balancing your practice

[diverse379]

As a M.O.M
I find a real challenge practicing what needs to be practiced.

I find if I spend time on reading I find it hard to play by ear
if i practice more piano my organ playing suffers
if i spend time playing pipe organ my hammond chops suffer

this easter season i have spent a lot of time with new songs and material and they are sounding great
but yesterday i found it difficult to read a simple 6/8 time hymn

how do you more experienced M.O.M.S do it

I have been playing about 6 years I did not grow up in church
and I have 6 choirs

the work is tough and I am loving the challenge
but I am afraid that my lack of time to devote to technique stuff
is going to haunt me later

i dont want to be one of those musicians who plays the same this year as he did last year.


any advice on how to balance
musicianship with directorship and leadership

unfortunately we dont have another musician at this time so i have to be musician and leader

[bradleymoorer]

Odds are that you are not the same musician that you were last year. I never have a problem with practicing because it is something that I love to do. I am still very much in the infancy of Music Ministry, and am currently on my first set of choirs so I don't have as much advice as more...seasoned musicians might. But I will tell you this whether you play the same songs over and over again or you are learning new songs, you are growing.

Directing requires you to intensely study a song until you know it backwards and forwards. And be confident with it, you will find it easier to teach and direct the choir if they think you know what you are doing.

I like to learn new songs because it keeps me fresh and sometimes I can place what I have learned in the new song and incorporate that into a previous song and learning takes a different turn and the older song has a fresh and new feel to it.

If your schedule, job, facilities, equipment, but most importantly your family (spouse) allows you to, practice as much as you can. Also record yourself so you can gauge how far you have come. I am thankful and dumbfounded when I think of how far God has brought me.
 

[Holy Roller]

Do you Learn songs faster by ear or by note ?

Do you remember songs better when you learn them by ear or by note ?


I play mostly by ear. I'm slow at reading notes but good at reading charts.
I recommened developing your ear more. When they score gospel music out by note, they never seem to get the true feel of the song.that's just my opinon. when you read a chord chart, it makes you improv more to fill in the gaps and keep the Rhythmn flowing.

The nuts and bolts of hymns are the circle of fifths with some added diminished Chords Etc.. once you memorize several hymns you should have the hang of most of them ( i think) because they are structured so similar.

[diverse379]

There is definitely an dvantage to learning a song by ear you do tend to retain more of the song this way.  I tend to learn a song easier with notes or chord charts I can learn from ear also it takes a little longer but I do believe the learning is more thorough.

you are right most hymns are following the cycle in the direction of up a fourth up a fourth

but some times they go backwards on the circle of fifths

the song was love lifted me
and if i had been thinking i could have used the trick of playing the one chord of each measure or the chord on beat one and beat four of each measure.

What I am going to try to do is play a hymn a day from the hymn book I feel this will help on many levels

Bradley moorer is right i am much better in some respects this year then last year
in my ability to play songs and hymns

but my scale playing was better 4 years ago then they are now.

and my chord structures were richer in 20o3 then they are now.

i dont even remember some of the crazy voicings i used to use.

that is what I mean the practicing of technique stuff is really important and i seem to not be able to find time to do these types of exercises like hanon
or scale drills and chord drills

But I thank you for the information and encouragement.

growth is growth and i should be happy with the growth that I have experienced

[jlewis]

Man,

Diverse we are going through the exact same  cycles man.


I've been learning a ton of new music for an upcoming concert.   For most of the music we have the lead sheets and I've been using that.   Then I need to play a hym and I'm struggling with the full score.  Then I'm asked to play an old song ( that I have played  before) and I'm looking for the lead sheet ( when I used to remember all of my old music in my head).

I think its a function of the learning process.  When you are learning new material, that is the music that is floating around in my head the most.  I could play any one of those songs at the drop of a hat.  The older stuff, I need to hear them run few it a few times before I can lock it in fully.

As far as sight reading,   I'm still ( continually) working on that.  What I have found is that the hym style of music uses a lot more open voicings than the more contemporary style, so on more contemporary music, I can immediately recognize the  chord  ( on the staff) than I can in the  hymnal.

Also, in the hymnal, the chord is usually conctructed from both staffs where as in more contemporary music the chord is conctructed in the treble clef and the bas note is used in the bass clef.

But I'm like this, if you can sight read a hymnal,  then you can pretty much sight read anything ( with the exception of maybe classical).

I/m doing the same thing you are with the hymnal,  except I'm also trying to play stuff in  sharp key signatures ( other than G).   Like A, D, E, and B.

Jlewis