Simplicity and Production with Chris Tomlin's Keys Player

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In this episode, we welcome Matt Gilder to the Worship Keys podcast, with sponsorship from Aerospace Audio, to discuss Matt’s journey from growing up in Southeast Texas playing church piano to touring and producing, including nearly 20 years as keyboardist for Chris Tomlin since a 2006 session at Blackbird. Matt shares how ear training and the Nashville Number System shaped his musicianship, his early band Among Thorns, and how learning tracks and software opened doors. He breaks down his live rig evolution (Roland V-Piano, controller, MainStage, Ableton, redundancy, and iConnect solutions), offers advice on choosing inspiring gear, and emphasizes simplicity, listening, and playing for the room. They discuss handling big-stage energy, building trust and longevity with an artist, prioritizing creating and finishing music, and maintaining faith amid public ministry failures by focusing on integrity and healthy community.

Matt Gilder

Aerospace

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Worship Keys podcast. My name is Carson Bruce. We talk all things music theory, gear, industry, and ministry for your worship keys playing. I'd like to thank Aerospace Audio for being a sponsor of this episode. They create unique. Incredible high quality atmospheric drone pads to be used for your worship services, productions, songwriting sessions, whatever it may be. They have an analog physical drone pedal that they call atmosphere. There's actually a version three out. They also have a MIDI end capability, so you can work in tandem with Ableton Live. Or any other dog that you have to be able con to control everything through that ecosystem. Or if not the physical analog pedal. They also have an iOS app that you can run the pad straight from your iPhone or iPad. It's called Aero Pads. Definitely check them out, aerospace audio.com and let's get into today's episode. Guys, welcome back to the Worship Keys podcast. So glad you're here. I am with an amazing pro level musician today as pro as they get. Listen, we have all kind of pro musicians and guests on this podcast, um, some newer to the piano and some very seasoned, and today I am just so honored to be talking with Matt Gilder. Welcome to the Worship Keys podcast, man. Thanks Carson. Appreciate you, bro. He's awesome. It is an honor to have have you here to talk with us to have a conversation, um, about your keys journey. So guys, today we're gonna be talking about his, see his, his life career, um, as a producer, as a keys player, playing with Chris Tomlin for, you said almost 20 years now. That'd be 20 years in. Um, I got called to play a record called, uh, see the Morning, oh man, in April of, uh. Wow. Is that 2006? 2, 6 7? I'm sorry. 2006. 2006? Yeah. April of 2006. So that's 20 years. Wow. And um, my goodness. And that was, uh, I know it was April because I just finished up a tour. I was trying to come off the road. Okay. I don't even know if I told Chris this. You wanna just jump in? You wanna talk? Yeah, let's do it. Man. I don't even know if I told, let's do it if I've told Chris this, but I was trying to come off the road. Okay. Um, I'd been on the road for. I don't know, since I was 19, I dropped outta college. Um. And, and, and you're from Texas, right? From from, yeah. Beaumont, from Texas, from, um, outside of Houston. Born in Port Arthur, Texas and raised in needle in Texas and, and hung out in, I always say Beaumont. Okay. Okay. 'cause everybody know I've only lived in Beaumont a little bit. Okay. Okay. But everybody knows that 'cause it's right on the highway. Got you. Um. But yeah, Southeast Texas grew up playing in church, um, from when I was pretty, pretty young. Uh, you know, took piano lessons and stuff, but never loved You took lessons growing up. Yes, I did. Yeah, just three years though. Just three years classical. Um, it was classical for about six months. Hated it. Found the new teacher and literally we started doing ear training, learning the national number system. Oh, chord theory, that kind of thing. That's brilliant. And, um, I loved it. So I had, I had a traditional teacher. And then got more by ear. I don't know about yourself. Same. Same. Okay. But I stuck with it longer in the, actually my parents made me stick with it longer. That's good. In the classical, that's good world. Especially for chops. Right. So five years old till about they finally let me knock it off at I think 11. Okay. Or 12. And me, it's funny, me and my wife were just watching, um, my mom sent over a piano recitals. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like a couple of videos. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, I remember thinking. I nailed this. I remember having that thought as a kid. Yeah. I was pretty confident. Like little piano player. Yes. Yes, bro. These little, these kids younger than me. Yeah. Like the Asian kids. Uhhuh. Right. Amazing. Unbelievable. I have no, I remember they're like seven years old. I remember thinking they were awesome, but I don't remember thinking that they were, you know, smoking me. Oh, they were killing it. They were killing it. But I had this like. My parents instilled this, like, thank God, this confidence that like, dude, you could do this. That's awesome. But, uh, I finally talked them out of lessons at 12 and I wanted to play sports. Mm-hmm. And then a couple years later, man, playing piano after a service. My parent, my parents were like elders in the church and they would just talk to people and talk to people and like, you know, they were ministering to people and talking to young couples and Right. I would just go sit in the. Church lights were out playing piano. Oh yeah. That's the best man. And I was doing that one day and some people noticed me playing and I certainly wasn't playing to be noticed. I was pretty, I was shy. I didn't wanna play in front of people, it was just for me. Right, right. And um, but they encouraged me. They were like the youth pastor found out I played and, and so I started getting lessons and, and then not really fell in love with like, the idea of playing live. It's very life giving to. Be able to pour out what I was hearing. People seemed to respond to it, you know? So that was at 14. I would've paid for my own lessons by then. I got passionate about it. Absolutely. But same as your story. My mom got me into somebody that was into ear training. Yes. I wish you started that way. Right, right, right, right. I wish that kid's like, I don't know how it works. You know, I'm not a, I'm a terrible piano teacher. Try to do that for a minute. Okay. Okay. But I wish you could learn more by ear. Mm-hmm. Um, train your ear, kind of like the way we learn how to talk. You know, we don't learn to speak, come on by, by reading or by, you know, learning all these concepts. We learn by emulating what we're hearing and Totally. To me, music makes sense that way. Yes. And then learning to read is important. Absolutely. Although I'm terrible. Terrible, bro. I was always terrible. I'm super terrible now. No, no. You moved to Nashville and you don't have to, like you said, you, you learned the number system uhhuh. So I, I bought that. I don't, did you ever see that book, the Nashville Number system? No. Somebody wrote, made a book. Okay. Country. Uh. You need to get it. I wanna say a country drummer. Okay. You may be able to still get it, but in Barnes and Noble, if that's even a thing anymore, come on. Right. Is it a thing, right. Barnes and Noble May, maybe it's a thing, Amazon, but they used to be in Nashville. All the Barnes and Noble had. The, it was just called the National Number System, and it's a, it's a folder. It's, or sorry, spiral Bound. Okay. Notebook. Right, right in the back of, it's a cd. Hopefully y'all have updated that. Uh, and it was, it was this dude, this showing you all the old country. You know, so it was nothing that was applicable to me at the time. 'cause I was playing worship music and Right, right. Pop music. Sure. But learning that dude that changed your life. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Being able to go sit in a session and, and or jump into church now. It's such a part of church culture. Oh it really is. Yeah. Right. Like kids, it's a huge part of it. Kids know how to read. Number, number church, which is like so helpful. And it is, I didn't grow up with that. Oh, well there's a small church, so my buddy called me and said, Hey, he, he's a drummer. Yeah. And he is like, Hey, we have, um, our worship leader just got onto our bass player because he was using numbers and our worship leader's. Like, no, we don't, we don't, we don't do that. That's, that's like that, we're beyond that. You know, like we're we're this. And I was like, really? The fact that he got. In trouble for using numbers because you know, bass players, it's real simple, you know? So helpful. It's very helpful. It's so helpful. And with transposing, capo on your guitars and stuff, if you just say the numbers. Yeah. It doesn't matter what shapes you're playing and what you're doing, because every worship leader sings in, well, not every, but a lot of 'em singing different keys. Right. You know, so I show up to church on a Sunday, and last week Brian led, but this week, you know, Todd's leading and Todd's definitely more of a tenor. And so we Right, right. Bring it up and you knock it up. A couple of keys. You don't have to change your charts. Yeah, absolutely. Learn the number system. It's awesome. It is awesome. So, Chris Tomlin, okay. You got started with Chris Tomlin in 2006, but before that you were already doing music. You were Yeah. In a band, right? I had my own band called, how about that? Among Thorns. Okay. That's what got me outta college. Okay, man. Awesome. Me and some buddies were leading worship in, uh, college Bible study. Mm-hmm. And it grew and it grew, and it grew over the first year of college to where there were. I don't remember, but you know those big lecture halls, uh, in college that, um, probably see, I don't know, a thousand people. Who knows? There were a lot of kids coming to this thing. Yeah. And it got the of a local guy that, um, was, um, he, he was like a music producer. He also. Was a manager of this, um, speaker named Ken Freeman. Okay. Who was this Big Baptist speaker back in the day. Yeah. Yeah. And he was like, dude, if you guys get your act together, literally that's what he said. Um, we could, we may be able to put you out on the road this summer. We got all these summer camps we're producing. Yeah. This guy's the speaker. We don't have a band. You guys are, you know, awesome. And we had a lot of our own, we were writing music at the time too. Yeah. So singing all the hits, singing all the, whatever was going on in 19, whew. This is embarrassing. Like 1996 or seven. Amazing. Amazing. And um, 97 was good year, man. Good year. Is that when you were born? It was. I figured, sorry. Yep, I figured. So we all literally. Well, we didn't drop outta school right then. We did that summer. Okay. We named our band like the day of the first show. We literally opened the Bible, did the Bible, um, you know, bingo or Bible, uh uh what do you call it? Just, just literally plop it. Oh yeah. Plop it open. Just read it and see whatever was there. See what happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the guy that was producing in this show was like, what's the name of the band? 'cause we were just the worship band for. The college. Sure, sure. And we're like, I don't know. So two hours later after like opening the Bible thumb and through, we came up with Among Thorns, which is a scripture in job that was totally taken outta context. It was like, absolutely not what we meant. Leave it test musician. But it was cool. Take it. Yeah. We did that for years. Made a couple of records on an imprint with, uh. Provident music. Awesome. Yeah. And that was so fun. Um, but we were gone 250. Our biggest year was 280 days. Wow. We were gone. I mean, but you're kids, you're like, you know, let's go. Let's go. It's born for, yeah. But I, when that band started slowing down, I was like, man, I am never gonna, I am never gonna meet a girl or get married, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got to figure out how to. Stay home and we'd moved to Nashville. Um, but I was never there, so I decided I'm gonna start playing sessions as much as I could. Yeah. And see if I could make some money staying home, playing records. Totally, totally. Um, I knew a lot of people from traveling, so I was able to play on a lot of people's records. Yeah. And that's how I got to play on, uh, Chris's record. On Tomlin's record, yeah. That the producer called me. Again, I don't even think I've told Chris this, but he called me on a Thursday night. I remember we wrapped up this run I'd play, I was playing with different artists and I'd played a run with a girl named Jenny Owens, who was a Christian artist and Bibo Norman. Oh yeah. I love Bbo Norman. Yeah, I played with him for, for years on and off. Incredible. Great guy. Um, and I was beat. I had been on the road for forever, um, and I just wanted to chill. And, uh, a guy named Ed Cash who produced a lot of Chris's, most of Chris's music. He's an incredible producer. Yeah. He called me and he is like, Hey bro, what are you doing in the morning? And I was like, hopefully sleeping, you know? Um, I was like, I. I mean, I don't know. He's like, we're gonna, we're gonna, um, rent out if you can do it. We're gonna rent out Blackbird. They have a great piano there. There's a B three. I just produced a, a guy named Chris Tomlin, but there's no keys, um, to speak of. We're thinking not a lot of like sense or actually, I think the, I think it was don't do any synths. Okay. We're just gonna do piano B3 Um, it's gonna be pretty, that that record going back and listening, there's a knot. Much synth stuff going on. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, dude, I almost didn't do it. Mm. Honestly, back at that point, I didn't, I don't think they did a great job of connecting Chris, or at least I was unaware of all the songs that he had written. Oh yeah. I knew he was awesome. I knew his band was awesome 'cause we'd seen him at festivals. Right, right. But I only knew that he wrote like. We fall down. I only know you that he wrote a couple things. Yes, yes. I didn't know about already. Oh yeah. All the huge songs. So many I almost said no to the session. Oh my. I was that tired. Tim almost said no. Oh yeah. To play him for, for Chris Tolin. Almost said. No. Thank God I didn't. Yeah, yeah. Um, showed up at this session. Me and Ed. Um, this is a fun little fact. Again, I don't think that Chris knows. Um. They said no synths and stuff, but I brought my little laptop. Okay. Yeah. I set it beside the piano before Ed got there. And this is in 2006. This is oh six. Okay. So yeah, the laptop I'm sure. Was that bad? Yeah, probably this big Uhhuh. It was a MacBook. That's awesome. I was early to, it was my, it was my, uh, first Apple computer. Incredible. And I literally bought this computer. Sorry, I'm all over the place. No, you're good. I love it. I love it. 'cause a year before I got called to play. A tour with a girl named Rebecca St. James. Oh, love St. James. Or like fill in. Okay. I had a buddy named David that was the keyboard player, md. Awesome. He had to go do something for a few weeks and he was like, dude, can you fill in for a while? And I was a fan of her music. I was like, sure, man. He was like, you got a, you got a MacBook, right? You got a computer? And I was like. Totally. I did not. Oh, did you not? I was fully lying. I was like, totally man. Um, and he's like, okay, cool. Do you have a audio interface? And. I don't know if I fully knew what an audio interface was. Okay. But he meant like, you know, a MO two, everybody was using these MO 2 8, 2 eights back then, but he meant like a little iConnect box or whatever. Yes, yes. To get the music out of the computer, get the tracks and the sense Sure. Sure. I told him I don't have that. So thank God I didn't lie about that. Um, I was like, I don't have that. He's like, you can borrow, you can borrow one. I've got like a couple. I'm like, great. He's like, okay, cool. Come over in. He's like, we're off tour in three weeks. We don't need you for a month. Come over in a couple weeks or three weeks and we will run through the set. We'll just, uh, set up everything on your computer. I'll transfer everything. I went and bought on credit. A MacBook Pro. Come on. Yeah. I went and bought a, a MacBook Pro and, um, couldn't afford an, an audio interface. Thank God he had one. Yes. And did everything at the time there was no, I mean, I'm sure, I don't know when YouTube started, but there was nothing online. Right, right, right. Resources. Yes. So I called a buddy and I read. Digital performers. The was the works stationing they used. Yes. Yeah. To do the show. Sure. I read that thick book. You should see this, the manual. It's crazy. My gosh. Front to back and just studied how to do it and trying to wrap my mind around what this is gonna look like. And a buddy gave me some tracks to import so I could kind of practice. Yeah, yeah, sure. Showed up at his house. And David, if you're listening to this, sorry for the fib, but he prob, I'm sure he kind of knew. I bet he was kind of like. This guy's not exactly killing it, but he gave me the interface and um, it got me down the road on using tracks with the, the shows went great. Thank Lord that's big. Yeah. Um, nobody knew that I didn't know what I was doing. Um, and that's when she was doing big shows, so it was fun, you know? Right, right. Um, but that, that got me down the road. Using the computer and the audio interface. And so that same computer, the computer I brought to that Chris Tomlin session mm-hmm. I set it down low where nobody can see it on this little stand. Yeah. And I told the engineer, 'cause I got there, I guess the session was at 10. So I got there at nine. Um, I brought a couple extra mics, I brought a couple little. I wouldn't even know what they were now. I was probably broke, so I bet I didn't, they weren't great, but maybe they were a little condensers. I don't remember. Okay. But I dropped a couple little condensers. I told the, the engineer, Hey, we're probably not gonna use this, but if you have a couple extra channels. So I, I ran those mics through my little interface into the computer with the thought, um, and then piped it back out to the, the soundboard, to the, um, engineer with the thought that. Maybe I run this piano through some yak, like at the time it was okay, it was popular to live, like I have some reverse piano stuff. Right, right, right, right. Just some ambient, who knows? Yes. I just thought that maybe a song, I could cook up something and it wouldn't be like a synth, but it would be this piano, but absolutely. We didn't use it the whole day. We were literally just sitting there. I mean, if you hear that record, we were just. I'm playing like block chords. Yeah. And yeah, it's pretty stuff. It's, but it's, I'm playing B three, but it's all Patty. Nothing, anybody could have played it. Honestly. Anybody could have played what I did until the last song I had those, uh, I asked the guy to open up those things and I was doing, I wish I could remember the song. I'll have to go back and look at it. Listen, but I'm sure you can hear it. It's a slow song. And he opened up the, the mics and there's like these little flowy, like reversing things behind the piano. Mm-hmm. Subtle. But Chris and Daniel, the guitar player, um. Nobody, the band wasn't supposed to be there. It was just supposed to be me and the producer the whole day. Okay. And that's what it was. Yeah. But the, but they came in, at the end of the day with, with Daniel's dad, just to hang and listen. I guess the other two guys went out, left back for Austin and dude, I swear that was the only cool thing that I did all day. But they heard it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's cool, man. We get, we get out, I, I finish the song walk in the booth. I'm like, they're like, Hey, this is Chris. And, and, uh, Daniel and his dad. We hit it off. Um, we're all from Texas. I didn't know that. I didn't know he was a Texas guy. That's cool. We started talking and it's just wild that, that, the one thing that I thought was cool, they actually got to witness and, and they're like, are we, we're kinda looking for a keyboard player. Are you available for this tour? And dude, I had already told my buddy Bebo. Um, that I would go do 30 dates with him, and then I was honestly gonna be kind of done playing live. Okay. I was gonna try to focus on production and Sure. And so I told Chris and the guys, man, I, I can't, you know, I did a few summer shows with him, but I said I couldn't go do this tour and, which is crazy, like I turned down a tour with Chris Tomlin. Yeah. Um, but honestly, I just didn't think I was gonna be playing on the road that much longer. Yeah. And, um. Again, Chris, if you're hearing this, um, uh, this is probably news to him, so sorry, but I just didn't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so I, I go, uh, play some summer shows with him, play the Beebo Norman tour, and. Had turned on a couple of, I had turned on Chris and them to a couple of my buddies, Ben Chive and a couple other guys that were amazing keyboard players. Yeah. To do the tour, but they couldn't do it either. Okay. Thank the Lord. Thank the Lord. Because if Ben would've done it, I'm sure he'd be doing this interview. Right. Oh wow, man. But they got a guy that was, I think from England. He did the tour. I'm sure he did a great job. But you know, he wasn't gonna be their guy for. Forever. Mm-hmm. And they called me again at the end of November. Of, I guess this is oh six, and said, could you come play Passion? The Big Passion conference. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Passion conference. Have you ever been to any of this? I've not. I have not. I have a lot of friends that have been It's great conference. They've never been though. So fun, man. Yeah, so fun. So I was like, yeah, totally. And that Was the launch. So officially huge conference, man. Oh my gosh. Big conference. Yeah. So that was my big first. I'd done a couple of summer shows with them where they were just kind of trying me out and I'd, uh. Heavens knows what it sounded like because they, we literally didn't rehearse. They just sent me the music and said, figure it out. And we went and I jumped in with their band. That's awesome man. But for passion, we went and rehearsed for a few days in Austin. All the guys were living in Austin, Texas. Sweet. And that was awesome. And that solidified like what these guys were about. 'cause I was passionate about worship music. Um. Yeah, but I just didn't have my Bandon wrapped up and yeah, playing with all these pop guys is amazing. Playing live is so fun. Absolutely. But I just thought, I don't know, I didn't know if that was my path to, to chase totally. Going out on the road and playing bigger and bigger shows and Totally. Um. It. It's a fun life. But I didn't know that that was my path. But playing with Chris, it was like all the things that I had grown up training to do. Yes. Playing. Playing behind these worship artists and behind these preachers. Mm-hmm. And leading these times of real, really just. Um, they would've called it, they didn't call it this back then, but it would've been like almost soaking music. Yeah, man. Which, have you heard of that term? Oh yes. Oh yes, Um, so now there's records you can go chase. Um, totally. There's this guy, William Augusto, that I'm such a huge fan of. Um. Uh, uh, I planned to meet him one day, but, uh, um, he doesn't live here, but he makes these records that are just soaking music. We'll put 'em on before our shows. Before Chris Tomlin's night, and that was the stuff I grew up on though. He wasn't doing it back then, but other artists were doing these records that were just these flowy. Beautiful. You know, contemplative gives, give, gives you a chance to, to, um, experience. God and experience, um, the spirit without words. Without much prompting except what's happening in music. Right, right. For me, that was very healing. Yeah. And I'm a, uh, I don't know if you're familiar with the Enneagram at all. Oh yeah, for sure. But I'm a Enneagram nine. Okay. And, uh, my deal is like peace, peace and, and you know what I mean? Yeah. And it makes, it makes it awesome for what I do because the whole. World can be burning down and literally if you play live, you know that the whole world sometimes is burning down and you're, I gotta hold this thing together, right? Like, like the, yep, yep. The sim track is something's going on and the lights aren't chasing it, and the, and the whatever the tracks. The worship leader's gotten off. Thank God for Chris. He, he is. So, if we figure out a song, we wanna do it this way, he can. He just never, he just never gets off's. So it makes me look, that's amazing. That's good. It makes me look amazing. That's awesome. But you know, from time to time he'll go a different direction. Things are going and you on stage or too Okay, great. Yeah. Things are going wild and you have to be cool. Yeah. If you're not cool. Everybody's like, oh my gosh, because that's good. You know, I'm running three computers and, and you know, there looks like a space station up there. Oh yeah. And if that goes sideways, Chris doesn't know how that works. So, but, so I say all that to say that the personality type is helpful. Absolutely. That, that Enneagram nine piece, peaceful, it's gonna be fine. Yeah. Yeah. So everything's going wild. But I'm talking in a low, calm voice and being like, Hey, yeah. Uh, here's where we're headed next. Um, Chris, I think we're gonna land this and whatever. That's awesome. So that, that, that's a gift that God Wow. Just gave me that I'm not like freaking out stage. Right, right. Totally stage. No, that's a good tip for people. I, I feel like if they're wanting to, to be in a position like yourself is Yeah. Is having, having that mindset, being able to. You know, not be so reactive to and add to the fuel, to the fire, you know? Yes. So it's going crazy. Yes. Um, this, but this is incredible to, to, to hear from you on this. I want, I want to ask your opinion on some gear real quick, which I know we're, we're talk, we, we limited time. We can only talk about so much, man. If we had five, 10 days, we'd just. I'd ask you all the questions, but I love it. Um, you said you're a Roland guy. Yeah. Tell it. We, we all, a lot of us who are listening to this podcast, we love gear, we love Oh, cool theory. A lot of church keeps players, also industry players like yourself. But, um, talk about gear for a second. Yeah. So Roland, uh, I saw you one time with Main stage up and going Yeah. Ableton. Uh, tell us what, what all do you use? Currently, what did you used to use? Talk about gear. Not to take up the whole episode. Mm-hmm. But just a little brief gear tangent. You know what would be funny for anybody that's followed me, which I'm not much of an interesting follow through the years because I literally found what I love. We could go back and find the YouTube video is probably, let's do it. It's probably. It's at least 10 years ago. Okay. Might be more than that. Might be like 12 years ago. Roland approached me, um, a dude that was, um, one of their keys guys and yeah. Yeah. Such a smart guy and and. I was playing Yamaha at the time. Okay. Okay. And he was like, dude, why are you playing Yamaha? I like, well, I, I grew up loving these keyboards and the S 90 was what they had at the time, S 90 Ex or something. It was a great con controller. Yeah. You had to kind of get jiggy a little bit with the. But it was great. Yeah. Yeah. Um, played it for a lot of years and he was like, check out this new Roland, and it was their flagship, uh, not stage. Uh, well, people used it for stage piano, but it's called a v piano. Okay, bro. Yeah. It was as heavy as this thing, or It is. I still play it. Still play it, it's for sure is wide. Okay, okay. Oh my gosh. Um, because they have a real wood. Hammers. Okay. Underneath the thing. Oh, that's the action is so it feels incredible. Insane. Oh man. It only has 20 sounds. Okay. Only pianos. That's it. I mean, when they said simplicity V piano, that was it. Yeah. But it has a big deck on the top of it. Yeah. Like a big, um. Place where I was like, okay, I could put another keyboard on top. Okay. Act like a stand instead of having a stand with like multiple. Yes. I went and I played it. Um, he let me bring it to a church for a, a gig and man it blew me away. It was like, um. It just felt like a piano. It responded the way I wanted it to respond. And everybody is different. People love nords People love Yamahas. Yeah. To me, the instrument, the best instrument is the one that makes you go, I wanna play this. Come on. That's the one that's the best. Yes. That could be whatever. Come on. You know, talk about it. Matt doesn't, you don't have to spend a ton of, I I know you got this arturia here in front of us. Yep. If it's that with main stage playing. You know, um, uh, Omnisphere or playing that key skate program or whatever, right? Yes. Whatever inspires you to make music. And that's the one you need to play. Come on. That's good advice right there. never, especially all this stuff is expensive. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. All these keyboards are expensive, man. Oh, totally. Totally. For sure. Don't go down the road if I have to have a new keyboard. Yeah.'cause they lose their value immediately. Come on. So look for a used keyboard. And you look for something that makes you wanna play. So this made me wanna play. That's good. Um, that's good advice right there, man. And, and they were willing to give me a deal. 'cause at the time, I don't know what they cost now, but they were a lot of money. They were a lot of money. Mm. Um, and they should have been because they were, they were, it took so much to make 'em. Yeah, totally. So I bought, I bought that or, or they hooked me up with that and then they came out and Chris wanted one. Chris played it, yeah. Yeah. And he wanted one. We were doing this tour called Burning Lights. Um, so that's probably about. Whenever that tour was, that's probably about when I got the keyboard, maybe a year before. Okay. But I needed a keyboard for the top as well. Right. Like I needed, um, that thing only did piano, so that wasn't an option because so much of Chris's music's got now sense and B three and totally, you know, and I was playing like a, a, maybe a. Yama? Uh, no. I was playing a real B three at the time. Mm-hmm. So I was dragging around my real B three. Right. Which, if I can tell you, it's awesome, but holy smokes, it's a lot to tell. It'll wear you out Uhhuh. Right, right. I'm sure. So I thought to myself, what if I had the Roland and I had a little controller? Yeah. And so Roland at the time, made a, and they still do. It's a something 500. Okay. Um, but it's a little controller with a bunch of faders. Yeah. It's kinda like this Arturia guy. Yes. With some pads. Feels pretty good most to me in that $200 price point, $300 price point. They feel kind of like garbage usually to me. To you, to me. As a pro. As a pro that you are. Yes, sir. Um, they don't feel great. Mm-hmm. And this guy. Felt great. A a 500. Okay. A 500 is what it's called. And they make an a 800 that's a little bit longer. Okay. Okay. I got the 500 because I didn't need all the keys. Right. And I got main stage. There you go. Um, at that same time, yeah. I was using Ableton for everything. I was using it for running tracks. Yes. 'cause somebody got performer failed. Four years earlier. Oh no. On a gig it failed. Uh, it just went sideways. They were doing an update and I'm sure performers great now, but at the time it made me look like a dumb dumb. Yeah. In front of like some big artists Oh, no. At the time, oh no. And I went home that night. Four years earlier, three years earlier. And I literally bought Ableton and me and Buddy got everything out of performer. 'cause I knew Ableton was stable. Mm-hmm. It looked like some German people made it with crayons. It looked crazy, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, totally. It looked like kids, German kids made it, but it was solid and that's all I cared about. Yeah. So then fast forward three years, now I'm using it to host. Um, Omnisphere and Host Totally. Whatever I was using at the time. Contact instruments and Yes. And you had to do some workarounds, but it was very solid. Absolutely. But a buddy was like, dude, let me build out your set. Let me help you build out your set in main stage. And he did it. And I, I worked with it for a few. Weeks, got comfortable with it, bought that little a 500 keyboard, mapped everything out, you know? So now I have the B three that sounds, yeah, dude, I still use that B three today. I created that patch, well not created, it's Logic's B three I edited to make it feel like it's my, I'm sitting there with my B three, love it. And that, and going back and forth and being like, okay. So it's incredible. And I saw you at the interview, a Sweetwater interview like 10, 10 years ago. Is it that same one? Dude, probably from then. Yeah. Okay. Go back and listen to that interview. Yeah, that is, maybe I've edited that B three a bit, but that B three is still solid. It's on Tomlin's Records. That's amazing. Like there, I can't, I can't Tolin tell you what song, um. But that sound is on a ton. That's great because I would be in the studio and we would play. Yeah, yeah, totally. Um, the B three isn't cranked up 'cause you know, you gotta, it's a thing. I would just do the demo with that. Mm-hmm. And do it. It's made the record. That's incredible. Which is embarrassing and awesome. It's embarrassing and awesome. Which is, which is which for logic, I mean for logic user. Yeah. Oh yeah. I love a lot of, and I get, I show people that B three all the time. 'cause they're like, what are you playing? 'cause it doesn't sound like a Nord. Right? Nord. ISS awesome. Oh yeah, Nord B three is amazing, but it doesn't sound just like that. It's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And so I've, I've, I use it. Today. That's so, yeah. I, I put that thing up there. Built out the set, figured out how to run, um, Ableton on one computer. Got talked to Chris into buying like a, a backup computer. Yeah. Redundancy. A and B. Yes, sir. Yeah. And at the time, a buddy of mine named Michael Lowe, um, shout out to Michael over at iConnect. He doesn't work there anymore, but he was helping develop, um. The, their little audio box that did, because before that it was just midi, right? Um, they had the iConnect. I've done some videos about that iConnect. Oh yeah. Yeah. I've seen it. Like were you at NAM and stuff? I've seen that video. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Talk about the I connect, um, 'cause I was writing a lot of it's been discontinued some of those Yeah. Interfaces. Well, 'cause they've, now they have the Mio and stuff. That's, that's really awesome. That's, that's kind of made that other stuff. Um. Redundant. Yeah. But, but, um, oh, the play audio is what? Play audio. Yeah. They didn't call it play audio at the time, but Michael was developing that. So I flew to Canada, like checked out this box. 'cause I was using like all this like, uh, SW eight, like, like, um, it was just analog. Patch. Sure. You know what I'm saying? It, it's like, um, it was a switcher between the two computers, but it was all analog. Okay. And Michael was like, dude, MIDI over USB is so much better. And I'm like, not in my experience. And he's like, MIDI over audio. We've gotten super tight. This guy's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And their, their company was. Coming up and I was using some of their little gear, so I'm like, let's try it. So I had that play Audio 12. Uh, they came out with that. I had one of the early, we were using it on Tomlin tours. Incredible. Before it was like. Really sussed out thing. Right. Sorry, Tomlin. It was super dangerous to do, but it was working. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and it was so much lighter. You could squeeze all the stuff so small. Yeah. And now you see those things like in every church, in everything. Yep. But I was using that little keyboard controller, couple of computers. Mm-hmm. Main stage ableton's running the tracks. Love it. That, that's how, honestly I got a lot of my gigs 'cause I could do. I could run all of that stuff at once. Absolutely. But to me, it wasn't hard and it made more sense to me than having the drummer do it. Yes. Because the drummers dude, that dude's busy. Oh yeah. That dude's got like, why am I gonna make him all four lives? Yeah. Right Now the guys that are great at it are so impressive to me. Some of my friends that play for huge country acts and they, they do it, you know? Okay. That's incredible. Uh, and I've just always thought I, I can hold a foot pedal. Yeah. This thing, and I can reach up here and I can launch a song. Totally. Or if Chris. Or the worship artist, some songs we have set up where you can loop it. Absolutely. You know, and now, dude, I, I should probably reach out to your community 'cause I'm sure guys can teach me like, the stuff you can do now. There's so much man. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah. Um, but, but that gave me the ability to be super flexible. Totally. Um, 'cause I'm not like a, uh, I mean I grew up playing classical, but I'm not like a solo guy in a, I'm more like a vibe guy. Yeah. And a. Thinking about playing live, more like producing music. Oh, gotcha. Right. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Like to me, especially when things go sideways. Okay. 'cause it gives me the ability, or gives us the ability. I think sometimes, I don't know. We'll talk to God about this later. Mm-hmm. When we get, when we get in front of him, I think sometimes it feels almost like, like this should not have gone sideways. Yeah. But something got off. Kilter and sometimes I feel like it's to shake us up a little bit. Mm, right, right. Yeah. We practiced and we put in the time and it's great. And I think that that's super important. Yeah. For it to be really excellent. Yeah. Yeah. Really important. And then when it goes sideways, what do we do? How do we pivot? Mm. Yeah. And for me, I'd been practicing pivoting my whole life. Yeah. 'cause I didn't have, you know. Church service goes every which way. And I've been doing that since I was super young. Yeah, man. Like the pastor heads that way. The music minister wants to do that. And I'm here with a bunch of guys that are older than me and honestly better than me, but for some reason, you know, they've got, maybe 'cause I was the keyboard player, I was kind of leading this thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. How do you do it? How do I, and that was before we had talkback mics or 10 years. Oh right, right, right. We're all on wedges, man. Hand signals. Yeah. So you're doing a lot of hand signals. Yeah. And leading. With what you're playing too. Totally. Like this is where we're going. You know what I mean? Listen to the ion ability. Listen, watch me do this. Yeah. And so I'd been training for that my whole life, but to me that's such a great opportunity when things do go sideways. Yes. To see like, oh wait, wait. Maybe God, maybe this isn't the devil in the sound system. Maybe we're supposed to do this. Yeah. And for, for the most part, the people. I mean, unless we're just playing in different keys. Totally. The people don't know that this went sideways. Right. Right. The people are out there worshiping and, and whatever. Totally. So our big awesome ending that we planned mm-hmm. That we planned in, uh, rehearsal. Uhhuh didn't work. Who cares? They don't know that it didn't work. Totally. You know, the worship leader ended early. How can I now turn this into, come on some kind of vibe. Yes. And if the worship leader trusts you. Yeah, which is a huge deal that's developing that trust between me and the, the lady or the guy out front leading. Yes. Um. It is huge. That is huge. Um, if they trust me, then maybe, um, this is an opportunity to create something incredible. Right. So that's the, the way I've looked at it my whole life, um, actually talking to you about it right now. Love it. I'm learning some of this as I'm saying it. 'cause I don't think about this a lot. Right. This is a really cool opportunity, but, but it does, it does come out that way. Like how can we turn this into, um. How can we be open and see what God wants to do in this space and not to show how awesome we are? Mm-hmm. Maybe that's awesome and maybe it's great be that I'm not that awesome and flashy a player because I don't have these tendencies to be like, check me out, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but to see like. Maybe God's doing something in this room and what are the people, what's, what's happening in here for me? Yeah. So much of it about is about creating a space where people can experience healing. People can experience God. Yes. And, and. And I can really get out of the way Of that. Um, my whole life, it's been about if they can, if they lock onto what I'm doing and they think they're thinking about it, it feels like I'm not doing a great job. Mm. For me. For you. Yeah. For me, it feels like my job is to set this atmosphere and for them to almost, not for them to. Would've to think like, why does this, why am I feeling compelled? To pray right now? To worship right now. Why am I, they would've to think about that because it's not like that's my, that's my love. Mm. It's like this sneaky Yes. Experience creating this experience. Yeah. Come on man. I love it. Yeah, I love it. Okay. A big thing, big things that you were saying right now that's really just inspiring me is when you're talking about gear, it's playing what you, what inspires you to want to play. I love that. So it's really not all about the gear and then personality's a big thing is what I'm hearing. And also, um. Because I want people to, to hear this, people hear the name Chris Tomlin. That's a big name. Sure. I mean, you're playing for a-list artists. Sure. And so I want people to hear you what you're saying. I mean, you're using hardware and software. Yeah. So it's not this, this fight between only hardware, only software you're using this. Big marriage of all of it together. Yeah. And then your personality. I think I wanna go back to trust. You talk about trust. I mean, you've been playing for, to play with any artist for a number of years is a huge thing. Mm. Yeah. Um, I mean, doing anything for a number of years. Any job, anything that you're at, whether you're at a church right now, guys listening, or you're playing for an artist or whatever you're doing the longevity. There's something to be said about that. We talked about this a little bit with Dave Wyatt, which. Shout out to Dave for getting us connected. Amazing. Love Keith Player for Toby Mack. Dave's the best man. Um, or he was, he, he was, uh, Keith's player for Toby Mack for over 20 years. So kind of similar to him. You've been playing and you've been with Chris for 20 years. Yeah. That's almost. Unheard of a youth pastor that's been at a church for 20 years is almost unheard of. No, that's probably true. Yeah. Like the longevity and the trust. Talk about how are you able to stay with Chris Tomlin for that long and not jump ships or or chase something else, or obviously if God's called you to do something else, that's totally good, but talk about that a little bit. How are you able to stay connected for so long? What he's doing is really in line with what I'm doing, with what I'm passionate about. Yeah. Even though I have side projects and, and, um, and love instrumental music and play, play with a lot of people in that world and, um, that all to me is a worship. What Chris is leading is literally the world, the global church in worship. Yeah. And so for me it's super easy to, I would say. If you find somebody that you can align your heart with, if it's, it's not tough to, uh, to stick with the program. Um, he's very inclusive as well in the way that he wraps all of us in script to. To help create the music. And he puts a lot of trust in me to help create the show each night. That's good. And what the, you know, he's creating the flow, but I'm connecting the dots in how this is going to this and Totally. His hand is in all of that, where some artists aren't as much, right. Some artists are like, here's my songs. Figure it out. You know? That's fine. I really enjoy the collaboration with him. Um, so finding somebody, finding a, um. A tribe of people that you can collaborate with and that are all kind of single, not kind of, but single. Their focus is very much this. Yeah. Chris hasn't done a lot of this, right? Like yes, this is what he's called to do. He's called to lead the church in worship. And of course there's opportunities. I mean, I've had amazing opportunities through the year, years where people are. You know, like, Hey, you could come do this and this would be awesome. And it would've, it, I'm sure it would've been. Um, but trusting that little voice inside that says, this is where you're supposed to be. Yeah. This is where you're supposed to be. Yeah. Um, I've, I've been lucky, um, to be able to, um, hear, and I've never, I can't say I've ever heard the voice of God audible, but I've been lucky to sense. That this is where to be or this is where to go. Yeah. Or like, Hey, do this, don't do that. And, and so it's been, it's been very lucky. But I'll tell you this, like so many of those opportunities looking back that I've had along the way have fizzled out in six months. Yeah. Yeah. Were amazing. And you get to do this and holy smokes, you're gonna play in front of this many people for. sixty shows and mm-hmm. And then in a half a year fizzled out, you know, I had friends that I, yeah. That I was like, I can't do it, but let me get you to the guy that can do it. Mm-hmm. Um, which, that's kind of the music industry, honestly. Totally. Like you said, totally. Longevity is not a big thing. It's like there's a fun part of that. Like, I play for this artist and then Oh, Get to go play with these guys. Woo. And it's a fun life. I lived that life before Chris. Really? Where I was bouncing from thing to thing. Yeah. I mean, it's like, ooh, I don't know where I'm getting money in six months, so I got it. Yeah. It's exciting. Uhhuh and, and you get to collaborate with a lot of different people and that is awesome. There's something that's awesome about that, especially when you're in your twenties. Yes. Right. You're getting to meet all these people and, and maybe that was an important part of finally meeting Chris, like if I would've been at a church, if I would've taken my first, my first. Opportunity was when I was choosing between my band and the church that I grew up in. Yeah, because they were offering me a lot of money. For a kid Yeah. To stay. Okay. And, which would've been amazing, I'm sure. Right, right. They were great people and would've been awesome. But God, something in my spirit was like, I'm gonna go do, do this thing that makes no money. Right, right, right. If I wouldn't have done that. So there's something to be said for seasons of life and, and I think it's all just following that little. Thing. Trusting yourself. You know, inside of you. You all know. Inside of you. Yes. You really do. You don't know that, you know. Right. But you all know inside of you what is, um, what's the right thing or what's the next thing? Right. I don't even think about it as right or wrong. 'cause sometimes doing that thing feels like, oh no. Mm-hmm. I just put my family in jeopardy. I'm gonna feed my kid. Right. Yeah. But it's the next thing that God's got for us. If we are quiet, if we listen, come on, we can hear it. Um. And you, before we really started this whole segment, you talked briefly about what excites you right now. Yeah. Speaking to that a little bit about seasons of, of life. I mean, you've been doing this again, uh, you've been a pro at this for decades. Some people are just starting, some people are two or three years into this, maybe they're at their church and they're debating, jumping, like, maybe I'm gonna move to Nashville. Maybe I'm gonna move to, yeah. Atlanta. Maybe I'm gonna do this big thing and I'm gonna leave the comfort of my church, um mm-hmm. To do, to pursue something like you're doing. Yeah. What's your advice to that individual when it comes to that? Yeah. Great question. 'cause I moved here to keep, try to keep my band alive. Yeah. Here being Nashville. Yeah. Yeah. To try to keep my band alive. Totally. Because we were, we, we, we needed, uh, our lead singer had stepped out. We needed a new lead singer. So we moved here thinking that maybe this could, um. And, and I immediately got into church community. So if this is your passion, which if you're listening to this podcast, I'm sure that worship keys sounds like this is your passion immediately. You know, if you're, if you think I'm called to maybe not be a part of this community and, you know, Tulsa or whatever, but be a part of this thing immediately I would get in a church community. Immediately I would start serving. Yeah. And I did that, not because I'm awesome, but because I, I. Well, I loved the church and I didn't, I didn't know anybody. Yeah. So it was such a cool way to get in to do whatever. What do you need? Totally. You know, I'll serve, and I didn't, this little church that I ended up playing at in Franklin, I didn't play there for a year. I was just trying to make music and help out friends with production and whatever. But I was serving in that church and getting to know people and got to know the pastor. Yes. So just, I would say get in a community, serve, um, with no expectation. And, and then in all your, you know, private time work, produce, uh, practice. Yes, yes. Create totally, you know what I mean? Create just without, without expectation of this thing being whatever. Totally. But, but I, I've gone through seasons in my life where I didn't create as much, and those are, are the only seasons I regret. Where I got too busy doing. Whatever, and I wasn't able to create, for myself or whatever. God's speaking through me as a player with other friends, you know, with people that are, but just pouring into everybody. If you look around and you certainly don't have to be in Nashville. Mm-hmm. This. Place is wonderful and beautiful. The only part that I, the part that I love most about a community of pro musicians is it does raise your you. Up real quick. Oh yeah. Real quick. You're like, oh, I thought I was awesome. Yeah. And I'm not that great. I really thought I was awesome. And you, but you are awesome. You're awesome. In what God's, you're awesome. And everybody's got a voice. Your voice is awesome. Maybe your technique. Could be. And that's what Nashville helps do. Yes, totally. You know, it does. It's not like I'm not awesome. It's like my technique needs work. My skillset is like, oh wow, look at these guys. So good. They're doing. Yeah. Look at these girls. That's what's awesome. Yes. About spending time and you don't have, now with the way you can travel, you don't have to live here to do that. Or you don't have to live in New York or LA or you know, Chicago or Atlanta. You can. Visit and still pour into a community and, and become friends with people. Absolutely. And, and kind of level up your skills. Oh yeah. And now, dude, we didn't have YouTube. Yeah. Can you believe that? We didn't have YouTube when I was doing all of this. Yeah, yeah. Now with YouTube it's insane. It's insane. Yeah. But look, I get into people's world, into their studio. Totally. What they do. Isn't that incredible? Um. Yeah. And okay, I wanna talk about, first again, I wanna reiterate, uh, a point that you made about, you had the opportunity to go on tour and do this thing, and they asked if you had a MacBook. You didn't have a MacBook, but you went and bought a MacBook and learned it, spent a lot of money. I want, I want be able to hear that sometimes there's an opportunity in front of you and you just need to jump in, buy the thing, learn the software, learn the keyboard. Yes. I mean, 'cause you already had the skill sets for piano. Yes. And you just needed to study this particular software thing. Yeah. So if you guys need to go learn Yes. Ableton or main stage, or learn that Nord stage, finally, you know that Nord stage three or four that that's at the church, just. Take some time there for, for a few weeks or so, learn that gear really well. Yes. I want people to hear that of you, like you just jumped right in and started doing it, but I wanna ask you a question. Please. You, because we don't get a lot of guests that have that play for tens or hundreds of thousands of people. We, we have a lot of guests that might play a few thousand people at a mega church. Um, it it, the, the big crowds. I wanna talk like you've, you've, you've been playing for big, large crowds. For decades now. So maybe, yeah, you've kinda lost that sense of whatever. A lot of people, we, I think we kind of, uh, idolize, it's kinda like idolatry or kind of like, oh, we wanna be on a big stage. Oh, sure. Um, speak into that. What do you, what, what's your perspective of like playing for like a winner jam that, you know, being on tour at Winter Jam? Yeah. Or another Chris Tomlin tour where there are. Maybe 50,000 people. Mm-hmm. Or a hundred thousand people in this arena or passion. Right? Yeah. Where there's over a hundred thousand people. You think about these large groups and then you think about an intimate church with, you know, 200 people and you're talking about that soaking music. Yes. Like a prayer service or something. Talk about the difference in your perspective, in your mind, your heart posture and, and with Chris too, that you've seen Chris go into a room of a hundred thousand or a thousand, um. Is there a difference? Is there a different expectation? Yeah. Talk. Talk to that. Is there a difference between the large crowd and the small crowd? The difference, um, the big difference to me, um, and it came, it became really clear, honestly, talking about passion. The first time I played passion, that was the biggest crowd that I'd played in front of at the time. And that thing that became super clear, super quick was the energy. Of the people is wild. That's the thing that's different. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's all the same people. These are the same people that are in your small group, that are in your, you know, a hundred people service or 800 people service. Now there's 60,000 of 'em, or 70,000. The big difference is you get on that stage and I wasn't ready for it. I was younger too, so I, I just thought, ah, you can barely see the people. Because you know, the lights aren't, the lights are on the stage for the most part. So it's not like it looks a lot different. You know, you could almost think there's 5,000 people here from what you can see. With all the lights. Yeah. But you can feel the energy and bro, yeah. We, you played weird. Like I was messing up, I was shaking but not because I was scared. it's something about the energy, the subs or whatever the, those rooms, the rumbling of the people. All these people worshiping and excited and crazy there. That is wild. So. If I could go back and, and do that, some of the early times, I would definitely learn about breathing. Like right. Like yeah. Like literally just calming myself. Oh. 'cause we can't play when we're jittery and nervous. Totally. You can't play. I mean, we can, but you know the deal. If you play in, in, in, in a situation where you're nervous, you're, you're just jittery and you're not. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And all, a lot, a lot of that's like, be it's because it's about me. I'm worried about messing up or whatever. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But, but some of it is like the, the energy of a, of a place. We're not, we're not ready to step into that. And I was not ready. Mm-hmm. Quickly, I became ready. I, I, you, you, you get used to like the, energy that's coming back from you, from the crowd to you. But breathing and centering myself before that. Praying. Mm-hmm. Do you know what I mean? Oh yeah. Became a Oh yeah. Pretty big. Practice stretching became pretty big. That's good practice for, for me. 'cause I would often early on would go in cold. Oh yeah. You know where you're. You, you're just not ready for that. So really preparing my heart and, and physically warming up was a big deal. Okay. So the energy BB between it is, is a big difference. Yeah. Yeah. But the people and the spirit is the, is the same. Yeah. And um. I do try to, uh, encourage younger people that are getting those opportunities to play in front of bigger crowds, to um, to take that same spirit when, uh, that for me it was those moments where I'm playing soaking music and people are enjoying and it feels healing. Yeah. Look for those opportunities in these big. Shows. Mm-hmm. Because that's what is connecting people. Yes. People know the records are awesome. People have listened to music, they're sure what they're there for is connecting with God. And, and there is something interesting about the more people there, the more there's a lot of freedom that comes with that. Totally. You know? Absolutely. So how do I use what I learned in these small places but not abandoned that not just all, all of a sudden become cool and play the most awesome sounds?'cause in an arena. You can't tell. Mm, I tell more people to knock it off with all your, your delays and reverbs. Come on. Say that again, bro. Small settings. smaller settings. It's better, it's easier do it on the records. Mm-hmm. But, but play to the play for the room. Yeah. And I'm a culprit dude. I've got a reverb knob that looks like it's worn out on my keyboard. Right. I'm a culprit uhhuh. But the bigger the room gets, the less that translates. That's good. Do you know what I mean? The less so the guitar player that had a ton of reverb on their guitar sounded awesome on the record. Um. Back that down 50% at least lean more on delays that are, that are not forever feedbacky. Yeah. You know what I mean? Totally. Because it's, it's a vibe. Mm-hmm. And the keyboard with some delays is a vibe. But be, be careful because it gets, it gets lost. Mm. That's good. It's weird how the bigger it gets, the less notes you play and I can't sit there and, and just crank on the low end of the keyboard. Yeah. In a big venue. Mm-hmm. Or even big churches. I can't do that. Hey, get outta the way the. Bass player. Right? Right. Because that dude's, if he's any good, he needs that. She needs that space. Come on. Yep. Right. Yep. So use it more for impact. Um, but you can kind of come up quite a bit. If you watch me play, I wish I had video of it. Dude, I, I'm my left hand. A lot of times it's just one, you know, I'll use a octave for big impact stuff. It's playing fits or something. But a lot of times it's playing fits and a lot of times it's. Just letting, I mean, we have a guy named Matthew Melton that is our bass player. Yeah. You gotta stay out of this guy's way. He is a killer. Oh my gosh. Is he so good. So just learning, learning what, um, again, that goes to the production Uhhuh, thinking about it like, I'm producing this. Totally. What would I do? Totally. Uh, I wouldn't just, I would play to the room or play for the record. Or play for. So taking, this is a lot of information, but taking what we do in small settings, what god's. Put in us and everybody has a different gift, right? Mm-hmm. So stop looking at the other folks' gifts. What does God put in you? What fires you up? That's usually an indicator of what. Right. That's good because if, it fires you up, it's gonna fire up somebody else. Right. Right. And it doesn't have to fire up everybody else. So there's people that do not like what I do. That's awesome. Yeah. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. A it's none of my business. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, somebody's told me that that great advice. They quoted like, what other people think about me? It's just really none of my business. Mm-hmm. And I was like, whoa. That's very freeing. Right. Yes, totally. Focus on what I'm. Gifted in, in what I'm good at and not that I don't care. Not that I'm like, it's not that air. Of course, of course. It's not that air of like, I'm gonna do what I do and I don't care. It's that everybody's free to express themselves and experience life the way they want to and Absolutely. And free to their own opinions. And this is not for everybody. Absolutely. But do what you do. Do it excellent. Take what you do in small settings and try to implement that. In bigger settings. I love that. I think people need to hear this from a pro like yourself. Again, I'm gonna keep talking about how pro pro you, 'cause you are, you're so pro. Uh, because a lot of us have stayed in our own own church community for a while. Sure. Or other things. And we've learned these big techniques and when it's just you and the piano, you can go all over. You know, I, I, I heard you playing some jazz stuff earlier before we started recording. I mean, you got the chops. You can, you can do it, but just 'cause you can doesn't mean you need to do it. Yeah. So I want you to talk a little bit about that for, for more of the beginner type people. If people that are preparing to play for a more pro level a-list artist, talk about how important it is to go simple. Mm-hmm. Than more, obviously you need to learn, the more you need to learn the classical, yeah. You need to learn the techniques. So helpful. But talk about the. The control for a little bit. Good. Yeah, that thanks for, that's a great question. 'cause I, I was definitely a culprit. The young, the younger you are, the more not you like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well you you're trying to prove something too. Yeah. Yeah. You like, I can't, I can play and it's fun. You know, it's, and you've worked so hard on it. You've worked so hard. Right. You right. You've spent your whole life. You went to college for it. I went to one year college. I got, I dropped out quick. That was not great. Shout out to Lamar University in Port Arthur or in Beaumont, Texas. Um. But this, this, this area of the keyboard, uhhuh, we talked about that earlier. Of course. And like yes. That's kind of where I live for what I do. Yeah. Yeah. If anybody else is playing with me, you know? Right, right, right. If I'm playing with the band. Yeah. And then in the moments where it's broke down, sure. You'll hear me. Play some low stuff and do some, especially if it's behind Chris and there's this moment where we're flowing. Yeah. Then that's kind of, that's different. But if I'm talking about playing with the band Yeah. When you listening, when you listen to records, man, you, you're able to strip this stuff apart now with that multitrack Right. Program. Yes. You know what I'm about, guys that run that are amazing. Oh yeah. I'm able to hear now what folks are doing on records. Yes. You hear the way, if you're looking at the broad, like this is all the frequencies, you know these keys are kind of like they're sucked in here. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. A lot. Right. If you looked at 'em on a graph, they would be totally not a ton of low end. Yes. We're letting the sub stuff, we're letting the bass player, we're letting the programming do that. Oh yeah. And then not a crazy amount. It depends on what the guitar player's doing. Depends on the deal. But if I've got a guitar player that's killing it and doing these awesome lines. I am gonna, I'm gonna listen. First, that's good. And I'll do this if I, if I get thrown into a situation with guys mm-hmm. Um, unless they're looking to me to set the vibe. Right, right. And, and they're like looking at me to kind of produce this thing. I'm gonna listen at this guitar, to this guitar player and, and try to compliment. What he's doing immediately, I'm gonna play way less notes. Mm-hmm. Right. Um, it'd be interesting, my note count per night and sometimes I feel more excited so I play in more stuff. Well, you know, it's, it's funny because Chris Tomlin's music is known for being so simple. It's even like the, the, the, the genre or the thing that people make fun of in Christian worship music because they're like, well, if it's a Chris Tomlin song, so how? Right. I can do it. How, I mean, everyone can do it. And he's made it so palatable for the church to do. Yeah. I mean, like he said, he's written for the corporate church for so long. Man, you know what a genius that dude is. Absolutely. Shout out to Chris Tomlin. Simplicity, man. Dude, it's, it's so hard to write like that. Like he does. Oh yeah. To be so good. Yes, because he writes, he writes in all kinds of genres too that people probably don't even, I probably don't know about it. And he's an amazing writer, like. The way he crafts songs. I just sit around, I'm going like, oh, it's a, it's a, you go to school if you watch him write a song. Mm-hmm. But to be able to hold back. Um, so the same way that he's using that we need to use that our, doesn't matter how much we know, it doesn't matter how proficient we are. Yes. For what we do to be able to hold back and look for. Look for the things that matter. Look for the notes that matter. If I'm gonna play a note Yeah. Does it, does it matter? And that would've been a hard thing for me to conceptualize or to think about when I was a kid, when I was Right. Right. 21. I'd be like, what? What do you mean what matters? What sounds good? You know? Yeah. It'll feel good to, but, but what am I here for? I'm here to lead these people. I'm here to create this space. I'm here to somehow connect people with God. And each one of these notes matter, like, right. Like. I had a friend that used to make me sit there and play a note and think about the way this made me feel. And, and after. At first I thought, what's going on? It's funny. And then I add this reverb or the delay to it, and then how does this make me feel? How can I play the least amount of notes? Yeah. And, and be able to use some effects. 'cause if you're using effects, you for sure need to play the less notes. Let's let those effects do what they're Yes. Doing. Right, right, right, right, right. Let's get out of the way of our buddies and let's listen. Mm-hmm. Make the notes matter. Yes. And this is such a, I've gotta go, we're leaving on a bus. In a little while. Yeah. And I've gotta play tomorrow night. Oh, very nice. So this is great for me to actually say and hear. Yeah, yeah. Come on. It's such a great reminder, right? Mm-hmm. Um, a a big thing that I use when I'm using pads and soundscape kind of atmos stuff Yeah. Is filters. Getting, getting my pads out of the way of the low end of the base. Totally. Right. And even the low end of the piano for some, and then, and then bringing it in. Rolling it back. Rolling that filter. And you guys know what I'm talking about when I say filters like I pass. Oh yeah. And low pass filters. Assigning them to some kinda little knobs. Yes. And given the people a break with what they're hearing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Whether you're playing behind a pastor. If I'm playing behind a pastor, I'm listening. I'm not just playing. Uh, whatever. I'm not playing a song usually. Right, right. Um, unless we're heading into something and I can sneak in Melody Yeah. But without, I don't want people thinking about me. Mm-hmm. And so I'm very cognizant of like, I'm giving 'em a break on the low end at times. I'm rolling it up and rolling into some kind of like reverbs or something. Yeah. And then, and then letting the, and then rolling it back sometimes and letting. People feel that. Yes. You know, those things are so cool. And you can like put on like a drone and kind of create a space. Totally. Man. Then give 'em a break on the high end. We don't need to hear all this high end ly stuff. Right, right. All that. We need to roll that down. Totally. Have a mood. Let the piano or the electric piano, have a couple of notes and then maybe roll it back up and Yes, but listening, listening, listening. Feeling what, um, the leader is doing. If it's the pastor talking, if it's the worship leader, totally exhorting the people and like, what are they saying? Absolutely. If I'm not supporting what they're saying, then that's where I think that's a fail. Mm-hmm. Everything else, it's like, what's a, what's a fail man? What is that? Right? Chris always quotes this. Uh, was it Bach? Maybe it was Bach. I can't remember it now. I'm gonna mess it up, Chris. Sorry. But it's like, um, it's something about the, he, he doesn't always quote it or I would have it more at my fingertips, but it's, uh, to play a wrong note is, is, uh, meaning during a show or during a performance to play a wrong note is, uh. It's not a big deal. Obviously B Bach didn't use the word not a big deal, but that's not a big deal. Mm-hmm. But to play without passion is unforgivable. Oh, that's good. Which was so cool. That's good. He says that a lot to play with. To play a wrong note, y'all go look it up. I've never looked at the quote. Yeah, yeah. But inconsequential. Inconsequential. Maybe to play a wrong note. Okay. Is inconsequential meaning it's like. You know, who cares? Who cares? Don't do it a lot, but, but sometimes you'll play a wrong note when you're playing with passion. Absolutely. Yeah. But put your heart into it. Listen. Right, right. That's good stuff, man. I love it. Well, it's incredible to hear from you, Chris Tolman's own keys player. Dude, this is a big deal. Uh, if, if you were to pick an artist that's like, who is the, who is the worship artist from multiple decades, you would have two or 3, 4, 5. Names that would pop up. And Chris Tomlin one would a hundred percent be in the top dude along with Phil Wickham. Yeah. Who he's been writing incredible music for the church. Oh, he's so good. I love Phil. And they've been collaborating too. I mean, there's some Matt Redmond, the list goes on and on of like songwriters. Yeah, like, like staple songwriters. And there's songs too that I'm like, I didn't know if that's Chris Toman songs or someone else. I know he covered Holy Forever, but I think someone else wrote it, right? He wrote, he came in and wrote on the, um, I think Jen had. I think she had the, uh, oh, she had the melody, the script. Yeah, she had that. Okay. Okay. And maybe that, I think she had that lyric. Okay. Um, but it was her, Jen Johnson, her and I never know who writes and who covers things. These Yeah. Chris came in and, and did I, I asked him, but I forget now. But that was a collaboration. Okay. Yeah. Maybe he wrote the verses. Okay. Or he helped. Who knows? I'll misquote, but incredible. I think Phil wrote on that one. They were all hanging out. That song is. Insane. Incredible. Yeah. Every night that song is, it is wild. Yeah, it is. It really is insane. Well, thank you for being on the podcast and taking time. My gosh. This is a, a gift if you're, if you're viewing this and you wish I would've asked one particular thing. I'm so sorry. I totally would've asked more questions about, uh, Chris Tomlin being on the road with him. Uh, you know, things to do with what's going on. In the future of your career? Yeah. Which you said more instrumental projects coming out. Yeah, under my under. Gotta tell us before we wrap this up. Man. God, my wife would be so disappointed that I don't know. My Instagram exactly, but Matthew Ryan Gilder is Matthew Ryan Gilder that I'm starting to release, or, or the name that I'm starting to release. And we're gonna, we're gonna tag your Oh, cool. Your stuff on the description or the show notes so you guys can check him out on social. So I'll, I'll send you all the info. Yeah, definitely, definitely. That's definitely been a passion in the last year that I've, that I've, uh, put off my whole life is creating, um, with other artists. Um, yes, getting to do this instrumental stuff that I didn't think was important years ago, but now. Especially where we are in this world. It feels there's something about it that if it, if that's in you to create this healing, you gotta put that out in the world. Absolutely. So, absolutely. That's a charge to all my, I love it. Fellow musicians just, I love it. Just do it. Put it out into the world. Just create, man. Yeah. And I, I, I love what you said in this episode. You said, the moments in my career, in my life when I felt like I did not create Mm uh, it's like there you weren't as, you didn't feel like you were walking to the fullest in your No. Potential, maybe no question. Right. Feels like almost disobedience with what God, God's made us to create. Yeah. We're put here to create. Yeah. So create whatever that looks like. You know? And it's not that you were, you were still, I'm sure you were still playing a lot Oh gosh. Playing on a ton of records. You were producing, you were doing stuff. Yeah. And, and software you were doing, a lot of you were, uh, uh, beneficial things, but what God has put in you to create, right. Yes. Yes. Those are all creative. No question. Absolutely. So it's not like I wasn't creating, I was creating with other people Totally. For important things. Absolutely. But, but keep remembering, keep, what are you supposed to create? It's good. Um, and it's not for your name to be in lights. Mm-hmm. Because my name will likely never be in lights. Right. But, but I've been, I've been really passionate lately about what's in me to create, how do I get that out to the world? And the world may be your church community. The world may be your. Buddies that you know, you whatever. Absolutely. Whatever your world is, how do I get it out into the world? Just do it. And it's easier than ever to self-produce music, So encouragement for you guys who play Keys You. You got logic pulled up. Put it down. what hurts? Put it out. I mean, a lot of us, we're scared to finish. We get 70% done and we're, it's like, ah, is this good? Well just, just put it out, dude. That's everybody you'll find in your life and you guys will see in your life. That's everybody. It's not just us. I haven't had a record deal yet or whatever, It's. Everyone. The people that you read about are the people that finish. Yeah. That's good. That's literally it. That's good. And it's never done. That's good. Forget about it being done. Super. Forget about it being perfect. Oh, that's true. That's never gonna, but forget about it being even done. It never feels done to us because Totally. 'cause it's our thing. Totally. So it's not done. It can be better. But what does that even mean? You created it. It's for this time. Get it out. And the more you get it out, the easier it is. Come on everyone. I've had the opportunity to talk to. Crazy. Successful people in this genre in rock and pop and all over the place, and they all say this, so it's not, it's not just because we're, we're figuring this all out. Yeah. They all say the same thing. It's so hard to get done. Uh, you know, some of them get it done by hiring, literally hiring people to make them get it done. Right. Right, right, right, right. And I don't have that. Ability. So I just gotta get it done. Yeah, yeah. Totally do it. Get it done it. Y'all stop this episode right now and go get it done. Uh, but I do wanna wrap this episode up by asking one crucial question though. Yeah. And again, I know time's up the essence, you gotta go, um, and be, be somewhere here in town. But I do need to ask you, um, with all of the unfortunate news of. Like Newsboys, lead, singer, and other artists that we see fall over over sometimes years, ah, uh, there are pastors that will fall with allegations after allegations. There are churches that close down. There are. Hmm. Sad and unfortunate things, right? Yeah. And you've been in the industry for some decades, like we've said, uh, have my last question of the interview. Has any of that affected how you view God or how you view Christianity, how you worship? Has any of that affected you or rocked your world? I mean, I've talked a little bit, uh, with Dave. I mean, he's, he's had his struggle with alcohol that he's. You know, God's allowed him to overcome and, and Toby Mac's loss of his son and Stephen, Chris Chapman's, loss of his daughter. And there's so many tragedies, right. And heavy, heavy things that are not light. Yeah. Um, and even in the Christian music industry, sometimes it gets a bad rap for being an industry because everyone's gonna live, make their living. So you're living your dream. Yeah. And it's amazing. But, um, ha. Have you ever been discouraged in your faith and do you have any encouragement? To others to speak into that as we wrap this up? What a good question. I know it's a weighted question. No. Early on when I worked for my church, um, you know, 'cause I was 17 years old. 16, 17 years old. Yeah. Early on I had a little bit of, you just get, when you work for a church, you get to see behind the curtain. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't like massive. Whatever. Yeah. But it was discouraging for me, you know? Sure. As a kid growing up and idolizing people. Yeah. Which is a problem, but that's what you do. You look to the people that are in front of you. And so early on I got discouraged or disenchanted and, and wondered about, you know, is this, I mean. What else is not real? You know, that makes you ask a lot of questions, right? I've been lucky enough to work with a lot of, uh, brilliant people and see people that are, that are walking the walk and absolutely. Um, I can say that about Chris Tolin. This dude is no joke. I can't. Uh, tell you what a man of integrity this guy is. Mm-hmm. I've got to see that and I've got to see, uh, different things that people have struggled with. Mm-hmm. And I've had my own things that I've struggled with, and what I've come to realize is that we all do. Yeah. I mean, Chris's thing might not be this thing, right? Right. But Chris has his own things. Right. If we're talking about people in a community, it's gonna get messy. Yeah. Inevitably, right? Yeah. Yeah. And if I look to people. It's gonna discourage me truly. Um, I think what, for me, it's like get good people around me. Get people I trust and get people that believe the way I believe ish. Be open to everything. It's not like I'm creating a only be friends with these guys, but the people that are, that I'm. That are intimately familiar with my heart. Yes. The people that I really trust with those people. Yeah. I know the way that they live. I know that the way that, uh, they believe and I trust 'em. Get those people around you, get in those communities. But don't cast, I mean, I can't cast stones. I can't, you know, you know, it does nothing but drag me down. Hmm. So, as much as I'm aware of things that go on, I certainly don't pursue. Understanding all the ins and outs of it. Mm-hmm. Because it doesn't, it doesn't do anything for my heart. That's good. I want to focus on my, my community, my family, my, the people that I walk with day in and out. Yeah. I wanna love them. I really love them the way that I know that I can. Yeah. I don't wanna be distracted and then I want that to pour out, um, you know, to come from God, pour out into my family and to pour out and in my community. Mm-hmm. And some of that community's gonna be messy. For sure. 'cause it all is totally just, people are messy. They are. And, um, thank God, thank God that I, I haven't been judged and hung out to dry on everything that I've ever said come on. Or everything that I've ever done. Come on. You know, thank God people have been gracious Yes. With me. Come on in my life. Yeah. Um, it's really, really. Beautiful thing. The church is a beautiful thing. Yeah. And I'm really glad to be a part of it. Praise God, man. Well, we, we will end it On that note, thank you so much to Matt Gilder for being on the Western Keys Podcast. Thank you. This is insane. Like what