Lo-Fi Instrumental Piano Worship Music with Sam Garner

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Let’s welcome Sam Garner—Sam the Beard Guy—for an inspiring and laid-back conversation about blending ambient lo-fi with instrumental worship. From touring with Shane & Shane to crafting his own unique sound, Sam shares how his journey as a seasoned keys player has shaped his music. You'll get behind-the-scenes stories, a look at his live performance setup, and how he balances creativity with worship. Whether you're a musician, producer, or just love worship music with a creative twist, this episode is full of practical insights, inspiration, and a few good laughs.

Sam Garner

Sam Garner Music

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Worship Keys YouTube channel. My name is Carson Bruce, so glad you're here. We talk all things music theory, gear, industry and ministry for your worship keys playing. If this episode is beneficial for you or you have any questions as you continue to watch, feel free to comment below and I'd love to hear any feedback that you have along the way. So let's get into today's episode. Sam garner, welcome to the Worship Keys podcast. How are you, man? Oh, I'm doing good, man. Or I guess I should say Sam, the beard guy. I go by both many of you guys know Sam, at Sam, the beard guy on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. How long have you been Sam, the Beard guy? I started posting to YouTube as Sam the beard guy. I think early 2021 I just randomly one day was like, I'm gonna post a video of me accompanying this national anthem. It was the CPAC 2021 National anthem, and the singer didn't do the most amazing job. And so I thought it'd be fun to record and accompany it track to it just as a joke. And that video blew up. So I was like, oh, I'll just do YouTube. Can you see what so. Back in March of last year, so March of 2024, I sat down one morning at six. I was like, Hey, I got about 30 minutes. If I gotta leave to go do something, I'm just gonna record like a little lo-fi thing to goodness of God. I, that's just what I thought of. I had no thought about anything. I just trying to kill time. That was the start of my Instagram thing. I actually had an Instagram up until 20, 23 as Sam, the beard guy. It got hacked. My whole world got hacked. Our cards got hacked, my Uber account got hacked. This person bought like a thousand dollars worth of Uber trips in New York and so I lost my Instagram, so I had to recreate it. Wow. Yeah. So started posting consistently this version of Sam, the Beard guy. Lo-fi worship was March 18th, I think, of 2024, which is weird that I'd have that date etched in my mind, but I've referenced it enough to know. But yeah, so let's man, Sam, the beer guy in some form or fashion for, four or five years and then the Instagram thing's, not even a year old yet sorry to hear about your, the hacking experience. That's crazy. That's wild. But Sam, you are an amazing keys player. I actually do want to show one of your videos here at the beginning of this episode, guys. And if you're just listening on podcast, we're not here together. Unfortunately. You can probably tell even from the audio quality as you're listening, wherever you're listening right now, in the car or on a run or maybe you're sitting and watching it on YouTube. But we are remote right now. So I'm in Nashville, Tennessee. Sam, you are in Texas. Is that right? Dallas, Texas. Born and raised in Dallas, Texas. Awesome man. Dallas, Texas. We would love to meet you in person, of course one day, but we are remote today. We see you play all the time. We just wanna know a little bit more about your musical journey what you've done, what you plan to do, and also recent album that came out earlier this year. Really cool. Album, instrumental worship album, just on keys. And it's like you even mentioned, it's this lo-fi style and we're gonna dive deep into that and your inspiration of that. And we're also gonna talk a little bit about creativity when it comes to instrumental music. So many of us as keys players we are very much so supporting everything else, especially on a Sunday morning when you're playing in a band setting. Maybe you're in a small church and it's just you and the drum drummer, and so you're. You're doing a lot of stuff to fill up that space. But today's episode is really about instrumental worship, which I'm really excited about Sam, because we've never had an episode dedicated to just the instrumental worship aspect of it. But let this be an inspiration for us all. Sam, you're an inspiration to us all that. Hey, you know what? Let's just make some instrumental music and if we're feeling the inspiration, we'll keep doing it. But you've actually been doing instrumental music. I've been looking at your Spotify, and I'm like, man, you've been doing music for a instrumental music for a long time. And I guess you tell us. We'll start there today, man. When it comes to instrumental music, you're a producer, you have the producer mindset. Tell us when you started making like these music beds and instrumental music, when did that start for you in your music career? My background. My college degrees are in jazz piano. Oh, okay. Undergrad and jazz piano and a master's in like film and video game. But I, my whole upbringing was like jazz, classical stuff. And then probably 20 15, 20 16 I moved to Dallas and was burned out on the jazz world. So 20 18, 20 19 I got back into it, started playing at my home church. I'm at Watermark Community Church in Dallas. Started playing there a lot and got not introduced. I'd done CC M music in college, but got reintroduced to just the church music world. And so those first few years were, there was a lot of Hey, I'm playing a lot of this CC M music. I also have this like whole other skillset. That really is not helpful for the most part in CCM because it's, it doesn't typically lend itself to shredding, yeah. And so I, a few years just kinda Hey, how do I sit down at home and just have fun? I don't wanna just accompany multi-track, Lord, I need you at home and just play block chords. And it's like what I did for, how do I like fuse the worship world and just kinda this new taste palette and genre that I'm playing a lot of with my skillset. And yeah, 20 19, 20 20, I came out with like my first instrumental music piano album. It was terrible. Terrible. It was so bad. I didn't know what I was doing and I rushed it. I was getting married and I was like, I just wanna get this out before I get married and whatever. It's not even under Sam Garner. You can't even find it unless I told you where to go find it. I'm not gonna tell you where to go find it. 'cause it's that bad. It gets five listeners a month, so it's crushing it. Yeah, I mean I started getting exposed to guys like all Arnolds and John Hopkins and NROs and those type of Neoclassical max Richter, those dudes said, Hey, I kinda this stuff. I still got this whole worship thing. Like, how do I just do both? And so I did a solo piano album that wasn't worship and I think 2023 called midnight Trampolines or Trampolines at Midnight. One of those two? Yeah, one of them is song title. Another one's the album title. And then the Instagram took off. So it's then I'm gonna do. Take that skillset that I have from school and just my past and make that worshipful somehow. And so that's how I got to making that. But that's cool. Yeah, I've been making that something, that type of music in some vein, for 3, 3, 4 years. And we will talk about your recent, your most recent album, but I do want you to take us back. I always love to ask this question to all my guests, but tell us a little bit about your journey learning the piano. I started at four years old. My dad also a musician. He's a trumpeter. Nice. And so he got me into piano very early. First song I ever played was Color My World by Chicago. Still one of my favorite song. It's a deep cut. Most people don't know what it is, but played that song. My dad, thankfully it's a weird tension like when you're a dad of a 5-year-old, of Hey, do I push you to keep doing something that you're not old enough to maybe articulate that you're interested in? But yeah, he kept me on music and so I did classical piano from five to 11. I got very tired of that very quickly. I used to change things in the song for fun 'cause I just hate right? Same thing over and over again. So my piano teacher was like, Hey, maybe you'd be into jazz. And so like 11, 12 years old, like I think fifth, sixth grade-ish kinda started doing some jazz stuff. Then yeah, I went to got my undergrad jazz I didn't really even know what CCM truly was until I moved back to Dallas. Watermark is one of the, it is the first church I visited when I moved back. And so I not fell in love with, that's the wrong term, but I just enjoy music that's good and done no matter what genre. Listen to, and I can listen from Jacob Collier, who is can't keep up all the way to simple CCM music that we listen to and play now. I enjoy most genres as long as it's done at a high level. Yeah. And even though CCM music is for the most part, musically one of the simpler genres of music to play there's just something really great about just doing things well. And then with, worship music in particular, there's a whole added intent and reason behind what we're doing, and so that, that kind of, that's what motivates me. There's definitely Sundays where it's yeah, it was boring, but you get in the car and it's dude, we led worship and that's like what we did today. And the Lord was honored and glorified, and that's what I enjoy the most. Man, that's great. And I know we mentioned your account name, Sam the Beard guy, but if you are just listening you gotta see Sam on camera because his beard, your beard looks incredible, man. Tell us a little bit about your beard, because. People wanna know, man. And what's the maintenance of all that? I chose the name Sam, the beard guy, because I can never shave my beard. I had a head full of hair up until 2019 and like all people that are balding, like you can see it coming. And I had a decade of headway and so I grew the beard out. I had beards multiple times in my life at this point. I didn't, grew the beard out, shaved my head on my birthday of 2019. Yeah, and I've just, I've literally had the beard ever since. My wife I don't think she would love me anymore. If I cut it off, I would just look. It's nothing if dude, if you have no hair on your head, it's fine. But I would look stupid if I shaved my beard off. This is essential. There's definitely maintenance that you have to do. Like you can't just not do anything to it. It's still better than going to the barber and like getting your hair cut. This takes, 15 minutes a week, just, yeah, I don't, I'll put oil and stuff in it if I'm like doing video or something. That presentation matters. On a normal day. I don't touch it. I just walk around in my PJs and my pink crocs and my comb the pink Crocs. Wow. Come on right down here. I wear these all over the place. I love it, man. You should incorporate that more in your videos, man. That's awesome. Okay, I hear a little bit of a Samson story going on here. Ever since you started that beard your beard in 2019 and shortly after you started doing instrumental worship stuff. So just keep the beard man. Keep the beard. Howard's in the beard. No, I'm just kidding. But no, it's great man. We love it. Okay first of all, last October you released a single, which is beautiful. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. Oh yeah. You did amazing on that. So good. And then just recently this year you had a whole instrumental album out called Campfire Classics. Tell Us, and I love, I think that my favorite one on there is you are my All in all. That brings me back to when I was a kid in church and us doing that song. Tell us a little bit about your inspiration for that album and what the name of it, the inspiration behind even the sound design. It's just very warm sounding just tell us all about it, man. Yeah. I'm gonna go a little bit farther back 'cause it's helpful of why. Yeah, please do. Please do you know I did the Echo album last year, which was the actual lo-fi thing. Yeah. It was a ton of work to do and so I was like, I want to put out another thing that maybe isn't so much work right now. I'm actually working the time this video comes out, I'll be full into working on the second Lofi album. I'm actually, this week, according to this video, I'm starting to get a track list and start to work on it. Yes. But dude, I wanna I just wanna do something that's like simple and easy. Not lazily do it, but I was like, what's the music that is just super easy to just relate to and record and just put out? And so campfire classics, it's just all the songs. I grew up Church of Christ, and so these songs are like all songs that we sung a ton of. And Church of Christ World is no instruments whatsoever. It's just voices. And so I just had these vivid like memories etched in my brain of singing all these songs, in a. Basketball gymnasium in the sixth grade. Which is 50 kid voices singing, no, no piano, nothing. No nothing. It's just four part harmony. Oh man, I love that. You're not good enough to do four, but all these songs like just have a special spot in my brain. Just remember singing them. So let's just do some campfire classics. And I probably spent more time picking the album art than I did. The recording, the songs, I probably put a prompt into an AI generator, like 250 times just to find one. But it's a beautiful artwork. It's two chairs around a campfire and there's trees and beautiful mountains in the background. And what is that like a lake in the background too? Yeah. Or is it just mountains? Okay. It's a lake and mountains. And then a little bit of the starry night in the background too, what's your favorite favorite one of the whole album? Oh, shoot. Probably you or my All in all. I think that's, I know that, isn't that what you said? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That one I think probably got, sang the most of all of them. Absolutely. Now you don't have Holy holy on this album, do you? No, that's on the echo. Wait no. Did I do holy? No. I think I'm doing that one on the next album. Okay. But you do have that posted somewhere, right? I think I have it on YouTube. I've done that, yes. Yeah, I love that. Specifically that one. On YouTube, your music draws you in and I think on that one, you start so simple right at the, around middle C and then you slowly expand and dynamically grow it a little more. So I want you to talk a little bit about that because we have a lot of keys players that are learning and developing. Take that song, for example, how you started kinda droning on that same what could you do that B flat? What did you do? That one in D flat and A flat are my favorite keys. I okay. Did it in CII don't even remember recording it, but I have a feeling I did that in C. Okay. Okay. If I did what you're saying I did, I probably would've done it in c to make it a little. Okay. Yeah. I love what you did with that because started off real simple and then you start to voice it in a way that's really beautiful. And what I love about the melody of what you do is the ornamentations that you do the turns on there, I have to the work for me is in that context of that song, like going, Hey, I'm gonna view the ornamentation stuff as a form of building the song dynamically. And so I'm gonna start off very simple. No ornamentations, very simple voicings maybe start really in the middle, like really close shells and shapes. And then as I expand dynamically, I'm throwing ornaments and little trills and, the gospel inspired type of, runs or whatever. Yeah. The ornamentations are another thing in the tool bag of just growing a song with energy and dynamics. නැර�phones අපි අවස්ඤාමි. කරන්න අවස්තානය, විට තැල්බා මුලිඛය අපිධි තුළ ලෝඞ් කිරීමට බලයක් හොකදය අපි ඔබේ සහ එකට ලෝඞවලා සහිබා විස්ටම පැටයේ ᕙᕙᕙᕙᕙᕙᕙ I love your piano sounds because they're imperfect. You hear a lot of noise in the hammers and everything. It's very warm. What kind of piano samples are you using? What are your go-to? Talk about your sound design a little bit. There's some real drums in the lo-fi stuff. But most of what I've done has been with a felt piano. And like the north, yeah. He scape felt Oliver Arnolds has a felt piano. Oh yeah. He's got a felt piano. Westwood's got a, it's just a, what I'm feeling on that particular song I'd say noire felt is what makes the majority of the final cut. I'll try other felts and then I'll just be like, eh, noire felt works really great in a mix. A lot of those felt pianos are tough to get slotted right into a mix. Especially when there's other instruments. noire is just really good at being in a mix with other stuff. A lot of, felts have a lot of low, mid, and low. That's just the vibe where Nor Feld really shows tribute to high frequency content. But part of mean, part of the lo-fi thing is it's a literal description of the music where it's like low fidelity. Versus like high fidelity Hi-Fi stuff, like in the name Lo-fi music. There's an implied scrappiness to it, but put together in a well done and produced way. And so I just love, I hate perfection. I love little crappy things like piano noise and bench squeaks. That to me, makes everything feel more immersive. And it's I'm there, granted, this is my music we're talking about. So I was there. But when I'm listening to, other people, it's man, that bench squeak makes me feel like I'm in that room. It's so subtle and you don't always notice it. I hate perfect music. It's highly overrated. I just love. Little imperfections like noise. And on that lo-fi album I have, I use the RC 20 plugin to do vinyl tape across the whole thing. There's vinyl. Which I didn't come up with that. That's just that's just a lo-fi thing. You go listen to lo-fi girl on YouTube. Every single one of those tracks has a hiss, in the background. That's just part of the sound. Yeah, so that's my approach to piano. The drum stuff is probably what takes the longest amount of time on the lo-fi thing, because on any given track there can be, five different kicks and 10 to 15 different snares and different hats and swells and reverse swells and tambourine. I. Snares and all types. So the drums is usually what takes the longest amount of time, because lo-fi to me is, it's just as much about the p piano content, but it's really about the groove and like the drum sound to me. A lot of those songs have, a hundred to 200 tracks in logic, even the really but that's because that snare you're listening to is 10 snares deep, but it sounds like one which is weird. I don't, I might be the only person in the world that makes snare sounds by putting 10 snares together. But that's just the way my brain works. Instagram reels of the guy at two 30 in the morning, that's like tweaking like a, whatever parameter or whatever plugin. It's like he tweak the compression like half a db, prints the mix and it's like rough final 37. And then he like wakes up and he like goes and tweaks it. Another db. It's like all the, that made me think it up. Yeah. And then you realize, oh, it's not even active. Like it's all bypassed, like not even really engaged anyway. Sometimes you're like, oh, I've been working in this, on this plugin parameter for about 30 minutes and I thought I was hearing a difference since it's really just placebo me. Yeah, placebo effect. So talk a little bit about, more about instrumental music. A lot of the whole reason for Christian music, CCM or worship gospel is the lyrical content being so powerful within our worship services. Obviously you grew up Church of Christ, so it's all about the voices and the lyrics. What makes instrumental worship music so powerful, especially since it doesn't even have words? When you're leading worship, just take a Sunday morning with lyrical content. You're leading yourself in worship and through that you are leading people in worship. You have to lead yourself in worship before you can lead others in worship. And obviously, like what I'm doing, instrumentally is just vastly different because there's no lyrical content for anyone to sing to. So it's really more of Hey, I'm sitting down and I'm putting together these songs and I like doing them because they're war worshipful songs. I'm not like covering junk songs like they're songs that have inherent meaning behind them. And if you wanna listen to that, great. If you don't, then don't. I'm not, it's, I'm not leading people in worship like you would on a Sunday morning, but it is a way for, hey, if you want something safe to listen to, or it's like, Hey, I wanna listen to some Christian music, but I wanna work at the same time. I get that all the time from people. I can't work or study to songs that have words in them, and it's this is just one way to do that. Where, you're not listening to crap, but you're listening to something familiar. And it's inherently worshipful, but there's no lyrics. But it still came from a good place for the most part, and so that's the thought. I don't see it as I'm not leading worship or anything, we think about CCM, but it's just this small box, very small box of the right capacities that the Lord has given most of us, if not all of us, to work in to some degree. And worship, can happen really. It happens in every single thing we do. One of those can be instrumental worship. It happens in how we work. It happens in how we treat our family. It. Everywhere worship is just how we live our lives. It's not just relegated to the hour and a half on Sunday morning. And so I'm not leading people in worship. It's no less worshipful though, just because it's lyric lists, because I'm using the gifts that God gave me to just put piano to songs that normally have lyrics, but now they don't, absolutely, man. What advice would you give to musicians who want to create their own instrumental worship music? Oh, man. I think one of the things I tell people the most is you just have to sit down and start noodling I always say, I. One of the best things you can do to grow just kinda your chops as a piano player especially in the instrumental genre, is to just sit down and just explore. There's just a ton of unexplored space, even for me, who's been doing this a long time, especially for most piano players that maybe are a little bit more Hey, cc m's actually challenging on Sunday. I'm just trying to, there's so much unexplored space that you can tap into. And so I think, dude, sit down for 15 to 30 minutes whenever you can and just go, Hey, I have no agenda. I have no song I'm playing. I'm just gonna press notes and see what ha. And that's one of the things of having a jazz background that's super helpful. It's not helpful to tell people, oh, just go get a jazz degree. You'll be comfortable improvising. That's not helpful to tell anybody. I. Because it's probably too late. And I don't even know that I'd recommend getting a jazz degree. Anyways. That's a whole other video. But sitting down and, ex just exploring the space, just, and I'm not playing a song. I'm just playing in the key of f and I'm just gonna create melodies and create things. I've written songs with people where it's like songs came out of that. I just, I was noodling for an hour, creating an improv video on YouTube or whatever, and there was like a little nugget in there that I was like, oh, I think there's something that I can work with here. Send that off to a songwriter buddy. And, seeing where that goes. And so I think, the big thing is just starting and just trying and just playing stuff. If you are trying to, do instrumental music in the form of just like covering a song it could be helpful to read some, if you can read sheet music, sit down and read some sheet music of a praise charts chart that actually has everything written down for that song. You just sit down and just play through the song and then just as play it, you just add your own little flavor, which part of that flavor that we all have as our own musicians is just comes from exploring space and improvising and just, figuring out who we are as a player. I have a unique sound, just like a lot of guys have unique sounds, but we found those sounds from just sitting down and just noodling, and just seeing what comes natural. I love that man. As far as like copyright and legalities and going to submit it what's some advice for just like practicalities, technicalities for that? There's a public domain list that you can go search and it'll tell you if it's. Public domain or not, which you're gonna want to do if you are releasing anything. 'cause you don't want to get caught, not paying the licensing. Most, I mean I only use one distributor. I use Distro kid. But any distributor that you use is going to give you the option to assign or say this is written by X, Y, and Z person. And so a district kid in particular, I just say, who wrote the song that I think they asked for? Who made it famous? And then they do the work, you pay a fee to them and then they go, they do the work to go secure the license from the holder of the song whoever owns it. And then they do all the math of, when I get whatever amount of check for whatever they pull the fees out to pay those people. So I. It would be weird if you're trying to record a song and you have to do any of that, the only thing you really have to do is just know if it's owned by someone and then make sure you say that when you upload it to get posted to wherever, which that distributor, if you don't know, and that distributor is gonna, you upload your files there, then it distributes your songs to all the DSPs, Spotify, apple Music. So no one uploads music directly to Spotify. No one does that. You upload it to a distributor and they do all that for you. But yeah, you don't, you don't need permission to cover a song. I think a lot of people think that, not that, maybe that's a weird thing to say 'cause it's worship music, but you don't have to reach out and be like, dude, can I record your song? Like it's legal to cover a song without permission, but what you do owe them is their share of the income that comes from those streams. And so yeah, if you're uploading music, just make sure you know if it's owned by someone and if it is, make sure you put that down so you can pay them. Whatever they're owed, because there are definitely lawsuits that happen people on a much larger scale than me. Rights do happen and it can be impactful if you don't pay what you're supposed to pay. That's good information for people to know. Some people just don't know those things. Distro Kid is wonderful. When it comes to monetization, being a creative person, it's always a struggle of like, how am I gonna pay my bills? Then also be creative and have time to do all this. Talk a little bit about what you do as a professional musician producer. What's your main source of income, if you don't mind us asking? You don't have to say numbers or anything, but what actually pays the bills for you as a musician and how does how are you able to stay creative and have the time to do all that you're doing? Because it does take a little bit of dedicated time to be like, you know what, I'm gonna do this project, I'm gonna follow through. So can you give us your best advice and a little bit of insight on that? Yeah, you're right. There isn't enough time to do all of it. I have, I use Asana to manage my task but it's tough when you like, love what you do. Yeah. It's like I never feel the burnout, so it's like I just love music. But yeah, I mean it definitely is challenging to make this work, which, can be really discouraging. It's. Unfortunately, the music world is a saturated market, every creative space will probably be that way forever. Because there's just something really appealing about being a creative for a living. But there's only so many opportunities. I've been fortunate enough to make it work, but, those days could be numbered and you never know. So I'm grateful now, but my main source of income is playing live. And so traveling with people, recording sessions, anything that's I'm actually playing piano, even if it's like in here, like tracking for other people, that's the, I'd probably say 70% of, my main income. It's just, and I play a ton. It's too much. But that's what really pays a lot of the bills is just playing a ton. And outside of that, I sell courses on, my website. I have money that comes in from music YouTube revenue affiliate links on products, things like that. I'm trying to move my life into the direction where a hundred percent of my income is like, sitting in this chair, like in my PJs and my pink Crocs. That probably will never happen. There will always be some component of, playing live. Either the people I get to travel with I love traveling with, so I don't even know if I'd wanna give that up ever. There is a little bit of a risk that you have to take to say no to things because I just need to be at home working on this thing because in five years when I get it built up to do whatever, it'll help me not travel as much. So I can maybe not be gone every other weekend and I can go to baseball games or valet or whatever the kids want to get into. So yeah, it's, it, there's a lot of different streams. And it can be like whack-a-mole where it's like you forget you have one and then you need to focus on it, and then you forget about the other one. And it's just it can be a lot. I need an assistant, but I don't have one. Thanks for sharing, sharing all of that. I think many of us can relate for going and doing a gig, getting paid for it, especially as a keys player even at church or other otherwise. But that's really great. Talk about your live playing. So you said you love playing live. Some recent, maybe some recent projects you've been a part of, both in the studio or live. Share with us a little bit about why you love that so much and who do you play with and is there anything you'd like to talk about when it comes to the live setting? Yeah. A few of the groups that I work with, a ton. Worship Initiative is one of them. I play and record with Worship initiative. I feel like I'm probably up there every week right now. That could change, at any point. But they do a lot of live travel and they do a lot of studio records and tutorials and teaching and podcasts. So I do a lot of stuff with them. I do a lot of work with Shane and Shane so I'll travel with them and, record with them in the studio or we do these, they have this Devo app that we record music for. And so there's a, a pretty good amount of work there. Aaron Williams is another guy that I, get to play with frequently. He wrote the Abide song. So Good man, great song, but I, I just was with him last weekend in Iowa doing a thing. Watermark has a worship team and we, post music and do stuff with them. And then there's some other things that I've gotten to do recently that I can't say yet, I don't think, but yeah those are probably the big three to five people that keep me the busiest. That's amazing. What's your keyboard setup like in the live setting? Yeah. I I have a a three circle design rack that I put into a Pelican 1535. Nice. I think it's the biggest travel overhead pelican they make. I'm pretty sure. And I have my interface USB. Like thing in it. So I really just travel with my computer in that rig. I'd say 99% of what I do is back lined. I will not fly with a keyboard. I like refuse to do that. It's just not, I'm just not interested. So if I'm getting on a bike, there needs to be a keyboard there. I say that, I'm sure there would be an exception that's appropriate, but I don't travel with the keyboard just 'cause it's so much hassle. Someone has some keyboard somewhere to get, and so my, my, my travel rig and, load is pretty light. If it's like a one night trip, I don't even bring a suitcase. I just wear the same clothes the next day, which maybe is disgusting. It's just not worth bringing an extra bag. I just got my little pelican in my backpack and then that's all I, that's all I need. Simple, space I use. A lot of nexus or a lot of nexus, a lot of Omnisphere. Those are pads and scents. A lot of Valhalla, reverb stuff. All for Arnolds. He has a composer toolkit. Plugin or something that has some great pads in it that I use. A lot of like piano world, like grandeur, gentlemen, those are native instruments. And then keys, scape and noire. I use those a ton. Are you all in the box? Are you all software when you're live? All in the box. I'm out. Nice. Out of the box. I love not having to worry about a rig. Yeah. Like a handful of times a year I'll get to play on a grand piano and that's the worship set. And it's dude, I wish I could do this. Like the good old days. Yeah. Just play, man. Hardware is so much more convenient and honestly it's so much more reliable even though software is to the point now where it's a negligible difference in risk. There's something nice about just showing up and playing, but then software just gives you so much more that you can do, I can't get reverb on a Nord piano, exactly I'm a big software guy. I love software stuff for grad school, made a sample piano library and sample different types of piano. One of them one of the samples I got sounded like the piano on a few of your songs on your album. Just 'cause it's just kinda. It's just noisy, but it feels good. It's like the good kind of warm, noisy feel that you get and the release of the hammers and the expression of it. Really cool. But that's great. I love to hear that. What's your favorite go-to keyboard? What's the keyboard you have right there in your studio? What do you normally play on? Co D one just sitting like right here on a pullout tray. I love the core D one 'cause it's, it's got great, it's got a great feel. I'm pretty sensitive. I don't wanna say sensitive. My preference is to have a keyboard that feels good, there you go. Seems obvious. But I love the core key Bed is good. And it's an affordable, I think it's 700 bucks, which is probably on the steeper end of MIDI keyboards. But it has some onboard sounds, but it's just, it's really just a key bed. And then, I don't mind playing on Nords. The Nord stage twos are the best. There's this guy I saw on Instagram that he like, doesn't paint, but he changes the color of the Nord. And so he like, yes. Justin Patrick Ford is his name. He does that. He. I think he does it in post, right? He does it in post. Yeah. And we went over to his house to record. It's green. It's as green is like a green screen so that he can put the different effects on it. Freaking, isn't that funny? Incredible. So he'll make it purple, whatever color. He's a great player. He's a cool dude. It was good to get your thoughts on that man. As far as keyboards go. A few more things. Okay. So you talk about worship initiative playing for Shane and Shane, and that's, that, that's pretty impressive. If those guys are calling you to be the keys guy to help, in these worship services or recordings or whatever, that's pretty amazing. So give us some tips to other players when you go to approach a gig or any type of thing that you're doing how are you preparing as far as, I want people to really understand the level of preparation that, of course you've been playing since you were four, right? Four to 11, you were doing classical and some point you were doing jazz. So it's all been, it's a culmination, right? It's all a compounding thing. But when you go to prepare and you play at these gigs as far as practicalities, how much are you relying on just your training and music theory? How much are you actually reading a chart? Do you just play like all the time in your studio, like the set list down a few times and say, you know what, I got it. And go on the side, do you have just the name of the songs and the keys, and then you're good to go? How much are you relying on charts, number system? Tell us all of that. As far as preparation and music theory? Yeah. On, on a Sunday morning type of set. I'm not typically prepping a ton. If it's like a set that's, Hey we've played these songs a ton. I'm not gonna sit down at all and play them. And I prefer it that way 'cause I just, every single time you run a song back, it's just less fun. Run a song before the worship service. Yeah. That for me. I hate rehearsal. I, yes, there are some groups that I play with where it's the first time we're running the song is in the set. Like we just don't rehearse it. That's the most optimal form I could have everything I ever wanted. That's the way, obviously that is not always the best thing for the, the situation you're in. You need to rehearse stuff. And so if there's like a, a new song like let's say for a Sunday morning most of these songs, and this is just for me, I don't think it's helpful for a lot of people. For me, I can learn most songs by just listening to them. Because there's not a lot going on chord wise to not be able to learn a song, especially by the time you get to the service. Like you'll have two or three reps playing the song. You'll feel comfortable knowing it. Really, the big thing is Hey, can I learn whatever this hook or lead line is? In the car, or do I need to sit down for five minutes and play it? But if it's something that I can just learn with my ear, then I'll just learn it that way just so I don't have to sit down and play it until I need to. But again that's what I do because I can, I think, you know what matters is that you show up prepared and you play what you're supposed to. So if that's not something that you can do, then don't hear me saying that that's okay. Sit down and play the music at home and learn it if that's what you need to do to get comfy on your finger, which there's nothing wrong with that. The, all of us have different, backgrounds and abilities and whatever. Now that's not to say that I won't spend time like building sounds and stuff. I will, once every month or two I'll open up main stage for a day. Bring in new sounds like. That's more of like a general maintenance on the rig itself, not like a prep for a certain thing. The most important thing is that you show up ready to play. The, I come from the mindset and the school of thought of the rehearsal is not really for you to learn the music. I think there's tons of nuance to that statement. I think it's okay if everyone is 90% there on a song and it's oh I, sorry, I forgot that one little thing in the ta. I think it's okay to come in, 90% ready to go. I've been in worship environments where it's like really high strong and it's oh dude, that guy forgot how the tag went. It's it's like I, I'm not interested in being in that type of environment. I don't think anyone should be. Rehearsal is a time to have the music ready to go for the most part, and then y'all finding a way as a team to make it better just as a sum of all its parts. So yeah. If you'd asked me eight years ago what my thoughts on charts were, I probably, like. Where not using charts as like this badge of honor type of thing of, oh dude, I don't need charts. And I've I've swung the other direction on that. And I don't think you should be using a chart for, oh, praise the name after 10 years that the song's been out. I think that's different. But if I listen to a song and I go, Hey, there's nothing about this song that is unique, other than we're just playing chords, I might go, Hey, I'm comfortable walking into rehearsal, looking at the chart on my phone first time through. And then if I'm able to commit it to memory, then I will. And if I can't get it by the set, I have absolutely no problem having my phone on the Nord and like looking at a chart, I just, it just doesn't bother me. I don't care When people use charts, everyone has a whole week that happens between set the set from Sunday morning to Sunday morning. And it just might not have been possible to like, learn every song. So in depthly that you're just like, yeah, I'm more comfortable not using it. I do think that should be the goal. Hey, don't use charts if you can. 'cause I think you can get a little bit more immersed in the music and what's happening. And there's something weird that happens when you're reading charts where sometimes you make more mistakes because you're not listening, you're trying to read. And I noticed that and I'm aware of that, but there are some songs that are like, yeah, I'm just gonna read a chart. And that's, I think it's fine it's not a big deal to me at all to re charts at all. I don't wanna rechart for the whole set. Yeah. Songs we played a million times. Like I don't, it's not a crutch of I'm just what I'm familiar with. So I'm just gonna read a chart just because I wanna read a chart. I want to end up at a place where I've committed songs to memory. But then again, it's dude, you play, you know what I've have, I played a thousand different CCM songs in the past, 10 years. They, it starts to get hard to know which one's which. Usually I play at The Porch, which is a young adult's ministry at Watermark, and we had same God on the s and I was like, yeah, that's who do you wanna, there's who do you wanna count that like weird five, four bar, like on the bridge? And the worship leader was like, that's not same God, that's that's that other song. And I was like, oh. I thought that was the same God. Okay. I know I knew the song, but I just got some bridge confused and Right. Reading charts is fine, whatever. Over time, like you said, you've played so many hundreds, maybe even thousands of CCM or worship style songs that the progressions are there are certain patterns that feel the same. There's so many bridge progressions that go that 4, 5, 6, 1 over three or whatever, and it's like at a certain point it's just about the new voicings of that new melody and you have anything else to add when it comes to that man? Yeah, yeah, there is a crossover point of hey, the music has no longer been to know what is there. It's become just a comfortability thing. And so you're the midweek rehearsal thing, man. Yeah I think I've only commented on one of your videos ever and it was that clip and I got fired up. I was like, this guy gets it. Because I think what he said, he was saying something along the lines of and correct me if I'm wrong, like there's a lot of other important things going on and people like, Hey, yes, me, my family on a Wednesday night is more important. Than rehearsing these songs nine times. If we need to rehearse these songs nine times, we're just doing something wrong. There's a cost to being away from family, especially for rehearsal when it's dude, we could just show up an hour earlier on Sunday. 'cause I do know a lot of these churches that do midweek rehearsals, it's yeah, we don't have any time on Sunday morning. Okay, I get that. I refuse to do this anymore, but I've played at churches where it's like Wednesday night rehearsal and then Sunday is a full rehearsal. And it's like, why am I doing both? Appropriate conversation for a youth band or, a really, small volunteer. It's like there's a genuine need to rehearse, go for it. But I do think there are worship leaders that just feel more comfortable when the whole band has just played the songs a million times and it's like the worship leaders don't have enough trust in their people to just show up and play. How many times have you rehears? I'm getting heated talking, I'm getting fired up, man, how many song? Nine times in a rehearsal, and it's gotten that much better, like it's a, we're just playing these songs so everyone keeps reminding each other that we still know the songs. But I haven't forgotten how this went since two weeks ago when we did this Wednesday night rehearsal and did this again. Yes. Yes. Just, it's just again, and I'm talking in the context of a, a mid-level to maybe quasi professional environment. It's just, dude, I, this is such a hot take, but rehearsal is so overrated. It's just so overrated. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Man, I wanna make sure you had enough time to say all that you needed to with that. 'cause I, yeah. Cannot agree more. Cannot agree more, man. Time management's a big thing. There is this weird thing where everyone thinks that, like the back line is the people that have to learn the song. And a lot of those times in those rehearsals, it's hey, it's because the person that maybe is scheduling this rehearsal is the one that didn't know the song. Like worship leaders they wanna make us learn all these songs all the time, and then you like, make them learn a song once, or they have to learn a song last minute. It's like they forget. It's like they're all of a sudden aware of what we have to do every week, it's where it's like, Hey, I feel like this rehearsal is like for you. Like this is not for us. Like the whole we're good. Yes, this is you and you're the one that scheduled this story. Why? Why don't you just come in and you're the one singing the melody. You're the one person here. That is the thing. Exactly. Like the record. Yes. Anyways, we can stop talking. I just can, that's one of my favorite topics because it's too good. No, I love that. And the amount of people that would disagree with us and Jamie and other people, it's amazing. But it's there, there's a little bit of a divide depend depending on the culture and what's at play. And the other argument is how else would you bond with your team? Or whatever. You could just go hang out or have family dinners or have, you can still get together. It's like not, that's just not, to me, it's if I wanna bond on my team, guess what I don't wanna be doing. Oh, praise the name for the 30th time. That's how I wanna do it. Yes. You're exact, you're exactly right, man. Oh my gosh. And a lot of it I don't know if this is like it for you, but the worship leader themselves, person leading the song, the singer, the vocalist and the drummer, they hold so much of the glue together. So if they're getting all their entrances and getting everything right, the tracks are loaded in. If you're using tracks from, click whatever, and then the drummer dynamically is leading you where you need to go, you can show up to the worship service and be ready to go. 'cause you're fitting into it. Now the drummer, I don't know if you can relate to this, but yeah, the drummer makes such a big difference for me when I'm playing and the worship leader, those two people are locked in. I can fit in anywhere, you know what I mean? So yeah, definitely make a big difference. Oh yeah. I think, less than ideal guitar is you can, whatever, less than ideal bass you can get by, if the feel's not there and the groove and just the instincts, then yeah that always feels the most impactful to me. Just drummer to drummer. One last question for you, Sam. So before we wrap it up, you guys need to go follow Sam, the beer guy on YouTube, Instagram. Is there any last piece of advice or any last words you'd like to give us? Yeah, I you asked a question earlier about prep and like professional, musicianship. I think one of the biggest lessons I've learned in just this world and this is not my analogy, I, I've heard it. Same concept, multiple different ways. There's preparation professionalism, and then like hanks, we'll just use those words, and if you have two of those things like really locked in you'll probably be all right. If you have all three, then it's like you're crushing it. If you only have one of those, then it can be a really challenging, environment for you to be in. And I think, one of the things I had to learn was just how to be pleasant to be around. I'm a drier individual sometimes, and I, my sense of humor can be on the fringe of ugh. And so I've had to like, really, like if you ask people at watermark, my home church, what I was like 10 years ago. It was like, dude, yeah, we thought Sam hated us. 'cause I just was not, I was not pleasant. And one thing that I've really learned is, being good at what you do is really important and being prepared is really important. But being pleasant was the other piece, being pleasant to be around is like a really important thing. And it just, it's dude, you spend, like when I travel it's we'll spend an hour and a half playing a worship set, or I spend 20 minutes on stage on Sunday morning, but I spend a full day traveling with those people, or multiple hours in the green room with those people. And so I spent so much of my life I just need to be good at what I do. And then I was just the absolute worst to be around. And so I do think, obviously there's a component of this. It's dude, if, if you're, on your journey of sanctification, it's like you should be enjoyable to be around anyways. I've learned this the hard way. But yeah, those are the three P's that I think, really sum up what people excel at or they just really fall short in,