From Classical to Contemporary (Part 2) with Sandy Stephenson

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Join Carson as he sits down with Sandy, a seasoned pianist, for an in-depth discussion about her journey from learning piano as a child, struggling with various teachers, and eventually finding her passion through competitions. She discusses her ministry work, children's musical productions, and the transition from traditional hymn playing to contemporary worship music. Sandy provides valuable insights for pianists on adapting to new styles, the importance of music theory, and the rewarding experience of using one's gifts for worship. The episode includes performances of classical pieces like 'Clair de Lune' and the Christmas favorite, 'Angels We Have Heard on High'. Tune in for inspiring stories, practical advice, and beautiful music.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Worship Keys YouTube channel. My name is Carson. Glad you're here. We talk all things music theory, gear, industry, and ministry for your Worship Keys playing. I want to thank Aerospace Audio for being a sponsor of this episode. They provide high quality atmospheric pads off of their app on your iPhone or iPad, or you can use their really cool atmosphere foot pedal to where the sounds come out physically from this pedal, which is really cool. You can check out their products. On aerospace audio. com so now let's get into today's episode.

Today I'm joined by Ms. Sandy Stevenson. She's in Nashville, Tennessee. You're here for a conference. Is that right? I'm here for the Edge Conference. Yes. Wow. So tell us about that. What's the Edge Conference? Edge Conference is a family ministry conference that Lifeway does.

So I'm a children's minister at Double Oak Community Church and they sent me here. So I just came a day early. That's awesome. And I love Double Oak. I used to be on staff at Double Oak Community Church in Chelsea, the Chelsea campus. I was there for two years. Ms. Sandy, how long have you been at Double Oak, Mt.

Laurel? I was hired full time in September of 2005 congratulations on that. It means a lot when you're at one place for a long time. And you and your husband, Mr. Kelly Stevenson, which he's in the room. Kelly, you want to say hey to the cameras? He's coming over.

And also, this guy plays accordion. Yeah. Hey y'all glad to be here today So so glad to have both of you guys just here in nashville, Of course, you're here for the conference and thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast. I really appreciate it Miss sandy's a classically trained pianist.

She's incredible you're going to hear her play some Debussy and you're here to play a Christmas song as well, which Christmas is just around the corner but I just want to ask, so when you first started learning piano what was your, method.

When did you start and how long have you been playing piano? My mom was the church pianist and I was the first born. Even at three and four, she would sit me up to the piano and try to teach me and then got about fourth grade and I spent more time crying than taking lessons.

So she sent me to someone else. I didn't thrive very much until I got into high school because. I would not practice or I didn't like my teacher. My mother would say, this is something you're good at and we're going to stick with it. So she would say, just finish out this year and we'll try a different teacher.

And we would. And so I did have some time with my cousin, Sherry Jane, and I loved taking from her and that was sixth grade. So it got me through a hump into that junior high. But loved Sherry Jane and I wanted to be like her. She was 10 years older than me and I wanted to be like her.

But in high school I got into competition and that's what I, that's what really attracted me as I liked competing. I liked getting, going to the, con the contest and trying to win. And tell us about that. What kind of music were you guys doing? It was classical and my piano teacher at the time was just into all of it, And she would say okay in May you're going to this and then in June you're going to this and then next fall We're gonna be preparing for this and it was just always one thing coming after another so Just did it and I just loved it and just collected those certificates and ribbons and all that stuff.

That's amazing So you would go to these competitions and just dominate well, no, I didn't it was a tough competition And always there was this guy that always beat me. He was really good. Yeah But so I didn't always win, but I love the competition. That's amazing. How big were these competitions? I mean was this like a statewide Tulsa area?

Okay. Okay You Really? Just Tulsa area stuff. That's awesome. Tulsa, Oklahoma. We lived in Broken Arrow, and my piano teacher was in Tulsa, so she would enter me in all the big Tulsa stuff. Wow. Okay, so do you, did you choose your songs, or did you go there and was it like a sight reading competition? Oh no.

What was this like? No, Mrs. Gorley chose my music, and decided what I would play, and would prepare me in the lesson for it, and there was no choice of Sandy. But at the same time, I was playing for youth choir at church and choir at school, stuff like that. So that was more what I liked to do at the time, but I would do the practicing because I wanted to win.

That's good. That's good. The competition is such a big thing. That's the reason I practice because I wanted to win. I think that's a huge point too. And a lot of those competitions, I feel like I don't hear about them a lot. Do you still hear about them? Are they still around?

We have them in Birmingham. Do you really? Yes. That's amazing. They don't seem like they're as big a deal as they were. You know where I was growing up. Yeah, that's amazing competition has always been a big thing I know people that play sports, you compete a lot So it takes a lot of time because there's competition but people when they think of music They don't always think of that as very competitive, but you're saying that's what really inspired.

That's what inspired me to practice That's amazing. That's a really key point. I think in that and it's interesting. I want to talk about too You had multiple teachers Yeah, and many that you did not like so much. Yes. Tell us the importance of a good teacher and what a good teacher actually does Well, there was just some that were just their personalities were unusual, right?

And so when I would go in I would just not be able to get past that. Yeah There were other ones that were negative and they were more like you didn't do this and you didn't do this and you didn't Do that. Yeah, mrs. Gourley was more like You did great at that. Now let's work on this. Oh, that's good.

And so I think it was her approach to it was not as negative and inspired me more and made me feel like I could accomplish it instead of everything I did was wrong. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Negativity will kill you. Yeah. But before anything, I know my college days was that my teacher was very hard on me for sure, which was great.

It grew me a lot. But also I did not enjoy it very much. And a lot of times, you do have to go through a little bit of growing pains to get through and get better, but there's also another side of that where the teacher, sometimes those teachers are just too mean, just too unreasonable.

What techniques and what methods did you use when you learned the piano that really helped you like the most? I think, part of all those competitions were scales and cadences and all those kinds of things.

Because still to this day, I go through all. Major and minor scales almost daily and then some other technical exercises just because I don't want to lose it, and so I started that in high school. It really put me ahead of most people in college. Because I already had all of that technique down and just the theory knowledge, Kelly and I were in the a theory class because we came in knowing music theory already.

And that's part of what Mrs. Gorley did for me, theory contests as well as playing contests and all that. Where'd y'all go to school? We went to Oklahoma Baptist University. Okay, amazing. Where are you from originally? Kelly's from Oregon, but I'm from Oklahoma. I was from the Tulsa area, Broken Arrow.

Wow. And he was from Oregon, but his pastor sent him to OBU because he wanted to go into worship music. Actually, we called it Minister of Music back then. Wow. Full time Minister of Music. And Kelly's been on staff at Double Oak as well for 20 years, right? It'll be 20 in 2025. Okay. Okay. Also, y'all are at that 19 year.

We're getting ready to have that 20 year. Yeah. I hope they, y'all, they go all out for you guys. It's the whole church, cause we were there to start the church. Oh, y'all started the church. Yeah. So it's going to be the 20th anniversary of Double Oak. Incredible. Yeah. Wow. Okay. If Miss Sandy, she does a great job with the kids ministry.

Mr. James Spann is there a lot of times is volunteering. So many of it. so much of his time with you guys, which he's, I know, a celebrity in Alabama, all over Alabama as a weatherman, which is incredible. Shout out to the James fan for doing such a great job on and off air, I should say.

But that's really cool. I would love for you to share a little bit about Double Oak and your ministry there, the children's ministry there. I've been a part of VBS one week. I did the worship one time and I was blown away, one of my mentors, good friends, Matt Powell, told, told me about VBS, how great it was.

I know you, you asked me to lead. And when I experienced y'all's VBS for the first time, I was like, wow, this is enough. This is a, an experience I've never experienced before. Y'all went all out. Hundreds of kids. The programming was incredible. Of course the services were great, but the whole programming was.

That's awesome. You guys, you make every child feel so special. Every family feels so special. So many great events y'all do throughout the year. I know I don't know all of them, but Grandparents Day and Father Daughter Dances. Those are really great things that y'all do in the church.

But tell us a little bit more about Double Oak and your kids ministry and what you do there. Okay. Double Oak started at an elementary school in the town of Mount Laurel, which is like a. man made town. Okay. So they built the little grocery store and they built the hardware store and they said, this is where we're going to put a church.

So we're meeting in the elementary school, trying to get enough members together to build a church. And they gifted us the property. They gifted us the parking lot and the sidewalks and all of that. And we built a building after we'd been only a part of a church for two years we built a building and moved in.

So we had really fast growth. Kelly was leading worship and I was playing the piano and being the children's minister. And we were still in the school. Our pastor, Randy Overstreet came up to me and he said, we need to start kids worship. And I said Randy, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I play for the service.

And he said let's just be praying about it. And a couple of weeks later, he and James Spann hook up. James was at Hunter street doing kids worship at the time, but he lived in our area and James had. Just been driving down the road and God had told him, he said, you need to be working with children in the area where you live.

And he lives just down the road from Double Oak. And he and Randy connected and he came to Double Oak and started that kids worship service. And I kept playing for him. Kelly in the worship. All of this past 20 years, I've done double duty. I play in the service and then I run upstairs and check on the Children.

Then I come back down and play for the invitation. Then we do it again in second service. We've just always been that way. But because I love music, I love musical theater, all of that. And I love children. Children's choir has always been a part of what we do. And so we do a big children's musical every year, which attracts not only the children that go to our church, but children all over the community.

We live in this town where the church of the Highlands is big in Birmingham, but it's, there's nothing for the kids on Wednesday night. So the kids. all come to our church on Wednesday night so they can be part of the musical. And so we have as many on Wednesday night as we have on Sunday mornings.

Just, just part of the community that comes. That's incredible. So kids learn to use their gifts. And this is a thing that I think is so important, that we were made to serve other people. And God gifts you certain things that you can serve with. When we're practicing with soloists, when we're practicing choreography, little groups, little dance groups, the actors, every little area that It goes into do the children's musical.

Our big emphasis on this is using your gifts to tell other people about Jesus. And that's what we want kids to do. It's great that they're coming and they're learning the Bible and they're learning all that stuff on Sunday mornings, but they need to be serving as well and they can even as a kid. Wow.

I love that. I love that. And it's cool that you're able to do both. You're able to play piano and do music and then do the children's ministry. It's not like one or the other, you know, you can do these different avenues and use music and it was never in vain and it was amazing.

Do you teach lessons? Do you ever teach a lot of lessons? Yeah, I've got 17 piano students. 17 piano students! That's amazing. Yeah, I do them after work. That's awesome. And when I retire, which isn't going to be too long from now, I'll still be teaching piano lessons and probably until I can't see the music anymore.

You know, when you're a children's minister, you don't work that much with children. You're more with the volunteers, with the parents. You're more one on one with them. Piano teaching, it's me and a kid. And I love that relationship. I just, they walk in there. They want to try it and what a great thing to be a kid.

And you can try soccer and you can try piano and you can try all these different things. And it's just such a great connection. And I remember that come across positive instead of like always. with children. And I just try to inspire them. I've had, several kids that have graduated from high school take from me.

I taught them since like second grade. I mean, when you're in one place a long time, you can do that. You can stick with them from second grade to 12th grade and see how much they grow just as a person, but in their musical skills too. It's just a great, very rewarding thing to do. From day one, I teach kids to play by rote because I think that's very important.

And as soon, you know, we do five finger scales and then we expand to scales and cadences and chords. We do all of that because it's so key to everything. And as they get to be teenagers, then we really work focus on reading lead sheets and. Knowing what the chords are and how to get to the chord from the easiest way.

And those kinds of things where they're not playing everything in root position. So that's part of, that's part of learning the piano to me. I think Mrs. Gourley wasn't big on that, but I learned it so much from my mom and from playing for youth choirs and things like that. Yes. But I think it's key.

Absolutely. I just want to switch gears a little bit. So in this episode, we're going to talk a little bit more of the classical world and how it's merged in how the styles have changed in church from over the years to this more contemporary style and sound which really in reality is just Simplified those open chords.

And sometimes it's more like Mr. Kelly said, before we started recording, just like the rhythm section, the accompaniment, of the singers, and hundreds of years ago, it was only an organ in a church or really it was, there was no instruments. Then it was the organ.

And then. Piano was like the taboo instrument. It was a secular instrument. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. I remember when I was younger, drums were not in some churches just, and still today, of course, people have their preferences.

And and I don't know if accordion has ever been brought out in a worship service. It has. Has it? Okay. Oh yeah. Kelly says it should be, and we're going to have an episode with Kelly, just with accordion, by the way. So y'all be on standby for that. What have you seen evolve and how have you adapted to with your piano playing over the years?

We came to Birmingham in 1991 from a big, like a metro church in Texas, in Arlington, Texas. We had the 250 voice choir with the orchestra, two grand pianos and an organ in the center. That's what Kelly was used to as far as minister of music. I didn't even play there. I played for ensembles and youth choirs because there were two ladies there that they'd been playing those two pianos for a long time, and that was theirs.

So we came to Birmingham we helped start the church at Brookhills. And the idea was to have a band. And of course, Kelly and I had never played in a worship band. And so we get together some people to play the instruments and I'm used to like the piano covering all the bases.

And Kelly is The worship leader is the boss, and you get into this collaborative atmosphere and it was eye opening. It was really different. I didn't, they didn't want me to play everything. They were insulted if I played everything, they didn't really want Kelly telling one what to, how to play their instrument either.

It was it was just us getting used to that. It's a whole, just, it's a team sport instead of a dictator and the musicians that he conducts. As the pianist, I was used to everybody leaning on me. I was the one that held things together, as a accompanist, I was the one, I was the one that knew the answers to what does that supposed to sound like, and we get into this atmosphere of collaboration and it was awesome.

For a couple of years, it was a real eye opener and we would go home and we would say, what are we doing? What are we doing? And, but we learned and we played with some great players that taught us taught us how to collaborate. But the biggest difference, I played for youth choir and it was more, and I think.

influence is probably what caused the worship wars, when they came in the nineties, because people wanted what they did in youth choir. They wanted that in the service. And that's part of why we came to the church at Brick Hills from our own church, because Kelly felt like, because in our choir rehearsals with 200.

So people, it was like a worship service. Kelly would lead choruses. I would play. We would worship together, before choir rehearsal. And then we would go into the, the service and sing three verses of a hymn. And Kelly's dream was like, why can't we do this in a service? Oh, yeah. So that's really what brought us to Brookhills because They wanted that, that same thing.

And so we began to have that, we began to have this more free and the courses allowed you to do that because there was more freedom in it. There, there wasn't a big stop at the end. You could use the drums and the guitars and stuff that had made youth choirs. Sounds so great. And You didn't have I don't want to say that the orchestra was a hindrance to Worship, but you couldn't go very far from the page right with a orchestra You had to pretty much stay say this is what we're gonna do with a band Kelly might feel the spirit Tell him to do that course again and he would look over at the band and do this and we would So it was it felt more spirit led than when we had the full orchestra and all that stuff So we were on the cutting edge of that in 1991, you know We did get criticism the alabama baptist People wrote letters saying that it sounds like something you go to play you would go to hear at a club You know instead of really yeah Wow But we were just worship.

If you went to a worship service in Brook Hills in the early 90s it was a different experience. We moved into the big building in 1999, started a Friday night service and people would come to our church on Friday nights and then go to their church on Sundays just to experience. The worship and the preaching was great and it was just a different experience because I think the freedom of band gives so I think it was a good thing.

That's amazing. But that's because kelly Led with a vision That made it all happen may have come together and you need that leader the visionary person pushing it on Yeah, it's not gonna happen, for sure. Tell us more about the worship wars in the 90s Oh I mean it was the people that said, you know all that stuff that you're You know this electric guitar and it just sounds like it should be somewhere else and not in church and there were a lot of churches that people You know half the church would want to start this kind of worship and the other people Said that is not church to me.

That does not sound like church to me and they would go to somewhere else Leave and not want to be a part of that And I think part of that and I hear my mom talk about their worship services in Oklahoma City. And I think part of that is because there's not, she can't follow the melody.

The worship leader is very free and ad libs and that kind of thing. And she's struggling to hear the melody, and so she gets frustrated when it's, If you were, in her church when she was my age, you heard the melody in the chords, the pianist played the melody, and you heard the melody, the minister of music sang the melody, and it was easy to follow along, but you weren't going to the radio to learn the song you were going to Worship to learn the song.

So I think that was part of the frustration is it just she couldn't and people couldn't relate to Singing in that kind of freedom And it's just different that makes sense. Totally and I think that And currently in 2024 2025 going into 2025 here soon We can sometimes make fun of modern worship music because it's so simple.

And I know in the songwriting world, people are like, man, that worship song, the melody is so simple, but it goes back to your point of we need the melody to be simple because we need people to sing it collectively together because we need to be singing corporately in a church service together. So sometimes the reason why the melody is so prominent, still so important is so we can all sing it together.

prominently, and we don't want to be a distraction. We want to be unified. So tell us more about the transition between playing, the hymnal or the sheet music and transitioning to playing with a band, playing chords, lead sheets. Tell us about that. How was that transition for you?

Was it even a transition for you or did you just do it? How did you. Adapt to that in 1991 moving forward and on to today. How'd you do that? i'd had some experience with that before when I was in high school I was the piano player. My sister was the beauty pageant girl. Okay, but she needed things in the lower key So I would play for her, but she would need things lower.

So I would scribble in the chords and play it lower for her. And one time she wanted to sing. I've got confidence from sound of music and there was no music. And so I, that was the first song I transcribed. My mom helped me and we transcribed it and I played it for her. For so when we got to our church in Texas, they did a big Christmas pageant.

The first half was popular Christmas songs. The second half was the pageant part. And. The people that played piano regularly at our church. We're not comfortable with lead sheets, but I was, so I got to play the first half. So every year, for the eight years that Kelly or seven years that Kelly did the big pageant there at that Texas church, I got to play all those lead sheets for all these Christmas songs.

And the reason they were lead sheets is because we had to have somebody arrange them and they weren't going to write out all the piano parts. They were just going to write in a lead sheet. And so I got used to playing all those lead sheets. So when we came to Brookhills, the hard part was there weren't lead sheets.

Integrity was the big company at the time. I don't know if you knew Integrity and they published these little spiral books and they were like hymn versions of the choruses that you heard on the CD. That could come with a spiral book and a, was it a CD or a DVD? Cassette, maybe even a cassette, right? It might've been a cassette, but you would listen to that.

Yeah, and it wasn't anything like this little. Thing that was in the spiral. So Kelly, he was working full time. I was working children's choir part time But he would have to do lead sheets for all these courses that we wanted to do at Brickhills Because there was no praise charts back then there was nobody doing stuff on the internet.

This was the 90s yeah So kelly was writing out lead sheets for all these courses that we were doing and we were playing from lead sheets Wow, so I was used to lead sheets already when I came You But I wasn't used to lead sheets with a band, right? So the difference for me was not trying to cover every part.

That's good was it really complicated dumbing it down a little bit simplifying it? Was that hard for you? Yeah I didn't even know I was supposed to do it at first except there were different points, band members, would say things to me. Oh, no, it's like I think I'm going to play that part.

So if you won't play it, that would be good. Different bass bass player, if you wouldn't be so heavy on the bass, my part would probably sound better. So I just, from people being honest and I think as a musician. And our children all are very straightforward. And I think that comes from being kids of parents that are musicians.

Musicians have to be straightforward with each other. If someone's not doing something, you have to point it out, especially if you're in a band session and you have to be able to take it for sure. And so through many of those conversations, I remember one person, one guitar player said, Hey. We're not in competition here because your grand piano was like three times bigger than my guitar, but he said let me do it He said I can't compete with you.

Oh, man. I mean there was just different I remember all these different conversations that I had to just learn I can't i'm not supposed to do everything. I am a team player. I have my part That fits together with the other parts. That's good to make it all sound good to make it sound like it's supposed to be Yes And to learn from audio, that was a new thing to listen to a recording and try to do what was on the recording.

Previously what was on the music was the boss. Now what you heard was what was the leader of what you were going to do. And if you're going to change something, it's different than the recording or it's the same as the recording. It doesn't have anything to do with the sheet in front of you, so that was a whole new thing because. I, as a music reader, if it was on the music, you played it, right? Yes. And it's not that way when you're playing with a band. How do you, how did you feel about that transition? Like how is, was it just Oh, this is fun. It's a new thing. It's a new thing. It was a new thing.

Yeah. And I enjoyed the I didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed it a lot. That's awesome. I still like, playing for choirs and things. But as a college student, even my aspiration was not to be a performer. And I'm, if you put me up in front of a. A crowd and asked me to play a solo, I'm probably going to mess up a lot because I'm not a soloist.

I'm not a solo performer. My heart's never been into that. My heart has always been. And this is how, Kelly and I got married when we were 20 years old, but we met each other and we had the same heart. We both wanted to serve the church and he wanted to lead and I wanted to play and we fit. As we started dating our freshman year and we got married after our sophomore year because both of our hearts were not for performance music.

It was to serve the church in music. And that's what brought us together. And that's what, both of our goals have been all of our life. So I don't know how I got on that. No, I love that. And I love that. You said earlier an atmosphere of collaboration. Yeah, that was cool. I like that phrase. I've never heard that before is that it's that transition and what y'all did in the 90s is You had this one way of the piano was the staple.

It was the foundation. It was everything right? It was the music. It was the whole accompaniment for everything. It was the compliment track pretty much. It kept the, like when you had organ piano, the piano was the rhythm and the harmony and everything. Yeah. Yeah. That is so interesting.

And then with everything else, it's just a full collaboration. But I think that really does speak to more of the heart of God, collaborating, bringing all people and all things in. To it, and even the, even still to this day, we have new things that are added and sometimes it's controversial as for what we're doing and what we're adding in.

The church started using tracks, right? Yeah. In church, click tracks and, oh, it's we don't want to sound so production and artificial and stuff. But I think there's been so many tools like Praise Chart, like Planning Center, that have been tools for the church. and the musicians and the worship teams to be able to learn and play these lead sheets, the chord charts in an effective way.

I want you to speak to maybe the pianist out there who has felt like their time has come and gone. I used to be the pianist at the church in the eighties or nineties, or maybe even the early two thousands, but Oh, but since my, a new worship leader came in and now I don't play anymore, or, I used to play 10 years ago and I really just can't keep up with a chord chart.

What's your best advice to someone who is classically trained who needs to Learn how to transcribe like you said for your sister you transcribed that piece of music for her pageant What's your best advice to someone like that? Who is struggling going from a classically trained mindset and To playing more of a lead sheet chord chart.

I did work with a lady in birmingham who was playing she was having to learn to play contemporary music and the difference Number one, they don't want you to play the melody because they're not really going to sing the melody They're gonna sing around the melody, but they don't want you to play the melody.

They want you to play the chords. And then when you play hymns, not only do you play chords with your right hand and the melody, but you play chords with your left hand because you play the octave and the chords and the octave and the chords. Now with contemporary music, you don't want chords in your left hand.

You want the chords to be in your right hand. And I think people that have played hymns all their life. Know chords because you can't improvise a hymn without knowing your chords. You have to know your chords. They just don't know which hand to put it in. And I think this lady that I worked with was doing the chords with her left hand and doing chords in her right hand with the melody, even on the contemporary choruses.

And once she just took that out and just played the chord, and maybe just a bass note with the left hand, it seemed way too easy for her. But it sounded right, but it's a humbling thing. Because it's too easy compared to playing, improvising a hymn. You think about the chords that a hymn use and the five of the five, and you have to go to all these different very strange chord progressions and things, and some of the hymns, but when You're playing these very basic choruses that have the same three chords for the whole song and you're playing, but just to do the switch and not play those chords in the left hand, leave the melody out, just do the chords in the right hand, a bass note in the left hand and keep the beat, cause they already know their cadences too.

They're not going to have to play root position. They know how to play. Because they've been inverting these chords for years in their left hand. It's just a matter of learning to humble yourself enough to play an easier part, I think. That's good. And also, it's easy to, go back to your old habits.

Yeah. So it's like practicing again, but practicing Playing a different way. Wow. And I would just encourage people to do that. Just put on the music and get the chords out and practice playing with the music and your ear will tell you when you're playing it right. I think another thing to remember is always the chords that you hear are not always the chords that you play.

I think a lot of times In contemporary worship music, we just need to play open fifths and not the third. And it'll say D, but I don't think you always wanted it, but you can tell when you're playing it that you just need to leave that out. And so a lot of it is listening, which site readers are not used to doing.

It's a whole new world to listen to something and try to imitate it. That's good. I love that shift from eyes and copying to ears and just following with what's being heard. I think that is a different skill set. It is a different one. That you're learning. I love that. The fifths are so important.

Simplicity is so important. What about the two chords and the sus two chords? Yeah, I think that's something people know. Yeah, and I love all those things. But if you hear them They don't always write them in the charts, right? And sometimes you know, I love praise charts. Yeah But sometimes you know When you if you hand somebody the one that has all the piano stuff written out in it, it's too much.

It's too much It's too much. They've put everything there like you don't have any band at all, right? So even if someone hands you the praise chart thing, that's not what you should play It depends on who you're playing with. Yes. Yes. And so you cover the basses that can't be covered with something else, but not the piano part.

I also, I'm a big cheerleader for lead sheets instead of chord charts, but I know. that. Tell us more about that. I like lead sheets because it tells you which beat to change the chord on. Oh, that's good. Yeah. And, three or four instead of just every top of the measure. Yeah, and then you don't have to stop rehearsal and say oh Remember that's on beep.

I mean if you Of course, that, that's assuming that you're a bass player and everybody knows how to read a lead sheet. But at least there's a definite answer. We don't have to go back and turn on the recording and listen to it and decide. That's true. If you have a lead sheet, you know what beat it comes on.

That's true. That's good. I like lead sheets. That is good. That is good. Do people play with lead sheets at Double Oak? No. They play with chord charts. I don't know. I've gotten to the point where some They did when I did the music. Kelly said they did when Kelly did the music, they did. Might need to go back.

I'll be guilty as charged too. Sometimes I don't even, it's gotten to the, it's gotten so bad. Or I guess I could say it's so bad. It's gotten so bad where a lot of times I don't even pull up the chord charts cause I've listened to it. I know that progression. Let's go up there and play it. Yeah. No, learn the in between, the little interludes and stuff.

Double check it on the chord charts, but I just got to the point where it's I know that progression. I'm going to go up there and play that progression. And not be too heavy on the bass and not be too crazy up here. Cause of other reasons, like you mentioned. Yeah. And if you think about who's what guitar players are playing with you, some of them are going to be more high register.

Some are going to be more middle register. And so, there's been a couple of acoustic guys that I've been able to play with that we were able to choose different parts and decide. Without even talking about it, I just hear him doing something and I go to a different register and think of it, like an orchestra instead of just like everybody playing in the middle or something like that.

That's good. So we're about to listen to you play Claire de Lune. Written in the 1800s, right? Romantic time period, I think. Impressionistic, so probably real, real close to contemporary. Okay. Yeah, just right on that borderline before they got to the really crazy stuff. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This Clair de Lune is just one of those staples.

It's been used in so many movies, commercials, things, everyone pretty much knows that. And there's just certain iconic parts of that. Really the piano behind me, this is the piano I grew up playing. Now it's here with me in Nashville. And so Miss Sandy is going to actually perform Clair de Lune for us right now and I hope you guys enjoy it.

Miss Sandy did so great. Thank you for playing and sharing. You're welcome with that. I tell you, I'm not a performer really, but I have gotten the chance to play Clair de Lune with an orchestra before. Oh my goodness, tell us about that. When we first started Double Oak, we were always doing things out in the park to try to get people to find us.

Yeah. And they had, like a little central area park area. Randy Everstreet, our pastor raised the money to hire 25 of the Alabama Symphony to come out and Kelly found arrangements for Clair de Lune and there was another contemporary artist We did something by we were planning a park performance. It started to rain. We took everything down to the elementary school because we didn't have a building yet and played it down there, but it was an experience I'll never forget.

Just being able to play that Clare de Lune with the orchestra. And it was very exciting. I could sit down and play you a Bach prelude and fugue right now. But most people go, okay, that was good.

I try to perform for my recital every year for my students, just because they need to hear more advanced music. And because I need to keep my fingers moving. But, um, that is a lot of finger work and it's going to keep me from getting arthritis.

And it keeps my brain sharp to memorize fugues and Different things like that. The prelude has so many great chord changes and stuff. It's just it's a great mind Exercise too. I love that song and if you were to say hey Instead of playing it right starting in d flat if you played it in b flat Would you be able to do that with some time?

I don't know. Maybe I don't know if I could declare it a loon That's complicated. I make my students do it though. Do you really? Yeah, not with advanced pieces Okay, but I they start You know level one transposing things from c5 finger position to g5 finger. That's good. Yeah, do they do the whole song?

Yeah, but it's only eight measures. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly Yeah, but all yeah, all my students learn to transpose that's great because I started doing it so early and it's been such a help Yes all through the years to learn to transpose. Yeah, so so good I think music theory is so important when you're trying to transition from the classical mindset because I have met some classical pianists who cannot play unless that music is there.

And then they're really not thinking quarterly, they're thinking more patterns and more note by note. But not understanding the scales. Like you said, your scales are your bread and butter. You gotta have skills. I cannot skip that. Cannot skip. Don't skip your scales. Gotta have, that is like the basic.

But I just want to talk about Claire de Lune for a minute. The beginning of that, so in D flat, so it's like It comes on an off beat.

So it's boom. There's a rest. The very first thing is a rest. Okay. Rest. Okay! Okay! And see, it's just not so definite yet, right? So you're thinking about like D flat, the rest, G.

Mm-Hmm. , yes. You like that you have this pattern's like,

right. Yeah. I like that mo the f that dfl open and it completes it, right? Mm-Hmm. And then it goes just like this full, a fully diminished over G flat, you know? And was it go, uh, where's it from there? F and A flat in your left hand. Like that, right? That B flat minor, but it's over that F.

Yeah. Okay. And then it's like that, another diminished chord. C diminished, but really over E flat. And then keeps going on. And it has a few, It'll play, it'll do some like F over A's in there, right? Yeah. But there's so many beautiful chords in here but it's like you start off in that D flat, beautiful.

And then that A diminished, and then you do that B flat minor over F

and eventually it has that, and it goes to that. B minor, B flat minor again. The really awesome part. What is it? You probably have to help me out too with this, right? Yeah. And then the way you crescendo on that as just beautiful. And then the hard part too, is keeping that melody. That is like the prominent part.

That part is beautiful, but I love that because. This chord is beautiful. I'm like, oh my gosh, but of course you play E flat first, right? 

So you're literally playing all the same notes on the outside and just changing the middle stays the same. And then these outside notes.

Go together. That's just beautiful. I love that, section, but just that I love chords. Chords are awesome So if you take that you're like, huh, what notes are Making up that it's like this complicated. So you get your E flat But your E flat minor. Yeah, that's like the two chord, right? 

So you get your E flat minor chord in there, for sure, but then you get an F. Kind of with a two, yeah. Yeah, you get that two. It's like you're playing an E flat, there we go, E flat minor nine. Okay. That nine up there. It's a beautiful chord. So if you learn those extensions and how they relate to That's how you memorize a piece, right?

You memorize the chord progression. For sure. Yeah, and it gives you places to hang on to in your memory, yes. Landmarks, right? Landmarks. That's the only way I could survive learning classical music is just thinking about the chords and how they relate, but the way that they, So crunchy right there.

I love that. That is true. Woo! Yeah, but then if you know though that it's, it's that E flat minor 9, and you can probably see that root position, and move that around, even go up to the 11, and eventually do a 13, which I know a lot of jazz stuff is. You know what I'm saying? This What's great about that?

Right? It's because he had all these added things. Oh, it's so good. So beautiful. Yeah. So good. If you think about impressionistic paintings and how they're all watery looking and things just blend together and it's like clashing a little bit and that's Succulent ABC doesn't his music.

 And I love the how he uses the fully diminished chords. Mm hmm and inversions are so important with chords there's so much to learn from these.

Oh, yeah. Classical pieces, so thinking it that way I think can really help a lot of people. I know it helps me a lot when I'm like, oh my goodness, how am I going to memorize this? How am I going to remember this? I'm thinking, Well, how can I play this song, but not just play it straight, but what can I use what those chords to make it beautiful?

Part of what we did when we went to Brook Hills is learn to sing hymns without singing them the traditional way, slow them down. Add some nice chords to it. Blessed assurance. I stand amazed in the presence. All those, we used to bless it or I stand amazed. But when you think about the words, that's part of what really made worship happen is People knew I stand amazed in the presence, but they had never heard the way Kelly led it, where we slowed it down.

We thought about, I stand amazed at what God has done for me. It just would. touch you and into a different place because you knew the song already, but you didn't feel the depth of it until you slowed down and thought about it. All these great chords that you learn by playing classical music and you add, you have all this at your disposal when you're, And trying things new with current music on it.

Yeah. I'm used to hearing this worship song with full band Yeah, and then maybe a guy just comes out with a guitar an acoustic guitar Yeah, and You hear it in a different way. Absolutely. And it just, or maybe someone just takes the chorus of this one that you're familiar with and adds it to the end of whatever the song was we're doing.

And the pairing of it, uh, can make a big difference in the way your mind engages with it. Absolutely. Absolutely. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. I love that. And at this time, I, since it's Christmas is just around the corner, we're going to hear you share a Christmas song. What will you be playing?

This is angels we have heard on high. Richard Kingsmore is one of my favorite arrangers for piano. As I told you, I'm not a big Dino performer. I don't even know if you know who Dino was, but I was never one that really enjoyed that. I love the little soft, cool chords. And so Richard Kingsmore is right with my heartbeat as far as his arrangements go.

And so I love this arrangement. That's great. I hope you guys enjoy it.

 Another great performance and really cool. Just want to talk a little bit theory wise with the song, right? And it has this little motif that it follows, right? So you're like, you're in G, and I was just watching you as you're playing it.

I wasn't really watching the sheet music, but what is it, what's that little thing you're playing? Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

It's two notes, but it's B and G. Yeah. Oh, okay. It's like the, sing Christmas bells. Yeah. Okay, so it has that little thing that, that goes throughout the whole song. And then it modulates to B flat. It does. That's how in the world that's really cool. That's the brilliance of Richard Kingsmore. If he can make it. I've, Studied transitions. Cause there was a period of time when you had to have a transition from this course to this next course. And usually it was my job to transition us. So I've studied the different ways to do that, with the dominant seventh, but one of the most common ways to do it was with the common tone between the two.

So when you're in G and you have that D you have that D also in B flat and that can provide a nice transition. That's good. That's good. I like it. I like it. And also, I like the progression of that song 

 I think he does the first half of the chorus normal just on that G And then come to E minor

And then it goes to the normal, yeah my favorite part of this arrangement is he actually goes to C and it's like you, the angels have been singing and everybody's rushing to get to the manger.

And then all of a sudden you get to this, Hushed kind of part at the end and it's oh there he is You come face to face with jesus and oh, that's awesome. I just love that part To me, I just see all the kids running up and then getting close and like just stopping in their tracks and looking miss sandy, thank you for being on the podcast again Thank you for taking the time to just share your talents with us and share your story Is there anything else you would like to share to anyone?

Any other pianists who's needing encouragement? Yeah, I just think, if God's gifted you in music, just keep going and just keep playing. I have a friend who's a gardener. And she meets God really, the closest that she feels to God is when her hands are in the dirt. And I think the closest I feel to God is when I'm playing in worship.

And I'm sure it's that way for other pianists too, because that's what draws you to God. Go to rehearsals and practice and do all those things. It's because you want to experience that again. And I know that feeling. As I'm, 65 years old, I feel like, there's going to come a time when they're going to kick me off and not want me to play anymore because, you're an old woman up there.

Somebody's going to help her up the stairs. But I think there'll always be a place. The assisted living centers, the small churches that don't have the money to hire a band. There's always a place that wants you. And I think that there will be from my aunt is 102 years old. Wow. Still playing.

Amazing. Still playing at the assisted living center. Wow. I feel like that's, I want that to be me. I don't have any desire for the stage, but I always feel like my gifts are for the Lord. And however he wants to use them. If he wants me to just play and worship I'll do that.

Yeah. But if he wants me to assist other people with worship, I want to do that too. That's amazing. I love that. Thank you for sharing that.