Most important skill on keys?

[marconkeys]

Just wanted some opinions... what would you say would be the most useful skill on keys? Is it playing chords right, getting melodies and harmonies...?

[Stevie Nature]

I think it depends on your particular setting, but I would say in mine its discretion. In other words, its important for our keyboard player to know what to play and (I think more importantly) what not to play.

[twc_admin]

Hi kinda agree with Stevie - but you'd have to be way more specific in your context ... it depends on the context of who is playing, the band setup, the style, etc.

One biggie in a big band environment is the ability to get rid of all the big lower, LH octaves, etc .. it kills the mix, destroys the ability to get the bass guitar punching through the mix, etc .. most of the time, you almost have to handcuff the keyboardists left hand behind their back (myself included)

[El Ben]

I'll sum it up like this:

The most important skill a person can have while playing keys is the skill of LISTENING.

Ask yourself: "What does what I'm playing add to the sound?"



Band-friendly sounds:

1.) The Pad: The uber-sound of the modern worship band. This is the mainstay of guitar-driven worship. Simple, effective, and user-friendly. Don't play too high on the keyboard or it will suck face...terribly. Avoid cheesy pad sounds. Use in conjunction with U2-ish electric guitar noodling to maximize atmosphere creation.

2.) The Organ: This ain't your granny's pipe organ, baby. I'm talking a tricked-out, hammond-ish organ with which to wail on those oh-so-catchy rockin' worship tunes. Avoid use on slow songs unless you want to take us back to the days of Sister Ethel of Beulah Baptist Church. Most keyboards come with modulation joysticks or wheels that will mimic the rotation of the Leslie speaker. Use at your own risk.

3.) The EP: Commonly known as the "electronic piano" sound to a sleu of squares out there, the EP (specifically the amp-driven EP ala Rhodes or Wurlitzer aka "Wurly") is a little-used, but highly effective sound that adds a little something when a regular piano just won't cut it. It's funky enough to carry a song, but versatile enough to be the perfect accent machine. Couple with a pad to make unbelievably cool filler sounds when playing single, scale-friendly high notes or octaves. Be sparing lest you sound busy, though.

4.) Ole' Faithful: This is your standard piano sound. Some keyboards have good ones, some have terrible ones. Some keyboards have piano sound remeniscent of screeching children. What you're looking for in this sound is plenty of harmonic resonance. You want the keyboard to moreso mimic the sound of the strings vibrating inside the body of the piano, not so much to mimic the sound made by the hammers hitting the strings. Couple this sound with a good pad and you have a worship mainstay.

[russhutto]

Right on.

I'll second, what Fred is saying. Watch out for LH overkill.

Also, agreeing with Stevie. Know when to hold em, and when to fold em.

Ben brings up good points about different patches.

Here's where I'll throw a little "new" money into the 2 cents pile...

I think it's imperative for keyboard players to learn HOW to play every inversion of every chord possible...okay maybe not every single last one....

But it's a very GOOD thing stylistically when you know how to utilize chord inversions to get a smooth sound when moving through chord progressions. If there's one thing that screams "HEY LOOK AT ME!! I'M A KEYZ NOOB!!" it's playing every chord in root position.

Granted I know this is something that beginners usually need to do, but my recommendation: AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, learn your inversions.

"For if you do, I foresee you will become the greatest of all the Jedi, young keyboard padawan. Even more powerful than Master Yoda that time when he sat in at the Mos Eisley Cantina jam session."

[worshiptheKing]

All of these are good points. I know that we are pretty guitar driven right now and lots of times I catch myself telling the keys to play the "pad". But I like a keys player that can "noodle" and "fill in" by feeling the mood of the music. Especially on the slower, worship sets. One who is sensitive to the Spirit AND one who can read their leaders mind (wishful thinking). Does that make sense?

[El Ben]

Perfect sense.

It all just depends on what you want. Ian McIntosh's stuff is a great example of somewhat guitar-driven worship with incredible piano hooks. Also a lot of pads on his album. He's lurking around here somewhere. Maybe he has some input.

[Stevie Nature]

In my experience reading the WL is something that tends to develop as you play together. Sometimes what helps is to just "jam" during practices. We'll just play through a song a couple of times repeat verses, repeat chorus, have an extended musical interlude and so on. I'll try to lead musically from my guitar, in other words if I want the music to build I'll a good ol' downstroke crescendo. If I want them to cut musically I'll do a very pronounced downstroke, and sort of lift the guitar neck then lower it. (I'm not sure if that makes sense.) Then play lighter. I'll also tell them what I'm hearing. In other words, maybe I'll be playing lighter and I'll tell my pianist, "Go ahead and give me a little more right here." It isn't great all the time, but over time we've gotten a lot better with this.

As far as having someone sensitive to the Spirit, that's a good thing except when you both feel the Spirit doing something different. Obviously, one of you ain't feelin' it right. I tend to like to have the band follow me and if I'm wrong then I'm accountable to God as the leader. The last thing you want is two people leading in too different directions.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

[worshiptrench]

The New Life Worship/Desperation DVD has some good clips on how Packham voices stuff. Very open voicings in modern rock stuff and they do close up on his hands. Very good if you have a traditionally trained "blocky" player. Even our pro-players stole some of his ideas. (For the record the DVD also has electric tutorials).

I would say another important thing we use our keyboardist for is kicking off any loops, backtracks, etc. Oh yeah, listen to a LOT of Bruce Hornsby for voicings and also watch Stevie Wonder so you look cool doing it. The main thing I have to edit as a WL/Producer is their selection of patches by having pre-selected most of them for each song. Occassionally we'll get some 80's bellish EP trying to sneak thru which for most songs I quash.

[marconkeys]

Hey i like your responses. It's kind of what I've been thinking but a lot more solid (me being a n00b still with the whole worship keys - though so n00b as to play all root chords!).

Fred: Thanks for pointing out the LF part. I was just watching a DVD on worship playing (I can't remember what the title was) and it mentioned a bit about playing on different registers as the other instruments. It's interesting but somehow I never really thought about it before.

Actually the big problem I'm trying to work on at the moment is more on playing "background music". The kind when the (musical) worship is over and the preacher's just got up on stage and the atmosphere's amazing... I find that the most nerve-wrecking part. Any tips?

[russhutto]

Hey, I didn't mean being a NOOB was a total bad thing! Ha.

What's awesome is that you are trying to move out of that stage! Keep up the good work.

I would suggest (as I said before) learning your inversions. Learn to play good solid chord progressions.

An example:

Let's say we're in the key of C (it's a good place to start)

An awesome progression (just for kinda spontaneous, background-ish playing) would be a very simple one:

C to F (repeat ad nauseum*)

In the C scale we're playing the 1st note (I) with a chord builton top of it, and the 4th note (IV) with a chord built on top of it.

A nice voicing of this chord progression to start with would be:

[C - G (LH); G - C - E (RH)] to [F - C (LH); A - C - F (RH)]

notice the small amount of movement in the right hand. The goal of learning inversions is to keep your sound from being choppy and jumpy.

Try another one (still in C, still C to F):

C2 to F2

[C - G (LH); C - D - G (RH)] to [F - C (LH); C - F - G (RH)]*

In the C2 (RH) you'll use fingering 1-2-5, and in the F2 (RH) you'll use fingering 1-4-5. In essence switching back and forth between your index finger and ring finger on your RH when switching chords.

Obviously, these are just basic progressions, but even this I o IV progression is very beautiful and can provide that "backing" sound you're looking for to get a start.

One last progression that I began to learn as a beginner that I still use today is (in the key of C):

C2(C) to Am(sus) to Fmaj7

simply a I to VI to IV progression

in the right hand play a C2 [C - D - G] occasionally switching the 2nd (D) out for a 3rd (E)...do this over the F and you'll get that major 7 sound.

Continue this as your left hand plays each of the chords (using 5ths):
[C - G] to [A - E] to [F - C]

Stylistically you might even want to learn to "roll" the LH or alternate the root note and the 5th (play around with it)...

The complete progression would look like this:

||: C2 - - - | Am - - - | Fmaj7 - - - - - - - :||

(hold the Fmaj7 for 2 measures to get a complete 4 bar progression)

Hope this helps a bit...

* Ad Nauseum isn't a proper music term, it's just something we throw around House of Joy, meaning to repeat something forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever....

[IanMcIntosh]

fun discussion. I think the most important thing is knowing what you want to do and why. For example, why are you playing a piano/pad/strings/EP etc...? Are you filling in space? Making someone cry? Trying to say something? You need to know why and what you're playing. Then the next thing is that you need to know HOW to play each setting. You don't play a pad like a piano, nor do you play an EP like a piano. Nor do you play strings like anything else other than how a strings player plays them. Now you can break and bend any rule, if it works. However, KNOWING how each instrument resonates and works and moves is absolutely NECISSARY for anyone to make the jump from good keyboarder to great keyboarder.

I think a lot of music, specifically worship can be GREATLY enhanced by the musicians knowing what/why/how they're playing. It adds life.

:-)

my 2 cents

Ian

[marconkeys]

Hey Ian I got to agree with you! I'm trying to write songs now that mean something when I sing it... not just some tune cranked out by a machine... and I definitely believe that to make worship "real" you got to mean what you say and you got to play what you mean. If that makes sense. I got a question though...

"nor do you play an EP like a piano"

How do you play EP then?

[El Ben]

I'll hop in on this one.

An EP (especially used in the context of modern worship) is very rarely used as a lead instrument, and even if it is, there are specific chord voicings that lend themselves better.

WHen I think of an electronic piano, I'm thinking one word: Rhodes. I'm looking for a crunchy, amp-driven, vintage sound as opposed to the stringy, belly stuff that some of you might be thinking about.

With a Rhodes-sounding EP, because there is so much harmonic resonance (oscilating at frequencies that tend to compliment each other) already, there's not a huge need for complex chords.

When using the EP as a lead instrument, I usually play a pretty straightforward chord pattern:

Let's say, for instance, I'm in C:

Left Hand: C and it's octave (I don't play the fifth (g) because I don't want to complicate the sound)

Right Hand: G-C

And that's it. You can keep that right hand ditone going through the entire song and never have to change it, but that would be rather boring, so I usually throw in some simple, yet tasteful tricks to bring out the life of the chord (usually by augmenting the ditone to include at least one note friendly to the chord).

------------

Now, it's a totally different story when playing an EP for accents. I usually just use the aforementioned EP patch with a pad and do high, swelly, pretty things. That's the technical term, by the way: high, swelly, pretty things.

[IanMcIntosh]

I think it always helps when you spend a decent amount of time on the real actual instrument. When you stick yourself at a Stage Rhodes, and start playing amped through a Fender Twin Reverb, it really starts to become clear that this instrument want designed to play the same as a piano. You may lend to playing simple chords, or may lend to playing really high angelic sounds. you may want to trying sticking it through a Boss RV5 pedal and play up high. I'm not saying there's a particular way you HAVE to play (some are better tho haha) I'm just saying you need to think about what to do different because of the simple fact that a physical piano acts differently than the physical Rhodes.

:-)

Ian

[russhutto]

Yep, it's all about "voicings"...

Lest we get too complicated with this topic though. Back to the original question:

What is the most important skill on keys?

I'm gonna have to go back to inversions on this one. Let's think basic, keyboard/piano for worship. The typical church setup might have one or both. Since the question seems to lend itself to a more "beginner moving to intermediate" frame of mind, I'm going to say that learning HOW to play chords and their inversions is going to be my numero uno skill on keys.

Granted, the voicings, stylings, and "ear" stuff will come into play, but all of that is moot if you can't play chords and progressions smoothly.

What does it matter if a man gains an amped wurly, yet loses his soul(ful) chords?

[csobalvarro]

It's really hard to nail down the "most important skill", there are so many. Honestly I think the most important is not even about playing, it's LISTENING. Then it's about being able to interpret what you hear in order to either recreate it or compliment it. It's at this last step that proficiency in voicing is so critical. I think this is actually equally important for any chordal instrument, notably guitar. There's more than one way to play a G ;) To get there, there's certainly the need to understand the theory of chord structure. Then there's having the physical musicianship to execute it. But in the end, what's going to be the biggest barrier is the ears to hear when it's working or not. I don't know how many times I've had fellow players ask me, "how'd you figure THAT out?" For me, the answer's almost always.... "well, I listened a LOT in order to understand what what happening."

[russhutto]

I agree CSO, having a good ear is a great skill for every instrumentalist or singer. It takes work and time for most of us to train that skill. Some people are blessed with the ear of ears and others have to work at it, but it's definitely something every musician should be aware of while developing their skill.

[marconkeys]

Haha wow this thread has grown! I didn't realise this would be such an interesting discussion and I've managed to get quite a few tips too :). Now what about 7's and 9's and all those extended chords?

[russhutto]

I wouldn't get too worried about playing those all the time.

Here's a few tips though. In my experience, probably the most used 7 chord is the m7 (minor 7). For example an Em7.

Let's start in the key of G:

Using one of the progressions that I mentioned before (I VI IV), we'd end up with...

||G---Em---C-------:||

G = I, Em = VI, C = IV

I like to add an Em7 in their for a smooth sound. One of the easiest ways to do that is to keep your RH on the G chord (G-B-D) while moving the LH down to the E (either octaves or the Root E & 5th B with your left pinky and thumb)

You'll have something that looks like this (for the Em7 chord):

LH {E - B (or E)} RH {G - B - D}

in chords above lyrics speak we'd label this an Em7. I've also taught students to write in whatever helps them to memorize chords. Two helpful ways are to write a G/E (everything on the left of the slash is right hand, and everything on the right of slash is left hand)...

and

to actually write the notes out next to the chord Em7 (E-G-B-D)

To summarize the simplest way to build a minor 7 chord is to play a major triad that is built on the 3rd note of the scale (of THAT CHORD), with the ROOT of the minor 7 chord in the left hand.

another example is Am7 = A - C - E - G

Notice that it just looks like a C major chord on top of an A (c chord in RH, a note in LH)...

make any sense?

[worshiptrench]

I still say its being able to look like Stevie Wonder!

[russhutto]

and sing like him too! :)