Tag Archives: contemporary worship music

A band as a building

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There are many helpful analogies that can be used to help explain how a contemporary band works.  A pyramid with bass and drums at the bottom, other bits in the middle and main voice or melody at the apex… Or a three legged stool, with the three legs being bass, drums and main melody, then other aspects hanging off it to hold the structure together…

I use both of these analogies at times, mostly in relation to helping sound people get a good mix of a band in a congregational setting.  Note that in both of these instances, the key instruments I’ve mentioned are bass, drums and main vocal.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that these 3 will always be the loudest elements in a band, but as the key structural features of a sound, they need to be clearly audible.

These approaches are somewhat different from the bands I became a part of in churches in the late 80s when I first went on a band roster.  In those settings it was all piano driven.  The main voice was also crucial, but as other instruments, they were simply added to the piano sound, but you never wanted them to overtake.  In fact, at one point, there was even the strange idea that you needed to be the pianist in order to lead a music ministry.  How things have changed!

Both of these analogies helpfully demonstrate that a contemporary band is a complex unit of interrelationships of sounds, with certain key structural elements.

In recent years, however, the analogy I most commonly use in a band workshop setting or a training rehearsal is that of a building.  I like the logic of this, and the illustration is usually communicated within an actual building, so there are props immediately visible to demonstrate the point.

The main reason we build buildings is for the roof.  It keeps rain off and gives us shade.  You can have a building with very limited walls, but you can’t call it a building if it doesn’t have a roof.  In a band setting, the roof represents the melody.  Without a melody it’s not a song.  A chord progression or a grove is not a song.

An intrumental will usually have a melody too, although it may not always be a “melody instrument” – in fact, in some music, the melody is carried by the bass.

But we’re talking about a song, which has a main voice as the melody.

At this point, though, let me pause and say that the main voice is actually not simply the song leader.  We don’t have a “lead singer” approach in church, we have a song leader. That is, the congregation is actually the main voice.  Our band arrangements and mixing of the vocals must always keep this in mind.  In practical terms, I’d say that the main melody is a gently balanced combination of song leader and congregation.

So that’s the roof.

A roof needs to be held up by structures that prop it up off the ground, and in the contemporary band setting, this is usually your middle of the range instruments, such as acoustic and electric guitars, plus piano or keyboard.  They are rhythmic instruments, acting like walls holding up a roof.  It is primarily their rhythmic nature that makes them structurally significant.  They will often play melodies too (the right amount of counter-melodies shared across a band will generally add a great deal of beauty to the sound).  But their main structural role is their rhythm.

So as with a building where walls are laid out in a proper load-bearing fashion, in a song, the rhythms need to be appropriately played to bear the load of the particular melody.  Does it imply an 8s feel or 16s feel? Is it a ballad style of melody? Is it in some kind of triple time such as 6/8 or 3/4?  What is the most stable way of expressing this feel using the instrumentation available?  If each member of the band is thinking substantially differently on these structural questions, it won’t sound very good. Experienced musicians will tend to get this right intuitively.  Beginners may need to think it through more systematically in the early days.

Of course, walls are useless as load bearing structures unless they are solidly stuck to the ground! In the band setting, the footings or foundations are the bass and the drums.  They of course impact (or must be impacted by) the rhythmic structures of the middle of the range instruments.  But their role tends to be more fundamental or foundational.

First of all, drums.  A band is only as good as its drummer.  When a drummer is solid, there is a far greater likelihood that the rest of the rhythm will be solid.  However, when a drummer is not solid, it is actually impossible for the rest of the rhythm to be solid.

Second, bass.  One of the reasons the bass is so crucial is that as well as being a foundational rhythmic structure, it is the most important counter-melody for the main voices.  It provides the harmonic bed of ‘concrete’ on which everything else is placed.  It needs to be mixed in such a way that as you are singing in the congregation you can hear it!  Obviously nothing should be over-emphasised in a mix, but understanding the bass’s role as a foundational rhythmic and harmonic feature should mean that our mixes actually encourage congregational singing volume (which I think is an important goal).

Finally, there is the trimming in any building.  Synths tend to be like mortar holding all the bricks together, or render smoothing out roughness.  Harmonies and counter melodies are the things that create interest throughout the building’s interior.  These can be done with dedicated melody instruments, with voices, or with your keyboards or guitars, depending on what your band has available.

No analogy is perfect, but hopefully this helps create a sense of what what each instrument’s purpose is within a contemporary band, and will help players, band leaders and sound mixers to work towards both beautiful and effective accompaniment to the singing of praise by our congregations.

 

Music Ministry: Trellis or Vine?

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I was recently asked whether music ministry is a “ministry of the word” or a “ministry that supports the ministry of the word”.  Interesting question!  There’s quite a bit behind the question, which I’ll get to.  But I should clarify at the outset that by “the word”, the questioner was referring to the Bible and the message of salvation contained within it, not just to a general sense of word versus musical note, or visual image.

Ever since I started as Music Minister at my church (Holy Trinity Adelaide) I’ve been encouraging people to think of music as a ministry of the word.  In particular, one of the key New Testament verses that shapes our ministry is Colossians 3:16, which every church musician should memorise:

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.  (NIV 2011)

The idea is that the congregation sings the word, and sings in response to the word.  This message of Christ is the key topic and the key driver and shaper of our singing.  So in one sense, the answer is obvious.  Yes, music is a ministry of the word.

But if someone is thinking of getting involved in music ministry, are they getting involved in a ministry of the word?  Let me put it more sharply: if someone has gifts of being able to lead a Bible study as well as being an accomplished musician, should they choose Bible study leading at the expense of the musical blessing they can be to the congregation?  Let’s face it, we yearn for our music to sound good!

A few years ago, I came across a book called The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne.  It challenged some of my thinking around ministry, particularly by showing the priority of word ministry.  The word is the vine… it lives and grows.  The book of Acts talks about the word as if it is a character in the story (e.g. Acts 19:20).

But a vine needs the support of a trellis to grow properly.  In ministry, trellises are those supporting activities that open doors for word ministry, make it happen more efficiently and effectively.  Think accounting, plumbing, and electrical.  Or think strategy and vision meetings, or in a gathering itself, think counting attendees, welcoming visitors, operating the sound desk and lighting… the list could be very long.

These things are all essential for word ministry to happen.  In Acts 6, the Apostles were set aside from having to wait on tables specifically so they could devote themselves to the ministry of the word and prayer.  Then, 7 men known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom were appointed to manage the logistics of life in church.  The first Christian martyr (Stephen) was of course one of these 7.

One of the arguments of The Trellis and the Vine is that we should follow this priority of the ministry of the word over its supporting activities.  The reality is, a lot of Christians get very distracted by the supporting activities… there are so many things to keep in mind.

There is a real temptation for churches to lose their way.  We can even find ourselves thinking that trellises create growth in our churches.  We see business strategy, marketing or restructuring working in the secular world, and we assume that we could expect the same results within the church.  We hear extraordinary music played at a concert and we feel that we could impact lives for Christ by trying to emulate the same powerful performances and high production values in the church.

We are well advised not to fall into this trap.  I’m not saying that we should ignore the wisdom that we can glean from the world.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t have music that is even higher in quality than what you would hear in a concert hall or rock music venue.  I’m just agreeing with the writers of The Trellis and the Vine that it isn’t these things that grow the church… it is the gospel: the message that Jesus is alive and that he brings eternal life.

We need constantly to let that message be the engine room of all church activities.  If we’re going to do strategy, let it be gospel strategy.  If we’re going to do marketing, let’s market the gospel.  If we’re going to do music well, let it be music driven by, and seeking to make known, the message of Christ.

So is music ministry trellis ministry or vine ministry?

I think like many other activities, it’s a bit of both.  Bible study leading for example involves emailing people to organise things, buying food, making tea and coffee.  These are all trellis activities.

But it also involves the crucial task of opening the Bible, both in preparation and in the study time itself, and seeking to bring it to bear on the lives of the people in the group.  Sometimes the study itself will be sufficient to teach and admonish.  Other times one-to-one follow up might be needed to help people to apply the Bible to their lives.

Music ministry similarly has both vine and trellis aspects.  If you’re involved in arranging scores, planning or running rehearsals, tuning, fixing or even playing instruments, you may be in trellis ministry alone, depending on the approach.

But there are 3 key aspects of music ministry that are vine ministry, and potentially a 4th.  They are: song writing, song choosing, and song leading.  The possible 4th is band leading, if the manner in which you lead your band involves opening up the word for the band.  Let’s look at them in turn.

1. Song writing – we have a group of budding song writers in my church network.  Whenever they write a song, they are deeply buried in the Bible.  They’re trying to understand things, apply things to everyday life, and re-express things in their own words.  When I’m writing a song at the piano, the music stand becomes my Bible stand.

2. Song choosing – when I get together with band leaders, one of the things we regularly do is choose the songs for the next time they will lead.  This involves usually a half hour or more of me asking searching questions of the text, trying to determine the big idea, key ways to apply the text, and the response that a passage demands of a congregation.

I do this with my music interns on a weekly basis.  As a result, they are receiving training in Biblical exegesis that is not widely available in our church: weekly one-to-one Bible coaching by a senior staff member.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that music leaders often make great Bible study leaders.

3. Song leading – when I’m leading singing at a conference or in church, I see myself as being in a role very similar to that of the preacher.  I’m on the platform, throwing my heart, soul, mind and voice into the task of urging, persuading, encouraging and admonishing people through the message of Christ.  They are often not words I’ve written myself, but they are words that I own personally when I’m up the front.

Different churches have different models of song leading.  On some platforms, the song leader is given the opportunity to introduce the songs verbally, using ideas from the song, a verse or two from a relevant part of the Bible, or prayer or word of encouragement.  In other churches, song leaders lead by simply singing the lyrics of the song.

But regardless of the distinctions, it’s pretty clear that they are in the job of communicating the message of Jesus.

4. Band leading – I believe rehearsals should be times of Christian growth.  In our AM church band rehearsals, which I’ve been running in a fairly consistent format for most of the last 12 months, we always talk about the message of Christ in the songs.  I ask everyone to place aside their instrument or microphone and come and sing around the piano.  We have a simple process:

  1. Choose a song to sing through (often a less familiar one, which has additional benefits!)
  2. Sing it once
  3. I ask the group what the song is about… we talk about it, I summarise the thoughts and try to persuade everyone how significant the content is.
  4. We sing it again, this time with far deeper connection with the ideas
  5. We launch straight into prayers of praise, thanks and appealing to God to bring these same truths home for the people who will gather in the services we’re rehearsing for.

Only then do we get into rehearsing the songs as a band.

So in my music ministry, I’m trying to increase the number of people involved with the word/vine aspects of what we do.  For me this means developing what it means to be a song leader or band leader.  There are plenty of players whose chief area is trellis work, but a growing number of people directly involved in vine work.

I generally work towards music ministry constituting a part time involvement for people, unless they’re doing an internship or some other intense program.  I am keen for everyone in our ministry to be involved in a range of other ministries, both vine and trellis ministries.  In particular, I believe that if people have the gifts to be involved in the ministry of the word, then the best training is diverse training.

Perhaps this next statement is controversial for some, but the logic is hard to beat: Someone who develops Biblical understanding through song choosing and through Bible study leading will be better equipped than someone who only develops understanding through Bible study leading.  There is just so much to learn by choosing songs.

Most of our music ministry members are also either Bible study group leaders, youth group leaders, children’s ministry workers, preachers, members of young adults groups, and members of all sorts of other groups in which they serve.  I work hard not to over-schedule people, because burn-out is always a risk with people giving loads of their time.

But I need to finish with what I think is a really important point.  There is a real tendency to de-value trellis work.  And I think this is just as unbiblical as it is not to set aside vine workers for vine work.  In 1 Corinthians 12 & 13, Paul speaks about a range of gifts, including those that we should eagerly desire.  But love is to be the driving characteristic of how any gift should be exercised.

The distinction between trellis and vine is not about one person’s work being more valuable than another’s, but about the fact that neither should be jeopardised by everything being blurred into one category.

It is appropriate that ministers be set aside for preaching and praying, just as the Apostles were in Acts.  But it is also appropriate for us to have high standards that we expect of those we recruit into trellis work, just as was applied to the wise and Spirit-filled 7 in Acts.

So in music, I am deeply grateful for gifted musicians!  And I know our congregations are too.  Their trellises enable the vine aspects of our work to be presented clearly and strongly, without distractions, appropriately carrying the lofty content of the word of God.

We often talk about the PRIORITY of preaching… perhaps this is a good way to think about the distinction in music too, without saying that some people are greater than others.   Let’s try to see the gospel as the great gift, and our skill-gifts as means to honour the gospel gift.

Everyone in the church should be seeking to make sure the preaching of the word is happening as the primary activity, both those who support it with wide-ranging trellis type gifts, and those who are given that unique Biblical insight and communication ability.  All of us in the church should pray for that deep yearning from within the soul to see the church and its visitors dwelling richly on the message of Christ.

 

 

 

 

How to plan music for a service (Part 1 – The new liturgy)

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I’m yet to work out how many parts this post will have.  Planning music for services is such an important topic for churches today, and my own thinking is constantly evolving.  What I do know is that I need to start with some background.

The thing I want to say today is that music is the new liturgy.  And to show you what I mean, let me briefly tell a bit of historical background.

I’m from the Anglican tradition, which traces its roots back to the English Reformation in the 1500s.  Aside from the fact that prior to the Reformation, your local English parish church had the Catholic mass said entirely in Latin, additionally the services and the ministry had theological problems that the reformers needed to address.  Basically, the people weren’t being taught Biblical truths on a Sunday, and they couldn’t understand it anyway, because it was in a language that the average person didn’t know.

So Archbishop Cranmer’s strategy was to implement the English Prayer Book.  The best known of these was the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which although introduced long after Cranmer’s death, was substantially based on the prayer books instituted by Cranmer in the mid 1500s.  The advantage of implementing a prayer book was that it didn’t matter how bad the preacher was, people would still hear the gospel every Sunday.

The prayer book gave intelligible, memorable, Biblically-rich, personally engaging content to every single church service.  To many people today, prayer book services can seem anything but engaging.  But at the time, this was truly revolutionary.

There were two aspects of Cranmer’s prayer books that made a great impact:

  1. A gospel logic with lots of Bible content
  2. Congregational participation

1. A gospel logic –  The communion services are a great example of what I mean.  The services would begin with prayers and readings reminding the people of their need to repent of sin.  This would then lead to a general confession of sin, followed by words of assurance of salvation, drawn from the Scriptures.  This would lead into words of thanks and praise, and then to the communion itself.  The point is, through using the prayer book regularly, the people would have that logic of God’s holiness requiring people to repent, followed by God’s forgiveness, leading to the people’s thanks and praise.  You would learn these truths if you went to prayer book services frequently.

2. Congregational participation – It helped that the services were in English.  But it also helped that there were large swathes of the service that the people said with their own mouths.  It didn’t matter if they couldn’t read, because you would learn them off by heart by joining in with the congregation around you.  So throughout your daily work and family life, you would have the words of the gospel ringing in your ears because you knew the prayers and verses off by heart.

Perhaps just as significant as saying the creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, and numerous other Biblically rich prayers and readings, there were the physical actions that went along with the various sections of the service that would reinforce them.  The people said confessions on their knees, they would often stand for words of praise, and of course they would receive the elements of communion by standing up, walking to the front, reaching out their hands and consuming the bread and wine with their mouths.  People were physically acting out their response to the gospel.

There is much about this historical tradition that was a powerful testimony to the gospel in the lives of the regular gatherings of God’s people.  People came to know God through the prayer books, even if the preacher was dull or theologically suspect.

However, in the modern church, we’ve thrown out the prayer book.

There are a number of reasons why this was a good move: today’s church prefers informality, a post-Christian society needs to build bridges rather than erect barriers for the outsider, etc.

But we have lost a great deal.  And not only should we consider what we’ve lost by removing that regular, Biblically-rich, congregationally-oriented service content, we need to consider what we’ve replaced it with… singing.  Lots of singing.

So my question is simple: Is the singing in your church up to the task of replacing what we once had with the prayer book?

Yes, singing is congregational… yes, it’s memorable and personally engaging.  But is it Biblically rich, capturing the glory of God, the depravity of sin and the wonder of the gospel?  Is it Biblically balanced, not only telling God how much we love him, but also reflecting the breadth of topics in the Bible, ranging from God’s righteous wrath and judgement, his holiness, wisdom and love right through to the bountiful provisions of God to human kind, especially in giving us the revelation of his Son and of his work for us on the cross and in the resurrection?

Plumbing the depth and surveying the breadth of the Bible in our services is one of the great challenges of planning music.  It is a task often given to those in the congregation with musical skills.  But the selection of songs must also have the input of those in the congregation with deep Biblical insight.

Think of the opportunity to minister to the congregation like the prayer book would have ministered in days of old.  Regardless of the preacher or the service leader, the singing can deeply implant the things of God in our hearts and minds, giving people tunes and lyrics to sing for their whole life, and in the gathering itself to lift each other’s spirits continually by singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in our hearts to God.

Yes I think music can fill these shoes.  But I want to encourage both musical and pastoral leaders to rise to the challenge.  Music that is faithful to the Bible doesn’t have to be boring or complex.  After all, there’s nothing boring or complex about the gospel.

 

Diary of a musical transition: Part 3 – why ask people to change?

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I don’t like doing things that make people hurt.  I’m often more likely to back down than go through with things that I know are unpopular.  I hate seeing people in distress, especially when it’s my decisions that have brought this about.

I must admit, I didn’t realise that the prospect of musical change would cause pain.  I think that pain has been partly caused by the implementation of something new that people say they don’t like.  But really, I think the main cause of pain has been the fear of losing something precious.  I think the precious thing is actually not just the music, but the experience of church.  This place in which people have been meeting together in Christ’s name for many decades for some of these people… it’s kind of tied up with organ music for some reason.

I really think our memories and fond recollections are crucial to consider in any changes that we implement to how we do church.  Although these memories are not the gospel themselves, they have often been part of the means by which people have heard the gospel.  Let’s face it, they’ve been joyfully and persistently singing the great old hymns, which are full of the wonderful truths God has revealed to us about Christ and what he has done to give us hope in this life.

Of course singing involves the integration of a whole load of different musical elements to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts – so it is very difficult to change melodies, speed or instrumentation without giving the impression that they whole thing just isn’t the same.

So why ask people to change to contemporary music, when I know it’s likely to cause pain and a sense of loss?

  1. I don’t think it’s actually going to be as painful as people are fearing it will be.  The transitional weeks we’ve had with a band playing in the lead up to the service restructure has brought 95% positive comments.  It simply hasn’t been the wholesale stripping away that people have been worried about.  And the negative comments I have received have been mostly just saying “the jury’s still out”.
  2. I don’t plan to remove organ music altogether, since my goal is not to get rid of anything, just to rebalance.  So whilst I think there is a sense of loss that 2 out of the 4 songs will no longer be done on the organ, I think there is much to gain at the same time.
  3. Change is actually good.  It has shown us the things that we care about, and a number of people have made comments around the fact that being challenged in what they hold dearly has helpfully reminded them of what’s important.
  4. I think a blend of contemporary and traditional is actually more invitationally relevant.  We’re not talking hard core or death metal music.  We’re talking middle-of-the-road broadly accessible, contemporary songs that just happen to sound better with a band than an organ.  And let’s face it: in the wider community today, a contemporary band is a lot less alienating than a pipe organ.
  5. Doing things that aren’t our preference encourage us to love each other.  It is so important that everyone has a generous spirit in relation to music.  Music can be so divisive, but it should not be.  I want to love your music even if it’s not my preference, because I know how much it means to you.  But I’d love it if you can try to engage in my favourite music too, because you know how I connect with it.
  6. The Bible says absolutely nothing about style.  We won’t be having this conversation when the Lord returns.  We’ll be rather more preoccupied with the object of our singing than with the accompaniment.  Perhaps that should be our guide to singing this side of heaven too… let your singing be praise of Jesus.  Let your worship of him be both encouraging and uplifting to others, remembering that a focus on Christ is much more helpful to people than a focus on musical issues, no matter how important we think they might be.