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.
At the FLY Convention, I was privileged to teach an elective on leading worship. Many people who attended were from churches with no established “contemporary” services (I’m not a huge fan of that word, more on that another time.)
We all want to build up our worship teams to full bands someday, but most of the time that tends to be difficult, especially if you are in a small church or city with limited resources. I want to spend the rest of the week talking about what to do if you’re missing an instrument that can help you fill in the hole without worrying about finding someone to play that instrument right away. So let’s start with the bass, or rather, the lack of bass.
- Almost everyone has another piano player in the congregation. Find a keyboard that can simulate a bass sound and have another pianist playing the bass part on the keyboard.
- If you only have one piano player, and/or no budget to get a keyboard, teach the piano player how to play the bass notes in the chords. Often times you will see something like D/F# on a chord or lead sheet. This simply means that you play a D chord with your right hand (D-F#-A) and play an F# on the bottom with your left hand. These subtle changes in the chord will make the music sound much more interesting.
- Perhaps you have an overabundance of guitar players. Teach one of them how to play the bass. It usually doesn’t take them too long.
- The bass (and drums) usually carry the groove, or rhythm, of the song. Teach the instruments you have to know how to work together to create groove and tight rhythm before the bass player gets there.
- To think completely outside the box…perhaps you have a great bass singer - he could sing the bass part. Think “Tonic Sol Fa” or “Go Fish.” in the early days. (By the way, the original bass singer of Go Fish is in Tonic Sol Fa now)
- See if there are any other bass players in your area that hold similar beliefs and principles as you do and ask if they would be willing to fill in while you keep looking for your own.
Hopefully these suggestions can help you as you continue to search.
