{"id":60,"date":"2007-03-06T19:37:53","date_gmt":"2007-03-07T01:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/?p=60"},"modified":"2011-03-12T18:36:16","modified_gmt":"2011-03-13T00:36:16","slug":"piano-playing-vs-keyboard-playing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/piano-playing-vs-keyboard-playing\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Training &#8211; Piano Playing vs. Keyboard Playing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>I believe that understanding the difference between playing the piano and playing the keyboard is one of the most difficult concepts for church worship teams<\/strong>. \u00a0Most churches have two types of musicians:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The musician who <strong>reads notes really well<\/strong> but <strong>can&#8217;t <a title=\"Music Theory For Worship: How to Read a Lead Sheet (Key Signature, Rhythm, and Structure)\" href=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/music-theory-for-worship-read-lead-sheet-key-signature-rhythm-structure\/\">read a chord sheet<\/a>.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Or the musician who <strong>can&#8217;t read notes at all<\/strong> but can play from a chord sheet perfectly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Most piano players are the former. \u00a0For whatever reason, most piano players grow up learning how to read music very well, but are never taught to <strong>apply<\/strong> basic music theory. \u00a0Yes, most piano techniques go through music theory, but I don&#8217;t think teachers help students apply it enough.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So, is there a difference between piano playing and keyboard playing<\/strong>? \u00a0<strong>Absolutely.<\/strong> We&#8217;ll get into why it&#8217;s important later.<\/p>\n<h3>The Difference Between Playing Piano and Playing Keyboard<\/h3>\n<p>The main difference between playing <strong>piano<\/strong> and playing <strong>keyboard<\/strong> is this: \u00a0the piano player always wants to be in charge of the music, and the keyboard player knows how to submit to the whole of the group. \u00a0For instance, what&#8217;s the first thing you notice when you see a piece of music written for praise and worship teams? \u00a0It&#8217;s a piano part that plays <strong>everything.<\/strong> The piano has the melody, chord harmony, and bass, all in one part!<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, most praise and worship teams at churches aren&#8217;t blessed with a full band, so the piano usually acts as the whole band. \u00a0Now, for a setting without a whole band, this actually <strong><em>almost<\/em><\/strong> works. \u00a0The piano needs to play the bass and the harmony, but if there are strong, confident singers, the piano <strong>shouldn&#8217;t play the melody<\/strong>. \u00a0This is the beginning of learning to be a <strong>keyboard player<\/strong> instead of a <strong>piano player: <\/strong>knowing what <strong>not<\/strong> to play.<\/p>\n<h3>Playing With A Group as Opposed to Playing Solo<\/h3>\n<p>Now, if the church is blessed with a whole band, it is even more important that the piano part becomes less and less. \u00a0When an acoustic guitar and drums are carrying the rhythm, the piano doesn&#8217;t need to play every note that&#8217;s written on the page. \u00a0When there is a strong bass player involved, the piano <strong>should not<\/strong> play the bass notes at all. \u00a0When there is a whole band involved, and the <a title=\"Music theory for Worship \u2013 Learning Not to Play On Top of Each Other\" href=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/music-theory-for-worship-learning-not-to-play-on-top-of-each-other\/\">piano keeps on playing every part, everything gets very muddy, and the crisp clean professional sound that is needed isn&#8217;t there<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Playing the <strong>keyboard<\/strong> involves learning to listen to who&#8217;s playing what, and off when it is necessary. \u00a0Unfortunately for many people who have played the piano for years, this can become quite boring! \u00a0But, for the greater good of the team, sometimes the keyboardist needs to be a bit bored to make it all sound good. \u00a0Many times, electric guitar players will just play one chord every four measures. \u00a0Now that&#8217;s boring!!<\/p>\n<p>The<strong> keyboard <\/strong>player learns to fill in the cracks where there is no vocal going on with nice melodic fills. \u00a0The <strong>keyboard <\/strong>player learns how to use strings, pads, and many other cool things that add lots of <strong>texture<\/strong> to the band.<\/p>\n<p>Is <strong>piano <\/strong>playing now abolished? \u00a0Absolutely not! \u00a0There are many times when the piano should drive a song, and the piano parts can be played as a beautiful compliment to the rest of the band.<\/p>\n<p>So, how do you learn how to do all these things and <a title=\"Tuesday Training \u2013 Piano Playing vs. Keyboard Playing Follow Up\" href=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/tuesday-training-piano-playing-vs-keyboard-playing-follow-up\/\" target=\"_blank\">learn how to become a <strong>keyboard<\/strong> player instead of a <strong>piano <\/strong>player<\/a>? \u00a0And why is it important to understand these concepts? Those are topics for another post&#8230;stay tuned.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Are you more of a keyboard player or a piano player?<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 5px 5px 0;float:left;height:50px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/piano-playing-vs-keyboard-playing\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"595\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I believe that understanding the difference between playing the piano and playing the keyboard is one of the most difficult concepts for church worship teams. \u00a0Most churches have two types of musicians: The musician who reads notes really well but can&#8217;t read a chord sheet. Or the musician who can&#8217;t read notes at all but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-training"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1444,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/1444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}