YOUTH WORSHIP TEAM
MUSICAL CREATIVITY | Vance & Michelle Shepherd
Most students who learn how to play a musical instrument hardly ever do the things that make music such a creative and satisfying outlet: writing new songs or re-arranging songs, composing melodies, improvising solos, etc. We’ re taught as music students to copy a song or a musical exercise as best we can, but we aren’ t accessing the creative portion of our brain, which makes music such a unique and exciting experience. When it comes to music theory, we like to tell our students,“ Once you know the rules … Then you can break them”.
Have you ever been at a music rehearsal, and someone starts playing a riff, then the bass comes in and adds to it, then the drummer starts playing a groove, then the vocalist starts improvising a melody … and they just … play? Totally free form? If not, this is actually a great exercise to do with your worship team and can take a normal rehearsal and elevate it to something exciting, creative and fun. This can challenge the brain even more than following the original notes and structure, and it can spark new ideas and even new songs.
Students who learn in creative ways actually learn well, because the height of musical creativity is the ability to compose and improvise, which is a risk and an understanding that mistakes will definitely be made. I love the quote from Dave Brubeck,“ There is no such thing as a wrong note, so long as it can be resolved.” If you play a bad note, you can always correct it with the next note. If you look at creating music through that lens, mistakes can make creativity flourish, because you’ re not scared to take the risk and make a“ mistake”. And if you’ re a musician that can play by ear and also from memory, this is a great foundation for being able to improvise.
We need the structure and foundation of music theory, but with the freedom to be able to color outside the lines. Think of a paint by number oil painting. You’ re given every color needed to create the painting, and a number for exactly where that color goes on the canvas. If you paint it exactly as it says, you will have a pretty good rendition of the original picture. But maybe you want the ocean to have a bigger wave, or you want to mix two colors of paint to create a third color for more shading. Maybe there’ s something you don’ t like about the picture, and you want to change it. Well, you can! And it’ s the same with music: we can color outside the lines and make songs feel different, bring out different emotion, play with timing, minor verses major chords( swapping them out), etc. Without a foundation in musical
structure and theory, it would be chaotic to try and get a group together to create music. But on the other hand, with too much structure and focus on perfection, there’ s no creativity.
Students have a unique ability to inspire one another, because when they see someone like themselves being successful in something, they know they can attain it too. We see this all the time as music teachers. High achievers or“ A” team players raise the bar and the send the message to others that“ you can do this too”.
Being creative takes time … and it’ s great to carve out time for that creativity to happen on your music team. Maybe at the end of worship team rehearsal, you leave an extra 15- 30 minutes for a“ jam” session or songwriting session and let everyone just“ play”. You would be amazed at what can come out of a session like this!
May you be blessed as you pour into or become the next generation of worship leaders.
Vance & Michelle Shepherd Founders of The Shepherd School of Music in Las Vegas, NV, where they work with youth to raise up the next generation of worship leaders and musicians. facebook. com / shepherdschoolofmusiclasvegas www. ShepherdStudiosLV. com
34 April 2025 Subscribe for Free...