Timpani - the instrument for climaxes

One of the most wonderful percussion instruments for enhancing climaxes is the Timpani. It really brings the whole orchestration into climax.

Most churches never even thought of having a Timpani set for its band.

But trust me, it would really bring your worship into a climax!

However, we can still simulate the timpani with electronic drum modules attached to drum pads.

Timpani set comes in a set of two , four , six or even 8 timpani drums.

Timpani can be played sparingly in the any part of the song but it is best being emphasized at the end or climax.

Here is a song with Timpani parts in it. Just listen to the pre-chorus and the climax of the song. The timpani parts are 0:59-1:14(leading into chorus) , 1:52-2:21 (accenting the bass drums) , 2:36-2:38(accenting), 3:06-3:23 (leading into chorus) and 4:39-4:45 (climax).

How to do climax

This evening service my church drummer played something like this for the climax of the song "I cry Holy".

Like every inexperienced drummer, his climax drumming sounded very 'pop' and stuck closely to the same 8-beat pop that he has been playing for the whole song. What he played totally failed to raise the music to climax.

A climax is where all the instruments sound with maximum intensity just before the song is brought to a close. Every beat is accented. This is to emphasize the ending for the song or the sequence of songs sung and to drive home the theme of the song or worship.

As the music approaches the last 8 ( or 16 ) bars of the song on the way to climax, the drummer should disregard his usual beats and start playing on the toms and snare and cymbals. He should play following the rhythm of the melody and also play the fills around the melody.

Be Original and Creative in music arrangements

Yes lots of worship music we hear on CDs are very beautifully and professionally-arranged.

But God wants us to be creative. We are asked to make new melodies ( including arrangements ) every day.

Be creative. Think of new ways to approach a song that are different from the CD.

Even if you must copy the arrangements , perhaps due to sudden inability to think of new arrangements, try to add new elements in your arrangements so that they won't be 100% rip-off from the CD.

People are not interested in listening to imperfect copies of the song as they can listen to the original on CDs at home. They expect new creative things from church musicians as musicians are supposedly to be a creative bunch.

I don't know why some people think highly of musicians who could totally copy music from CDs but are unable to produce something original themselves.

Perhaps due to our fondness of copying and finding shortcuts instead of working hard to produce original works, music and software piracy are flourishing in this part of the world.

But nowadays lots of songs are not well-arranged i.e. lack of creativity and styles. Therefore do not just be satisfied that you are able to copy 100% of these arrangements. Try to improve on these.

It is best not to listen to the CD before playing so that you might be able to be creative and put in your own style and arrangements.

How to be original?
1. Learn about principles of music arrangement.
2. Listen to lots and lots of varied music to draw ideas from.
3. Try not to listen to original arrangements so that it would not influence your own arrangements.
4. Try out new things and be adventurous.
5. If it doesn't work, try another.
6. If you must copy, make sure it is not 100% piracy!

Creating the mood

It is not easy to create a great conducive worship mood in worship music.

Sometimes we sing about God's love , mercies , grace and loving-kindness but the music totally does not reflect these moods. More than often the music would be hard-thumping and power-chorded, that we often don't feel what we sing in the music.

On the other extreme, sometimes when we sing about God's majesty, power and wrath, we get let down by lame music.

As most church musicians are male teenagers, lots of their playing are loud and lack finesse. They cannot play lovingly or tenderly when it comes to slow love songs to the Lord.

It is unfortunate but true that female musicians ( including female drummers ) play with more grace and finesse than the guys. Perhaps female are more sensitive to the loving feeling compared to the guys, especially male teens who have yet to fall in love.

A few things musicians need to know to create certain moods.

• Songs about Love , Grace , Mercy etc
  
• drummer - dont play bass drum , play rimshot , try not to crash at all
• the bongo player could play gently instead of the drums.
  
• pianist - more fills than chord , less notes and lots of sustained notes, more minor than major chords
• lots of strings and acoustic guitars esp. classical guitar
• synth player - some atmospheric and tinkle sounds
• most importantly - everything is played gently and lovingly
  

• Songs about Majesty , Power and Wrath
• drummer - steady and firm beat
• pianist - resolute major chords, lots of notes
• electric guitarist - power-chords, distortion

It is very sad to see that sometimes wonderful mood music created by the band often ruined by a single 'insensitive' musician who plays crudely , without sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and without finnase.

Here is an example how the mood of a wonderful worshipful song sung in a church service was ruined by the out-of-sync thumping of the bass drum !

The song would have sound so much better if the drummer would have been sensitive and  not play for the song.

Many times the drummer has to exercise self-control and resist temptation and not to play to ruin the worshipful mood.



This next video is a better video - without drums.

Rubato Tempo

Rubato is a style of singing and playing music that slightly slowing or speeding up the melody or music so that it does not follow the strict timing of music.

Yet it is not totally out of tempo. Sometimes it slows down to be more expressive. But sometimes when it slows down too much, the performer would speed up to catch up with the tempo.

The purpose is to make the melody /music sound more expressive and natural , in contrast to the strict mechanical timing of a piece of written music.

We can use Rubato in the melody or even the rhythm.

Chopin said this about musicians who plays mechanically.

It is amusing to note that even some serious persons express the idea that in tempo rubato "the right hand may use a certain freedom while the left hand must' keep strict time." (See Niecks' Life of Chopin, II, p. 101.) A nice sort of music would result from such playing ! Something like the singing of a good vocalist accompanied by a poor blockhead who hammers away in strict time without yielding to the singer who, in sheer despair, must renounce all artistic expression.



Facts about Rubato

• there is no fixed rhythm or formula for rubato
• everything depends on the singer's / musicians' spontaneous musical creativity.
  
• Same kind of rubato should not be repeated in the same song or this would defeats its purpose of being creative and spontaneous
• It softens the sharpness of lines, blunts the structural angles without ruining them, because its action is not destructive: it intensifies, subtilizes, idealizes the rhythm.

Perhaps we don't realize it but lots of Jazz and Latin Music employ Rebato.

In Swing , Big Band , Blues and other black music of USA, the melody is usually slowed slightly compared to the accompanying music. The result is a slaggard , lazy , relaxing music.

But in Latin Son Music i.e. Cuban , Carribean , Cha-cha , Rhumba , Bossanova etc. the melody is sped up slightly to produce an active , rushing , urgent carnival-like environment.

Making your worship music sound less boring and monotonous

We often hear people commenting that the worship was very 'dry' and uninspiring. They say the anointing was not there or the Spirit was not moving.

Partly this is because of the monotonous and boring worship music the musicians played.

Here are the ways to make your worship music less boring.

1. Vary your musical styles.
• Do not play the same style for all the songs - stanzas and chorus
• Have different styles for each songs
• 
  
2. Modify your rhythm
• Have different rhythms for stanzas and chorus and bridge
• Modify your rhythm slightly after each stanza
• Do not play the same rhythm the next time the same song is sung again in other services
  
• 
  
3. Have solos
• People gets bored listening to singing all the time
• Let the musicians play some solo in songs
• 
  
4. Minimal chords more melodies, riffs , fills etc
• Chords are simple to play but dreadfully boring and unimaginative
• Play arpegios instead of block chords
5. Insert interesting intros and ending
   
6. Change keys
• A change of key in a song would make the song sounds refreshed.
•  
7. Change tempos
   
8. Build up and build down
• Do not put everything in at the first stanza
• Add and subtract after every stanza or chorus or song
  
• Your audience expects new things  as the music progresses not the same of thing
• Soft to loud, slow to fast etc
9. Give different musical instruments prominence at different times
   
10. Have climaxes
• Bring your songs to a climax and a close
  
• 
  
11. Play variations
• Vary your playing and rhythm after each stanza.
• Have an 'evolving' style
• 
  
12. Rubato Tempo to make music expressive and natural , not mechanical
    
• Do not sing or play like school boy or nursery rhymes-style
• Do not play lots of notes with same time values
• 
  
13. Put your emotions into your playing
• Do not be mechanical or robotic in your playing
• Use dynamics to express your emotion through music
• 
  
14. Insert surprises
• Surprise your audience with unexpected styles, rhythms or sounds
  
• Do not play too predictable music
• 
  
15. Let your audience's imagination work
• Let your audience's imagination participates in the music
• Do not play at the moment your audience expects you to play - let them hear your playing in their imagination
•  
16. Keep your music fresh with new ideas, direction , chords , keys , styles , solos etc. 
    
17. Sense the direction of the Holy Spirit
    

Riffs

When a musician i.e. the rhythm guitarist gets tired of playing chords, he could play a sequences of repeated melodies in replacement of chords.

These sequences are called riffs. Riffs are considered part of the rhythm section.

The easiest way to play riffs is to play around with the notes of the chord to form arpeggios.  Another way is to double up the bass line e.g. Michael Jackson's Beat It.

Of course , riffs would be much nicer if they are specially written in the form of another melody that fits the chord sequence.

Another place where we can put riffs are in polychords where the bass is moving but the chord is not.

Riffs can be a 1-bar riff, a 2-bar riff , a 4-bar etc. They can also be a one-stanza riff !

In the song above, the guitar riff is prominent throughout the stanzas.

When writing a riff for a song, just make sure that the riff does not interfere with the melody. Put less notes where the melody is sung and more notes during melody pauses.

It is best to have only one instrument playing riffs. But if , for example, two guitars are playing riffs, careful arrangement must be made so that the two guitars does not clash with one another or with the melody.

A riff is not necessarily played by the guitar. We can also use other instruments for riffs. For example the brass instruments are used for riffs in this song's chorus below.
 

A catchy riffs can turn a monotonously-boring song into a delightful song. And some riffs make a song very memorable e.g. Stevie Wonder's Superstition and Michael Jackson's Beat It riffs.

Many a time, the riff is catchier than the song's boring melody and the song is only bearable because of its riff.

Adding riffs to songs requires more creative effort than just playing plain chords but they make songs unique and sound alot nicer!

Musical Style #4 - Jazz Rock

Jazz Rock is a style that is similar to 8-beat yet has a little syncopation in it, resulting in a slightly more 'sophisticated' rhythm.

Sometimes Jazz Rock is also called Fusion but some musicians feels that Jazz Rock and Fusion are two distinct styles

Drummers who are tired of the basic predictable 'school-boy' 8-beat style would use this as an alternative.

The syncopated bass drum note at 2 1/2 beat makes it slightly 'jazzy'.

Basically we take a 8-beat style and we syncopate one or two notes and maybe put some jazz-style cymbals in it and presto - we got Jazz Rock !

Therefore i would defined Jazz Rock as a slightly-syncopated 8-beat  with optional jazz-style cymbals.

Do not be deceived by its name Jazzrock. It is not exclusively for jazz or rock music. We can slow down its tempo for slow songs and it sounds just as great !

The video below shows more advanced versions of Jazz Rock

It is hard to find a worship atmosphere in church nowadays

I don't know about you. But i feel it is so hard to find a good worship atmosphere in any church these days.

The music is so loud. The worship leaders and musicians are singing and playing 'performance' songs. Not worship songs.

It's like you go to this restaurant and expecting a 8-course cuisine but all you got served are plain cheap hotdogs.

The drummers are beating their drums like doing construction work while the bassist is trying to upstage the drums by playing wrong notes loudly !

It's all very loud and chaotic. Even in the slow worship songs, we can hear the drummer thumping his bass drum hard !

I have to say i really get distracted and cannot worship in such atmosphere.

I wish i could find a church which really plays and sings songs worshipfully to God. Not the trying to upstage each other on stage.

Partly because most church musicians are not formally-trained. So they just play whatever grunge music they hear from CDs.And there isn't much music arrangement.

Church musicians should learn to worship and play worshipfully to God. It is not a performance. It is not an act where musicians trying to show off their skills to win the congregation's admiration.

Playing music is an act of worship.

After every service , i left the church with much to desire. It's a pity.

Musical Style #3 - Hard Rock

The trademark of hard rock style is

• hard hitting drums and cymbals
• distortion reinforced quaver-bass lines
  
• overdriven guitars
• a rushing, hard-hitting , straight 8-beat style

This type of style is suitable for songs with themes such as

• God's might and strength
• God's power
• God's wrath
  

In the video above, i turned Paul Baloche's folk rock song Rock of Ages into a hard rock by just adding distortion bass lines.

I am against Hard Rocks which are excessively-noisy and heavily -distorted that we cannot even hear the notes played.

Here is another song played Hard Rock Style . Note that :

• The quaver-bass line is clean not distorted
• The distortion guitar and drums are silent during one of the chorus , just to provide a contrast.

Bring your own instruments

A professional (or aspiring to be ) practises and play his/her own instrument. He/she does not depend on the church public instruments.

Why?

• a musician can play better if he is familiar with the instrument that he practises and plays on.
• a musician can practice at home with his instrument and do whatever settings or adjustment needed.
• Church instruments are always not well taken care of by their users and are usually of poor quality.

So , if you aspire to be a church guitarist, get a guitar first.

Plan before playing

Worship leaders should start giving out song lists at least one week before he worships lead.

This is to enable the musicians to think of how best to approach the songs.

It is vital to for a musician to have some idea on what to play. It is a bad idea to starting thinking of ideas during worship practice. This is because most churches have only one practice for each worship. And it is like over in an hour.

But still, lots of worship leaders tend to do things last minute..

Unless you have a music arranger / director / worship pastor / worship leader deciding everything for you.. and stiffle your creativity , you may have to do a little music arrangement for your own instrument.

Drummers must decide on the

• tempo
• musical style
• identify where to play and where not to play
• identify the climaxes

Bassists must determine

• the chords
• the musical style in tandem with the drummer

Pianist must decide

• which parts are for piano to lead
• what fills and trills to play
• the style of playing

Synthesizer Player decides

• the sound patches for each song
• orchestration for a song if needed

It takes years for band members to be able to play well together

Do not change band members regularly.

In fact, do not change them at all if this is possible.

Band members will have to take years to understand each other musically. So regular changing of members would not help in getting the band to play cohesively and tightly together.

The church should designate new band members to new bands, not trying to insert them in seasoned bands.

Inserting an inexperienced musician is like asking for trouble. Experienced musicians expect high quality playing and the least mistakes from new members. They tend to compare the new with the previous.

New members would be under intense pressure to please, which is usually beyond their present skills,  the older band members.

It would just be hell for both parties.

How much do we need to plan in worship music ?

The bible says, paraphrased, "Man may plan but it's God who decides."

Without planning, the music might be chaotic or not in-sync or not nice at all.

But over-planning would stiffle the flow of the Spirit and creativity. In addition it might not even be practical due to time constraints and the inability of most self-trained musicians to read musical notations.

Of course it would be ridiculous to write down every bit of music for each worship services, unless you are a full-time church musician.

What to plan

• the tempo
• the musical style
• the chords !!
  
• who plays what and when
  
• the building up of the song
• the climax

What not to plan

• instrument solo
• while solos are not written down, a solo musician should know the starting note and the ending note and roughly whats in between.
  
• song of the Spirit
• number of times the song , stanza or chorus is sung
• music when someone is prophesying or word of knowledge or ministering time

It would be ideal if church musicians are able to play what they sense God's message is. For example, if the pianist senses God is saying "rain", he should play music that reflects "rain" if he is skillful enough.

Drummers must know how to play a given tempo or style

Tempo

A drummer should always train with a metronome.

He should be able to play at a given tempo.

For example, if the worship leader wants a 120 beat per minute tempo, the drummer should be able to play close to 120.

Of course , we won't expect non-professional drummers to play at 120 exactly without the help of metronomes.

It is also unfortunate to note that some drummers have problems maintaining his drumming tempo. We had one drummer whose tempo could increase by up to 30%

These days metronomes are mostly electronic and they can fit into a person's pocket.

I have seen good drummers placing these electronic metronomes on their side drums during worship services and play in tandem with its pulsating LED lights!

Perhaps drummers should all do this.

Style

It is so sad that the present Hillsong generation drummers only know how to play folk-rock.

There are about more than 30 popular musical drumming styles.

Most drummers i encountered went totally blank when they are asked to play bossanova or even simple stuff like 6/8 slow rock. They tend to confuse 6/8 with the 3/4 waltz.

While 6/8 sounds like 3/4, the notation for 6/8 is different from 3/4. There two beats in a 6/8 while there are 3 beats in a 3/4.

Thus, in order to expand a drummer's repertoire , a drummer must listen to many styles of music , not only to contemporary pop.

I listen to music ranging from the 1940s till the present age , just to learn what a style sounds like and how instruments are played.

Find your own instrument spaces and range

When we play in a band, we must always try to find the range which our instrument can play and yet not covered by other instruments. Do not try to clash with other instruments by playing in the same range.

The synth always clashes with the piano because they both want to play in the same range. It would be better if the synth is played in a higher octave as in using the string or flute sounds.

The rhythm guitar sometimes clashes with the piano as new guitarist knows only open string position of chords. Learn barred chords to solve this problem.

The drums being an untuned instrument has no such problems. And the lower ranges are the monopoly of the bass guitar. Pianists should play minimal low keys to avoid clashing with the bass guitar.

Likewise, each instrument must find its own spaces to fill in. Please be considerate. Do allow other instruments breathing spaces to play. Do not monopolize all space playing from A to Z. People also get bored listening to only one prominent instrument all the time !

Get rid of that boring quaver and bring in dotted and semi-quavers!

These are very boring rhythms :

Anything that is uniformed is as dull as Mao Tze Tung Communist China.
An exciting thing is something that always keep us in suspense, out of balance or even unpredictable.

Thus to make these above interesting just get rid of the crochets and quavers and replace them with dotted notes and semi-quavers.

So when we play the rhythm or solo , try not to play those boring kid-stuff crochets and quavers but play dotted notes and semi-quavers !

Change dead-boring melody

into interesting jazzy snappy melody

 

Crescendos , Climaxes and Build Downs

Key Changes

Key Changes are being done in a piece of music primary for the reasons below :

• to make the music sound refreshed
• to go into a key comfortable for a singer to sing especially during a song change
• making the key comfortable for the next singer to sing during a change in singer.
  

Usually keys are transposed a semi or a whole tone higher e.g.

• E - A - B - E - F - Bb - C ( semi )
• F - Bb - C - D7 - G - C - D  ( whole )

Note: Reading the circle of fifths as descending pitches going clockwise, or ascending counterclockwise, gives the circle of fourths.

Sometimes keys are transposed in the circle of fifths e.g.

• C - F - G - C - D7 - G - C - D  
  

And circle of fourths e.g.

• C - F - G - C7 - F - Bb - C

And transposing one and half or two tones higher  ( Hosanna Music loves to do this !). This is usually done when there is a change in the singer gender e.g male to female or vice versa.

• D - G - A - F - Bb - C
• C - F - G - E - A - B
  

Usually when we directly transpose a song to a lower key, there is a sinking or lowering down of spirit. But we can solve this by indirectly transposing it to a lower key e,g,

• D - Em - A7 - D - Dm7 - G - C

The use of Dorminant Chords e.g.  7th, 9th , 11th . 13th , 7b5 , 7#5 , 9b5 etc as the next fifth helps to usher the music into the next key.

Principle #6 - Building up your song

A song is like a movie. It builds up through time. The plot thickens as time goes by until it reaches climax and the tension is resolved.

We do not dump everything in the music at the first bar.

Why? Because there will be nothing new to look forward to in the next bars for the listeners.

It is also like cooking. You do not dump all the oil, spices , onions , meat and vegetables all at one shot into the wok. You need to first heat up the wok. Then you heat up the oil. And fry the onions . Then the meat and .. you get my point.

A good song arrangement is a song that builds up until the climax and the tension is resolved in the end.

Give your listener bit by bit and get them hooked onto your music and finally bring them to a climax and end the climax.

We add or subtract instruments , for example:

• We start the music with only the bare minimum - the rhythm section - drums , bass and piano. Drummer plays just the rimshot
  

• We add the strings in the second stanza. Drummer plays rimshot and bass drum
  

• We include the brass in the chorus. Drummer plays snare and bass drum.
  

• We put in a saxophone solo in the instrumental part.

• We climax with everything. Drummer can play his crash cymbals tastefully here.
  

• and perhaps end with just the piano.

• and we start this all over again with different instruments for the next song.
  

Principle #5 - Different instruments get prominence at different times

Listening to the same instrument being played louder than the rest all the time is very boring.

Different instruments should be given prominence at different times, by arrangement or by the musical styles.

For example :

In hard rock , the guitar and drums must be prominent.

In waltz , the strings ( synthesizer ) should be prominent

In march , the brass ( synthesizer ) should be prominent.

In pop , the guitar and synth should be prominent.

In country , acoustic guitar , banjo , fiddle should be prominent.

In old school rock and roll , clean guitar and piano should be prominent.

In gospel style, the organ sound should be prominent. etc.



When an instrument is prominent, it is played slightly louder than the rest.

Other instruments would have to play merely chords at slightly lower volume.

For example, in waltz , there is no guitar. So the guitarist would have to play chords using clean guitar sounds, not the distortion sound.

Don't be surprised that sometimes a specific instrument e.g. the drums should not play during a particular song. Just don't ruin the song by playing it when you are not supposed to play.

But sometimes, the musician just does not play. For example, a saxophonist do not play in country music style. Nor a banjo player in pop. Just take a rest for the song and help out with the P&W singing.


Note :

• Remember to be considerate, let other instruments have their moments. 
• Don't just want your instrument to be prominent all the time - It is very boring to hear.
• Always think of the overall effect rather than only of your own instrument.
  

Ending

The ending are the bits of music before a song ends.

Why endings are needed?

• to resolve all chords and bring the song to a stop.
• to raise a song to a climax before stopping
• to conclude the whole worship.

Intros

Intros are short music pieces preluding the song.


Why do we need intros ?

• To usher the worship leader and congregation into the next song especially if there is a key change.
• To get the congregation's attention and focus on the next song
• To act as a bridge if a few songs are sung in succession
• To let the worship leader and congregation catch their breaths before singing another song.
• To allow focus on the  musicians playing

How long are the intros ?
It could be 2-bars , 4-bars and the usual 8-bars or even 16 or 32 bars.

Of course if the whole song is like 96 bars, a 32-bar intro would seem ridiculous !

What to play for intros?
We could play ..

1. just the first chord of the song e.g. G major
2. the suspended first chord of the song e.g. Gsus2 or Gadd9
3. the first or last 4 or 8 bars melody of a stanza/chorus
4. a modified version of the melody of the first 4 or 8 bars of stanza /chorus
5. a totally different melody but based on the same chord progression of the first 4 or 8 bars of stanza/ chorus
6. an intro which is neither melodically nor chordally related to the song.
7. no melody but just chord progression , drums and percussion
8. just drums and percussions
9. progressive intro - a new instrument comes in every 4  bars
   

Usually the first or second options are meant for the most musically-challenged worship leaders and congregation.

The third and fourth would be great for church worship leader and congregation.

The last two would also be fine if the musicians are not able to play the melody correctly.

The fifth and the sixth options are more for more 'professional' worship leaders.

The last option may require a long intro.

Which to choose as intros - stanza or chorus ?
Choose the melody that is most memorable or strongest or the catchiest. Some stanzas are catchier than their chorus and vice versa. Choose the catchiest that people are able to easily identify.

Stanza variations

Do not play the same thing stanzas after stanzas. People get bored listening to the same old stuffs.

For each new stanza, musicians must play it slightly different.

How to make variations?

• By adding or subtrating one or two notes
• By slightly varying the rhythm e.g using dotted or semi-quavers
• By adding new instruments
• By subtracting instruments
• By changing the rhythm
• By changing the tempo
  

Phrasing

This topic is applicable to :

• wind instrumentalists
• valve instrumentalists
• vocalists
• synthesizer players who wants to simulate wind or valve instruments

People need to breathe. Musicians who play the wind and valve instruments need to pause for a few millisecs to take in air. Likewise singers too.

The time when breathing happens is very crucial. If one breathes too early, he/she might not last the last note. If one breathes too late, he/she might not be in time to play the first note.

Breathing at the wrong time would cause a vocalist to sing off-beat.

A synthesizer player who wants to naturally simulate a wind instrument e.g. flute must realise that flautists must pause a while to breathe. Therefore,  he needs to phrase his synth playing, pausing at the right moment.

Usually each phrase can be at most 3 bars ( measures ).

Thus phrasing of musical notes is very important.

Dynamics

Musical dynamics - the soft and loud playing of music - is the hardest skill for a musician to acquire.

Musicians tend to overplay and drown others.

Musical dynamics add an effect to the music. At some part of the music, softer tones are called to bring the music to some peaceful moments and at others, louder music for emphasis.

Basically, we look at the lyrics to determine where to play softly and where to play loudly.

Song parts that talk about God's wrath, retribution , majesty , power etc can be played loudly.

But it is illogical ( or even sacrilege ) to play a piece of music loudly and brashly if it is a song about the love or peace or grace of God.

It is unfortunate that lots of young excited musicians think that music must always be loud. Perhaps they have not yet experienced romantic love, thus are unable to play music in a loving way !

Drum-Bass-Rhythm Coordination

Drum-bass-rhythm guitar is called the rhythm section. This is a very important section.

Before any music is played, the drummer-bass guitarist and guitarist must get their rhythm together.

The drummer determines the tempo and the style of the music. The bassist plays in sync with the drummer's bass drum while the rhythm guitarists imitates the drummer's hi-hat.

If these three are not in sync, the result is a very much muddled rhythm. In short, the music is not 'tight'.

Thus, get the rhythm section right first before other instruments come in.

Try the exercises at this URL : http://www.rhythmpatterns.com/

Be reactive to the melody , not indifferent

We all have heard of portasound keyboards that auto plays music rhythms and bass when we press a chord. No matter what song we play with it, it still gives the same rhythm and bass , bar after bar.

Of course such music is boring. Yet lots of musicians play music this way. Almost like a mechanical portasound. No matter what song a worship leader sings, they would play a certain fixed rhythm.

A better way is to play your instruments with the melody and around the melody.What i mean is the backing music must react with the melody, not ignorant of the melody.

There are two types of musicians - the first group is totally indefferent of the melody. They play like robots, totally disregard the melody  We might as well replace them with drum machinese and sequences.

The second are the worst. They accent everything - every beat or even half-quarter beat and their playing leave much to be desired.

In this respect ,bass guitarists must always remember this age old principle - your bass notes move the opposite direction to the melody i.e. when the melody goes up, bass goes down and vice versa.

This way the music is less predictable and always fresh.

Accents

Accents are musical notes which are emphasized at certain part of the music.
The first beat of an 8-bar is usually slightly accented.

Accents are being done with bass drum-cymbals , bass and other instruments. To slightly accent a beat, the drummer can hit the splash cymbal - a small cymbal of the drumset or hit other cymbals lightly.

Where to accent?

• the first beat of an 8 , 16 , 32 bar
• syncopated notes
• notes that need emphasis on the lyrics
• even at certain parts of the fills
  

Example : The power of Your love.

Lord I come to you
Let my heart be changed

re newed

Flowing from the grace
that i found in you

Lord I come to know
The weaknesses i see in me
Will be striped away
By the power of your love

Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near
Draw me to Your side

And as I wait
I'll rise up like an eagle
And i will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love


All the blues are lightly-accented and red are the heavily-accented parts.
Notice the accents gets louder as the music approaches chorus.

In fact, in the example above, i accent more than in professional arrangements.


Why do we need to accent?

• To give small shocks to prevent the music being monotonous and predictable
• To emphasize certain words in the lyrics
• To build up climaxes.
• To signal the beginning an 8 , 16 or 32 beat etc.

Note:

• It is very disheartening to see 'rock-inspired' musicians especially drummers accents every beat.  
• This would drown other musical instruments. Only tasteless drummer wacks every beat or half-a-beat of every bar. 
• I have the unfortunate pleasure of playing with a drummer who wacked the cymbals two or three times at every beat. The band finally 'transferred' the drummer to another group after we were all pissed with his playing.
  

Musical Style #2 - The Twist

The Twist is very popular in late 50s and early 60s. It has one of the catchiest drum beats ever for rock & roll. It is for lively fun songs.

Here is a Malaysian Gospel song in twist style.

The Twist is most suitable for this song because many parts of the melody is in-sync with the drum beats e.g. bar 1 - 8 :


Yup, that's right. The most suitable musical style for a song is the one that is most rhythmically-similar to its melody.

This is what it sounds like ..

Musical Style #1 - 8-Beat

This is the most common style used in worship. It can be used for 95% of all songs though it may not be the most suitable style.

We can use this style on any 4/4 song. Basically this is contemporary pop style. It can be used for slow or fast songs but due to its simplistic rhythm, it is very suitable for very fast songs.

It is called the 8-beat because each bar is divided into 8 smaller beats by 8 hi-hat quaver notes.

When nothing works, just use the 8-beat !

Principle #4 - More melodies minimal chords

The synthesizer player and the pianists plays 10 notes each. The guitarist strums power chords over all the 6 strings. The acoustic guitarist also strums 6-notes. The bassist plays two notes in octave. The total notes these 5 musicians played is 10 + 10 + 6 + 6 + 2 = a staggering 34 notes !

It is impossible to have all these 34 notes playing in sync.

When we learned to play the piano or guitar, the pieces we play are meant for the piano/guitar to play in solo without the backing of other instruments. Thus, lots of these pieces are written complete with bass , rhythm and melody parts.

However, when we play in a band, we have to reduce the number of notes each musician plays. For example, a pianist does not need to play the bass part as the bassist has taken over that part. Nor does the pianist plays the rhythm as the rhythm guitarist is already strumming it. So all the pianist has to do is to play some fills or melodies.

Thus, musicians must try to play single or at most double note melodies rather than full chords.

It is easy to play chords but it is difficult to create melodies.

Principle #3 - Playing 2-bar or 4-bar rhythms

If we keep doing something repeatedly for 100 times, we would get pretty bored and sick of it !

Likewise, if we keep repeating the same 1-bar rhythm for 100 bars ( a regular-length song is about 96 bars ) , the audience would get bored to death hearing it.

So how to keep the music refreshing and interesting for 100 bars? Use 2-bar or 4-bar rhythms.

Instead of hearing the same rhythm 100 times, now the audience hears 2 alternating different rhythms for 50 times each.

And if we play a 4-bar rhythm , the audience would hear 4 different rhythms for 25 times each !

Imagine hearing this bar Twist beat for 96 times !


We create a 2-bar rhythm by slightly modifying the first bar. In the example below, we added a bass drum 8th note (quaver) at the 3 1/2 beat and play the bass drum instead of the snare at the 4th beat.
Similarly, we could create a 4-bar rhythm ..

It would be ridiculously hard to play and memorize ( especially for those who cannot read music ) more than a 4-bar rhythm. So in my humble opinion , the 2-bar is the best.

And here is the whole 4-bar Twist rhythm ..


Notice that the piano's bass is kept to the minimum. That is because the bass guitar is already playing a complicated rhythm.

An excellent idea is to have the stanzas and chorus in different musical styles.