Years ago I heard about a book called
Drawing on the right side of the brain. It basically teaches you how to really see and draw as opposed to drawing what you
think you see. One of the most amazing examples asks you to look at and draw a portrait. Nothing too different here except that the portrait was printed upside-down. An amazing thing happened when I just drew what looked like random shapes. When I flipped over my drawing it was the best, most accurate image I’d ever drawn. For grins, I drew the portrait again while looking at it upside-up. The result was cartoonish, it looked like a 6 year-old drew it. So where I am going with this wrt playing worship music? We need to flip the songs we are rehearsing upside-down. When I listen to a song and start to play it I find that I often play it my way and I have to force myself to actually listen to what the player is doing rather than what I
think they are doing. I have no magic technique for how this may play out when you try it, but I encourage you to avoid the trap of playing what think you hear. It’s a nice break to actually close your eyes and surrender to the music and the part as you listen.
4 comments:
Sounds interesting. I'll have to try this. I've never thought of it that way. On the flip side, what's your take on playing what you would like to hear. Many musicians I've talked to say they often hear many parts/leads/harmonies in the song. I totally agree that one must keep the musical gist of the song (main leads/chord progressions), but what about adding your own personal flavor? Should we just practice and play exactly what we hear on a CD? Or should we play what comes naturally (just as long as it doesn't suck)?
Ben
Should we just practice and play exactly what we hear on a CD?
great question.
My take on this is that most worship players will need to stretch their playing to get close to what the musician on the CD is doing. If you are at or near the level of musicianship of the CD then you have more options available to you. Bear in mind that since you don't usually practice often with the other musicians, they have been listening to the CD all week and any substantial deviations could be a distraction. Even if they are an improvement.
Interesting. I never thought of it like that. I guess ad libbing and stuff like that comes when you build relationships and play together with musicians on a regular basis, which can be kind of hard at Sunset since they are pulling from such a large pool of talent.
Ben
I find that I feel a bit like a musical stranger until I've played with somebody quite a few times. And to add to it we rarely play the same songs twice with the same musicians. I try to keep things simple to hopefully avoid creating a distraction. that said there are lots of places in worship sets where we can spice up the playing. Especially if we get our face out of the sheet music and engage with the band and more importantly with the congregation.
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