The Music Exchange

This article’s not going to require much brainpower, but this car theme’s been going round my head for a few weeks, so I needed to get it off my chest.

Thank you to Doug Mavay for suggesting I did something on teaching new songs.

First, a few general hints

Test-drive the song before trying it out on the open road. If you’re not convinced yourself that the song will ‘catch’, then it’s likely it will dive when the congregation try it. However, if you play through a song and you’re still humming the tune later in the day, then you know the congregation at least have a chance. Play it to someone else too — preferably someone unmusical, and see if they’re able to pick the tune up.
This also helps you to be prepared for teaching it to others, when you’ll need to be able to play or sing it perfectly. I’ve had a few songs crash and burn because a singer gets a simple phrase wrong in the play-through. The congregation needs to be absolutely sure of the tune.

There are different ideas as to how to learn a song. Some take a midweek evening or Saturday morning to do a session teaching lots of new songs to the congregation. This can work well, though it’s easy to forget what you’ve learnt from one week to the next. It’s probably more efficient to teach a song straight away to those who are going to sing it. You can do this by teaching it before the meeting begins, or by simply singing/playing it through immediately before the song is sung in the meeting. If the latter, I’d advise at least playing the tune through over and over as people are waiting for the meeting to start. People pick up tunes subliminally this way.

Listen to feedback

Having done a song for the first time, listen to feedback graciously and gratefully. More often than not, non-musical congregation members will be the best test of whether a song is worth accepting into the church’s repertoire. In one case, our congregation helped to rewrite a line of a song because they kept singing what they wanted to sing rather than what was written. It’s a better song now! (The song wasn’t under copyright, if you were wondering.)

Don’t worry too much if the song doesn’t settle completely in the first week. We can be a little consumerist in our attitudes to new music, and too easily give up on something that needs more time. Sometimes a good song takes time to get its feet under the table. Try repeating the new song the following week, then have a week off, and then repeat it once more. This gives it a bit of momentum without boring everybody. If it hasn’t taken by then, it’s off to the breaker’s yard.

On the forecourt

Now, depending on the forces you have available, I’ve grouped the following tips based around the rather random classifications of cars which were around in my childhood. If you were around in the 70s, I hope this will bring back fond memories. (A quick get-out clause: by classification, I don’t mean that some music is lower class. Instead, some churches have the privilege of being blessed with more musicians than others. Classified by quantity, not quality, let’s say. More gadgets for the lads, more frills for the ladies.) Here we go before I get myself into trouble:

Economy
(Not much welly under the bonnet, but gets you from A to B.)
Specification: one melody instrument or one pianist playing with one finger.
To be honest, this is all you need to teach a congregation a new tune. As long as the one-fingered pianist plays the right notes, you can’t really go wrong.

L
(I always thought they moved you onto ‘Luxury’ a little too quickly. All you got for your luxury was a cloth trim and a cigarette lighter.)
Specification: one pianist or one guitarist + one singer. (Not that I’m likening a singer to a cigarette lighter.)
Singer sings the tune, pianist or guitarist provides light accompaniment. Luxury indeed.

LX
(With those little extras that give you the edge over the Joneses.)
Specification: one pianist or one guitarist + one singer, one melody instrument and one bass instrument.
Singer still sticks to the tune; melody instrument doesn’t play the tune for play-over (this is because when you have only two musicians playing the same thing, tuning is much harder than with more or less of you. The melody instrument can double up on the tune when the rest of the congregation joins in. It’s best if that melody is in a high octave so that it’s not lost in the mix. Bass gives congregation that little bit more confidence.

GLS
(Those bigger extras that give you the edge over the Walmington-Smythes. Metallic paintwork optional, but oh so crucial for helping you feel like you’ve arrived in the 1980s before the end of the 70s.)
Specification: five or six-piece band with singers of both sexes (a bloke’s voice helps give confidence to the men) or organist with full choir.
Here’s where it can get easy to cloud the tune. The trick here is to keep it simple. Keep all the instruments down in volume so that the tune can be clearly heard. Avoid any harmony singing at all in the play-through, otherwise the congregation may end up singing the alto line if they think it’s better than the tune. It’s not a performance (though it needs to be done well). Instead, it’s an aid to people who want to sing to Jesus.

Vanden Plas
(Walnut fascias, leather upholstery and spectacularly oversized radiator grilles.)
Specification: double orchestra, steel band, 50 piece choir, four acoustic guitarists, two lead guitarists, one bass, drummer in perspex box, five effects keyboards, wind machine, duck whistle, person who does that thing where you raise your hand horizontally according to the pitch of the note.
This is not to say that these things aren’t good and helpful for learning a tune, but that having all the gadgets in the world doesn’t guarantee that a song will be easily learnt by a congregation.

In essence, get that tune as clear as you can in the play-through and make sure the melody pierces through in the mix when the congregation joins in. Can’t say fairer than that, guv. Then it should be a nice little runner.

Singing for petrolheads

First, a few general hints

Listen to feedback

On the forecourt

Richard Simpkin

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