Dont like bass

[Goodbook]

Does anyone else feel the same way that music is too loud in some churches esp when have a band and a sound system?
Can hardly hear yourself i think am going deaf.

Whats the point of the bass and amps anyway? You can just have acoustic and it sounds better. I dont like the fuzzy noise and it does say in the bible not to make uncertain noises so you cant even understand what everyones singing.

 

[Dave-W]

Does anyone else feel the same way that music is too loud in some churches

I completely agree. I have been in services that make some rock concerts seem quiet.

Whats the point of the bass and amps anyway?

As a bass player, notes in the bass range are the foundation of the whole sonic structure. In fact I have written songs and arranged others that are accompanied ONLY by bass and light drums.

There are a lot of black gospel songs that work very well with only bass accompaniment - if it is a string bass, all the better.

But you will never hear a regular bass without an amp. It has no soundboard.

I also sing bass and studied under SG great Ken Turner. I sang with JD Sumner once and got to do warm up exercises with Richard Sturbin of the Oak Ridge Boys.

Here is a song with JD singing the lead and Sturbin with the rest of the quartet.

Can you imagine a good SG quartet without a really strong bass?

You can just have acoustic and it sounds better.

I have led worship from just an acoustic guitar and while I play a dreadnought, it still needs MORE of the fundamental.

So I have used a bass pedal that extracts the bottom note and drops it an octave (or even 2 octaves). It just fills out the sound.

I like the sound to be like a pyramid where the base is much broader than the mid or the top.

it does say in the bible not to make uncertain noises so you cant even understand what everyones singing.

Wow. that is a serious misapplication of that scripture.

 

[mnorian]

I completely agree. I have been in services that make some rock concerts seem quiet.


As a bass player, notes in the bass range are the foundation of the whole sonic structure. In fact I have written songs and arranged others that are accompanied ONLY by bass and light drums.

There are a lot of black gospel songs that work very well with only bass accompaniment - if it is a string bass, all the better.

But you will never hear a regular bass without an amp. It has no soundboard.

I also sing bass and studied under SG great Ken Turner. I sang with JD Sumner once and got to do warm up exercises with Richard Sturbin of the Oak Ridge Boys.

Here is a song with JD singing the lead and Sturbin with the rest of the quartet.

Can you imagine a good SG quartet without a really strong bass?

I have led worship from just an acoustic guitar and while I play a dreadnought, it still needs MORE of the fundamental.

So I have used a bass pedal that extracts the bottom note and drops it an octave (or even 2 octaves). It just fills out the sound.

I like the sound to be like a pyramid where the base is much broader than the mid or the top.

Wow. that is a serious misapplication of that scripture.

Now that is a BASS voice!

 

[Dave-W]

Now that is a BASS voice!

I am assuming you refer to JD, and not Sturbin, who was in the Stamps for a while why JD underwent and recovered from throat surgery. (JD smoked a LOT)

But yes - JD was one of the finest bass singers EVER and is acknowledged to have popularized "low down" bass singing as exhibited in that song.

IMO he was still in recovery mode when that was recorded, since Sturbin was singing and I have heard JD go even lower than that.

eta: If you liked that, JD put out a solo album you might like: The Way it Sounds Down Low. It has not been reissued on CD.

 

[Dave-W]

BTW - here is one by my vocal teacher Ken Turner (the tall one)

He had a range of 4 octaves so he was fine with singing tenor and mid-range melodies as well.

 

[Goodbook]

Where is it in scripture that you cant sing praise to the lord and then have loud musical instruments drown you out? Its annoying!!!!

 

[Goodbook]

1 corinthians 14:7-9

 

[Goodbook]

I feel like i cant even sing praise when some of the musicians at church have their guitar trying to be a rock star, cant even hear other people or the words properly.

 

[Goodbook]

I mean, depending on the song, but you dont need it on ALL the time. My ears get a sonic lashing, like im praising underwater. Its bad. Im sorry. Please dont have your guitar pedal or whatver it is all plugged up when we trying to praise Him.

It ruins it for many people, not just the elderly.

 

[Goodbook]

YOU may like the sound to be a pyramid, but many people dont. Its distorted.

God wants to hear His people, not just one guy or whoever, doing sonic tricks.

 

[Citanul]

Being a bass player myself, I'm obviously going to object to the notion that there's no point to a bass. However, I do agree that a church worship service is not the place to try to a rock star. People come to worship and not for a performance, so the musicians need to be aware of that and play accordingly.

In my case, I don't try to play anything too fancy. Partly because in all honesty, I'm an average musician at best, so I stick to simple stuff that I can play without any trouble, but also because it's not the place to go wild. My role in our band is to keep the beat and provide an accompaniment to the other instruments, and that's what I aim to do.

And I should to point out that it's not the musicians' fault if they're too loud and are overpowering the congregation as they don't have any control over the volume at which they come out of the sound system. It's the sound engineer who's responsible for that and therefore would the one at fault.

 

[Citanul]

1 corinthians 14:7-9

That's a reference to speaking in tongues and has nothing to do with musical instruments, except their use as an example to illustrate the point being made.

 

[Dave-W]

Where is it in scripture that you cant sing praise to the lord and then have loud musical instruments drown you out? Its annoying!!!!

One translation (don't remember which) rendered Psalm 33:3 as "play a skillful psalm with a loud noise."

 

[Dave-W]

I do agree that a church worship service is not the place to try to a rock star. People come to worship and not for a performance, so the musicians need to be aware of that and play accordingly

I completely agree.

it's not the musicians' fault if they're too loud and are overpowering the congregation as they don't have any control over the volume at which they come out of the sound system. It's the sound engineer who's responsible for that and therefore would the one at fault.

Disagree. I have had guys bring in amps more powerful than the system, and singers that were so loud they could (and did) destroy Mics. The sound techs had no control over how loud they were.