Here is the third installment of the audio recordings of the breakout classes at the 2023 Renewing Worship EXPO. Check out the previous posts:

General Worship Leadership

Production/Tech

BAND

Drums and Bass – Daniel Sibrian & Justin Tweito

Find the heartbeat of the worship band in this drums and bass dual masterclass.

Play Like a Bass Player – Jonathan Welch

Foundational principles for playing bass in a worship band. Plus, we’ll also talk about how to add tasteful, stylistic elements to any worship song.

Foundations of Acoustic Guitar – Carlos Gallardo-Candia

Focus on the core principles of acoustic guitar playing. Gain a solid understanding of essential techniques for chord-playing and more, laying the groundwork for your musical and worship leadership journey ahead.

Playing Keys – David Hamilton

Leading in worship/playing in the band, using your piano skills. How to be a great synth player. Improvisation and accompaniment, reading charts, playing different styles well, accompanying a choir/vocal rehearsal well. 

Understanding the Drum Set – Nikao Wallace

Often times drummers find themselves confused about what to play and what’s going to work well for the song. Nine times out of ten, the song that ends up being played on Sunday morning will sound a lot different than the recording you listened to learn it. What do you do when the bass player doesn’t play the same part as the recording or the guitar lick you’ve been used to hearing and keying off of is no longer there?

In this class, we’ll dive into the function of the drum set and how it interacts with the other instruments on the stage. You’ll learn how to listen to what is being played in the moment and make the right musical choices. This will be great for drummers and for music ministers who would like to know how to communicate with their drummers more effectively.

Practical Drum Set Coordination – Nikao Wallace

The most significant physical limitation most drummers have is developing the coordination to play multiple rhythms on two or more limbs at the same time. Every drummer needs to develop a decent level of coordination. This class will focus on two foundational patterns found in almost every church song and lay out a system for any drummer to gain the freedom to play whatever they want on top of them.

Pianists

What Happened to All My Notes? Navigating Chord Charts and Lead Sheets for the Church Pianist – Ken Renfrow – Three parts

Church pianists are being called upon more frequently to realize accompaniments for hymns and gospel songs from a chord chart or lead sheet. This skill requires a thorough knowledge of chords, chord voicings, and chord inversions. Since the piano keyboard is the ultimate audio-visual aid for understanding functional music theory, we will explore ways to use it as the perfect vehicle for building functional skills for the church pianist.

Part One: Understanding Chords, Inversions, and Voicing – covers the building blocks of harmony in their various forms. We’ll also demonstrate the importance of chord progressions in accomplishing this task.

Part Two: Understanding Lead Sheet and Chord Chart Notation – deals with these alternate forms of notation. No longer are all the notes provided; we now have to play them using the knowledge we learned in session 1

Part Three: Q & A/Masterclass provides a low-pressure environment where you can ask questions and try your hands at playing a song from a chord chart and/or lead sheet; a chance to synthesize all we covered in the first 2 sessions.