any church band bassist here?

[pf]

Hey hayabusa, since you helped me in the keyboard forum before, here's something to help you here. lol

http://music.linear1.org/2007/03/23/chord-voicings/

Ask your band pianist to take a look at the link on chord voicings. It's quite hard to swallow from the long article. But within it talks about rootless chord voicings. I think in short, is to play the chord voicings without the root. So that the bassist can cover the root.

Since the pianist probably have classical background, probably she could take this down better.

On the other hand, classical pianists normally are scared to death about improvisation. Anyways, I understand the tension between church band members. With people of different music backgrounds, its not easy to communicate.

My guitarist often tells me to do more of this and less of that......but I can only say "Not that I don't want, but I don't know how!!!".

 

[ironhold]

Hope this helps.

I watched this worship video which says that when we play music, there need to be a low, middle and a high. Bassists takes up the low .acoustic guitarists that plays chords involving the first 5 frets fills up this middle, and the high usually is taken by the keyboards (guitar and keyboards can interchange.

If your keyboardist keeps eats up ur role by playing bass notes, you actually don't need to play already since she's taking a high/middle and a low. do tell her to play less, like those rootless chords mentioned. Then you can start exploring better as well.

 

[Indigo_blues]

oh yes, get her to watch the Worship Band Dynamics DVD by Paul Baloche..

 

[hayabusa]

that particular keyboardist has a self-given title of "master and commander of the sea" um... what's the name of that movie? haha.. she very kua cheong one. she doesn't use the typical chord and lyrics like normal people. instead she got her own taugeh version. dunno where she get them! sometimes she decides on the songs and give us guitarist the sheets in taugeh version. anyway, she's an excellent pianist. and she's got really good theory. any ugly chord also she knows. ebm7dim4aug+9 also no problem she can voice immediately. to me it looks more like a mathematic formula..

perhaps i should get some effects yeah? i was thinking of distortion. hehe..

hey pf, nice to see you here..god willing we can jam some time. haha..

 

[pf]

Hahaha.....I might not be able to keep up with my standard. lol....I'm still learning to be in sync with my worship team.

 

[susheel]

Hi Hayabusa,

I was just skimming through the thread... interesting how you went from talking about issues with drummer, to issues with lead guitarist and then to pianist. Two things I would strongly suggest your team to do are:

1. Pray for each other and the team regularly (i.e. a few times a week lah)
2. Be friends! Nothing beats playing together with people you love and like.

On a practical note, it seems your team could do with an arranger or at least someone to be the i/c for musical arrangement. Then have some common understanding that this i/c is really the i/c - he or she can tell people what to play or what not to play.

Hope these few short comments help. If you need any more help, please feel free to send me an email.

Peace!

 

[pf]

The arranger is a good idea. For my band in church, the worship leader is the one who decides.

But there is one thing to note. The arranger must have music knowledge AND able to see things from the point of view of the congregation. He/she must know how the arrangements would best lead the congregation into worship. NOT how best to have a pop/rock concert.

A serious mistake would be to concentrate on too much on the technical skills and neglect the worship of the whole band. If the band does not worship, then how to lead the congregation to worship.....

 

[leonardchng]

Yup pf, I totally agree with you about your last point. Hayabusa, it's great to see that you want to put in the effort to lock with your free-will and free-spirited drummer. If his drum beats and patterns keep changing throughout the same song then something must be wrong with his playing. He must have been lacking focus about the song's original beat and groove.

A musical arranger, either in the form of the Worship Leader or someone else, is a very useful person to have around. I won't say I arrange music in my Church's worship, but I do try to give my opinions about Worship Team dynamics whenever I think it's appropriate, probably because not many people in my Church do this. But the general guideline I give to the Worship Teams is to keep things simple. Because when things are simple, it'd be easier to neaten up. And when things are simple and neat, the Worship Team would be more able and compelled to worship as they play their instruments, and the congregation would not receive unnecessary distractions or mistakes from the Team either.

Remember that in all that great amount of effort which we put into the playing of our Christian Hymns and Choruses during Worship, music is all but a TOOL which we use to worship our God. The effort in our music must be there, because we are presenting this glorious array of sounds and song to the Most High. But ultimately, it's the Heart of Worship that matters. Gentle reminder...haha... =)

"A serious mistake would be to concentrate too much on the technical skills and neglect the worship of the whole band. If the band does not worship, then how to lead the congregation to worship...."
- Quoted from the previous thread, worth repeating. Haha.

 

[pf]

Haha leonardchng....it's easier to quote than done I guess.

I would be contradicting myself here.

Being a novice myself, there are some limitations to technical skills which my band members have trouble understanding. They would request that I give them certain "feel" or "more of this, less of that" which I totally cannot provide. Because when I practice at home, I'm worshiping happily with my limited skills which is different from what they expected or wanted. In addition, nobody else knows keyboard in the team, so they speak in abstract terms which I have trouble understand.

An analogy would be what kids play with. I have squares and circles wooden blocks, but the empty spaces that requires me to "fill in" are rectangles and triangles. But I only have squares and circles acquired from my beginner lessons. Besides what I'm taught, I have no "vocabulary" whatsoever.

It would take time to acquire the rectangles and triangles (perhaps doodling and dabbling) to fit in, I guess.

How does anybody overcome that???

 

[Cheez]

Pf, it takes time for the band to gel as one. It also takes time to develop the same jargon. In the intial stage, this problem is quite common. Suggestion is to use actual worship CD tracks. If one band player suggest someone else to do "that style", he/she could actually play the track that actually showcase "that style". Otherwise, what is happening is that each member is using a different jargon to describe something he/she is hearing in his/her head without the skills to explain because it crosses into another instrument he/she is not familiar with. The same goes with the worship leader, who should be the main person telling everybody the feel and style he/she wants.

My bro-in-law is a worship leader and he often does that. He would dub tracks for his band members to explain the feel he is talking about.

As for the thing about the keyboardist always going into the space of the bass, it's a very common problem. It does not only happen to classical pianists, but also contemporary. That's because most pianists need the left hand to play the bass note in order to guide his/her chord progressions. It's a natural thing. The way to get around it is to practice. Keep reminding the keyboardist. Left hand should not be playing bass lines, but chords in the mid-range.

And yes, in the end, skills is important but not the key. I've heard many bands who are not so good technically but it's the best worship services I've attended. If in the end of the worship, people commented, "That was great music", then the band failed. If after the worship, people commented, "God was great", then the band had succesfully led people to the right focus. That's the main difference between playing in a church and playing for a gig performance.

 

[pf]

Thank you, Cheez.

I continued to think about it today. I realised that I have the "vocabulary" like dog, cat, lion, etc. But my band members wanted something like "a 3-legged animal with wings". Hahaha....something like that....yeah. So, was thinking how to bridge that. Showing them the CDs is a good idea. Thanks!

I went to buy some live worship CDs to practice on as you previously suggested! Amazing! I don't think I've given much thoughts to those live worship CDs. I tend to buy those studio recorded ones.

I bought this live worship CD that is so call "no brand" one. Not Hillsong or Integrity or anything.....It's merely called Live Worship from the World Prayer Center. Worship leader is Terry MacAlmon with a synth with most songs penned by him.

There's a note in the CD by Terry:
"Conscious effort was made to preserve the "live" feeling and capture the anointing of the Holy Spirit that was present in these meetings. To accomplish this, certain "musical sacrifices" had to be made at times. I much prefer His presence to my perfectionism."

The CD is excellent! Never heard anything like that before and with his spirit to learn from as well! If anybody's interest, can check it out!

 

[Indigo_blues]

Good post Cheez.

Bingo!

 

[jeremyrozario]

check out this vid, makes the most sense ever, every person playing in ANY band should watch this vid

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3RMdPu0N7Ho&feature=related

 

[hayabusa]

here's a ton of useful information about worship. after reading this, you'll realize that serving in the church band is really don pray-pray stuff..

http://tabernaclemusic.net/index.cfm?menuid=16

after reading this, i find a whole new inspiration and meaning to woshipping. serving god this way is a privellage.

 

[kdash]

*revives old thread*

great comments posted! well, technicalities and worship must go hand in hand in this case. worship bands will tend to focus on the technical aspects, and it is up to the more experienced members in the worship team to align the team spiritually. i reiterate that the most important focus is still on God.

i have a keyboardist who tends to play a lot of bass notes (classically trained). the only way is to point it out and hope that he/she will be aware the next time. it is an acquired skill to play well as a keyboardist in a worship band setting.

i used to think that the bassist must always follow the drummer, but that is not always the case. the drummer and bassist must be together, but sometimes the noob drummer has to follow the pro bassist too haha.

bottom line is that communication is the key.

 

[mckenzy]

interesting thread...

i started playing bass in church when i was 15 coz we were a small church and no one else wanted to play it... over the years i realised one thing about playing bass in worship teams... : no one really listens to the bass!

seriously...

one important i learnt as a musician was that the band should never move to more than 80-90% proficiency. The reason for this is that if you keep on sounding so good together, it is very hard for newcomers to gel with the experienced players.

recently after a long sabbatical i wanted to go back into playing for workship again... this time however i decided that i would like to play what was closest to my heart: Acoustic guitar.

unfortunately they threw me into the bass role again... *sigh* will have to give this much thought... its just not my element!

 

[pf]

Bassists are quite important people in the band. Nobody notice them when they are there, but everybody feels weird when they're not there.

My church didn't allow the drummer to play whenever there's no bassist.

 

[mckenzy]

Actually when you listen to lots of worship CDs... the bass lines tend to be pretty simple to follow... some others can be pretty challenging... like those that require blues scales... but exception rather than the rule... thing is to not distract the worshippers...

like slapping is a no-no for almost every kind of song whether it is fast tempo or not... coz its very obvious when you do it.

 

[pf]

Haha...Have you heard "Come Holy Spirit" in Steve Kuban's Pearl of Great Price live worship cd?

The melody of the whole song is only 4 notes (F,G,A,C). The backbone and driving instrument is the bass (in that arrangement), with its walking ups and downs. Its really awesome! The bassist is soloing ALL the way and the keyboardist merely holding the chords.

That one really opened my eyes to how important the role of the bassist can be.

 

[kdash]

interesting thread...

i started playing bass in church when i was 15 coz we were a small church and no one else wanted to play it... over the years i realised one thing about playing bass in worship teams... : no one really listens to the bass!

seriously...

one important i learnt as a musician was that the band should never move to more than 80-90% proficiency. The reason for this is that if you keep on sounding so good together, it is very hard for newcomers to gel with the experienced players.

recently after a long sabbatical i wanted to go back into playing for workship again... this time however i decided that i would like to play what was closest to my heart: Acoustic guitar.

unfortunately they threw me into the bass role again... *sigh* will have to give this much thought... its just not my element!

hmm i suggest you give this much thought. don't play an instrument just because there is no one else to do it, and you don't really like it.

Bassists are quite important people in the band. Nobody notice them when they are there, but everybody feels weird when they're not there.

My church didn't allow the drummer to play whenever there's no bassist.

wow that's quite mean! other musicians (eg the keyboardist) can take the role of bassist actually. but yup, bassists are important

Actually when you listen to lots of worship CDs... the bass lines tend to be pretty simple to follow... some others can be pretty challenging... like those that require blues scales... but exception rather than the rule... thing is to not distract the worshippers...

like slapping is a no-no for almost every kind of song whether it is fast tempo or not... coz its very obvious when you do it.

hehe i beg to differ here, bro mckenzy. as long as it doesn't distract the worshippers, i think slap is ok just don't be too showy, at least in worship setting.