I have a strange way of doing things sometimes: someone asked me what a keyboard has to do in a praise band, and in my last post I basically said, well, nothing really. This is not the kind of answer you want to give if you are trying to stand up for the importance of something. Remind yourself not to invite me to speak at your next rally for funding of the arts!

But the method behind this insanity was this: many people who are trained as musicians come at praise bands from the standpoint of one who has been playing written music all their lives. The way we relate to music is to play all the notes on the page. Except that in the world of praise bands, there usually aren't any. Hence the problem. And in order to solve it it seems to me that the best way to do it is to pull down the old building and put up a new one. Hence in the first article we basically stripped away all the old orders of notes, and now we are going to replace it with some new ones.

The email I received from the person asking me the question suggested she was trying to work from solo piano sheet music versions of the praise band songs and somehow get them to work in a praise band situation. Basically, though, what you end up doing is having to create your own arrangement on the spot, using some of the notes provided and discarding others, adding some new ones, etc.  I do that occasionally, but it is a pretty advanced activity, and it already assumes you have a more complex relationship with notes on a page than 'I see, I play.' So rather than approach things that way, I think it would be much easier to get rid of the written solo versions altogether and learn to use the same music (or lack thereof) the rest of the band is using. What I mean is that you might as well learn to improvise from a lead sheet. This is really not as hard as it sounds!

I just received a question from someone who has been asked to play keyboard in a praise band. Basically, she is wondering how one goes about this.

Now playing in a band well, like anything else, will take plenty of time and effort. If you are like me, you like the idea that no matter what you may already know there is considerably more to learn, that the journey is long, and that you need to set goals, apply yourself, be ready to learn and experiment, and keep going even when discouraged.

On the other hand, Church is something that doesn’t encourage patience. Sunday comes every week, ready or not....

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