By Sophie Johnson, Social Media Editor
Holding on to You” by Twenty One Pilots, a pop and rap song. If you’ve ever heard it, you’d think, “No way someone can sing and play that song on the ukulele!” However, you thought wrong: this is senior Courtney White’s go-to karaoke song.
“It’s just a fun song and every time I do it, I’m not saying I’m amazing at it because I know I’m not,” White said with a laugh. “It’s just the one song that people are like, ‘Oh my gosh, she can play ukulele and rap, that’s so cool.’ ”
White has been singing her whole life and it all started in church, watching her mom sing. She started participating in musicals at her church and has taken chorus all four years of high school and participated in Hawkapella. She eventually took piano lessons to add to her musical abilities. White also plays the ukulele, box drum and is learning how to play the guitar.
Combining all of her musical talents into a song has been something White has been working to accomplish at her internship at the Evangelical Church in Elizabeth City. She makes the drive up there a couple of times a week to meet with her worship pastor, Jeff Wortman.
“The internship consists of learning about what being a music minister or worship leader looks like,” Wortman said. “A lot of people think that you just show up on Sundays and play some music, but there’s more to it.”
At her internship, White gets hands-on experience by preparing the music and the worship part of the youth group that meets every Sunday evening.
“We’re kind of forming your own philosophy of what does worship look like, and so we’re going through a couple different books and talking about that,” Wortman said. “We’re also learning how to record if you wanted to write your own songs and record them to make an album.”
The two have written and recorded a song together and sang it for their church. Wortman gave her a topic and the key to write it in, then White wrote the chorus while he wrote the verses. They brought the song together and played it for people at the church.
“People seemed to like it and we recorded it. We’re hoping we get to do more of that and include everybody on the team to pitch in and help out,” Wortman said. “The goal is to give people their own songs that they can sing, that came out of the church.”
Along with recording a song with her worship pastor, White has also written a couple of songs herself.
“I have a few songs that I’ve released on YouTube, but I don’t know if I’m actually going to do anything serious with them,” she said.
Posting singing videos on the internet takes confidence and so does talking in front of hundreds of people at church. Wortman has been warming up White to speaking in front of people by letting her open the time of singing during each service with a thought or the theme that they’re focusing on.
“I’ve had her do that and she has to speak in front of the hundreds of people there,” Wortman said. “She was a little worried about it at the beginning and she’s kind of stepping into that a little bit and getting less nervous.”
Talking and singing in front of hundreds of people are two different types of nervous. White had the opportunity to go to California in August of 2017 and compete in a fine arts competition for her church. She made it to regionals, then made it to the competition in California.
“It was fun and a really awesome experience for me and got me more confident in what I’m doing,” she said.
Although White fell in love with California on her trip, she will be attending Grace Christian University, an evangelical college, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this fall. The music program they have will give her a lot of different experiences.
“If I wanted to produce my own music I would have the experience and tools to do that. But if I wanted to be a pastor at a church, like a music pastor, then I could do that. I could do whatever I wanted in this program,” White said.
White has come a long way from singing in church musicals as a child to going 918 miles to Grace University. After growing up in the church, it’s looking like she will more than likely end up there as a career, continuing to impress all around her with a wide array of talent.
Senior Sophie Johnson can be reached at johnsonso0628@daretolearn.org.
