i am an offering

For a long time I’ve subscribed to the school of thought that playing by chord off of lead sheets or chord sheets is a much better way to go for piano players than playing straight from the actual piano music.  You only have to have a couple of pages to turn through, you learn how to play chords just in case the piano music is unavailable, and you develop your ear.  However, there is a problem:  it’s much harder to lead if you don’t have experience.

Without Rhythm and Melody - Chords Don’t Go Anywhere

As I’ve begun to teach several piano players how to play by chords instead of by the piano music I’ve run into a problem that I completely didn’t expect.  Chords, without being driven by rhythm and melody, don’t really go anywhere.  I can tell the piano player to “just play by the chords on this one” and it leads to a great fit when I’m leading from the guitar.  I can carry the rhythm from the guitar and let the piano color and accent the song.  But if I say, “I’d like to you lead this one on the piano,” many of the piano players are not quite sure what to do.  They can play the chords, but haven’t really been taught the rhythms to apply the chords to - so the song lacks movement.  They can play the chords, but haven’t really been taught how to break them up and use passing tones to create interest - so the song lacks character.

What to Do?

I guess that is my dilemma.  I can show the piano players what to do by saying, “Let me sit for a second and show you what I’d like.”  But then they’re just watching me do something instead of actually learning how to do it.  I would love to know what you’ve done to teach piano players how to play chords but play them rhythmically and melodically - able to lead a song well.  Some things I can think of might perhaps be:

• Writing out piano parts for them for a while - then saying, “Okay - your turn to apply it - make up your own now.”
• Having a workshop with piano players on how to do these things - which is something I’d like to do - I just lack the time at the moment.
• Have the piano players listen and watch professionals to try and develop their ear and mimic what the professionals are doing
• Create an online youtube / vimeo video to help train - another thing I’d love to do - again with a lack of time

Are there any other suggestions that could help?

I’ll give you a little hint behind this one.  This post comes directly out of personal experience.  Keep that in mind as your reading.

There are probably going to be times when something is out of tune.  Badly out of tune.  It could be your own instrument.  It could be the instrument of an inexpereinced player.  Regardless of whose instrument it is, something that’s out of tune is a major disctration that keeps us from focusing on Jesus.  If something is slightly out of tune it will distract any skilled musicians in the congregation because they can pick it out.  It will distract average non-musical people in the congregation as well because they know something is wrong but can’t quite figure out what it is.  If something is badly out of tune, everyone notices and everyone is distracted.  So what do you to when this happens?

Plan Ahead

Like yesterday’s post on screen projection, it is so important to plan ahead.  If you are the guitar player - make sure you have fresh strings and you are in tune.  Get a tuner or ask the church to buy you one (preferably a pedal tuner that you can use during the worship time to always make sure you’re in tune.)  If you are the piano player know how to tell when the piano is out of tune and make sure the church is on top of getting it tuned.

If you are overseeing guitar players always make sure that they tune before rehearsal, before soundcheck, before the worship time and during the worship time.  Ask your church to be able to budget for new strings for the guitar players.  Buy your guitar players tuners if they don’t have them.

A Personal Account

These things seem fairly obvious to most of us, but let my share a story that happened when I was a bit more inexperienced.

We made plans to bring Arlen Salte from Break Forth Ministries to do a worship team workshop at our church.  We had planned well and there were about 300 people from different states coming.  It was an exciting time for us.  Our worship team agreed that we would do a worship set in the afternoon and them let him critique us.  Unfortunately, in my excitement about the workshop, I forgot to plan ahead so that I would have new strings that weekend.  My strings were old.  Ancient.  It was bad.  In my rush to make sure all of the logistics were worked out for the weekend, I completely forgot about the fact that my strings were not going to stay in tune.  We started our set with “Blessed Be Your Name” with a driving acoustic guitar part.  After about two measures I thought, “Uh-oh.  This is bad.  Really bad.”  What did I do?

What To Do If It Happens

I could have kept going and played through the whole song with a badly out-of-tune guitar.  But I knew it was a major disctraction - especially in a room full of musicians.  So, I stopped the band, addressed the problem, admitted that I was out of tune and had the band restart the song without me.  Things went well and Arlen mentioned that it was better that I took a couple minutes to address the distraction and then move on, rather than letting the disctration keep going.  That night, I bought new strings and restringed my guitar as Sunday morning worship was the next morning. (Although, I hate to admit it - I bought strings from Wal-Mart.  They’re the only place open at 10:30pm that sold guitar strings!)  What I probably should have done is just let the band keep going without the guitar.  At the time, they relied heavily on the guitar leading things, so sometimes if I would stop, the whole band would stop.  So, if you’re the one out of tune, drop out in a non-distracting way, tune if you can and then come back in.  If you can’t tune, be able to communicate to other musicians that they need to lead the music.

But, what if it’s not you that’s out of tune?

Work out a signal before hand that might be able to let your guitar players know that they are out of tune and they need to drop out (hint, don’t use the hand cutting through the throat signal!).  Find a subtle gesture that says “sit out” to someone.  If you have an opportunity to lean over and talk to them quickly (during a prayer time or instrumental interlude) tell them that they need to retune and ask for a thumbs up or some sort of signal that lets you know they’re back in tune.

Being in tune is so important in music and is a skill that we should always take care to remember.  Do you have any suggestions for a situation like this or any stories of your own experience?

The most common thing I encounter when working with piano players in a church is that they are usually classically trained. This is a good thing and classical training on the piano should never be lost. However, in learning how to play modern worship music styles, piano players need to shift from being a piano player to a keyboard player. For more detailed information on this, visit this post and this post, but for now, what are some basics of being a keyboardist on a modern worship team?

• Learn to play chords and learn how to play inversions of those chords. You’ll not only create much more pleasing sounds, but you’ll save yourself from jumping all over the keyboard to get to your next chord.
• Listen and learn to play in the cracks. Listen to where there are gaps in the melody of the song and learn to add short and simple fills in that time. Don’t play fills over the melody. Listen to the other players in the band and communicate who will be adding a fill where. Don’t play over each other.
• Apply classical teaching to create fills. Remember all of that Mozart and Beethoven you learned? Much of classical music is made up of melodies that use notes that pass from one key note to another, called “passing tones.” Learn to apply these concepts to creating fills. Get away from just breaking up the three notes of a chord and use some passing tones to create more interest.
• Listen some more and learn what register to play in. If the guitarist is playing in a middle register, play up high. If the guitarist is playing in a high register…you guessed it…play down low. If you an electric guitar playing high and an acoustic guitar playing in the middle, sit out and only play fills in the cracks of the melody.
• Know when to sit out. Piano players tend to be the ones that play the most often. Learn when to play out and when to hold back. If you’re unsure, ask your worship leader.
• Practice. Practice. Practice.

One of my main goals for this blog was to always provide training for worship leaders and worship teams that is practical and easily usable.  So next week, we’re going to dive back into some training.  We’re going to take a look at some basic, foundational things to know and apply with each instrument in the worship team and then take a look at how to put it all together.  Often times in church worship teams we have a lot of people who are excited to serve but might not even know the basics about playing their instrument within a group.  So, next week will look like this:

• Mon - Back to Basics: Piano & Keyboard
• Tues - Back to Basics: Acoustic & Electric Guitar
• Wed - Back to Basics: Bass Guitar
• Thurs - Back to Basics: Drums & Percussion
• Fri - Back to Basics: Putting it all Together

We’ve all been there. We’ve known how to sing for a long time and now we’ve just started learning how to play an instrument. We learn how to play that instrument and think, “Hey, I should try to sing and play at the same time.” The first few tries are….interesting. Eventually we get the hang of it. But then we reach another fork in our musical road: talking and playing at the same time.

It sounds easy doesn’t it? But the difference between singing and playing and talking and playing is that when you sing and play, the rhythm of your voice somewhat matches the rhythm your playing (hopefully :-). When you talk and play, however, the rhythm of your voice is completely different.

First of all, why would you even want to do this?

• A simple vamp underneath prayer time gives a great amount of focus. You might want to be able to pray and play at the same time.
• Often it’s good to pause in the middle of a song to remind or encourage people to think about the words. Instead of stopping the song in the middle and then restarting, you can vamp through the chorus or turn while you’re exhorting the people.
• If you’re not an “up-front” worship leader and your “just” (I use that word very lightly, as all team members are super-important) a piano player or drummer or bass player, you might want to learn to pray while you play for your own personal worship times, or to be able to confess a creed or the Lord’s Prayer while you are playing. I remember one piano player telling me that she always lost where she was in the music when she tried to play and say the Lord’s Prayer at the same time!

So, how can you develop this and move past this hurdle in your musical career?

• Practice. I should see if I can count how many times I’ve typed that word on this site! Pick two chords to vamp and pray while you are practicing. Then when you’re comfortable with vamping two chords and talking, add another, then eventually get to a four-chord progression*.
• Watch. Watch others do this. If you can get your hands on some of Paul Baloche’s live videos, he’s particularly good at this.
• Know your music. If you’re planning on talking or praying in the middle of a song, know your music like crazy. Get to the point where you don’t even have to think about the next chord of the song, but that it comes naturally. You do this by…you guessed it…practicing!
• Plan with the band. It’s nice when one instrument is vamping and someone is playing or talking, but it’s even better when the whole band or team is vamping together. A bass player can play nice, non-distracting melodic lines underneath, and once your comfortable, the band can change dynamics with the mood of the prayer, praying along with the person praying on their instruments. Don’t just play, make your playing an extension of prayer.
• Don’t do this publicly until your ready. Make sure to wait until you are completely confident in doing this until you do it during a public worship service. Start privately, then maybe try it out in your small group, then when you feel comfortable, go ahead and do it for the worship service.

If you practice and practice and practice and you just can’t seem to get the hang of talking and playing at the same time, let the band do the playing while you talk. Give the band a chord progression to play and make sure they know it well, then let them do that part while you focus on talking or praying.

*I will be doing some blogging on chord progressions sometime soon. We all know that vamping two chords gets pretty boring after a while!