Knowing The Appropriate Use Of Instruments For Your Setting - Part 2
"Our goal is to facilitate worship and glorify God through our music, and that is better aided when we minimize distractions."
Last week, we looked at the first two pointers on knowing which instruments are appropriate to use in a church service, covering both church size and the difference between acoustic and electronic sound.
In this post, we’ll be looking at the remaining three points. The next one then is…
Careful selection of the lead melody instrument
Sometimes, you have a group of musicians playing in church, and you might have violin, trumpet and saxophone, and they are all playing the melody together all the way through every song. That can easily become quite overbearing as you lose the sound of harmony because the melody is so prominent.
If you need a strong melody for a song that is new or unfamiliar to your congregation, it can be very helpful to have a single lead instrument play that melody to help familiarize everyone with it, but you probably don’t need all the instruments playing it at the same time.
If the song is well-known, you can encourage those instrumentalists to play around the melody, which in turn adds a fullness to the sound. Suppose you have strong vocals and a few singers. In that case, there’s not much need for the melody to be played at all. However, this refers more to monophonic instruments, meaning instruments that can only play one note at a time, like a saxophone, trumpet or flute, rather than polyphonic instruments like guitar or piano that can play many notes at a time. String instruments also generally play one note, though they can play two at the same time.
The key point here is to keep the melody from being too overbearing, and part of the consideration is also the amount of volume a certain instrument puts out. For example, a violin can be played quietly, but it’s a lot harder for someone to play a trumpet or bagpipes quietly! That’s why some instruments don’t go well in a small group, as they need more “cover” from other instruments.
Moving on to the fourth point, which is related…
Using space to minimize distraction from excessive playing
It’s important to encourage the other musicians in your team to use space, and what I mean by that is that you want to discourage a situation where, on every break between verses or choruses, all the musicians are playing fills and runs. That can certainly create quite a distracting din, and can also come across like it’s “solo” time for that instrument, except it’s all the instruments at the same time!
This will depend on the type of instrument, of course, as a piano and guitar will keep playing throughout a song, apart from a time of a cappella singing, with a basic accompaniment. Then you would need to share out the fills and runs among the other musicians, which should, of course, be tastefully played. Without communicating this, it easily becomes a free-for-all, which can lead to a lot of excessive notes.
To put it more simply, the non-accompanying instruments, which are the more monophonic instruments like violin, trumpet, flute, don’t need to play all the time throughout every song. Those instruments are best played on and off throughout each song. However, if you do have a mini quartet or lots of stringed instruments, those instruments combined produce a polyphonic sound, which is fine in that setting.
So encourage the use of space, and the sound will be more harmonious, more pleasing on the ears, and less distracting.
The next point then is…
Work hard at getting a good overall sound
Whether you are playing acoustically or through a sound system, or a mixture of both, the point here is to practice with the various instruments so that you can get a good sound overall. Listen from different areas in the church, gain feedback from others when you play in the service, and do what you can to get the best sound, because that will provide the least distraction.
In saying “best sound”, I don’t mean “polished sound”, but rather a true reflection of each instrument, balanced well with the other instruments, and with the overall volume sitting at a suitable place to support, not eclipse, the congregational singing.
This does take some time, and if it’s not your area of skill, then having a good sound engineer in your church is worth its weight in gold, as they really can make all the difference with how everything sounds.
I hope these pointers have been helpful to you as you consider adding other musicians and other instruments to your piano playing, if that’s something you want to do and if it works well in your situation.
Just to recap, here are the points again…
Careful selection of the lead melody instrument
Using space to minimize distraction from excessive playing
Work hard at getting a good overall sound
As we’ve said before, the foundation principle that underlies our role as church piano players is this…
…minimum distraction = maximum (potential) for worship.
And that’s key to remember, especially as we seek to play with other musicians in the church setting. Our goal is to facilitate worship and glorify God through our music, and that is better aided when we minimize distractions.
[Return to The Church Piano Player Website]
This blog post was written by pastor and pianist Kris Baines, from The Church Piano Player. Kris lives in the UK with his family, having recently moved back from New Zealand where he worked as a pastor for the past 26 years (also leading worship/worship teams). Kris has also spent over 35 years writing, recording, and performing music and is now bringing all that combined experience together to help equip church piano/keyboard players.
Check out the church piano player website for more information on online courses by Kris Baines.
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