Our First Rehearsal…
This is part four in what will become a series of posts following the creation and evolution of SHINE, a contemporary worship service at Glenwood Presbyterian Church. You can find the table of contents here.
On May 2, 2006, Christian Endeavor practiced for the first time. At that time, it was just me, my wife Jeana, and our fearless drummer Kevin. The plan was to get a couple of songs together for our first public spectacle/performance after a Sunday evening worship service on June 25, 2006. Kevin brought along a Strawberry Shortcake tape recorder/singing machine to record our efforts (its unclear as to whether his daughter Sarah actually gave permission for the use of her equipment for this.) And we had an audience of sorts - Debbie had come to babysit our children, and Kevin’s wife Jennifer and mother-in-law Sylvia were present as well. No one quite knew what to expect, but things went relatively well.
To: Brian and Debbie
From: Kevin
May 4, 2006
Subject: CE — The Good, The Bad (and the Ugly)Hi gang,
Good news and bad news:
Bad news is that the Strawberry Shortcake tape recorder was a failure from the git-go. I now understand that the Smurf tape recorder is the one recommended by Consumer Reports
The good news:
1. Sarah sure had a blast. She told me on the way home she wants to LIVE at Glenwood.
2. It turns out we really impressed Sylvia. Jennifer says she went home and really bragged on our sound to Lyn (no kidding). This says a lot, since Sylvia attends Calvary (with Jennifer) and is accustomed to hearing their very professional 25-piece rock band. Jennifer said she really thought we sounded great too. These reviews are way beyond anything we were really attempting. I was just curious to see if we could start a song, and then finish the song, all at approximately the same point. So I am encouraged to say the least.
3. Jennifer may have located a guitar player for us. He is a 20-year-old from ASU (”Josh”) who presently attends Calvary Church. I spoke with him today by phone, and he is THOROUGHLY excited about the prospect of joining us. Jennifer met him in a restaurant, and it turns out he is the son of Jennifer’s friend “Diane” from Calvary. He told Jennifer he knows both “Word of God Speak” and “Never Been Unloved.” Of course we’ve not heard him play yet. He is sending me a CD of some of his guitar work, however. He also plays bass (to some degree anyway), some piano, and piccolo (I am not making that up). He can also sing harmony, he tells me. Apparently our project is “just what he is looking for.” So we’ll see…
4. Listening to the Strawberry Shortcake tape, I believe we need to go back and listen to the CD again on “Word of God Speak” — we had some sort of a disconnect between the lyrics and the piano score. And on “Never Been Unloved” I did a poor job on the tempo (if I try to wear finger picks on the guitar I tend to push things a bit).
5. I don’t know when anyone might want to schedule another rehearsal. But I have two more songs I would like to try, and they are numbers 3 and 4 (or 4 and 5??) on the CD Brian made. We will definitely need a guitar on these. But let me let you guys pick our next song or two.
So, it wasn’t exactly Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Simon Cowell, but at least we didn’t completely fall flat on our faces. We scheduled another rehearsal and recruited Josh Furr and my niece, Sammie Jo Beasley (soon to be Sammie Jo McCluskey) to play with us. Both were very good guitar players, although neither really wanted to play bass guitar.
As a band, we began to start thinking about basic things like where everyone was going to stand, and what equipment we needed to get, along with some advanced topics like the following points raised by Kevin…
As we begin thinking about some sort of a playlist, it occurs to me that song material could be planned in two categories:
“Performance” numbers, such as the ones we’ve been focusing on (Word of God Speak / My Savior My God, etc.); and
“Group” (much simpler) numbers that are easily done by a congregation in sing-along mode. Calvary Church does the sing-alongs by displaying lyrics across large TV screens (I am trying to compile from the screen the “small credit” info identifying where this music may be found, such as “worshiptogether.com.” — you may already have some ideas on this).
One mistake many bands make is to have every available musician playing every note of every single song exactly the same way as every other song from start to finish. Result: songs sound repetitious, and with a boring “sameness” to the playlist. I would like for you and Jeana to help us begin giving some thought to how we can best discipline ourselves and avoid this pitfall. For example, certainly every song won’t need drums. Similarly, if we have a prominent rhythm guitar featured on a particular number, the “full” piano can yield a bit, or completely; or be used for effects such as strings (or to cover a bridge; or by adding a “flourish” here and there, that kind of thing). By the same token, on a pure piano song such as “Word of God Speak,” we won’t need a rhythm guitar cluttering up the mid-ranges. And vocals can be addressed the same way. For example, in “Word of God Speak,” what if Jeana or Sammie Jo were to step up and do a verse? Or in “Awesome God,” what if all the instruments dropped out in the second verse and several vocalists continued the song acapella* (then the instruments could be brought back in one by one for a “building” effect). There are so many creative things that can be done that make songs fun and interesting (and unique), and yet so many bands fail to ever take advantage of the opportunities. Obviously we have our hands full now just learning chords, tempo, stops and starts, and so forth. But let’s begin making some mental notes about how to best choreograph these songs as we go along.
Meanwhile, we kept fishing for a bass player and started focusing in on our June 25th “gig.” The only problem was that we didn’t realize that God didn’t want us to perform on June 25th - He was going to put us on stage at the right time and date for His purposes. But that’s a topic for the next installment.
Written by Brian Beasley.
"But seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." Matt. 6:33
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