It is a song of hope that binds people together and sings of the mercies of God. Amazing Grace is
perhaps the most popular of all known folk hymns and it is estimated that this song is performed
over 10 million times every year!

Born in 1725 John Newton was born to a very religious mother, who died when he was only seven
and a father who was a sailor. At a very early age he joined his father on the ship and picked up
navigation and sailing skills. He spent a major part of his life on the seas, and joined the Royal
Navy later on in his life where he eventually participated in slave trade.

It was on the slave-ship ‘Greyhound’ that he had his life’s greatest awakening when one night while
heading towards England, the already battered ship was hit by a viscous storm. The weary crew fought
very hard to keep the ship together and survive another day, since the supplies were already low.
John Newton became severely frightened and called out to God for mercy, which marked the beginning
of his spiritual journey.

After that incident John, who had been an atheist became a firm believer in God’s grace, and quit
the sea altogether. After several attempts to be ordained as a minister he finally became a parson
at the age of 39. In the hymn John Newton mostly talks about his various life experiences.

If you would like to learn to play this beautiful hymn, there is a free guitar lessons at WorshipGuitarClass

There are good reasons to practice playing scales.
It gives you the opportunity to get your fingers
warmed up and helps you to work on your technique
outside of playing specific songs.

Scales are great to work on because you can learn
to play faster and with more accuracy. It’s also
another way to work on learning the notes on the
fretboard.

You can get started with some easy scales at
Worship Guitar Class. Watch their video and start
learning some scales to help your playing too.

Any guitar playing can benefit by playing scales,
regardless of the styles of music you prefer
playing.

• Second if you feel yourself lacking in the instrument you need to play pray and ask God to lead you where and how to improve. Sometimes you just need to practice. He may lead a music teacher in your presence. He may make known to you some resources that can help you excel. Pray and see.

• Where to play. Your church already has musicians? Well if The Lord has put on your heart to prepare yourself for this ministry He will lead you where the need is. It’s always nice if it’s in the church where you currently worship. There may be situations where you will be called to serve in another church.It might come to you or he might lead you to those that need your gift. If you find yourself serving where the beliefs don’t line with your own you have to ask yourself who are you serving.

• Don’t compare yourself to other church musicians. Just don’t do it.

• Constantly strive to improve. We are never done learning. Pray about where you need to improve and seek the way to work on that.

~God Bless you as you make a joyful noise

Piano mistakes when you are the sole musician who is playing for a congregation seem to be a bit more noticeable (to me) than at any other time.  At any other time you really can just flub your way around it but when you are playing for a congregation who is singing along to your playing and then you a) get lost and don’t remember for several moments where you are within in the music b)forget what the song sounds like entirely c)give an intro with the wrong tempo.   Then you know because of piano mistakes…

It’s one of the reasons you practice.

One of the reasons you may want to learn about chord patterns or progressions in music, which ones are most likely and which ones are in the songs you are playing.

It’s one of the reasons you may want to learn to play by ear.

It’s one of the reasons that even though you play fabulously by ear, just as the musicians I’ve spotted on the numerous Gaither tapes I own you may want to have a lead sheet available in case you flub up.

It’s the reason it’s a good idea to make notations on your lead sheets…in red.

Flub ups are likely. It’s how you come out of them that matters.

More tips to avoid mistakes:

• Practice. This of course you already know.
• Practice and pay particular attention to the sections where you seem to have a bit of difficulty. When you have mastered them then play through the whole song again.
• Practice the song with hands apart.
• Use a metronome and practice the song at tempo.
• Practice again

To begin with you should work on creating to forms to help you put together Sunday morning worship.

A worship planning sheet. This sheet or form should be a layout of your worship service with slots for you to plug in your selections. If you play for other services, such as Wednesday group etc. make a separate for each type of service.
A list of musical selections from which to choose your musical selection. There is so much worship music available these days that any one compilation of music can limit you severely. Many church services have a blended type service and play both old hymns, and contemporary worship music.

Once you have created your list and form it’s time to start working on selection.
First and foremost pray. God doesn’t make mistakes. Maybe this Sunday He will lead you to play a piece that will speak to someone particularly needing encouragement.

Next What type of service is this? Are you choosing songs for Mother’s Day service? You may a list of songs already for Mother’s Day and it is a matter for picking from that list.

Then what Sunday morning’s sermon theme? The pastor should have shared this with you. This is a good time to have a song concordance. I use this one which is a companion to Sing to the Lord Hymnal. The song titles are indexed by theme and scripture. While I play songs that are not listed in this resource it still helps because the vast amount of song titles it does have.

Now you need to look at the area of the service in which you are choosing songs for. Such as prelude, offertory, the actual worship portion, call to prayer etc. Here you will may have a set of songs you always use for such times as offertory and call tow worship. Be sure to pick appropriate tempo’s.

Finally, and I think this is important for a solo musician whether a small or large church. Can you play the song? Maybe the song seems perfect but if you haven’t perfected your playing of it mark it as one to learn and move on to one where you will not struggle so much with the technicalities you miss out on the worship.

God lead you and guide you on your worship planning.

This works quite nicely when you are first starting to play accompaniment piano but as your skill at the piano increases you may find yourself wanting to do a bit more for an introduction.

Some Tips:

• If you are moving from an upbeat tempo to a slow worshipful song take the time to convey the theme, mood and new tempo. This can take longer than the usual 4 measures but it will help you and the congregation to slow things down and be in a more reverent mood.

• Listen to how other pianists begin songs and see if you can figure out the chord progressions they are using and how maybe you can borrow from that.

• Don’t get too fancy or too busy with your introductions. You are attempting to accompany not drown out.

• When practicing a song practice the introduction too and make notes in your music if you play with sheet music or a lead sheet.

• Make sure your introduction is evident and don’t ‘suprise’ your singers with a new one if it is different from what you normally do. Play it for a few Sundays during times such as offertory, prelude, etc.

Not just your knowledge of chords, how to form them, and sheets music, but also how fast your fingers are on the piano how well the music is coming forth from your own hands and so forth.

Yes there is. You can exercise your fingers.

Not a new idea in the world of piano playing exercises for your fingers dates well back into the 1800’s when classical composers such as Hanon and Czerny put together several series of exercises designed to improve the strength, movement, agility of each of the individual fingers and as groupings also.

In addition to having hand posture and correct fingering developing your finger’s agility and strength and flexibility can have a dramatic impression on your piano playing.

As the owner of small woman’s hands I often stared in envy at the octave and above reach of male pianists. I really felt I could never do that and if so it would not be comfortable.

Many years later, and having spent some focused time on strengthening my fingers reaching an octave is no longer a problem. And it happened very quickly.

To start receiving the benefits of regular finger strength exercises add a few minutes of this to your piano practice each day. You can find finger exercises for the pianist’s hands in the resources below.

Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist, Complete Edition By Charles-Louis Hanon. Edited by Robert Heath. For Piano. FJH Classic Editions. Traditional Studies. Book. Published by The FJH Music Company Inc. (H1006) See more info…

Practical Finger Exercises, Op. 802 (Complete) Piano Technique. By Carl Czerny. For piano solo. This edition: LB192. Piano Method. 68 pages. Published by G. Schirmer, Inc. (50253360) See more info…

2. Warm hands make for better playing. If you play in a cold building run your hands under warm water, and rub them briskly before heading up to the piano. If I try to play with cold hands on Sunday they are stiff and I mess up a lot.

2. Even though it’s not going to happen overnight each step you take at improving your piano playing will help you along the way and you should notice immediate results.

3. 15 minutes every day at the  piano in much better than 5 hours for one day a week. if you haven’t been playing every day try it and see if it doesn’t make a difference in your piano playing.

4. Try focusing on one key a month. Learn the scale, chords, and their progressions. Play songs in that key at your practice time. Focus on perfecting one or two songs in that key. I got the base of this idea from Duane Shinn.

5. Even if you are learning chord piano take the time to practice playing from sheet music. Work at improvising hymns from your hymnal or try your hand at some harder sheet music.

6. You are always learning when you play an instrument. Never think that you are done learning. Keep seeking new ways to improve.