March 11 Chapel Debrief

Good work everyone!  I guess you all will have to forgive me for instigating that 'train wreck' we had. Sometimes these circumstances serve to bolster our humility - and they also serve to remind us to improve and work things out better next time.  I actually think our response to my blunder was pretty good.  I think Jesus would have laughed right along with us.

Be encouraged!  Shake it off, just like Paul when he got bitten by the serpent when he was on his way to Rome.  God is growing good things on our team and in each of you.  Its a learning process.  Thanks for sharing that word before we started, A.T.  Also, thanks to everyone for helping with the set up and tear down.  I think that was the fastest setup/tear-down I've seen it so far. I appreciate your smiles, your good attitudes, and your willingness to serve God and the school on this team. 

We don't have the stage at school this week Thursday because of the play, so I think we'll cancel this week's practice.   

Next Chapel - March 11!

Hi everyone,
Our next chapel date is March 11!  As you already probably know, the theme of chapels for this month is Forgiveness.  As we discussed in our last practice, our order of songs will be:
- Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)  E
- I Found a Love   G
our country medley...
- God is Good    D
- I Saw the Light   D
- I'll Fly Away   D
- The Happy Song    D
Somewhere in this first couple songs, one of us can talk about the prodigal son.  Also we may potentially feel led to do some free worship.

To revisit our experience and discussion regarding free worship, here's some thoughts:

• Free worship works better when it happens naturally - like it began for us in practice that first time.  We need to continue trying it when we practice as that will make everyone more comfortable with it. 
• For the singers, there is no need to feel like you must sing.  However, you should continue to have an attitude of worship, listening with an open heart.  Looking around at what everyone else is doing doesn't quite work.  Worship is about participating - not observing  :-)  If you want to sing, but don't know what to sing, just relax and repeat a single line from a song you know.  When you do that, I personally think its better to sing to God, rather than about God. What I mean here is it makes more sense (to me) to sing 'God, you're good' instead of 'God it good' or 'God, you've ransomed me!' instead of 'God has ransomed me'  Make it personal.  Actually sing to God. 
• For the instruments, similar to the singers, don't feel like you need to play.  Relax, wait, and listen.  We will always be rocking between the I and the IV chords (so if we're playing in the key of C, that would be C (I) and F(IV)).  When you decide to play, ease into it.  Be sensitive of the atmosphere.  Start simple and gradually add more volume and notes, being sensitive to how the music sounds as a whole.  Worship from your instrument.  Whatever note or chord you play, fill it with life and meaning for God (and try and make sure it fits within the rest of the music that is happening).  Usually free worship ebbs and flows, like a gentle wind or wave. Try to attune yourself to hearing those 'curves' and play your notes to fit in. 

That's all for now.  See you all on Thursday!

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!