The Praise and Worship Band Bassists Club part 22

[khutch]

Originally Posted by Versatek6

Besides the expected music portion, there will probably be a conversational interview.

My "audition" for the chior was just an interview in which I had to give my testimony about accepting Jesus and something of my walk with Him.

My "audition" for the worship team consisted of playing bass in one rehearsal on a week when no one else was available and not messing up too badly!

As the others have told you an audition at a church could be almost anything so ask the person conducting the audition or someone who has recently gone through one.

God bless and I am sure you will do fine,

Ken

[SoVeryTired]

Originally Posted by Versatek6

Let me know when you get to Minnesota!

Will do! Looking like just Georgia and South Carolina on this trip though. It's not for nearly a year but I'm excited already.

[khutch]

Originally Posted by SoVeryTired

Dear America, please brace yourself. I'm visiting next year.

(I've got a lifetime ambition to visit all the US states. At the moment I've only got 50 left to go, but should be able to cross at least 2 off.)

Oh, you lot are coming over here all the time, we can handle it! Be sure and let us know where and when and perhaps those of us at "ground zero" can show you the local sights, which we have probably never seen ourselves as we have discussed previously!

I'd have to sit down and count but I probably have 20-30 to go myself....

Ken

[Chewy_B_i_T_s]

Originally Posted by khutch

My "audition" for the worship team consisted of playing bass in one rehearsal on a week when no one else was available and not messing up too badly!

As the others have told you an audition at a church could be almost anything so ask the person conducting the audition or someone who has recently gone through one.

God bless and I am sure you will do fine,

Ken

Thanks for your responses everyone!
I'll be back on monday to let y'all know how it went.

Regards,
JK

[khutch]

Every time I go visit my parents/brother/neice/nephew my father wants to have a "jam session". He is ecstatic about playing the old songs he knows from his youth, I'm happy to do it, my brother's interest level is low, and the rest of the family looks bored to tears. So I would like to find a Contemporary Christian worship music songbook that we could play from because I know my brother and the rest would find that far more interesting and it would give them something to sing along. But of course up in central Wisconsin there either are no contemporary churches or none that they go to anyway so they don't know the music even though I am sure my brother would find it more interesting to play. He's on guitar and dad is on keyboard btw.

I cannot give them worship music and practice mp3s from our church, copyright reasons. So can you all give me some recommendations for somewhat mellow contemporary Christian songbooks that come with CDs of the music (since they will have to learn everything)? There are so many on Amazon that it would take forever to find the few that come with CDs and I am hoping you here might know of some good ones.

Thanks,

Ken

[velalv]

I personally like the Hal Leonard worship series. They have full notation for bass, keyboard, guitar, drums and a cd that goes with them as well as chord sheets, though in separate volumes. I'll pm you the links later. The songs are from 2000-2010 so pretty contemporary. Maybe get your dad a keyboard version and just work off the chord charts so you don't spend too much. There are 5 volumes, and each are 10 bucks. They'll have them at music and arts, at least here in Va they gave holy is the lord, which has that chris tomlin song and prince of peace, two of my favs

[mtb777]

Originally Posted by SoVeryTired

Will do! Looking like just Georgia and South Carolina on this trip though. It's not for nearly a year but I'm excited already.

You keep us informed as I will try to see if I can move up that way before, just for the chance to meet you.

[benjamin_danger]

At my church, we only occasionally (very rarely) rehearse what we are going to play, and we pick out the songs about 5-10 minutes before the start of the service. I sort of feel my way through the songs. Sometimes it goes smoothly; other times it's a train wreck. Does anyone else do things this way?

[rotis]

Originally Posted by benjamin_danger

At my church, we only occasionally (very rarely) rehearse what we are going to play, and we pick out the songs about 5-10 minutes before the start of the service. I sort of feel my way through the songs. Sometimes it goes smoothly; other times it's a train wreck. Does anyone else do things this way?

Good Lord no.

[JimTMich]

Originally Posted by benjamin_danger

At my church, we only occasionally (very rarely) rehearse what we are going to play, and we pick out the songs about 5-10 minutes before the start of the service. I sort of feel my way through the songs. Sometimes it goes smoothly; other times it's a train wreck. Does anyone else do things this way?

LOL, thankfully not. I suppose if you guys are all talented, have been playing together for a while, and know the tunes it would work...

[JimTMich]

HELP, this one showed up on the play list for this week.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel by Jadon Lavik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaQuWlnt0OQ

Help me find that little bit of soul that is buried deep down begging to get out....

What key is this? If I could figure out the key, I think I could have some fun with this.

[Jhengsman]

Originally Posted by benjamin_danger

At my church, we only occasionally (very rarely) rehearse what we are going to play, and we pick out the songs about 5-10 minutes before the start of the service. I sort of feel my way through the songs. Sometimes it goes smoothly; other times it's a train wreck. Does anyone else do things this way?

An entire set, no. If it is preplanned we will have chord sheets at least and perhaps 5 to 10 minutes to figure who will handle the intros and transitions. During the service it does come up some of the time. I find myself listening for the chord progression and many times find myself pedalling between two notes until I fnd a line. At which point the MD sits on his left hand. Because I am on the other side of the stage I can't hear the keys and guitar calling out the key and the number as the change chords.

[TodB]

Originally Posted by benjamin_danger

At my church, we only occasionally (very rarely) rehearse what we are going to play, and we pick out the songs about 5-10 minutes before the start of the service. I sort of feel my way through the songs. Sometimes it goes smoothly; other times it's a train wreck. Does anyone else do things this way?

Been a while, but as I recall the music tended to be simpler and a little easier to jump in on the fly.

[jmclearnon]

There is one worship group i play in that doesn't really rehearse, i find that's because we have played with each other so much that we have learn't how the other musicians will act in a situation.

I'm lucky i have had so much experience playing with people, i get called quite frequently at midnight the night before a service because someone can't play, i turn up and sit down and play.

The only bad time was when NO-ONE was there to play music for some reason and had to sit down at the piano and sight read some music........ That was an interesting experience (thank goodness for practice and lots of sight reading in the past )

[SoVeryTired]

Originally Posted by benjamin_danger

At my church, we only occasionally (very rarely) rehearse what we are going to play, and we pick out the songs about 5-10 minutes before the start of the service. I sort of feel my way through the songs. Sometimes it goes smoothly; other times it's a train wreck. Does anyone else do things this way?

Not quite.

Songs put up on Planning Center at least a week in advance, with MP3s, lyrics and chords. And given that we work from a very short list of songs at any point in time, we'll know most of the them very well. MD for the week sends out song arrangement notes with instrument specific details on Monday. Thursday rehearsal for two hours to pull it all together, make changes and finalise arrangements. Sunday pre-service is 1 hour rehearsal and soundcheck, then two services.

Trainwreck-proof? Nope - there are humans involved. Trying to give our best from a team of vounteers of mixed ability? Absolutely. We still change things on the fly during the service but from a solid base of understanding, and with an MD on stage talking the changes through.

[jmclearnon]

That's interesting, we did a service once that was a free to walk in/out chilled praise session for 5 hours..... all of it completely unrehearsed, it was great.

I also had to bring 4 instruments to that ..... i had fun tidying up lol

It was an area we had wanted to experiment with after playing with some Polish people last year, everything they did was completely unstructured. IMO in those type of occasions there is definitely a certain musical threshold needed to take part.

On the area of auditions however, we have a church orchestra every month and everyone how plays an instrument is encouraged to play, i think its great! (A lot of practice/ organization required for those!)

[SoVeryTired]

It'd be great to meet any of you guys in the vicinity when I pop over the pond. It won't be until September/October next year and I'll be with a group from church on a fairly tight schedule with just one day off (in Atlanta, I think), then at Catalyst conference for three days, heading over to Newspring in Anderson, SC for Saturday and Sunday morning, back to Atlanta and evening service at Passion City Church then fly out that night. That's the plan at the moment, anyway. It's going to be hectic but awesome.

But if any of you are around those places at those times, let's meet!

[SoVeryTired]

I do like the occasional unplanned session, but I prefer that session to be a rehearsal where we're working out things before trying to lead others with these songs.

Sunday afternoon was fun, taking songs with some vague chords and turning them into proper arrangements (but that was a rehearsal).

[steve_rolfeca]

Originally Posted by benjamin_danger

At my church, we only occasionally (very rarely) rehearse what we are going to play, and we pick out the songs about 5-10 minutes before the start of the service. I sort of feel my way through the songs. Sometimes it goes smoothly; other times it's a train wreck. Does anyone else do things this way?

My monthly city-wide worship event started out with regular rehearsals, but we had to cut them out because we're from all over this end of the province, and half of us are self-employed. It works fine with that team- there's definitely a God-given chemistry there, but it doesn't hurt that we're mostly old pros or young prodigies, we've been playing together for over a year, and a big chunk of the band also does conferences together.

It wouldn't work with my Sunday morning church, though. Not enough skill/experience/chemistry/seat time.

IME, totally unplanned worship works best in either of two settings- small team with a limited song list, always played the same way, and the songs are well known by all; or "jam band" environment, where the expectation is for a high level of "flow", and improvisation/change is expected and welcomed.

Both methods work- I actually find a certain amount of unintended humour in posts that talk about click tracks and a heavy level of pre-planning as though those things are some sort of gold standard for professionalism. They certainly are in some musical cultures, but those cultures live within a broader context.

Over in the Jazz world, a huge body of recorded works exists, with many of those recordings revered by whole generations of musicians, where the music was literally composed on the fly. And we're not talking simplistic stuff, either.

[jmclearnon]

Yeah ^^^ That's the kind of situation i am talking about lol