I got an email last week from a friend who has played keys at her church for many years. I’d asked her to tell me her thoughts on the changing role of the piano in church. She told me going from being the primary to complimentary instrument, had been a huge challenge for her. Questions arose within. Did this mean that she’d eventually be put out to pasture?
No putting out to pasture is necessary. For-instance, the organ is making a huge comeback in the contemporary service. There is NOTHING like a Hammond B3 whirring into its vibrato intro in the song “Everybody Praise the Lord” by Lincoln Brewster. And like the Hammond B3 organ, the keyboard has the ability to do things that guitars couldn’t do in a million years. The pauses….expressions, even the power, can move a heart in ways another instrument cannot.
In an earlier blog, part of my title said “Resistance is futile”. I’m not a Trekkie fan. I just remember lines from TV or movies. Maybe you are feeling the famous line in Spock’s death scene…”The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. I am so sorry if you are feeling that way. But you are no less important in the grand scheme. It just looks different.
