Cheez said:Playing in church is very different from performing live. Hence the needs will be different.
You will not need to have ultra-realistic sounds; lead instruments are not very important; in fact, the playing styles are vastly different. Some people may think it makes no diffference, but the skills-set needed to play in church is very different from live performance.
The sounds and equipment needed are therefore, also quite different. The entire purpose is different. You can be an excellent live performer, but a terrible player in church.
When playing in church, the keyboardist is aware of multiple things at the same time - other players, the worship leader, the people singing, the backup choir, the acoustics of the place (which is usually bad), and improvise according to different situations - all these things go on at the same time...
This was posted by Cheez during a discussion on a good setup for church playing in the 'Keyboard Gear' sub forum. Let's discuss this!
What is your style of play in church?
If you play in gigs and play in church as well, what is your opinion? Any tips?
What setup do you use?
Do softsynths work?
I'm quite new to all this so I don't have much opinions but I did see two very opposing styles in action:
1. The Multitasker
Ari, the keyboardist in Paul Baloche's band use a soft synth + drum machine + lots of other gears during live play when they were in Singapore. Great hammond player.
Only comment is that he seemed to spend more time fiddling with gear than playing, but the results were still nice overall
1. The Minimalist
I saw Steve Thompson (Graham Kendrick's keyboardist & music director) play... He's a great player that I respect very much, especially after attending his clinic where he played the drums, the bass guitar, the acoustic guitar AND the keyboard WHILE arranging music for the brass section. Super impressive.
His setup (rented for him by the organizers) consisted of a 3080 + a kurzweil keyboard (I think it was a PC1x). No idea whether the 3080 had expansion cards).
He spent a lot of time directing the flow of music for the whole team (i.e. brass, guitar, bass, etc.) as well as playing nice leads/intros/mood music.
I was very impressed by Steve's music as well as his words that 'we are stewards of our God-given talent and that we *must* continuously strive to improve'. This is the main reason I'm researching better equipment as well as ways to improve my playing style!