We’re going to have an awesome summer at Crosspoint! We have a lot of great youth events and surprises coming up! I just made my first post on the shakedown parents blog, check it out here.
Last weekend my name was called ‘in absentia’ at Bethany Bible College’s graduation ceremony. It took a while, but I’ve finally wrapped up my college education. The important thing to me is finishing what I’ve started, and trusting God’s plan for my life and His ministry.
This week I’m taking my final required course. It is a seminar on the book of Hebrews. What a great book! Our professor has passionately instructed us all week. Hebrews really helps us understand God’s covenant with His people and how Christ is high priest, seated in the Most Holy Place with God. It is a book about faith: Faith is living as if God’s promise for the future is certain and His power in the present is real.
Today my grandfather, the Real John Sherwood, is being moved into York Manor. He’s been in the hospital for just over 4 months, so I’m hoping the is a good move for him.
Tomorrow I finish my seminar and head to Crosspoint to meet up with our youth group and then drive to Rally in the Valley. It’s going to be a great weekend! Pastor Mark will place a cherry on top of his youth ministry and I will enjoy my first rally as youth pastor – crazy! What a ride! I finally finish college and God has already setup great things to come. My internship was crucial in learning how to be the minister God intended me to be, and to trust Him as Jehovah-jireh, God who provides. God set this up. I couldn’t have set this up!
Tonight at the Shakedown, our crazy-awesome youth night at Crosspoint, we announced some massive news. Surprise! I’m now officially the Youth Pastor at Crosspoint Wesleyan Church. I’m pumped! I will share more about this later.
How much time do you spend on arranging songs for worship? What does a typical practice look like for your worship team? How often do you use an original song or arrangement?
For a while I played “Everlasting God” with the feel and tone Lincoln Brewster used on his arrangement of the Brenton Brown song. Several times in the last year I just keep the same tone and basically played the same way. It saved time in practice, and when the band members changed they could play to me instead of working extra to play to them. On March 1st I played it on acoustic closer to Chris Tomlin’s arrangement. For March 15th I decided to test something new. The very first time I heard the song the pre-chorus reminded me of Dave Matthews’ song “Trippin’ Billies.” We’re testing the intro hits and the outro will take us into “Lead me to the cross” in a different progression and key. Andrew rocks the drums on the intro/outro and plays some fills inspired by Carter Beauford. I capo 2 and play “Everlasting God” in A in this arrangement and we retard the ending to land on B minor, which begins “Lead me to the cross” in the key of D (or B minor) with the appropriate tempo.
At the end of “Hosanna” our last hit has Andrew take us into a 6/8 beat to count us in for the chorus of Tim Hughes’s song “Highest and Greatest.” Sometimes when you don’t take time to think through an arrangement or set of worship songs you end up starting a song, then finishing a song. You start another song, and when it ends you begin another. Now and them it is worth trying to create more flow, or transitions between songs. This takes time and practice, but it is worth it. Not that you have to rush a service, but think of the time you could save by creating smooth, well thought out transitions. Often in our setting we connect the chorus or bridge of on song on the end of another tune. When they have a common thought of feel this can seem both like a new song, and different within the flow. I guess if your motive is to help people have a great opportunity to worship God, and to play skillfully for Him, you need to do your best to achieve those goals.
Sometimes I enjoy sticking as close to a recorded version of a song as possible. When it is in the same key you will use in service it makes it easier to get the tone from an album and keep the feel of the original song. Certain songs are done so well I prefer to keep their sound and riffs (Brooke Fraser’s “Hosanna,” “Lead me to the cross”). Other times I go with my instincts and create my own tone and feel. It depends on how I am feeling with improvisation while in practice or in the live setting. It depends on the group around me. The quality of players around me greatly inspires my playing. I find being in a band or playing with different musicians in a band setting has a lot to do with trust. When I trust other players and can feel free to experiment or just play as tight and precise as I can.
When I work with Andrew and Rob Tremblett our sessions usually end after 75 minutes. We can play longer, and occasionally practice for 90 minutes, but our best work is within 75 minutes. We could take a break and then get back to work, but we try not to over do it. We work hard and focus for over an hour at a time and leave a mini-disc player recording for the entire session. This is a great tool for us and we don’t have to worry about remembering every detail since it is all captured for us to listen to later. This can give a certain freedom in a practice or writing session since we don’t have to focus so much energy on memory alone. We are able to focus on the art and craft of our skill on each instrument.
If you have a large project to prepare for you will require more than a 75 minute practice, but you really need to carefully plan how you will approach your practice. It is easy to waste time and focused energy in a practice if you are not careful. One of our greatest practices was a Saturday morning. We got breakfast and started playing around 7am. We took several breaks and finished around 2pm. We did not rush. Sometimes you need to give time for creative energy. Inspiration can take time. When you block off a large amount of time you can take many breaks and be ready for inspiration to hit. This also gives you adequate time for soundcheck, warmup, restringing, tuning, and jamming. Sometimes the best thing you can do is have a near mindless jam session or pull out some covers for a few minutes.
How much time do you spend on arranging songs for worship? What does a typical practice look like for your worship team? How often do you use an original song or arrangement?
What a great morning @ Crosspoint!
We roll ahead the clocks an hour to ’spring ahead’ and we also move our service times to 9:30am and 11am. We were privileged to have missionary Orai Lehmen with us for a Saturday evening dinner and story time, as well as in church to preach Sunday morning. Our men who traveled to Mozambique last summer worked closely with him in their African mission work. This is my second Sunday this month to lead our church in worship. I love it. Here is our order for the morning…
Sometimes we kickoff with an upbeat song, but on this morning we’re using a more acoustic approach. Amanda Collicott was planning to lead vocally as I play the acoustic and Chris Saad plays percussion for “Knees to the earth,” but she has been sick this weekend. We went with “To the ends of the earth” on acoustic instead. There are some ‘older’ tunes on the list, but they just seemed to be the right one for the morning. These first three Sunday’s of March are a little different for us, yet still awesome. After “Mighty to save” we transition into “The Stand,” which has a similar feel musically. We have used that song several times since Christmas. Usually our main worship set is straight through, but a few guys who traveled to Mozambique share briefly on video. After “Here I am to worship” there is a video with some of our people holding a sign saying “I am a missionary” as we are singing the chorus of “To the ends of the earth.” Sometimes you just have to be there to see it and understand.
This week someone told me about an interview with Martin Smith of Delirious where the interviewer asked him how they choose the songs that end up on an album. He basically responded by saying, “God gives us the songs to put on the album.” I guess that’s an answer, but the interviewer was probably looking for a different answer. How do you choose the songs you will use in a worship set? Do you have a particular method?
For the first three weeks of this month I am leading worship for our Sunday morning services at Crosspoint. Each week I lead worship for our youth ministry, and each weekend I play guitar in our services. It is always exciting to have the opportunity to lead people in worship. I enjoy checking out what other people’s setlists look like, so here is our order from last Sunday morning…
That was Paul Baloche’s “Hosanna,” and Tim Hughes’s “Happy Day” if you didn’t recognize them. Some great friends of mine were with me in the band. Jeff Ingersoll was on drums and percussion. Shea Guptill was singing and rocked Brooke Fraser’s “Lead me to the cross.” Colin Smith joined us on bass, and it was a special treat. He defines “musicality.” When I was praying and thinking through the setlist a month before leading the service I decided to keep it simple and clean. I lead from the acoustic guitar, and didn’t miss playing the electric at any time during the morning services. Colin and I were able to add enough tonally from bass and guitar to make it seem complete. I added the lead parts in “Your grace is enough,” and “Happy Day” from my acoustic. At one point the pre-chorus “So remember Your people” from ”Your grace is enough,” took on the progression of Dave Matthews’s “#41.”
Using Shure in-ears has helped me in preparation and in leading worship. I find it is easier to play acoustic live with the sound isolation and my vocals improve. You don’t have to “overplay” or “over sing” when you’re not fighting to hear yourself. Since I can hear everything better and cleaner I am not distracted by technology, but able to focus more on leading and worshiping. I’m excited for the next few weekends. I’ve been reflecting on the past weekend and hoping to lead more effectively in our next worship service.
I’ve played guitar for several years now. Each week I lead music and worship for our church’s youth group, and I play lead guitar and occasionally sing and lead worship in our church’s weekend worship service as well. In the past I have tried several pedal and processor options, but in the last few years I have honed in on an arrangement best suited for my style and venue. This is my current pedal setup.
The first thing in my chain is the Diamond compressor. This is made in Canada. It is simple to use and operates very clean with minimal noise. The tri-color LED is a nice feature. You can visually setup your compression level by strumming and noticing the change in color from a greenish-yellow at low attack to a redish-orange with higher attack.
Next is my Vox wah. I used to have a Dunlop Cry Baby, but I traded it for the Vox. It looks sweet on my board and I dig the tone. It’s less harsh than the cry baby, especially in the higher range. Some people place it after overdrive and distortion pedals, but I prefer it before. It’s the only pedal running off a 9 volt, so I unplug the input when I’m finished playing. I usually go a few months before needing to change it.
The Tonebone classic is another Canadian made pedal. Apparently some guy by the name of Eric Johnson also uses it. It has a 12ax7 tube in it for the preamp gain stage. I changed the stock tube for an Electro Harmonix and I like its tone. It took me several years to really love this pedal, but since the summer it’s been my main overdrive choice.
This is an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer, but it has been moded to the 808 that Stevie Ray Vaughan used. Everybody seems to have one of these. I’ve been using it less as the Tonebone has been sounding better lately. It is very easy to use, and quicker than the TB Classic to get the tone you’re looking for.
You probably notice there are three different delay pedals on my board. I used to have a line 6 dl4, but I prefer this setup. The first is the Boss DD-3. It’s digital, and the other two are analog. The boss has a longer delay time and I often run it with the Memory Man for an intricate layered delay tone. This is a tone I would use for several songs such as, “Mighty to Save,” “Lead me to the cross,” and I tried it on “The Stand” the last few times we’ve played it at church.
The Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man is a great pedal. It’s tone can be vary warm and there is a bit of variety. It’s one of my favorite pedals ever. I often keep a light vibrato on the feedback (repeats). I wouldn’t mind having a second one for playing live with a different delay setting prepared, or using them together.
The Diamond Memory Lane was originally supposed to replace my Memory Man, but I like the EH Memory Man too much to sell it. The Memory Lane was very expensive and comes with tap tempo and an expression pedal input. I use the basic foot pedal on the left to control the amount of feedback (delayed repeats). The heel position gives only 1 repeat, and as you put the toe down it continues to add them until it oscillates out of control. You can always bring it back to the heel to stop the craziness. I don’t actually use the tap tempo, but I did test the Memory Man 2. It’s tap can be set for the dotted 8th note even while you are tapping a quarter note – very cool! That would make it easy to setup the U2 style rhythmic delay style.
The Deltone pro-boost in a clean volume boost. It’s simply awesome. A college friend of mine, and former band-mate, Del Heiney, created and designed the pedal. It’s perfect to take your sound to ‘11′ or even overdrive the tubes a bit more. Thanks, Del!
What would a pedalboard be without a TU-2. You need to stay in tune and you need to cut your signal in a performance setting to tune up. Our church usually has 3 or more Boss TU-2’s on the stage, and some have more than that. Tons of amateurs and pros use them. They are simple and do their job. When I see bands live in a bar, church, stadium, or on DVD they often tune with the TU-2. When I saw U2 in Boston The Edge used one.
My Vox AC30 cc2 with the Celestion AlNiCo blue speakers is one of my greatest investments. Someday I would like to have more amps and A/B or A /B /Y my signal, but for now it does all I need it to do. I’m using a Sennheiser 609e to mic my amp.
There you have it. I use George L cables, a few Planet Waves (only because they were easy to use), and Digiflex cables (with lifetime warranty, which has come in handy). The other items on and around my board include an extra tuner. I come out of the bypass on the TU-2 into a tuner I’ve always trusted, especially when adjusting the intonation on my Strat. I also keep a spare pack of Ernie Ball Regular Slinky’s (10’s), a screw driver, string cutters, Ebow, slide, in-ear foams, Ernie Ball Volume pedal, metronome, calculator, extra patch chords, and even some Fisherman’s Friend cough drops handy. It’s good to be prepared.
Quick dictionary: command-control-D. Hold your mouse over any word in a document or webpage and watch as a mini-dictionary opens under the word. Continue to hold command + ctrl and move your cursor over other word and the dictionary will follow, changing to each word
Safari word finder: command-F. This is great to find a keyword. Try this on basically any webpage. Type the word you are looking for in the top right hand corner of your Safari window. The word will be highlighted for you, and you can click the right arrow to go to the next one and cycle through the entire page. This is useful on large pages to save from scrolling and searching the entire document manually. This will save you a lot of time!
For more shortcuts check UsingMac.com and Apple’s support page all about Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.
