In the last blog, I began to look at how many people should be in your worship team. Is bigger better or is smaller better.
One of the key challenges with a church that is transitioning into a more contemporary culture, includes how they might do worship, and with that, the challenge about how the “new music” is played. Many try to play the new music as it may have been played years ago, or how they might have learned to play their instrument. After all, there’s no real lessons for how to do this new music best.
With a change of music styles, comes a change with how it is played.
The good news is that if anything, it can be a bit easier to play these days if everyone does their part. For example, instead of having the piano or organ play the melody, rhythm, bass and harmonies, a team… even a small team get to share the role.
- Melody is sung
- Rhythm is taken care with guitar, drums and bass.
- Harmony is done by keyboard sounds and piano – but even these are played quite differently – a lot more simply.
- Bass is now played … well … you guessed it… by bass guitar [ but it used to be played by the organ foot pedals].
So, how do you play in order to create an accessible worship backdrop for God’s people.
If you try to copy and compare yourself to some of the big churches and imitate their sounds in a small church, you may struggle, and it probably isn’t appropriate for a smaller congregation.
But here’s what you may not know … even with the large churches – the sound you hear is still quite simple. Check it out. Next time, listen critically to what is played and you’ll probably discover that the sound is primarily made up of…
- Big keyboard sounds (relatively easy these days)
- Drums – with a focus on the kick drum (bass). This can be reproduced to a point on a cajun.
- Bass guitar (or you can play bass on a second keyboard)
- One other guitar – usually electric – that is quite prominent.
… and not much else. Yes there are lots of guitars playing – visually – but you rarely hear them.
And that’s how you do worship with a smaller team. It can be done, and done really well.
I recently did worship with an acoustic guitar, a keyboard and a cajun drum with vocals (3). It was a smaller setting with about 50 people, and the feeling was quite intimate and more people seemed engaged in worship than usual.
The smaller trio works well because the acoustic guitar covered both rhythm and chords, the keys added warmth and a bass or bottom end, and the cajun – simply played – kept the feel and rhythm going. Very tight and very appropriate.
If you’re worried about having a huge team to do worship, don’t. You can have wonderful and engaging times of worship that lead your people to meet with God in ways they may not in a large group or auditorium.
If you have any questions, please leave your comments below and pass this blog onto your worship team.
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