May 13th Chapel Debrief

Great job today in Chapel everyone.  Setup went quite well I think.  I was very happy with our first 4 songs today.  M.W - guitar was excellent in Let God Arise.  You had a great patch for that song and they turned you up nicely  :-)   A.W.  you sounded great on keys in I Am Free.   C.Z. drums were great in those first two songs.  Solid.  K.M. - your acoustic playing sounded great in the second verse of I Am Free.  I did hear the congas a couple of times and they sounded very tastefully done, J.N.  Vocals were also great on the first two songs.  I'm not sure which song it was, but I heard G.F. doing some ad-lib in a part where we don't usually sing and it sounded quite good - well done!

I was happy with how Our God Is Love turned out.  I kinda wish the bass was turned up a bit more, I'm sure you were totally jamming out, O.F.  Vocally I felt a bit tentative in that song as I know we didn't have all our melody 'lilts' together, but overall, I think we pulled it together fairly well in 3 weeks.  J.N. you rocked it.  

God Is Able was great.  I am very comfortable playing that song with you all.  Great solo work M.W. and nice job on the tambourine C.Z - you have no idea how much of a different that one simple instrument makes.  

Unfortunately, right at the end of God is Able I broke a string that I really needed to cover my guitar part in Made Me Glad.  That also put my guitar out of tune somewhat.  Given that situation and the time it was (which I didn't realize until later), perhaps we should have nixed that song.  As they say though, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm glad we were able to give it a shot.  

It's been great working, worshipping, sharing, and playing with all of you this year.  I have some great memories of our times together in practice and in chapel.  I hope you all had a good experience this year as well and grew musically and spiritually over the course of our times together.   Thanks for your patience with me  :-)

Songs we did this year (almost 2 dozen!):

- You are Good (Bethel)

- You Are Good (I. H.)

- You Are Good (Planetshakers)

- Everyone Praises

- Amazing Love (You are my king)

- I Found a Love

- Healing is in Your Hands

- Your Grace is Enough

- Angels We Have Heard on High

- Joy Unspeakable Joy

- Here I Am to Worship

- This is Amazing Grace

- God is Able

- Forever Reign

- I Called, You Answered (In My Life, be Lifted High)

- How Great is Our God

- Sing, Sing, Sing

- Open the Eyes of My Heart

- Beautiful

- Let God Arise

- I Am Free

- He Reigns (we didn't do this one, but we could have)

- Our God is Love

- Made Me Glad

May 13th song mappings

Great practice today everyone!  I'm looking forward to this chapel.  Please remember to arrive at the school at 7:15 and be mentally prepared to help set up the sound system and get ready for our sound check.  If anyone has anything they'd like to share during our set, please let me know  :-)

Here are the songs and the mappings (with some notes)

Let God Arise     Key of E

• Musical intro  BIG instrumentally like we've been practicing.   A.W.  organ for this song.  You can hear it really well in the video.
• Verse 1    Guitars hold E.  Drums just high hat and bass drum like the video.  Bass, do the D->E thing in the verses.
• Prechorus   Drums -double time on the snare like the video.  M.W. Try and get the E Guitar part for this
• Chorus 1 time  Vocals in unison.  instruments big.
• Short Instrumental with guitar solo
• Verse 2   Guitars hold E.  Drums just high hat and bass drum like the video.  Bass, do the D->E thing in the verses.
• Prechorus   Drums -double time on the snare like the video.  M.W. Try and get the E Guitar part for this
• Chorus 2 times  Vocals in harmony.  Instruments big.
• Instrumental into bridge - just chords  A, E, B 2x
• Bridge 4x start quiet with just voices in unison, high hat, and bass with short notes.  Building and adding instruments each time through the bridge.  Bass remember the first couple times through the bridge do those short sets of notes.
• Chorus big cymbal shots and held chords until 'our God reigns' and then back into driving beats etc.
• Instrumental outro

I Am Free     Key of E   This song went really well in practice today.  Lets do it like that next week!

• Musical intro BIG   A.W, Please do the patches and keyboard parts we used in practice today - they sounded awesome!
• Verse 1    Bass, Drums, and keys for the most part.  Vocals in unison. 
• Verse 1 again :-)    Vocals in unison. 
• Chorus  All instruments, big.  Vocals in unison - we DON'T sing the echo part.  Everyone else will do that
• Verse 2 (through You the Kingdom comes...)  Bass, Drums, and keys similar to first verse.  We'll add M.W. on guitar with a single note on a phaser or a flange.  Vocals in unison.
• Chorus  All instrument, big.  Vocals harmonized - again we DON'T sing the echo part.  Everyone else will do that
• Bridge (who the Son sets free)  4 times building to peak finishing on a E chord and then just bass drum (like we practiced)
• Chorus just vocals, drums, and a bit of bass, letting the crowd echo.
• Chorus full and big to end.

Our God is Love    Key of C

• Musical Intro  Drums start, the rest of the instruments will join right away.
• Verse 1  Like we practiced
• Chorus Like we practiced
• Verse 2 Like we practiced
• Chorus Like we practiced
• Bridge Like we practiced
• Chorus Like we practiced
• Outro Our God is Love repeated singing.  Last two time just with drums and singers - no other instruments.

God is Able     Key of E

• Instrumental intro (like we've practiced and played it)
• Verse 1   Driving Bass, acoustic guitar, keys and drums.  G.F. solo?
• Chorus  Instruments held chords.  We'll need a high hat and bass drum on the off-beat.
• Instrumental again 1 time through
• Verse 2  All vocals in unison.  All instruments playing, but not full on.
• Chorus  Full instruments, vocals harmonized.
• Guitar solo/instrumental
• Bridge 'God is with us....'  Big!  Instruments and vocals
• Chorus - just vocals with high hat and bass drum off-beat.
• Chorus BIG!  Tag 'For the Lord...' a couple of time before finishing

Made Me Glad    Key of A  

• Intro  like we practiced
• Verse 1   
• Prechorus  All vocals, drums in strong, all other instruments building into chorus 
• Chorus   All instruments,  all vocals in unison.  
• Verse 2   
• Prechorus  All vocals, all instruments building into chorus
• Chorus 2x  All instruments,  all vocals harmonized
• Bridge instrumental.  BIG.  Chords:    Bm   A/C#    F#m   E
• Prechorus quiet.  Vocal in unison
• Chorus quiet but building.
• Chorus to finish.

May 13th Chapel and May 22nd Worship Night

Guess what, everyone?  We're doing chapel next week!
We also have a worship night on Friday, May 22, 7-8:30pm where all the worship teams will do a set.

For next week, since we have 20 minutes in chapel plan on our set list being (in order):

• Let God Arise in the key of E.   C.Z. on drums.
• I Am Free in the key of E (was in the key of A, but to make it easier for everyone to play and sing and give us more flow, we'll to it in E)  C.Z. on drums.  We will also do the second verse
  Through your the Kingdom is comes....  the battle is won..... I'm not afraid....  the price is paid.... we have victory.... my heart screams I am free
• Our God is Love in the key of C   J.N. on drums.
• God is Able in the key of E   J.N. on drums.
• Made Me Glad in the key of A    J.N. on drums.  Drums and bass are absolutely key to nailing this song.  You two need to learn your parts as close as you can to the Hillsong arrangement (in the video below).  

We will work on transitions and nailing down the arrangements and solo parts tomorrow.  We will also try and put focus on the following songs:  I Am Free, Our God is Love, and Made Me Glad. 

Please show up promptly to practice so we have lots of practice time.