Dear [[{First name}]],

Welcome to the January Musicademy Newsletter.

In this edition:

Ask the Expert
Leading small group worship

Mitzi Barker from Chugiak, Alaska emails:

“We spend a lot of time learning about leading a band, working with technology etc, to lead worship in a church or stage setting. What are your recommendations for leading worship in a small group setting of 10 people or so?”

The wonderful thing about worshipping in small groups is that there is so much more opportunity for everyone to contribute or ‘bring an offering’ to the worship time and so much less pressure to be ‘the professional worship leader’. Where many people come unstuck is by trying to do things that are too complicated or lead worship like they like they are in a much larger venue than they really are. Noel Richards once relayed a story where he had led ‘stadium’ worship in a house group and it didn’t quite translate!

On a practical level, you may want to take songs down at least a tone from the original key perhaps even more in the mornings or change it altogether if you have a single sex group. For instance a stereotypical mans voice is in Eb whereas a stereotypical woman’s range centers around Bb. Quite a difference, but look at some of the worship songs written by women, many are in Bb, e.g. Shout To The Lord. So perhaps in that scenario think of songs that are written in the keys of A, B or C. Not a fixed rule, but a good start. Also I’d probably not choose anything too rangy in a small group either.

Also it’s amazing how much we rely on the OHP these days and forget even the most well known lyrics. If you haven’t got that luxury in a small group then choose songs with familiar words and don’t be afraid to constantly cue the words of the next line out loud before they happen. It really does inspire confidence in your worshippers and they will sing more loudly!

As far as which songs to choose, many people graduate toward older songs for smaller groups. Far from just trying to be nostalgic, there is often good sense to this as many of our more recent songs are built around a band sound with long pauses between words, anthemic choruses that need lots of people singing loudly to make them really fly and a big sound that doesn’t necessarily translate to a single acoustic instrument or even just voices. So if you choose simple, memorable songs that are possible to sing without any instruments at all, then the voices should carry it and any accompaniment you ad is a bonus.

Lastly, small groups are a great opportunity to get everyone involved and a wonderful antidote to ‘spectator sport’ worship. It may take constant encouragement to get people to contribute if their not used to it, and gives them opportunity to listen to the Lord and ‘bring an offering’ in a supportive environment.

Ask the Expert
Using chord charts to learn new songs

Esther Morford from Colorado in the US asks

“Many times I am handed a sheet that has words and chords; that's all. No lead line, no time signature, no key signature, and I don't know the song. How do I handle that situation?“

This is a difficult situation and one which is common place in many churches. The truth is that it’s very, very difficult to figure out a song from just words and chords. Try to insist that the person introducing the song lets you have a recorded version to go with the chords, preferably a few days ahead of when you actually introduce the song to the congregation. Make sure the whole band has access to the same recorded version. I’ve been in many situations where each band member knows a different version with a different feel or groove that’s produced an interesting live hybrid arrangement! Also get the person bringing the song to check that the chord chart is in the same key as the recorded version AND if you are changing the key to make it easier to sing then provide a further set of chords to anyone who’s not good at transposing. This will save time and emergency prep just before the service. Remember, good rehearsals are much more productive when they focus on getting the band to gel with a song and rather than learning the song itself which can be done beforehand in each players’ own time.

Also if you are more familiar with a full music score rather than a chord chart it’s a good idea to count through the beats of the bar against the words as you listen to the song and mark off a bar line on every 1st beat which will give you a better ‘roadmap’ of the structure.

CCLI’s Song Select is the best tool I’ve found to help get round this. It’s an online system where you can select any one of 88,000 songs, print out charts, lead sheets or full score in any key, listen to melody and harmony lines via midi and it links to a 30 second segment of a definitive recorded version of the song so you can hear what it should sound like in a band context.

Free tickets for Musicademy workshops at the Christian Resources Exhibition

Musicademy has been working with the UK’s Christian Resources Exhibition who are wanting to make their seminars as practical as possible. We will be at the Heart of England CRE in Telford on 21-23 February. As well as exhibiting in the resources area Marie, Andy and vocals tutor Gayle Bamberger will be running a number of training seminars and workshops.

Tickets are normally £5 on the door but you can order them free-of-charge through our website.

On the Saturday afternoon, we will be running a 2.5 hour workshop delivering practical training for the whole worship team. It will be packed with ideas to help your worship team play together more cohesively and improve their sound and skills. Suitable for the whole team, the workshop is in four parts:

  • Vocals training – improve your vocal skills and learn to communicate the meaning of the words by exploring how we sing.
  • Building the groove – a practical session on how to make your band sound together and improve their arrangements by deconstructing rhythm patterns (bring guitars if you like)
  • Tips and discussion on worship leading skills, musical communication, creating a unified team and maximizing the effectiveness of your sound checks and rehearsals
  • Worship team Q & A - bring your questions

Marie will be presenting a seminar on the Thursday looking at releasing creativity in church beyond musical worship. With the average attention span reducing at an alarming rate, traditional service formats can fail to capture the full attention of their congregation. Many churches are keen to integrate 21st century culture and media into their services to help their people fully engage and also reach out to the wider community. This seminar will demonstrate some low cost achievable ideas to fire your creativity considering innovative ways of exploring classic themes. We will also consider the issues that such a change raises.

On the Friday Marie will be presenting a training session to resource church administrators. The seminar will look at the various aspects of church administration exploring:

  • The main challenges administrators face including the dreaded task of managing the rota.
  • How to use technology to best accomplish tasks and communicate effectively
  • Time management techniques
  • Establishing boundaries and the art of delegation
  • Using project management tools and techniques to organise events and projects
  • The administrator in leadership Click through to our webstore to order your free tickets and exhibition brochure.

The Musicademy product portfolio

We’ve had a few requests to run through our portfolio of products. Obviously everything is on our website but here’s a quick summary instrument by instrument.

Guitar - X3 Beginners and X3 Intermediate Worship Guitar DVDs. Each DVD is a couple of hours’ long and includes interviews with worship leaders, quick tips, drum grooves and backing tracks as well as lots of helpful on screen graphics. Beginners 1 is for complete beginners, volumes 2 and 3 for people that know a few chords and want to improve. Intermediate is really for more experienced players who have typically been playing competently for several years and want to progress beyond the plateau they have reached. Sandwiched between Beginners and Intermediate are the x3 Song Learner DVDs. These each contain lessons teaching you how to play six or seven popular worship songs REALLY well. You’ll find all sorts of hints, tips, cheat chords, new strumming and picking patterns that will transform your playing of that song and also give you loads of ideas to apply elsewhere. Song Learners are also available as individual downloads on the website.

There are some helpful downloadable workbooks to go with the Beginners DVDs that introduce some of the Song Learner lessons at appropriate points and also recommend some of our online rock & pop guitar lessons.

Keyboards - X4 Beginners and X3 Intermediate Worship Keyboard DVDs. Each DVD is at least two hours’ long and as with the guitar DVDs includes interviews with worship leaders, quick tips and backing tracks as well as lots of helpful on screen graphics. Beginners 1 is for complete beginners, the later volumes ideal for people who already play a little. All the keyboard DVDs are teaching you to play using chords rather than following a musical score – great for a contemporary worship band sound.

There are also a set of Keyboard Song Learner lessons available from our website as individual downloads. There are lessons at different levels of difficulty and each will take you through the song showing chords, voicings, rhythm plus ideas for interesting fills.

Vocals - A box set of X4 Worship Vocals DVDs ideal for anyone who wants to improve their singing ability. There are different sets of warm up exercises on each DVD and lessons covering all essential need to know areas including breathing, harmony skills, head and chest voice, vibrator, spontaneous singing and music theory. Taught by Kate Silbur, previous head of vocals at Nexus, Europe’s largest Christian music college, these DVDs are great for worship leaders as well as backing vocalists and congregational singers.

We also have two CDs available, one containing 26 vocals warm up exercises and the other is more of a “work out” with exercises designed to stretch your range whilst improving your tone and power.

Bass - We have three Beginners and three Intermediate bass DVDs currently being manufactured. They will be available on our website in the next couple of weeks and we’ll give a detailed review in the next newsletter.

Drums- Filming for our drum DVDs is now complete and we are just starting on the long task of editing. We hope to have them available by around Easter. As well as the Beginner and Intermediate DVDs we will also be releasing a drum warm up CD.

Future plans - We will be filming more guitar Song Learner lessons as well as releasing three bass Song Learner DVDs. Our major project this year, however, will be a band skills DVD. We’re still in the planning stages right now but we know from feedback that there is a huge need for practical teaching in band skills.

Competition result

Matthew Blake from Houston won last month’s competition. Here is what he wrote:

”I think your newsletter is fantastic. It's timely, and always read top to bottom. I was given the Intermediate Worship DVD set as a birthday present. I absolutely love it! It has definitely made me a better player, and in a matter of weeks not months. I feel more confident playing in public with pentatonics, 6ths, and other fret board tricks now up my sleeve. Thanks Andy and team for the inspiration and guidance.”

Matthew also asked a question about electric guitar pick-ups. We’ll be answering that in a future issue.

We’ve also heard from Dwight Parker who won the November competition. Here is what he told us about his prize:

I downloaded different lessons at differing levels to sample so that I could possibly recommend them to the members of my church praise team as well as the youth band. It was very important to me that the lessons be accessible for people with varying levels of proficiency.

[[I was more than satisfied with the lessons. "All Creatures of Our God and King" is one that we have done previously, but without the more colorful, intricate picking. We had previously had the keyboard player fill in that part, as it was tough for me to fill in that as well as sing lead. The way that the video systematically lays out the lick was so that it actually made the part simple, yet it still sounds intricate and beautiful. The video put that song back on the set list.

To continue with that theme, "I Can Sing of Your Love Forever" had the same effect. That song had basically been retired until I watched the video. The droning, flowing way the song is played there really reintroduced that song to me. I would tell anyone not to hesitate to download a song video that you "already know". The possibilities for that song were expanded greatly and even when our youth band now does that song, it sounds more full and exotic. Very nice, I couldn't have been more pleased.

Lastly, there was "Vertigo" which I must admit, I did as a simple guilty pleasure song for myself. This video was magnificent. It took a song that I really had almost dismissed as ear candy and by breaking it into its components deepened my appreciation. There's just something about a great rhythm riff that is just universal.

In short, these instructional song videos are well worth the price and your time. I have, and will continue to recommend these to my friends and the members of my worship team. What other DVDs and downloads claim to provide these actually deliver, and more. Thank you so much, Musicademy for providing this service and your ministry to the church worldwide.

Win Five Free Song Learner Downloads

We really like to know what you think of our newsletter and the Musicademy products so please take a couple of minutes to answer these questions and e-mail them to us. One respondent will win five free song learner downloads and we’ll let you know what they think of them in the next issue.

  1. What did you think of this newsletter?
  2. Which articles did you particularly enjoy?
  3. Any questions for our “Ask the Expert” feature?
  4. Any suggestions for content that you would like to read in the future?
  5. Any suggestions for websites we could recommend people?
  6. Have you bought a Musicademy product or downloaded a lesson and what did you think of it?

Please e-mail your responses to enter the draw!

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