Playing in Church.

[Kevsy71]

Got the songs for this Sunday last night. There will be one rehearsal right before the service and no drummer, but the band are a great bunch and all will be well.  Although  I've been practicing 'For once in my life' on a P with full-fat La Bella flats/foam all week, so expect a few spontaneous chromatic runs in F at random points 😁

[Grahambythesea]

Got mine last night too and have just had a run through. Complicated this week by having to stop playing part way through the service to get in the baptismal pool to help baptise 3 friends, get out, dry off, change clothes and play the rest of the service! 

[LeftyP]

7 hours ago, Sardonicus said:

@LukeFRC We did have one person organizing everything but he stood down last year.  As I've only been playing in the church for 5 months I didn't want to wade in and take over but, having been in and around bands for over 30 years, I know what I'm doing so I plan to offer my experience and knowledge and hopefully they'll take up my offer, even a church worship team needs routine and structure.

 

My biggest bugbear is when you text everyone on the Signal Worship Team group and not one person answers or acknowledges it, I'm big on communication.

 

They are sometimes a bit OTT but they get the message across!

[Richard R]

3 hours ago, Grahambythesea said:

Got mine last night too and have just had a run through. Complicated this week by having to stop playing part way through the service to get in the baptismal pool to help baptise 3 friends, get out, dry off, change clothes and play the rest of the service! 

That sounds like a great service! Hope it goes really well!

[xgsjx]

For my church, “rehearsal” is the 15 mins before the service welcome music starts. 
 

They ask for people to arrive early so we can have a run through the set, but so far, I’ve been the only one to even arrive on time, let alone early. 

[Richard R]

Reading through all these differences in practices and organisations has made me appreciate my own church a lot more.  We have three regular bands, each with a regular sound engineer. Practices are in the week before,  Tuesday or Friday depending on the band, and on Sunday morning there is a final run through of whatever length is needed, stopping half an hour before the service starts. Newbies,  e.g. me, are encouraged to sit in on rehearsals and gain confidence with a band before playing live. 

We still change keys during rehearsal, repeat verses in the service at no notice, sometimes forget who is playing this week and so on,  but there is an understanding from everyone that if we're going to do this we should do it right.

 

Best of all we have a congregation who do like to sing up, appreciate good music, and are very forgiving and occasionally amused when something goes horribly wrong. 

[Bobo_08]

What I am hearing here is that there is a general lack of professionalism when it comes to worship music, no real practice sessions, late for practice, leaving early from practice etc. I guess I can agree there is certainly a lack of discipline, but maybe I am or we are more disciplined than other people in general, although I used to think the opposite. 

 

There have been many times when I have gone in Church early to switch on the PA, set up mic's etc put my instrument out and then do the sound check and then play.  I wont do this anymore though... it's too much even in a small church and I ended up doing both jobs... average at best, which is not how I like to work and doesn't feel right to me. We are serving God and I want to serve without compromise. Being a novice, just learning the songs is plenty enough work. 

 

However it was what was needed at the time and I learned a fair bit along the way, we now have a new sound guy who doesn't play an instrument, when he is away I stick to doing sound only, that is woking out quite fine for us. 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Bobo_08

[dmc79]

On 19/11/2021 at 22:25, xgsjx said:

For my church, “rehearsal” is the 15 mins before the service welcome music starts. 
 

They ask for people to arrive early so we can have a run through the set, but so far, I’ve been the only one to even arrive on time, let alone early. 

Only just seen this topic. I’m not all that active on the forum, I guess I’ve mainly used it for buying and selling stuff. Good to find a chat for worship bassists though. . . 
 

Wanted to also quote the frustrations of @Sardonicus from the previous page, but it seems I can’t attach quotes from different pages. 

I will post further soon about how we do things and share some of my own frustrations, but after reading through the whole topic, I’m enraged at the attitudes of some of the leaders / musicians / singers / PA team members that posters have mentioned about here:

 

The late sending out of songs for Sundays, late picking of musicians & singers, people forgetting they were down to play, turning up late and/or wanting to leave practice early, not familiarising themselves with songs before practice, not turning up in enough time to setup & practice on Sundays, etc. I’m quite astounded that this stuff goes on. This all seems very disrespectful, and some of these people need to have a word with themselves and question whether or not they can fully commit to the team.
 

I appreciate its not always easy tackling these issues, but it seems like a few Team Leaders need to (re)instill some discipline in a few cases here. Also everyone surely must have a personal responsibility to give their best and respect the other team members. I feel our discipline is very good, but I’m certainly not saying we’ve got it all sorted, and some things within the team do grind my gears. But, I’m not sure I could be on team with people who are so slack, as described at various points in the topic so far. 

 

Finally for now, I’d like to give a shout-out and some respect to all of you who contributed to and/or edited lockdown online services. Personally I kind of enjoyed taking a year off playing, and didn’t take my bass out of its case the whole time, until we were back playing live. I’m not that tech-minded and wasn’t asked to contribute (that’s probably why!) so just saw it as a chance to take a break after playing regularly for about 20 years. But I appreciate that the online services were a lifesaver to many people who were stuck indoors and isolated. Whilst you were doing it for the glory of God, I think it’s good to honour people, so fair play to all of you who helped make those online services possible during such a difficult time. 

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by dmc79

[Woodinblack]

9 minutes ago, dmc79 said:

 

Wanted to also quote the frustrations of @Sardonicus from the previous page, but it seems I can’t attach quotes from different pages.

 

There isn't any page restriction, if you hit the Quote button next to the plus, it will just quote that post, or if you want to quote many, just press the + on the ones you want.

[Bobo_08]

Hi dmc79, I'm not going to quote you're post because it's quite long but I think we are all in the same school of thought. 

 

We've an issue in our Church now on finding people to do the sound... We've put the word out but so far only one person volunteered, which is great but also frustrating.

 

A handful of us kept worship going over a majority of the pandemic period. It takes dedication and discipline... It very easy to not be present when things go online, I still think a lot of people are in this habit right now. 

 

I know people work hard during the week and have famalies etc... But we can't leave it all to a handful of people otherwise they become burnt out and possibly become resentful... Which is not a good situation. 

 

We are all called to serve our church communities with out gifts and talents.. whether that is music, childcare or making tea... We are all part of the body of Christ. 

[xgsjx]

My church put together recording sessions for online church.  So a selection of musicians & singists would go in & record about 15 songs & they'd get used over a few month's worth of services.

They still managed to send the list out less than a week before the recording & when the online church was played, they still managed to mess up some of the visual lyrics.  😂

 

We also did a spot of songwriting for the church, but it's turned out to be harder than it needs to be.  Not the songwriting, but the "getting it played in church" stage.  Out of about 12 folk, there's only 3 left that can be bothered, & at the rate it's going, it'll soon be 2 (I'm a very patient person, but this is taking the peepee).

[bass_dinger]

I was not going to post this, below.  However, having read DMC79's righteous indignation, I wanted to share how things can be, with a little discipline.  Here goes . . .  

 

 

I too appreciate my own church, and am grateful for the support that I am given by the leaders.  I am also pleased to see that things can change.  Five years ago, the band in my church was one paid worship leader, and whoever turned up on the morning.  That paid leader was necessary, because, otherwise, the quality would have been too variable. 

 

And now?

Songs are sent out over a week in advance - we got next Sunday's songs last Saturday morning. 
On Sunday afternoon, the Worship Collective attended an in-house teaching session, in which the band covered rhythm, and a separate group looked at harmony.   One of the team took us through some vocal exercises. 

We are currently quite blessed by personnel too - a professional opera singer, and guitarist and recording artist; a Worship Leader who was trained in music at college; a family of musicians that could be a band all by themselves; a young vocalist who takes regular singing lessons; another vocalist was a member of a prize-winning barbershop quartet; another of the vocalists used to dance on stage, on concert tours with Michael Jackson, and is now a skilled choir leader.  At the last baptism, one of the candidate's sister came to sing for her sister - but the singer is one of Eric Clapton's backing vocalists and a former finalist in The Voice.  The sound system and broadcast studio was set up by the previous worship leader - a sound engineer with a national TV broadcaster, and a recording artist in his own right.  This week, four of the band are taking time off of work to play at a midweek funeral.  

 

 

Apart from the barbershop mum, the sound engineer, and Eric's backing singer, all of these people have joined the church band within the last two years - half of them during lockdown.  There has been an influx of people who like to make music, and have the commitment to make it work.  However, the initial seed of that change, was having someone say "we want it to be better" - and that meant the personnel needed to change (which was easier during Lockdown, when only 2 or 3 people were able to play in the group). 

 

It seems to me that the size and make up of church bands change as the years go by - sometimes lots of improvers, sometimes a more experienced band.  At two different times, we lost two worship leaders, as they both migrated to different churches.  

 

Be encouraged - things can change, and improve. 

 

 

 

  

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by bass_dinger
more words.

[Richard R]

3 hours ago, bass_dinger said:

Be encouraged - things can change, and improve. 

Amen to that!

[Sardonicus]

Our main problem stemmed from the fact that we had a rota for musicians but not for who was leading/singing, I pushed for this to be put in place, I received great support from the others and so it is now in place.  We know who is singing/leading until January and then the new 2022 rota will be drawn up.

 

Because we now know who's singing, I picked this weeks songs and sent out the list on Monday, yesterday I sent out the list for Sunday 5th Dec and the person leading on Dec 12th has already sent out his list also. 

 

Life is good, God is good!

[xgsjx]

A few weeks ago, Church asked me if I could splice Hymn of Joy with Adore Him, putting them bith in Bb & at the same tempo.
So me & my Mrs recorded a version of Hymn of Joy in Bb at 70.5 bpm & I did the needful.

So we're playing this song on Sunday & I'ts synth bass that's in it.  So I've set up my keys with zones so I can play bells in parts & add an orchestral stab.

This morning, the worship leader who's singing this sunday said "Let's add O come let us adore him into it, we can do it in E".  So rather than all the other musicians relearining the song & me changing all my set up in the new key, I suggested doing the new addition in Eb, as that would work with the current arrangement.

 

I don't mind changing key, but to do it late on like this is not fair on the new musicians that are playing this sunday.

[LukeFRC]

I hate changing key, it’s where my lack of proper musical training shows as I can’t just transpose, and my brain looks at the chord chart and literally would have to rewrite. 
OnSong is quite good for shifting keys effortlessly and removes that stress. 
 

[xgsjx]

I don't mind changing key on bass, but I find songs sound totally different when they move them a 5th & usually not for the better.
I might not bother playing synth bass in church.  As much as I like playing, I just keep losing the will to be bothered.

[ezbass]

55 minutes ago, xgsjx said:

I don't mind changing key on bass, but I find songs sound totally different when they move them a 5th & usually not for the better.
I might not bother playing synth bass in church.  As much as I like playing, I just keep losing the will to be bothered.

Your right about a change of key altering the ‘flavour’ of some tunes. Also, I don’t mind changing by a semitone but any big intervals might be fine for a solo, vocal performance, but if it’s a piece for an entire congregation, some folk are likely to really struggle with such a big difference.

[xgsjx]

1 hour ago, ezbass said:

Your right about a change of key altering the ‘flavour’ of some tunes. Also, I don’t mind changing by a semitone but any big intervals might be fine for a solo, vocal performance, but if it’s a piece for an entire congregation, some folk are likely to really struggle with such a big difference.

The Mrs hates singing when our church changes key, as it's for squeaky voices (all the worship leaders & the worship pastor are female).  They seem to choose what they can sing rather than the congregation.

I remember watching a worship video a while ago (IIRC, Chris Tomlin).  He said that he writes songs so that the congregation can sing them & should only need changed by a semitone to suit the lead vocal.  Our church still go with "capo on the 7th".  

Edited November 26, 2021 by xgsjx

[xgsjx]

On 19/11/2021 at 17:33, LeftyP said:

 

They are sometimes a bit OTT but they get the message across!

Just got around to watching this.  They're spot on & I'd love to show my church this video, but how do you approach a worship pastor at a church with no rehearsals without it coming across as criticism (they seem to not take criticism too well, even if it's constructive)?

 

We did a Songwriting workshop a couple of years ago with Matt Hooper.  He suggested that the singers spend some money on lessons to make them better singers, he did it in a good & positive way too.  The singers took offence at it & never bothered.

They have "Team Night" on the last Thursday of the month (except December), where about 1/2 the creative team (at most) meet from 7:30-9:00.  They'll use it to listen to a new song & then play it over twice as a band, usually in 2 different keys (neither being the original key).  Each play through they'll try & switch musicians, but that's usually only a drummer & a bassist that changes, as like I say, there's only about 7-8 musicians that turn up (and about the same in singists).
The majority of that evening has nothing to do with the song though.  They spend about an hour or more doing some "fun game" or farting about, so U can understand why not many musicians turn up.

[Owen]

2 minutes ago, xgsjx said:

Just got around to watching this.  They're spot on & I'd love to show my church this video, but how do you approach a worship pastor at a church with no rehearsals without it coming across as criticism (they seem to not take criticism too well, even if it's constructive)?

"I have been thinking about my attitude to getting things together. I found this vid and have been really inspired by it. I think it could help us all serve better." If Worship Pastor bod cannot get behind that then......

 

Bringing a disparate group into a functioning unit is really tricky. Some people might be there for many reasons - one of which is serving. A video like this brings things into focus. If the greatest player you have does not want to rehearse then they are not the greatest player cos they are not enabling those who are not as strong/experienced to function and give of their best. It is not a Jazz Jam Night where it is all about who can sustain a 17 chorus solo over Giant Steps or walk at 300bpm. 1 Guitar and 1 vocal is enough to lead well. Anything else is a luxury.

 

However, I can also see Worship Pastor bod not digging a percieved criticism and throwing toys out. So I feel your pain.

[Bobo_08]

3 hours ago, xgsjx said:

Our church still go with "capo on the 7th".  

🤣 love this. lol

[TrevorR]

6 hours ago, xgsjx said:

Just got around to watching this.  They're spot on & I'd love to show my church this video, but how do you approach a worship pastor at a church with no rehearsals without it coming across as criticism (they seem to not take criticism too well, even if it's constructive)?

You know the worship’s great but I reckon [it could be even better/we could take it to the next level] if…

 

As with so much, context is everything!

[LeftyP]

Following on from the discussion about people turning up late and things being disorganised, yesterday's services were "interesting".

 

The band has a quick run through of the songs at 8.45am, before the first service at 9.30am.  My wife and I arrived at about 25 to 9 only to find the church closed.  A key holder arrived at 8.50am as the snow began to fall.  Inside we found that all the chairs had been moved around and the band's microphone and music stands pushed into a corner.  It was after 9am before we could get started but with a depleted line-up.  Covid had hit some band members so we were down to four people; my wife and another woman on vocals, an 80 something year old woman on piano (really lovely person but now becoming very deaf!) and me on bass.

 

While we were running through the songs the sound guys were trying to work out why there was loud crackling noise through the monitor speaker and attempting to change a cable feeding one of our large television screens which kept flashing on and off.  Pianist was a little unsure of how to start "By Faith" (Getty's song) and the vocalists couldn't hear the piano anyway!  When she started the second song, "God Sits In The Highest Place", she played a rhythm similar to "If I Were A Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof.  It wasn't how I'd been doing it but I went with the flow and we got through it.  In the final song, "It Is Finished (The Messiah Dies)" the pianist dropped out of the final verse leaving just two vocals and me!

 

Somehow it worked and we got through the two services - 9.30 & 11am - relatively well.  By the time the second service started the snow was ankle deep and the congregation was down in numbers.  We have two services because our church is small and there isn't room for everyone at the same time - a nice problem to have.

 

My job was to keep everyone together so it was "hit the root note every chord, on time, and fill as necessary".  I think it is easier to play in a full band where any fluffed notes can be hidden but when you are one of the few you have to get it right.  Playing in church is an education.  If you can play there you can play anywhere!

Edited November 29, 2021 by LeftyP

[xgsjx]

Similar theme here regarding punctuality.

We're supposed to arrive for 8:30, get set up, do sound check & run over the songs, then get off stage before 9:45.  I know from experience 8:30 never happens, so turned up at 8:45.  I was the only musician there until 9:10.  Sound check was a train crash & then went into the first song.  Rhythm guitar not coming through (it was there at sound check), then me & Keys 1 had in ear issues.  So us 3 never played the first song.  We jammed a wee bit of the other songs & then we were out of time.  Oh, & closing song was still undecided.  I found out just as we're going up after the sermon what song it was.

 

But...  The in ears sounded good & the bass playing was dope.