KEYS
I DIDN’T DO MUCH | Ed Kerr
I hardly played yesterday as I lead our worship factors come into play here, including the the guitarist. Guitarists often choose activity
set at church, and I’m the Worship Arts Director. relative skill of the players involved. If a guitarist that’s in the middle register of our keyboard.
What the heck? on your team isn’t super confident in strumming Regardless of which type of keyboard you’re
aggressively for an up-tempo song, you might playing (a real piano or electronic keyboard with
I hardly played yesterday, and it was one of the need to provide more rhythmic activity on your varying numbers of keys), you can definitely
most satisfying musical experiences I’ve had instrument. But, if the guitarist is doing just fine, find a register of the keyboard that avoids the
since I began serving at the church just over thank you, driving the rhythm of the song with pitches the guitarist is playing.
two years ago. Was it satisfying because we plenty of energy, you shouldn’t be doing much. had a full rhythm section and MultiTracks filling Please don’t do much. If you opt to pound There were some other times I didn’t do much
out the sound? Nope. It was pretty much the away playing lots of rhythmic activity while your yesterday. We were playing “Living Hope”, and
smallest possible ensemble you can have: me guitarist is doing the same, stop it. Please. Just after the activity of the intro I went super sparse,
and one other musician. I was playing piano stop it. only playing a quarter note pulse. Sounded a
and the other person was playing acoustic
guitar and from time to time a little percussion.
chord, repeated that chord, didn’t play anything
I often think of the concept of complimentary melodically significant. And guess what, the
versus competing parts when I’m playing guitarist didn’t play much either. What? Isn’t
So if there are only a few instruments involved on a worship team. How can I compliment somebody in the band supposed to be playing
why did I hardly play? How could that be rather than compete with the guitar part being busy parts on every song? Definitely not. Listen
satisfying? Doesn’t it make sense that with only played? If short note values are being played, I to recordings of your favorite worship songs
a few instruments involved I should’ve been can play long note values. I can let my chords and in many cases, you’ll hear parts played
really busy to fill out the sound? ring out if I’m playing piano. If I’m playing a pad that are fairly restrained. Listen to a recording
or organ sound, I can hold notes as long as of your worship team from one of your services
possible until they have to change. and see if you hear similar restraint.
is. So, what does determine that? The first Besides the issue of what note values I’m Harmonic rhythm is a very helpful concept to
question to ask, and one I hope you think of playing, I can also listen closely to the guitar understand when learning how to play with
often, is “What does the song need?” Several part and choose pitches NOT being played by restraint. Harmonic rhythm describes how
Actually, no. The number of players present
shouldn’t determine how busy each player
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September 2019
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