KEYS
KEYS OUT OF TIME | David Pfaltzgraff
Photo by David Pisnoy on Unsplash
Ever gotten the last minute call, maybe a Saturday evening like this:‘ David, Jeff is out with a stomach bug. Can you fill in for keys tomorrow morning?’
If you’ re like me, you’ re going to try to find a way to say yes. From there, you get that last minute invite to view the service plan, open the link, and realize there are two songs in the set you’ ve never played before.
So how should one approach those times when you don’ t have any time at all to get prepared? As a keys player, you’ re often tasked with being‘ ready for anything’, covering transitions, glueing together your band, and still covering important textures, sounds, and riffs. It’ s a tall order!
In my experience it’ s not a matter of‘ if’ you’ ll ever find yourself in this type of position, but‘ when’. These kinds of things just happen when you’ re a part of a worship team, especially one made up of volunteers. My aim in today’ s article, then, is to help you figure out how to both respond on the fly and hopefully prepare a bit of a game plan ahead of time, so that when you get that last minute call, it’ s a confident‘ yes’.
YOUR SIGNATURE SOUND I always say that modern worship keys requires you to consider not just the notes you play, but the sounds you use to play them. When I’ ve been tossed into these last-minute scrambles in the past, I’ ve found it just as … if not more stressful … to frantically dial in the sounds I feel I need in order to do the setlist justice.
On more than one occasion I’ ve put the cart before the horse, spending a disproportionate amount of precious prep time dialing in patches, leaving too little time to ensure I learn the changes and practice the transitions.
If you’ re the kind of reader who tends to skim ahead, you might notice that the next section of this article speaks about the chord voicings you use and be wondering to yourself why I put the section on sounds ahead of that, if it’ s important not to spend too much time here.
You’ re not wrong, I do think it’ s important to limit the amount of time you spend focusing
on your sound design, but I still think it’ s a good idea to get this bit of effort out of the way first thing. The reason? The sounds you use will necessarily impact the parts you play and in general I’ ve found I get better results by spending a small percentage of my overall prep time first at least loosely dialing in whatever keys sound( s) I intend to use.
The key takeaway is to make sure you don’ t spend fifty percent of your time here. I’ m a huge proponent of taking a spare couple hours, maybe during a week you’ re not serving at church, to experiment with what your‘ signature sound’ might be. Figure out a way to save or at least note down the go-to piano, pads, and auxiliary sounds that you find yourself turning to time and time again. I have a‘ ready for anything’ patch I’ ve built inside my keys software that has a mix of the layers I’ ve deemed are both universal and flexible enough to serve as a starting point for most any song or setlist. This saves me a massive amount of time when I’ m starting from scratch on a short turnaround and also helps me head in a clear direction instead of making rushed, inconsistent choices on the fly.
92 August 2025 Subscribe for Free...