KEYS
REIMAGINE THAT | Ed Kerr
If I were to have a conversation with you over a cup of coffee today , I doubt it would take long until you shared how difficult these last months have been . Difficult for your church . Difficult for your worship team . Difficult for you and those you love . You might tell me about friends you ’ ve lost to Covid , challenges you ’ ve had producing a quality weekly Livestream church event or difficulties you ’ d had putting a band together week after week for your services . Our conversation might get risky . It might get real . You might share that the message of hope you share in your songs week after week has felt like something that couldn ’ t be further from what you ’ re experiencing lately .
Yeah . Me too . As of this last week my church is going through a transition from one pastor to another who hasn ’ t yet been found . The part of me that has known the Lord for decades is confident of good things to come for all the people in my church , but another part of me is weary of another challenge coming our way . Still , I will choose week after week to continue to lead my congregation in songs that are reminders of God ’ s goodness and faithfulness . I ’ m sure you will too .
One meeting over a cup of coffee won ’ t suffice for me or for you . Out of the kindness in God ’ s heart He keeps letting you and I deliver songs filled with truth from His Word , And by His grace that truth will reach deep below the dry surface of our hearts and water us , nurture us , feed us . As I picked songs for last weekend ’ s service , the first without our beloved pastor , I was happy to introduce a great new song , Phil Wickham ’ s “ House of the Lord ”. I ’ d heard it months ago but hadn ’ t yet introduced it . In light of the heaviness in many people ’ s hearts over our pastoral transition , the declaration that “ there ’ s joy in the house of the Lord ” seemed like an important , timely message . For me . For the church .
We ended our service with “ Goodness of God ” from Jenn Johnson and Ed Cash . What a song . What a reminder to sing of God ’ s goodness as long as we have breath . What should I fill the rest of my set with ? What other new “ big new songs ” from the CCLI database could we introduce ? I opted for not new . I opted for this lyric , “ You restore every heart that is broken ”. You know it . You ’ ve probably played it a zillion times like me . “ Great Are You Lord ”, from All Sons & Daughters .
Do you ever feel like the message in a song is perfect for your service but the musical package just isn ’ t working for you ? Do you just file those songs away as relics ? Or might you search for a way to reimagine them , finding a way to make them fresh again for you musically ? I want to spend a few paragraphs exploring a way to create a new intro hook for “ Great Are You Lord ”, something that could be played on keyboard , lead guitar , cello or any melodic instrument you have on your team . The concepts I ’ ll explore here could help you reimagine a song with a timely message for your people .
It probably doesn ’ t need to be noted here , but the song is in 6 / 8 . The chord progression for “ Great Are You Lord ” is probably familiar to most of us . In the key of D it ’ s a bar or G , a bar of Bm7 and 2 bars of A . G Bm7 A | / / / / / / | / / / / / / | / / / / / / | / / / / / / |
Where to being in reimagining a song ? There are millions of possibility . I ’ m going to create a simple melody by playing the 3 rd of each chord as the top note in my right hand voicing . Those notes will be B over the G , D over the Bm7 and C # over the A . Look at Figure 1 .
Nothing impressive yet or melodically inventive . But maybe that ’ s why it could be a good starting point . One of my goals when creating a reimagined intro for a song is coming up with something that doesn ’ t instantly signal to the listener , “ Here comes that song we ’ ve done a lot before ”. Whether or not our people even think that or it ’ s something you and I waste energy on is the subject of another article , but you get the idea . I don ’ t want it to sound like it ’ s sounded the last several times we ’ ve played the song .
You could actually play just this melody with just these note values . If you listen to All Sons & Daughter ’ s original live recording , you ’ ll hear a very sparse piano part with only slightly more activity that what I wrote out above . By opting to play minimal activity for the opening of the song you give yourself and your team tons of room to develop movement and dynamics within the rest of the song .
Get a click going set to 8 th notes and play this figure a few times . You ’ ll hear lots of clicks go by without you playing any activity . 5 clicks with nothing played in bars 1 and 2 . 11 beats with nothing played in bars 3 and 4 . Ooh . Does that seem excessive ? I think it ’ s a beautiful example of “ less is more ”. It presents the bare minimum melodically and harmonically and sets you and your team up to develop however you choose .
Just today I ’ ve upgraded my Sunday Keys for MainStage setup to Sunday Keys 2022 . It is full of gorgeous keyboard sounds that will inspire you instantly . I landed on “ Painted Morning Sky ” for this figure , The beautiful delays and reverb programmed masterfully into the sound create subtle movement even though there are so many beats going by without striking any keys . Experiment with some of the different keyboard sounds you have available in your setup . Explore which of them work well for keyboard parts that have minimal activity like this line .
I ’ d play this figure twice as noted above . So , 8