Classical Musicians on the Worship Team—How to Make It Work

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The world is changing.

(That is—the world of written music in worship.)

For literally hundreds of years, Western music education and performance relied on written notation, leaving fully improvised music to the “folk.” Even though there would be some elements of improv (i.e., preludes, some figured bass indicators, etc.), the musical experience relied on trained musicians playing exactly what they saw on a page.

That’s not really the case anymore.

Nowadays, with advent of recorded audio, we’ve seen an institutional shift away from standard notation to charts that mainly rely on rote learning (“by-ear”) and structured improvisation to perform the music. And modern worship music is the poster child for this shift.

So it begs the question: What do we do with the classical musicians in our congregations?

Note vs. Rote: Two Sides of the Same Coin

In order to not just find a way to incorporate your classically trained fellows into your group, but make them feel valued, you need to understand the learning process behind learning by note vs. learning by rote.

Learning by rote is a common experience we all share; it’s how we learn new words during our toddler years, pick up on behavioral/emotional cues based on someone’s tone, etc. Learning the music purely from the position of listening is like that of learning a language. You hear the notes, replicate them on your instrument or voice, and then develop a working “vocabulary” of phrases to use over songs as you reproduce/improvise melodies and accompaniment.

For the note learner, there is still an aural connection, but it’s attached with an expectation upon seeing written notes on the page. To the trained person, you should be able to “hear” the notes when you see them displayed on the page, much like knowing the very words you’re reading right now.

Neither of these approaches are “better” than the other, but rote learning lends itself more strongly in modern worship music because of the vastly larger group of laypeople performing the music (as in, not trained to read standard notation). To make the case even stronger, “institutions” like SongSelect, Praise Charts, etc. pioneered the modern worship chord chart as one of the main features they offered for church music teams to rapidly recreate radio-charting singles meant for corporate worship. (To be fair, they also offer standard notation versions of songs, but the masses largely gravitated toward chord charts.)

The note learners are somewhat at a disadvantage: Since they rely on strictly adhering to the sequence on the page, adaptability and improvisation can be daunting—especially during moments of spontaneous worship or course correction when the band gets “off.” For the rote learner, these moments are fairly easy to accommodate, but for the note reader, sticking to the “map” is a lifeline that they can’t easily let go.

The good news is that you can adapt the “lifeline” to a standard chord chart, relying on the familiarity of note reading and applying it as a list of options, rather than a single approach from which there is no deviation.

How to Adapt

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to speak into this exact situation for another worship leader looking to solve the issue of incorporating a classically trained pianist into the worship band. Here’s what I advised:

Take Your Time

Inevitably, there will be pushback and growing pains in making this kind of adjustment, so with that: TAKE YOUR TIME. Remain flexible and patient as your team adjusts; there will likely be wrong notes, frustrations, repeated “let’s-try-that-again” moments, etc.

One thing to keep in in mind is to maintain consistent communication in how you refer to song sections, phrasing, 1st and 2nd endings, repeats, etc. This way, you’re not speaking to two sets of people; rather, you’re communicating the common end result, but through specialized means.

Be blessed 👊✌️