How to play hymns for a church service

Most young music students in our western culture are asked at one time or another to play the piano/pipe organ/keyboard for the church in which they grew up. If you or your child are experiencing this pressure, here is some advice from a church musician/music director of fourteen years who started playing for services when he was eight years old.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Any keyboard will do - don't allow yourself to be bullied into using the "right" instrument or method by traditionalists.

1. Know the melody of your hymns. If you can sing it, you can play it.

2. You have to play more than one note. Thankfully, the next number after one is two. Playing the bass note (the bottom one) and the Melody note (usually the top note in a hymn) is all you need to get through a service. You would be utterly amazed and amused, no matter how young you are, to learn how many people at church have only played those two notes for a service. Everyone has to start somewhere.

3. Play them often. As a young person, your ability read won't be as fast as people who have been playing for twice as long as you've been alive. The better you get to know one hymn, the easier the next one is to learn. Pick your favorite one, and play it until it goes out of style - to everyone except you.

4. Keep your eyes moving. If you learn how to play with your eyes glued to one spot on the page (the spot you are playing on the keyboard), then you will not be able to break the habit of your constant focusing. The time will come when you WILL become distracted or your ensemble WILL become lost or swing to another location on your printed page. By shifting your eyes to different notes - high and low, ahead and behind - while you play, you will train your senses. Your ears, eyes, appendages, and mind will become aware of where you're at and where you're going all of the time. You'll play some notes that are not on the page in the beginning, but you'll never be totally lost when it counts because if you become so, you'll always know how to catch up real-quick.

5. Enjoy your music. Do it for fun. Learn how to laugh at yourself when you screw it up - everyone makes mistakes and they never stop making them. Play it for yourself, not for anybody else. Remember, there are only two people who know what you're thinking. Everyone else is just along for the ride you give them.

[Meri]

on 7/31/2008 Although I don't play the piano it looks like these are good tips to help a beginner. Thanks for sharing your expertise.