Oct 28 Chapel Song Plan

In case you weren't aware, we have this week's practice and next week's practice to prepare for our chapel on Oct. 28th.  I believe Thursday Oct 22nd is a holiday at school....!!!   I may potentially arrange for a practice at my house that day.  We'll have to see how things go.

So... given that, I thought I'd go over some notes, thoughts and mappings for the songs to help you all get ready  :-)  Again, everything here is open for discussion and should be used as a guideline - its not set in stone by any means.  Also, a reminder for singers to memorize the words and instruments to memorize their chords.  As you work on the songs (singers AND musicians) think and meditate on the words.  They are really powerful!  Internalize them.  Let them live inside you.

Happy Day  in Key of G

• Intro - E.guitar to start  then all other instruments join in.  Keys - organ sound
• Verse 1  O.F solo?  E.guitar muted.  Organ whole notes following chords with right hand, joystick with left hand.  A.guitar strum like E.guitar.
• Chorus  Everyone sing, everyone play.  Singers should all have mic stands so they can clap and move and 'be happy'  :-)
• Verse 2  A.J. solo?  Instruments same as first verse.  
• Chorus 2 times  Everyone sing, everyone play.  Singers should all have mic stands so they can clap and move and 'be happy'  :-)
• Bridge  Drums you know what to do.  Instruments follow the drums.
• Chorus  Long held notes on G for whole chorus for instruments.  Singers belting it out and clapping.
• Chorus   This is where we get REALLY happy.  Everyone sing, everyone play.  
• Instrumental outro.  Everyone playing E.guitar solos out.

Don't Ever Stop  in Key of D

• Intro  Keys once through the 'solo' theme (like the video)    Synth sounds (Sweep Lead 260, and Oct Unison 252)
• Chorus  All instruments on D.  Drums just bass drum on every beat.  Singers should be clapping on every beat.
• Instrumental  Keys and E.guitar on 'solo' theme.  Drums - bass and cymbal crashes on every beat.  A.guitar and bass play D all the way through.
• Verse 1  C.M. solo?  Drums straight rock beat.  Guitars chugging.  Keys play D-A-D with right hand and follow the chord notes with left hand (I'll show you what I mean)
• Chorus  Keys - right hand plays D-D-A-A-G-F#-G-A, while left hand follows chord notes (again, I'll you what I mean)  Guitars follow chords.
• Verse 2   Everyone singing.  Same as verse 1 instrumentally
• Chorus 2 times.  Instruments same as first chorus
• Instrumental  Keys and E.guitar on 'solo' theme.  Drums - bass and cymbal crashes on every beat.  A.guitar and bass play D all the way through.  Singers clapping!!
• Bridge  3 times  All singers.  
• Chorus Instruments same as first chorus  Stop like video?

No Longer Slaves  in Key of  D

• Verse 1  J.L sings  Keys simple  D-A chord in right hand.  Follow chord notes with left using layered piano and soft pad sounds.  Guitars chugging on the beat.  Drums - cymbal work.
• Chorus  J.L. sings  T.Z  harmony.  Keys and guitars same as verse.  Drums - add bass drum on the off beat.
• Verse 2  Another singer?  Keys and guitars continue but slowly building.  Drums - keep bass on off beat, with high hat.
• Chorus 2 times  All singers.  Instruments continue strumming, but bigger and building.
• Instrumental  Keys only with the bridge chords.   Free worship until everyone is ready
• Bridge instrumental  all instruments strumming.  Singers doing ohh's
• Bridge singing at least 2 times.  Everyone singing and going for it.  Instruments continue building.  Everyone be ready to repeat the line 'I am a child of God' several times before coming out of the bridge
• Chorus  Everyone Big!!!
• Instrumental  Keys only with the bridge chords.   Free worship

Amazing Love  in key of D

• Chorus in D   T.Z. solo?   Keys, same sounds as previous song.  Guitars are holding back.
• Chorus  everyone singing.   Instrument all in, but restrained.
• Bridge  T.Z. solo?
• Bridge  again...   All singers  and instruments building to  key change to E!!!!
• Chorus in E  Everyone Big!!

Sept 30 Chapel Debrief and New Songs

Well done, everyone!  That was (in my opinion) a great chapel and a great to start off the year for our team.  Genuinely, it real team effort by everyone.  Set up went quite well considering it was our first time on together as a team.  Thanks to everyone for pitching in.  Please don't forget about the session this Friday afternoon to get more practice doing that!

I was extremely pleased with how everyone covered their part today, instrumentally and vocally.  You all did great!!  Our two fast songs went well.  Great job ladies with the solos and E. Guitar with getting all those parts down.

Drums, you were solid throughout.  Keys - fantastic job giving us that foundation we needed through all the instrumental time and then with Great are You Lord.  I don't know about you, but I was rather surprised how the whole room really got into that song in the bridge.  It turned out great.  Super job everyone.  Now, on to our next set list... :-)

Don't Ever Stop   Key of D   (Chord Sheet)

Happy Day   Key of G (Chord Sheet)

No Longer Slaves  Key of D  (Chord Sheet)

Amazing Love (just Chorus & Bridge)  Key of D & E   (Chord Sheet)

Song Mappings for Sept. 30th Chapel

Hi Everyone,
I wanted to try and get these out to you as soon as I could.  Here's a guideline for how we'll be doing the songs in Chapel.  Let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or any other thoughts  :-)

Chapel Sound System Setup Checklist for Band

Chapel Stage Placement Mappings

Let God Arise     Key of E

• Musical intro  BIG instrumentally   C.S. please use the organ for this song.  You can hear it really well in the video.
• Verse 1    O.F Sings.  Guitars hold E.  M.W.  perhaps a metal Wawa patch for the verse?  Drums just high hat and bass drum like the video.  C.S., just hold a high E note on the organ and use the joystick for vibrato off until 'come and see' where you'd play 3-note chords (Em, D)
• Prechorus   Drums -double time on the snare like the video.  M.W. no more Wawa - just straight metal patch.  C.S. full 3 note organ chords.  We all play staccato (short) notes with the snare until the file 'saves' which we hold.
• Chorus 1 time  Vocals in unison.  instruments big.
• Short Instrumental with guitar solo
• Verse 2   C.M. Sings.  Guitars hold E.  Drums just high hat and bass drum like the video.  C.S., same as first verse - hold a high E note on the organ and use the joystick for vibrato off until 'He holds the keys) where you'd play 3-note chords (Em, D)
• Prechorus   Drums -double time on the snare like the video.  M.W. metal patch.  C.S. full 3 note organ chords.  We all play staccato (short) notes with the snare until the file 'saves' which we hold.
• Chorus 2 times  Vocals in harmony.  Instruments big.
• Instrumental into bridge - just full, held chords  A, E, B 2 times
• 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.
• Chorus big cymbal shots and held chords until 'our God reigns' and then back into driving beats etc.
• Instrumental outro

You Are Good    in the Key of G    

• Instrumental intro  E. Guitar starts, then drums.  Bass, Keys (organ patch, right hand only playing high), and Acc. Guitar in big and do the intro again.  Remember the pause and guitar strum before we start the first verse!  :-)
• Verse 1  J.L. & P.M. sing.  Drums (just high hat (no 16ths) and bass drum), E guitar muted chug, and bass.  Build up to first chorus
• Chorus  All singing!  Drums (just high hat (no 16ths) and bass drum) & bass guitar.  No other instruments until build into instrumental.
• Instrumental  E.Guitar solo.  All other instruments big.  Singers clap and have fun!
• Verse 2  Girls sing.  All Instruments do shots (2 each time as we've done in practice)  Big build into chorus.
• Chorus  2 times.   Everyone full on.  
• Bridge  2 times  Quiet to start.  Gradually building all the way through.  
• Chorus  Instruments hold the chords.  Drums - keep beat and intensity with just bass drum
• Chorus  Everyone full on!
• Instrumental out

Speaker talks here!!!


Great Are You Lord   in the key of E

• Intro  Keys start (piano layered with soft pad)  Acc. Guitars picking a bit.
• Verse 1  2 times  T.Z. Sings verse 2 times  Drums - similar to cover video (cymbal work and quite snare and bass stuff)
• Chorus subdued  but everyone singing
• Play through A, C#, B chords 2 times before singing verse again.  (these are the same chords as the verse and chorus so it should be a no-brainer)
• Verse 1 again  Drums and guitars more solid.  Everyone singing.  We may do 'Great are you lord' several times before going into the chorus...  follow me - I'll give queues
• Chorus 2x  Big, but not as loud and big as we can go.  Leave some room for later.  Really worship - sing to God.
• Instrumental into bridge.  Keys and acoustic guitar.  
• Bridge (several times).  T.Z  Sing it solo the first time - breathy.  Second time we all join singing, and we're starting to build, but don't build too fast.  Third time,  Continue building.   Listen for queues to either do it again or go into the chorus
• Chorus  FULL ON BIG!  2 times. 
• Bridge instrumental.  We may hang out here for a while.  Free worship etc.

Name above All Names/How Great is our God  key of E

• If we have time to do this one, I'll give the queue on the guitar to go into 'name above all names' (don't worry about the queue on the keys, C.S. - its just as easy for me to do it on the guitar)  I'll lead us through this one with vocal queues.

Welcome to Our 2015-2016 Worship Team!

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to a new year of worship at BCS!  If there's one feeling I have for our band this year, it's that all of us - each and every one - should expect God to do great things in us and through us this year.  If there was a verse that I felt like went with this, it would be Ephesians 3:20 (The Message):

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Our first chapel is Wednesday, Sept. 30.  The information I have now is that we will be doing a split set - some music at the beginning, and some music at the end.  We will have 3 practices to get ready for this chapel.  I think we'll do two fast songs and two slow songs.  Here they are:

Let God Arise - Chris Tomlin    Key of E   PDF Chord Chart

You Are Good - Bethel  Key of G    PDF Chord Chart

Great Are You Lord - Bethel   Key of E (its just the first song in this video below)  Word Doc Chord Chart

How Great is Our God - Chris Tomlin  Key of E  (second song in this video above - they go right into the bridge... I think we will too)   Word Doc Chord Chart

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.