about transitions between song sections.
FRAMEWORK FOR LEARNING SONGS
Don't just listen to the song. Take an inventory
and make a plan.
You're ready to sit down and start learning a
song. Setting a game plan helps you maximize
your time and prevents from doubling your
efforts. Lots of songs have repeated ideas, and if
you can learn to prioritize the parts as you listen
through it, you might find you have a lot less to
learn than you thought.
• IDENTIFYING PATTERNS: When you see that
a song has four choruses, it’s common that
your instrument part is playing the same
thing every chorus (or it could have a slight
variation). Learning this upfront will reduce
the amount of time you spend learning the
song and will save you some time.
• FIND THE HOOKS: Many songs have distinctive
melodies repeating throughout the song that
gives it an identity or make it memorable.
These parts are often lead vocals, guitar, or
keyboard melodies. "Reckless Love" by Cory
Asbury has a great example of this right in the
intro of the song. The guitar player and piano
player play a melody together that repeats
itself many times throughout this song. As
a keyboard player or guitar player playing
that song, you will know that you want to
prioritize that part and commit it to muscle
memory playing it through repeatedly.
• FLAG UNIQUE MOMENTS: Lots of songs have
moments that happen only one or two
times that are very important. Sometimes
the whole band will stop, or there will be a
series of hits the entire band does together.
ChartBuilder from MultiTracks.com is a chart
app that has this helpful data listed for every
song called “MD Notes” or Music Director
notes.
• MAKE YOUR PLAN: After listening deeply to
the song and taking an inventory, you will
have a sense of what unique parts there are
to learn. Commonly you find that it's 3 or
4 chord progressions and 1 or 2 melodies
that are 4-8 bar ideas. Instead of learning
25 song sections, you're learning more like
five and taking note of a few quirky moments
that deviate from those patterns.
• LEARN THE BASIC CHORD MOVEMENTS: Even
if you are playing a primarily melodic part
knowing the chords you are playing over will
give you more freedom to improvise your
part when appropriate or will provide you
with something to fall back on if something
spontaneous or unexpected happens.
• STRING IT ALL TOGETHER INTO A FIXED
ARRANGEMENT: Depending on your
worship culture, spontaneity will be more
or less prevalent, but this doesn't mean
you shouldn't start by learning a fixed
arrangement of a song. Starting with a fixed
arrangement can actually be one of the most
beneficial things for a spontaneous worship
culture because it forces you to think
You can't always treat a song like individual
pieces, even if you have no idea how they
will be strung together in the end. It's
imperative to know what pedals you have
to switch when, or instrument you have
to pick up, or finger position you have to
change. Thinking about and practicing these
moments means you aren't figuring it out in
the moment. If you're scrambling to change
your pedalboard, you're not focused on
what you are there to do.
• TRANSITIONS: If you are leading multiple
songs live, it helps to think about transitions
ahead of time. Choosing keys that work
well together can be helpful when building
a setlists and you may want to consider
playing to a Click Track and adding in a
Guide Cue to count in the band if you’re
using in-ear monitors.
INVEST IN YOUR TOOLS
You'll have no problem convincing a guitar player
that they need another guitar, but do we as
musicians have the same zeal for the tools that
make us better musicians?
As previously mentioned, RehearsalMix and
ChartBuilder from MultiTracks.com are incredible
tools to help you hear every instrument part, no
matter how buried it is in the mix. You can listen
to any worship song transposed in any key with
a specific instrument part turned up, all using the
actual audio from the original master recording.
You also get to listen with a click track and a
guide cue, which helps you rehearse like you're
playing with an in-ear monitor mix on a stage.
It will cut your practice time in half, just being
able to hear your part clearly and know what
section is coming next. This, with a matching
chart provided in ChartBuilder, is everything you
need to learn a song in half the time. You can
download ChartBuilder in the app store and
experience a free trail at no risk to you.
Kristian Ponsford
Kristian is the Director of Products & Market
Development at MultiTracks.com, and he is
passionate about helping worship leaders lead
worship well.
48 July 2020
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