KEYS
SHOULD THE PIANO PLAY BASS? | David Pfaltzgraff
Photo by Gabriel Gurrola on Unsplash
Every once in a while my YouTube algorithm will suggest something to me that stops me in my tracks. Recently it was a video from twenty years ago featuring Paul Baloche giving his thoughts on‘ What I look for in a worship keys player.’ Of course, I clicked in.
Paul’ s takes have generally held up very well. He talks about needing a musician who has a great sense of timing, someone who has good sounds ready to go, etc. But towards the end of the video, he says something I’ ve heard many band and worship leaders say over the years. He comments that his ideal player‘ should stay out of the left hand, not getting in the way of the bass player.’
I’ ve heard others say that the first thing they tell someone who wants to become a great worship keys player to do is tape their left hand behind their back. Quite a bold statement!
When I was a young worship leader trying to raise up my volunteer keys players I gave this kind of feedback to them for a couple years. But over time I began to have sincere doubts on whether this advice was nearly as universally applicable as folks made it out to be.
Today I’ d like to make a case for why this advice is niche, at best, and just outright wrong more often than not. Sorry, Paul. Still love you.
DON’ T STRUM YOUR PIANO
My premise is simple. Most of the‘ piano shouldn’ t play bass’ narrative rose up in worship circles during a time where there was an active effort fighting against people playing‘ rhythm piano.’ At the risk of generalizing, this battle was fought in the 90s and early 00s by large worship teams playing contemporary worship music and perhaps a bit later for churches lagging behind.
Back then piano players being asked to play parts based on a chord chart alone was still a relatively new concept and for classically trained keys players coming from sheet music they were often being given this instruction by acoustic guitar players who were strumming along. The outcome was often, then, that piano players would essentially‘ strum’ along as well, developing a rhythmic, comping heavy playing
style that would include every bass note on the chart, played often and with gusto.
But this is not nearly the problem to look out for today that it was back then. For one, we’ re a few generations of keys players removed from those days and there are many more examples of what‘ modern worship piano’ sounds like. Which brings me to my second point.
THE REAL WORLD
When you listen to pretty much any modern worship song that features a big piano sound, you can clearly hear that the piano parts don’ t shy away from the bass notes. In fact, they’ re often playing octave bass notes on every chord change during the biggest moments of a song.
This directly contradicts the‘ piano shouldn’ t play bass’ advice, and do you want to know why that is? Because it sounds good. When the piano tastefully doubles up those bass notes, the live bass is complemented, not overruled.
The fact that countless worship music producers make this decision, to have the
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