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?

During the last several weeks I’ve had the privilege of connecting with a bunch of new worship leaders through blogs and various twitter accounts.  Through conversations I was introduced to The Worship Community, a grassroots community site for worship leaders.  It had started out as just a forum a little over a year ago and has now grown into a one-stop resource with videos, the original forum and featured articles from worship leaders all over the country.

One of the coolest things about it is that it is featuring “every-day worship leaders,” those of us that are “in the trenches” in the local church.  As great as it is to see writing and resources from “the big names” it’s so cool to see a bunch of local people featured.

Another cool thing is that I’ve been asked to write for the site!  I’m very excited to be a part of it and so thankful that God has blessed the time spent on this blog to be able to expand and encourage others.  So please, check it out and join the forums or leave a comment on any articles that are there.  It will definitely encourage you!

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?

This past Sunday at Living Word we had a bit of a minor technical difficulty where the wrong song was put into the schedule for the day and we didn’t have a backup of the correct one.  Although it was humorous and everything else went well, there was a bit of an awkward moment and it would be good to know how to avoid any awkwardness when things like this happen.  So, what do we do to avoid the awkwardness?

Plan Ahead

The first thing to do is to make sure that you’ve planned well enough ahead of time.  Check and recheck things.  Very often there are several worship songs (or even hymns) with the same title.  Check with the data entry volunteer, the volunteer who proofs and/or runs projection and yourself that you have the right song entered in.  Remind the volunteer who enters the songs that when they are in doubt which is the right song they should put in both (or all five) with the same title.  That way, if the wrong song is on the screen the right song can be found quickly (with the use of decent projection software anyway).  It is especially vital to triple or quadruple check things when you are working in a church plant and several different people in several different places are putting the elements of the service together.

Teach Everyone What To Do

It won’t really help much if you as the main worship leader know what to do when a situation like this happens but the rest of your team is clueless.  Teach them some simple ways to keep a musical flow going while you lead the congregation through the distraction.  Teach the team to:

• Keep playing through the verse of the song that isn’t up on the screen (or the chorus, if that’s where the team is currently playing)
• Be ready to keep playing through that song if the worship leader feels led to use it as a solo
• Be ready to find an ending point if the worship leader feels led to go to the next or a different song

Main worship leaders need to be able to do these things while the team is doing the above:

• Recognize that the song is not correct.  If you can see the projection screen or if you have a confidence screen or monitor that will be an easy way to tell.  If you can’t see the projection screen, watch people and see if they’ve stopped singing.
• Don’t focus on the problem.  Quickly and gently inform the congregation that the correct song is not on the screen, then move on to what you feel the Holy Spirit is leading you to do.  A short, “It looks like we have the incorrect song up at the moment” is sufficient.
• Use this as an opportunity to let the congregation pray and worship on their own.  After you’ve informed them that the wrong song is up, you could say something like “While we see if we have the right song, take a few moments to pray and worship God silently or with your families.”  Lead them through a couple minutes of corporate prayer or praise.  This also gives the projection volunteer time to find the correct song and get it up if they can.
• If the projection volunteer can’t find the correct song, it’s obviously time to either move on or inform the congregation that just the worship team will be singing this song and the congregation should worship by listening to the words.  Only do this if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the vocalists are always clearly understood through the sound system. If you sing with no words on the screen through a muddy, unclear system, no one will be able to worship without being distracted by the fact that they can’t understand the words.
• If you feel led by the Holy Spirit that having the congregation listen isn’t the right fit for the moment, decide to move on to the next song for the morning.  Hopefully you’ve taught your team to keep playing the verse or chorus for a bit while you’re waiting to know what to do next.  Give them a cue to end the music at an appropriate spot (not in the middle of a verse!) and then lead the congregation into the next song.

The absolute best thing to do would be to plan ahead well enough to avoid these situations but if they do arise these are some simple things you can do to help minimize the distraction and keep people’s hearts and minds focused on Jesus, not on the technical difficulty at hand.

And we’re back to diving in to music theory!

The next several posts will be spent looking at different intervals in music.  Knowing intervals helps us with a lot of things:

• We can train our ear better to sing and play things if we understand and know intervals.
• We can know and remember how to build chords by studying intervals.
• For bass players, intervals are especially important for playing fills and going from chord to chord in new ways.
• Knowing intervals help us understand how to read music better.

Basic Intervals

There are several intervals in music theory - some of which are common to see in popular music and some of which are not-so-common!  We’ll be looking at the common ones for now.  They are:

• Major and Minor Thirds
• Major and Minor Seconds
• Perfect Fourths
• Diminished and Augmented Fourths
• Perfect Fifths
• Diminished and Augmented Fifths
• Major Sixths
• Major, Minor, Diminished and Augmented Sevenths

Thirds in General

To our contemporary ear, thirds (particularly major thirds) are probably the interval that most of us think of as “pretty” or “nice.”  What’s humorous, however, is that in the middle ages thirds were considered to be dissonant and not pretty at all.  So what is a third?

A third is just like it says it is - an interval of notes that is three notes away from the original note.  For instance: C, D, E.  C to E is a third.  Or, going down from C: C, B, A.  C to A is a third.

The Catch

The catch to many of our basic intervals is that there is no set “third” or set “fifth.”  There are several different types of each interval.  Let’s take a look at major and minor thirds.

Major Thirds

We’ve established that a third is a distance of three notes away from the original note.  But it’s not quite that simple.  A major third is the distance of four half-steps (the very next piano key, going from white to black to white, etc. or the very next guitar fret) away from the original note.  So, if you were to start on C and count up four half steps you would count C#, then D, then D#, then E.  From C to E (the distance of four half-steps) is a major third.  The key is that the half-step counting doesn’t start from C, it starts from C#. That confused me for a long time.  It’s good to know that we need to count up four half steps and not just three notes every time because if you’re trying to build a major third in the key you’re playing in, it’s not going to work to just count up three notes from every note of that key.

For instance, in the key of C, you couldn’t just start on E, count E-F-G and get a major third.  You’ll have to count F-F#-G-G# (four half steps) to build a major third from E, realizing that you’ve now left the original C key signature. If you would just count up three notes from E and land on G you would end up with a minor third.

Minor Thirds

Minor thirds are an interval that to our contemporary ears might sound sad or melancholy.  Minor thirds are also the distance of three notes from the original note, but with one slight alteration.  Instead of counting four half steps away from the original note you only count three. So, from C, a minor third would be counted this way: C#, D, Eb (or D# - we’re calling it Eb because we’re lowering the third note - when a note is lowered, it is flat and when it is raised it is sharp).  You could also find a minor third by counting up three notes from the original (C-D-E) and then lowering the last note a half step (changing E to Eb).  You could also count downward to arrive at a minor third:  From C - B, Bb, A - three half steps brings us to A.  From C down to A is a minor third.

Intervals within the Key Signature

As I mentioned above, certain intervals will naturally be in every key signature. The first note of any major key to the third note of any major key will always be a major third. The third note in any major key to the fifth note in any major key will always be a minor third. Play around with figuring out how to build major and minor thirds from each note of the key and you’ll be able to see what always works in every key.

Simple Ear Training To Remember Thirds

A great way to remember what a major third sounds like is to sing “Oh When the Saints…”  The first two notes of that familiar melody (the distance between ‘oh’ and ‘when’) make a major third.  A great way to remember what a minor third sounds like is to sing “What Child is This (Greensleeves Melody.”  The first two notes of that melody form a minor third.  Musictheory.net has a great interval ear trainer and several other exercises you can use to learn all of the intervals.

Building a Basic Chord

Your very basic chords are built from major and minor thirds.  A major chord is built with a major third on the bottom (C to E or D to F#) and a minor third on top (E to G or F# to A).  A minor chord is built similarly, only flipped - a minor third on the bottom (A to C or B to D) and a major third on the top (C to E or D to F#).

Next: Major and Minor Seconds.

Here is a very detailed and much more technical overview of intervals.