The Praise and Worship Band Bassists Club Part 17

[praisebass]

Hey guys, anyone have a source or recommendations for simple CCM charts for horn sections?

[invalidprotocol]

Originally Posted by sjphi26

I have a little bit of everything. Which is a LOT of things. 2 electrics, 1 acoustic, 6 drum mics (in 3 channels: kick, snare, and everything else), keys, click, occasionally a loop/sample from a laptop, 3 individual vocals, one background vocal (usually just one extra mic if it's even used at all) and myself!

Oh, and one "main mix" and one "ambient mic".

Wow, I didn't realize how much stuff that is until I typed it.

Luckily we have Avioms. Otherwise sound check would take 2 hours!

I've experimented with taking some channels out to focus more on the rhythm section, but I find it too empty that way. I also like to hear as close as I can get to what the congregation is hearing. Helps me feel more connected to them, I guess, although that sounds kind of silly.

All instruments, all vocals, room ambience mic and click/guide track. If I was to take out anything it would change my perception and feel.

[khutch]

Originally Posted by steve_rolfeca

Go watch a real orchestra sometime. Dozens of musicians, each with a book in front of them, and yet each one totally and utterly in submission to the conductor, and ready to follow wherever he leads them.

So, we were at a Music of the Baroque concert just last night to enjoy a program of Haydn and Handel orchestral music. Some of the best musicians in the world play in this group and they were in fact all using music. Nicholas Kraemer, the principal guest conductor, was doing the honors last night and as he typically does he was conducting from the harpsichord most of the evening. He uses music too. He often conducts using only his head and face since both hands will frequently be on the keyboard. When he has to flip a page he will often make a conducting motion with one hand just before or after the page turn, getting two birds with one stone so to speak. And indeed he sometimes fumbles as much as I do to get the page turned or to stay turned! Out in the "band", the first chair whatevers usually share a music stand with the second chair and so they have a full time page turner on duty. String players often adjust or even turn pages with their bows! I watched the third chair cellist struggle with one piece where the back cover of the music kept flipping over on its own to obscure the final page so he had to stop and bend the back cover backwards to keep it in place. At least their music is densely printed with many lines on each page which minimizes page turns. At church it is apparent that we work from all kinds of music, sometimes with only lyrics and chords which puts an entire song on a single sheet, sometimes with music that shows so many parts at once that you get only two lines per page.

Nicholas Kraemer is always a fun conductor to watch and when he is only conducting he uses both hands, his head, and his whole body to convey his instructions to the orchestra. And they respond instantly to every nuance. I swear a deaf person could get a very good sense of the music just by watching him. Personally I think that the art of playing from music involves learning to keep your attention on the director and the music at the same time. It is not an easy skill to learn and I suppose that many music leaders just find it easier to demand that people memorize the music. Our choir director is constantly harping about the need to keep our faces out of the music and when he really, really wants that done like for the Christmas outreach, or when he thinks the song is easy to memorize in the few practices our weekly anthems get he makes us memorize.

There is nothing wrong with memorizing of course, rather it is that with some work and discipline you can be as effective at following the leader and communicating with the congregation with music as without. Most of the Music of the Baroque musicians are as much fun to watch as their conductor. Their love of the music is obvious on their faces and in the little flourishes, almost dances, they make with their bodies as they play. And there are times when it is impractical to memorize everything if you do a lot of new music week after week.

Ken

[klokker]

Originally Posted by bassman314

God will show up on God's terms. Nothing we do changes that.

Good point.

I too get annoyed with people who judge the effectiveness of worship by how it makes them feel, or what it looks like. Or judge it by what "style" it is.

God show up in things that often don't feel good, or look good. Things like the cross.

I play for the big mega church in town, but attend a rural church out in the country that sings all the old hymns and goes "by the book". All the super Christians would come in and after 5 minutes say the rural church is dead.

Not true at all. There is just as much ego, if not more, at the mega church than in the small rural church. You can't tell by how it looks or feels. If you do, I wonder if you've grasped much of the Christian faith.

[timmus]

Originally Posted by steve_rolfeca

Go watch a real orchestra sometime. Dozens of musicians, each with a book in front of them, and yet each one totally and utterly in submission to the conductor, and ready to follow wherever he leads them.

Having played trombone in a professional concert band and then in a swing band where there is a conductor, it is actually a combination of eyes on the score and eyes on the conductor…one learns to “read ahead” of what you’re actually playing and memorize it (short term) so you can keep your eyes on the conductor most of the time.

I will tell you that for the most part, the kind of music I played in those bands was far more difficult that anything I’ve played on a worship team (playing bass) and therefore a score in front of us was pretty much necessary. WT team music is fairly simple (it has to be so the congregation can sing it) and so I find it quite easy to memorize it after playing it through a few times. There are a couple of songs we do though…….

In the worship team I’m in now, we don’t have a conductor per se’. Each of the WT leaders (we have three that rotate) have their own way of making sure we know where we are going (hopefully in time to get there). I am usually watching them at the ends of verses, choruses and bridges. Other than that, I’m usually playing with my eyes closed or watching the congregation.

[mkandolf]

Originally Posted by NoisyFroggy

Oops, I thought I was #1084.
I guess Crazy_Climer is #1085?

Anyway, played worship yesterday morning for the first time with rounds (DR Nickels Low riders) and am really happy with these.

I used to play with chromes, which I love, but wanted a somewhat tighter B string.

I prefer mellower sounds, and play a 5 string stingray-like (vintage by Trev Wilkinson, don't think they are distributed in the US), so the chromes tamed the notorious stingray highs.

Now that the low riders have broken in, I just need to roll off some highs and I am good to go, still some thump, but way more growl and waaaaayyy more sustain , which comes handy in some P&W songs that have us play whole notes . And they are still smooth for rounds.

So far so good! ('still keepin the chromes on my fretless, though).

OOps, actually, you are #1083, I put it in the official list as 1083, but typed it wrong in the post. Sorry about that.

Here's the last ten or so from the list:

1070 JMimbs
1071 Philip2bass
1072 Oddfeen1
1073 ColoradoJake
1074 Syncopath
1075 kevwalker
1076 chiefnobum
1077 cwmuller
1078 stuhammfan
1079 TodB
1080 pusangtaba2011
1081 velvet_u
1082 spindoc
1083 NoisyFroggy
1084 Crazy Climer

[mkandolf]

Originally Posted by praisebass

Hey guys, anyone have a source or recommendations for simple CCM charts for horn sections?

praisebass, you are going to have to write your own unless you can find actual chart. That is, unless you've got a horn section that's been together a few years and can read off a chord chart and do the harmonies in their heads as they play.

JW Pepper is about the best place I know of to find the little that's available.

[timmus]

Originally Posted by praisebass

Hey guys, anyone have a source or recommendations for simple CCM charts for horn sections?

I found this on google...not sure if this is the thing you're looking for:

Worship Band Series | PraiseCharts

[Rob22315]

So, to provide some feedback on my earlier request for advice on 'filler', we resolved it this week by simply minimizing the gap between the first two songs. We put both set of music on the stand and had one lead into the other. The second song was "He Reigns" which is basically three chords anyway so there wasn't much need for the music except to help us remember the words.

The Pastor seemed good with this - he simply didn't like the pause while we shuffled music.

[JebDude]

Well, I didn't get my 'soprano bass' learned in 3 days, no big surprise there! But, I got a text Saturday night that the bass player was sick, so I filled in on bass.

Setlist was:

Rock of Ages - Rita Baloche
Mighty to Save - Hillsong
Your Love Never Fails - Jesus Culture
Breathe

It was a good Sunday.

Saturday, I had my son check out my Stargazer. He approved it, except for the strings. So, any light gauge guitar string sets out there? Those skinny strings hurt more than the ones on my 'grown-up 4-string'.

JB

[JMimbs]

Originally Posted by JebDude

Saturday, I had my son check out my Stargazer. He approved it, except for the strings. So, any light gauge guitar string sets out there? Those skinny strings hurt more than the ones on my 'grown-up 4-string'.

Honestly, I use fairly heavy strings on my guitars; it beefs up the tone, especially with single coil pickups. It IS harder to get the hang of, but IMO its worth it in the long run.

But to answer your question, I'm a fan of GHS strings and Ernie Balls are good too. If you're looking for the absolute lightest, Yngwie Malmsteen has a signature set that starts with a .08 on the high E string. That's about as light as strings get. A set of .09s is pretty standard on most guitars in stores.

[NoisyFroggy]

Originally Posted by invalidprotocol

Your bass was decaying on whole notes using the chromes?

Well, more like tied-whole notes (2 bars), but I can definitely appreciate the increase in sustain, which I did not know I would, as I had virtually always played chromes ever since I picked up my first bass and tore my fingertips to shreds with the non-descript obnoxiously zingy factory rounds that came with it.

This being said, I still think chromes are fantastic strings.

[NoisyFroggy]

[quote=mkandolf;12118963]OOps, actually, you are #1083, I put it in the official list as 1083, but typed it wrong in the post. Sorry about that.

No worries, sig amended

[timmus]

A few posts back, there was concern about the awkward pause between the 2nd and 3rd songs. The church I go to has this strange tradition that I find is even more awkward and it drives me nuts. After the 2nd song, we have what they call a “meet and greet”. Basically after the 2nd song, we stop everything and the pastor comes up and welcomes everyone and then we have a 5 (or more) minute break where everyone turns around and greets the persons around them…even if they did that before the service started.

I have asked both the pastor and the WT leader why they do this but their answer is that it’s a tradition and the people like it….really? Everyone I’ve talked to thinks it breaks up the service with the abrupt end and then the restart.

The few times we didn’t do it, for some reason, the service flows much more smoothly and people aren’t yanked out of just starting to get into the spirit of worship…
I guess all churches have their little quirks and this is just one quirk that this church happens to have.

I guess it's as Tevye said in Fiddler on the Roof: “It's a tradition... and because of our traditions... every one of us knows who he is and what God expects him to do”.

[Jhengsman]

Most of the time during meet and greet we are improvising. But we also have a song in reserve for the singers to come back in and thta gets the congregation back to their seats.

[JMimbs]

Originally Posted by timmus

A few posts back, there was concern about the awkward pause between the 2nd and 3rd songs. The church I go to has this strange tradition that I find is even more awkward and it drives me nuts. After the 2nd song, we have what they call a “meet and greet”. Basically after the 2nd song, we stop everything and the pastor comes up and welcomes everyone and then we have a 5 (or more) minute break where everyone turns around and greets the persons around them…even if they did that before the service started.

I have asked both the pastor and the WT leader why they do this but their answer is that it’s a tradition and the people like it….really? Everyone I’ve talked to thinks it breaks up the service with the abrupt end and then the restart.

The few times we didn’t do it, for some reason, the service flows much more smoothly and people aren’t yanked out of just starting to get into the spirit of worship…
I guess all churches have their little quirks and this is just one quirk that this church happens to have.

I guess it's as Tevye said in Fiddler on the Roof: “It's a tradition... and because of our traditions... every one of us knows who he is and what God expects him to do”.

We have a similar tradition, but we do it in the middle of a song; the "Fellowship" song actually. Basically our guitarist takes an extended lead break and everyone shakes hands for a minute or two. Usually just the equivalent of a verse and chorus, nothing close to five minutes.

It works well in our church, everyone really enjoys that time, but I'm sure it would be awkward in other churches.

[capnsandwich]

I've never been a fan of meet and greets but I guess I can see where it takes people out of their comfort zones. I know I hate shaking someone's hand I don't know simply because everyone else is. Pray for me, I'm antisocial.

[Versatek6]

Originally Posted by JMimbs

We have a similar tradition, but we do it in the middle of a song; the "Fellowship" song actually. Basically our guitarist takes an extended lead break and everyone shakes hands for a minute or two. Usually just the equivalent of a verse and chorus, nothing close to five minutes.

It works well in our church, everyone really enjoys that time, but I'm sure it would be awkward in other churches.

We do that, too, but it is before things get rolling. Pastor does the "Good Morning and Welcome," a few announcements, and the Greeting. We use this time of planned commotion to get in place to do our two songs to open the service.

[ColoradoJake]

We also do it in the middle of a song by repeating a verse/chorus or whatever makes sense. The WL asks people to greet to start and asks them to join in singing to signal the end. The band just plays instrumentally during this.

[JMimbs]

Originally Posted by Versatek6

We do that, too, but it is before things get rolling. Pastor does the "Good Morning and Welcome," a few announcements, and the Greeting. We use this time of planned commotion to get in place to do our two songs to open the service.

That's kinda how we do it. We start the service off with a song, then we have announcements/welcome/prayer, then we play our "Fellowship" song, then offertory, then worship set (two or three songs), then sermon, then response song.