Stop Turning Away Middle School Band Students
I’ve never known what to do with orchestral band instrumentalists who want to join the worship team. It feels like they come from a different world. But there’s hope for us! Coach Jimmy Gagliardi brings us this week’s Fertilizer and will begin to demystify this common challenge.
Do you want to have a flute solo in worship this Sunday? A nice build with some strings to add to that third time through the bridge? Want some punch on the intro from a trumpet…after all, it’s the same twelve notes that we’re already working with.
We as worship leaders have so many responsibilities. Sometimes we go weeks struggling to find musicians, but I have noticed that often we overlook beautiful sounds that are sitting in our pews. Many of our church families have instrumentalists who may have played years ago, play with other local ensembles, or (most commonly) play in marching band or school music programs. So what do I mean by “it’s the same twelve notes?”
A Change in Perspective
Well simply that, we are all playing the same twelve notes song after song… and in most cases we are only playing a collection of seven notes per song, so it’s a matter of seeing music as an idea and an art and less of a math problem that helps us understand that we can incorporate so much more into what we are doing than we thought before. The big challenge here is that they play an “orchestral” instrument that, while it sounds awesome, doesn’t easily jive into our rock band, chord chart mentality.
The question becomes “How?” How do I implement an instrument that I know nothing about? Well, the concept may be more intuitive than you think, but it requires stepping out and looking at music from a new perspective.
Let’s look at three quick ideas that help us express what we are looking for in terms that transcend a given instrument and help us arrange our music to include any player of any instrument: Goals, Fishbowls, and Roles.
Identifying our Goal
We often take for granted the idea that, as musicians coming together for worship, we all “know” what the purpose of being on the team is. But if we asked our team, I wonder what types of answers we would get. When we are dealing with something the magnitude of worshiping Our Lord, Our Savior, and Our Creator, I don’t want to leave anything up to “assumptions”. I want our team to be unified in vision and in practice for how important what we are doing is.
The foundation for that unity comes from understanding some of the whys behind what we do, and from there, we can draw musical ideas that support those goals. When it comes to goals, have plans for how each instrument can contribute to that. If we are getting louder, why is it consequential that we get louder? And from there, how can we arrange ourselves to execute that vision? Once we know “what” we are looking for, we need to know how to speak to it and how to arrange it.
Identifying our Fishbowl
Think of your world as a fishbowl. Your fishbowl is your environment, where you’re comfortable. If you have a violinist who only knows how to play sheet music, it’s silly to attempt to move that person from a fishbowl to the ocean without some significant considerations. As a worship leader, taking the time to learn how each of your musicians communicates, understands music, and musical terms can help tremendously in understanding how to speak both to where they are, but also how to begin to bridge the gap to where we could grow to be.
Learn something practical about the person’s instrument that you are trying to incorporate. Start with something that feels approachable. For instance, a trumpet player doesn’t call notes by the same name. If you ask a trumpet player to play “C”, they are actually playing “Bb.” Taking the time to learn their “fishbowl” will help you know how to talk with them when it comes to prepping or arranging. So if you’re song needs an A note played, you already know to ask them to play a B. We can’t expect musicians to feel comfortable joining us if they feel like we don’t know what to do with them (even if it’s subconscious). It feels like they aren’t really relevant to the group. But learning the fishbowl they live in helps you invite them into the bigger sound.
Identifying our Role
With a unified purpose, it’s time to get practical about implementing it. It’s here that we can see just how much instruments can shine. This is the most hands-on idea; we need to take both the vision and the communication and turn them into a role someone can grab onto and try.
Keeping with our trumpet example, most people know horns can be loud. Perhaps asking a trumpet player to slowly swell the intensity on a static note you select for each chord is a great way to bring some power into a building bridge. In a progression A, D, F#m, E, we could start as easily as the chord names if we want. Working to play a “B” (because they call it something different) low, then an “E” a little louder, then a G# even louder, and an F# really loud can create an amazing texture that no other “rock band” instrument is doing. While it seems like a lot of work for just one portion of a song, like anything else, it gets easier.
Start by adding maybe just one song in a morning once a month, but investing as much as you can to feel like the player’s contribution made an impact. Setting a reachable bar that requires some work creates excitement for how we can grow together and put in hard work that gets rewarded.
I could give tons more examples, like taking the time to have someone help you transcribe an intro lead line to sheet music so players can jump in, adding rhythmic stabs of just the tonic note on verse 2 to raise the energy… the possibilities are limitless, even though we only have the same twelve notes.
If you want more practical ideas of how to integrate your favorite middle school flute player into your worship team, be sure to come out to hear my breakout on October 18th: Integrating Non-Traditional Instruments.
-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)
Stop Turning Away Middle School Band Students (Nº 447)
