I think we all can agree on the fact that nobody likes to suck.
A great band helps you focus on what really matters.
An undisciplined team, making mistakes left and right, is a distraction to worship.
My recent post on 7 Marks of Great Musicians Everyone Wants To Hire has been shared a lot over the past few days. I suppose it strikes a chord among worship leaders who want their teams to improve.
But the question becomes, “How does a musician improve?”
How can you develop these marks of great musicians?
Does it come naturally to the especially talented? To those who can afford lessons?
Not exactly. Great musicianship begins with a choice.
You need to become a self learner. Matter of fact, self-learning will cause you to grow further, faster.
One of the reasons I’m so passionate about self learning is because I hear too many excuses.
- “I can’t afford lessons”
- “I’ve never taken lessons, so I can’t do this”
- “I just don’t have time”
Becoming a great musician starts with you deciding to be one. Call it out and start acting like one.
Lessons are amazing. For goodness sake, I teach lessons. But your music teacher isn’t your personal musicianship genie.
You’ve got to own your progress.
5 FREE Ways to Improve Your Musicianship
OK, so now that you’ve decided to own your progress and stop making excuses, it’s time for the fun to begin.
1. Develop an insatiable curiosity – In order to improve your musicality, you can’t just read music. You need to be curious – curious about what you hear. Curiosity about style, form, and technique will push you to love what you do. And if you don’t love it, you won’t become great at it.
Don’t just go by the book. Explore musical concepts. Test ideas. Nothing can stop a curious musician.
2. Mimic what you hear – When I first started listening to worship music I would mimic entire albums. I would sit there until the piano parts where spot on. I’d slave away until the guitar parts were second nature. You can do this. Don’t wait on someone to teach you.
Listen and mimic. Seize those guitar parts with a vengeance.
3. Allow space – Great musicianship doesn’t just involve the perfection of technique. Sure, that’s important. But the truth is, it’s more about what you don’t play than what you do play.
Music needs space to evoke emotion – to stand out. I’ve played with musicians who can shred faster than a paper shredder, but their music lacked any feel or emotion.
4. Watch the Greats – If you want to be great, you should listen to music all the time. Not only should you listen, you should go to concerts. You should be watching DVDs of your favorite artists. You will become like who you spend time with.
5. Enjoy the Difficulty – No one will argue that learning an instrument is difficult. It hurts. It takes time. But what separates the greats from the amateurs is how they view difficulty. The greats see difficulty as a challenge rather than a road block. Don’t give up. Press into the pain and overcome.
You can do this. You can become the musician you want to be. You can help your worship team rise to a new level. Don’t wait for someone else to teach you.
Question: Musicians, how did you become the musician you are today? What insights could you share with the rest of us? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Great post, David. While you don’t have to be the best musician in the world to be a good worship leader, it is really helpful to have some basics under your belt. I much prefer playing with a band that knows what they’re doing than one that does not.. 🙂
Good tips as well. Taking initiative and making time for what is most important are so underestimated these days, I think. It’s much easier to make excuses haha..
Agreed, Cameron. Personal initiative is so huge. It’s what separates the pros from the beginners.
Yes, I am a guitar teacher, and often times students put the “Genie” expectation on me. “Self learning” is a necessity, even with a teacher! Great post.
I can’t say that I exactly agree. “Self” learning is a slippery slope. What if you have learned bad technique? You will continue to practice the same bad technique. Then you will only become good at bad technique. You need the evaluation of someone whom knows what proper technique is, and can coach you through it.
Yes, becoming great is a choice. However it is more a choice to pursue the goal properly. If your REALLY want to become better, then the decision is to SACRIFICE whatever you’ll use as an excuse to NOT pursue (i.e. – no money… do you have a cell phone or cable bill? How much Starbucks does one NEED? I don’t have time… How much TV do you watch?). Nobody becomes great by giving up… even before they start. Read Galatians 6:9.
Nothing that is worth doing is easy.
Hey Josh, I don’t disagree that coaching is necessary. I’m all for it. But you can’t completely rely on it. There needs to be self motivation for you to go the furthest.
That word “Coach” is the key IMO. If we looked at our teachers as that, self motivation is key!
David,
that is one of my biggest beefs with some of the musicians I have worked with, an unwillingness to stretch themselves musically. The thing I get the most is “I can’t read music”, but I know that many times the underlying sentiment is “I don’t want to read music”. If they only knew how much headache they could save themselves by understanding the “roadmap” in the song. I am not so concerned with reading the little black dots, but knowing where the Coda and the 1st and 2nd endings take them can be a huge boon when I comes to rehearsing.
Ok, rant over.
Great article!
Wes
Wes, I agree with you man. A little music theory can go a long way. I think it should be standard for worship team members to know the basics.
#4 “Watch the greats” is spot on.
How about including good ol’ fashioned woodshedding?
As someone who has picked up playing a musical instrument (bass guitar)late in life (51), your recommendations ring so true. It is never too late to learn an instrument. Listen to music (all styles) as much as possible, watch the musicians closely at concerts and on live DVDs. It can be very tough to find time to practice, but try to find some time each day, even if it is for 15 minutes. Above all else, take the time to enjoy playing especially knowing you do this for our Father!
Great stuff, Kevin. Yes, even 15 minutes will make a big difference!
I have been playing long enough to say that nearly all music that inspired as I began to grow was secular. Today I still hear huge secular influences in christian musicians everywhere. I listened to what moved me then emulated it or outright copied the piece. As a guitarist I later found out that people usually learned “Licks” and then they would take all of the licks they learned and put them into the music presented. If people had a lot of licks and knew how to artfully place them I never even noticed that they were putting patchwork pieces together because it was so musical. Examples of this for me at the time were Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck Jeff Baxter,and many others. Later I learned that the truly gifted people I was listening to went beyond licks and studied scales, modes and other phrases that they combined with their licks to be able to make creative expressions that contributed to the piece. Examples of this Nina Gerber, Scott Nygaard, Allison Krause, Vince Gill, and many other people that we call “Session” today. All of these people have thoughtful and provocative melodies, use of double and triple stops, a strong sense of instrumental voice or tone, and a sense of where the entire song should go without pushing it.
I later learned that there are “Producers” that had the ability to recognize when other musicians had these qualities and bring them together to make very artful music. Examples of this are people like Don Was, or John Leventhal. Christian musicians have a mandate to do edifying music that leads others in the word and will of God, and the promise of Jesus. In honesty believe all of the secular influences above have made me what I “Musically” am today but If I refer other musicians back to my influences they in most part are non-edifying. Christian learning musicians today do have artful musicians to emulate. Study worship song construction from Chris Tomlin and Tim Hughes. They are gifted. Listen to how Tommy Walker constructs songs and then the guitar solo (Praise God) in that song. Study the way Nathan Knockles produces.
Fantastic comment, Dennis. I love to study albums – production styles, guitar tone, drum technique. It’s all fascinating to me. I think that’s what it takes to go to the next level. Be curious!
Great post Denins
In my experience (teaching/lecturing/composing/performing), the best musicians exhibit the following traits:
Adaptability
Dedication
Performance/Fluency/Flair
Humility
How this happens?
– Practice, practice, practice (and get a good teacher that you can build an honest relationship with)
– Utilise opportunities to perform / play with others
– Listen to music outside your comfort zone, try and play it if you can. It will improve your appreciation and understanding not only of other styles but also your own.
– Learn Music Theory (at least music notation, but also chord structures, formation, rhythm etc)
– Be patient, it may take a few years….
I will never forget my piano teacher – an amazing and inspirational woman, with whom I had a great time, and made my expectations a reality.
So good, David. In your opinion, what makes a great music teacher? In some sense, worship leaders are music teachers. Not completely, but to some degree. We probably could learn a thing or two from some great teachers.
David, another good topic, but so hard to talk about because of the number of aspects involved. To a great extent, we are all self taught and we also have learned from everyone we have performed with. We all fall into bad habits (practicing technique), and then work our way out of them when we are convinced it has to be done. Music is not one talent or skill set. It is a combination of talents. Some people are gifted and some are less gifted. I have a degree in guitar performance and have been teaching for 40 years. Age and pragmatism has destroyed a few of my youthful myths about music. One cliche remains true, but only if you understand it. “You get out of it what you put into it.” I hear this quoted all the time, about music and also sports. What if you put in tons of effort, but have no talent? Some people have lots of talent, but not the patience to persevere. Some people are visual learners, some are tactile learners. Some people have a musical mind but no technique. Some people have fine tuned motor skills but no imagination. Some people are gifted with the right combination of all of these.
To be a “serious” instrumentalist, you must! develop technique and fine tune the motor skills in your youth (age 6 to 10 to start). The window of time begins to close. It never completely closes, but the closing accelerates. Several solid years of study (with a qualified) teacher in your early teens really slows down the closing window.
You must also develop a musical mind. That means, learn to read MUSIC, listen to lots of different styles. Read about music and musicians, study theory and composition, and poetry. Hang around musicians and try to play, jam, or study with some musicians you think are better than you. Work with someone OUTSIDE of your genre or skill set. Don’t just take the advice of one or two people. If you are around lots of good musicians, you will begin to hear and see similarities in what they say and how they work. Another long winded comment. So to close I leave you with this.
Be honest with yourself and your art. Music is as different as
the people who do it. Some people just think they love music. Some people are in love with the idea of being a musician, but do not want to pay the price. Being a musician and a performer has a lot of overlap.There are great performers that are not really good musicians, there are likewise great musicians that are not good performers.
Now I am going to offend some people. There is too much Worship music today that is insipid because worship leaders, don’t encourage growth in themselves or their musicians. Musicians do not take control of their musicality and Church is an easy room. This does not mean everyone, but it seems to be more prevalent in recent years. Let us reverse the trend. God still rewards effort.
Don Simpson
Don, thanks so much for sharing. I appreciate your attention to detail and excellence. Being a teacher for 40 years, what would you say are the top 5 skills a worship musician should develop?
You are very gracious for asking, since I have sort of beat this topic to death. I am mainly hard on guitar players for lack of musicianship by passive omission.
1.) ability to “read” music and understand lead sheets.
2.) ensemble
3.) ensemble
4.) ensemble
5.) space and minimalism
Don
What do you mean by ‘ensemble’? Just playing with other musicians?
That, and developing the skills to do so. Keeping tempo, playing stylistically, blending volume and tone, following the leader or conductor. Musically make the Worship, the group, the song, the moment important, not yourself. Don’t over contribute. You can be such a star that it diminishes the group. Adhere to the protocol and etiquette of the group. Most guitar players are very week in this area unless they were in band, orchestra, or maybe choir in school. Groups like that train their members. Guitar players often do not have that in their background. It takes time to develop. If someone tells me they were in junior high and high school band, I sort of understand what they know. If someone tells me they play guitar, and that’s all I know, I still don’t have much of a clue until I work with them a while.
Does that clarify?
Another “short” answer!