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.