How to Blend CCM & Gospel on the Piano with Carlous Drake

Watch on YouTube

Carlous Drake from Chattanooga, Tennessee joins us for this week episode on The Worship Keys Podcast. Carlous shares the merging of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) with gospel genres, exploring practical techniques and cultural insights for worship key players. He shares his musical journey, experiences in ministry, and provides hands-on demonstrations of playing techniques that bridge these two musical styles. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned musician, you'll find valuable tips and inspiration in this episode. Don't miss Carlous playing live on the CP 88 keyboard, showcasing the blend of CCM and gospel in real-time. Join the conversation and learn how to incorporate these techniques into your worship practice.

Carlous Drake 

Transcript

Speaker: 0:08

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. Alright guys, all the way from the land of Chattanooga, Tennessee Uhhuh. We have carlous Drake on the works of Keith's podcast, man. How are you today? Thank you for having me, bro. I'm doing good. Glad to be in Nashville. You said it was smooth. I, I, it's hard to believe because sometimes the commute from Nashville, Chattanooga, Chattanooga, Nashville. I, like, I always hit traffic. Always. I was, I was surprised. Yeah, yeah. Guys, if you love carlous, you know him. Let us know where you're listening from today. Drop the comments here on YouTube, or if you're listening on podcast, I don't know where you guys are watching or listening this to the, on this episode, but thank you for being a part of this. This is gonna be a great episode where we talk about the differences between CCM contemporary Christian music Right. And the gospel genres. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of that, there's been a big merge happening in the last 10 years or so. Yeah. And, people that have been in the worship scene for 40 or 50 years can speak more on this, and I know that we, we could probably even speak on this. Right, right, right. But, um, carlous, I'm so excited for you to talk on this subject. Tell us a little bit though, before we do, so you are a keys player. You're a drummer, you're a producer, singer, songwriter. Not a singer. Not a singer. Too far. Too far. Too far. Too far. Are you a songwriter? Yeah. I, I write a little bit. Yeah. Now your wife sings No. Yeah, she's an artist. She's an artist, okay. Yeah. And a worship leader. What's her name? Janelle Drake. Janelle Drake. Janelle Drake. Okay. 'cause I've seen her on your page on Instagram. Yeah, of course. Yeah. We, um, we've had writing sessions for her. I, I get to produce for her. That's exciting. And so it's always a joy to produce for your wife, you know? Yes, sir. Yeah. I, I'm a lucky man. That's awesome, man. You guys have kids? Yeah. Jordan. Drake? Uh, yeah. Oh, very nice. Janelle and Jordan, the love of my life. Aw man, that is awesome. So, so good. Well, tell us a little bit of your keys journey. Yeah. When did you start learning keys and, are you on staff at a church now? What do you do creatively? What is your role? Yeah, who is carlous? Drake man. Who is carlous? Drake. Man, a lot of things make up who I am and I think that's such a great topic because we're talking about, two genres merging together. And, , a lot of who I am is made up, um, from the diversity that I've been able to, have poured into me through music, in various, uh, situations. So I started my music journey. My grandfather was a pastor in Chattanooga, Tennessee, um, from Memphis. So he's, you know, if you're from Memphis, you have to be a musician. He so many great musicians outta Memphis, man, man, man. So he was a s player and a keyboard player, and so. He just naturally , the church had a very strong music culture. Uh, we've had great musicians to come out of that church, and he just always made it just a rich environment to learn. And so started there, playing the drums. Ironically, I never, I never even wanted to touch the keyboard. It was my mom who made me kind of get into keyboard playing. Yeah. Um, glad I did. Glad I did. So I went from that. And around, you know, 14, 15, 16 started keys. And again, as we're talking about the makeup of my journey, a lot of, I, so I went from my grandfather's church, which was a traditional Baptist church. So I'm learning a lot of the, that. Traditional gospel, you know, the hymns of the church, the spirituals, the foundational gospel stuff in that traditional church went from that. At 16 I started working for, one of the big, predominantly black churches in Chattanooga, and they were very Pentecostal. And so, you know, that's flowing. You don't know what's, you know, somebody's gonna come in singing, you know, so, because it is just very spirit led, moved from that. To a church that was CCM tracks very production oriented. And so that, those type of things just kind of influenced who I am as a musician. That makes this topic, you know, awesome to talk about. But what I'm doing now , as you kind of talked about a little bit, upper room studios you saw a little bit of upper room studio. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a nice setup over there too, man. Thank you. Thank you. The studio is really, really cool. I love it. Thank you. Can't wait for you to come through. I can't wait to be there, man. Sometime. I'm making this promise on your podcast. Oh, snap. Okay. That you're gonna be there soon. Oh, speak it man. Speak it to existence. I'm speaking it. Yeah, we're gonna get you, we're gonna get you an upper room. I love you, man. So Upper Room is a c Christian creative community. So we have upper room studios and we have, upper room CCC. Christian creative community. Awesome. And so it just started from me and my wife who , we do music together. We've, been blessed to be co worship directors together at various times. And, uh, we've always just had friends, whether producers, singers, writers, and when we're working on projects, we're very collaborative. So we always brought people together. We had a space once we started, upper room studios, and we would do these writing camps, working on her projects, other people's projects, and it just ballooned into one person's like, Hey, I got a friend who writes, so I got a friend who does this. And then it just grew into something that was like, yeah, we need to make this like official, this needs to be some a thing, you know? So that's why we started Upper Room. We're in our second year. We've already had our upper room weekend where we see people come from different cities, different states once a year where we do, writing camps, worship nights, various things. And we just look to use the creativity that God has given us to be a blessing in this world. Man, that's all we're trying to do. That's awesome, man. Can worship Keys players be a part of that community? Absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome. Um, you can, you can find more about, upper room@upperroomstudios.org. Sweet. That has all the information about if you want to be a part of the community. If you want to learn, we have some mentorship opportunities. Obviously this is a great place to learn. I've caught a lot of man. Um. Dewan Hill podcast. Yeah. Dewan Hill. Yeah, he's great. Amazing. On the Oregon, Natalie Lane. Yes. She's awesome. So this has been an amazing opportunity to learn and that's why I wanted to come into your creative space and just kind of talk shop, man. Thanks, man. You know, mentorships are very important. We've talked about definitely the importance of a one-on-one piano teacher when you're learning piano and having someone who can walk with you Yes. Who's already been before, you know, gone before you. Yes, yes. And, and they're at the spot you wanna be. So having that mentorship is important and I think that's really cool as a creative person to have a mentor. So I think that's really cool that you have that community. And I think the word community can be a buzzword, but it truly is a community, right? Mm-hmm. If you can get in, know people, they know your name. Yes, yes. To be known, put yourself out there and actually exist now. We have communities within our churches, within our schools where there's so many different little places we can have communities, but let's have a creative space and share together. Yes. Yes, yes. So good, man. Well, so unloading this morning, you brought out your CP 88 keyboard, CP 88, so made by Yamaha. We love the CP 88. We've actually featured it on an episode with Seth, okay. With Seth Builds rigs, and he talks about building different tracks, rigs. He's built rigs for, Stephen Hurst, Chapman, Amy Grant, Riley Clemons, a lot of churches in town here in Nashville, okay, but on staff at, Crosspoint Church. Okay. And they use this CP 88. Awesome. And a lot of people love these cp, stage pianos by Yamaha. Maybe you guys are that you're watching, you're listening. You're like, yep, I got that same keyboard. But all that to say, you guys will be able to hear carlous play here in just a little bit. So. Don't go away. Don't go away. The good stuff is coming. Yeah. Because I, I do want you to be able to just demonstrate for us on the keys Yeah. The differences between the CCC m style mm-hmm. And the gospel style. And so we'll intro it with this saying, you know, let's talk about the differences, before you actually demonstrate. Yeah. What do you think are the main differences between CCM and gospel, and how do you see it blending and how do you see that being a good thing? As I was kind of thinking about this, I kind of think about it. If you were to put up a circle in one hand. And you say, this is CCM, and then you put a circle in this hand and say, this is gospel. You have to identify what is the foundation of this genre. Write in your circle with what that is. Every genre also has their standards. I, I believe you're a jazz guy, right? Yeah. I love it. Love it. Got the real book, man. Got the real book. I got you. So one of the first things I was taught when I was studying jazz was the standards of the genre. You got your misty, all the things you are absolutely, things like that. And those are the foundations of the genre. And so when you look at CCM, what songs make up the foundation of that genre, and then you start singing similarities and patterns. And then beyond that, there is a culture as well. And you see that in, in your churches, the culture, the foundations, the patterns, all of those things. So if you take. CCM and gospel. Very, very different. But what we've been seeing here is when they come together, there's this little, when the circle meets in the middle right, you find what the similarities are. And I think, one of the biggest bridges has been worshiped. Yeah. And that's where you find the biggest bridge point, connection point, yes, sir. Is, is through worship, you know, gospel has its, what can you call it? You have people who are purist, of course. And then you have people on the other side that are CCM purists. But again, a lot of people give credit to Maverick City. . I kinda like to give a lot of credit to Israel. Okay. Yeah. At least for my generation. I'm sure there's someone who may can speak to, before my generation, but in my generation it was Israel who was starting the blending and it was in worship where you can find the circles meeting and then, Israel, Maverick City, they're big ones. And you know, CCM is big on soundscape and that's what I love about it as a producer. Right, right, right. Being able to produce, find the sounds, the palette in just four chords. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Make it, it interesting with just that, from the gospel end. It's like musician chops approach first. And I like it because it's just honoring God with the excellence of, uh, of the gift and being able to study and Absolutely. And to dive deep, each chaz's place, but then they come together as we should. Worshiping God, honoring God. You see it in our worship music. You see it in hymns. Yes. You know, I've been to churches that are on the CCM side. They sing, amazing Grace, just like we did at my grandfather's church. Yeah. Different, right. But Amazing Grace, you know? Yep, yep. So totally. That's kind of how, how I see it. They, they have they differences. And as you start to look at what is the foundation of this genre on both ends, you will see those differences more. But then as you start to go into the sub genres, and one is the worship, you'll see a lot of, okay, they blend together. And so you have to figure out as the creative, how do I want to express. My musical skill, how I can dive in one side and come back in the other and live in both worlds. Because that's where we are. We are, whether you like it or not, we're seeing a hybrid. That's true. And I love it. I love it too, man. Yeah. And there are some individuals who, like you said, purists that Oh, yeah. They don't want to go away from even those, those traditional hymns, that people used to sing a lot of only in like the forties, fifties, sixties. Oh yeah. Where you only sing that and, you only wanna sing from the certain hymn book. And you have, you go back to that tradition. Mm-hmm. And then you have, uh, people that only really gravitate more towards the CCM and the people that only really gravitate towards the gospel and are not even very inclusive or even want to hear anything, CCM or anything gospel. But I think it's the beau, it's the beauty and the expression. Of this and what Dewan Hill, when he said, when he was on the organ specific episode that we had, I loved what he said. He said like, CCM does in sound design what gospel does in chord progression. Something along those lines. Gotcha. Mm-hmm. Gospel players we're doing a lot of chord progressions because we don't, there's not as much sound, sound design filling up the space. It it, yeah. Whereas if you had a lot of sound design filling up the space, it might be muddy. There we go to do all those chord progressions. Mm-hmm. So it all depends on what's going on. Right. I learned that in CCM, when I was first trying to merge the two. What we'll talk about passing chords, man, when you got pads going everywhere five different guitar parts, you can't really pass between stuff. It gets muddy. Some sounds are sustaining where you're trying to move. Right, right. It just doesn't work. But again, that goes to knowing. The genre and knowing what are the rules, and then knowing how to break them. Absolutely. To someone who is a CM player right now mm-hmm. Heavy on the programming, sound design using Ableton main stage, and they're using this in a CM standard. Right. And they wanna start playing more gospel in the gospel chops. Mm-hmm. What would be your advice to them? And then on the flip side, what would you give to the gospel player who also might be really good with selling design too, but just not quite using it in that CCM style and really wants to, what advice would you give to those two people? Well, one, I would say don't pigeonhole yourself. That's good. There is a beauty in being able to leap, and live in different worlds. But I caution you if you're going to do it, be authentic to it. That's good. That's good. Yeah. Be authentic to it. And the best way to be authentic, just like when you're learning a new language immersion, you gotta immerse yourself in the culture. Oh, immerse. Yes. And so I tell people all the time, whether it's a pastor coming to me and saying like, Hey, I want a diverse church. What would you, give me to do? How, how, how can you help me with that? And then the first thing I say, man, go into the community. Find a church, find a black church. Or on the other end, find a white church. Go to Sunday school and you know what I'm saying? And just be with the people. You know? Yeah, yeah. Learn the culture, you know what I'm saying? Go to church service and really not trying to steal members, you know what I'm saying? You know, go and just love on the people. And then when you immerse yourself, one of the things that I was taught when I was coming from a traditional Baptist church and I was coming into a Pentecostal church is that, um, some things can't be taught. They have to be caught. Yeah. Come on. You know? And you can't catch it unless you're in the environment to say, Hey, I got my glove up. Throw the ball. You know what I'm saying? That's right. And so those would be the first things is first, see the beauty in it. Because I have seen CCM songs that are amazing and can be taken to another level with some of the musicianship that you get from Gospel. Absolutely. And then I've sing gospel songs on the other side, take from, the CCM with the lyrics, you know, taken that type of approach, sound design, all of that, and incorporating it. So man, do that and then just immerse yourself in the culture. I love that. Okay. I love that. When I asked that you didn't go to practicalities, you didn't say, Hey, do this three step thing, uh, it's just like you gotta get immersed in the culture. And I think that's so important. And I love that what you guys do with upper room studios in that community. Which by the way, not to be confused with Upper Room in Texas. No, that has happened. Hey. But a good happened one, one guy came up to me in one of our worship nights and he was like, I thought you guys were upper room Dallas. And we just came. And the Hangout, I was like. Thanks for coming. We're glad to have, you know, sometimes it works in our favor, but Yeah. Right, right, right. Not the same thing. Not the same thing, but still really great that y'all have that community. Yeah. But I love that you said carlous, is that it has to be, you have to be immersed in that culture. Definitely. You'll pick up so much and then you'll learn what. What is you, what, what makes you comfortable? What, what forms your opinions? The way that you execute music. And at that point, that's where you start to develop your sound. You know, every, every church has a sound. Whether there can, we can line up five different CCM churches, they're all gonna be different, you know? It's just learning. Um. Your sound, which you have to offer, um, but from learning from the genres and others who have done it before you. Yeah. So good., Let's back it up a little bit, carlous. Cool. To your younger years when you learn the piano. Mm-hmm. What are some simple tips? There's some people they're just diving into keys right now. What are your best beginner tips for someone, um, besides jumping in the culture, which I think that could also be just jumping the culture too for when you're learning different genres, but just square one, you're learning your skills. Mm-hmm. What's the best advice to your younger self learning? The piano man. The one thing that broke. Broke through with me. When I finally got it, I was like, man, if I would've learned this years earlier when I learned the Nashville number system, it just changed life for me. Yeah. It, it just really did. Totally. So that's one thing because I think theoretical knowledge, it is always just gonna improve what you do naturally. So I would say get some of that theoretical knowledge, uh, specifically I think the natural number system unlocks a lot for people. Another thing I would say is going back to those standards, if your goal is to learn gospel, go to the standards. And as you know, probably when I was learning classical music, they would give you, moonlight Sonata, but they're not giving you the advanced versions. Right, right. You know what I'm saying? Yep, yep, yep. They got beginner, intermediate, advanced. Yes, yes. So take one of the standards and it may be too complicated for you. That's fine. Dumb it down. Right, right, right. But just learn the basic way of how to play it. It's okay to start that way. And as your skills improve, you can improve how to play that song as well. Totally. So those a couple just baby steps I would take. What would you say is the biggest like mistake that you've seen when people try to blend CCM in gospel and maybe the culture isn't ready or they're not ready? Have you seen that at all? From a musical perspective or from a like a ministry perspective? I would say from a ministry perspective. Okay. From a, 'cause I think it flows from the ministry, right? Of course. Of course. Because once they have that in their mind, like it, then the worship ministry, the sound of it changes too. So talk a bit, a little bit like that if you, if you have anything on that. I dunno. Yeah. So as we all do, when we're young and we're learning and we're doing ministry, we all make mistakes. And one of my young mistakes in ministry was not understanding that the pastor is the worship leader. I'm just here to give expertise as a musician and, to help walk out the vision. But the pastor is the one who sets the tone, has the vision and ultimately his expression of worship. His culture is gonna be, is gonna be in the DNA of the church. Mm. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. If you're, if you have competing goals and you're so musical and you're like, man, we need to be doing this and this and this, and this, and this, and you're losing the head of your church, you're getting out in front of the head worship leader. Come on, man. So the first thing would be, you may be feeling something and that's great. God puts things inside of us. But first you need to make sure that you're aligned. And so taking what you're hearing to your leadership and just first being like, Hey, how do you think this would play in worship? Mm-hmm. What do you think about this genre or what, how do you, pastor knows his flock. He knows how it will be received, and there are some certain tricks that you can do to try to win your congregation over. I'm a firm believer of you can't always give the congregation what they want. Sometimes you need to teach your congregation and expose your congregation. So there is a place for that, but we wanna do it in wisdom. So if I was dealing with the older congregation, one of the things that we would do, I'm trying to get a song in my head. Let's just say friend of God, for example, Israel, that, contemporary worship feel. For our older congregation, I would do friend of God, introduce it to the church and do on the end of it, tag what a friend we have in Jesus. Yeah, you, yeah, yeah, yeah. You merge both worlds together. Find more ways to do some of that stuff. If, if it's like, Hey, we're a CCM church. I saw one, uh, good tip from, uh, DeWine, I, I'll call him back. I think one of the first things that they started to do, as he said on the podcast was they didn't just deep dive into gospel. They brought a organ in the church. Right, right. And then it was like once every month or every so often, they would just incorporate it into the church. Right, right. You know, they didn't, have a conversation in the next week, hire Kurt Franklin to come in and bring his band and, you know, yeah. Stop. Yeah. They, they did it with wisdom. I would think from a ministry perspective, that is the best way to kind, you know, we want to, introduce our congregation, you know, challenge them, , expose them, but at the same time when they use wisdom, so, so, good man. Well, are you ready to take it away? I'd love to, bro. Let's do it. Alright. Okay guys, so we're back here at the piano, and so let's take what we just talked about in, some practical terms right here with the piano. As I said before, you have this circle here, and this is your CCM. This is your gospel for me, where I have seen. The most hybrid situations is that cross section between worship. So I kind of wanna focus on worship and we can start with taking, again, talking about the standards. So one, innovator and the worship, genre of gospel for me when I was growing up and learning was Ty Tritt and he had a very simple worship song. That was everything to me. So if someone's just learning, you can, really learning, this gospel style with ease of the CCM style. CCM kind of works in, four chords. This song only has three, so very simple to start off. So again. The song it starts in E. So for those who, need to know where we're at, we're starting on the one, go to the two, five, back to the one. Cool, simple. That is pretty much, more or less the whole song now where you see some of the differences in gospel and C. C. So a CCM person would probably, not in all cases, but in most cases, approach it, with a, a soundscape mentality in mind and a minimalist piano approach. And so they would probably start one with figuring out their patch. Uh, they would turn the reverb up, hit the reverb, and then bring in a pad, which we have right here. And let's just bring that pad up a little bit more so you guys can hear. Are we there? Hold on. Let's see. Make sure we got the pad in. There we go. So, CCM is known for block chords because you got guitars. You have pads and everything, you may have your layer on the keyboard and then you may have another keyboard player playing the layer. So they're very just right there. They'll let the guitar player do that. Come in on the 2 5 1. Now gospel. Turn out three word. I would say I don't love that sound design though, man. Yeah, I, I, I'm not a fan of it either. There's probably some better pads out there. You could give a lot, a lot, a lot better. Uh, we're nodding. Laptop world today. We're in keyboard world. So keep going. Okay. Anyways, so we're gonna turn that reverb off. We're gonna turn off, uh, the pad. Not that gospel doesn't have layers. They do. It's just a different approach. So. First of all, gospel is a piano driven genre. So a lot of times in CCM you see it led from guitar approaches or again, the soundscape, not just one instrument leading in gospel. The piano is everything. This you, if you're a MD you're probably the keys player. So, one of the things in worship music that a lot of music doesn't have, it has a lot of, ups and downs. And in the down sections is where the keyboard is shines the most. So in the beginning of the song where it's generally just the piano in the vocal. That's where you can shine. So where you have guitars will be playing the melody, the piano is gonna find a way, how to make that a little bit fatter. And then instead of playing octas, which you will see a lot of times in CCM, uh, you want to be able to fatten that up from a keyboard perspective. So playing the whole chord. Yeah, the whole entire court. Then when as it builds. One thing that I've learned is that I think as a loft art, is that piano players have stopped using the entire keyboard. I think that's something that you can use to your advantage, and you see it a lot in gospel. Now, again, when you're in those high sections where the whole band is in, it's appropriate for you to be right in here, right in the middle. You don't wanna take up the EQ range that others will be feeling, so you wanna be right in the middle. But when you're by yourself, don't be afraid to hit that octave at the dramatic, the dramatics of the song. If you're by yourself, you can put some chord variations in there. On that five you can, you can spice that up a little bit more spice. Stuff like that. Again, using the whole keyboard again, this is stuff that Todd Tritt has done, so I'm listening, listening to the record. See what they do, because again, they played the music. They may be better than you just maybe. So, you know, listen to them, see what they're doing. That's a move that they use. I picked up, so I've always thought, how can I put my variation on that? Again, I come from using the whole piano model, so I would go on that. Something like that. A arpeggio, make it more interesting than just, you can just go back right into the song. Go right into your song. So how does that help the CCM player? So, again, when we intersect in the worship, if I was the worship director, because a lot of times, I've had the privilege to be the worship director where I can speak into, the musical flow a little bit more than just the md. So if I was trying to gently bring a church into the gospel side, this is a way that you can do it. You can start with a gospel song that's easy. Everything to me. Play the song and then watch right here and speak the name of Jesus. Same key I, you could merge those two songs together in a worship format where you have the gospel. You have the CCM and then take the same principles that you're learning from Gospel. Gospel loves the meley, so, and piano. So in piano, a lot of the times you will see the keys player follow the lead singer with the meley instead of just letting them sing it. Um, I just wanna speak the name. You would find a chord interesting. A lot of times I've just seen people Do you know, again, that's okay. But if you want a more gospely way to do it will be Play the chord. Bring put a chord with it. And so let's move on to the rest of the song. Let's bring a pad in a little bit. Carson doesn't like my pad, but he's gonna live with it right now. Passing chord. Normally it would just, your name is five four, but what you can do is five, melody three or five one. Again, these things don't make sense in the context if the whole band is playing unless. You have a talk bat mic and you can talk to your bass player. Just let your bass player know where you're going. 5 1 5. It was a passing chord to go to the five on that too. Now lemme show you where you get too much gospel. So, so if someone was playing too much, someone start running with that one bro. Maybe. Maybe. Depending on what church you're in, it may work. It may work, but typically, typically not. So. That is just, uh, the gospel approach. Okay, let's go to the vamp of that song again, using the whole keyboard. All right, that's that. Uh, 7, 3, 6. There's different ways that you can play that. You can even, instead of going to the three, maybe try, uh, the c that, that flat six. Hold keyboard. Keyboard six. Hold keyboard. Ah, that was nasty, but six. Back to the one. So we gonna try that, maybe something like that. The whole keyboard again to the one I've heard these called pedal tones before. On the organ, you're holding a note down on your, on, on, on your base, and then you just cord in your, uh, in your, in you cord, in your right hand. But same principle for keyboard players. Have a note. Give it that worship feel. Again, as the piano player in gospel, you're filling up a lot of the times what that soundscape would do, because traditionally we come from churches that have either just organ and drums or just piano and drums. And so the culture of that church is the pianist is having to bring out there. There is no, there was no full band. Now we have the ability to have full bands, but the genre has formed those norms. So that's what you would, those are some approaches of the gospel style with that. So I'm gonna take another song. I'm gonna move keys, if that's okay, Carson. Yeah, man. Um, let's go to, um, let's go to De Flat. De flat. Let's take a Worship to Israel, again, taking some of the standards that you would see in worship. Um, let's see. So Alpha and Omega. So how to play that without just being, again, you find that pedal tone right there on that one. Alpha. Or you could move it five two. You find that a lot in gospel. That is a traditional gospel. Does that a lot. Again, knowing, finding some of the patterns and seeing where you see it in the CCM side. So that right there, that's a common gospel change. Does that all the time. You'll hear stuff go five. Uh, 4, 3, 6, 2. Back to the five. That's just a common gospel change. So as we go to the next part of the song, we give you all the glory. 1, 7, 3, 6. Again, melody, even though the singer would be singing right there, a gospel piano player is gonna play the melody. Oh. Again, that that's a bit busy. Wouldn't do the, that's where it's coming from though in your traditional music. That's where that's coming from. Whole piano. Another big thing in gospel is talk music. So let's talk about what talk music actually is. So. In CCM churches most of the time when the pastor is up, this is actually a good space where you could start incorporating very simply some of the gospel expression in CCM churches. A lot of time the pastor's up, he's on his last point preaching. And what do we hear in the CCM church? We hear a lot of times just. That pad start to come up. Hold on, let me get it. This bad pad. That sounds like exciting. It it really is bad. It really is bad, isn't it? You know, you hear the drum. You hear the drum. Yeah. You hear the drum start. So gospel music, we have this thing that we call talk music. So there's gotta be a big pad patch on that thing, right? Has to be, let's see, let's see. Man. Filter through those things. No, no. It's gotta be something. Oh, that sounds a little better. Which one you like? You like this one? Yeah. Can you, can you maybe, yeah. Maybe filter it. See, wait, what is that, dude? Nothing. And you're using this one to begin with. Keep going. Maybe that one's the best one. I like that one. I like that one. Yeah, you could open it. I guess open it up a little bit more by the, yeah, I like, yeah, that one's nice. Okay guys. Carson found us a better pad. Us a better pad. So again, you hear that drone, you hear that drone without the piano most of the times. So top music is the same thing when someone's up talking whatever setting. Now, depending on the setting, what influence, whether you wanna go major or you wanna go minor, what have you? Um, typically let's stay, let's stay major right now. So talk music is something that you could kind of just mess with. You don't have to be as busy. You can still keep your pad kind of in the mix, but you can, you know. Just real easy. I would start just easy, depending on what, what's going on. It may be called for a minor. It is just your expression really musicality what you wanna do, um, while someone's up talking. Now, it can be distracting for some churches and some cultures. That's why I would just start very simple. There's some very simple go-tos in gospel that you'll find. That's one things of that nature. Uh, but yeah, it helps like to find songs that kind of have that talk music vibe. That's kind of why I started with alpha Omega. 'cause right there you can just. Okay. All right, one last demonstration. One last, let's go to a flat. Let's go to a flat. So again, why did I pick some of these keys? I started in E because that is, a lot of times guitar players, they write from e So you see a lot of CM songs in E and I wanted to kind of give you the understanding how you can merge, start with C, CM, kind of get into gospel now, going from D flat, A flat, those are traditional gospel keys. I say D flat E flat A, flat B flat. Learn those, those are the staple of the genre. Um, again, so find a song that is, uh, a staple. Um, one staple would be easy. Song. I love you more than anything. Again, gospel players are going to play that melody. So if you know the song. See how I'm playing a melody. If you know the song, you can understand the song, what I'm playing. So why, why is that important? So learning a song like that, that's very melody, um, driven from mc keys perspective, that is a staple and the gospel side is because now you can take a song like this and really play with it. So let's talk about some of those changes real quick. One. So again, play on the melody and court. It just don't. If you gotta start there, fine, but find the whole chord. It's a, a flat chord. Uh, then you're moving to a B flat minor chord to a flat. So find a melody line and, and play with it. We are on a six four. Those three chords, that's the whole melody right there. Three part harmony gospel, big for three part harmonies. If you were teaching that to somebody, that's what you would, God alto, tenor. That's the whole thing. So playing off of that. That, uh, 7 3, 6 2 5. One to the four. Let's slow that down. One my seven phrase that however you want to, you can do, you can some of these. Two, five, flat five or one, however you wanna do the one again. Whole piano in this case, play the whole piano. Diminish again, maybe too much. Uh, it, it is your taste. So, and then get comfortable. Never key. Uh, let's go to C for it, for that same thing in C where, where the song is written. I believe it's in C You play it basic at first, pass on the sit. Then make it interesting again, we're on the one same changes. One thing that's big in gospel is modulations. I'm finna go up Carson, the C, take it up. D, same thing. I'm gonna end it E-flat for the heck of it. So one more time. Then go back into your worship mode. Worship mode, same thing. Just learn it and never key. So those are just some tricks from the musical side of learning the gospel progressions, putting it in CCM, and from a ministry perspective of how to blend the worship songs. 'cause worship is where we all live. Any church, our aim is to worship God. Find out some of those songs that have similarities. Whether you're doing a gospel song like, I Love You Jesus, and you wanna pair that with I Trust in God or what have you, multiple ways to do it. We could, Carson knows, we could dig in this type of stuff all day. Yes, sir. Um, but just find your style, your comfort level again, start with the melody. Learn that stuff. Figure out what the gospel standards are, figure out what the CM standards are, figure out where the, merging points, the bridge points, the connection points. Then just have at it then at that point. It's your style, it's your creativity. Come on carlous. Dude, that was some playing right there. You were doing some playing. Oh, no, man. No man. I understand. Uh, I want to ask a follow up question for, um, those listening. So say you are learning these techniques and you're wanting to apply some of this cool playing, with some of these progressions. Like, I trust in God, trust in God, um, and how great is our God? Same kind of thing. Right? Do that same progression, anything that's like a 1, 6, 4, 5 or one six, you know, five just kind of going down the scale. Yeah. Yes, yes. What is your best advice for maybe, um, a, a keys player who wants to learn this, but they know that they're banned? Is not there. Mm-hmm. So therefore they can't really follow them to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you don't any bias with that. So, couple things. Is it possible? Is it even possible? Is possible. It's possible. What key are we in? We still we're in efl efl first thing teacher banned the Nashville number system. Yeah. So understand with the scale is made up of just, just going up it. So you know, just first know that because what happens when, when you know that you can talk to your base player and you can say, I trust in God. 7, 3, 6. You know, you can call out five one. Now I may take a a little minute. For, um, 'cause you start going faster, you have to process in real time. Right. But, um, learning the natural number system, investing in a talk back, uh, system, and we have to understand, um, sometimes like understanding the culture of the genre that we're in. Can I can, let me make a point, Caron, come on man. I forgot to say this on. Tell us carlous. I got some flack on time when I went to a church Uhoh and I was, they were asking me for my advice for, okay, how can we incorporate, gospel multicultural worship into things? And I was telling them, one, what I would do is I would get rid of all of the music stands. Yes. And you know, I got, I got some pushback from that. One of the key pushbacks I got is, why would we get rid of music stands when the greatest classical musicians in the world, or the, you know, some of the greatest musicians they use, music stands. Well, my answer for that was classical music. Understanding that genre specifically, that is the nature of that genre and understanding why. And that was a spectator also there. We, that was for spectatorship. Right, right. And worship is for participatory. There we go. And knowing the, uh, understanding of the worship genre, it's, it, it is for, uh, the genre is very, gimme a word, Carson. Help me out. It, it is very connection driven. Spontaneity. Spontaneity. Yes. The spontaneity is important. Yes. Spontaneous. That is. A key factor in the genre. You have to learn the, uh, what, what, what are the, the staples of the genre. Yeah. And one of it is, uh, spontaneity. And so that's good. I would invest in a talkback not to just let the tracking cues tell you what to do. Yeah. Because the, uh, one of the fundamentals of this genre is being able to go by the Holy Spirit's leading. Come on. And if the Holy Spirit is telling us, Hey, let's, let's move to this hymn, or let's, let's stay right here on this progression. Or, you know, we, we, we wanna do a change on the fly. Use your top bat mic. Use, use what we have. We have technology, so natural number system. And, um, and, and yes, top bat mic communication with musicians is, is big in this worship genre. That's some good stuff, man. I like that. Hot take man. Get rid of the music stands. Get rid of the music stands. Give music. Music. Hey, Tyler. Tyler at Church of the Hos also said the same thing. They don't use music. Music stands and hey, we need the charts. We need music sometimes, but in the flow of the service, it is good for you to look up, be connected with the worship leader, with the congregation, see what's going on and flow in the real time. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because it's like a too much, like a crutch, right? It, it, it, it definitely, and I'm not opposed to, there are situations where I definitely have to put, bring my iPad in and have charts written and my iPad, but I'm at the point where I can understand when it's time to, okay, we're with the track. I need to see my, my, my chart and then Okay, cut it off. Let the Holy Spirit lead. Yes. So it's just being able to live again in both worlds what we're talking about. Yeah. Alright guys, thank y'all so much for listening to this podcast, for watching on YouTube. So glad that you made it to the end Yeah. Of the episode. 'cause most people do not make it to the end of the Well thank you if you're still here. Thank you. Thank you carlous. Thank you so much for sharing and taking your CP 88 Yamaha all the way from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Nashville today. Yeah. To teach us some practical tips for CM and gospel blending the two genres. Um, love your heart man. For ministry, for God. Thank you. Uh, obviously I know you love your family too. Yeah. Your wife, who's an artist, but guys you can connect with carlous Drake online on Instagram. Yeah. You can find, uh, upper room studios, which is different than Upper Room Dallas. Yes, yes, yes. You can go to upper room studios.org. Dot org. I'm c minor World C, minor World on Instagram. C Minor World C, minor World. What's with the C minor? Well, my first name is carlous, you know, starts with a C. That's right. I'm a junior, you know, minor, you know. Okay. I was in college, man. Okay. It stuck. You should, you should at least be like a, A CAC minor seven, you know, a C minus seven. I got you. No, man. So glad, um, you're on the podcast. Thanks for being on and taking the time. For sure, for sure. Um, is there any last words you'd like to leave with the Worship Keys community? Uh, man. First, just thank you. I think what you are doing here is amazing. It has been inspiration for me, uh, to see, you know, your peers. Come on, share great tips, uh, worship keys. Guys, if you're, if you're listening, always stay learning. Yes, yes, yes. You can always learn something. I don't care what your role is in ministry. I don't care how many Grammys you have. Come on, come on. You can learn. And this is a great resource. So, one, I just wanna thank you, bro, you know. Thanks, man. I, I had to bring a CP eight, uh, CP 88, man. I have to come correct for the Worship Keys podcast, obviously. Um, so yeah, man, thank you. To everyone out there, if I can just say, if you guys are interested in being a part of creative community in your, especially in the southeast area. Uh, Atlanta, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Nashville. Come look us up. Come look us up. So yeah, man, again, just thank you. Hope. Yeah, dude, we gonna do it again right now? Yes, absolutely, dude. Okay. A hundred percent. I wanna visit you in Chattanooga for sure, man. For sure, for sure.