Playing in Church.

[Owen]

I am unexpectedly putting together 2 lockdown videos for use in our Induction Service on Saturday. I have most of the videos and have dealt with the audio mixing side but feel I have quite a steep learning curve ahead of me. I have iMove and I have Premier Pro. I can do basic stuff in iMovie but Premier Pro looks to be beyond me in the time I have. Does anyone have any suggestions for something where I can set up a tile of 8 screens and let it do it's funky thing?

Yes, failing to plan is planning to fail. I thought I had planned but it turns out that my definition of planning did not match someone else's definition of planning. Ho hum

[Richard R]

Hi @owen,

I can probably cut one video for you, possibly both, though that would be tight on time depending on when/if  you need them for final assembly into a longer sermon. 

Is there a cloud drive where you have the audio and video and I can take a look? PM me if this would work for you.

Rich 

[Owen]

Rich, that is very geneorus of you, and massive thanks, but as I sit here looking at what I have, I am realising that I have stripped audio to mix it but nothing is now synced up to the original videos. It is just too much work . I will do audio + lyric videos. Lesson learnt!

[Richard R]

As long as you haven't changed the timing of the audio, then everything can be synched back up. Maybe not in iMovie, but easily enough in Lightworks which I use all the time. I'm happy to take one and work in parallel with you and see where we get.

[Owen]

The timing is there but everyones videos do not start on "one" so this is another layer of mayhem.

 

Sorry everyone else, I will take this to PM

Edited July 1, 2020 by owen

[Owen]

Just for anyone else who might find themselves in the same situation, you can do it in iMovie, but it means doing it video by video and then re-importing it to put the next one in. Pretty tedious.

Our 77 year old pianist has come up trumps and has worked out how to do it on some sort of freeware. I shall report back if I ever understand it. However, I have NO desire to understand it, ever.

[Richard R]

 My offer to do it in Lightworks still stands if you get stuck, but it sounds like you're sorted.👍

Will the service be on YouTube or such? There's a lot of affection for Penrallt from the Shirley Baptist Massive.

[Owen]

Yep, it will be on our Youtube channel. We are achingly hip! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwK0_lPqAVqGKwQREg6JhHg.  It has been such a huge amount of work that I did not have time to vid a bass line. I erased all the notes apart from the bottom one in the piano part and assigned it to a bass guitar sound in Logic. Don't judge me, but it appears that the Pianist can do it with their left hand!

[LeftyP]

I don't wish to hi-jack this thread but as we are "church people" here........

Two church friends were due to be married in April - then the lock-down happened and weddings were stopped.  They have not been living together and have been able to keep in touch via technology and 'just bumping into each other in the supermarket'!

Today, they were married after getting 48 hours notice.  Some of us from church went to wish them well and stand outside the church but as there were only about 20 or so of us we were invited inside to be part of the ceremony.  I was not dressed up for a wedding, but then none of us were! The bride and groom were though!  There was no music but the vicar made the event very special and the whole thing added a very spiritual dimension to the afternoon.

Some people spend thousands on weddings but this intimate marriage really focused the mind.  Hopefully, once the Covid stuff has subsided, we can hold a party for them at church.  It was a privilege to be a small part of it.

[Baxlin]

I wish them ^^^^ well, Lefty!

Had a WhatsApp discussion today with some of the worship band roster members, wondering if under the new rules we can ‘do a Beatles’ and record some songs (for upcoming services) outside and socially distanced?

Although we’re all willing to have a go, the  big stumbling block is that all the sound tech stuff (desk etc) at both venues is hardwired in, so it’d be a big job to shift and set up. Our own amps aren’t too problematical of course

Anyone else thought of this, and if so any ideas to make it happen more easily?

 

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, Baxlin said:

I wish them ^^^^ well, Lefty!

Had a WhatsApp discussion today with some of the worship band roster members, wondering if under the new rules we can ‘do a Beatles’ and record some songs (for upcoming services) outside and socially distanced?

Although we’re all willing to have a go, the  big stumbling block is that all the sound tech stuff (desk etc) at both venues is hardwired in, so it’d be a big job to shift and set up. Our own amps aren’t too problematical of course

Anyone else thought of this, and if so any ideas to make it happen more easily?

 

Check - but I think you can record inside the building As long as all the risk assessments are done, you are socially distanced and only one person sings.

i think we’re planning on playing and streaming live

Edited July 4, 2020 by LukeFRC

[Richard R]

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

Check - but I think you can record inside the building As long as all the risk assessments are done, you are socially distanced and only one person sings.

i think we’re planning on playing and streaming live

That's my understanding too. Our big youth event is a week's camp which isn't happening offsite but will be a week's events on video.  The band are planning to lead the worship live from the church, spread right out along the stage with the vocalist facing away from everyone. 

[Richard R]

3 hours ago, LeftyP said:

Some people spend thousands on weddings but this intimate marriage really focused the mind.  Hopefully, once the Covid stuff has subsided, we can hold a party for them at church.  It was a privilege to be a small part of it.

I wish them the very, very best. The daughter of one of our church families was due to be married in April down south. They had also not been living together,  but had bought a house and needed to move out of their respective rentals. They had a religious service in the back garden in June,  just them and the parents with the minister on zoom and a couple of hundred other virtual guests as well. It is not legal in the eyes of the law, but they made their commitments and as far as they are concerned that's their wedding day. Legal service next week, and reception next year 🙂

[SuperSeagull]

4 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

Check - but I think you can record inside the building As long as all the risk assessments are done, you are socially distanced and only one person sings.

i think we’re planning on playing and streaming live

That’s interesting. I was wondering about getting a small band together for a half day or so recording a whole bunch of tracks for use in services but assumed we had to add vocals later. Anything to take the pressure off recording and videoing in multiple homes and then having someone mix video and audio - it’s so time consuming. 

[Baxlin]

11 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

Check - but I think you can record inside the building As long as all the risk assessments are done, you are socially distanced and only one person sings.

i think we’re planning on playing and streaming live

Does anyone have, to use a term relevant to the thread, ‘chapter and verse’ which clarifies this?  I can’t find any direct reference/guidance.

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, Baxlin said:

Does anyone have, to use a term relevant to the thread, ‘chapter and verse’ which clarifies this?  I can’t find any direct reference/guidance.

So - the government has issued a paper here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-for-the-safe-use-of-places-of-worship-from-4-july/covid-19-guidance-for-the-safe-use-of-places-of-worship-from-4-july with guidance - it’s up to the legal leadership of the church (or denomination) to decide how to interpret this. IE the worship team can’t just decide to start playing as the churches trustees would need to sign off on the plan and risk assessments. For some church groups Elim for example they have their own guidance on how to interpret the rules... 

our building mean Sunday gatherings are not safe, additionally having worship with only one person singing seems pointless - so we are planning on bands of three all spacing out and sticking the singer behind the drum screen. I’m not allowed to sing along (probably a good thing) -
 

to be honest, it will be nice to play again, but not overjoyed of the idea of there being a permanent record of it! 

[TrevorR]

First week back at church this week (tho we weren’t there because of shielding) but Sky News came to cover the service! And they also did a very complementary and neutral piece on their website too! Nice! 

 

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-no-singing-as-churches-reopen-so-worshippers-get-creative-to-express-themselves-12021725

 

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by TrevorR

[Richard R]

I was asked to put together "a slide or something" to illustrate what went on behind the scenes to produce an online service.  He wanted a slide to talk over, this is what we gave him instead.  It wasn't quite what he expected, but amused us and the congregation.

https://youtu.be/a37IJoBWAk4?t=883

Hopefully this will start at the correct time, if not then it's at 14:43

(or here https://youtu.be/a37IJoBWAk4?t=777  if you want the minister's preamble as well)

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Richard R
added 2nd link

[TrevorR]

13 hours ago, Richard R said:

I was asked to put together "a slide or something" to illustrate what went on behind the scenes to produce an online service.  He wanted a slide to talk over, this is what we gave him instead.  It wasn't quite what he expected, but amused us and the congregation.

https://youtu.be/a37IJoBWAk4?t=883

Hopefully this will start at the correct time, if not then it's at 14:43

(or here https://youtu.be/a37IJoBWAk4?t=777  if you want the minister's preamble as well)

 

And a fantastic choice of music too!

[bass_dinger]

On 10/05/2020 at 21:25, 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...

 

 

Now that I have reset my password, I can at last comment on this video.  Very good!

It also made me smile to see that your band has the same general demographics as in my own church - Women sing; Men play instruments.

Latterly, our videos are a little different, however.  We started with the "singing heads" that you have, but it all became too much effort to sustain that level of effort.  Now, the worship leader has a video of himself playing alone, or does it live.  On occasion he has also multi tracked himself playing guitar, piano, bass, drums, vocals and harmonies.  

Those "Tiled Church" videos are hard work!  So, great effort, and a good reference point for that song, if ever I need to play it.

 

 

[LukeFRC]

6 hours ago, bass_dinger said:

Now, the worship leader has a video of himself playing alone, or does it live.  On occasion he has also multi tracked himself playing guitar, piano, bass, drums, vocals and harmonies.  

our one multitracked a piano part behind last week... not in time! 

[Baxlin]

Had a frustrating day yesterday, I couldn’t get my PC to recognise a new (to me) interface jobbie, so had to record my bass part without really being able to hear what I was playing.  I used my 335 style bass, and only one earbud, so there was a bit there, but not much.

For some reason our tecky prefers sound through Audacity, and the picture recorded separately (simultaneously, of course) on tablet.  With the worship leader’s original track on my phone, that’s 3 devices to tie in, before you’ve played a note...

It was only 4 songs, but three recordings as one was two songs together (double chance for error😩).

So now introduce the far from occasional errors and bum notes (and with not being able to hear them, erring on the side of caution) into the mix, and you get my opening statement - “had a frustrating day yesterday”!

But I love it.

Malcolm

[bass_dinger]

An update on my own playing in church.

Since 9th August, we have been playing as a band, in the church building.

With a new leader, it has proven more challenging than I expected, even though everyone in the band is experienced and capable.

I think that's because the new leader wants a proper arrangement, rather than as before when the leader would play and have us follow him for rhythm and changes in volume and mood.

I am enjoying the challenge, but felt the need to take lessons {Thanks to dudewheresmybass }, simply to keep up with the other musicians' level of ability.    

 

The more I play, the more I realise that I don't know.... 

 

[Richard R]

We will restart bands in November. The church is taking a very, very, cautious approach.

Interesting responses from the different bands. One is desperate to get back in, play live warts and all. One wants to start with just a couple of members so that they can ensure they sound good live and streamed before they bring the rest in,  and one leader just likes working in the studio and isn't in a hurry to get back. Frankly I want to be back playing, but it won't happen as I'm the person who has set up all the video and livestream, so until and unless I can hand that over I'll be behind the tech desks. 

[LukeFRC]

47 minutes ago, bass_dinger said:

I think that's because the new leader wants a proper arrangement, rather than as before when the leader would play and have us follow him for rhythm and changes in volume and mood.

I've had a load of times where the BL introduces a new song in the practice before playing and has an idea in their head of arrangement...
"stop playing please, I don't want bass on the first two verses"
"I know, but I've never heard this song before, and going though the verse changes you want me to play more than once before playing it infront of 300 people would be nice!"