i am an offering | blog tips for worship leaders in the local church

Good post. I’m sitting next to our worship director teaching one of our youth guitar players music theory. He’s been told for so long “put your fingers there” or even was just handed a chord sheet. He had no idea any of the why’s and how’s. He has a good ear and can pick stuff out but can’t invent. Praise God he is getting taught. I’m so freakin happy sitting in my office listening to this. Wow.

This problem is a few levels deep. I approach it this way, emulation is cheap. This is usually a problem for players who have never played in an original band where they are in some creative environment. All they’ve done is read music or played by ear and tried to emulate what someone else has done. For my team that doesn’t really work, I can’t think creatively for every musician in the band. So for me that’s a pre-requisite, I don’t want emulation. You have to be able to hear your own parts, experiment and self critique. I don’t think a band leader can successfully do that for every instrument, or at least this bad leader can’t.

There in lies the rub Really it just depends on the vision for your band. My band we do a lot of original songs and when we do other people’s songs we usually remix them into our style. So it requires my band being able to express creatively well. But if you’re not doing a lot of that then yeah it probably shouldn’t be a pre-requisite for you.

Teaching creativity is difficult. But there are some exercises we do in our band practice to foster this and also I do as a test in auditions. I’ll start playing some riff or progression on guitar nobody has heard and then one by one I’ll point to an instrument and it’s their job to introduce themselves into the song. One by one we start layering instruments. We’ll play it out for a while and then we’ll discuss what stunk and what parts were cool. Then play it over and try to improve each time. This forces people to creatively find parts but not be afraid to make mistakes.

The biggest barrier to creativity is people’s fear of making mistakes. Have to break that. I hope something here is of use or helpful in some way.

Enjoy your blog and enjoy even more getting connected with other worship leaders to exchange these kind of ideas.

Well, I may be coming at this the total wrong way, however…. I lead worship at my church from a keyboard and occasionally the piano. The last time I checked, piano is a percussion instrument. I understand that this doesn’t mean someone can just sit down and play a song percussively, so as to lead it in a worship service setting. I find for myself, after lots of time with other musicians and also watching Paul Baloche’s worship band workshop video clips… that I very rarely find myself in a position where I am solely responsible for carrying an entire song by myself. I typically play some variation of a bass note or notes with my left hand then the chords with my right hand. In a band setting, the drummer can help carry the tempo, guitarist can help carry tempo as well as some “mids” and the bass guitar player can pick up the bass end of things. For me, I find it helpful sometimes to sit back and listen as the other instruments play and actually try to play out notes that would be part of the vocal harmony line to find places where I can color in the song with the keys. Thinking about it too… something as simple as “chopsticks” on the keys is a basic way of teaching rhythym on the keys. Also, an oldie but a goody worship tune “You Are Crowned With Many Crowns” is a good way to take chords on the right hand and play them and due to the beat of that song, you are in affect playing rhythym chords. With regards to leading a song, if you are singing the song vocally, then you may not need to play the melody on the keys and therefore you could just have them do inversions of the chords. Try having them experiment with arpeggio’s on an inversion while they sing the melody. As far as teaching someone to be creative… I’m not sure if this is possible. I think you can provide some structure for how to be creative, but that person would have to have an ear for music. I would say maybe invite them to rehearsals if they have a true desire to learn this style and maybe just have them quietly play throughout your rehearsal to just see what they come up with. I agree with previous posts that people need to be made to feel as though it’s okay to make a mistake. I make plenty with my team!!!

A little late to the party here, but as a keyboard driven worship leader (for most of my career) I have some thoughts as well.

I teach worship keys to students fairly often. I’ve never had a major problem with this because early on I really try and develop the students’ sense of independence. I teach them to basically accompany voice (not just play a song). Their goal as a keys player is to create a foundation that the vocal lead can sit on. I start there and then move to ensemble playing LATER. I do this by a lot of imitation and emulation. They listen to and watch what other musicians are doing.

And regardless of what some of the previous posts have said, you can’t teach anything at all without some form of emulation in the early stages. Anything taught correctly utilizes imitation and emulation, while developing independent thought and creativity.

Eventually students will develop their own style. But I’ve found a Biblical principle to come into play here. If our students are faithful in the “beginners” things, then they will be given the “advanced” things.

Teach them simple worship progressions… I IV I IV (etc) and have them just play those over and over learning how to use the best inversions as you teach them chords. They get it pretty quick.

Show a young, developing keyboardist exactly what to play on a song. SHOW them. Then have them do it back. Show them again and again and again. Once they master that, then challenge them to add their own little flare.

Personally, I think it depends upon the potential of the student themselves. Often times, I’ll have adult students who want to write simple worship songs and be able to worship at the house or in small groups. They would benefit from learning to read music, but I usually don’t go much deeper than teaching them the notes on the keyboard so they’ll be able to build chords with a chord sheet.

Children on the other hand I typically take through 6 weeks of reading exercises to determine their potential and to decided whether to carry on or not.

I think the big thing is to teach in a way that “hooks” our students. If we overload them with too much reading and theory they get bogged down and overwhelmed. But if we can show them a few songs that they can go home and worship with or even wow their friends with they’ll come back for more. I say it’s all about developing what little or great potential within and really buckling down with the individual to find which avenue is the best bet for them.

Hey Ryan,

When you mentioned:
“Create an online youtube / video to help train - another thing I’d love to do - again with a lack of time”

check out godtube.com/crashchords, hope it helps your bloggers.

A number of points.

My church has a number of good piano players who improv from chords. None of them were taught anything about music theory or about piano technique at our church. They all come from bands (garage to pro touring) or led worship at previous churches. With only one exception, they are all songwriters. So you might say I really don’t have anything to say about this issue. However, consider that the whole question begs another issue: is the church where people should learn to play? Should we hold out for a certain caliber and skill set before we invite someone to join the worship band?

I recently turned away a drummer and told them to take private lessons in rock and jazz. If it is really their dream to play drums for worship, they should become an excellent drummer. It might take years. That isn’t a bad thing. That’s how long it takes.

I’ve got a bunch of other piano players in the church who read standard notation very well (only one person in the intersection between the two groups…the non-songwriter, interestingly). Some of them can improv some of them can’t. Those that can’t improv pretty much only play at special occasions when were are doing hymns traditionally or we need accompaniment for a Bach chorale. Our Sunday morning bread and butter is contemporary music. There is very little instruction out there that helps people learn to play piano for contemporary music any other way than listening and working it out yourself. I would love to invest the years it takes, but I just can’t.

I did some experimenting in teaching group piano classes for adult beginner church musicians. I taught people to improv from chords only. I gave them a grounding in harmony theory and showed them how to apply it to piano. I showed them how to apply rhythm, bass movement, leading tones, scale-wise runs etc. I showed them rock, jazz and gospel approaches.

Here’s the interesting part. A few different categories of people emerged. There was a small group of people who gave up on traditional piano lessons as kids who latched on to my approach and quit after a couple of weeks. I had filled in the gaps in their understanding and they figured out how to pursue it on their own. They were the big success stories. One of them asked me why piano isn’t always taught this way. Others were great musicians on some other instrument and they understood where I was going, but they were naturally inclined toward the traditional methods. They learned to do it OK, but they preferred standard notation. There was another group who had no previous experience and they pretty much fell into two subgroups, too: those who latched on to this approach and those who clearly would have benefited from a more traditional approach.

What this all leads up to is: determine the person’s gifting and use them where they best fit. There’s no one answer that fits every player. Also, don’t be afraid to tell someone to get get experience elsewhere. Finally, pray for God to send the right people you need.