Jun. 22, 2010

I’ve been a church music director professionally for a little over a decade and I can say that things have changed - a lot.  Part of what has changed, of course, is me.  I didn’t have a clue (musically) as to what I was doing when I first started out.  I remember my transcribing efforts.  First of all, they were on paper.  This, for any beginner is a terrible thing because you mess up a lot.  When you realize that you’ve left a measure out (for example), there are no keystrokes to “add a measure”, so you have to start again from scratch.  Truly, it develops character.  Or insanity.  When I finally learned about Finale (musical transcription software) it took me quite a while to understand the program.  When I finally started getting the hang of things I became bold.  I charted a lot.  Looking back, my charts were terrible.  Not only were they bad musically, but I consistently spelled “rhythm” wrong.  That’s right, font size 24 top left corner of the page said “Rythm Chart”.  I like to think I’ve come a long way.  If not, at least I finally learned how to spell “Rhythm”.

I remember trying to purchase charts back in those days.  You could find the piano/vocal chart or lead sheet but that was about it.  I called Integrity music about it one time.  I wanted to purchase some horn charts, but I was told that they didn’t exist because the players just kind of made it up as they went.  Seriously.  I told them they were wrong and if they really wanted to be equipping the church for corporate worship like they said, they would sell me those horn charts.  Since they wouldn’t, I would hire people to chart orchestrations for me and would pay a pretty penny.

Now, you can purchase charts. Praise Charts provides full orchestrations for about $35 - Amazing!  You can buy sequences from them as well which I’ve used frequently.  Not only that, but you can actually purchase the “stems” for recordings from another company (Interactive Worship Live).  I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that I can have the horn section (from the original recording) play with me and the band without having a horn player anywhere in sight.  With the use of a “click track” (metronome) in my ear, I can have a full orchestra if I want.

This brings me to the real point about this entry - FEAR.  The fear that comes with using time/tempo sensitive material in a live setting.  I use sequences and live tracks often.  But I am usually quite afraid.  While there is a tremendous advantage to having these tools available, there is also the realization that if any one of us messes up, the computer will not get back on track with us.  It is up to us to get back on track with it.  It is the master, we are the slaves.

I have had 2 bad experiences.  One worse than the other.

1.  I used to frequent a website called “Homestarrunner”.  I downloaded a set of sounds from it to use with my operating system.  For example, when I would receive an e-mail it would say “eeeeemail.” You have to know the voice to understand how great that is.  Instead of the “bonk” sound that would come up when I tried to do something unallowable on my computer, I had Homestar say “Oops.  You bwoke it!”.  Marisa and I were leading worship at our church one Sunday night about a year ago.  It was a really slow moment in the service and we were about to transition into another slow song.  I moved the mouse to get the sequence ready and hit something I wasn’t suppose to (or something like that).  Apparently I had forgotten to mute my notification sounds.  VERY loudly, in this VERY soft moment came “Oops. You bwoke it!”.  I totally pretended that I had no clue how it had happened.  But, from the facial expressions from some of the worshippers, I knew they watch Homestarrunner too.

That was not the bad story.

2.  It was the night before Christmas.  Well, a few nights before Christmas.  I was to perform “Angels We Have Heard On High” with another guy from the church.  The song is an incredible arrangement originally performed by Josh Groban and Brian McKnight.  The song is guitar and orchestra.  I didn’t have the budget to hire an orchestra so I had my friend Sean (fabulous jazz guitarist) transcribe the arrangement and I spent a good deal of time sequencing it (creating the orchestral sounds on my computer to play with live).  It was going to be great.  We went through dress rehearsal and got comments like “that is going to be the highlight of the evening”.  Beware of comments like this.  The drummer, who also happened to be running the sequences asked the question, “what happens if you get off track?  Do you want me to turn the sequence off”?  It was at this point that I realized that I was probably relying too heavily on the sequence as it dawned on me that at one point only the orchestra (read computer) was playing - nothing live.  The guitarist, being wise, said “No.  Keep it playing.  If we get off there’s the section where the orchestra plays alone which will get us back on track”.  Excellent.  In case of emergency - we had a plan.  The concert came and it was game time.  Within the first few measures of the song one of us got off by one beat.  We desperately tried to get back on track but it wasn’t working.  Standing there in front of all those people I was mentally trying to stay calm, but I was totally panicked.  Oh well, we had the orchestral interlude to get us back on track.  One problem.  The drummer saw that I was panicked and thought that I wanted him to shut the track off.  The track went off which left me with one though - “OH NO!  In about 20 seconds all that is suppose to be playing is the track…we are headed for dead silence”.  This ship was going down.  As the verse was ending I did the only thing I knew to do - I walked away to signal to the guitarist and the other singer that it was over.  We had reached the point of no return.  It was the worst 70 seconds of “Angels We Have Heard On High” ever.  The others involved in this catastrophic moment shall remain nameless.  We were in it together.

So there you have it.  I use sequences and tracks during performances and even while leading worship, but not without fear and trembling.  While things work out for me 99% of the time, it’s the 1% I worry about - really worry about.

Do you use sequences or tracks?  Anybody else afraid out there?  Horror stories anyone?