Category: Music in Worship

Band and Orchestra Kids Go To Church (Part 3)

On By Brian ReichenbachIn Church music, Music in WorshipLeave a comment

Tips for Adding Band and Orchestra Kids to the Worship Team

Believe it or not, there are excellent ways to engage a variety of instruments in a contemporary style ensemble. But if you don’t have any experience with band or orchestra instruments, this can be be daunting, and making it accessible for young musicians can be even more challenging. What follows are some general guidelines and places to begin:

  1. Provide the right written tools. As I mentioned in the first post, we must be mindful of a young (or old) instrumentalist’s proficiency in reading written music or lead sheets. The most common challenge (and one that often stops band kids from even trying this) is transposition or clefs. For example, a clarinetist typically reads music transposed up a step and a violist typically reads alto clef. You may have to do a little bit of homework with the help of Google, a local music teacher, or music notation software.
  2. Ask them to do something within their ability. An acoustic wind or string instrument adds color unlike anything else in the typical worship band. For that reason, what they play does not need to be anything super technical. A simple lick adds a lot to the texture and prevents the student from becoming overwhelmed.
  3. Reimagine electric guitar, pads, or other lines. Oftentimes, these are simple and repetitive lines of music that can be easily played by a wind or string instrument. Also, a string instrument’s line on a recording might work for a different wind instrument. For example, a violin layer could work well on flute, or a cello pad could be covered by a good euphonium player.
  4. Find the jazz band kids. Once a jazz band student has learned the basics of improvisation with chord charts, a typical church leadsheet will be well within their ability.
  5. Don’t play all the time. My biggest pet peeve (and the reason string and wind instruments often sound bad when used in contemporary worship) is that they play too much. Use the colors of these instruments sparingly. Add the instruments just like any other layer and perhaps on only one or a few songs in a given Sunday morning. It’s okay if they don’t play a lot of notes. After all, it’s about serving the church not playing lot of notes, right?
  6. Add an instrumental verse. Many contemporary songs have very simple melodies. Be sure to select the key and range appropriately. And unless a student is accustomed to playing by ear, give them music written in their key to read at first.

A final word of caution: Avoid making much of the young people themselves in the worship service. Don’t stand up and say something like, “Aww, wasn’t that sweet?” Sure, before and after the service you can affirm their contribution to the worshipping community. But make it less about them and more about their giving of God’s gift back to Him and the congregation.

Involving more people and young people in whatever we are used to doing in our worship services can be hugely time consuming. But I believe it is worth it, not only for the students involved, but as a model for the entire congregation and an investment in the future of our churches.

Band and Orchestra Kids Go To Church (Part 2)

On By Brian ReichenbachIn Church music, Music in WorshipLeave a comment

Practical Ways to Use Band and Orchestra Instruments in Church

For many churches, a real challenge to engaging band and orchestra instrumentalists is the contemporary style. How do we find a place for string and wind players in services that most often only include guitars, keys, and drums? Whether or not this is the style of music in your church, here are a few great ways to engage young instrumentalists:

  1. Prelude, postlude, or offertory. Instrumental music is perfect for these reflective or celebratory moments. These may or may not be part of your typical Sunday morning worship, but why not try something different every once in a while?
  2. Special seasons. Advent or Christmas are particularly good times to involve band and orchestra kids for several reasons: 1) The traditional, hymn-like genre is typically more accessible to traditionally trained musicians, 2) The music is super familiar to even the kids, 3) They love to practice these familiar songs, and 4) They might even be working on something in school that fits your service perfectly. Try taking a break from the usual worship band-led service and sing carols with instruments. The congregation will love the richness and variety this brings to their singing.
  3. Hymn services. Whatever time of year it is, go retro and sing a service or part of a service with classic hymns. Choose familiar ones, but also find hymns that are easily sung that are rich in theology and particularly fitting for the service.
  4. Youth services. Rather than just having the youth group band lead the service, why not also involve the band and orchestra kids? In fact, if you have a youth group band it would be great to develop worship leading skills of students who play band or orchestra instruments alongside the other instrumentalists and vocalists.
  5. In the worship band. Band and orchestra instruments add amazing color to contemporary worship ensembles—and I’m not just talking about a violin or cello that is often heard in some worship recordings. In the next post, I’ll discuss ways to help young instrumentalists add to the contemporary worship ensemble.

Band and Orchestra Kids Go To Church (Part 1)

On By Brian ReichenbachIn Church music, Music in WorshipLeave a comment
Photo by Ludwig Kwan on Pexels.com

Yes, of course they do! Sadly, though, when I ask many Christian band and orchestra students if they have ever played in church the answer is most often “no.” I see this as a huge missed opportunity for connecting what our kids do outside of church with what happens on Sunday morning. Plus, student instrumentalists can add so much musical variety to our gathered worship. This series offers some practical ideas for getting them involved while addressing the unique challenges that often discourage both worship leaders and students.

Beginning to Engage Young Instrumentalists in Worship

It is challenging and time consuming to find a place for amateur musicians to actually serve congregational worship. Students’ skills are modest, and worship leaders may not be comfortable navigating the complexities of various instruments. We want the best quality music in our services. Yet, if we genuinely want to nurture an intergenerational community that uses their gifts to serve one another, it is important to find ways to engage with these young musicians. Here are some great places to start and a few guiding principles:

  1. Start with ensembles. Young players are not likely to be ready to play a solo in church. Find others like them and create a group to make music at their level. It doesn’t need to be a full symphony orchestra. Perhaps it is just a brass ensemble or a string ensemble or a balanced variety of instruments. Strive to make sure there is more than one player on each part, especially for the newest players.
  2. Pair them up with adults. My wife and I grew up sitting next to adult musicians (both professionals and amateurs) in church ensembles. Occasionally in the ensembles I have led, parents and their own kids have even played together. What an amazing intergenerational opportunity!
  3. Be mindful of their literacy. By literacy, I mean not only how well they can read music, but how well they can play by ear or improvise (“aural literacy”). A young Suzuki-trained string player, for example, might come with amazing technique and ear playing skills, but has not yet developed their reading skills. On the other hand, a student from school band may have strong note-reading skills, but has never learned by listening to a recording and may never have seen a leadsheet. Being attentive to this will help guide you to the right tools for success (more on this later).
  4. Don’t start too early. Players within the first two years or so of playing an instrument are probably not ready to play in a church ensemble. This doesn’t have to be a point of discouragement. In fact, when older students lead the way, the younger ones can look forward to the time when they are ready to begin playing in church.
  5. Make it positive. The biggest reason not to start too early is that it is absolutely essential that kids have a positive first experience doing this. In the next post, we’ll look at a few ways to begin plugging instrumental students into the gathered worship service.

Why Bother to Use Leadsheets When Preparing to Lead Worship?

On By Brian ReichenbachIn Music in Worship, Music pedagogyLeave a comment

simplified-sample-ccMany contemporary musicians in church today use lyric sheets with chords written above the words.  There’s nothing wrong with these chord charts.  In fact, they’re very helpful in providing basic reminders of lyrics and chords for musicians who already know the tunes.

However, there are significant limitations compared to full leadsheets – notated music on a staff that includes all the same things (lyrics and chords) but with helpful details such as more exact melodic and harmonic rhythms.  The fact that leadsheets require some ability to read traditional notation might discourage some musicians.

But I think there are several good reasons for worship leaders to use leadsheets.  Here are a few:

  • New Music: Leadsheets allow musicians to play an entirely new song without first hearing it. We are no longer bound by whatever is most popular.  Instead, we can include songs in our services that are lesser known or even brand new, perhaps written by someone in your church.  Chord charts require that musicians have heard the song before, often over and over again.  It leads us to prefer songs that get played repeatedly on the radio or in a limited repertoire of congregational songs.
  • Efficient Rehearsals: Leadsheets tend to answer many more questions than chord charts do. Rehearsal time, then, is not wasted simply trying to learn the song.  Thinking through the form of a song on paper is a good way to make decisions about form and other elements before getting to rehearsal which makes more room for working together to hone the quality and creativity of our leading.
  • Better Singing: A mentor of mine spent a decent amount of time creating his own leadsheets for the worship teams at our church. It helped the worship leaders agree on things like words and melody with the ultimate goal of leading worshippers to participate more fully.  It also allowed for multiple teams to lead a song in a predictable way.  The proof was in how well the congregation sang on Sundays!
  • Creative Freedom: It seems like chord charts would allow for more creativity. In my experience, however, they tie teams to a particular recording that might not match the context of your congregation, service, or space.  Instead, try making your own leadsheets.  This naturally leads us to make some decisions, such as “What exactly is the melody that we’re singing together?” or “Is it helpful to repeat that section so many times?”
  • More Participants: Just as some musicians prefer learning aurally, other musicians prefer to learn music by reading it on the page. String and wind instrumentalists, for example, are often used to reading notes on the page or improvising from a leadsheet.  Vocalists, too, can benefit from notating simple harmonies.  This is becomes more and more helpful when there are multiple singers involved and rehearsal time is in short supply.

Let me be clear, I’m not against learning music by ear.  The ability to play what you hear is just as important as playing what you see.  The musicians I admire most have incredible abilities to do both well!

No written medium can capture the whole musical picture.  And we can be just as tied to the details written on a page as we are to how a certain musician performs a song on a particular recording.  Leadsheets for a single congregational song that are more than a page or two often suffer from too much needless repetition or convoluted repeats.  Keep it simple.

My hope is that the points above help you to consider what can be gained from using notated leadsheets with your church musicians in order to better serve your congregation and worship God through music.