Playing Spirit-Led Spontaneous Worship Keys with Caleb King

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Join us this week's episode, featuring Caleb shares his unique journey from being a drummer with a background in Southern Baptist traditions to becoming a key figure in spontaneous modern worship. Join them as they discuss the heart of worship, practical keys tips, the importance of worship culture in churches, and Caleb's experiences playing for Garrett & Kate Serban, now signed with Bethel Music. Caleb also talks about his use of Ableton for worship services, the significance of the transpose button, and the value of cultivating relationships within a worship team. This episode provides insight into the blend of technology, musicianship, and spirituality that drives effective worship experiences.

Caleb King

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. Guys, welcome back to the Worship Keys podcast today. I'm with an incredible keys player, Caleb King. Yes, Caleb. Welcome to the podcast, man. Hey, glad to be here. Love Caleb said right before we press record, he said, this is my very first like interview, podcast, so show him some love in the comments many of you might know him or have seen him, maybe you haven't. But today we're just gonna talk about the heart of worship for one. Mm-hmm. We're gonna talk about some keys, tips. We're, of course, we're gonna talk about a little bit of gear, a little bit of practical things. Um, we're gonna get to know Caleb a little bit. Who is Caleb King? Why, why is he on this podcast? What are we talking about for keys? We're here to help you guys with your keys playing. Um, but first and foremost it is the worship keys. We're talking about the heart of worship. Yes. Caleb plays for, um, Garrett and Kate. How do you say the last name? Serban. Serban Se Not Sheban. Nope. Serban. Seban. Yep. Uh, Garrett and Kate. Er who recently this year. Became signed with Bethel Music. Yep, yep. Huge man. Huge. Yeah. That's awesome. But I've been following them for a year or two before they became signed. Mm-hmm. Um, but man, they have huge hearts. Hmm. For Jesus in the presence of the board. Yes. Yes. And right now we're, we're, we are recording this in Chicago, Illinois right now. Mm-hmm. We're at the Worship Innovators Conference. And, um, Caleb, it's a, it's a joy just to be able to sit down and talk to you. Yeah. People see you play keys and oftentimes when we're, we're playing keys. We're doing our thing, we don't get the chance to actually talk and about who is this person, um, that is up on stage doing the thing or in this room with the lighting in the camera, and who is this person? Yeah. Um, so I wanna talk to you about, just the practicalities, first and foremost of. Uh, your piano journey. Okay, we'll go there first, man. Okay. Like when did you start learning the piano and what was that journey like for you? Okay. Yeah. So I took an interesting path. So I am a drummer. Okay. I went to college for drums. Okay. I got my music ed degree and I was gonna teach band, like school band. Okay. Let's go band. I conducted, I was band nerd play. Yeah. There we go. Get thing two ready. Okay. Okay. Did that, I was on drum line for 10 plus years, I think. Like, yes. I. Traveled, you know, all kind of all over the country a little bit doing drum line stuff. Um Oh really? Yeah. Did you do DCII did indoor. Okay, awesome. Indoor drum line. Um, and so I was in the, some tits, I was in the pit for that, so I like played marimba or no, I played the, uh, vibraphone. Okay. So early piano beginnings there. Yes. It's the same for, yep. Um, yeah, and it kind of started, um, I took. I think four semesters of piano. Okay. Um, in college. But it was a very kind of basic, like theory based kind of classical roots. Um, piano honestly, it helped me with where I'm at, but I didn't learn worship keys there. Right, right. I didn't know a thing about that until I, um, got introduced to my church that I work at now. So Southeast, what church do you work at now? I'm at Encounter Church in Groves, Texas. Okay. And that's where Garrett and Kate are too. So they were, they were, so they were my boss from, they moved there in 2020. They took the worship pastor position and then they were there up until, uh, February, this, this past year. Okay. That's when they parted ways. They signed with Bethel, they moved up to Franklin, went full-time artist. And so they're killing it, crushing it. Yes. Super happy for them. But yeah, so we, we started shooting those sessions, I believe it was last February or March of 2024. Okay. Mean, we're approaching two years now of shooting sessions and Amazing. Uh, it's obviously, it's been an amazing journey. Um, we just shot two the other day with, uh, Antonio and Allison from Bethel Music. Oh, amazing String players. And it was just absolutely just beautiful. The photo looked great. Oh my gosh. Just from the photo alone. I know it was gonna. Sound heavenly. Yeah, we were talking about it on the way here, just something about the way our ears were with all of that. It was the best it's ever sounded, and I just think it was because they were there, like, right. The string players, they're just so incredible, so anointed and, um, is it cello and violin or cello and violin. Okay. Yep. And it was, it was incredible. But anyways, so, went to college, did all that. Now, where'd you go to college for this Lamar University. Okay. In Beaumont, Texas. Okay, so Southeast Texas. Beaumont, Texas. Yeah. So I, I You're from Texas? I was born and raised in Texas. Okay. East Texas is where I was, uh, raised. And then I moved down to Beaumont in 2014. Well, went to college 2014. Officially moved in 2016, I think. 16 or 17. Okay. Um, and I'm basically moved there full time. Before that I was traveling, you know, during the school year I would go live in the dorms, go to college, and then in summer I'd go home. Um, and then the winter go home. But, uh, I got introduced to my church through a friend in band. He was, he was the one leading the youth worship at the time. Awesome. And he was like, Hey, I need a drummer. You wanna come play drum set? I was like, sure. Yeah. I, I hadn't found a church at that time. I was raised Southern Baptist. My dad's a music minister my whole life. Um, but since going to college, I had not found a church yet. Tried a couple out. Didn't love it. Shout out to youth band though, right? Shout, shout out to youth band man. That's so, such a blessing for it's beginning. Yeah, it's the beginning for a lot of it, but, um, so yeah, so my friend was like, Hey, you wanna come drum? So I went and drummed with him. Uh, went to, you know, a couple youth services, enjoyed it. It was just fun, you know, playing again. I hadn't played for worship team and a couple years at that time and ended up going to a Sunday service and just. Was in awe of what, what God was doing at that church. Mm-hmm. And, um, so I was like, I, whatever I can do to be a part of this, I'll do it. So I ended up, so that's why I moved full-time down, uh, to the Beaumont area, started interning, uh, that summer. They, the church actually started the internship with me and a couple friends. So we were kind of the Guinea pigs. I think it was a summer internship. And then from there on I was like, I, I just have to be a part of this. Like, and I was just drumming at that time. I was just a drummer. And so I'm still in college. It's like my junior year college. Um, I no, as approaching my senior year. So I have one more, one more year of college left. And so I intern again the next semester and that fall semester. And then come spring I had the student teach. So I was full-time basically at a school or a couple schools in the area, just teaching band. So I didn't get to intern. But I was still just heavily involved and I just knew that I was being called to that church. Come graduation, I graduate, uh, May, 2018. Get my degree. I'm also engaged at this point. I'm getting married in July. Awesome. Congrat, um, coming Congrat up after that. Congrat. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's just a lot of what's going, what's gonna happen, right? Am I gonna teach? I'm interviewing all over Texas, driving to Austin, driving to East Texas, driving to Dallas Houston, interviewing at these, um, these school gigs, trying to get a, a job. And none of them worked. I just wasn't getting any of them. Mm. And, um, the worship pastor at the time, me and him were really close and he ended up working something out with the lead pastor, where they basically created a job for me. Okay. Um, it was the, the church was still somewhat young. I think it was about five or six years old at that time. Um, and so the staff was still kind of finding its place. So they, they created a position, uh, it was kind of like. I was doing music lessons, I was helping with the, like the vocal choir. I'm not a singer, but I, I made it work, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I was taking on like some MD responsibilities, some kind of, you know, uh. Planning center, scheduling tracks, all that. Mm-hmm. And it was like, let's try this for a year, reapproach it at the end of the year and see, just see how this is working. Mm-hmm. And it has evolved tremendously and I've now been there, um, six years I, or seven years now. Amazing. Kind of had an interest to play keys. Our worship pastor at the time led from the Keys, so he kind of had that role on lock, but we needed someone in youth. So I was like, you know, I've, I've wanted to learn. I'll just start playing in youth. I'll just pick it up, figure it out. Mm-hmm. That's when Sunday sounds came into the play. I started watching all David's videos. Yeah. This is incredible. Taught me so much. Right. Um. And so tried that out. And then our worship pastor, he uh, he transitioned, started doing something different. And so that was 2020 cOVID hits all that happens. Yep. By, I think it was October. Garrett and Kate got hired on, so they come in full time. They're our new worship pastors and they're like, we need an md. We were kind of figuring out the MD role. We hadn't fully figured it out within our worship team, and they were like, you're the guy. So you're playing keys. Wow. And so I was like, all right, let's do it. Here we go. So, jumped in, basically have been, uh, for a while. I was kind of doing half and half, but it kind of got to where it was like, Hey, you're our keys guy. Like it's, we're just comfortable with you. The MD role became very important with their style of leading. Right. Um, very, you know, spontaneous oriented. That's the vision of our lead pastor is just he will discard a message if worship is moving. And he was a worship pastor, uh, pretty much his whole life up until he, uh, started our church. Um, and so worship is, is very important to him. And so Garrett and Kate came in, kind of overhauled that we, you know, I jumped in full-time keys and it's been that ever since. I love it. Yeah. And so from drummer to keys player, that's been my, my, uh, my journey. I love it. Kayla. Yeah. So you, you hit on this a little bit. Mm-hmm. They're very spontaneous driven. So I wanna talk about spontaneous worship for a second. Okay. Because as the MD and as the keys player, you gotta be able to follow Yes. What the Holy Spirit's leading them. What's leading you? Yes. What's leading the room, really? Mm-hmm. It's, it's like reading the room, following the lead of the Holy Spirit, the unction of the Holy Spirit. Give us a little insight 'cause not everyone who's listening right now is a part of that type of thing, so I wanna know, I wanna pick your brain a little bit. Okay. Some the practical things go on. So when you guys, just, just from practically speaking, with church mm-hmm. Stuff or when you're playing, with Garrett and Kate. Mm-hmm. Like what y'all do. What's the game plan? 'cause we're all, I think most of us who are viewing this episode, we're all Keith players. Yeah. Uh, not all of us, but we're Keith players, MDs, maybe worship leaders. So I wanna get your pro your thought process. What do they tell you as far as. The set list goes like, Hey, mm-hmm. We were planning on these three songs, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like what, what are the confines? What is the structure and how do you know when to deviate and how do you prepare for that? Obviously they don't, they don't work with us anymore. But when they, when they were worship pastors, Sundays was always, um, here's our set, you know, three songs if you will. 30 minutes. That was kind of the time that we were allotted for worship. And those, that's what we plan. Anything other than that is. It could be different. Every service could be if they fill the same tag or they fill a different, uh, song that they want to go to, like that's completely up in the air. So when it comes to that, we were just doing a breakout earlier and someone asked us kind of similar question, but like, how do you like kind of figure out the, the flow side? Like how do you do it comfortably? For me, it's just knowing. As many songs as possible. Mm-hmm. Like, yeah. Garrett and Kate. Kind of, what I, I, uh, hit on earlier was like, relationship is so huge with this. Mm-hmm. Garrett is like a brother to me. Kate is like a sister. Yeah. And we, over years of playing together, I, I know them. Better than most people. And so like if we're talking about the sessions, really all that is is, hey, we're going to, turn on an apad might hit this song, might hit this song. All right, let's go. Hit record. That's really all it is. That's all. It's, there's not a lot of prep. Right, right there. There's, at least practically, you know, there's obviously the spiritual prep and the, of course we, we talk through ideas, but it is just never, you just never know. And I honestly love that. Yes. Because it keeps you on your toes. It keeps my knowledge of current music up. Even past music, like they just put out how great they are, like. So knowing some of these older songs, um, these older hymns, like stuff that I grew up on, that never in a million years would I think that I'd be leading them from the piano. Mm-hmm. I used to read 'em out of a hymnal book. Right. You know, and now I'm getting to play, you know, play it at the piano. And so it keeps my brain going, which is nice. But yeah, it's, it's really just kinda having that playbook of songs that you, I know pretty much every song that Garrett or Kate would go to, me and another girl, we we're kind of running ship at our, at our campus. Now I, I'm learning that with her and I've got like, I'm almost, I'm almost there with her of like, pretty much any song she goes to, I'm gonna know it because I know her. That's good. And I know we listen to similar stuff. We work together, we hang out. Uh, you know, nine to five pretty much every day throughout the week. And so, um, getting to have that relationship with your worship pastor, if you're an md, having that with your worship leaders, that's gonna take you so far. And then, yeah, just kind of like even just your casual conversation, like talking about songs that you're listening to, talking about ideas that when we're working through a set for a Sunday, I might sit at the piano for a couple minutes throughout the week and I might go to Jade, the girl that works with me and say, Hey, you know, I'm this, this tag works, but. Don't do it if you don't feel it, but have it in your back pocket. Um, but even then, just like communication and relationship, like, it's just so crucial with this because you have to be able to communicate, you have to be able to have that relationship. I can look at Garrett, he can give me a look, a little nod, and I know, oh, he's going to the five here instead of one. It's just through a look. And so I, I think that answers your question, man. I love that. Yeah. It's just a jumble, but yeah, no, I love it. So. Practically speaking too. Are you guys primarily, uh, prefer just staying in the same key during the whole flow of the whole set? For the, for the sessions? Yes. Not for Sunday. Sunday. We kind of break it up because, you know, a lot of times we don't always plan our set theme wise, but sometimes, you know. Most times, I would say Holy Spirit just kind of leads a set into a certain theme. We don't, I don't really worry about keys on Sundays because I want to serve the person who's leading the song the best that I can. So if that means we have to sometimes like. I love it when they're like, oh, is it bad if we go from D to C sharp? Like, it could be bad, or we could just fade to silent. You know, have a little just sit, there's nothing wrong with silence. Silence is great. You know, it makes you ponder. So I'm like, no, it's not bad. Let's go to C sharp. If C sharp's the key that you need to do, that's what I want to do, you know, I wanna serve you. Um, and so I always have that conversation with, with our, our, uh, worship leaders, but. For the sessions, we usually just do one key. Got it. And that's just for, you know, smoothness. We just click play. We've forget the little aerospace or the atmosphere about aerospace. Click play on a key and then we just go for an hour or 45 minutes. Yeah. That's amazing. So what he's talking about there, Caleb's talking about the atmosphere pedal that aerospace audio makes. Mm-hmm. Many of you guys might know them. We've talked about them before and we've had Isaac, the owner of Shout out to Isaac. Great. Yeah, man, he's great. Doing such great work. Yes. Now there's a version three out, by the way. Yes, yes. And I've not got a hold of it and I know it's just a little bit more expensive than the previous ones, I guess it'll just take us into a whole different dimension. I don't know. I sure hope so, man. I hope so. But also it's pretty high in demand and Yeah. And I think they're made to order. Okay. So that, you know, that obviously puts a little bit on it, but it's so good for just like. Turning, like a lot of people ask like, well, where can I find pads? Some people might not play piano and be able to kind of create that atmosphere. Right. And that's what I love about that pedal is I, I can just choose a key, I can choose a patch, I can click engage or play whatever the button is. Yeah. And it just infinitely goes. Absolutely. And I can just play over the top of it. I can tuck it in my mix. Right. We run it on Sundays. I have it to where when I fire a track on Ableton. MIDI out goes to it and it fires it in the right key, in the right patch. Oh, that's good. Little thing, a little thing I engineered, I'm, I'm very proud of it. Maybe next time I'll show you it. Yeah, man, we gotta see that. But yeah, it's, it's so cool. It's, I have a little clip in Ableton. As soon as I click play on the track, it, it communicates with the atmosphere and then we're good. I don't have to think about it. I don't ever touch it on a Sunday because it's midi, right? Yeah, it has like a little, it has a little midi import and it's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It's like. It's three fifths. like a headphone jack. Yeah. In Right. And then it goes to five pin. And so the five pin, I have like a little midi, interface, a little MO xm Got you. That Ableton talks to, sends out to the atmosphere. Got you. And so I've, I've set up little clips in Ableton that says, okay, I want to end this key on this patch. Okay. And so I, so every Sunday I drag my songs in and then I drag my clips in for my atmosphere. So it's a mini trigger. Just a mini trigger. That trigger. I don't ever touch it. Okay, because I noticed this this morning here at Worship Innovators. Mm-hmm. You, you, I don't think you touched the, but you did kinda look back at your computer a few times. I was doing a couple of effects changes. Um, I think I might have adjusted my ears a couple times, but yeah, this morning I, I didn't use the mini for that just because we were just in a flat the whole time. Okay. So I just clicked play on it. And what, what pad do you, 'cause there's a few different options. Which one would use? I use the troposphere. It's the bottom one. It's the green color. Okay. To me, it's just the most ambient. It's got the right amount of tones. Like it's okay. It's got some nice movement in it. Yes. Um, that's my favorite, my go-to. Okay. Troposphere. I use it pretty much everything. Amazing. All of Garrett and Kate sessions, that's all I use is, uh, atmosphere. And then my piano sound. That's it. Incredible. Yeah. And you guys sounded absolutely. Amazing thank you this morning, and it was just three, the three of you. Mm-hmm. Which is kind of standard to y'all's online, uh, worship sessions. But you guys were live, I know y'all do a lot of full band stuff when you go to different Yeah. Uh, they have done it when they go to different churches and whatnot but anyway, so that's cool. It's just y'all three, but it sounded so full in there. For one thing, Garrett is incredible on the acoustic. Yeah. I love his, I love his style. He's the best, like the way he was playing, um, when he, I mean, it reminds me almost like there's a few artists that it reminds me of, but. One is like Shane and Shane because Shane is so good on acoustic guitar and so is obviously, you know, Stephen Curtis Chapman and other people who play acoustic guitar. Just really freely, almost like someone noodling on the, the piano, but just the open voicings that he does. Yeah. On his acoustic. Up the neck. It really drives it honestly, which I love. It gives us a percussive feel. Yeah. Um, you know, obviously the sessions are very low key, very like a lot of their vision with those sessions is have this playing through your house in the background. Like I'm not asking you to sit down and engage for one hour with us. And if you do that, great. That's, you're not, you're never gonna get worse for that. But at the same time, if you wanna just have it playing in the background just playing over your, your house and your life and your family like, and it, having not like the full band stuff is great. Right. I, I, there's nothing I love more than a locked in. Band. Right, right. You know, but also having that intimate time where it's just a piano and keys and Kate gets to speak a word over thousands of people she's never met. Right. Just watching it, you know, the stories they've gotten from these sessions, it's incredible. It's, it's, yeah. And it's just, it's so cool to see the journey of this in just a year's time of how it's progressed and amazing. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love that the way he plays it, it gives us a drive that we're lacking in an intimate section. But for sure, his ability to, to play that. And, and then on the piano, I, something I do sometimes is I just throw on like an octave. Okay. Um, and so it gives me a little more. And you're playing on the Nord, right? I'm playing the Nord, but I'm running, contact sounds. So I'm running the gentleman, by native instruments. We need to know these things, okay? Yes, yes. That's my go-to. Okay. Um, I use it everywhere. Really the only effects I'm adjusting, I, I put a filter on it, kinda like a low pass, right? So for those real soft sections, I want it to be real tucked. I'll, I'll, you know, bump that low pass down. Bump it up whenever we're getting big. Turn the verb up a little bit. I've got that. Valla Shimmer. Yes, Val Shimmer. That's my favorite. And then I turn that octave on for real big sections, and so it's like I'm playing four octaves. Incredible. Which I'm sure it could be muddy, but it's worked thus far, so Absolutely. I love it. Yeah. Okay. That's my favorite. That's so incredible. I didn't know quite you, what you were doing, because I didn't know if it was all Nord stop, but you're doing a lot of stuff in Ableton. Yeah. Everything is through Ableton for me. Okay. Yeah. That's amazing. Mm-hmm. Are y'all running click at all? Nope. No, I couldn't tell because you, it's so like locked in. Mm-hmm. And consistent. I mean, I guess if I really looked like I, obviously there's ebb and flow 'cause we're human. Yeah. But you guys are so in the pocket and a lot of times when you're not using a click, you tend to kind of, yeah. Speed up the slow songs just a little bit. Yeah, but y'all seem to be like, really well. Funny story. I'm pretty sure Garrett's first instrument is also drums. Oh, okay. Are so we got two, we got two percussionists driving it, you know. Dang. Okay. That makes sense. So, yeah, I, I actually, I've never thought about that, but sitting here talking, I'm like, you're right. Like tempo is usually locked in. It's not really a question, you know, I don't ever think about it. And so I think that's probably why. That's amazing. I, I thought for sure, maybe you were like, y'all had some kind of click going. Yeah. No, it was something we, I remember when we were talking through like the idea of the sessions, I was like, well, we gotta run click, right? And they were like, no, because what if I want to go to this and it changes signatures, or what if I wanna go to this and. We start with a song that's 74 ish, but how great they are is 66. Like Right. I want to be able to just sit. Hmm. And that's, that's what a lot of our sessions are, is we might hit a spot where I'm just holding the one. Maybe just throwing in that suss every now and then. Yeah, and I'm just letting them kind of like, what are they feeling? Right. Sometimes it, it, you can, there's, it is like a weird aura that shifts, like sometimes I'm like, okay, they want me to take it, so I might start playing something that leads to a song or leads to a spontaneous melody even. But a lot of, I mean, yeah, it's just no click. There's literally no nothing holding us back from doing anything in those sessions, which is really nice. Love that besides key changes, but we just, yeah. We make it work with one key. Amazing. Yeah. So y'all were in, all of you were in a flat the whole time this morning. A flat. Yep. Amazing. Yep. And you, you did play in a flat, you didn't transpose right. I transpose. Oh no, he trans I transpose. And now, now I know they're, they're probably gonna flame me, but like we got you on record saying that. Hey, look, he, it's so funny. I was talking to someone about this. I was like, should I say that I use transpose? Like I'm here to be honest, like, okay, good. We like the authenticity, man. My number one reason, respect. Well, two reasons here. I'll give you two. Well, he's a drummer. Come on guys. I'm drummer. He was a drummer originally. I'm not classically trained. I have my, my couple keys that I, that I use. Here's the thing. Here's my reasoning. Okay. Okay. I want to be comfortable. Okay. I want to serve the room the best that I can serve the room. Yeah. God doesn't care if I click transpose. There you go. There you go. He wants me to serve the roof. There you go. You know, and so if that means I gotta put minus one and play an A, I'm gonna put minus one and play an A. Did you, so you played an A? I played an A. Okay. So I, so I really only do minus one or plus one. So I'll play my usual keys. I'll play in, gosh, I can't believe I'm sharing all this. I'll play in GA, C, D, and E. So you're basically as good as the guitarist then? Basically. Basically, yeah. I mean, you know, I'm sure Gary was probably, was he capo today or something? Probably played G shapes or something. He typically uses capo. Okay. Yeah. Say, I mean, see, but see, CAO's not really frowned upon in guitar world. I know. I, but why is it transposed button frowned upon? Right? That's, that's the question I ask every day. You know? Right, right. It's like, gimme some love. You know? Gimme some love. That is too funny. No, hopefully we won't crucify you too much for that. We won't, we won't, uh, throw stones too much. Right, right. But hey man, it works. No, it felt great. And you did, you served the room so well. It was. Flowing so thick, but yeah, the transpose button. Wow. I did not expect that to be, that is funny. The, gosh, I still can't believe I'm saying this, but that's mean now. Now we can't, uh, publish this, this episode, man. Just not allowed. No, I'm just kidding. There's another thing, another trick I did in Ableton where I, I made a clip. Where when I fire a song, it automatically sets my transpose Okay. Is what I want it on. I don't ever want to think about more knobs than I need to. If I can streamline a process, I'm gonna do it in Ableton. 'cause Ableton can do everything. I love that. So that's a, I put that right next to my atmosphere clip. It's like minus one. And then I just know my, you know, sharpest attack up here. Yes. I just know what I'm gonna play in. So I'm sorry. I apologize to all the purists out there. Maybe you, you might be a purist. I, I'm a purist too, but That's okay. Technology, man. It's good for us. It's good for us. Okay. So talk about, Ableton World for a little bit. Mm-hmm. Because you mentioned Ableton a lot. Yeah. Obviously, it's a great tool no matter what tool you are using, no matter what keyboard, what software. The pads where it's coming from. Right. By the way, airspace, it has a physical hardware. It's, it's like a guitar pedal, but basically pads come out of it, stereo, TRS out, quarter inch out. But obviously you're, you're going from Ableton to trigger through midi That triggers the actual source sound coming out there, going to the board stereo. Yeah. There's other ways people can do it. You can do it within the Prime app. You can do it within multitracks. You can do it within sunday Keys. Yep. There's an aerospace, um, app, by the way, too. Yep. They got the app. Same thing, same thing. I think Phil Keith's players used it for a while. He uses it. A lot of people use it. Pretty awesome. Doesn't really matter the the actual tools, but we do know that Ableton is pretty superior. And even, uh, the CEO, the founder of, uh, prime Luke community, Matt McCoy, he wasn't able certified trainer. Oh, wow. I did not know that. Yeah. So he came from the Ableton world, even in the early two thousands, just learning it in and out the reason why he made Prime was like, I think I can make a simpler version of Ableton that does, just what the average worship leader and worship team needs. And not to be super complex, but to go a step above and to be complex. Yeah. It's good to use Ableton. Yeah. So tell us about, um, 'cause we want, we wanna know there's still people not quite using Ableton. They're scared about it. When did you learn Ableton? How long did it take you to learn it? Were there any resources for you that helped you learn it? Uh, tell us about that process, man. As my, my job at the church was, you know, kind of evolving. I took on Ableton myself. We were using the playback app at the time. Yeah. Um, and we had a guy who would run Ableton. It was kind of inconsistent. Like if he wasn't there, no one knew how to run it right. Um, he would set it up, but he also wasn't full-time at the church, so it was just kind of like this love-hate relationship. So we went to playback, which made it super easy. Right. Um, and I know the Prime app is the same, like Yeah. Yeah. Both of those apps are incredible for anyone looking to get into the tracks world, like Yeah. It's so easy to use. The UI is so incredible. It. Gives you space to, if you're looking to get into spontaneous worship, like it has that click, so that infinite click section that you can throw in, like, so all of that stuff, it's basically doing what Ableton does, just easier. Yeah, so I was like, Hey. We're wanting to do a lot of kind of different arrangements, and at the time when we were talking 20 18, 20 19, at the time, that was kind of limited. The only way to do that was through Ableton or like if you bought a custom track or whatever. So I was like, we're wanting to do these coal arrangements, so I need to learn Ableton. So I dove in for probably a month. I'm still diving in, I'm still learning Ableton. I learned it's ableton's nuts, right, man. Yeah. It's, it's a beast. And my goal was to create a template that made Sunday easy. That was my goal. Yeah. Um, and I've done many different templates since then. The one I'm currently doing, I've used for the longest. And it's in session view. it has accomplished everything that I've wanted in a tracks rig for our Sunday team or for anything that I do. I just kind of dove in, learned all that I could, and at that time it was just tracks. It wasn't really sound design. And so I was just figuring out, you know, how can I. Mess with these arrangements. How can I make these better, make these different for Sunday so we're not always doing the same arrangement? Right. And so that was kind of my introduction. As I got more involved in piano, I was like, Hey, these Nord sounds are great, but I want to do more and I'm not just not getting there with this. And so I was like, let's make my tracks template also a keys template. Mm-hmm. So. You know, if, if I'm ever playing ox keys, I can have my pad, uh, my sequencer. You know, linked up with the tempo that we're in and linked up with the time signature and Totally. And it be spot on. Or I can have all these amazing effects like Alala shimmer, which is incredible. Yes. Like I can do that with my, and obviously you can do that through the Nord, but I was like. I was kind of also getting into producing at that time, producing tracks. We put out an album in 23. Awesome. And so I got to produce all of that. And so I was like, well, shoot, I can just bring this to the live setting and yeah. Yeah. It's just been, it's like I said, the current template I'm using is, I've been using it for a while now and it's just makes Sunday so easy. So good. Um, it's still Ableton, you know? Right, right. It's still like, I'm, I'm always gonna have to help our volunteers who are working it. Um. But that's just part of it. So part of it, man, yeah. Helps, it challenges us. It challenges his team. It helps us do things that we wouldn't normally be able to do without it. Totally. Yeah. I love that. Well, you guys gotta check out Ableton. You gotta dive into Ableton. Yeah. We talk about it all the time. It's gonna be a useful tool for you, especially if you actually end up learning it. Yes, yes. Uh, okay. Few things for mm-hmm. Spontaneous worship, back to spontaneous. Okay. Uh, a little deviation there into Ableton World, but it allows you to be spontaneous. Mm-hmm. Wow. The transpose button. My goodness. Still, I'm still processing that. Forgive me. No, no, no, you're good. Um, so when you're talking about spontaneous worship, obvious oftentimes, okay, well, if it's in the room with you three mm-hmm. Oh, or in a prayer service whatever it, it's. Almost easier, it's more conducive and it's not as awkward because you guys are kind of independently. Mm-hmm. You know, all kind of flowing, seeking the Lord more private type focused, but for corporate worship. Mm-hmm. Uh, there's also a big spontaneous aspect there too. Talk about the difference between when you're just in a room with just a few of you versus corporate. Are there any awkward moments and. I think for most of us that are in the spontaneous flow, type churches or, or around that, we understand that in order to kind of break through, so to speak, there's is this awkwardness about it. Mm-hmm. Where you might loop that 4, 5, 6, 3 for 10 times before you actually get some kind of new melody or you go into that verse of. What a beautiful name. Or you start doing a hymn or something. Talk about the awkward parts. Okay. 'cause we, I think we are, it's like, it's amazing to talk about just spontaneous flow and it's great to be spontaneous, but talk about the awkward moments, and how powerful it can be. 'cause I experienced it this morning, like when y'all just kind of flow a little bit and. It almost feels like, oh, what's coming next? Mm-hmm. And then you just let it breed a little bit. Yeah. Talk a little bit about that. Like how does it feel for you as you're playing the keys, as you're up there maybe looking out, maybe you're not even worrying about them. Yeah. You're just worried about supporting, you know, Kate and Garrett in the moment. Mm-hmm. Just talk about that whole moment when it's sometimes just slightly awkward. Yeah. In the in-betweens Yeah. Of spontaneous worship. I really like Garrett, Kate are. They love Jesus. Yes. You know, and they are tapped into Holy Spirit like, like no one else is. So there was a couple sections this morning where I think I, I landed on the one and just kind of sat there on the one. A lot of times I'll look to them and kind of see like, are, are they gonna communicate something or are they waiting for me? And that's where like my love and trust of them comes in 'cause. I can look at Kate and know she's feeling something, but she needs her space to kind of get there. Got you. And so for me, if I can support that, if that means I'm just kind of one, one us just kind of back and forth, like I said earlier, having those lull moments isn't really a bad thing because I know as soon as she gets there, as soon as she finds what she's, what she's looking for, she's gonna lead that room, they're gonna soar. And so it really, to me, it just kind of comes down to trusting them and they trust me. And so I know that, hey, anytime they call for the room to worship, that means I need to take it at that point. 'cause now they're speaking over the room. They're not singing a song, they're not singing anything. So they're, you saw 'em do it. Come on, can y'all, can y'all lift up your own song? Do whatever. That's my cue. Okay. I need to take it. Yeah. So I might play the melody to the song we were already in, just to kind of have a, a consistent thing going on right there. Yes. Um, my favorite thing is just whenever we get to a, an unknown spot, just staying consistent with where we are so that it's smooth. Like, I, I rarely, rarely do I call songs for them. There might be a time or two where I might play a melody to a song to kind of suggest it, but in no way am I saying y'all need to do this song. Mm-hmm. Because I mean, at the end of the day, they're the ones singing and speaking over the room. Yeah. I need to follow them, you know? And so, so for me, just honestly supporting them and you said. Do you look into the room and it, it kind of depends on where I am. I typically try to find one person. Like I, I might gaze up a couple times, try to find one person that is having a moment. Mm-hmm. And that's my focus. If whatever we're doing, the Holy Spirit has a moment with one person. Oh, there you go, there. That's what, that's what I'm getting at here. Like, that's good. That's good. It doesn't matter how good I play. It doesn't matter how good Kate sings. Incredible singer or how she sounds like Carrie Jo. I mean, she's her own, but if you. Compare. She's so much like Carrie job and Carrie job is so amazing. Yeah. She's, she's up there and so it doesn't matter what we do, um, if as long as Holy Spirit has a moment with at least one person and, you know, holy Spirit honors, purity and they're some of the purest people I know, and I strive to be as pure as them. You know, and so getting to just worship with them and serve with them and do life with them, it makes those awkward moments not awkward. Mm-hmm. That's where I'm getting with this. I love that. Like, I could focus on the couple people who might have their arm crossed or might be like, checking their time, like, Hey, what are we doing? You've been doing 4, 5, 6, 3 for 10 minutes. Now I need something different. But at the end of the day, I'm here to surf Holy Spirit and let Holy Spirit do his work and the people that are there. So good. Yeah. I love that man. Yeah, I love that. You might leave some people in the room Yeah. But you go 10 miles deep Yeah. With a few Yeah. You know, or maybe half the room or whatever it is. I think we need more worship like that. Yeah. That just presses through. Mm-hmm. And it's not always about time. It's not always about an hour set because you, God can do so many powerful things. Just deliverance and salvations, even within just a 15, 20, 25 minute set. Yeah. Um, rather, so it's not necessarily we gotta extend this song another five minutes, then the Lord will show up. It's not, it's never a formula. Right. 'cause that's where we go wrong. Yeah. And even like, musically speaking, like music requires it requires a little bit of like, not dissonance, but like suspense. Yeah, yeah. You know, absolute. And so like, having those moments where you're just kind of sitting, kind of just seeing like, where's this gonna go? 'cause we don't know where it's gonna go. Right. That's the beauty of spontaneous. Like yes, we're, we're solely relying on Holy Spirit to lead us. Having that little bit of suspense, if you will, of like, we're just gonna sit back. Right. And it will click. It always does. Mm-hmm. Like there's never a moment where it does it, even in the tougher rooms. Come on. Like, yeah. Even in your eight 30 services where you've got your older crowd, like who, you know, who might just be there for the word. Like it always clicks. I love that. And so it's, that's the beauty of it. And it's something that they've. I feel like they've mastered and, um, love it. They taught us that at our church when they're our worship pastors. And since they've left and me and my friend have taken over, like we've just continued it. I love it, man. I was telling Garrett like, when y'all left, we didn't have to overhaul our team. Like we've changed minimal things. I was like, kudos to y'all. That's awesome. You guys just, you changed the culture of our team and you guys just made it to where worship is priority in a lot of ways. And so, yeah. Praise God, man. I wanna go further there actually within that subject, because talking about, the culture of the church, I do feel like you hit on it eight 30 service older people. Maybe they're there for the, for the actual, expository preaching of the word. Mm-hmm. Explaining the text, getting to that. And I do feel like a lot of times there are churches that look at the music section now. It's all worship. You know, we should live, our life should be worship. But the actual music segment of the. Service is almost like a, a warmup to mm-hmm. The real reason why we're here. Right. Right. I love that your pastor, you said prioritizes. Yeah. The actual music section of worship because mm-hmm. It is equal. We need both. We need the teaching and the rebuking and the conviction and the truth and the love of God to go forth through the scriptures. We need reading of scripture, beginning of service in the middle of service. Yeah. Through the songs, through everything. If the whole service should be this huge, thick theological mm-hmm. Sandwich, this meal that we just. You know, uh, taken. Yeah. And, and we, uh, go on a journey together. I want you to speak on the importance of the musical section mm-hmm. Of the service and how, it's not treated like a warmup to the actual preaching. Yeah. Speak on that some more, man. Yeah. I love talking about that, man. Yeah, no, it's. Uh, yeah, I'll try to unpack it. So, I mean, at least in our church, like I said, worship, the culture there is, is very worship driven now. Obviously, you know, like you said, the reading of the word that is 100% crucial to what we're we're doing at our church and our church needs that. Yes. You know, we need more of that. We need good bible teaching. Right. And our pastor's great at all that, but I like to say this prayer a lot, like we're kind of the introduction, if you will, we're kind of the, the vessel that prepares the table for the message. Yeah. Yeah. And not in a warmup sense, but like. Hey, let's have a moment with Holy Spirit and then if we get to the message, we'll have a moment with the Holy Spirit in that. Yeah. Yeah. And pa and our pastor, his name's Pastor Brent, he's so sensitive to the spirit. He will change any schedule to leave time for the Holy Spirit. And I love that. 'cause even in his message, he's got his plan, he's got his, his his points, if you will, for the note takers. But there's so many times where he'll sit there. He, he will say something and then he will sit there and he will look around and he'll be like, okay, holy Spirit's saying this. This is what we've gotta do. Mm-hmm. And he might release a word over the church and he always explains it through biblical scripture. Mm-hmm. And so, and, and I just love that sensitivity. We open up our service with worship, we go straight out of the intro video into worship. We might have 25 to 30 minutes of doing that, but it never lacks in pressing in, no matter what service we're in. Mm-hmm. If we're in the eight 30, we're pressing in just as hard as we do in the 10 or the 1145. And so that's where, you know, sometimes you have those tougher rooms. But something that I love that we've cultivated in our team is, Hey, we're not here to put on this grand spectacle. We've got one goal, we're lifting one name up, and that's all we're gonna do. And we're gonna do it to the best of our ability, and we're gonna just go where Holy Spirit leads us. And so our team has cultivated that. They've grasped it obviously we're still learning, we're still figuring out things, but it has made Sunday such a joy just to be able to serve our local church. Mm-hmm. And that's been my focus in taking over this department. It's just like, hey. Local church is so important. Sometimes people lose grasp of that. Mm-hmm. And I want our volunteers, I want our staff to have a pride in, in serving the local church. You know, I want them to come in Sunday, prepped, ready to go, ready to shake some hands, serve some coffee, open some doors. Yes. Lead worship to the best of our ability, you know? Yes. And it's just, honestly, coming from a Southern Baptist background, it was tough at first to figure it out. Mm-hmm. Where I used to, like I said, sing out of the hymn book. We might have a couple praise songs, but no matter what we were getting to that message. Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. And so having just, you know, always being on your toes and always being ready for whatever Holy Spirit wants to do, it's been such a journey. It's been so much fun, and I just love the culture that I'm immersed in now. I love that, bro. I, I hope that answers all of that. Absolutely. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. Yeah. Caleb King on the Worship Keys podcast. Yes. Celebrating the King of Kings. Mm-hmm. Mr. Transpose button himself. Now, I'm gonna mess with you now about that. Yeah. Uh, but do you put in bio, think you taking the Yeah. Put it in your bio. Thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast. Absolutely. Share your heart. I mean, you seem like such a, servant hearted guy. Such a humble guy that loves the Lord, loves worship, loves music, and, it's amazing to see what God is doing in your life so far. Yeah. I mean, you don't have a brand, a platform or anything like that. Like I noticed obviously you're playing with Gary and Kate. They're doing big things, obviously with silent Bethel and whatnot, but keep doing what you're doing. It does not matter if, you have some kind of brand platform or not, or, or you have the big worship pastor position, quote unquote, at your church. Or if you're, you're know, an artist or you're signed or you're not, or whatever it's your heart position. Yeah. And, um, I see that in you, man, and keep doing what you're doing. Yeah. Through serving the church. Mm-hmm. The local church, through serving Jesus in your, in your quiet time. Mm-hmm. So be before there's ever, you know, more, any more mics or cameras in front of you too. Like just keep following God with all your heart. Yeah, for sure. I hope this is encouraging. I know it's encouraging to me. Yeah. I know. It's encouraging to others. Just to hear stories of how other people came to learn worship keys and worship key's. Not that hard. I mean, if a drummer can do it, you guys can do it. Just kidding. That's kind of like a Si. No, I'm just kidding. He's, he's a 100% correct. If a drummer can do it, anyone can do it. Well, honestly, some of the best keys players were drummers first. I mean, let's be honest, I received that little, I was not, you know, a drummer first. I did beats some pots and pans I guess when I was little. Yeah. But no man, when you have an incredible rhythm like that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know some of the craziest keys players I know, man. They're drummers are bass too. Yeah. Do you still play some drums? Occasionally. Yeah. Okay. Okay. If, if there's someone who can step up and take that Keys MD spot, they could take it. We've got another guy that usually on worship nights, either he'll take it or we'll run two keys, but if he takes keys, I'll jump on the drums and. We have a lot of fun, fun time. Yeah. Well, if y'all ever see Caleb out and about, whether that's at a worship night, at your own church or wherever it is, just tell him hello. Tell 'em you love him. And, um, anyway, love to, stay connected with you Caleb and yeah, for sure. Thanks for coming on the Worship Keys podcast. Absolutely. Safe travels back I mean, hearing Gar gait and, uh, ib, I'm like, can you say their name? You know, do you have that? I don't know. A lot of people say gait and carrot. It's a, it's a normal thing. Gate and carrot. Oh my gosh. Garrett, Garrett and Kate. There you go. My goodness. If you're able to see them live