Beginning Church Sight Reading/Improv for Advanced Classical pianist

[nilobject]

Hey Everyone,

First post for me here. I did search a bit and couldn't find this question answered, but perhaps I missed it I've played the piano for 17 years now, 12 of them with lessons. My major focus was on playing classical pieces. However, it's always been of interest to me to brush up my sight reading and improv skills so that I could help out in a church someday.

That day has come -- my wife and I found an excellent, small church, and they have been trying to find a pianist for a year (someone has been filling in, but she was meant to be temporary). Unfortunately, my sight reading skills are pretty poor.

For a random hymn that's not too complicated, I can play through it fairly well after a few run-throughs. I rarely glance down at my hands, and I'm starting to practice random hymns every day now.

My question for everyone is are there any tips/suggestions/books that you would recommend to help me drastically improve my sight reading skills? Tangentially, I also want to get tips/suggestions/books on how to improvise when playing from a hymnal. I'm jealous of people who can do that I consider myself pretty creative, but improv-ing on a piano is much harder than on a guitar/bass guitar, something I already can do fairly well.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

[thaicheow]

Hi,
I play for my church choir too. When I first started, it is a very bumpy start. Choir members have had hard time to collaborate with me.

After several years, and now I can manage them very well. The church scores is mostly in simplified version (only numbers representing the notes). Sometimes I play on the piano, and most of the time on synthsizer.

It would be a challenge and great fun when play on the piano, they required me to change key on the spot. Luckily I am quite fluent in scales.

I suppose it comes with experience. Strong foundation in scales really does help in improvisation and cases like this.

Take care

[nilobject]

Thanks for the reply and also the private messages I received.

My mom, also a great pianist, said she didn't get that great until she "was forced" into it during college with the requirement of accompanying. So I suppose if I do volunteer, it'll just get better over time.

I'm not really worried about being able to learn a few hymns each week, but the less stress on me the better. I suppose the time to learn will keep going down as I go

Wish me luck!
-Jon

[slobone]

It would probably help to learn as much theory (harmony) as you can. If you know the basic chord structure of a hymn, it makes it easier to improvise, and also "fake it" if you get lost while playing.

In fact you can probably do this without a theory textbook. Just use simple notation -- usually the chords in hymns aren't that advanced. Pick a hymn, write down the chord notation, and then try playing it using only what you wrote down.

[timothy42b]

I envy your 12 years of lessons, I had 1.  Like you I find myself playing in church due to local scarcity of players.

Although, at least once I looked up from the keyboard to see no less than six people with music degrees or advanced experience in the church, none of them willing to play.  Hee, hee. 

I've been playing in church a bit more than a year now.  I started by looking at the hymns, figuring out the chords painfully (a little lacking in the theory department), and using a notation program to write out melody right hand and simple chord left hand. 

After a year I discovered the church had an organist's hymnal with guitar chords already written in.  Argh, what a lot of effort I put in reinventing that wheel. 

Now if I have time and the hymn is relatively simple I play it SATB.  If not I play off the chord sheets.  I no longer write out the notes for chords, I know the common ones well enough and decide pretty quickly which inversions.  Oh, and I no longer write the fingering on EVERY note!  hee, hee. 

For praise and worship songs where block chords are boring I imitate the picking patterns of our guitar player.  Whenever I get a chance to watch an experienced church pianist play I watch like a hawk - they do so many interesting left hand things I can't quite do yet. 

[amanfang]

Once you are comfortable with SATB, you could put SAT in the Right Hand and then double the bass (octaves).  Then do simple bass fill-ins at longer note values (for example, drop an octave on beat 2 of half notes, etc.

[laglag305]

I have allaways thaught that playing hymnals in the church was the best way to imoprove ones sight reading. I never "learn" them so I can really practice sight reading on the spot. The most important thing is keeping the rythme and identifying the basic chords (I;V;IV) the rest will come after a while and you will be playing 4 voices without problems.