KEYS
LEAD WITH PIANO | David Pfaltzgraff
Most popular worship bands have a defined, recognizable sound. Maverick City mixes gospel-rooted piano and organ parts with CCM sensibilities. Elevation blends gritty guitars with a southern edge and B3 organs blended with analog synths. Bethel brings the shimmer and spacey-ness across the board, from twinkly synths and pianos to washed out guitars and that giant, cannon-like snare sound.
But there’ s a specific type of sound that is both quite recognizable and also crosses over across a wide range of worship groups. As we dive into this topic, you’ ll quickly learn that this concept is bigger than any one worship band and is perhaps the most broadly applicable‘ lead’ sound for worship keys players.
Wondering what kind of lead I’ m talking about? It’ s your piano.
WHAT IS A LEAD PIANO?
I’ m not talking simply about a primary piano sound that you might use as the front-of-mix keys sound, playing chords, changes, etc. Rather, I mean a sound designed to play a
‘ lead’ part that just so happens to sound like a piano. Most of the time these are going to be melodic hooks or phrases, not necessarily tied to a chord at all, and played in the right hand.
In my experience there’ s a big difference between a‘ regular’ piano sound, which I’ d use for a worship song like“ King of Kings”, for example, and a big, lead piano sound that I might use to cover the right hand for a song like“ Lion and the Lamb”.
But what exactly is different? That’ s where it gets tricky.
A CULTURE THING
I can’ t talk about piano leads without giving credit to the trailblazers out on the west coast who pioneered a lot of these concepts, at least for me. Ian McIntosh specifically did the sound design and parts for many classic Jesus Culture songs that helped shape my understanding of what a‘ lead’ piano could be.
Much of that work focused on bright, doubled octaves, layering piano sounds with other bright or gritty layers, like CP style electric grands, or in some cases I feel as though I can even detect a bit of dulcimer, or at least a purposeful‘ tack’ to the piano.
Many of these sounds are quite compressed and always very precise tonally, never taking up more space than they need in order to contribute the right energy to the mix, which is probably my biggest takeaway from studying these awesome sounds- if you hear them in isolation they might actually sound a bit thin, or overly gritty, or too harsh. But in the mix, they poke through in a way that makes sure they have the right impact.
CONTEXT CHECK
It’ s that‘ impact’ piece that makes lead pianos a bit of a challenge to dial in for the average worship keys player. It’ s not a matter of simply adding some reverb to your favorite piano, jumping up an octave or two, and calling it good.
To be honest, I used to really struggle in this area. I’ d dial in what I thought was a beautiful
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