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.