The Music Exchange

‘At our church, we’ve got a wonderful pianist who’s got a diploma you know. We’ve also got an opera singer, la de da.’

‘Church musician one-up-man-ship’ is one of those games many of us would love to be able to play. ‘Poor St. Albert’s — they have to get by with someone who’s only got grade 6. How terribly mediocre.’ The game is all a bit of a waste of time though, as one of the things you learn doing a job like mine is that there is a difference of skills between trained classical musicians and church musicians. I’m a living example of someone who mistakenly thought that having grade 8 on the piano would set me up as a really good church musician (though maybe that’s partly because I only got a merit).

Plinky plonky

My misconception was painfully confirmed when I was asked to play the electronic keyboard for my Christian Union when a student. It was disastrous, and doubly embarrassing as I was the organ scholar for my college. My playing was as wooden and plinky-plonky as you could ever imagine. Like every bad workman, I blamed my tools. The keyboard, to be fair to myself, was plinky-plonky, but what took the bigger blame was the sheet music.

The problem was that I was given music that didn’t look anything like Bach or Messiaen. It had chord symbols only, and no bass line. I’d simply frozen because I didn’t have the exact notes on the page. Worse than that, the instructions at the top of the page weren’t written in Italian. No beautifully vague instructions like adagio or allegro — just a horrifyingly specific, ‘In a calypso style’.

It’s taken years of many more humiliations before I started to free myself up from being tied to the notes, but my experience has meant that I’ve always been slow to invite people to play for a church meeting if their sole credentials are, ‘I have grade 8 distinction’.

Who do we serve?

I’m wary because of the way most classical musicians are trained. The distinction (pardon the cheap word-play) is this: classical musicians, in general, are taught to reproduce musical notation precisely, in service of the composer who wrote it. Church musicians, however, need to be able to interpret whatever notation is given them in a way that will serve, not the writer of the music, but those who sing along to it.

It’s not that all classical musicians are hopeless at playing in church — some are gifted in playing in any context they’re given — but it’s a rare gift, and a swish certificate doesn’t guarantee a church music revolution. St. Albert’s grade 6 pianist may actually be a cracking musician who, though she never practiced her scales, can bash out a good tune and bass line better than the hallowed diploma’d one.

Two considerations

What’s my point? There are a couple to make. First, don’t automatically assume that a well-qualified musician on paper will be immediately well-qualified as a church musician. What’s more, they may not even thank you for asking them to play if they freeze up in the way I did all those years ago. Asking me to play ‘in a calypso style’ brought to a head one of my greatest fears — I dreaded someone asking me to play ‘I got rhythm’ as a request, because not only had I not got rhythm, I doubted whether I even got music, so I knew that whoever put the request in wouldn’t ask for anything more!

Instead, if there are classically trained musicians who have real humility, all they need is a bit of confidence and a varying degree of re-training. Some musicians I’ve worked with have been able to adapt relatively quickly simply by playing regularly with other church musicians, whereas others have always struggled to come away from the notes even after many years. There are plenty of courses musicians can go on to learn how to serve in a church meeting capacity. An organ scholar friend of mine had the humility to sign up to one of these courses where he gained a lot of practical skills even if he had to shut his ears to a lot of the theology. One of the things we hope to achieve at our music conferences (www.lmmc.org.uk) is seeing all types of musicians gain confidence in playing, whatever their training.

Secondly, give up playing church musician one-up-man-ship. Pray for us, and all those who are seeking to train musicians, to think in a more intuitively musical way as they lead God’s people in praise. If you have only one musician, but that person is first of all godly, and secondly plays in a way that helps the congregation to sing well, then praise God. Musically, who could ask for anything more?

Music one-up-manship

Plinky plonky

Who do we serve?

Two considerations

Richard Simpkin

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