Preparing for a Worship Service with Derek Hughes

In this episode we will hear from former worship keys player for Circuit Riders, Derek Hughes. We discuss best practices for preparing for a worship service. Derek lives in Nashville, TN, and he owns an entertainment company called Onyx Entertainment. He is currently a producer, composer, arranger, vocalist, and DJ, as well as being a worship keys player. Hope this episode is encouraging for you! 

Thanks for listening! Subscribe here to the podcast, as well as on YouTube and other social media platforms. If you have any questions or suggestions for who you want as a featured guest in the future or a topic you want to hear, email carson@theworshipkeys.com. New episodes release every Wednesday!

Transcript

Podcast #1: Preparing for a Worship Service

Thank you guys so much for watching this or listening to this today. I really appreciate it. I'm with Derek Hughes here. He owns a production company here in Nashville, Onyx Entertainment. And Derek has an incredible resume playing with some great bands and great people.

And we're just here to talk about Worship Keys stuff. How you doing Derek? Great. I'm excited to be here. I met Derek here in Nashville through his entertainment company. And you want to tell us a little bit about your entertainment company here in Nashville? Yeah, it started as me just DJing weddings.

And I had worked in Austin for a company that kind of was a one stop shop for weddings and events and saw how they did it. And I was like, that's pretty cool. I got some more DJs, added some photographers, video, hair, makeup, and before you knew it, we kind of had all things wedding and just kind of was doing that on the side of, I own a wedding band, a corporate band as well, and do music and songwriting, and so a lot of that kind of plays into the weddings, writing for weddings or playing live for weddings.

So it's fun. It's, it's a good kind of break from being in the studio or playing keys. It's fun to kind of be in all things music. Whenever people ask me what I do, I'm just like. I do music, like I can't say I just play keys or I just produce, it's just, it's kind of hard to explain.

Absolutely. I love it all. We're in your studio right now, like I love this piano back here. How old is this thing? It is 1897. 1897! Wow, man. This is actually the piano that was used on the TV show Nashville. That is awesome. I bought it from a guy that was in the production for that.

And whenever they closed off the show, I guess he ended up with it and then sold it to me. So that's beautiful and has a beautiful resonance to it. Have you sampled this thing? You should sample it. I haven't, but you're like the fifth person to say that. Yes. Yes. You should do that. And we should once I get some free time, I would love to.

Yeah, that's awesome, man. So tell us a little bit about your Worship Keys journey. I mean, you've been with Circuit Riders at one point, you were an instructor with Camp Electric. Yeah. Played for some churches, Journey Church here in Nashville. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that, man. I guess, specifically, starting with CircuitRiders.

Yeah, CircuitRiders they came to our school, my college in Austin, Texas. I was at Concordia University, Texas. Whoosh. There you go. And we were the Tornadoes. Oh, okay, okay. Pretty, pretty cool. Very nice. And so See, I'm from Alabama, so Tornadoes, they do Yeah, and I'm from Oklahoma. Oh, okay, oh, okay.

So, it's not actually that funny. You understand. Yeah, but, So yeah, they came, did a worship night at our college and it was really powerful. And I was like, man, these guys like are doing what I love. They offered a 21 day, like music and ministry training in California. And so I hopped on that and ended up, they, they tour all over the, the nation, I think world now to like colleges and high schools, just putting on like evangelism nights and worship nights.

Yeah. Yeah. And kind of empowering that the local community. And so I was a keys player worship leader, MD kind of tracks runner, just kind of whatever they needed. For the last semester of my college, I think we did like the Midwest region. So we did a bunch of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, stuff like that.

That's all colleges all around and. Yeah, it was a great experience. Got to make some, meet some really incredible musicians, but more than that, just people that really loved Jesus. And you know the people I like to say, like you have your green room musicians, and then you have the people that are, Out in the crowd, in the lobby, talking to the people, getting to know people at the church.

And then you have like the musicians that kind of just like to hide in the green room and do their thing. Which, both are great, but I think connecting with people goes a long way as a musician. Absolutely. Whenever you're a keys player, drummer, whatever you are, and then they see you on stage and automatically there's a little bit of leadership slash mentor sometimes like a cool factor.

They're like, Oh, that was a drummer. I was just talking to him. Right. And that might immediately, they may not even be a believer. They may tune in a little bit more to what's going on that night because they had a connection with someone they thought was a just a great person. Right. So anyways, that was that a lot of people like that, that were just like awesome people that were just fun to hang around with that also just happened to be like amazing musicians and amazing people.

So yeah, that was a great experience. Did tour with them for a couple of years on and off, but. What years were you with the Circuit Riders? It was probably 2017, 18, and a little bit of 19. Awesome, man. Awesome. Awesome. That's great. And how'd you get connected with Camp Electric? So I was a part of Brett Perkins band, which is now Journey Worship Co.,

which, they're awesome. Go check them out on Spotify. Awesome friends there. A church out of Lebanon, Tennessee, just right outside of Nashville. And We became, we were the Worship Collective band for Camp Electric which, that was actually a camp that I heard on, like, on the radio in high school.

And I think I even, like, they had this, like, songwriting competition, and you could write, like, a, a song, get free admission into the camp, and I didn't win. But I was like, man, that'd be so cool to go there. And then I got to go there as a keys player with the band, and then, kind of, last minute, the Staff was like, Hey, would you be interested in taking this guy's place to teach at camp electric?

And he's like, he's on tour with Chris Tomlin right now. So he can't make it. And I was like, Oh, okay. So those are some pretty big shoes to fill, but I'll do my best. And I did that for that year when we were the band. And then they asked me a few more years after that. And so that was a great opportunity to pour into people from.

all over the country with barely any keys experience to, you know, they were better than me at piano, but like being able to teach them sort of the behind the scenes of like the heart of worship and how to build like, and stuff like that. It was cool. I felt like I got to learn from them and they got to learn from me.

And it was, it was, it was really fun. That's awesome, man. Tell us a little bit about your journey of like learning keys, like maybe worship ministry as a, as a whole. Like how did you get connected with worship ministry? How'd you learn the keyboard? You know, did you take lessons? Did you, did you. Here's someone play that year.

What was your journey there, man? It's pretty crazy. So okay, probably not gonna believe me, but I Was 16 when I watched what's that? It's like a Miley Cyrus movie. It's literally like the last song or oh, yeah Yeah, yeah, she plays piano right right and like this beautiful song for her dad and I was like Piano is such a cool instrument.

I was like, I think I want to learn that. I think that aired on Disney Channel, didn't it? Probably. Definitely Disney Channel. Yeah. So like that was, it's funny because people laugh. They're like, that was what got you into music? I was like, kind of. And so I took lessons from this guy that my mom knew and immediately he had me learning the national number system, which, which I now know as the number system had no idea the importance that it would make in my life, which I'll probably hit on.

Later and stuff too, but like I did that for like a couple months and I think I went off to college or something and or got busy with high school, but anyways, I kind of got roped into playing at my youth group in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Brandon Verderber was my mentor, like worship leader there. Awesome dude taught me so much about, and people and leading a team and things that I'll never forget and I use all the time. And so he kind of tricked me into playing keys for an event. And the rest was history. Like after I played, I was so in love with. Being a part of someone's worship experience in that way and getting to like be a part of the music and like creating an atmosphere for someone for their experience with God and like connecting in that way.

And that was just so fun to. To be a part of and witness. Absolutely. Like I think my favorite part about being on stage is literally just looking out and hearing people's voices and seeing everyone worshiping. Like that is the coolest thing to me. Absolutely. That God would like use me to, to be a part of something like that.

Amen. So I love that with worship music because In the other genre, it's about, it's about the artist, it's about the experience, it's about the talent, you know, but then with worship, it's like this, this tool, this, you know, utility kind of thing, you know, for God, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's, yeah, we're just like that, you know, a journey, they actually say we're, we're the curtain holders.

We're, we're drawing the curtains. For God. We're not the act. We're, we're the ones that are pulling the curtains open for God and like that mentality whenever you're playing Or rehearsing or going about your day to day business, you know, because worship isn't just playing, you know Oh for sure. It's a lifestyle and so it plays into everything but Yeah So, started playing for my youth group, got in, I went to bible college for music at James River Leadership College in Missouri went there, got to learn, you know, big mega church so I got to I was like, we would, I would play keys or lead worship for like their second grade service, which is like 500 kids because it's such like they have a room for second grade.

Oh man. Yeah. And so how did they do that? That's incredible. I don't know. So they'd be like, yeah, this, this Sunday you're playing second grade and next Sunday you're playing like youth. And it was just like always such a wide variety, which was really great. It was a great experience to learn like how to engage.

A second grader into worship versus a college student versus an adult. So it was cool to like get that, that experience and that kind of all played into And you're a singer as well, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've, I've led from the keys a lot. And I've played just keys. I've done MD stuff. But then I've also, for several years, been like a worship leader.

Like, I don't know, main worship leader. Whatever you want to call it. But I do a lot of like BGVs and stuff for artists around Nashville too. Very cool. And you're currently A producer, full time, here in Nashville, right? Yeah, producer and composer. Just finished my first feature film as a composer, which is Really fun.

My friend Derek Lange, you know, had a documentary. He filmed like 12 years of his life, 10, 000 hours of footage turned it into a movie. Long story short. It's great. You should go watch it. It's on YouTube. It's called from my eyes and it's free. Wow. We'll leave that. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be great.

But I got to do that whole score and working on a musical right now, a big foot musical. So it's, it's kind of just turned into, that's why when people ask me what I do, I just say music. Cause I'm like, I do everything from playing keys at church to writing big foot musicals. Apparently. Wow. That's incredible.

Yeah. And you never know like the small beginnings where you started, you know, as a 16 year old and your youth group leader tricked you into playing that first time, you know, where that, and how you're, you're, you're. You're writing for a score, you know for music, you're composing for these huge things, you know, these really monumental things, you know, 10, 000 hours of this guy's life.

Right. You're writing music for it. That's incredible. Can you share with us how do you best prepare? for a worship service, you know, maybe, maybe we're getting ready for Sunday morning. How do you, how did you best learn to practice? You know, a lot of times we, we talk about being on stage and playing and those moments are so incredible, but before you even get to the stage, can you share some, some tips with us of how do we, how do we engage practicing with the right heart and with the right mentality focus, just technicalities, practicalities, spiritually speaking, like.

What are some tips that you can tell us? Sure, that's such a good question. And everything that I say is the way that I would do it. Right. You know, there's, there's a lot of right ways to do things. But what works for me, I would say, the biggest thing with practicing I would say is don't make rehearsal.

Be your personal practice. Mm, yeah. Yeah. . There's so many times as a worship leader where I'll come in and, you know, the bass player, it's like his first time hearing the song. So I'm like, ah, . So like you practice at home, you know, practice with the song. Play it by itself. Play it with the MP three, whatever it is, but don't make rehearsal be the time that you're.

Preparing for a lot of reasons. One, you're going to slow down rehearsal. Probably going to frustrate some people. And then also you're never going to play your best because you haven't like made it your own. I think a big thing for me is like, say I'm playing I don't know, just trying to think of a Bethel song off the top of my head.

There was one I had in mind, but I lost it. But anyways, there's, there's a song that a lot of people play different ways. There's different covers of a different version. So actually whenever I, we'll just take one that came to my head, like cornerstone, older Hillsong song. But like there's a lot of different ways that people play that song.

You can listen to the record version, but then you can listen to a studio version and then you can listen to 15 other churches do it. I'll actually go in and listen to all those versions. I'll hear how their keys player played things and patches they used and then I'll kind of, Oh, I liked that one. I like the way that Jesus culture did that.

I like the way that this random person on YouTube did that. And then I'll sit at the piano and, and come up with a way that I can play it. So I always learn the record way because most churches you kind of need to have that foundation of like, Hey, play these core parts. But like when it's not necessary, you can kind of play your own style.

Absolutely. Check with your worship leader to make sure that that's cool. Because sometimes it is just better to, you know, play it by the record. But if you have the flexibility and the liberty, creative liberty to do that I always try to listen to all the different ways, play it on my own time with a piano.

As a keys player, one of the things that I like to do actually is either pitch the song, like say we're doing it in a different key. We're doing B instead of the original and C. I'll pitch the song down and like Ableton or a DAW. or sometimes planning center. If your church has planning center, they'll, they'll do that for you.

Or if you don't have that you could, you can transpose your keyboard up so you could play and see and then transpose it down one half step so that you're playing. In the key, your fingers are playing in the key that you're going to play in worship. But you're able to be playing to the mp3. Does that make sense?

Right. Absolutely. So that's what I do a lot is I'll get, cause I like to know where my hands are going to be. Cause I'm not a classically trained like keys player. Like all of mine is by ear. So maybe you're listening or watching and you're really frowning upon that we're using a transpose button.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not saying, I'm not a, I'm not a big fan of transposed key, like, in service because there's a lot of times where that goes wrong. Oh yeah, oh yeah. But if you use the transposed key in your practice, you can play along to the original if you're playing a different key. Right.

At church and that helps a lot because then you don't have to learn it in two different keys. Of course, of course. And then I'd say the third thing really is like the number system. If your church is using that, like it's huge. Cause I can't tell you how many times I've shown up on Sunday morning and the worship leader's like, Hey, my voice is pretty rough.

Like, we're going to take this down a whole step. And at one point in my life, when it took everything in me to learn a song one way, I was like, what? Like, I can't go from, like, A to A flat. Right, right, right. Like, I can't think of that, like, at 7 a. m. at this rehearsal. Yeah, yeah. But if you're, if everything's written down in numbers, then it's just a matter of transposing in numbers.

You don't have to use any letters. And so especially here in Nashville. gigs that I've done for like country artists or bigger CCM names. And if you don't know the national number system, then you won't even be considered for the gig. I think Carrie, I think circuit writers actually required it to because there's so many times where we'll be like, Hey, a guy's going to lead this one instead of the girl.

So you have to change the key a whole like fifth. So just knowing the national number system, practicing ahead of time before the rehearsal and practicing. To the song, but also a lot of different styles of the song are some of my favorite ways. Absolutely practical tips and then like spiritually my Posture with that is always just to man I just say like part of that too with me coming up with my own parts It's like God like use me to be a tool a vessel to communicate because music is like a language, you know So like how can I communicate?

What the pastor has been saying or what this? Series is about or whatever it is like to how I'm playing. How can I project that the best? And so Like yes, I want to play the right parts. And yes, I want to like be excellent but I also want to like really be able to be in tune with God what God's doing like in that service and like to people out in the crowd and so and that's another thing with practicing ahead of time is like, 

if you're just barely hanging on playing on the actual day of, then you're probably not able to have a very good heart posture of worship and just be free to worship because you're focusing so hard to like get your stuff right.

But if you've practiced in the week and you got it down, you can just sit back and enjoy it. Absolutely. And so that's kind of my posture with that. And then every time before I go up on stage, it doesn't matter how. easy the gig is or how difficult where I've literally been like, God, if you don't come through and like play this for me, I don't know if I'm ready for this.

I've had so many, like, I've played at the Grand Ole Opry once. And I was shaking so hard and we had practiced with in ears and then last second we were walking on stage and they're like, Hey, the aux cord isn't working for years. We're just going to go. Just with amps and I was like freaking out because it was like it's the biggest yeah And I got the song like yesterday the day before And he had changed the key that day.

It was just like, everything was going crazy and I was just so nervous. And I was like, God, please don't let me make a fool of myself. But also like, thank you for getting me here. Like I will not take the, ever take this for granted. Like I, I say that in a room of 10 people and a life group that I'm worshiping just as much as I say it in a room of 10, 000 people at a mega church, you know?

Cause to me, same God same sons and daughters, you know, just a smaller, bigger crowd, but no less important. So, so he's really testing your prayer life during that. Yeah. Yeah. I've had several gigs where I'm like, man, I made it with God's help. 100%. Absolutely. So yeah. And maybe you're watching or listening to this and you don't know what the national number system is.

And it's simply put, it's just your major scale, diatonic scale, and every note of that makes different chords within your scale. So you have one through seven, right? Is, are, are your notes of the scale, and each one of that is a root of a new chord. So major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished, and back to one.

And of course in normal CCM type music, we're not really using the seven a lot, but as long as you memorize one through six, and you know the passing chords and borrowed chords that can transition to other things, you know, you can. Really go a long way. So yeah, which is really important. It makes it easy because you know, if you're in the key of C and.

 If your mind knows chord structure well enough and has memorized those associating numbers, then you can kind of just do that math in your head on the spot once you get familiar with it.

Absolutely. It's a great tool. And so you've talked a lot about listening to the recording, right? Mm-Hmm. , which I think is brilliant. And I think it's perfect. You have to do that. You have to listen to what the bands have done and different arrangements, what different keyboarders have done.

Mm-Hmm. , especially with YouTube now, you can just look up a lot of things. Yeah. And you can actually get access to just what the keys guy or girl has played. Mm-Hmm. , you know, and actually just hear that. Go to multitracks.com, loop community.com. Yeah. You can hear stems, you can hear the exact part, the exact tone.

preparing for worship. I guess a lot of mistakes would be, you know, if you just, just relied on the chart, played it all in root position, just played the block chords, you know, you're missing a lot out on a lot of those parts, you know, that you need. Yeah. That's a root position. That's a great point.

Cause you know, you can play root first or second inversion of a C chord and two of the three will sound a lot less great on a certain song, you know? Right. Right. And so that's, that's, all part of like practicing ahead of time and not letting rehearsal be part of that. Cause usually like the higher note is like the melody note or a harmony and it'll sound a lot better with what the guitar is playing or what the female vocalist is singing.

And so like, that's kinda my, I have like a kind of a producer brain too. So I'm always thinking in terms of like EQ frequency, I'm like, okay, where's cause a piano, the thing about a piano is that it actually plays. every part of the frequency. You're the only instrument up there. It's kind of like that Spiderman, like with great power, great responsibility.

 You have the power to play anywhere in the frequency spectrum, and that can be a great thing and that can be a horrible thing. Yes. And so like learning your place on the scale and knowing what notes are gonna. Get a mix really muddy or clash too much with the lead vocalist. Like things like that can really factor into the level of excellence that you can bring.

It's not going to be a make or break thing. You don't have to like overanalyze everything like crazy, but like it definitely helps to know this Sunday we have three guitarists. So I don't really need to do a lot of higher stuff or fancy chords cause they're going to be playing a lot of different notes.

And if we're all doing that same time, it's going to sound a little weird, right? So I might be doing more chords and more like rhythmic stuff with piano since it's a great rhythm instrument. So yeah, it just kind of depends on the structure and kind of knowing where your place is with the band for sure.

Can you talk a little bit about you know, some churches you might have a, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday rehearsal where you have the luxury of two or three hours where you rehearse before Sunday, but talk about maybe you Only have Sunday morning, you have a service starting at 9 you're getting there at 7 30 for a sound check You're rehearsing and pretty much just doing everything one time through.

Yeah need to be ready Can you talk about preparing for something like like that, you know to that level because some people Do you have the luxury of having that extra rehearsal and what do you do when you have one shot? You know, what's the, what's the best tips for that?

That's great. Yeah, for churches that you might do like a Wednesday night rehearsal and then Sunday morning you kind of brush up and like do a run through. Wednesday is kind of to see where you Need to improve or like if I do like with the wedding band We do rehearsals and if we're kind of iffy on a song like it's like, okay Those are the ones I need to really practice for the gig But if it's just Sunday like a lot of the churches that I play out in Nashville, they don't do week weekday Rehearsals because all the musicians are touring and so you're not gonna get anyone at rehearsal But also they're all very very skilled and music is what they do for a living and they really truly care about playing everything and so they, they for a living rehearse and practice.

And so it's just kind of a nice luxury that we have here in Nashville where people tend to show up prepared. But if you just have that one day, then. importance of leading up the days before. And I would say really don't even, not just for the for procrastinating sake, don't wait till the last minute, like or last day before something about your brain.

Like I learned this studying for med school, which is a whole nother story, but this guy was a med student. He went from medical to music. It's crazy. It was a wild transition, but like something about your brain studying something two days before. An event or like whatever the test or whatever it is.

Two days before you're a lot more likely to retain on the day of, because if you do it the day before, I don't know what it is about brain cycles or something, but like if I listened to a song or dink around a little bit on piano one day, the next day, say like, that's a Friday, Saturday, I come back.

I'm like something I slept and like I can play it way more better just because of like it's in my brain Yeah, and then but that time by Sunday you have it like really nailed down if Saturday is your day of like just getting your ears Used to the song Sunday. You're still gonna feel a little bit like rusty going into it just from my experience, right?

so like if you can if you have the time like Two days at least would, should be the minimum, not cramming before the day of or some mornings of, which I know we've definitely done in the past, but not because we meant to. And you know, you know. When you get to your level, you know, you've played for a while, and you know, maybe you've also been playing for a while listening to this podcast, and, and you know, you, those, some of those same songs have the same riffs, have the same patterns, you know, and then in that case, I know I find myself also just, just memorizing them.

The transitions of the chord progressions, right? This is the intro, verse, chorus, you know, this is where we, we have an alternate, you know, chord for this time, the last chorus, you know. Just have that in your brain, because if you've played this song for a while, or you've played a similar song for a while, you know, music is just patterns that just all repeats itself, you know.

Slightly different ways. Sure. You know. Yeah, and to me, that's where, like, 

I'll get bored, to be honest. 

I'll get bored when I'm playing the same thing. over and over again the same way. That's why I love hearing Bethel's version versus 15 other people's versus having my own if we're playing Sunday, three services, 9am service, I might play one way.

And then 11am I'd be like, Hmm, maybe I'll try this . And then I can just make it a game for myself almost where I'm just like challenging myself, being creative. And not bored with worshiping, but just bored with redundancy. I'm not a big, big fan of redundancy.

I love change and love like things being different. 

And so if you like learning something once and just doing it every time, that's great. I'm just not that way. Right, right. So yeah, like really, really making something your own is a big part of what I like to do. That's awesome. Can you talk about when you're practicing, you're listening to the band, you have it in your DAW.

Maybe you don't have a DAW, you know, maybe you just have YouTube or something. You know, can you talk about the importance of listening to the click, you know, playing with the metronome, playing with cues? Can you talk a little bit about that? I know we can probably spend a whole other episode on that, but the importance of that when you're, when you're preparing, like obviously you're on stage, you're going to hear the clicking cues, but maybe when you're at home, maybe you don't have the luxury of that.

You know, per se, what would you suggest to do? Well, I've even you can just go to Google and type in metronome or like click track or whatever and type in a BPM and just turn it on. It'll play on your phone or iPad or whatever you have. And then just play along to that tempo and just play or try to like, you know, time it with the play button of the YouTube or I've done that so many times.

 If you can practice with the tempo with a click. In your room or something that'll just make you a better musician. That'll make you way tighter with the band that you're playing with 

you don't always have the luxury of playing to a click on stage you really have to be watching the drummer and like watching his hi hat hand and his kick foot and like making sure that you're on with them because that's really the best way.

Cause the drummer like should be setting the tempo if you're not using a click. 

Right, right, right. And so if you're kind of off doing your own thing, you know it's gonna feel a lot less glued together. But yeah. And the cues are great too. Tracks and cues are awesome. Like. Having, I, I love to have cues on parts where if I don't have it for every transition of the song, at least like, you know, break down like where we know to like fade out for a bridge or you know, drums in things like that.

If we're doing our own arrangement of things, it's nice to have those little notes in our head or have an MD in the mic kind of giving some cues manually too. Those are great too. Absolutely. So I know you have a Nord. Do you have the Nord stage 3 or? I have the Electro 6D. Electro 6D. Tell us a little bit about that.

Tell us a little bit about your workflow. Like what do you like using on board stuff? Are you a main stage guy? Ableton? What do you use for your gear? I'm an Ableton guy. Okay, cool. So I've tried, kind of. on main stage. It's just the can't do everything that Ableton can do. And I've been using Ableton and Reason.

Reason is another DAW that I use. It's called a Slave DAW program that you use within Ableton. I think now they have it as a VST plug in, but so a lot of my sounds Come from reason, but then I run it like the channel's actually in Ableton. Awesome, awesome. And or like, I'll use effects from reason, but use ableton's pianos or something like that.

Just kind of like mix and match. 'cause that's another cool thing in itself is like 

everyone has, ableton's piano, but not everyone has ableton's piano with reasons effects, and Omnisphere is delay choosing plugins and softwares from other things and making something your own.

 I love individualization, like individuality. Like, I've always been that way. If everyone likes wearing blue, I, I like to wear green. Like, not in like a weird way. But like, just like not Doing it the way that someone does it just for that sake, like to follow the rule. Oh, what about this? Like push the boundary a little bit. I love using like mismatched plugins and effects and stuff like that to make sounds.

But, sorry, I forgot your question. Yeah, no, absolutely. Just kind of getting a rundown of your, of your, Oh yeah, yeah. So I, I use the Nord I bought the Nord because I was starting to do a lot of country gigs that required like B3 and whirly and stuff. Nord has some of the best organ sounds and electric piano.

But so what I do is 

I run a MIDI controller that's like my faders for all my volumes and effects knobs that I have in Ableton routed midi mapped. And then I use all reason and contact instruments for like the actual sounds, like my pianos pads. things like that.

I'll create those. So like the actual onboard sounds of my Nord I kind of call it my redundancy. If my computer crashed or if I forgot to charge my laptop and it died halfway through the service or some tragic thing happened. my keyboard or plugins.

I have a Nord that isn't just a media controller, so I actually route the quarter inches into my interface and I route those into my MIDI controller. So I have a button that will unmute my Nord sound to play. So I can play my Nord cause 

Nord has really great, like upright pianos, right?

Right. A lot of MIDI pianos just don't. Really capture a good upright sound. I haven't found they sound too computerized to me. Yeah, the Nord has really good microphone techniques and So when I'm playing a more like folky worship song or a more like stripped down Type song it sounds way better With with the Nord sounds so you just switch just with a button on your yeah I just have something that literally like toggles it on or off and I That way, but I could do for a long time before I had the Nord.

I just had a 200 M Audio Controller and I just ran all my Ableton sounds on that that's what's kind of cool Too is like I would go to a church in like Colorado with my backpack Yeah, I'd have my computer and my midi controller and I show up and I just plug into whatever, whatever they're, they could have a 50 Casio keyboard.

And as long as it has a USB, I can give like, I can do some work on it. Absolutely. So that's the, that's definitely the beauty of software keys is your sounds can be transferred to any room which is great for someone that's touring and playing in different rooms and different styles of things all the time.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's super fun. That's amazing, man. That's awesome. Yeah, I do. I love that. I use main stage myself. And so I love it actually worked on a sample library for grad school and that was my final project was piano So yeah, I have to come back here and sample this period you should because it's beautiful and speaking of being different yeah, most people have like uprights from like 1950 1970 2000 1800 Originality man, it's crazy.

It's really cool But you're right. It sounds great. Nord has like some of the best upright piano sounds out there. You know, I think so. I love it. And, and even the aftertouch of the, the lift of that, like the, the feeling. Yeah. You just can't beat it. It's just so good hearing the hammers. And I, like I said, I do like composing stuff.

So I like all the texture, like pedal sounds. I'll like, Mike, I'll like Mike, my pedal or I'll Mike like a hammer, like really close to it and like be able to make like percussive stuff out of it. And just, cause again, it's like, You know, nothing's new under the sun, right? There's only so many ways you can play a chord progression But like right whenever you just put your mind to it and just get creative you can really come up with something special and unique if you put time into it.

Absolutely, man So you talked about doing some country gigs and doing some other things What do you think is like really unique for the worship genre? Like why why do you think it's so important with worship key specifically? In the worship genre as opposed to You know, anything else that I know we kind of mentioned this earlier, but what do you, what do you think is like, so, so important with that, with the worship genre, just as far as playing keys or with preparing, or I would say just playing keys in general.

Yeah. Well, with worship, you kind of get to play a pretty wide variety of patches and it also like depends for. It depends on what kind of, what your, who your congregation is and what it's made up of. If it's like a, a youth conference night and you're playing like Hillsong Young and Free and Elevation when you get to go crazy on like the synths and like stuff like that.

Or if you're playing, you know, your elders service and they just want like your piano tones and they don't want all the reverb and delays and crazy stuff. It's fun because they're so. So much variety in the, the styles that you can play. But like the biggest thing to me like. I don't know.

There's just something special about, you know, country music is, is awesome. I love playing it. All my best friends tour with country artists and like there's definitely something special about, you know, someone connecting with a song in that way. But like, 

Connecting with a song and connecting with like the creator of the universe, that just like gives you chills.

Like, to know that you get to be a part of that in some small way. That gives me the reason to practice ahead of time. That gives me the reason to like Care about what the guitarist is playing and not try to like show off my keyboard skills 

Really fitting into the band because like the whole thing really should be about eliminating distractions Like that's one of the reasons why you

It's not to be showy or perform if you're playing wrong notes or playing things badly, like it might actually distract people from what's going on. Absolutely. So like just showing up ready and can make a huge difference and whether someone just gets kind of disconnected because they're like, that was interesting.

Like that was weird. You know someone that might have be musically inclined would kind of catch on to those things. 

So I think it's just so cool to be able to use a gift that God's given me, you people that play instruments. Like there's so many ways to serve in a church. And the part I love is like, you know, stacking chairs is just as important as serving coffee, just as important as playing keys.

Like there's no, Level up. Right. Right. Being just cause you're like on a stage with lights on you. Literally no difference.

I think that is like the hard part of being in worship ministry, but also touring secular music. You're taught to perform, look awesome, flip your hair, like, you know, rock on like all this stuff.

And then at church, you're like not supposed to do any of that. Right. Cause it's like, you'll be like, what was I doing? But there is such thing as like stage presence and not looking awkward 

so if we're like bored or like tired or not all there, then why, why should the people worshiping like feel like they should be excited to be there? So we, we set the bar, the tone. That goes into like our spiritual preparation during the week that goes into a lot of different things.

Whereas for secular playing, you know, you don't have, there's not as much thinking about that other than just like Just like playing really well and being professional. There's like another level to it, I think, when you're playing at church, which is just awesome and, like, always humbling to know that, like, God is using, He could be using anyone.

Absolutely. You know, He gets, we get to be a part of what He's doing. I love that, man. I love that. It's just one part of being able to serve. Yeah. In church. I love that. Whenever I was at James River they actually, I think they did it intentionally, which was awesome. Like no matter how good you were, your instrument they'd be like, all right, great.

You made the worship team. Next week you're working in toddlers. Not doing worship. You're literally like handing out snacks and toddlers and then the next week you're outside with the welcome signs and they would like really like Put you through like where is your heart in the right place? Are you are you trying to be on this worship team so that you can show off?

Are you actually here because you care about serving God and you'll do whatever We need help with to accomplish that. And so, like, whenever I was waving at, like, thousands of cars, at, like, two different services in the freezing cold Missouri weather I was like, man, You you do take it you get excited whenever the next week you are playing and you're like, yes I'm not like freezing right and I get to like play music It's not any more important to the to furthering the kingdom And I think that a lot of people can get to where they're maybe a hardened heart or something.

And if you're classically trained pianist, or maybe like concerts were a big deal and like, you are a big deal and that's kind of how it goes. But like with worship music, it's you're, you're just a, you're just drawing the curtain for God and displaying. And that comes with showing up with excellence, showing up with your heart positioned, right.

And showing up with humility, I think are the, just the main things that. Would come with playing keys for like a worship service versus playing for secular music or concert. 

Well, Derek, thanks so much for sharing with us today. I just want to ask you one more thing. You mentioned how you started keys when you were 16 years old 

what advice would you give to your 16 year old self, to someone who is starting brand new? Learning piano or learning worship keys in particular, what advice would you give them? Right now. That's a great question. I feel like I want to answer that two ways.

For the keys player, but also for the worship leader that's leading that keys player for keys, 

Don't stop learning, even if you were raised classically and you can play Mozart and then you listen to Hill song song and realize it's four chords and you're like, Oh, like I don't need to practice this.

I can do this in my sleep. Don't ever let that affect your practice and affect your, your heart on it because God can really use you For a special purpose and if you come into it with that attitude, it's just not gonna Go well, continuing to learn, continuing to find resources, continuing to ask questions.

Once it comes to a time where like maybe people are asking you to play at certain things, like do it all, like do everything. Play for your life groups, play for the second grade class, play for whatever, all those things I look back and I'm like, man, Doing that for that random thing like really helped me for this thing I'm doing now or like thinking about how crazy that was it makes me really thankful for being here right now or something like that like There's so many times where I'm thankful for the things that God put me through and opportunities that he gave me Yeah, that didn't make sense at the time that where I am now, I'm like super thankful for

so a couple of like practical places I learned from Ian McIntosh.

He's Jesus culture's like main keys where he has tons of like keys one on one all the way through advanced keys lessons, how to make it in like as a keys touring person all the way to like what a synth pad is and like how to make one from scratch. So he's a great tool. He's more Ableton and reason.

Peter James is Hill songs, keys player, and he teaches mostly main stage and Omnisphere stuff. So depending on which route you go

Those are two great tools to use and I just like watch YouTube videos like I mean I'm sure you guys know like, you know this right you can just type in how to play blank.

Yeah, you know But again, like learn it that way and then make it your own. That's that's the biggest thing is don't stop being creative That's good. Even when something's easy You can always make it it and make it cooler. And like, and I'd say like tip would just be like, learn some motifs, which are like just like a series of notes, like 

that was something I learned in Circuit Riders, because there's a lot of like down time, like praying time where I'm playing, or we're in between songs, we don't really know where we're going yet, so I'm just, I gotta just like flow on the piano.

 It might be for 30 seconds, it might be for 30 minutes, just depending. And so I have to be able to know some things to play that aren't an actual song that I can just play over any key. Having a few notes, try like four or five notes in your right hand. To, like, say if it's 5.

You play the 1, you can play those notes, play the 4, still sounds good, 6, 5. And then you can just kind of slowly play that. And again, it's removing the distractions. People aren't hearing, like, random weird things. They're not really noticing it being fancy. They're just noticing it being smooth and going, consistent.

And, like, being able to have a few of those to, like, transition between. Is a huge thing that I kind of, like, learned later on that I wish I would have known earlier. 

Absolutely. 

And then I think to the worship leader that has a band that they're responsible for let them be creative, like give them that freedom to not just say, this is the songs of how we're going to play it. Because for me, my worship leader, he was very much open to me learning a, a different synth patch to play or like, he's like, yeah, sure. You don't have to play a piano on this. I mean, within reason layer that, those three, if you want to like spend the extra time if you want to.

And I was like, yes, I do want to I like doing that and being creative. And so allow them to be creative cause that's actually going to. grow them as a musician and really stretch the band's ability to whenever you really allow and encourage that creativity. 

Absolutely, man.

That's great advice. I love that, dude. Thanks. Can you tell us how we can connect with you? Yeah. Find out what you're doing. I'm on the ig. There you go. Desta. It's an old high school nickname that I just kind of kept. D-E-R-K-S-T-A. Nice. Give him a follow man. Yeah. Give him 'em. Follow. Yeah.

That's probably the, the main thing. I'm on . 

I love it. Thanks so much for being on this podcast. You're welcome. The very first one, so. Yeah, excited. Thank you, man. Hopefully we'll have you back on soon, so. That sounds great. Thanks, Derek. You're welcome.