I gave myself a personal home project deadline. I wanted to fix a 1969 Zenith Z922M turntable console by Christmas so I could listen to Willie Nelson’s Christmas LP “Pretty Paper” that I bought on vinyl earlier in the year. This turntable console is special because it was from my grandmother’s house. They bought it new in 1969. I remember listening to albums on it at her house when I was a kid. The original catalog advertisement is still inside:
The turntable wasn’t working when I got it. Not sure how long it has been since it worked. It also has an am/fm tuner which works. I assumed the main reason the turntable wasn’t working was due to the 42 year old lubrication in the mechanism. The amp in this thing is solid state and the turntable is heavy duty – meant to last forever. Today I proceeded to remove the back panel and look inside:
After fiddling with the turntable I grabbed a can of WD-40 and gave the mechanism underneath the turntable a good spray. I was hoping it would loosen any parts that were locked and maybe lubricate the motor enough to make the table spin again. I powered it up and gave the table a little push to help it get started. After a few tries it started working. I found Willie’s Christmas vinyl and soaked it up. Now I’m looking forward to enjoying the rest of my vinyl collection. The console needs some more repairs to fully restore it – only one of the woofers is working and I’m not sure the changer arm works properly.
So on the twitter, this guy David says, “What are your best tips for young worship leaders leading an older congregation?” This immediately made me give a knee jerk response: “ask older folks what songs they like; learn them; sing them.” This is an important lesson I’ve learned. So the rest goes like this:
David: what if they recommend songs that are nearly impossible to do? Just too old & too irrelevant? Me: you’re joking right? If it’s old it’s not irrelevant. Try reading the psalms to start. If music is difficult, try practicing.
David: i was referring to a song like “in my heart there rings a melody” something that wouldn’t connect with the majority. Me: that’s a cool song. It sounds like a challenge to make it cool to me. I’m gonna work on a recording to prove ya wrong…
And that led me to this little rough draft…
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Don’t be fooled kids – hymns can be cool. If they’re not cool, it says less about the hymn and more about your creativity.
Look at the Mix Pyramid. Notice that the top or focal point of the pyramid is the lead vocal. The lead vocal or soloist must always be on top and be able to be understood by someone who does not already know the words to the song. Just under the lead vocals come the backing vocals or choir. They are the first layer of support, and they too need to be audible as a distinct musical element that helps convey the message of the song.
Beneath the vocals come the instruments that provide fill and color. These add musical interest and highlights, and in fact may be the most prominent portions of the mix when the vocalists are not singing. Instruments might include Lead Guitar, Synthesizer, Brass, and/or Percussion. These instruments will often lead between vocal lines or during instrumental breaks and may need a bit of help from the Mix Musician to make sure their parts are heard when needed.
The primary bed of chords that form the harmonies under the lead parts of the music are often laid down by instruments such as rhythm guitar, piano and/or electronic keyboards. These instruments should be audible but never dominant in the mix.
Lastly low frequency instruments add foundation and weight to the music. These include drums, bass guitar, organ pedals, and the low end of electronic keyboard instruments. While almost never dominant in the mix, if they are not given their proper place and balance in the mix, the music will sound thin and will lack much of its grandeur.
Your church buys its first in-ear system to replace the WL’s front/center wedge. The tech removes the wedge, and routes the WL’s monitor signal into the new IEM system. At sound check, the WL puts his earphones in and starts to sing and/or play. He promptly says “my mix is different!” The tech responds “nope, it’s the same mix you’ve always had”. Who’s right?
They both are. Remember that with the wedge, the WL heard the monitor signal AND his acoustic surroundings as a total package. Now that his ears are essentially plugged by earphones, he hears only the monitor signal provided, and DOES NOT hear his acoustic surroundings. He relies 100% on the monitor mix he receives. The tech is sending the same mix as before, in the wedge, but the monitoring experience now sounds totally and understandably different to the WL. For this reason, the transition can be startling and potentially frustrating for new IEM users.
A basic knowledge of music is important for the sound system operator unless only speech is amplified. When running a sound system you should consider yourself the “mix musician”. You will be balancing the musicians against each other and determining how the congregation hears them. As such you are an important part of the musical group, and need to understand what is important for music to sound good.
This does not mean you have to be able to play an instrument or read music (although that could not hurt). It does mean you need to understand some musical concepts and be able to speak the language of music in order to properly communicate with the other musicians in your role as the mix musician.
Yeah that sounds like awkwardness abounds. Paying a key leader/pastor and not the rest of the band is different. And I don’t see anything wrong with wanting to strictly use volunteers in the band. But the church has a responsibility to equip and utilize all the talents it’s been given. So even if a musician isn’t up to the level where they can hang with the band, they should be finding them a place leading kids, youth, prison outreach, etc. or equipping them with training if their heart is in the right place.
What do you think about churches that insist on not paying their musicians irrespective of talent, time, etc. and will only take the best musicians who will play for free? Is the church, in that case, denying some of the “gifts that they’ve been given?”
And for context, the particular church and the particular situation to which I am referring has a volunteer policy that’s focused on an “unfettered” worshiper. And by that they mean they want people whose motivations to play on Sunday morning aren’t going to be about money.
But some of the musicians are hurt by that because 1) they spend as much as time and have as much talent as the lead worship leader, and he gets paid 2) They actually REALLY need the money most of the time, and 3) Motivation being questioned is offensive.
I think that is a great definition of a hymn. The def. I use is: “A hymn is a sacred poem addressed to God, intended to be sung.” Yours expands on that idea and fills it out. Mine is easy to memorize!
This is my favorite definition of a hymn. I think its clear to what we, in a solely traditional worship context, consider a hymn.
“A Christian Hymn is a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the worshipper’s attitude toward God or God’s purposes in human life. It should be simple and metrical in form, genuinely emotional, poetic and literary in style, spiritual in quality, and in its ideas so direct and so immediately apparent as to unify a congregation while singing it.”
[...] This is part 6 of a series of reflections about the journey of starting a church and leaving established, organizational, denominational religion. It’s a lot like unplugging from the matrix. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) [...]
