Do worship team members need to be able to read music?

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Question:

We were having a conversation at our leadership meeting the other day about two new congregants who are highly musically talented and want to get involved with one caveat: they don't read music.

I don't read music either. I've had a couple live bands where everyone involved learned organically and memorized. I've never understood the concept of following sheet music when I can be free and improvisational. If I wanted to play exactly like Phil Wickham, I'd legally change my name and wear way cooler shoes.

Anyway, on my last worship team, I spent over a year training a professor and master degree pianist how to not read sheet music. I know some of you are gasping at that, but in the end, she learned to play freely and allow the Holy Spirit to improvise at a moment's notice. While we had a program, it was highly fluid and creative. What are your thoughts on this concept? How do you view professional, polished musicians who don't read music?

Answer:

Personal Experiences and Common Scenarios

I know that I've run into this before, and actually, I'll give a little personal anecdote here because I've run into this right now, sort of the same thing that this person is talking about.

There is a lady in my church who plays the piano, plays keyboard, and she's really good, but she prefers to have the sheet music. I think that's perhaps a lot more common than what this question was describing, where it was talking about people just don't read music at all. I guess that happens sometimes.

I also want to answer this question from the view of somebody who just placed sheet music and how do you transition them to chord sheets, which is sort of typically what we use in a worship band.

So, this lady in my church, she's a wonderful pianist, and she prefers the sheet music. Well, she's been joining me for rehearsal recently, and I've been giving her the lead sheets from CCLI, that's what she asked for, and then I also give her the chord sheets.

And I didn't do it on purpose, but it just so happened that the chord sheets that I gave her and the lead sheets that I gave her did not line up, like the chords weren't perfect. So, she's looking at the lead sheet, I'm looking at the chord sheet, we're playing through, or I have my music memorized actually, so I'm not looking at the chord sheet, but we're playing through it, and we're playing different chords.

The Practicality of Chord Sheets in Worship Bands

And I'd say like, what's it say on your lead sheet there? And she realizes that things are different.

And then we play a little bit more, and she's struggling to figure this out, and I'm like, you know, it would be really helpful if you could just look at the chord sheet because I know that those are right. And so, she started looking at the chord sheet, and then she realized, wait a second, the chord sheet is actually a lot easier than the lead sheet.

And I think if we just give people both options, they will arrive at the correct conclusion that in a banned environment, in a worship band environment, chord sheets are superior to sheet music because of the way that we lead worship.

And here's the difference. Sheet music, and this is how I would explain it to somebody who's stuck on sheet music, I would tell this to their face: sheet music is meant to be read from left to right. You start with measure one, you end with measure 187, and you play all of the measures in order in between, and you've got page turns, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth.

A chord sheet simplifies those things, very important to use those words, simplifies things, and gives you the sections of the song, the formula of the song, so that when I happen to go back to the course when you weren't expecting it, you don't have to flip back three pages in your sheet music to get to chorus number two. You just look and you see, oh, he's on the chorus now, so I can look at the chorus section of the chord sheet. That is the benefit of chord sheets over sheet music.

Communication and Collaboration in Musical Teams

Now, to answer this question specifically, why do we need music in the first place if I can just learn by ear? Well, it comes back to that's fine if you're playing by yourself and you want to play by ear, but you aren't going to be able to communicate with the people of your band, the other team members, if you only know things by ear.

The purpose of the chord sheet is to give everyone the master plan and say this is what we're doing, these are the chords that we're playing, so that we can communicate in a common language and play the song as one team.

And so, if you're playing by yourself, improvise all you want, play by ear all you want. But as soon as you add one more musician, guess what? You've got to communicate with them. You can't just expect them to figure it out on their own, even if they're used to figuring it out on their own.

And you're talking about professional musicians who only improvise. I would say that that is probably the minority. Most professional musicians have at least a working knowledge of music theory of reading music in some form.

Once again, it doesn't have to be sheet music. All right, there's not, I feel like this question highlighted like two extremes, like I can either improvise or I can have sheet music. I think that the chord chart is the middle ground there, which is what we should be working toward because that's in the middle and that gives us the freedom to improvise, but it also gets us off the rigidness of sheet music where we have to play everything note for note.

The Role of Chord Sheets and Team Expectations

So, sheet music is important because it gives our team a common language that we can communicate in musically so that we can complete the task at hand as one team and not have to guess about a million different things.

So, if somebody joins my worship team, they are expected to be able to look at a chord sheet and figure out how to play the song.

Now, if you need time to work on learning this musical side of stuff, you've got to have a plan for your worship rehearsals so that you don't waste people's time.

And that's why I've created the worship rehearsal blueprint. It's a complete step-by-step plan for your next worship rehearsal that will lead your team well spiritually, relationally, and musically, of course. So, check that out.

If you have your own question, head over to www.leadingworshipwell.com/realtalk.