[This guest post is by Rob Morgan of therobmorgan.com]
So you’ve been playing on your worship team for the past few years now and are starting to feel pretty comfortable with the music, right? I mean, nobody can nail that Brewster guitar solo like you [except for Lincoln himself… maybe.]
You’ve figured out all the instrumentation on the new Gungor album and even have a melodica on hand just waiting for your Planning Center schedule to give you the go ahead.
Even so, as musicians and artists playing in the local church, we are faced with a challenge that you may not have even recognized is there.
How do you go from being what I call a ‘Human Jukebox’ (just replaying what someone else wrote & recorded) to unlocking your own creative potential?
It’s easy to get comfortable learning the [INSERT YOUR INSTRUMENT HERE] parts to the tunes for the weekend. But ONLY learning the right notes to play could possibly be hindering your inner, non-stop, creative machine.
Unfortunately, there’s no “5 Step Program” to unlocking your creativity. No “Do this and you’ll instantly be creative” quick-fix, but I have a found a few tips that have helped me on my path to unlocking my creative potential.
Expand your vocabulary
If music is a language, you’re only speaking ‘words’ you know.
It only makes sense that if we want more options in our creative process, we need to expand our musical vocabulary. This can be done by learning new songs, riffs, and fills (especially from other genres).
Learn the application
As you are expanding your vocabulary and learning HOW someone played a specific part to a song, start to ask yourself WHY that is being played.
For example: If you are an electric player learning a lead-line [after you’ve learned all the notes] step back and look at the chord changes that it’s being played over. Find out what part of the scales/modes they are using and how they applied it to the song. It’s ONLY by doing this that you will learn how to apply your own ideas to songs.
Write your own part
After you’ve learned a song, sit down and write your own part to it!
- Bass players: come up with a different pattern.
- Electric guitarists: Write your own solo.
- Drummers: Try a different fill.
- Keys: Try a different sound.
- Vocalists: Come up with a new BGV part.
Don’t feel like you need to re-write every song you play on a Sunday morning. (Especially if you’re requested to play the part that’s on the recording)
But by doing this on your own time, you’ll begin to see yourself growing in your creative musicianship and coming up with parts that… who knows, maybe someone else will end up listening to while learning to be more creative.
Question: How do you keep yourself from being what Rob calls a “human jukebox”? How are you currently stretching your creative muscle? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Great post!
Awesome ideas. I like to experiment by completely changing the groove and feel of a song, especially the loop based Euro-pop stuff and just make it meat and potatoes roots-rock.
Cool post Mr Morgan.
Awesome idea! Pulling a concept from a completely different genre and makin it fit.
One word: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!
I like that you say people need to write out a new part…write! So many musicians “improv” and learn nothing good from the experience. Composing your parts will show you some cool techniques and melodies you wouldn’t find by “improv-ing”…improve…don’t improv. 😛
Agreed. The more you improve the better your improv will be eh? 😉
Great post, Rob. I especially like the part about expanding our vocabulary. Often times, we creative folks get content in exceeding well in what we’re familiar with, but don’t challenge ourselves to learn something new. Great insight!