Do you play an instrument or sing? If so share some advice!

[ByTheSpirit]

Do you play in your church's worship group or lead worship? What are your top three tips to give someone who may want to do so but doesn't know where to start?

Me: I play in my church's worship band on electric guitar.

My tips?

1. Learn the melody of the song and replicate it.
2. Learn triads on the guitar and play those instead of large open cowboy chords.
3. Play for the song, not for yourself. Meaning it's more important to serve the song and service by playing chord and staying on basic rhythm than it is to rip a guitar solo.
4. BONUS - If you don't have any effects or pedals, get at least a Reverb (Hall or Plate preferably)

 

[Faith over Fear]

#1. Learn to play by ear lol!
#2. Actually practice the song you will be playing for the service ( some people just do not dedicate enough time to practice)
#3. Remember to play emotionally. Pay attention to how the audience is receiving it. If it’s a slow more emotional sounding song be mindful of that and play in a more melodic emotional way. If it is a fast foot tapping song. Just get down on it and let the joy of Jesus out lol!

I play many different instruments but am currently playing bass and singing in my church’s band. I’ve learned putting emotion in my playing is the best way to reach the audience. I can grip people by emotion much easier than by technique or great bass lines. The general public does not care how good your technique is, how expensive your gear is, how fast you play and etc… the audience cares about how you make them feel. I sit on stage with about 4,000 dollars worth of equipment and let me tell you people could careless.

“ people won’t remember what you said or did, they remember how you made them feel”.

 

[Paidiske]

I think the main thing is to remember that your role is to support the congregation's worship. It's not about you; it's about giving them what they need to enable and encourage them to participate.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think the main thing is to remember that your role is to support the congregation's worship. It's not about you; it's about giving them what they need to enable and encourage them to participate.

Indeed, this cannot be stressed enough. And it is equally true regardless of the specific mode of congregational worship; for example, in France, it is traditional to play the organ during low masses, which are otherwise almost silent; for people who attend those liturgies where they are still available in France, the traditional organ music used tends to be of a highly meditative nature which allows one to focus on the prayers of the mass as contained in the missal or on one’s own prayers and devotions. So even in that unusual circumstance, where there is no expectation of active congregational involvement, the ability of the congregation to participate remains paramount, because if the organ music were wild and distracting, that would just frustrate the people who attend those masses.

Thus it is even more important in more conventional worship such as traditional Protestant services where there is likely to be active congregational involvement such as the singing of hymns, responses and so on, that the music facilitate engagement of the congregation in the worship service.

 

[The Liturgist]

#1. Learn to play by ear lol!

If you’re suggesting people shouldn’t learn to read musical notation, I have to disagree entirely. Musical literacy is extremely useful and enables one to appreciate a much broader range of music. I myself am not great at reading scores, particularly more complex musical scores and notation, but being able to understand and follow the basics is extremely helpful. And there are very good apps for the iPad, iPhone, Android and other devices that can teach you to understand notation.

On the other hand, if you mean that one should be able to remember and ideally even transpose (that is to say, write down) a melody they have heard, that is an extremely useful skill.

 

[The Liturgist]

#3. Remember to play emotionally. Pay attention to how the audience is receiving it. If it’s a slow more emotional sounding song be mindful of that and play in a more melodic emotional way. If it is a fast foot tapping song. Just get down on it and let the joy of Jesus out lol!

Actually, this could be problematic. Traditional church music historically avoids emotional manipulation, since an extreme emotionalism can distract from worship of Christ our God. And while we always celebrate the joy of Jesus, sometimes this is should be very solemn; for example, on Good Friday when we are commemorating the crucifixion of our Lord. I know of many people who have been alienated from their churches and who have sought out more traditional liturgical churches, due to the musical directors of the churches they had previously attending having embraced a musical approach commonly referred to as “happy-clappy.” Indeed I myself am such an exile; I would probably never left Methodism and spent time in Congregationalist, Anglican and Orthodox churches had my Methodist parish stuck with the organ music and the hymns of John and Charles Wesley among others that it played during my childhood; when I was a teenager it embraced a praise and worship music style and rejected the liturgical traditionalism that had previously characterized it, and it alienated me in the process, and this remains traumatic for me because it was at that church that I was baptized and have many precious memories of worshipping with my grandparents.

So this takes us to another point that I would make, and that is that changes to the mode of worship at a church can cause real harm to the congregants. This might also likely be true in the reverse case, if all of a sudden a church that embraced praise and worship music switched wholesale to traditional music, although this has never happened, but we do know that much alienation has been caused by churches replacing traditional congregational hymn singing and organ music with praise and worship music and the electric guitar and drum kit.

 

[The Liturgist]

By the way @Faith over Fear I do appreciate your enthusiasm for the musical celebration of our Lord; as it happens your post inadvertantly touched on something of a traumatic issue for me, and for a number of former mainline / evangelical Protestants in the US who experienced this. What has tended to happen in the US is that a bifurcation occurred wherein mainline Protestant churches either embraced contemporary worship styles or else retained traditional worship but became theologically extremely liberal to an unrecognizable degree, and either way people were alienated. So please do not take my reply as personal criticism; rather the preceding reply was intended to share with you what I experienced, because I feel you are a good and conscientious Christian and you would not want to cause harm to your congregation in the manner that I experienced it in my teenage years in the early 1990s.

God bless you!

 

[Faith over Fear]

By the way @Faith over Fear I do appreciate your enthusiasm for the musical celebration of our Lord; as it happens your post inadvertantly touched on something of a traumatic issue for me, and for a number of former mainline / evangelical Protestants in the US who experienced this. What has tended to happen in the US is that a bifurcation occurred wherein mainline Protestant churches either embraced contemporary worship styles or else retained traditional worship but became theologically extremely liberal to an unrecognizable degree, and either way people were alienated. So please do not take my reply as personal criticism; rather the preceding reply was intended to share with you what I experienced, because I feel you are a good and conscientious Christian and you would not want to cause harm to your congregation in the manner that I experienced it in my teenage years in the early 1990s.

God bless you!

No, I am not out to harm the church in anyway! I appreciate and accept correction gladly. I haven’t been playing in church but for a few months. I traditionally played in non-Christian bands ( till I got saved some odd months ago) so I’m definitely not saying I know everything about church music. I was self taught, so I do play by ear and it has enabled me to just sit in and play with anybody anytime without having to pull up charts to play. I’m not knocking reading music notation but if you can’t play without the paper, I believe it would be a good idea to do some ear training.
Also I know there is some very great advantages with knowing how to read musical notation. I wish I could read musical notation better. My ear has become a crutch for me ever learning to read notation well. It just easier for me to do it by ear than reading lol!

Like I said I’m am open to correction. I learned to play music on an emotional level. I was often seen crying on stage because my guitar was like a mouth piece for me. I had a hard upbringing and playing music was a way of letting my emotions out, than I sort of stopped playing music for a bit and found another way to let my emotions out. I suppose in a in depth look at my approach to music it could be considered wrong in the house of God. I admit I have a little too much emotional baggage when I play or sing.

Thank you for your reply. I am not easily offended and I always place myself in someone else’s position to understand how they see it. I’m sorry if I upset anyone.

God bless you!