Guitarization of Worship Piano

Picture this: it’s the caveman-internet era. You’re a young, enthusiastic mega-church musician. There’s a huge shortage of worship guitarists at the cell group level, and you come up with a system: a way to teach strumming without needing standard notation. It’s brilliant. It works. Suddenly, more groups have guitarists who can hold down the chords and keep worship going. 

Then the knock comes: “Hey, what about piano? Can you do the same for us?” 

Now, what’s the fastest way to get a pianist “ready” for worship? Simple. Treat them like a guitarist. Give them one (maybe two) shapes per chord. Show them a couple of comping patterns. Drop them into the songs. Done. Congratulations: you’ve just created the guitarization of worship piano. 

Fast forward a few years: what do you get? Pianists who can play “patterns,” but not music. They can thump out chords, but can’t adapt when singers go off-script. They can fill space, but not lead people. Worst of all? They start believing that’s all there is. 

When such people see my piano playing at church, they miss the principles and dive straight for the formula. They don’t want to learn how I build vocabulary to support the song; they just want more stock phrases to dump into their playing, to impress themselves with their own cleverness. It’s the musical equivalent of forcing kids to memorise “风和日丽,” “my jaw dropped,” and “my face turned pale” for PSLE “creative writing.” That, applied in spades to piano, is what many of those “pianists” want.

But that’s not music. That’s mimicry. Real playing breathes. It reacts. It listens. It anchors the song and opens space for others to sing and respond. The goal isn’t to copy what sounds impressive, it’s to serve; it's to make the whole team sound like one body instead of five individuals fighting for air.

The piano can be so much more.

As long as people are effective and they can serve, I won’t criticize. Plenty of pianists are happy to just strum along on 88 keys, and if their churches are blessed, that’s enough. But if you’ve done enough of that and you’re restless for more (or you’re classically trained and the cookie-cutter chord approach gives you musical acid reflux) know this: you’re not crazy. The piano really can be more.

When I sit at the piano, I don’t want it to be a large, heavy and loud guitar substitute. I want it to breathe, to carry, to shape the worship. And if you feel that tug too… well, maybe we should talk.

Where to find me? Over here

Why Foundations Matter: Part 4 - Shortcuts Cost You Freedom

The Acoustic Advantage

I was at a small conference not long ago. Two instruments sat there waiting: a shiny digital keyboard with every patch you could imagine, and a plain Yamaha upright. I went for the upright. Why? Because when you’re leading worship in an unfamiliar place, with no idea what might collapse mid-set, you don’t want to gamble on gadgets. With the acoustic, it was all or nothing. No transpose button. No space age pad to cover weak voicings. Just ten fingers, muscle memory, and guts. That’s how I like it.

The Shortcut Whisper

I don’t mistrust the transpose button because it fails. I mistrust it because it works, all too well. It whispers: why wrestle with a tough key when one press can move the whole world? Same with capos. I carry one in the guitar bag for emergencies; if someone insists on singing in E♭, fine, strap it on and get through. But capo-as-lifestyle? Second fret so you can play G-shapes in A? That’s when you’re no longer learning the instrument. That’s planting your rear end in the baby stroller and refusing to learn how to walk.

From Crutch to Cage

And here’s the problem: shortcuts feel like freedom at first, but they turn into chains. Soon you cannot imagine life without your trusty crutch. Effectiveness pays the price. Capo up a few frets and you’ve sawed off your low end; you’re basically strumming a six-string ukulele. Keep leaning on the transpose button, and you’ll never know what to do when it’s not there. Try leading worship like that. Good luck when the leader calls for a spontaneous key change, or when the only instrument around is the upright piano in the Salvation Army Chapel.

The Hard Road That Built Freedom

When I look back, I see how God used my lack of shortcuts to train me. On piano, I practiced songs like As the Deer in all twelve keys. On guitar, I had no instrument of my own, only whatever warped-neck loaners people were willing to bring along. Try forcing barre chords out of those. Frustration? Plenty. But the payoff was huge: today I can pull off mid-neck voicings in A, or throw shimmering chords in E that sound like the wind from heaven. People see “expert.” Truth is, it’s just years without safety nets.

Why It Matters for Worship

And here’s the ministry angle: worship isn’t a studio. It’s not about playing safe with your toys. It’s not about what makes you comfortable (God, how I despise that word!). It’s about service. Sometimes you’ll be in a big church with every gadget. Sometimes you’ll be in a village with only an old upright. Sometimes you’ll be leading prayer with just an acoustic guitar and your voice. At that point, shortcuts won’t save you. Only foundations will.

Your Turn

If this hit a little too close to home, good. That means it’s time to change. That’s why I built my Worship Piano and Guitar Mentorships: to help musicians trade shortcuts for skill, safety nets for real freedom. [Click here to explore them →]

Why Foundations Matter - Part 3: The Drummers' Edition

Marching Band Beginnings

When it comes to drums, I had it good.

I began my journey in the secondary school marching band. My seniors would rather have me quit than stay with half-baked foundations, so I spent a lot of time drilling rudiments into muscle memory. I even carried a pair of sticks in my school bag, sneaking in extra reps whenever I could.

Didn’t help my dating life, but at least my paradiddles turned out okay...

A couple of years later it was my turn to teach the new recruits. Not only did I have to teach how to play all the percussion instruments, I also had to teach them how to read standard notation so they could follow scores and coordinate with the rest of the band. That’s thirty or more people. Within a year, they were up to par. I did all this between age 15 to 16. So don’t tell me teaching music notation takes too long.

The Old Guard vs. Today’s Shortcuts

Back in the 80s, Singapore had very few professional drummers, much less drum teachers. Those few could afford to pick and choose their students. Needless to say, they didn’t play games with foundations either.

They would be horrified to see how some drum teachers operate today.

Instead of starting students on stick drills, they drop noobs straight onto the kit, dazzling (and distracting) them with the bells and whistles of toms and cymbals. Instead of building secure counting, they push rote-memorized beats and fills.

And cynically speaking, I get it. That’s how you retain students in this ADHD age. You keep them entertained (but not equipped), they keep showing up, and they keep paying.

I ought to have done the same thing. Earning more by doing (and caring) less sounds nice. But alas, a conscience is an inconvenient thing…

Why Shortcuts Fail

Here’s the problem: for students who start this way, the standard advice doesn’t help. Pointers don’t fix it. Telling them to “practice more” just means they get really proficient at being wrong. At best, they sound bad and drag down the worship. At worst, they set themselves up for long-term damage. Carpal tunnel syndrome is no joke.

What Happens Without Counting

I’ve seen the fallout of skipping foundations more times than I can count. Years back, I wrote on my blog about one such incident:

I was once in the middle of playing a song (to audition someone on another instrument) when halfway through someone sat down behind the drums and tried to play along. He totally messed up because he could only play in one time-signature (don’t worry if you don’t know yet what that is) and the song I was doing was in a different one.

If he had ever learned how to count, how to discern the pulse of the music, he would have either been able to create on the spot something that can fit, or he would have known what little he knew didn’t fit and not messed up the song for other people. When it was his turn to audition, the other musicians started off at one tempo, and when he started playing the drums he couldn’t latch on to their tempo to support them. He immediately dragged the music down to the tempo he knew. Now imagine him doing that for pretty much every song the band tries to do on a Sunday morning…

This wasn’t “rusty skills.” This was no skills. He was never taught to count in the first place. Asking me to give such a “drummer” pointers like asking an interior designer about curtains when she really wants to say: tear down the house and rebuild…

Red Flags for Students

Proper drum teachers know that teaching foundations is a sacred duty. Not every teacher who talks rudiments actually teaches them. That’s why you need to be an intelligent student. 

Watch for red flags:

If you’re dropped straight onto the kit with no stick drills, walk away.

If you’re told to just memorize beats and fills without counting, walk away.

If you see those signs, move on. Find a better teacher.

Two Things You Can Do

First: If you’ve found a teacher who makes you grind through the boring basics, recognize what you’ve got. He (or she) is a treasure. Stick (XD) with them. Recommend them to others. In this ADHD age, where flash sells faster than foundations, don’t take their business survival for granted.

Second: If you want to see what real drum foundations look like - plain and simple, no gimmicks - check out my Drumming for Church: Foundations course. In just four sessions you’ll see exactly how a drummer should begin: a practice pad, a pair of sticks, and a couple of coordination drills I created to accelerate learning. You’ll know if drumming is truly for you.

Choose wisely. Your band will thank you on Sunday, and your wrists will still be thanking you years later…

Why Foundations Matter - Part 2: The Chordbook That Made Me Cringe

The Chord Book that Made Me Cringe 

 In the days before the internet (yes, I’m that old), worship guitarists had two main sources for chords. There were the official Hosanna! Integrity lead sheets (accurate but a little too intimidating for most) and then there were the coveted chord books: just lyrics with the chords on top. Simple. Accessible. Lifesaving… in theory. 

The problem? Many of those chord books were wrong. Badly wrong. 

While in university, I was serving at Faith Community Baptist Church, a well-established church with different ministries. One sincere and well-meaning leader from Touch Forces (our ministry to armed forces personnel) decided to compile a chord book for their own cell groups. He was a good man. I still remember him with his Ovation guitar (the coolest of the cool back then)… but his ear for chords wasn’t exactly stellar. 

The results were, well, obiang (Hokkien for clunky and off). 

The smooth C–G/B–Am progression? Reduced to C–Bm–Am. 

Those beautiful sus4s? Vanished. 

“I Worship You, Almighty God,” third line: that rich Gsus4 resolving to G became a blunt C–G. 

Still, I could tolerate it, because to me sincerity counts for something. What really got me was when I started visiting other campus groups like Campus Crusade for Christ, and saw their guitarists strumming from photocopies of the same book. “The chords can’t be wrong,” they’d say. “This is from Faith Community Baptist Church!” 

I didn’t have the heart to tell them. 

The Chord Sites that Made Me Facepalm 

Fast-forward to today. We’ve moved on from photocopied chord books… only to end up in the land of random chord websites, where users upload their versions of songs and hope for the best. 

Recently, I had a nasty flashback to the bad old days. One guitarist, sincere, eager, willing to serve, sent me screenshots of the chords he pulled from one of those sites for an upcoming worship session. My job quickly became emergency editor. I spent way too much time correcting the PDFs, fixing clunky progressions and totally wrong chords. 

But then the real problem surfaced: he couldn’t actually play the corrected chords. Esus4? Not happening. C#m–B–F#? Looked like a foreign language. Amaj7? Forget it. He just defaulted to a plain A. That was the best he could do, and I don’t fault him for it. He’d never been taught better. 

But here’s the hard truth: if you leave your musicianship at the mercy of random chord sites and the algorithm gods of YouTube, you’ll never rise beyond “tolerable enough.” 

If you want to be better than that: if you want to grow past the shortcuts and have real confidence in your guitar serving, if you want your foundations examined (and maybe rebuilt) so you can soar higher and grow faster, you need guidance from someone who’s been there, not just a faceless upload. That’s why I created my Worship Guitar Mentorship. It’s not about hype or hacks, but about giving you the solid ground you need to play with confidence in worship.

Back then, it was chord books that spread like wildfire, filled with mistakes that became “official” just because of who printed them. Today, it’s random chord sites and YouTube tutorials doing the same thing, leaving eager musicians stranded with bad habits and half-baked skills.

If we want worship that’s strong, sustainable, and life-giving, we have to stop leaving our musicians at the mercy of bad sources and start investing in proper foundations.

That’s why I do what I do. Come check me out.