[This is a guest post by Doug Gould, founder of Worship MD]
“The problem with common sense is that it’s not too common” – Anonymous
What is common sense to every professional musician at every gig is virtually unknown in the church.
Why? Because those serving on the worship and tech teams are volunteers.
Over the last ten years I have presented workshops to hundreds of worship and technical teams offering practical, common sense solutions to the problems we are having in our churches as they relate to music and sound.
I hope to write a book someday. It will be called, “Everything I Learned About Church Sound, I Learned In My Bar band.”
Most of the things I learned I learned by doing it the wrong many times.
The advantage we had was that we were playing together all the time – five to six nights a week and rehearsing in our spare time. When you’re playing together as a unit, music starts to gel.
You start listening more and getting to know the people you’re playing with – their strengths and weaknesses, what works and what doesn’t.
What Did We Do Before We Had Monitors?
I was playing in rock bands in the sixties. This is before musicians had monitors.
In those days, we had to listen to each other.
This is a concept that is foreign to a majority of worship teams. We had to hear ourselves in the space or the environment that we were playing in and respond to it accordingly.
Our worship teams only hear themselves through a monitor. They don’t hear their neighbor standing next to them because if they did, they would ask the sound tech to give them “More Me!”
Play Less, Listen More
Music is just as much about listening as it is playing.
You will improve the quality of your worship service when, as musicians, you gel and listen to each other and to the space that you’re in.
It would be so refreshing to see a musician on a stage, at a service, actually not playing. This is called arrangement.
Think about this scenario:
- Eight musicians all playing at the same time
- At the same dynamic level
- With all the same patterns
- Background vocalists all singing unison
- Three guitar players playing Les Pauls in the same fret position
- No new sounds appearing or fading away
Without exception, this is impossible to mix or to make sound musical.
A band that is arranged mixes itself.
Worship leaders: Take time to arrange the band. Give them direction where and how you want them to play.
Do not leave this to chance. Start by mimicking the songs you’re covering as close to the original as possible, even if you don’t want to. It’s a useful practice to learn how to play together.
One of the reasons our platforms are so loud is because we aren’t listening to our surroundings. Arrangement will go a long way to helping reduce the levels.
3 Necessary Elements To A Good Monitor Mix
What do musicians require to perform well? It’s not what you think. It’s not a CD mix.
Randy Weitzel, a dear friend who happens to be one of the best monitor engineers on the planet, gives us a recipe for what’s necessary in a musician/vocalist monitor mix:
- Self – You need to hear yourself!
- Time – You need to hear a tempo reference, snare, and kick. Sometimes all you need is an acoustic guitar.
- Pitch – You need to hear a pitch reference so that you play and sing in tune.
That’s it. Keep it simple. Use common sense. Practice, practice and practice.
Question: What is the system at your church for monitor mixes, sound checks, and band dynamics? What are you doing well? What needs improvement? Let’s discuss in the comments!
[This post is part of a brand new blog series, “Your Guide to Practicing the Essential Skills of a Worship Leader“. Check out the other posts here.]
Good stuff and so true. Avioms and other in-ear mixes that seem to be the norm now have only made the problem worse, in my opinion. In our sanctuary, they are pretty necessary, but a lot gets lost when we pop in the ears and lose the sense of hearing the piano coming from where the piano is, the acoustic guitar where the acoustic is, etc.
I especially like your comments about monitor mixes and what needs to be in them. When we used to use wedges I would help the band with these things a lot more. Again, this is harder to do with ears unless I plug into each person’s Aviom.
A member of our band holds monthly jams at his house that go a long way to increasing listening skills but I think we have room for improvement in our rehearsals.
Have you ever tried to start a song (in rehearsal) with one instrument, slowly add another, then another, etc? It forces musicians to listen to what is going on before they play. I love the awkward stares I get when no one knows what to do 🙂 But it’s a good way to build listening skills.
Thanks for your comments.
Isolation is both a strength and a weakness of in-ears. Over the long haul you would enjoy many benefits from not having to compete with loud stage levels pummeling your brain. Isolation can also be a weakness. if you want to hear the room, amabient mics are a great way to go. Set up a couple of condensers stage left and right, orient properly do your ears get the right signal from each side of the room. You don’t much of this in your mix, but it sounds so much more natural and many find that they don’t need delay or reverb when employing this technique.
Panning a stereo mix aos helps improve the sound dramatically. I can’t tell you how many churches I’ve visited only tyo find out that the Aviom mixers are not being used properly. The levels are out of control and all the elements are dead center instead of panning things (spreading ) things out in a stereo image. Using the pan will always reduce the level.
There’s no better way to hear yourself, play in time and in tune, if you take the time to learn how to use personal monitors and mixers and also to ensure that you have a better chance of reatining your hearing and preserving your vocal chords.
Totally agree with this. Panning is wonderful for recreating the sound stage in your ears.
I have so much trouble paying attention to the rest of the band. It drives me crazy, because I know better. I get so wrapped up in my part(s) that I forget to hear. We do have personal monitor mixers at our church, but I try to keep an even mix in there; as in I need to at least be able to tell what everyone is doing, and hopefully match dynamics with the whole band.
Something that I try to do is encourage eye contact and band member interaction. If all your team members are doing is looking at their own drums, guitar, or pedal boards you’ll have a team of individual solists. Eye contact goes a long way.
Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do as a way to force myself to listen. Gonna take some practice.
JUst step back and listen then , from time to time…
David, for tempo can you tell me why after all these years we (my husband and I) don’t feel the timing the same often? Is this a married thing or how does that get developed and gelled between members? I get pitch and sound, but tempo, is it a follow or count it or feel it? Do many groups find it easy to play a song slow, fast, lingering here and there, ect, or is it all a pre plan thing usually in worship? Used to drive my husband crazy, but he has gotten used to following and I have learned to listen to particular spots he is sure I am just butchering the timing…
Short question is, what is the key to developing tight and effective tempo within a group and by individual?
practice with a click track or the original album recording…
the metronome never lies 🙂
I know it might be late in the game, but there should be a common source for the tempo. An orchestra follows a conductor. Your team may just be following the leader but a common practice these days with modern worship bands are loops. Rhythmic and sonic textures that keep us all on the same page. A click/metronome that the drummer hears and locks with to keep the band in time.
I work with Student Bands, i.e. middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college age. We all have either wired or wireless mixes, the room itself cant handle 7 wedges on stage. Does any one run into trouble giving a player the mix he needs when he may not have sufficient ear buds to translate his mix to him. it almost becomes a neverending cycle.
By “sufficient” ear buds do you mean quality or quantity?
some of these things I have really been trying to teach my volunteers. this is a great post thanks for putting it up!
Great post Doug,
One I like to do is, whenever possible, present these types of concepts as “Applied Christianity.” So here’s where I would tie what scripture says to this issue.
In Phil. 2:3, the NASB version says ‘Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;’
So, as we regard what others on the team are singing or playing as “more important,” I believe we’ll be wanting to listen to hear what they are “saying.” And even more, we’ll be knowingly practicing a Biblical principle which will aid in refining our characters to be more Chist-like.
(btw, I’m sure if I took the time, I could tie-in some scripture on listening, but this one came fast and first 🙂 )
Faith comes by Hearing!
Be still and know that I am God.
Hitting it right on the head again, Steven!
In my previous congregation I was used to having a maximum of 5 musicians and 3 singers in the worship team (that included myself playing the guitar and leading the worship) and everything seemed to flow well and worked great for our worship. We never used monitors and we all had to rely on listening to each other. Recently I moved to a new ministry, mainly due to a call as teacher, but slowly got involved in the worship as well. Now the monitors are almost dominating the scene and even when leading I am struggling to adapt, purely because I find the team are not listening to each other.
We are now in the process in trying to change the scenario by working through some of Paul Baloche’s workshops. Unfortunately many musicians are so set in their ways that they find it difficult to change, even to a level of resisting the change!
It seems that musicians start out alone because of the lack of other musicians or committed people and they then need to do everything by themselves. Then one day a musician is added and they never learn to ‘pull back’, play on a different pitch, etc.
The singers also have this problem – everyone is trying to sing their solo part in stead of blending and flowing with the rest.
I believe that there should be proper arrangement and lots of practice to get this right.
The problem of everybody wanting ‘more me’ as you put it is an indication of the level of selflessness that is so prevalent in the church today.
It never was about us, it should be a skillful playing of the instruments, to glorify the King of kings!
Teach the Rule of One!
If I am soloist, I have to play 100% of the output.
If it’s duet, each musician/vocalist is responsible for half as much. Blend, harmony, rhythm are shared and we make space for the other.
Trio: 33%
Quartet: 25%
Get the idea?
We are part of something that has to equal ONE! We all can’t be playing 100% of the parts or of the time. Lay out, listen, find your spots and fit in.