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Text-Fessional for July 8, 2007

First, a little business… We have three new members on the praise team and one only a couple of practices away. Ally and Sophie have joined as singers, and Aaron (Sophie’s bro) will be playing keys with us. Soon will have an additional drummer (Logan) as well. The more the merrier. While I understand the benefit of having one team, I certainly think in a youth setting, having as many students as possible involved on a rotating basis is the best way to go… Builds community, develops servants, that sort of thing.

On to the set.

After a strong practice on Thursday, I was very optimistic about the set this week. We have increased efficiency and productivity. Where we used to have problems getting through 3 songs in 2 hours, we rolled through 4 songs in an hour this week. Which left time for goofing around, tightening things up, working on new fills / feels, making songs our own… you know… chemistry stuff.

Sunday AM Practice was much the same. We actually ran through the set twice, once to time it… then to tighten. There wasn’t much to tighten this time around other than dynamics and vocals, which Amy helped out on immensely.

Meet With Me (Ten Shekel Shirt) - A (key): Simple song. Josh had a nice little hook for the intro and chorus that admittedly was a bit southern rock/ third day-ish, but it fit. We also through in a guitar solo that he handled nicely. At times he tends to try to shred too much, but this one had nice phrasing.

Wholly Yours (Crowder) - A: One of my favs. Could’ve used some stronger harmony, but Faith and Ally are still learning how to put up with my inconsistencies (which are sometimes on purpose and sometimes aren’t) so its forgivable. They both did really well over all. There is one piece musically that lasts for literally 1.5 counts that we just couldn’t nail as a band in practice so I didn’t force the issue. It’s one of those subtle things that if you don’t do it, no one will notice, but if you do it everyone’s kinda like “Woah, that was cool” but then it’s over so they can’t be distracted too much by it.

Never Let Go (Redman) - B: I can’t decide if Redman is 1a and Crowder is 1b or the other way around. You can have your Hillsongs, your Hillsongs United, your Tomlin… give me Redman, Crowder, and Brewster. Anyway, I intro’d this last week on acoustic and threw it down with the whole band this week. It went really well. Unfortunately the way it is designed it can go on forever if I’m not careful. We even joked about it a little in the AM practice, so I had to focus and make sure I didn’t repeat the chorus too much. My favorite part of the song lyrically is the “bridge”

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on / And there will be and end to these troubles but until that day comes / Still I will praise you / Still I will Praise You

So instead of overdoing the Chorus, we revisited the bridge one extra time. It worked well.

Consuming Fire (Hughes) - G: The whole version of this song is great, but I intro’d it this week as a partial with the Chorus and Bridge only (I’m not sure the bridge is originally part of the song, but I learned it with it in there)… turned it into a bit of a vamp song which the band loves, myself included. I’m not sure how it is received from the worshipping students, though, it’s difficult to tell. I think I will seek some feedback on this, maybe teach the full version to play regularly, and use the vamp version in certain situations that call for a vamp song.

Bottom Line: I think putting Wholly Yours and Never Let Go together may be a mistake. They are both great songs, but they both tend to turn into anthem style songs. In retrospect, one anthem style song per standard set is enough, so I’ll need to watch out for that.

The Matey’s (mostly the usual suspects):
Acoustic / Vox - Me
Female Vox - Faith and Ally (debut!)
Electric Guitar - Josh
Bass - Travis
Drums - James

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Category : Church, Music, X:Worship, Youth