News Songs!

Hey Everybody,
Good practice today.  It sure is fun to see how fast we can pick up new songs.  If someone could let me know what the theme for chapels in March is, that would be great.  Also, if each of us could russell up a cowboy hat or two by then, :-)  that would be super as well.

Here's the new songs to listen to closely and learn:

God Is Good

Like I said in practice, it will be important for all of us to listen to this closely and know the melody in all the parts of the song.  Particularly in the verses (even though E will be 'preaching' through them) - certainly the bridge.
Keyboards - have fun with the keyboard licks - there's lots of them in this song.  You don't have to learn them, but they would be fun to learn and play.
Singers - listen to when they back up with with words compared to when they do the 'oooh's'  It would be good if we could do it similarly.

I Saw the Light/I'll Fly Away

Heh - I hadn't seen this video before.  I had no idea that David Crowder was a hillbilly.  This is awesome.  We'll do both of these (I saw the Light and I'll Fly Away) as a medley like they do - perhaps not all those verses though.  :-)

Amazing Grace/My Chains are Gone

We'll arrange this one similar to the way Chris does it here - start quiet with just keyboards and a pad and build it slow.  Watch towards the end of the video to see what it escalates to.

You're Beautiful

Drums - once this one gets going, it would be good if you could hit the snare through the chorus as he does - so if you count through the chorus in sets of 8, he hits the snare on beats 4 and 7 (and sometimes 1)  The Bass drum is a steady beat landing on 1,3,5 and 7.

And, of course:

One Way

Remember with this one we need to get the chords coming out of the chorus going back into the verse.  Guitars should follow the snare beat.

Jan. 21 Chapel Debrief

Did you all see that?!?  I hope you didn't miss it!  In all my apparent disorganization with song order before chapel, we asked God to come and help us and work things out and...  He did!!!   It was a great example of what we were all talking about in chapel - knowing and experiencing God moving in our lives in a personal way.  We asked God for help with something and He came through and showed He's ready to help us out.  :-)

Well, well done, everyone!  It was great to see so many of your parents out!  I thought it was actually fun to mix things up a bit and have the songs at the end.  And hey - we did 5 songs!  Surprise!  It was great to see everyone so involved.  I enjoyed glancing over and seeing one of you really worshiping with your hands up (not sure who it was... E.S. perhaps?) and sharing a smile in the middle of a song with K.M.  I especially enjoyed the ends of the fast songs where we'd make a big racket and brought the house down.  What fun!  I believe God enjoyed it too.

Thanks for reading that scripture at the beginning A.V. - you did a great job of it.  You enunciated very clearly and your voice was strong and well heard.  Good work!  I hope you all didn't mind me saying something - I wasn't sure about it since I was sort of a 'lone adult voice' in a student chapel, but what's done is done. 

I think it was beneficial (a good idea and worked well) for us to do the slow songs first - for a couple of reasons:

• It gave both the sound guys and us a chance to find that sweet spot in our vocal blend.  It didn't seem like it took long for us to find it, and when we did - I have to say that from my vantage point - it sounded really, really good!
• I think the slower songs allowed for a smoother transition between the first half of chapel (the panel) and the fast songs.

I thought our song transitions were pretty good.  It sure was fun to get into those fast songs.  Instrumentalists - great work on the shots and keeping together!  I only noticed 2 boo boos.  One of them was me - I hit a wrong chord in Nothing Is Impossible that was pretty blatant.  The other one was C.Z. in the same song - it sounded like you got a little busy and missed coming back in at one part - maybe that was when you dropped your stick.  Nice recovery though!  You came right back in quickly without a problem.  The drum work sounded great in that song, by the way.  Also I could hear both keyboards (A.T, D.W.) quite well in most of the songs and you both sounded great!  D.W., your string pad in the slow songs was front and center for everyone to hear.  A.T. - the organ in the fast songs was perfect and I heard the tremolo!  O.F. - nice doodling in the outro to I Found a Love.  M.W - again, your patch sounds great in those songs.

We'll see you all in practice on Thursday.  Get ready to go over One Way, and Best Friend.  We'll have to find some new slow songs to do.  Thanks everyone!

Next Chapel - Tuesday, Jan. 21

Hi everyone,
Nice work in practice today.  Here's the link to the article I was talking about:  http://worshipleader.com/more-than-singing/ 
Singers should definitely have a look at this article  :-)

As we discussed in practice, our set for Jan. 21 will tentatively be:
- Undignified
- Nothing is Impossible
- I found a Love
- Freedom Reigns in this Place
Depending on how practice goes next week, we may replace Undignified with Jesus, Best Friend.  

Also, keep the theme of chapels this month in mind - if you feel like God is impressing something on you to share in between one of the songs in chapel, please let me know!

Thoughts and new song videos

Hi everyone,

Remember for our Dec 3 chapel I mentioned to you all that in between the songs I would talk about David dancing before the Lord with all his might?  Did any of you notice that I actually talked about something totally different?  I didn't really plan on doing that.  I meant to talk about David, but funny enough, it didn't happen like that.   Here's what happened…

A few days before our last practice leading up to the chapel I got thinking about the words to all of the songs.  If you recall I had us all talk through the words in that last practice.  While I was thinking about the words to the songs, that line in The Happy Song "…for now I know that God is for me, and not against me…" made me sit up and think.  Kornelia and I had recently talked about being scared of the rapture, and that parallel was fresh in my mind - we don't have to be scared and afraid - God is on our side if we believe.  I had no intention of sharing that story though.

Then came Dec 3.  We had finished our sound checks.  They had finished announcements.  Mrs. Freeman was doing the intro to chapel and my mind went blank.  I though 'well God, I know I had a few ideas of what to talk about during the first and second song, I'm just going to rest in whatever you bring to me when the time comes.  That's what I did, and you heard what I ended up saying.  Kind of an interesting progression….

Anyway,
I Found A Love this past week - fantastic!  I'm very happy with how fast that song came together.  We are starting to get a feel of playing together.  It feels very natural in that song.  Great job everyone!  We'll keep working on Nothing is Impossible and Best Friend.  I'll post a video for Best Friend below along with a couple other songs I'm thinking about.

Best Friend

Drums - Listen hard to the beat in this song.  In the intro and instrumentals he does a snare, snare on beats 3 and 4 repetitively - we should try and emulate that.  Also, we need to get as close as we can to the beat he's doing in the verses  :-)

Singers - we're going to need to figure out how to get together enunciating our words - especially in the verses and the words come fast and furious. 

Made Me Glad

Bass - Sustained notes are important in this song.  The bass is still fooling around on different notes, but he's not leaving much dead space.  We need that for a good foundation in this song.  

Drums - the drums are a major factor in controlling the ebb and flow (dynamics) of this song.  Listen to how he builds the intensity.  Very solid simple bass drum and snare beat, but he then adds on top of that - listen from toms into the second chorus added to the beat.  They provide a great 'increase' in intensity.

Keys - the keyboards to a lot of ditties in the verses of this song that are great to learn.  Octave runs up help build intensity going into the chorus.  Repeated single notes are great for impact.

One Way

I think we could pick this song up pretty quickly.  Most of you know it already and it's quite easy to play.

Electric Guitar - its got some cool lead parts for you - see if you can get them down.

Drums - try and nail the beat in the verses - it that double snare again.  His bass drums is pretty steady and busy in this song - a good workout.  :-)

Keys - in the second verse, hear that cool synth sound in the background?  I'll show it too you - it will sound really cool.

Dec. 3rd Chapel Debrief

Well, in a word that was awesome!  The fact that almost all of you showed up for set up and we were able to run through 2 songs before the service on a weather day like today was fantastic!  Thank your parents for me, please.  I know that might have been a bit of a stressful drive to school in the drifts and the dark.  Thanks also to the team members who helped set up chairs at the beginning - I know that isn't your job, but we were a great help while we waited for the stage doors to get unlocked.  Also thanks to everyone who helped pack up at the end.  It warms my heart to see all your servant hearts <3

As for the set, I thought it went quite well.  We've been asked to do both Undignified and The Happy Song in a future chapel!   Our song choices went quite well with the rest of the service.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share this time.  However, I thought that we nailed all of our 'queues' through the songs with the exception of one (the build of the choruses 2nd time through in I Exalt Thee - but no big deal there).  Whoever had the idea to do 2 choruses of Joy, Unspeakable Joy back to back and have the second one as vocals only.... brilliant!  If anyone in the audience found their attention drifting at that point, I guarantee it was snapped right back as our transition to vocals there was spot on.  All you singers - you are such natural vocal blenders.  This is a great skill to have. Both acapella parts in the last two songs sounded great.  I also thought that we balanced our unison singing versus our harmony singing well.

Instrumentalists - great job.  As I'm a little busy during the songs, I don't hear everything.  But what I did hear of your individual parts sounded great - and I did hear each of you at some point or other.  Nice job Mr. D for filling in with us on bass!  Great job instrumentalists, on the 'big endings'!  I love those and we did them well. 

Did you girls put the Santa hats on during Joy?  I wasn't paying attention and didn't notice.

Other than that, I'd love to hear some of your feedback on Thursday. 

Songs in the hopper to start getting familiar with:

I Found a Love

Nothing is Impossible

This song rocks.  Drums and Guitar - it will be a challenge for you!

Chapel Tuesday Dec. 3rd!

Hi everyone,

Our next chapel is this Tuesday!  We'll be doing the set we've been working on.  I bought santa hats for everyone.  You're going to love them, A!  Please remember to be at the school at 7:15 sharp Tuesday morning as we have to set up the system, do a sound check and a run through.

Some reminders and thoughts I had about our coming set after the last practice:

• Electric guitar - maybe listen to the videos (Joy, Unspeakable Joy in particular) a couple more times before Tuesday and see if you can nail those parts.  I could see you were still searching for the right frets last Tuesday.  Also remember in Undignified you are just doing single notes with the bass, not chords, during the intros and the versus.  
• Drums, excellent country beat in The Happy Song!  Remember in Undignified to play a straight, steady, driving beat in the chorus.  In the intro and versus I think in practice you were doing quarter notes on the high hat?  We'll try eighth notes on the high hat in the warm up Tuesday morning.
• Bass - great feel as well in The Happy Song.  For I Exalt Thee - ensure that in the first verse and first chorus you are providing us with a solid foundation by playing full (well plucked) notes on the chart and not playing any passing notes (notes that aren't written in the chart).  Once we get into the second verse and beyond, you can ad lib some more with the exception of the walk-ups in the verses (no bass walkups for 'for thou oh Lord...' and 'You are exalted for above...' )
• Everyone...
• Remember to smile, move, relax, have fun, and clap where you can in the first 2 songs!  
• Remember in The Happy Song we're doing that special ending with the chord shots  G,  A, and D - watching the drummer as we do them cleanly  :-)  
• Joy to the World - we're ending with the voices only on the 'chorus' - Joy, Unspeakable Joy
• I Exalt Thee we will also be ending with just the voices after our big build.

Prep for Dec 3 Chapel (After Nov. 7 practice)

Hi everyone,

After Thursday's practice I had a couple of thoughts... :-)  Also I'm switching out 'I found a love' for 'the Happy Song' (video and link to music posted below)

1. Everyone should be listening to their parts (in these videos) and practicing these pieces during the week.  I probably shouldn't be hearing things like 'I sort of know how the song goes - I watched the video in my spare today' or 'I don't know this song - haven't heard it before'.  That's not really fair to me or the others in the team that have been practicing.
   When I'm getting ready for a set at church, even when I know the song and I've played it in the past, I still listen to the video many times during the week before.  I will play with it, listen for my part and try and nail it exactly as it's done in the video - this really helps the group practice move along and (of course) makes it sound better.  It will make you a better musician as well.  So please (pretty please :-) ) listen to the songs this week and practice.
2. Perhaps an appropriate analogy for us singers to keep in mind is that we are sort of like 'cheerleaders'.  People are watching us.  We're helping them cheer for God, in a matter of speaking.  If we are smiling, clapping, and full of energy, that will reflect and transfer over to them.  If we aren't, that also reflects and transfers over to them.  So don't be afraid to smile, clap, move a bit, think of some simple actions, etc. 

So here's our revised song set for Dec. 3  I've copied the notes from last week with updates based on key changes and thoughts.

Undignified Remember we're playing this in A now.

Bass, Elec. Guitar - you two will follow each other in the intro and the musical interludes between verses.  The line goes like this: A A A A D D D D D D C# C# B B B B and repeat

Drums - try and emulate the drums exactly like they do in this arrangement.  

Keyboards - at 2:20 there is a cool part that one of you could try (its a guitar part, but you could do it on the keyboard - ask me about the patch to use)

The Happy Song  Link to music here

Drums - :-)  This is a country feel.  You'll be hitting the snare twice as much as normal.  Try and get the stops like they do it.  We won't have you play the snare through the verses.  I think you'll stop with the music (so essentially shots in the verses).  We'll see how it goes.  Same thing in the "everybody's singing now... "  part.  We'll want to make sure the tempo doesn't go too fast as we'll feel like auctioneers (there's lots of words coming at you fast)

Bass - This is a country feel.  I think you get it.

Rest of the musicians.  Pay attention to where they stop and start the music.  There's lots of fun shots in this song.

Joy to the World

Elec. Guitar - you've got the guitar lead on this - intro and then the part I should you for the 'joy unspeakable joy' part.

Drums (and everyone) - listen to how they build the 3rd verse.  Also drums - when we to the 'joy unspeakable joy' part - you should switch to a nice clean ride cymbal.

We will NOT be doing the key change.  We'll stay in C for the entire song.

I Exalt Thee

This is a way longer, more complicated version than we will do.  We'll keep it simple.  We'll play it in F.  Start listening around 4:15 - That's kind of what I'm going for.  The verse will be more subdued.

I'll bring sheet music for all of these next week.  Please listen to these (many times) and practice this week so we'll be in good shape for practice next week.
Thanks a bunch, gang!