Musicians, by nature, are often quite absent-minded and disorganised. If you are a musician, you may be the exception to the rule. Most of us, though, have had some life-defining moments when our disorganisation has caught up with us. I say life-defining because our mess-ups are nearly always in the public eye, and like everyone else, we fear the judgement of man more than God.
I thought I’d suggest an ‘alternative church musician’s check-list’ so that we could be a little more on top of our game. The items included in the check-list are there because I have been caught out on each one, so I’m doing this for me as much as anyone else.
* Make sure you count the number of verses on the song-sheet or overhead. It’s amazing how difficult it is for musicians to count to four.
* Liaise with the person operating the overhead. Overhead operators find it hard to count too.
* Check that you’re playing in the same key as everyone else. Most congregations aren’t ready for serial atonality yet.
* Make sure you start from the same place as everyone else for the play-over. Those who were there for the last song at this year’s London Men’s Convention will have witnessed a glorious example of this one. This can be lots of fun for everyone as we try to work out who’s going to win.
* Make sure you’re playing the same song as everyone else. This can have quite spectacular results. The way I’ve solved this is to run through all the starts and finishes of the songs in reverse order at the end of the rehearsal. Then at least, in principle, everyone’s songs should be in order by the start of the meeting. In practice though, the sheets still end up shuffling themselves into any order they choose.
* Remove any drink or liquid from on top of the piano. I’ve worked out that red wine and piano strings don’t mix.
* Ask the keyboard player not to press more buttons than necessary. Once, at the end of one very reflective song, the keyboard player decided to turn the keyboard off in the silence. However, the red button she pressed wasn’t the ‘On/Off’ switch she was hoping for. Instead, it was the ‘Start/Stop’ button for the drum machine, which was set to ‘Disco Rock’.
* If you’re an organist, discourage your page-turner from resting their feet on the pedal-board. My mum did this in Lichfield Cathedral, just after I’d pulled out all the stops for a big wedding send-off.
* Find all the songs/hymns you need before the meeting, and mark them all so that you can turn to them immediately. This is especially important if you’re using a hymnbook which doesn’t arrange its songs in alphabetical order. I’ve experienced that grim sensation of panic a number of times — the hymn’s been announced, I haven’t found the page, my brain’s gone blank, and my fingers go all clammy, and all the congregation can hear is the frantic riffling of pages.
* If you are an organist/pianist, turn away from the keyboard when finding your next hymn, especially if you are in the state expressed above. Dropping a heavy book on the keys during a time of quiet reflection is a sure way of drawing attention to yourself.
* If the above happens, try not to get the giggles while playing the next song. Your eyes tend to fill with water and your hands are too preoccupied to be able to wipe them dry. You end up not being able to read the music, and people around you start tutting. This will set you off even more, so best not to start the process in the first place.
* If you have a long rehearsal followed immediately by the church meeting, do make sure you use the bathroom in between. I was caught out once because I’d forgotten we’d changed the position of one of the songs in the meeting. When the song was announced, no one got up to play. When I appeared, everyone looked round at me in the silence, and all you could hear was a distant flushing sound.
Gaffes, blunders and howlers keep us all humble, and remind us of our weakness, as well as keeping our sense of humour alive, but I hope this will encourage us to be as well prepared as possible. This will help keep attention off ourselves and onto Jesus.
Richard Simpkin
