Practice and Preparation
For, this week's blog I thought I would focus on some practical tips around practice and preparation before coming to a Sunday or a worship band rehearsal. This was suggested by Dan Maisey in the Facebook group - Dan is a great guy and a bassist on our worship team. He's recently bought a Moog synthesizer - something I am very keen to nerd out about with him. Here was Dan's post:
One thing that I have been thinking about recently is how I practice. I have found that I can often practice songs I know/enjoy which is fun, but doesn’t always feel like the best use of time. Keen to hear any tips on how you all make the most of practice time and how you split between things like learning songs/ technique/ scales/ improvising etc.
Growing up, I was made to have piano lessons. Every Monday night my mum would pick me up from school and we'd drive over to my piano teacher's house, listening to Steve Wright in the afternoon on our way. I vividly remember he used to play 'That don't impress me much' by Shania Twain every week, and to this day that song brings back memories of my piano lessons.
I used to hate piano lessons, but even more than that I hated having to rehearse during the week. I would have to practice 30 minutes a day before my dinner - valuable time that I could have used playing Crash Bandicoot on my PS1.
As much as I disliked my piano lessons and the rehearsal time, this was so important for me to get to a good standard of musicality. My goal was to get to a level on piano playing where I did not need to think about what I was doing technically or musically.
For me, I found this so important when I started to play keys in worship music. I wanted to be fully focussed on my worship, fully focussed on using my musical gift to praise God. I didn't want to be thinking of that riff coming up, or that new chord sequence coming up. This is fairly unrealistic and it would take me a long time to get to that stage, but I have found that practicing gets me closer to a place where I fix my eyes fully on Jesus whilst I am playing.
Something I found helpful when rehearsing was to focus on musical theory/technicalities, rather than specific songs.
The Nashville Number system was HUGE for me when I discovered this way of writing chord progression. It is so simple, yet it has elevated the way I play and rehearse. I won't bore you with the details of this system (learn more here), but essentially it's a way of numbering chords according to their scale position. This comes back to the fundamentals of music theory - learning scales and what chords fit within a key.
In my experience, learning the fundamentals of musical theory and chord progressions is much more effective than learning to play worship music on a song-by-song basis. Of course, there is a place or this and that is very much needed, i'm not suggesting you don't look at the setlist, but learn every key's pentatonic scale and hope for the best! Worship music follows a particular style - very rarely will you find a chord outside of a major scale.
Really nailing down music theory here will set you up to win when you are preparing for Sundays song list.
Use your private practice times as worship times, not just a time to learn new chord shapes and riffs. I find this really helps both in my practical preparation and spiritual preparation. I almost run through the whole song list in order as if I am playing on a Sunday. I find this practically helps with so many elements of musicality e.g. transitions between songs, riffs.
In my practice time, not only do I listen to my parts - I listen to what every one else is doing. This is a key element of playing in a band that will really develop your musicality. Listen to what the electric guitar is playing - try and occupy a different frequency range to what they are playing (i.e. if they are playing a high up riff, maybe you should be marking chords lower down the octave. This is where communication is also key - talk to your fellow musicians before a Sunday and ask what they will be playing? Which riffs are they playing? Which version of the song have they been listening to? Preparation for a Sunday is much more than just your personal music practice.
These are just a few thoughts I have around preparation and practising. Let's start a discussion around this. What tips/experiences do you have with regards to practicing?
Joe Rivers
Joe was the keys player for Gas Street Church and now works for UCB Radio.