MusicIsMyBiz

Worship bands are becoming increasingly popular in today’s churches. While many worship bands truly have a heart for worship music and leading others, often they find themselves struggling when it comes to balance, sound, and overall musical cohesion.  Here are some simple steps to help improve the quality of your praise and worship band.

STEP 1. Learn to listen to each other. The job of each musician is to fit appropriately within the context of the band. Doing so requires each member to be acutely aware of what each other member is playing. As you practice and “perform” (I’ll use that term, although we don’t consider worship as a performance), try to maintain an awareness of your musical surroundings by focusing less on simply your part and more on how your part fits in musically with the rest of the group.

STEP 2. Building on the listening aspect, the band should ensure that each instrument is playing in its own octave range. This means, for example, the keyboardist should not be playing in the same octave range of the acoustic guitarist. What this approach does is to give each instrument its own “sonic space”, so that each player is heard equally. Not only does this improve the overall blend of the band by eliminating sonic competition between instruments, it makes your sound tech’s job tremendously easier. Here’s an example: the bass takes the lowest octave range, the keyboard handles the lower midrange, the electric guitar shines in the midrange, and the acoustic guitar’s bright strum sound sparkles nicely in the higher frequency range (achieved with a combination of EQ and using the capo higher on the neck. While this is a very basic example, parts could swap places for difference songs, or even between different sections within the same song.

STEP 3. Pay close attention to the kick-bass relationship. This, again, requires those listening skills from Step 1. The relationship between the kick drum and bass guitar is extremely important. The drummer and bassist should always be listening to each other, playing the same (or complimentary) pattern. Although this sounds obvious, it is indeed surprising the number bands, particularly those with younger musicians, which don’t understand this principle.

STEP 4. Play in the holes. Between each line of the vocal, there’s generally a space that could be occupied with a musical fill. If the vocalist isn’t already doing ad-libs between each line, consider adding these fills with other instruments to lend a more polished sound. If you have both a keyboardist and a lead guitarist, for instance, have the keyboardist fill the holes in the verse, while the lead guitarist fills in the chorus. To hear an example of this step, try listening to any current pop, country, or contemporary Christian song.

STEP 5. Utilize density and dynamics. All instruments shouldn’t be playing full-on all the time. In fact, all instruments shouldn’t play playing all the time. Guide the congregation by manipulating the dynamics (intensity of playing) and the density (the number of instruments playing at a given time). Density can also be achieved in other ways, such as arpeggiating versus strumming chords. The band Hillsong are particularly strong in this regard during their live worship sets. Here are some Hillsong live DVDs.

STEP 6. Finally, don’t reinvent the wheel. Congregates relate to what they are familiar with. So, listen to other bands within the worship genre to find out what works and what doesn’t. Also, don’t be afraid to study other genres of music, such as pop, country, R&B, Gospel, and rock. Doing so will keep you musically current-sounding and relevant to your congregation. Much time, effort, and expense is spent crafting hit songs on current mainstream radio. Studying the mechanics of all these diverse genres of music will invariably give you a wealth of time-tested techniques to incorporate into your worship music.

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