Member Spotlight: Katelyn Baas—musician, arranger

Why SMI? The concept is biblical

Sharing God's beauty

As a 30-year-old musician, Katelyn Baas is not ashamed to admit that learning to play an instrument is hard.

The northern Michigan native plays guitar and the hammered dulcimer to minister to others and share the beauty of Christ. Like many callings in life—parenting, writing, pastoring, etc.—being a musician isn’t easy, but it’s what the Lord has called her to do in this season.

“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, you do music. It’s so easy for you.’ And for me, it really hasn’t been easy at all,” Katelyn said. “Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Why am I doing this? Because this is not easy.’ But I just love it so much.”

Katelyn’s third album, Showers of Blessing, released in June, consists of fingerstyle hymns performed on classical guitar. Along with recording her own music—she also has a Christmas album and another album of favorite hymns—she offers private lessons, is involved with the handbell choir at her church, performs at assisted living facilities, performs and teaches at music festivals, and arranges music.

“I just want to bless people however I can,” she said. “I’ll play wherever I get the opportunity.”

Bitten by the dulcimer bug

Katelyn started learning to play music when she was 8 years old. Her extended family and siblings are musically inclined, with the ensemble including piano, organ, flute, oboe, and tuba. Following in the footsteps of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Katelyn took up piano.

However, she learned it wasn’t the right instrument for her.

“The piano really wasn’t my thing, but I ended up falling in love with the guitar. I just always loved how the guitar sounded,” she said. When she was 11, her grandmother bought Katelyn her first guitar. Shortly after, she started lessons and found that she didn’t want to put the instrument down.

“That really flipped the switch, I guess you’d say,” she said. “Mom would be like, ‘OK, you need to put your guitar down and go do something else.’ I just loved practicing that much. I had some really great teachers, which definitely helped because you can only go so far on your own.”

A family member introduced her to the hammered dulcimer, but it wasn’t until a few years later that her interest in the strung percussion instrument grew. Living just 45 minutes from what has been considered “the World’s Largest Dulcimer Festival,” Katelyn attended Evart FunFest in Michigan with a curiosity for the mandolin and picking up new skills on the guitar. After a workshop on the dulcimer and hearing someone play it beautifully at the festival that year, she “got bit by the dulcimer bug.”

“I thought, ‘Boy, if I was ever going to play dulcimer, I would play like that, but I don’t play the dulcimer,’” she said. “Don’t ever say ‘never’ because it means you will.”

While she never said “never,” God still gave her the desire to play it.

“I started looking into them and they were expensive, but thankfully God provided one at a budget level that was like $300,” she said. “It was a good instrument, and I was able to actually play that one for the first 10 years before I had to upgrade. So, God just worked it all out and He provided the best teacher and that’s how I got started on the dulcimer. It wasn’t really intentional.”

After she finished high school, Katelyn studied college-level music theory and had a tutor who would help her understand the music better. Mostly self-taught, she used older books that allowed her to study music as it sounded before the influence of jazz.

“It’s more pure,” she said. “In some ways, I’m very glad I didn’t formally study that way, because I think it allowed me to pursue that and, not to mention, I really don’t technically play an instrument that most colleges would accept.”

Today her public performances are usually split between playing the guitar and hammered dulcimer, though she plays the dulcimer at most concerts. While piano is no longer her first choice, she still uses what she learned on the keys to help her arrange hymns. She has created books of her arrangements so others can use them.

“I’ve also put together an instruction book for the guitar that uses hymns for all the exercises,” she said. “I use it when teaching students and some have used it to teach themselves.”

Katelyn now teaches beginning and intermediate guitar at music festivals and even teaches the hammered dulcimer at Evart FunFest, where she initially fell in love with the instrument.

“I teach hammered dulcimer workshops for all levels now, usually focusing on learning a technique,” she said. “I teach an introductory workshop for adults, hoping maybe there’ll be another person like me that just doesn’t know that’s what God has for them, and they’ll discover it there.”

Arranging for others

Many assume that because Katelyn is a musician, she writes her own music, but she arranges more than composes. She starts with a piece someone else wrote and then fills in around it, using techniques characteristic of the instrument she is arranging the piece for. This usually starts with her getting the song in her head and thinking how the arrangement would sound.

"I just finished an arrangement of 'Wonderful Grace of Jesus,' which is one I had wanted to do probably three years into playing the dulcimer, and I just couldn't make it work," she said. "And then about three months ago, all of a sudden it just clicked and I'm really happy with what I ended up with."

Her website sells different types of arrangements, such as those for bands or hammered dulcimers.

Music as ministry

The Lord led Katelyn to pursue music as a ministry shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic started.

“The Lord just really laid it on my heart that ‘I want you to do music,’” she said. “I was like, ‘Are you sure? Lord, I don’t know what that means.’ That’s just really stayed with me and sometimes I get discouraged. It’s really hard to keep going.”

Katelyn knows the impact music can have on someone. A song can pick her up on a down or tiring day, or it might relax or inspire her. Playing music also ministers to her by reminding her why she is playing a particular song and Who she is playing for. Other times, if she is down or can’t express her feelings, music is a way for her to get it out.

“I remember, after losing a grandparent, being so sad and playing a very minor classical piece on my guitar. It wasn’t a hymn, but somehow it helped get out what was building up inside,” she said.

While Katelyn may not be able to see what her music ministry looks like in the distant future, she is open to the opportunities He has for her.

“If it’s His calling, He knows the answer, but I just kind of keep knocking on doors and seeing which ones open, and sometimes they open and I didn’t even knock on them, such as helping with the handbell choir at church,” she said.

Katelyn wants to teach at more festivals and is looking into making online lessons available.

“I’ve only really in the last four or five years focused hard on making it more of a ministry, of playing more and teaching more,” she said. “But if somebody had told me five years ago ‘You’re going to teach,’ I would’ve said, ‘Me teach? No way.’”