Musical Accessibility

I have been too busy this week to do an extensive lesson, and last week’s lesson was pretty heavy anyway. Besides everything else I do, I am studying new music theory, planning a round of summer concerts, and arranging my new project which I hope to record this winter.

I want to talk about musical accessibility today, but let me digress a bit before I get to that.

I had some friends in town yesterday recording at a studio near my house, so I dropped over for a few hours to watch.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had hired Tim Parton to play the piano.  Tim is one of the top studio pianists in Christian music and is also the pianist for the popular Southern Gospel group Legacy Five.  He is also one of the most humble and sincere people you will find in the business.  You can see a video of him playing here.

Normally, for a vocal project, the instruments are recorded first and the vocals are added later.  On the project I saw yesterday, there were four musicians (piano, guitar, electric guitar, and percussion).  They took about an hour to record each song.

These musicians are professional studio musicians.  They do not practice ahead of time, and they make very few mistakes when recording.  There was no written music except chord charts.  Tim Parton created the chord charts a few days ahead of time from a demo vocal CD that the client sent him.

Here is the process they used while I was there. Before each song, the clients and musicians gathered informally around the piano to establish a general feel for the song and to discuss the introduction, chord changes and various other little things.  Then, they just played it.  Normally, there were a few bars that had to be corrected.  Then, they moved on to the next song.

Yesterday, I noticed that Tim Parton was the informal leader in the studio.  He is extremely creative, and would experiment with different styles for each song until the client agreed to one.  All other musicians took their cue from him.

The process I just described is not unique–most music is recorded that way.  When I first began recording, I was surprised at the lack of prior planning and formality in the studio.  This only works because of the incredible level of expertise of studio musicians like Tim.  My recent CD was more heavily orchestrated, and in cases like that, every note is written out before getting to the studio.  However, most projects contain four or five instruments per song, and they are usually improvised from a chord chart on the spot.

The project I watched had a southern gospel flavor, and I noticed that the chord charts were not horribly complex.  There were some altered chords but not too many.  Of course, this is true for most music you hear on the radio these days–jazz and some classical are the exceptions.  That brings me to an interesting
conversation we had yesterday in the studio about this subject.

One musician told a story about a well-known pianist who played popular music in large venues.  The pianist was talking to a jazz musician and mentioned that he wanted to learn jazz.  I don’t remember the exact quote but the jazz musician told him something like this: “Don’t worry about learning jazz.  It is better to play 3 chords in front of 3,000 people than 3,000 chords in front of 3 people.”  Of course, he was hinting at the fact that complex music is not usually very popular–in fact, jazz and classical music have relatively small followings today.

I have mixed feelings about his statement.  The fact is that the masses (people with little or no musical knowledge) will never appreciate the finer
details  of music.  You can play just I, IV, and V chords all day and they will think it is great.  They reject complex music like jazz in favor of pop, which is simplistic.

That brings me to the concept of musical accessibility.  I would summarize that concept as the ability of the music to connect to the audience.  As musicians, we can choose to play what the audience likes and connects with. Or, we can play something above their heads and try to change their tastes. One other option is trying to stay somewhere in the middle.

Contrary to what some of my friends of the high church persuasion would say, I do not think this decision is a spiritual one.  I believe that simplistic music is just as God-honoring as very complex music.  I also think it is more effective with most audiences.  If you find yourself having to explain too much about your music so that your audience will understand it, I think your music loses some of its ability to impact.

Music that considered to be of high quality is sometimes referred to as art music.  The music that can be considered true art is normally more structured and has a lot of attention paid to detail.  The problem is that these characteristics mean nothing to the average listener–in fact, they actually might hinder the
ability of the music to communicate.

I respect the efforts of those that write Christian music as a high art form;  John Rutter is perhaps the leader of this group.  However, that music is not more spiritual or more effective than simplistic music.  Also, it is unfortunately often associated with an attitude of elitism that really turns off those that cannot appreciate that level or music or those that just like other types of music better.

I do not write that kind of music.  I couldn’t if I wanted to, but also, I have a philosophy that my music should be accessible to average people.  When average people hear my music, I want them to enjoy it.  If I wrote music that really only worked on college campuses, I would not be accomplishing my goal to be accessible.  Of course, my decision to be this way also opens me up to criticism from some musicians–that is just something I have to live with.  Regardless of what you do as a musician, you can expect a lot of people not to like it.

And that brings me to my thought for the day.  Don’t be distracted from making accessible music.  Here are some common distractions that musicians fall in to that hinders the ability of the music to connect to the audience.

1) Playing complex harmonies, rhythms, and technical ornaments that maybe impressive but do not help the song.  Occasionally, I will hear someone play something that is complicated but just sounds strange and out of place.  That makes no sense.  Unless you have a good reason, don’t play things that make people scratch their heads.

Let me be a little blunt.  I hear many pianists play things that I strongly suspect are there for no other purpose than to show off.  That is a novice way to think about performing music.  I would ask you to rise above that; put the music and the message in front of yourself.

2) Playing things that you cannot play well.  You are not going to play music that connects with people if they are holding their breath and praying that you will get through the piece without falling on your face.  Play simpler stuff that you can play very well.

3) Playing music that you know is outside the comfort level of your audience.  If you go to a country church, don’t try to do high church music.  You are not going to change them very much;  instead, you are probably going to look very arrogant.  I recently watched a pastor try to change the music in a country church from southern gospel to high brow stuff.  Today, he is out of a job.

Understanding what your goals are as a musician are critical.  Your primary goal should not be to educate people to like complex music, and it should not
be to impress people.  Your primary goal is to communicate and impact people with a message that is bigger than any music style and any musician.