A church insists their contemporary keyboard players be able to play in any key. Why not just change keys with the push of a button?
Most modern keyboards today have a key change function, and churches are using expensive state-of-the-art keyboards like the Nord Stage series. I've never used one or read the owner's manual, but I'm assuming that surely you can push a button over and over and page thru different keys to automatically transpose to the key you want, since this is a known feature of keyboards today, the same way you can transpose in music software with the click of a mouse. So why can't a person who has learned all their chords in their favorite key let the keyboard do the work for them?
The only reason I can think of is cause the keyboard might break and the transpose function not be available. But the same can be said for any aspect of the keyboard in general, so you need a backup plan to swap out the keyboard anyway if any part of it breaks.
It should be clarified that reading music is not a requirement. The church is trying to develop people in such a way that the church can get around having to transpose lead sheets, then print and pass them out if a different singer needs it in a different key. They want to print out the lyrics one time with numbers above the words, announce which key they're doing it in, and you play the progression in that key using the Nashville number system, which is just a variance on Roman numerals used in music theory classes.
Most modern keyboards today have a key change function, and churches are using expensive state-of-the-art keyboards like the Nord Stage series. I've never used one or read the owner's manual, but I'm assuming that surely you can push a button over and over and page thru different keys to automatically transpose to the key you want, since this is a known feature of keyboards today, the same way you can transpose in music software with the click of a mouse. So why can't a person who has learned all their chords in their favorite key let the keyboard do the work for them?
The only reason I can think of is cause the keyboard might break and the transpose function not be available. But the same can be said for any aspect of the keyboard in general, so you need a backup plan to swap out the keyboard anyway if any part of it breaks.
It should be clarified that reading music is not a requirement. The church is trying to develop people in such a way that the church can get around having to transpose lead sheets, then print and pass them out if a different singer needs it in a different key. They want to print out the lyrics one time with numbers above the words, announce which key they're doing it in, and you play the progression in that key using the Nashville number system, which is just a variance on Roman numerals used in music theory classes.