Keyboardist & Organist Caleb Marte

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Hang out with keyboardist and organist Caleb Marte in an episode that feels more like a backstage chat than an interview. Carson Bruce joins Caleb as he shares growing up in church, being a PK, and how he went from hating piano lessons to loving worship keys. They talk gear, Nord boards, real B3 organs, keeping things simple, and staying humble while you grow. If you play keys or want to get better at worship music, this one’s for you. Don’t miss out.

Caleb Marte

The Worship Keys Website

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. All right guys. My name's Caleb Marte. I'm here in Atlanta, Georgia for Vessel Conference. Uh, like I said, my name's Caleb. I play the Keys. I'm gonna be on organ this weekend, so I'm so excited. I'm from Northern California, the Modesto area. Shout out to all my Modesto people. Um, I serve at my, my local church. My dad's a pastor. So shout out to all the pks out there. I know you guys know the struggle, but, um, man, I'm just so honored to be here. Uh, I'm using this weekend, I'm gonna be running the Nord, uh, organ I don't have it loaded up right now, but um, it's gonna be good. I would say. Obviously I prefer the real thing, you know, a B three, there's nothing like it. The feel is just totally different. But, um, we're gonna get the job done, uh, hopefully soon. I'll show you guys later, but I'm gonna have a little midi right here, running some omnisphere up there. Um, you can't go wrong with Omnisphere, so yeah, I would say yeah, I'm just super excited. Um, what's your, what's your controller of choice there? My controller of choice, like my midi controller of choice. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, right now I would say probably the nano control. Uh, I don't have it on me. I didn't think I was gonna be running MIDI stuff, but I would say prob for sure, the nano control, um, or the, uh, XL touch control. You can't go wrong with those. Um, it just gives you so much leeway, um, within templates and stuff. I, I would say that's like the new industry standard, so I would say for sure that. Especially when you're running aux and stuff. Um, and even when I play main keys, I could just hook it up to my template and I can control everything. I can control my tracks, I can control my levels, can control all my effects, my reverbs, my delays, everything. So I love it so much. Um, yeah. What's your, what's your favorite keyboard of choice? My favorite keyboard, I gotta go to stage three. I've tried the stage four and I'm just not comfortable enough with it now. I grew up on the motif. The MO VS eight, which is like an, I know that compared to like the boards nowadays, it's nothing. But that is like, it has a special place in my heart and I love Yamaha. I love rolland for all my aux stuff, and it always sounds great, but I always say like the Nord acoustic piano, like the cute, I don't know what they did with Nord, what lab they made it in, but it's just different now. I do run keys scape and spitfire usually. So on a Sunday you'll probably see me running that, but if I show up to a church and they have a Nord, I'll be all right. So I actually started playing technically when I was six years old. My parents signed me up for piano lessons and I hated it. This is, yeah, this is probably not the direction you thought that I was gonna go, but I hated it. I begged my dad to let me quit. I was like, please, like this is so boring now. When I was 12, I switched teachers and I started learning actual church music and I fell in love. I, like, I knew right away I was like, this is what I wanted to do. My big brother, he was a huge inspiration. He, he was a guitar guitar player. He played for artists like Todd Gal and Jesus culture and like insane. And so he, uh, he inspired me a lot. And so yeah, it's all your influences, your musical influences go a long way. Being inspired by so many local greats in my area and just YouTube. YouTube is everything. Get on YouTube. You need to go to YouTube and just start shedding. There's so much stuff out there and I would say that just inspired me. And from there it just, it just took off. It just took off. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so my buddy Isaiah, he's actually like over there. He hit me. Um, and was they were having, it's called SoCal, HYC, so it's, it's SoCal Youth Convention. And he was like, bro, we want to do like this band intro, uh, before goodbye yesterday. So you know, the lights are off the band playing. And I was like, okay. Like I actually think I have an idea. I don't know why, but I already had something in mind. And so I started cooking and like, if you would hear the rough draft, it was like totally different. It had no vocals. Uh, my buddy he's an awesome vocal ranger, he wanted to add something, so he added his vocals to it, and I just built it from the ground up. It like doubled in length, like within, like from what it was gonna be, and it just came to life for, and I, it was such a learning experience, um, just learning how to arrange developing my soundscape and just, uh, sometimes less is more. That's, I think that's probably the lesson I'm learning right now. Sometimes you don't need 50 sounds. Sometimes you could get it done with less and it just sounds more, you know. I am a multi instrument, so I play, uh, drums was actually my first instrument, like every other musician in the Christian, uh, you know, world. But drums is my first instrument, but keys obviously is now, and I play bass too. Um, and then obviously like Oregon Ox, you know, all keys. But yeah, those are not guitar. Guitar is crazy hard. I can't do it. Who are your favorite, uh, artists? My favorite artist, uh, Travis Green Super. I mean, he's well known, but he is super slept on, I think Ty Truett, uh, obviously Israel I grew up on, I, like everybody else did. Um, Todd Galper, um, Todd Delaney. Uh, I'm trying to think if there's other ones. And then obviously all the CCM goats, you know, David Funk and Bethel, they're killing it. Gateway, you got Elevation. But I would say, yeah, Travis G Green and Ty Truant. If it wasn't for them, I don't think I'd be a musician, bro. Just they're listening to their music, developed my ear so much and it kind of gave me my sound that like whenever I'm arranging or wherever I'm like. Playing. I want that. Whatever that is, bro, I want that. Yeah, I would just say like, don't be discouraged. Learn from others. That's what I'm doing here. There's so many go to musicians. I'm just happy to be here. And I would say put your pride aside and just learn from others, you know? Um, you'll be surprised like how quickly you can learn when you just ask a question. And I, that's why I love podcasts like this, because they just provide those resources where. You could just watch literally a 62nd clip. Like I'll watch of khris and I learn something new and I'm like, oh bro, I'm adding that to my bag So don't be afraid to steal. I know stealing's bad, but steal everything. Stay encouraged. So DW Aaron Caston's gonna be playing it. He's insane. You'll probably see a clip of him later, but he's insane. We have, uh, I think it's a Ludwig Black Beauty over here. Darrell symbols. Um, and then, yeah, it's looking good. It's looking so good. Um, ZG and high hats. Um, it sounds so good. And then obviously Remo heads on it and then they're running this side snare, super CM fast snare. And then if you notice, it's a little wonky, but they're running. The 12 inch Tom over here