Welcome to the second article in a new sojournmusic.com series on playing piano/keyboard with a worship band, authored by Sojourn worship leader Rebecca Elliott. Rebecca is a featured singer-songwriter on our Before The Throne and Advent Songs records, and will be working on a solo CD this winter. She was featured, along with Neko Case, Okkerville River, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, and other great artists on the recent compilation album Before The Goldrush.
Rebecca is also an impressive pianist and experienced piano teacher. In this installment, she discusses timing and tone:
Keeping good time and creating good sound when playing the piano can be difficult. With enough practice, you can play the right notes and make it through a song, but making it musical and enjoyable to listen to is another matter altogether, and requires a different type of practice. Sometimes, the pursuit of perfection in playing every note correctly can distract from the equally important issues of keeping a good steady tempo, and creating a beautiful sound. Ideally, when practicing, you should pay attention to all three at the same time. Here are a few tips:
Tone:
When you sit down to play, take a look at your hand position. Your wrists and palms should be above the white keys, but not sticking up at a sharp angle from your arm. A general idea is to hang your hands relaxed at your sides, and hold that position as you bring them up to the keyboard. It works out to where your arm is almost straight from your elbow to your knuckles, and your fingers should slope down to the white keys. Your palm shouldn’t be hanging too far off the keys, and your fingers should be up close to the black keys. This position requires the least amount of effort, and creates the possibility of getting the most and clearest sound from the piano.
When you play, try not to go straight down with your fingers. You should never press down into the keyboard, but rather, use a “picking up” motion. When you play a note, stretch your fingers out just a bit, and pull inward on the keys as though you’re scooping out the note from piano. Keep your hand relaxed, and think of pulling the sound out of the piano, instead of hitting the keys. If your hand is stiff, or your wrist is hanging from or below the keyboard, you’ll use up energy that could be better used in your playing for creating sound, rather than making sure you’re playing the right notes. It’s also easier to play longer using this position, because you’re conserving energy.
Timing:
The number one thing you can do to improve your timing is to play with a metronome. The metronome is the bane of many students’ existence, but there’s nothing like it to fix timing issues, and help you keep a steady tempo throughout a song. It’s helpful to have an internal sense of rhythm, but with a metronome and enough practice, just about anyone can overcome timing issues.
Sit down with a lead sheet, and play the song “straight”. Play along exactly with the metronome, and try not to miss beats. You’ll find out quickly which sections of the song you’re most comfortable with, and which sections need work.
At first, set the metronome to a slower beat than it’s normally played, and play through a section a few times (three or four times ought to do it). Then move onto the next section, three or four times, and so forth. I like to practice my Right Hand (RH), then my Left Hand (LH), then Hands Together (HT), three times each.
After you’ve gone through the whole song in sections like this, play through it once with the metronome slowly, then turn off the metronome and play it again at the normal speed.
Practicing this way not only helps your timing and tempo, but practicing slowly with a metronome also reinforces the correct notes as you’re doing the repetitions. You will grow more familiar with a song as you do the repetitions and playing-through.
As always, practice makes perfect, and sometimes technique can be difficult to fix. However, if you approach any new song with these things in mind, you will be developing good habits and techniques from the very beginning.
Read “The Keyboard In Modern Worship 1: Playing With A Worship Team”
