Solos Should Have a Point

Okay, I'm not a big soloist. I like playing, but I don't have a big need to solo on much. In worship music, it's not needed often, but when it's called for, I have some opinions on the subject.

A pet peve of mine that got solved along with the issue of the existence of 80's hair bands was the fruitless efforts of flying fingers against setting of an otherwise harmless and unsuspecting melody. To me, it quickly turns into a demonstration of skill rather than a musical movement propelling the composer's melody to heights unattainable by the lyricist.

Which brings me right to my point - if you have a solo, see if you can sing it first. If you haven't done this, slow down and take the time to really sing it to yourself. You'll find a big difference in what you can capture emotionally with your voice at a pace much slower than your fingers could muster, and it will have a greater emotional impact as a result. I like to improvise, but if I can't sing it in some way, I ask if it really belongs to the song or if it's just too much me in the worship movement showing off. That's not how I should be glorifying God.

Here are a few points I like to think before diving into a solo or writing a new instrumental part:

• Keep it simple. Try something as simple just walking up the scale every half-note from the 3rd above the root!
• Keep it stylistically relevant to the rest of the song
• Make it carry the melody first and take it to new places second
• Do not use the opportunity to just exercise my fingers
• Stay focused and (if improvising) have a clear, pre-planned exist strategy to get back to the song

Seriously, Leave More Space

We all want to play.  We all want to praise.  We all want to praise and pray.

Good.

We all want to praise and play together. That's great, but not always at once.

As musicians, being professional means leaving LOTS of space. My high school orchestra conductor at Padua Franciscan H.S. in Parma, OH, Mr. Wayne F. Miller, put it best: "Never, never, ever play a rest."

This is more easily done with thorough composed music, especially on my bass clarinet with only the random whole-note to add.  When faced with chords charts and a band full of ideas and improvisational chops, our ingenuity quickly turns into noise every week on every song. 

Be the big, brave one and sit out until the final refrain, or the bridge.  Let the piano or the acoustic guitar do all the heavy lifting for the entire first verse. Let only the drums and bass play on the second verse of "Let the River Flow".

You'll hear the vocals better.

You'll sound more like the CD.

People will hear themselves better.

You'll be able to praise better.

You'll be able to clap your hands and lead by example!

And when you come back in, the professional difference you make by both playing and not playing will be obvious!

Time for a Guitar Check-Up!

It's time. I have managed to put it off, but I can put it off no longer.

My guitars' intonations have run out. It's getting harder to do demos, and worse yet - sound good on Sunday.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you probably have one of the following problems:

• Can't play your guitar in tune up and down the neck without retuning or bending strings
  
• Action is too high or low up on the neck
• Excessive fret buzz
• Just bad sound

These problems will happen on every, every guitar - even new ones! Here are a couple tips that will help you maintain your guitar and make it sound great. Please note, I am not a guitar expert, but these have helped me!

• Always bring a string's pitch UP from underneath while tuning. Don't tune down to a note; it will make it more likely to go flat while playing it.
  
• Change your strings more often
• Make sure to break in your strings every time. You can either play the guitar for 30 - 60 minutes after putting on new strings or tune it up a half-step for 6 - 12 hours before you need it to be in playable condition.
  
• Fix your intonation.
  
• If you've never done it, get your guitar "set-up" by a professional. I use http://www.mikelull.com.
  

Let's talk about intonation. It's the most likely cause of you hating or loving a guitar.

Intonation is the general term used to make your guitar's pitch be correct all the way up and down the neck. You can do it yourself, but it is tricky, time consuming and has several parameters. It will also make your guitar sing like a bird (assuming you have decent tone to begin with.) In the end, the goal is simple: make every note up and down the fretboard on any given string the correct pitch. The bad news is getting there isn't simple.

The components of the math are: string diameter, string to fretboard height (aka "action"), fret height, and string length. Since we can make string diameter, action, and fret height constant, the thing that usually doesn't stay constant over time is the string length(!). It is also the hardest component to correct.

The factors that cause string length to change are simple:

• Time causes the bridge and or neck under string tension to warp slightly (especially acoustics)
  
• The dimensions of your guitar change slightly under different temperatures and moistures
• The mechanics of your bridge do move over time. If you have a floating bridge, you're doomed to fight this until you tape it down after every string change.
  

So, now that you know why, here's the short of how you fix this:

• If you have an acoustic guitar - give up. Hire a professional to "cut you a new bone". They will fix your bone or put a new one in to match your strings and guitar as well as set your bridge to get the right pitch.
  
• For an electric, I recommend the same technique. But for the brave and bored, the the process is laborious, but worth it:
  
• Select your strings and get them on the guitar
  
• Set the desired playing hight using the bridge mechanics if you can. Avoid fret noise when playing heavy. If you get fret noise, your action may be set too low.
  
• Make sure your bridge is under string tension and locked down as thoroughly as possible - make sure the pitch will drift as little as possible. Tremblo systems are quite problematic.
  
• Using a strobe tuner (seriously), adjust the mechanics at the bridge to make each string's pitch correct open and at the 12th fret. This means the pitch at the 12th fret must be exactly twice the frequency of the open pitch. You will need to adjust the string length by making it shorter or longer to compensate if it's too low or high respectively. (Yes, it's backwards of what we're used to, but the math makes sense!) You will need to do this over and over again for each string since changing the tension on your neck will make the strings perform differently.
  
• The process should probably take an hour for the non-professional. The first time I did my bass, it took an hour, and I was still figuring out how to do it right.
  

When you're done, always play with the EXACT same strings you used when the guitar was intoned.

The problem is physics and the string's reaction to the dimensions they are put through. If you change the dimensions even slightly (like the width of the string versus where it gets clipped by the fret), your pitch will be off.

If you need to change the type of strings (even to a coated version of the same strings you've always loved), take the time and intone your guitar again.

The entire point of this article is GET YOUR GUITAR SET-UP. Most of the music minsters I've encountered don't know what that means. Now you do.

If you're in Seattle, you have got to go to Mike Lull. He really isn't expensive, but he is the #1 guy anywhere and a treasure to have in our backyard.

No one will thank you for it. They'll just dislike you if you don't.

This article is too long. Sorry.

God bless you in your ministry.

Art's Formula for Worship Guitar Sound #1

I am going to call this WGS1 - because it's cool to use acronymns, and I want to be cool - someday.

I personally really go for the Vox™ sound made popular by The Edge of U2 for this type of song. The guitar sits right on the edge of overdrive without always clipping. You lay into it, and there it is – that extra noise!

I actually use a POD (1.0), but the fundamentals are the same no matter what you're on.

Here's how it works for me:

• The Guitar - I use Gretsch Nashville 1962 reissue (FilterTron pickups, using the neck pickup only). Any hollow body or semi-hollow can get great sound. For solids, dial your guitar tone in on the warm side.
  
• Optional Delay - . There are two ways to do this:
  
  • In time with the music, usually an 8^th or quarter note in delay. Using a tap-delay will keep your drummer from killing you. (Read: don't force your drummer into a groove – adjust your equipment!) If you're shopping, make sure you can access the tap feature with your foot. Line6 makes a good model for this. It's green and can be seen on almost every band's pedal-board.
    
  • You can also work on off beats. This is the way The Edge does it, and Christian artists everywhere copy it! You want the delayed sound closer to a 16^th note, but only feedback ONCE. Then when you play, play 8^th notes – you get twice as many notes! Timing is critical. You can also try triplets! Count 1-2-3 per HALF note and tap away! This is even closer to that classic sound – but harder to program on the fly.
    
• The Amp - The idea is to get the sound close to overdriven but not quite there when playing lightly. This will let you arpegiate cleanly without overdriving. Then, you can use a BOOST or just start playing harder to get a crunchier sound! It's very versatile and very "in".
  
  • If I had my way, my amp would be an Orange AD30 TC
    
  • My second choice would be a real-tube Vox AC30. This is the basic amp of George Harrison of The Beatles and U2 and is the originator of the sound in question.
    
  • Lastly, you can get a good emulation from the Line6 POD effects units.
    

Line6 also makes amp versions of the POD with the tones already built in, and in worship can be much more effective than having an amp that does all the work. (Loud backline amps should someday be a Cardinal Sin. J ) Keep your FOH engineer in mind when you're shopping!

If someone wants, I can post my actual POD settings here! Just leave a comment!

Space – the scary frontier

As musicians, we often feel it is our job to make noise, after all who can argue when the Bible says, "May a joyful noise unto the Lord." (Ps. 100:1).

The thing is, not playing and not singing often takes much more discipline than playing all the time. As my orchestra teacher used to say, "Never, never, ever play a rest," we too must leave space at the right times.

Take the song "Sacred Silence" as recorded by Tom Booth or Jenny Pixler (available through www.spiritandsong.com). It is a lovely, sparse song that grows, ebbs, flows and resolves. At almost no point is the entire band playing at the same time. Yet, the beauty and completeness is achieved with so little.

The same is true for more upbeat songs, like "Trading My Sorrows" (Darrell Evans). The verse doesn't need a lot of things going on. You might find more people sing when there is more space for them to do so. For example, next time your team plays this song, try using just drum and bass on the verse along with the vocals. You might find the space is just what the congregation needs to find a home in the song.

The congregation, just like us as musicians, has the desire to be needed in worship. We should do our best to give them the space to feel desired. We, as musicians, should provide holes for them to fill in, like the name tags: "My Name Is:
".

As musicians, we all have egos. Just admit it. It may be checked at the door, but it is still there waiting to come out. We should all have the ears and guts to know when we don't need to play. And it does take guts. Even more so, it takes professionalism I

Over the weekend I had the honor and privilege to play a mass with Jesse Manibusan, David Yackley, Jackie Francois, Paul Nuyen, Becky Rameriez, and Rufino Zaragoza (among others). David and Rufino, both gifted, talented pianists traded off on piano, Jesse played where needed, and not all singers sang on everything - and it was awesome and beautiful. All had the professionalism and talent to demonstrate:

1. the worship experience is more important than for them to hear me play
   
2. I am secure enough in my skill that I don't need to fill the entire space with my notes for me to be satisfied with my contribution.
   

If your team isn't carrying these notions every week, you might think about some of the following questions:

• Have we reinforced our team's skills with compliments or with criticism?
  
• Have we made clear the need for space in our music? (Does your team know it's okay to not play?)
  
• Are we personally comfortable enough to let go and not play, and yet still feel valuable to the worship experience?
  
• Is our team's working environment competitive or collaborative when it comes to dividing arrangements?
  
• Do we (as directors) always rely on the same people to fill the same roles, or do we also provide space for others to grow?
  

God bless you in your ministry.