KEYS
A FEW QUESTIONS FOR YOU | Ed Kerr
A common thread runs through the articles in • Did anything take you by surprise? Were you • Did you play with your piece of the pie in
this issue of Worship Musician. It can be found and your team absolutely sure how each mind? The larger your worship band, the
in many past issues, too. Better By Sunday. song was going to begin? How it would end? more crucial this becomes. I find it helpful
How can our next Sunday, our next time For you as a keyboard player, this might to think of our musical arrangements as a
leading worship, improve? I’m more and more mean that you called up a specific sound for pie. If the band for the day is you and an
convinced that for us to improve or grow in any a specific song. Did your transition from the acoustic guitar player, your piece of the pie
area of our lives we need to look back from time previous sound used to this current sound is significantly different than if your band
to time. What’s gone before has great impact go smoothly? Would using your volume fader consists of drums, bass, two electric guitars,
on what’s ahead. So, it’s valuable to make a for this transition have helped the transition an acoustic player, a percussionist and a
debrief part of your week. be less abrupt? pianist. The pie analogy reminds us that
the bass player most logically gets the low
Debrief is defined as “a series of questions • Were you to play a specific melodic figure on frequencies piece of pie. Often an electric
about a completed mission or undertaking”. I’m your instrument? Did you play it accurately? guitar player handles a melodic line for an
convinced that a debrief can help me in my role Were there any “clams”? I’ve heard this term intro. Are you playing piano or keys at that
as worship leader, pianist and keys player, and used by studio musicians for those frustrating moment? Don’t play melodic activity. That’s
it can help you whatever your role is on your (and distracting) moments when a wrong note not your pie piece at that moment.
worship team. is played. On our way to an F minor chord we strike an A by mistake. Or what we meant • Did you and your team play with the next
What might be key questions you and I ask to be an octave becomes a 7 . Were you section in mind? Dynamics play a significant
ourselves in our debrief about the service momentarily distracted when that wrong note part in making our songs impactful for our
we’ve just played in? Here are some that have was played? Did you lose track of the chord congregation. Last week at my church we
consistently arisen from my own debriefs. progression or the pulse of the music? sang “What A Beautiful Name”. Coming out
156
th
March 2019
Subscribe for Free...