The weekend Thread

[Brian Krashpad]

Back from church, evidently given that church bigwigs will be there tomorrow, our whopping 2-3 songs per service got cut to ONE! Grr.
Chilluns, don't get me started.

On the upside, it's a GREAT song [You Are Holy (Prince Of Peace), by Michael W. Smith], and here's the fun part. After the verses, it has one part that has either a chorus or a countermelody. First time through, we [congregation and band] all do the chorus, second time we all do the countermelody.

You can guess what third time is, both together (at least for the band, the congregation will sing the chorus). The kicker is, we have 4 singers, one lead and 3 backing. Obviously (if any of you have ever heard me "sing," haha), I'm one of the backing. Our lead singer will sing the countermelody on the third run-though. Meaning the congregation, which will sing the chorus on that run-through, will be following the 3 of us.

Here's the kicker though, although technically it will in fact be the 3 of us, effectively I'ma hafta step up on that third run-though. Yep, ol' Krash leading the congregation singing, haha. THERE's a scary concept.



Here's why I hafta be da man. Of the other two backing vocalists, one is a girl. She's one of those breathy, whispery singers. Couldn't belt, or even sing at all forcefully, if you put a gun to her head, bless her. The other guy, bless him, is singing in public for (afaik) the first time! He's been taking singing lessons from one of our choir members, his teacher decided he needed to sing in public, and apparently the poor guy is scared shitless.

So, tomorrow should be interesting to say the least, haha!

Plus we are doing a bunch of songs during lunch after church, across the way over in the fellowship hall, and two of them are extreeeeeeeeeeeemely cheesy countryish ones, so I get to "sing country" for my backing vocal on those. Country-punk baybee! What's really fun is that one of them I'd never heard before, so my backing is natural harmony (or as close as I'll ever get to harmony, haha) because my subconscious hasn't been polluted with the melody yet. (As a beginning harmony singer, I find it extremely difficult to not sing melody most of the time, but on this one essentially I just pick what I guess the melody would be from the chord progression, and since my guess is not the actual melody, voila!)

If that makes any sense.

It's fun to really be looking forward to going to church! Plus I talked my daughter into playing bass both during the service and during church, and it's always more fun playing with her.

[Eric***]

What's really fun is that one of them I'd never heard before, so my backing is natural harmony (or as close as I'll ever get to harmony, haha) because my subconscious hasn't been polluted with the melody yet. (As a beginning harmony singer, I find it extremely difficult to not sing melody most of the time, but on this one essentially I just pick what I guess the melody would be from the chord progression, and since my guess is not the actual melody, voila!)

Cool stuff. When I was singing in a choir several years ago, we were supposed to just figure out our parts, and I would just sing the melody 98% of the time. As a bass.

It probably took me a good month before I got the harmony, so I can relate. Some people have an ear for it, but not me.

Hope everything went well today.

[bigoldron]

Back from church, evidently given that church bigwigs will be there tomorrow, our whopping 2-3 songs per service got cut to ONE! Grr.
Chilluns, don't get me started.

On the upside, it's a GREAT song [You Are Holy (Prince Of Peace), by Michael W. Smith], and here's the fun part. After the verses, it has one part that has either a chorus or a countermelody. First time through, we [congregation and band] all do the chorus, second time we all do the countermelody.

---

It's fun to really be looking forward to going to church! Plus I talked my daughter into playing bass both during the service and during church, and it's always more fun playing with her.

Hey I love that song Brian! I had the youth band working on it a while back but 2 of my singers quit, so that sorta knocked it in the head for now. But it IS a cool song!

I hate that about getting cut to one song too. We stopped playing for the whole month of December. Finally got started back practicing last week, but I wasn't even there today for our first performance of the new year.

But I was thinking about you this morning. We took College Girl back to school yesterday and spent the night there last night so we could go to church with her this morning. Our former pastor attends a very, upright "high church" Baptist church only a 1.5 miles from her dorm. So, my wife wanted us to go there to "check it out". I knew what was coming...

Sure enough, it was about as "old school high church" as it gets. It was a flash back (a bad one...) to 25 years ago at our church. The ministers all wore black robes with white stoles and all the music was very high church. One young girl (one of the FEW young ones) sang a beautiful song, but again it was a classical number. And NOBODY dared clap when she finished. I was really uncomfortable there. I knew it's story, but an usher came up to us before church and told us the story about how the church had split a few years earlier and built a second "vineville baptist" across town where all the "young folks" go.... I knew right then we were in trouble... LOL

Anyway we got my daughter situated and we got back home a few hours before the rain and sleet started. Kinda messy here. Rain, snow and sleet are all over Georgia and the rest of the Southeast. So tomorrow will be a fun day...

[Brian Krashpad]

Sounds like everybody had a good weekend!

Duffy: congrats on the guitar! Pics!

Eric: Yeah, I still mainly sing unison. Harmony is going to be a lonnnnnnnnng process with me. At this point, harmony is basically when I stumble on something that works, haha. I think it's a reasonable goal to be able to do, but unless I "get professional help" (I must note that I am advised to do that on almost a daily basis) it'll be slow going. But fun.

Ronnie Beth: man that's sad about that church, it reminds me of ours for sure, we still have clergy, acolytes, crucifers, communion assistants, and choir all in robes. I'm surprised they don't want the band in robes. At least on paper we have one "blended" service, but it's ridiculous that a church 5 blocks from a major land-grant university doesn't even have one all-contemporary Sunday service.

***

The song in church went well enough. What I didn't realize was that it was an "anthem"-- in other words, the congregation was not singing along. So it was just the 4 of us singing; when we split to do the countermelody portion, it was our one good singer doing the one vocal part, and the other 3 of us doing the other part. I wish I could've heard it from downstairs in the sanctuary, impossible to tell what everyone heard from up where we were (we play up in the choir loft). Though I'd be a little scared to hear it from down there, too, haha.

Oh well, sfaik no one died.

After church there was a lunch and "chili cook-off" over in the fellowship hall, so we had to bolt from church and get set up over there. We did another five songs, interspersed throughout lunch, and then repeated the one we did in church. Apparently our pro tem praise team leader led the Music Director (who is also the organist and choir director) to believe that we would play "acoustically," but in fact both guitarists used unmic'd amps and Teles (the other guy's was a HH spalted maple top, mine my butterscotch '52 RI):



So I guess the Music Director was pissed at us again. Man, I've just decided that if he ISN'T pissed at us, we're doing something wrong. The volume would've been no different had we used acoustic-electrics direct to the PA, so why should he care? Man just hates electric guitars, methinks.

Yesterday evening I had a practice with my "church" side band, Pedagogy, the one led by our ex-praise team leader. That band used to be a trio, mainly keyboards with a rhythm section, with me on bass. The leader had me switch to guitar, with my daughter added to the band and playing bass. Up until now I'd been really kinda lost at trying to make guitar work with that band.

Last night, though, finally clicked. I used the same '52 RI Tele I'd used at the chili cookoff, and my Super Champ XD into my Sunn 200S and a 2x12, which I've decided should be my rig with that band. It totally rocked, and with the possibility of lead guitar on some songs it really brings the overall energy level up a lot, because before it was all pretty contemplative. I'm really looking forward to gigging with the 4-piece version of the band now, especially since my daughter is a member now too.

So Sunday was a good day of music-playin'!

[Duffy]

Krash,

Sounds like your music director is more like your Music Inquisitor. Maybe you should come out with robes on and set up right up in front, rock music style. I'm sure that would be sacreligious.

Some of these church people just plain don't want to see amps and drums and guitar cords, guitars, etc. taking a significant role in their cultural religious ceremony; which is a little strange, because the church going demographic is changing. It's not all old people anymore, a lot of the people grew up with rock music and are parents, etc. now. So I would think the generational gap with the old people is significantly eroded as time has gone by. Maybe that minority of older people controls the motion in the church, but I doubt it. I think the resistance to rock music, etc., is coming from a cultural angle, where the younger generation, influenced by rock music, is compartmentalizing the appropriate places for rock music and is resistant to allowing it to flourish in church settings. Almost every church I have heard of has open resistance against rock type music groups performing in church - or at least they do everything they can to minimalize them. On the other hand they will play CDs and DVDs of heavily rocked up music over their AV systems and everyone is gleeful. I think it's a visual thing, seeing what looks like a rock band actually set up in church flips the negative resistant switches in their psyche. Therefore, you show up out of sight in the loft, are told to play only one song, told to play only acoustic guitars - probably with the assumption that you won't bring amps, etc.

The contemporary service is a possible solution, but it serves to split the congregation. Maybe one solution will be to find or form whole new churches that are more contemporary in their fundamental structure, not based upon inflexible traditions and expectations, such is the case with many churches, denomonational organizations, such and such -ist conventions, etc. So when the heirarchy shows up many of the leadership figures scramble to cave in to whatever the suspected expectations may be, and they are probably usually wrong in their assumptions.

I think most churches actually want to be more "forward" looking and want to draw in contemporary and prospective members from younger groups. The function and responsibility of the rock band type presence in the church is a major element in reaching out to new members, along with great youth groups and other interesting activities.

I don't think it is fair to you guys in the bands that are literally pouring your souls into your church efforts, to be minimalized and not paid your deserved respect. It's like they are doing you a favor to let you play there, against some kind of unspoken odds.

Good luck to all you guys that are trying so hard and probably don't feel very appreciated.

[bigoldron]

I don't think it is fair to you guys in the bands that are literally pouring your souls into your church efforts, to be minimalized and not paid your deserved respect. It's like they are doing you a favor to let you play there, against some kind of unspoken odds.

Good luck to all you guys that are trying so hard and probably don't feel very appreciated.

Thanks Duffy! We're gonna keep on plugging and playing, because we're gonna get even with them by outliving them.... LOL

[Brian Krashpad]

Thanks Duffy! We're gonna keep on plugging and playing, because we're gonna get even with them by outliving them.... LOL

Haha, yeah, that's the plan, man!

It would be nice to be appreciated, and some people do, but more importantly, it's really important for the survival of many churches for them to offer a meaningful worship experience to their younger parishioners. I fear that our particular congregation is being peculiarly short-sighted in not having at least one fully-contemporary Sunday service to offer. As much as I grew up with traditional church music, fewer and fewer people have done so. They are simply not going to be comfortable with a bunch of men in floor-length gowns preaching in between attempting to sing hard-to-sing, old hymns played on a pipe organ.

Our prior church (same denomination, mind you, across town) had a full contemporary service for some ten years while I was there. My wife can no longer get excited about services filled with pipe organ music, even if a couple bones are thrown to modernity along the way, and I can't really blame her.

Sigh. Practice in the choir loft at 10 a.m. tomorrow!

[bigoldron]

Haha, yeah, that's the plan, man!

It would be nice to be appreciated, and some people do, but more importantly, it's really important for the survival of many churches for them to offer a meaningful worship experience to their younger parishioners. I fear that our particular congregation is being peculiarly short-sighted in not having at least one fully-contemporary Sunday service to offer. As much as I grew up with traditional church music, fewer and fewer people have done so. They are simply not going to be comfortable with a bunch of men in floor-length gowns preaching in between attempting to sing hard-to-sing, old hymns played on a pipe organ.

Our prior church (same denomination, mind you, across town) had a full contemporary service for some ten years while I was there. My wife can no longer get excited about services filled with pipe organ music, even if a couple bones are thrown to modernity along the way, and I can't really blame her.

Sigh. Practice in the choir loft at 10 a.m. tomorrow!

I agree Brian. Even though it's all worship, and like it or not, for a church to attract more younger families, we have to give more "entertainment value" to our services. This is the generation that group with cable and satellite TV, MTV, the internet, video game consoles and tons of other ways of warping your mind. The old school, solemn worship services just won't bring them in, so we've got to modernize and do what we can to reach them.

Good luck with your situation. You might want to even consider going back to your old church, which I hate to recommend leaving anyone's current church, but sometime you have to...

[Duffy]

Concerning playing guitar in the hospital or clinic: I was in the hospital for nine days with my last surgery and I bought my Gibson SG and had it in my hospital bed the whole time. I had picked up a Vox AmpPlug Lead version and used a set of earphones and plugged in my CD player and jammed along to CDs. It worked great and didn't bother anyone but gave me a lot of relief. When the pain got too intense I didn't play much, but when I was feeling half way decent I played a lot.

I was in a lot of pain with a fourteen inch lateral incision in my left side and had deep surgery, involving a lot of internal manipulation of some of my organs, bleeding, cutting thru thick scar tissue, etc. After going to the step down unit they had to take me off of the morphine pump because my blood pressure was droping really low. This was a bummer because they put me on two percocets every four hours, which meant I was in heavy pain after the first two hours. I was counting the minutes until the next percocet dose after that. That was some serious pain to endure, and I walked many miles around those corridors while enduring that heavy pain. Very slowly the pain eased up. That was about two years ago now.

I hope you start to feel less pain and can get back more towards normal soon. I'll be praying for you man. You seem to have an unsupressably positive attitude.

[deeaa*]

Oh just noticed the school has a wecam as well, overlooking the town 'side'
http://weather.savonia-amk.fi/?sivu=webcam