This was the biggest question I had when I started playing, and I still ask this question.  What in the world to I play?!  I mean, I could play pads on everything, but that’d be boring!  And I can’t play cool lead synth lines on everything.  Somehow that’s not going to work for the response song.

The answer is play whatever fits best.

I can hear you now, “Well thanks for nothing!”, but that’s the answer.  Think about it.  For every song you play, you need to find something that fits.  For We Unite by Elevation Worship, the lead synth sounds good, because it suits the style of the song.  Playing The Stand by Hillsong you’re probably better off playing a pad.  For other songs, a straight up piano sounds great.

Now, as always, you can change it up for effect.  Elevation Church did this with their Remix stuff.  But again, the parts fit with the style of the song they wanted to play.

Ok, so now I’ve got a sound, but what do I play with that part?  Wait for it…  Play what fits.  For a song busy with guitars and drums, you really shouldn’t be soloing the whole way.  You could add a bit of dirt with a biting synth pad and let the guitars go to town.  If it’s a slower song where the drums are down and the guitars are playing swells, break out a pad or pay some piano lines.

The moral is that you don’t want to step on any of the other players parts.  If someone has a soloistic part, don’t play a solo over top of them.  Sometimes it’s great just to hang out on the chords and make the band sound better.  Add your cool riffs between lyrical lines.  Add an instrumental break if you need some musical relief!  (With your band leader’s permission first!)  If you want some inspiration, listen to other bands.  Listen to some good jazz music.  Listen to good pop music even.  The more you listen, the more ideas you’ll have, and the more you’ll hear what other good keyboardists are doing.

So what do you play in your band?  Lots of pads?  Synths?  Melodic?  Rhythmic?

[ Photo by orange grove media ]

Virtual instruments.

Basically anything that can replicate a keyboarded instrument inside a computer.  Anything from modeling analogue synthesizers to samplers with sound from vintage organs and electric pianos and string instruments.  You get the idea.

For my setup, I love using Reason.  It’s basically the synth rack of your dreams in your computer.  Multiple MIDI controllers to play multiple synths, control different instruments by MIDI channel out, ReWire into your favorite DAW, and it’s all fairly straightforward to configure (Google always helps).

I’ve got a master Reason file that holds all of my basic setup.  I have 4 audio channels out (2 stereo pairs); one for mostly synth/pad/lead items, and one for loops/beats/FX items.  These usually are run through Live and into the house.  Most weeks, I use maybe a patch or two.  The most I’ve used in a set I believe was four, which includes a loop.

The synths are set up simply enough, with basic pads up top, a synth lead, and a rhythmic lead (or two).  These are the bread and butter for my controllers.  I usually sit on a nice airy pad with a filter mapped to the mod wheel.  I can go from being under the band to being on top depending on the song.  I’ve got a nice Moog-type square lead that I use a lot that was set up for We Unite by Elevation Worship.

For the loops, I have two ReDrums set up with patterns all ready to go, which are triggered by the number keys on the laptop keyboard.  I also have an FX spot that I usually don’t use, but if I need some atmospheric goodies it’s right there.

The only think lacking in my setup is a good vintage electric piano instrument.  Native Instruments look like they have some nice samplers for that, so that’s on my list.

Any thoughts on this?  What do you (or your church) use, if anything?

To start, I wanted to go over my current set-up at my church.

I have a Yamaha S90, a Korg CX-3, and an M-Audio Oxygen 61 for my boards.  I sometimes use a Yamaha S03 as a MIDI controller as well.  I’m running the MIDI controllers though Reason and Live on a MacBook Pro.  I usually have the S90 and the CX-3 on a two-tiered stand (S90 on bottom).  I’ll have the Oxygen on it’s own single stand near the computer, and the S03 is similar when I use it.

The S90 has a great piano sound and feel.  It’s hammer weighted, so it’s great for that piano feel.  I usually use it just for piano and a particular synth pad sound that sits well with a variety of songs.  I’ve also found some other cool synth/pad sounds I use occasionally.

The CX-3 is a great Hammond B3 emulator.  I’m sure it won’t pass as the real thing, as it seems nothing will, but it sounds great in the house and the manual drawbars are wonderful for changing the sound on the fly.  I only use one preset, really, even though I should use more.  But I just change drawbar settings and turn percussion on and off for most of my patches anyway.

The Oxygen I use for transport control of Live to fire clicks and the occasional loop.  All of the sounds are from a custom Reason rack that I have set up.  There are a few pads, a few leads, and some programmed beats for whatever the service might need.

The setup works well for me.  The only addition I might make would be for a Nord Electro in place of the CX-3, because I’d get a good B3 sound plus good electric pianos to boot.  I’m not a fan of the S90’s Rhodes or other piano sounds.  But I was also thinking of just getting a virtual instrument for those sounds too.

This is just an overview, and I’ll probably get into specifics as I go.  Please let me know if there is anything you’d like to hear about.  I’d love some conversation on this!

Everyone wants to know how to do something.  Sometimes it’s learning a new skill, and sometimes enhancing something you already know.  Whatever that is, there seems to be one good way to do so.

Go and do it.

Sometimes the best way to learn something is to be thrown into the situation and you having to just learn it.  Think swimming.  You can talk about it all day, learn strokes on paper, practice breathing, but until you actually get tossed into the deep end, it’s all head knowledge.  Once you have to tread water, it becomes learned (or you learn you can’t swim!).

Here’s another thing.  You can’t learn something if you never do it to begin with.  You can’t learn the guitar having never picked one up.  You can’t learn to write if you never put pen to paper.

So here’s some encouragement for you, and some friendly pressure: go do something if you want to learn how.  You’ll never know unless you try.

So, what do you want to learn?

[ Image by SNAKPhotography ]

I wish more music was like poetry.

I’ve been trying to expand my musical library recently.  One thing I’ve found is that the best music (for me anyway) is the music that feels like poetry.  Music that isn’t so cookie-cutter or systematic.  Music that is soulful, authentic, and emotional.  Music that forces me to think a bit about what I am hearing.

Call me a Romantic, but that is what moves me.

And isn’t that what we want music to be?  Something that moves us to another place, and hopefully moves us toward a better place.

That is the goal I strive for when I make music.

What do you want your music to be?

[ Image by MaltaGirl ]

As some of you no doubt saw these past few days on my Twitter feed, my grandmother passed away on Friday after a massive stroke.  I still don’t know what to think or do, even after her memorial service last night.

The biggest shock for me was the fact that my grandparents visited over Christmas and all was well.  Nothing really hinted at the future.

But what I really want to say is how fragile and precious this life is.  That we can be fine one minute and gone the next.  I think we forget that in our day-to-day stuff.

And also how utterly unfair and cruel death is.  I haven’t experienced many family members passing away yet.  But I believe God made us to be with one another forever, and every time someone leaves this world I’m angry and upset.  I don’t want to say goodbye, even if I know that we will be together again in Heaven, because I shouldn’t have to.  People for whom we care about that deeply should be with us, not gone.  And the only explanation I can find is that we were not made to say goodbye.

So, I don’t know if there is a point to this post.  Today is just an outpouring of my many emotions from this weekend.  Just never take for granted this fragile life.

[ Photo by Son of Groucho ]

Just wanted to tell everyone merry Christmas from me!

Hope your holidays are merry and bright, as the song says.

Enjoy your (hopefully) off time from work and enjoy your family and friends.  And thank God for his blessings and love.

[ Photo from jerry7171 ]

For my readers, I’ve been very slack on my posting recently.  It’s been 2 months since I posted last.  That’s too long.

In any case, I think my blogging hiatus was a little needed for me, if a little abrupt.  I’ve been working at a new job, coding new themes on the side, and playing like crazy at my church’s Sunday night service.  No excuses, but I’ve felt very busy.

As a New Year’s resolution, I guess, I’m going to try and post at least once a week.  Also, I’ll probably be doing a redesign on this blog.  I’ve been learning a ton about web design and development and I feel like it’s time for a new look.  If you’ve got some things you like or hate about this look, leave a comment; I’m always looking for a little feedback.

‘Till next time.

One of my favorite parables is the story of the prodigal son.

The story goes like this: A father had two sons.  The younger was, well, young and thought he knew better.  He wanted his inheritance, and his father gave it to him.  He went away, blew all of the money on wine, women, and song, and ended up in the most degrading place he could think of, fighting not to starve.

Then something great happens.  The words in the Bible say that “…he came to himself…”.*  We’ll be back here in a second.

After this, the son realizes that even his dad’s servants were better off, and that he’d go home and beg to be a servant.  When he gets home, his father runs to meet him and welcomes his lost son back into the family, not as a servant, but as a son.  (There’s a bit more, so go read it in Luke 15).

As I emphasized before, there’s a huge turning point in this story.  The son comes to himself.  Meaning he comes back from his rebellious stage to the truth.  The words also imply that something happened inside the son.  They imply there is some point that we should all be at, and we can get away from, but we must choose to head towards.

This is important.  God will let us run away from Him.  He will always be there, but He won’t force you to stay.  It’s a choice.  And you and I choose.  When the son “came to himself” he chose to go back.  It’s subtle.  We control our direction.  We can either go away from God, or go toward Him.

So, if we’re away from God, we must make the choice to go back.  If we are near Him, we must make the choice to stay.

It’s all about coming to myself.

* The ESV and the KJV say “came to himself” and the NIV says “came to his senses”.  Same idea.

[ Image by h.koppdelaney ]

Two great apps that I’ve found recently are iSlayer’s iStat programs.

These little apps are basically a window into your Mac’s inner workings.

The iStat Pro is a dashboard widget that displays all sorts of good information about how your Mac is running.  Anything from RAM usage, to Drive stats, to temperature of components, to fan speed are all at your disposal.  The units are dragable to any most any order you’d like.  Also the skin has a few different colors so you can change to taste.

The iStat Menus contain the exact same information but in your OS X menubar.  The advantage over iStat Pro is the always available visual readouts.  (Yes, that one click to open the dashboard makes a difference!)  You can customize the individual icons to contain more or less visual info and you can (by the order in which you activate them) dictate their position in the menubar.  Also, the colors can be tweaked.

They work well together too.  I use the menus for “critical” – or at least what I call critical – info.  RAM, drives, network usage, and CPU usage are all just a glance away.  I can then open up the widget for other info – like temps, fan speed, uptime, and power stats – that I don’t need in front of me.

In any case, these apps are small and fairly light, and can help troubleshoot if you need some quick info.  (Example: Why is my fan always running!  Oh!  It’s some malfunctioning program!  I’ll fix that!)  Hopefully, you can find good uses for these two programs!

Do you have any apps to recommend?