Playing in Church.

[SimonEdward]

Interesting post and thread. I grew up attending an Evangelical 'Free' Church (more a United reformed/Baptist hybrid) and served in the music ministry from the late 80's for around 15 years. As teenagers, we had formed a 'Worship Band', and as per other thoughts and themes in this thread, we had our up's and downs. 

Anyway, during the offering, we once played an instrumental version of "Cherish" by Kool and the Gang - and the assistant minister tried to look it up in one of the Spring Harvest books.. which was funny, but you had to be there. A rare highlight. I stopped in 2002 and moved away...

 

[Richard R]

Thanks, now I have "Cherish" stuck in my head. Could be worse I guess. There's another thread about smuggling pop bass lines into worship songs. Turns out it is a very popular pastime.

 

[Sardonicus]

I started this thread ages ago and I still haven’t played a single note in church thanks to COVID-19 🤦🏻‍♂️, heard today that it might even be December before we are allowed back.  
 

Do any other church bass players play a Jazz Bass with flat wounds?

[Baxlin]

5 hours ago, Big Rich said:

I started this thread ages ago and I still haven’t played a single note in church thanks to COVID-19 🤦🏻‍♂️, heard today that it might even be December before we are allowed back.  
 

Ditto here, I’m afraid, but we have all recorded our ‘bits’ for one song, which are currently being put together as a vid. 
 

 

[TrevorR]

1 hour ago, Baxlin said:

Ditto here, I’m afraid, but we have all recorded our ‘bits’ for one song, which are currently being put together as a vid. 
 

 

We’ve been doing that the last three weeks on a “record it on your phone and stitch it together later” basis... This morning’s one...

 

 

[TrevorR]

6 hours ago, Big Rich said:

Do any other church bass players play a Jazz Bass with flat wounds?

No, my Frankenjazz has rounds on it but both my Wals are sporting Chromes flats. Went over to flats on them about 5 or 6 years ago...

[SimonEdward]

20 hours ago, TrevorR said:

We’ve been doing that the last three weeks on a “record it on your phone and stitch it together later” basis... This morning’s one...

 

 

Thanks for sharing TrevorR. I'm a bit out of the loop, and haven't heard this song before, but I enjoyed listening to it. A very talented group!

Ps. I know you're far too classy for this.. but have you ever succumbed to temptation and banned your pianists from the low end ??

[LeftyP]

My wife and I did our first go at playing/singing our parts and recording them on a smart phone last week, to be knitted together for our Sunday streaming service.  It's very strange listening to a backing track through small headphones and trying to keep in time.

Last week was "It's A Light And A Hammer" (kid's song) but this week it's the Getty's "By Faith" with me on bass and my wife on oboe.  We've decided to record our contributions separately! I'm currently getting the hang of playing along to a piano and cajon track and don't know who else will be taking part.  I usually follow a chord chart with the root notes placed above the appropriate words, but as no-one is singing on the guide track, it is making life interesting. All good fun and a great lesson in concentration and patience!

[TrevorR]

3 hours ago, SimonEdward said:

Thanks for sharing TrevorR. I'm a bit out of the loop, and haven't heard this song before, but I enjoyed listening to it. A very talented group!

Ps. I know you're far too classy for this.. but have you ever succumbed to temptation and banned your pianists from the low end ??

Never have to with Ben and a James, they’re both really well behaved!

[Kevsy71]

18 minutes ago, TrevorR said:

Never have to with Ben and a James, they’re both really well behaved!

That's good! Same for me thankfully; but if we ever have the organ involved I go up an octave - there's no way I'm competing with it

[SuperSeagull]

Thought I’d share this. Used by my Church this is me plus my two sons, one in Rugby, another in Southampton plus me in Sussex. We used tracks for the instruments we don’t play - Ben mixed the video and Jake the audio. My church has a few different groups providing music for the steamed services. This was our first attempt and another four are in the pipeline. 
 

 

[LeftyP]

Well, my wife and I recorded our contributions for next Sunday's on-line service.  As I mentioned earlier in this thread, we are new to this way of doing things and were using our mobile phones to record our playing while listening to a guide track through headphones. Talk about frustrating!!

We'd both been going over the song - "By Faith" from the Gettys - me on bass and Glenys on oboe,  but when it came to recording it was as though we had never played it before!  Getting the sound balance right while listening to the guide track in one ear completely threw me and it took around 10 attempts to get past the intro.  Then, I'd be doing OK, but trip over a few notes and have to start again.  This happened a couple of times as I neared the end of the song - AAARRRGGGHHH!

Glenys had the same problem with her part and we spent most of the afternoon in separate rooms going over and over our musical recordings.  In live performance the odd fluffed note can go unnoticed but when it is going to be "broadcast" on YouTube it has to be right.  I think I just about got away with it but will be waiting in anticipation to see how the various contributions meld together.  Hopefully, the other singers/players will mask my mistakes.

I used to like the song....................

[SuperSeagull]

9 minutes ago, LeftyP said:

Well, my wife and I recorded our contributions for next Sunday's on-line service.  As I mentioned earlier in this thread, we are new to this way of doing things and were using our mobile phones to record our playing while listening to a guide track through headphones. Talk about frustrating!!

We'd both been going over the song - "By Faith" from the Gettys - me on bass and Glenys on oboe,  but when it came to recording it was as though we had never played it before!  Getting the sound balance right while listening to the guide track in one ear completely threw me and it took around 10 attempts to get past the intro.  Then, I'd be doing OK, but trip over a few notes and have to start again.  This happened a couple of times as I neared the end of the song - AAARRRGGGHHH!

Glenys had the same problem with her part and we spent most of the afternoon in separate rooms going over and over our musical recordings.  In live performance the odd fluffed note can go unnoticed but when it is going to be "broadcast" on YouTube it has to be right.  I think I just about got away with it but will be waiting in anticipation to see how the various contributions meld together.  Hopefully, the other singers/players will mask my mistakes.

I used to like the song....................

I think the experience of struggling to get through a track you know well once you hit the record button is something lots of us can empathise with. I find I get caught out on the bits I think I know well, then I drop my guard for a second and it all goes wrong! On the track I posted above and on the others I am doing, I am deliberately reigning my playing in - less notes, fills, slides, playing in the dusty parts of the fretboard - less is more and as our Worship Director says before the start of each service “Don’t mess it up” !,

[TrevorR]

Recorded a bass track for our church to use in our streaming service this Sunday. It’ll be stitched together into one of those mosaic style videos for Sunday. Doing Sinach’s tune “Way Maker” a d decided that this week it was the turn of my Aria Pro II SB700 to step into the spotlight. It was my first ever bass way back in 1982 and I still love it. Hopefully “bass neck cam” might also feature on the video...

[adamg67]

18 hours ago, TrevorR said:

That's a mean looking bass face for a church service! >;)

[Richard R]

2 hours ago, adamg67 said:

That's a mean looking bass face for a church service! >;)

That's the face you see when the worship leader has transposed YET ANOTHER song into Eb.

[Owen]

Tune everything down a semitone. No worries. 

[Kevsy71]

35 minutes ago, owen said:

Tune everything down a semitone. No worries. 

or get a 5er! Nothing beats a low B to wake up the back row

Edited May 14, 2020 by Kevsy71

[TrevorR]

4 hours ago, adamg67 said:

That's a mean looking bass face for a church service! >;)

And that’s my LESS GRUMPY looking face! 😱

[TrevorR]

Just realised I never posted yo this weeks song... this one took me a load of takes before I got one without a major fluff... came out OK but the bass is a bit low in the mix (I would say that!).

 

[Owen]

[Steyning66]

Just stumbled upon this post. New member here. Just moved back to the UK from spending most of my life in Canada. I was a worship team bassist with a Hillsong Church in Toronto since 2009 but left in 2017 because, well... it's Hillsong. It is a place with a short shelf-life for mature people (in age and in spirit) unfortunately.

What is the worship team life like here in England? I have ocassionally attended church nearby in Brighton (St. Peter's/BrightCityUK) but since the lockdown started we haven't been able to experience church in person. It seems decent but a bit too "evangelical" for my tastes. 

Is it difficult to get on worship teams here in the UK? 

Are there any churches in the south of England that cater more to the older (35+) and more mature, progressive Christian who doesn't like to listen to fundamentalist dogma being proliferated any longer? 

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, Steyning66 said:

Just stumbled upon this post. New member here. Just moved back to the UK from spending most of my life in Canada. I was a worship team bassist with a Hillsong Church in Toronto since 2009 but left in 2017 because, well... it's Hillsong. It is a place with a short shelf-life for mature people (in age and in spirit) unfortunately.

What is the worship team life like here in England? I have ocassionally attended church nearby in Brighton (St. Peter's/BrightCityUK) but since the lockdown started we haven't been able to experience church in person. It seems decent but a bit too "evangelical" for my tastes. 

Is it difficult to get on worship teams here in the UK? 

Are there any churches in the south of England that cater more to the older (35+) and more mature, progressive Christian who doesn't like to listen to fundamentalist dogma being proliferated any longer? 

I've no idea where Canada sits, but having had flatmates who played in worship bands in the US I can compare it to there...
typically we don't do mega church as much, most churches will be small, and less professional in terms of worship bands etc. Typically if you're good, and part of the church you will have no problem getting in. You possibly don't even have to be good, but there's a culture of being part of where you serve. I know my friends in the US used to get paid and play in lots of different churches, I'm not sure that happens in the UK. So "performance quality" may be down, but you gain things with a lower key community approach too... 
That said all cities and a lot towns will have a bigger church that models itself on the bigger Hillsong style big church with a focus on performance - so if thats your thing that's there. 

I've got friends at Emmanual church in brighton, but beyond that I don't know the south coast - but a "more mature, progressive Christian who doesn't like to listen to fundamentalist dogma being proliferated any longer" - that's probably so subjective to what you're looking for I've no idea! There will be something for you, whether the church that fits where you're at had great worship playing too... or the place with great worship fits with you I don't know!

There's probably less of a cultural gap between 'progressive' and 'fundamentalist' in the UK compared to north america, and what you mean by those terms, and ones like evangelical, might be understood contextually quite differently

  
 

[Baxlin]

On 19/05/2020 at 23:44, owen said:

We’ve found this as well, but for us it was simply the phone and tablet speakers.  Play through an amp via the headphone socket and the bass track previously conspicuous by its absence magically returns.........

[TrevorR]

Me, this evening... recording my PARTS for this week’s lockdown worship song video. That look you can see on my face is a mixture of terror and relief... I’m no professional bouzouki player!
😱