Uncharted Territory

If you’re a musician, you most likely recognize two distinct forms of music, notated and charted. If you’re not a musician, let me expound on these two forms of music dictation. Notated music dictation uses the staff, notes of varying values, and symbols so that the musician can reproduce the musical piece in an identical and literal reproduction of the original. Charted music dictation uses chords or numbers to identify the sequence and duration of the music, and allows the musician more freedom in the reproduction of the original. If the concept between these two forms is still confusing, I’ll attempt to expound upon them more throughout this post to make clear distinctions.

In church music, one of the first questions I ask fellow musicians is this, “would you prefer staffed music, or charted?” The paradigm is close to 50/50 in many churches. I’ve stopped trying to guess the musicians’ preference because just when I think I’ve found the magic formula, I’ll meet a 70-year-old organist who loves chord charts, and a 16-year-old guitarist who loves noted music. I’ve given up, so I just ask. Some worship leaders may push their personal preference onto the entire worship team, but I really don’t believe its worth it, and here’s why. If you’re a worship leader, and part of our responsibility is leading the worship team (musicians and vocalists), do you not want each musician to be enabled to play their best before the Lord to lead others in worship? If we hand most classically trained musicians a chord chart without the option of noted music, we don’t seem to be enabling them very well to play their best before the Lord. The same goes for a young guitarist who we hand noted music, and expect them to pick the notes. They probably wont excel if that’s out of their comfort zone. If you’re a guitar player who reads noted music, that’s wonderful! If you’re an organist who reads charted music, that’s wonderful too! I’m not picking on you, you’re complete opposites of modern stereotypes and I applaud you. What I’m attempting to say is that musicians in the church understand music differently, and there is no right or wrong in the paradigm of music form. As worship leaders, we could attempt to persuade fellow musicians from one form to the other (and many have), but that really resolves nothing in a worship setting. Psalms 33:3 says, “sing to him a new song, play skillfully, and shout for joy”. Playing skillfully for one musician might mean reading notated music, while skillfully for another might mean reading a chord chart. The answer to this paradigm is not one form over the other, but what form allows the musicians on your team to play skillfully. Don’t be afraid to ask your musicians what allows them to play the most skillfully. If you have never asked them before, their answer might surprise you. If they answer charts over noted music, or noted music over charts, it will no doubt create more work for you, as you’ll be creating two sets of music, but in the end, don’t we want to enable the musicians on our team to play skillfully? And not just the way we prefer?

The previous paragraph was directed toward the worship leader who organizes the music, but this paragraph is directed to the musicians who play the music the worship leader has organized. I’ve been on both sides of the road, so I can understand both. Please consider the following as an intervention between what the worship leader wants to ask of you, but usually does not because they don’t want to upset you. If you’re comfortable with playing noted music from a staff, let’s try something new, but first remember the musicality between the two forms of music are much the same. Take a piece of music that is familiar to you, and play it from charted music with no staff. It may not ring the triumphant sound of the Hallelujah Chorus at first, but keep practicing. In time, you will become comfortable with charted music. If you’re comfortable with playing charted music but get lost at the sight of noted music, follow the same steps as above. This might require more practice and patience because you’ll need to learn the names of the notes on the staff, key signatures, and musical symbols, but don’t be discouraged. Many times the form of noted music takes much longer to understand than charted music. You may not ever feel comfortable with reading noted music (and that’s ok), but the key is that you know how to do it.

You might ask, why bother with the opposite? Why learn a new form of reading and understanding music when you know the other so well? Why mess with what you are already good at? I had this thought many times. If you asked me what I prefer, its charted music. Most pianists would not prefer such, but it is how I learned and how I excel. Throughout this process, I’ve come to a realization: if you’re a musician, leading others in worship, don’t you always want to be able to lead in worship with both parts of the paradigm? In our perfect world (as church musicians), we know that the question of what we prefer should always be asked and followed. Yet, we know the perfect world of a musician never exists. Some instances we may be asked, yet other instances we may not. Many times I’ve seen musicians unable to play because one side of the paradigm was chosen for the group, and the musician wasn’t able to play with the others.

So how is this problem fixed? In two ways:

Worship leaders: Always ask your musicians and vocalists how you can better equip them to lead in worship. If its charted music, GREAT. If its noted music, GREAT. If it’s both, GREAT.

Musicians and vocalists: Let’s attempt both the charted and noted music, because if you know and understand both, you’ll never have a problem in such settings.

Love you all!

-Trent