Remove

I'm in the middle of an interesting read: Untitled: Thoughts on the Creative Process* by Blaine Hogan. Blaine is a professional actor and the Creative Director at Willow Creek. I bought the book because, a) I like anything about the creative process and b) it was only a few bucks on my Kindle.**

Early in the book Blaine talks about restraint in art. He says this:

The tendency when trying to explain ourselves (through words or art) is to add instead of subtract. Instead of adding more words, or images, or lines or verses to clear things up, we should be thinking about what can we remove.

Blaine goes on,

Subtract until you have only the pieces necessary to tell your story. Remove everything but the essential bits.

The idea behind restraint confronts the age old phrase, "bigger isn't always better" - a phrase which, for me, is incomplete.

Bigger is what people expect, and bigger doesn't always surprise.
Why? Because it's obvious.

Subtract until you have only the pieces necessary to tell your story. How often do we tell our story on Sunday morning with every instrument playing every beat of every measure of every song?

Try this. At your next rehearsal, pick a song and play the intro with the entire band. Then start removing one instrument at a time. Try different combinations of two instruments. Three instruments. No instruments. Encourage players to vary their rhythms. Play single notes at times instead of chords. Get your team in on suggesting what combination or removal you should try next. And listen. Really listen to the different story each adaptation tells. (By the way, if you get pushback from your team, tell your band it's an exercise you read about from a worship blogger. Blame me. Call me an idiot if it doesn't work.)

Keep going and try it on the verse. Then the chorus. And figure out when to add more. When to get big. When to reign it in after getting big. A phrase I use a lot with my team is "don't give it all away until...". I learned to add the until, because my teams would often hold back the whole time, even in the parts that call for us to let it loose.

The only way for us and our team to learn restraint is to practice it intentionally. Do this with one song each week, and after a while, you'll notice your team is starting to implement it on their own in on other songs.

**From what I can tell, it's only a Kindle release at the moment. But don't let that stop you. Download the Kindle app to your computer and read this book if you don't own a Kindle. Better yet, buy a Kindle.

*Full honest-Abe disclosure: this, and the Kindle link, are affiliate links. That means if you buy it after clicking through this link, I will be able to buy my private island. Of course, you'd need to buy 348,000,000 copies. But I'm ok with that.

L.T.W.M. Part 3

Leave Them Wanting More is dependent on another well-worn axiom: Less is more.

I've perpetrated the opposite - more is more - on several occasions in my ministry:

More is More, Method 1: The Shoehorn
"The senior pastor's only giving me 20 minutes for worship through music? OK, we can fit seven songs in there." The result:

• The tempo of each song jumps 18 BPM.
• I'm clock-watching instead of worshiping, wondering how soon I should cut a chorus or two.
• When it becomes apparent that it's time to bail partway into the last song, I try to signal the team to end after the first chorus. I wonder if railroad workers get the same confused look in their eyes just prior to their train wrecks?

More is More, Method 2: The Way it is on the MP3
"Hey team, we're going to do this Hillsong tune just like they do it in this live recording"

So it's:
v, v, ch, v, ch, ch, 
48-bar instrumental/vocal ad lib building to a holy frenzy, 
quiet breakdown, bridge, bridge (keep building) 
bridge, bridge, (one more, even bigger...) bridge, 
breaking into a huge chorus, another huge chorus, 
huge tag to the chorus, even huger tag, 
and then a tag to bring us down to a quiet instrumental, 
begin singing the chorus nearly a cappella, 
then we'll start building back in for a repeat of the--

The congregation switched to "comatose screen-gazing" twelve bars into the instrumental. I think one guy passed out.

Is there anything wrong with the way they did it on the recording? No. But it fit their context. Many of our churches just plain haven't learned to worship with music that way yet.

With both methods, the more didn't lead to people wanting more. They just wanted the door.

Here are a few ideas to using "less is more":
1. Use the radio mix. If a popular worship song has made it on the radio, it's likely going to be less than 5 minutes. For example, Hillsong's Forever Reign radio mix is nearly 2 minutes shorter than the live recording. Ask yourself: how do they change the form? What repeats do they leave out? Always err on the side of "too short".

2. Under-plan to your time. Figure out how approximately how long each arrangement is. Add one minute to each song. Then add all the songs together. Do they fit, realistically, in your service? (C'mon now, be honest.) If not, cut a song.

3. Cut-down a song. Can't bring yourself to cut a song? Here's an alternative: just do the chorus and bridge of the song that's most well-known to your congregation. It can be great way to end a set or transition to a different feel.


4. Create an intentional "moment." With four songs planned instead of seven and an extra 3 minutes of margin built into your worship set, you're now able to plan for some lingering. Which song in the set would be best for that? Should you throw in an extra repeat or two? Or an quiet instrumental for scripture and reflection? Whatever it is, plan for it and practice it. That doesn't negate the Holy Spirit. It actually puts us in a better place to redirect if the Spirit leads.

So there's more that we can do to create more with less to leave them wanting more...umm, more or less. But I wanted to leave you wanting more.

Ox Percussion...

...is what we get when the aux percussionist forgets he's, well auxiliary. Big. Strong. And way too much. A Shetland pony could pull this cart. It doesn't need two yoked bovine.

Auxiliary is defined by M-W.com as

a : offering or providing help b : functioning in a subsidiary capacity

Unfortunately, who do we usually assign to auxiliary percussion?
1. The drummer who can't cut it on set, either because of inexperience or sub-par talent.
2. The person who wants to be on the team but can't play an instrument. Can you clap in time? You're in.

Chances are, both people will overplay.

I don't want to just pick on percussionists here. There's an inverse relationship between the skill/experience/maturity of any musician and the amount he or she plays. Great musicians know how to make fewer notes count for more.

I remember the first time I paid attention to a great percussionist at work. I was actually sitting behind him in the choir loft during a worship conference breakout session at a large church. During the demonstration of a ballad, he couldn't have hit a drum or a cymbal more than a dozen times in the whole song. He just sat for bars and bars waiting for the perfect moment to plink finger cymbals together. Then a light hit on the djembe rim. Then some chimes.

He knew his place. And he loved it.

Each instrument and voice, at some point, must take a subservient role - be the understated dot of icing on beautiful cake. In most songs, the aux percussionist will need to take that role.

This Worship Director video from Gateway* is a great example of a master percussionist in action.


Did you notice he doesn't even touch the congas until 2 minutes in to the song?

All this less is more stuff is important - but worship leaders, we need to remember one thing:

They still need a chance to rock out and shine.

So look for songs and sections that can be driven by your aux percussionist. It'll carry him through while he's counting the 88 bars till his next finger cymbal hit.

*by the way - this is one of my new favorite songs. It started its pre-service introduction at my church last week.