Recently, I played at my church in a different service than I usually do.  They have a different style than the one I am used to fitting into.  And to top it off, they were playing a difficult song with an orchestra – something I’ve not done before as a keys player.

Yikes!

For me, I don’t read piano music too well.  I had the bad habit when I was taking lessons to stare at my fingers and loose my place in the music.  So, I was not looking forward to this piece because I felt out of my element.  I still had to play my part and help the sound of the band.  Here’s what I did:

Practice

First (as always), I needed to practice.  I had to brush off my reading skills and hit the woodshed on my part.  There was an especially important lead in that I had to nail, so I practiced that many times.  I ended up attending extra practices with the orchestra and choir so I could hear the song better.  Do the work if you want the results!

Simplify

Don’t try to be Mr. Virtuoso if you don’t have the chops.  I certainly did not have the chops then to pull off the song as written.  I usually play more of a free style and only have chords in front of me.  This chart was all orchestrated, so I came to a compromise.  I’d play the chords (which were written on the chart).  But not everything on the page.  The band leader was ok with this, so I just tried to make it as simple as possible.

When you don’t know what’s going on, keep it simple.  You can add once you feel comfortable.  But don’t try to add way too much and get lost when a mistake happens.  It sounded good, and I didn’t detract from the sound.

Watch/Listen

The last thing I needed to do was to watch the conductor and listen to the band.  I couldn’t rely on a click track for this, because the piece had many tempo shifts.  So, I had to watch the conductor for the tempo and cues.

There was also a soloist, so the whole band had to listen to her as we were following her lead.  If she jumped ahead, then we had to follow, or if she held out a note extra long, we needed to be prepared.  Paying attention to your band is one of the most important things to do when playing.  Listen to them, watch the leader, and you’ll not be lost.

Has anyone else been thrown a curve and have a good story to share?