Tempo in a Praise Band

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:06 am

We almost need our own thread here as there are things specific to our gig that are quite different from gigging.

Las night, we had three "new" people sing with us. We have no drummer and the piano player is a high school student. Good chops but tends to follow vocals. On a 6/8 song, I had to play each beat or we would slow down horribly. The first part of each phrase started out right on time, but by the end of the phrase, way slowed down. The vocalists are used to soloing, and "styling" the vocals. All I mean by styling is changing tempos all over the place! I keep threatening to bring in a metronome but I don't think they really want to k now how bad they are!

When I took lessons from Carole Kaye, she said I had good timing, so I am confident that I am the one to control the timing. The problem is, I can't play my normal bass lines, and keep the band up to tempo. I almost have to be the metronome. I am interested to see how other praise bands keep tempo, with or without a drummer.

jdogric12 · Post by **jdogric12** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 11:46 am

They need to know how bad they are. Bring the nome.

ajish4 · Post by **ajish4** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 12:02 pm

Charly,

We MUST have been separated at birth!

We are dealing with the SAME STUFF!!!

I concur with Jdog, BRING THE NOME! I had to, I also brought in a CHEAP DRUM MACHINE, they STILL didn't get it. I keep joking that our Praise team is rhythmically impaired. I've even used a clicker device on the keyboard....

Basically, I AM the Nome in my am service. NO drums, only keyboard, guitar and bass. I play almost all quarter notes just keep them ON BEAT!
Frustrating as can be.

I'm just grateful for my PM service. It keeps me sane!

"Damn", you took lessons from Carole Kaye?!?!?!!?
That must have been SO COOL!

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 12:58 pm

I may again when she moves back to Valencia, I only had 5 or 6 lessons before the 94 earthquake, as she moved to Colo soon after!

Yeah Tony, I had a real cool line for that 6/8 number but was stuck on eighth notes! I tried one time in rehearsal to do my normal line and the slowing worsened!! Being Good Friday also caused some of it. They wanted to be "somber and worshipful" (I disagree with that) which made them more "expressive" which made them SLOWER!!!

ajish4 · Post by **ajish4** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 1:46 pm

Yeah,

Holy week can be a bit of a drain on your creativity!

You have me curious, what song were you working on?

I'm looking forward to next week. Our new Praise Team leader comes on board next week and I've been waiting for this for about a year and a half.

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 1:53 pm

In Christ Alone (My hope is found)

http://wordmusic.com/products/book.cfm?upc=080689517273

The bass on this recording is in the mud as far as I am concerned. My Rick would be much more defined.

That is great news! We are still in a pastor search.........

jimk · Post by **jimk** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:09 pm

We don't have a praise team at our church. So this is new territory to me. I'm used to singing in choirs which have directors. So I guess Praise Teams don't have directors then, do they? Sounds like you need one.

JimK

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 2:15 pm

Too small. and people are easily offended by ANY criticism, founded or not. Having the three "extra" folks join us that evening just exacerbated the problem. Today at Easter Service, he did it again. The instruments were playing a little "intro" between verses, and within three words of when the vocalists come in, we were slowed down to HIS tempo again.

jimk · Post by **jimk** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 4:57 pm

Boy, that's rough. All I can do is sympathize with you, Charly.

JimK

lyle_from_minneapolis · Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:27 am

My band kept a red plastic firefighter hat in our practice space. If at some point one of us was obviously speeding up the tempo, that person was given the hat. They were nominated "Fire Chief." Then we'd whip into something absurdly fast and stupid and silly, hurry up and put out the fire, laugh a bit, then get back to playing things at their own normal pace!

lyle_from_minneapolis · Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:41 am

By the way, I've always thought most bands WOULD benefit by a director, and it seems especially useful in a worship service. Musical groups succeed when all members focus with a "group mind" on one sound---but individual choices (and sometimes egos) often go sideways and take the whole group in another direction.

How do you discuss such things without bruising egos and causing a ruckus? Very carefully, and not easily! It might help to institute a formal process for each rehearsal, like a re-cap meeting afterwards where all viewpoints are discussed regarding how each song should be done, and an agreement to follow the final word of either the majority vote or the decision of an agreed upon musical leader. Videotaping can help this kind of process. My 2 cents.

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:19 am

We do have a leader, and he is trying to work out how to "fix" it, but it is taking him WAY too long!

I long for the days when we played too fast (just last year)! It is much easier to slow down the tempo that to speed it up, IMHO.

kcole4001 · Post by **kcole4001** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:38 am

Mark's suggestion of recording & playing back of performances (either audio or video) will really highlight any parts that don't work well.

These are very easy to miss in the heat of the moment, but later...ouch! If someone's playing too busy, or dragging the tempo it really becomes a glaring example when recorded.

ajish4 · Post by **ajish4** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:17 am

Ok,

I'm a little behind here, sorry about that. What a WEEK.

Charly, I thought I knew the song "In Christ Alone (My hope is found)" but after hearing the sample, it wasn't what I thought it was. Sounds like a good one. I'll save that for future use!

Oh, the Pastor call deal....been there, done that. YUCH.

We have a great director at my PM gig, if you will, and when she isn't there, it just kind of falls apart. We really need the lead person keeping us all together.

Kevin's advise sounds like it just might help you Charly.

I was in a studio in NYC many, many moons ago. Our lead guitarist kept adjusting the volume on his guitar AFTER the engineer set all the levels. It made the guy NUTS. At one point, he made us stop and played back the tape and asked if ANYONE could here what was WRONG. By ANYONE, he was pointing to our lead guitarist.

To make a LONG story short, the guy didn't hear what the engineer was alluding to. He actually yelled at the guitarist, "you can't tell that you are LOUDER than the vocalists, keyboard, bass and the DRUMS!?!?!" "Keep your *($@_!# fingers off the *@!_#($^ volume knob"!

He did make his point.

melibreits · Post by **melibreits** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:24 am

How did I miss this thread????

This is great stuff, and we struggle with all of these issues on the worship team that I am a part of....

The guy who has been unofficially designated as our group's "leader" by the Powers That Be (our pastor, who is a horrible musician, but sings on the team anyway), does great work on solos and duets, but tends to stylize his singing and playing a bit too much with the group, so our timing always falls apart.... Our music really has not sounded "together" since our drummer moved away two years ago. We have tried using a drum machine, but gave up since the songs have fallen apart long before they ended at rehearsals--mainly because of our leader, who a few times has accused me of not playing in time with the song (really I do, but he gets overdramatic and keeps slowing down)! Lately playing with the team has felt like more of a burden than the joy it used to be....

And then there is the fact that our pastor doesn't really like electric guitars, and has made sure that my volume through the PA is turned waaaaaaay down.... My husband tells me that from the back pew he can hear all of the instruments and voices just fine, but he is lucky if he can just barely hear my Rickenbacker..... One time our leader (who plays a 12-string acoustic) was not at rehearsal, and I showed up for practice with one of my 6-string Rics--my '67 365, I think, and as we played one of the songs, our pastor very rudely said in his Southern accent, "The TWANG of that electric guitar is NOT what I had in mind for that song!" I was so angry and disgusted that I resigned from the team.... but our pastor persuaded me to come back and made promises that things would change--but I haven't seen it yet. Really the only reason I stay is because I love making music, and I keep reminding myself that in a worship setting "it's not about ME." I always give it my best, but I still get discouraged when I think that nobody in the congregation can even hear it anyway.... But at least God does!

It's a battle I am so tired of fighting.... I will be glad to move to a bigger city with more options!