like a nervous system, but only more complex. The way He operates is like everything is aligned for a bigger picture. I think music helps with that alignment; if you just release yourself as a vessel, rather than as the one orchestrating. What will happen if God is the One orchestrating? He’s the conductor and then you, you’re the orchestra and you’re just following what He’s telling you to do? Then of course you’ll get a different result. That’s the current level I have reached, because the people who I’m surrounded with now, (when my dad died everybody left) were meant to be in my life at this particular time, they keep on encouraging me. My mom has been through it all. She always told me focus on your music, focus on your craft, and she always told me, “Focus on God so that He can give you the skills and the knowledge on how to tackle this kind of music.”

There’s music that has been and I believe there is music that we haven’t tapped into yet, and the moment we do it will create such a shift that just by people hearing music they will release themselves to God. By having someone to remind me that and in fact having someone who was older to always remind me that, it’s actually a very big deal because actually my mind frame just shifted and I was like I can actually do this. I’m not doing this for me I’m doing this based on what God wants me to do. Sometimes I can play and I don’t feel like playing so I’ll just not play at all. Whereas other times I will say I have this itch to play and whatever comes to my mind I play. Thankfully when I normally have that itch I just press record on the keyboard and I just play. As long as I’ve played then afterwards I can just listen to it again, then sometimes I’m like “Are you sure it was you that played that?” Then you realize that no it was not you it was definitely God so please just keep quiet.

So the kind of music you’re doing now is the kind of music you found yourself doing when you first started playing?
Yes. The first music, my main focus where I started in the beginning, is where I’m finding myself right now, even amidst all this other music I have learnt. It’s helped, it’s given me knowledge, it’s given me discipline when playing, even when I have emotions. It’s like when God is talking to you, you have to listen. The same thing with music. You can be an amazing musician, you can run around just play chops, drums, but if there’s no conversation with feeling, then you won’t be conversing. You’re talking at someone you’re not talking to them.

What’s the place of your relationship with God in all of this? What is it like now?
I feel like, honestly from before until now, I feel like it’s a Father- Son relationship. Your father can be your friend, your father can be your authority and your father can also be your mentor. So, for me, irrespective of when a child goes wrong, the father doesn’t correct them and so okay I’m done with you. No. That’s why I say I feel like we’re blessed when we say we have God as our Father, because He takes us back irrespective of what we have done and He says, “Welcome back.” I feel like He has, irrespective of all my shortcomings and going back and forth and always going back to the start, He has always been willing to take me forward. He’s an authority, someone who I revere. I remember like when I was six I would look at my dad in awe like this big man. I would hang on his one hand and he would carry me, just hanging and I would just be like ‘he’s so strong he’s so amazing.’ That’s how I feel my relationship between me and God is.

One of your newest projects is The Realm of Illusion, can you tell us what that really means?
So, Realm of Illusion, people normally think that when someone says Realm of Illusion you have started witchcraft, wizardry and sorcery. I just went back to my roots. How I began music. How God showed me I began music. Realm of Illusion is describing the condition when you’re in a trance-like state. Have you ever been with God and then you just feel as if you’re sober, like you feel you can still function normally? Well, I don’t feel like that. When you’re in a very deep state sometimes even talking to people can even irritate you because you’re like, “Mh-mh, let me just finish with God first.” You don’t want to be interrupted. So that is that Realm of Illusion. Realm of Illusion is actually one of the songs the main album is called The Impressionist. During the time of the classical period there was impressionism in music and there was impressionism in art. If you look at the colors on the album art and how they have been put, you’ll find a similarity with the impressionism era. I want to let people figure out who God is through guidance rather than through imposing.

This is where The Impressionist came along. You can look at each piece from a secular point and from a Christian point. If you’re going to choose to listen to the music, then you have to be aware in which state of mind you’re listening to it. But the spirit in which I created it was the spirit of “You know God, this is what You’ve given me. So, if it will impact anybody in any way whatsoever, let it impact them let them get to know You even better.” It took me exactly three years to release it. I had so many songs I had written down. The first song I released was called African Dance. After I released it, I don’t know what happened, all the content I had ever created I just put it down. I didn’t release anything else. What I realized was that for 13-14 years I played the piano alone, before I started playing with a band. I decided go back to my roots, that’s how The Impressionist came about. The Impressionist is also interesting because you can either look at yourself as the painter or you can look at God as The Painter of your life. In the song, Realm of Illusion, you can be in your own realm or you can be in God’s realm of illusion. It might feel like it’s an illusion but God is the One who knows the true nature, it’s a space that He Himself has created. You can look at Disney Love as Pocahontas and Cinderella but you can look at Disney Love as the true love that’s never ending of Jesus Christ.

“I feel like, honestly from before until now, I feel like it’s a Father- Son relationship. Your father can be your friend, your father can be your authority and your father can also be your mentor.”

Noel Manyasi a.k.a. Noel Grass

So basically you’re saying that to understand the kind of music you do which I believe is like you are kind of trying to have this kind of deeper connection to God, so for someone to understand your music, their level of maturity and their ability to decipher this is secular or this is gospel or this is godly music is what helps them to understand?
What will help them to understand is what the music makes them feel because you can never lie to your subconscious or to your spirit, because your spirit comes from God, whether we like it or not. Someone has actually said about the music that they felt low at some point and then they felt healed. I just said okay that was God’s intention, me I released it to whatever the music has gone to do. As long as it’s not used for a negative purpose which is not based on God’s will.

Tell us about your project “The Four Elements.”
I was actually in awe of God and how He created the elements and I tried replicating them in my own understanding. It was a very deep thing for me. The people in the studio wanted to do a video recording project so I told them to go ahead and film me. I had no idea what I was going to do at all, I just sat at the keyboard, then the moment they started and said, “Rolling!” I just played. I said, I’m going to name this Four Elements and whatever comes to my head, it shall come. I like composing on the fly. Then I said I feel like this should have some elements in it so it gives it a more profound sound and that’s how it just came about. What I was feeling in my heart. And when I was listening to the music, it just gave me the words: The earth is stable – on Christ the Solid Rock I stand; People always deem fire as dangerous but if God’s fire goes into you it purifies; Water – God and the ocean are so vast and so deep; Wind – He will just come like a rushing wind (stolen from William McDowell, he says come like the rushing wind). I don’t know why when people hear the elements the first thing they go to is witchcraft. It’s God who has created everything, so basically what you’re doing is you’re trying to insubordinate God by using His very own creation which He can – just by a click – destroy in an instant.

You’ve been in the music industry in Kenya for a while, and I think you have also gone from doing ‘gospel today and club music tomorrow’. You know, all that back and forth. What do you think of the gospel music industry in Kenya?
To be very honest I would prefer the secular world, not because secular music is much more hip and energetic. It’s just that I sometimes think there’s much more effort put into it and much more spirit.

Whichever spirit people claim secular musicians use, they forget that God has given them that gift. I’ve been to a couple of churches and this is what happens. Practice starts at 10am on a Saturday and runs let’s say 10-1pm. The instrumentalists arrive at 9:30, 9:40. 10, those are the people who are disciplined, there are also people who are undisciplined. When they arrive, the first thing that they do is they start going through the songs that they have already been going through at home. The vocalists come and it is a whole process relearning the song, and the vocalists have their own voices 24/7, the instrumentalists don’t. For me it’s always been that way in all the churches I’ve gone to, it’s always been instrumentalists. Most of these instrumentalists also play in the ‘secular’ world.

Also in churches I find that they don’t give 100%. Some churches have this state of the art equipment, but what comes out of it? They wait for Don Moen or Travis Greene to come to Kenya, then now that’s when they put out the best of the best, and yet at an event I go to, I’m like this equipment looks so shoddy, but the things people are doing with it! So, I’m conflicted. The same pastors who say, “How can we pay musicians and we’re not paying ushers?” It’s how people see. If people handled musicians the way they handled the Levites in Israel it, would probably be a different story but that’s my opinion. I like the professionalism and the heart of the secular, because the musicians I have played with sometimes play from the heart to the point where I wonder that such a small number of people can create that amount of sound. They
give 100%.

What I’m hearing you talk about is sort of like the path to finding your genuine self and your genuine voice. How would you encourage other people to do it? You tried and then thought you were drawn away, but now that you’re back, how do you maintain it?
When someone starts a journey there has to be a turning point. For me the turning point that made me stop working was when I decided I can’t sit at a desk, even though I’m not going to have any money, I won’t sit at a desk. I left and said I’m never going to do that work again, not at any one point. In my music I realized that I’m not healing myself, I am more or less destroying myself and separating my soul from a path that I’m supposed to be taking. That feeling of where you feel empty, that feeling of when it has reached its peak – that’s when you’ll know that now you have to go back. Until you understand that feeling, sometimes I feel that you might just have to go again, do again until it will hit you that actually you’re empty. I think that’s what people might need to realize. But for those who can follow without even having to go through it, even better for them.

Thank you Noel for your time
You are welcome.