Julie+Wiese

media type="file" key="christy and julie rokc on.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="My Song 5.mp3"current final work

HI JULIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!media type="file" key="eva song.m4a" width="300" height="50"Somewhere Over the Rainbow-cover by Eva Cassid

[|eva song.m4a]

When it comes to worship leading, or even just being on a worship team I think it is vital that each player brings there best to create the most beautiful sound possible that is pleasing to the Lord. Often I hear worship leaders say that everyone in the group must bring 100% to every song. This can be confused with the idea that every person must play there best at every second of the piece and the song quickly turns into a three minute piano and violin solo with a whaling guitar and singer all improvising there own Beyonce like ornamentation creating a song that is stressful and unorganized. One of the most vital parts of bring your A game to a worship song is to remember to listen. It is not enough to know that what you are playing is in the right key and is rhythmically correct. You have to be listening to the other people in the group, hearing what there doing and responding to the things around you. In the Paul Baloche video the different people in his band all referred to themselves as arrangers. I thought this was a great way to put this idea in words. The idea that you have to orchestrate the piece listening for a gap in the sound that you can easily slip into that makes sense and will create the most meaningful and professional sound. To create a good full sound it is important that all the main parts are covered. Someone playing in that middle range where a congregation will be singing leading the sound. Then the bass filling a lower sound, another person using there instrument high and a drummer laying down a beat. All parts of the group are important and key to the overall feel. This is what I meant by filling the gaps. The musicians should listen to what is going on around them and slip into the part that is lacking, creating a full round sound. They also have to think threw what makes sense on there instrument of course. If you hear that there is something missing on the high end but your a bass player it may not be the best idea to try and fill it, but maybe to back off so that whoever can fill the sound hears it and goes up giving the bass the space to fill below. This is an idea that everyone in the group has to understand and listen for. Most worship songs tend to build over the course of the song and this can be done easily if the proper voicing in achieved. Starting the song with the high or middle voice playing softly is always a good start. Then as the verses go on and reach the chorus having all the instruments come in at appropriate times adding without drawling to much attention threw out the song so that when the climax of the song, where everyone gets big, is coming the instruments have somewhere to go. If all of them where playing full on all the time the song would never reach a peek and would just stay loud and gross. Unfortunately these bands exist everywhere, I have been in many a band where egos get in the way of creating a uniform sound and it becomes a jam session of solo instruments all doing there own thing. This is not a good way to create worship music that is pleasing to the Lord and your best. The music becomes a show of skill level for the musician and not a thing of worship.