Tuesday Setlist – June 23, 2009
Posted by Jay | Filed under sing.
Sometimes you have to punt.
Our team this week consisted of myself on acoustic singing lead, David Dantzler on acoustic, Kellen Lariscy singing lead and Michele May singing background vocals. We had prepared to rehearse the following set Monday:
- Bless His Name – A – Jeremy Riddle
- Beautiful One – D – Tim Hughes
- I Have Found – D – Kim Walker
- Breathe – G – Vineyard
After running through the first song, we realized that a.) David and I do not blend well together with two acoustics like Dave and Tim Live at Luther College and b.) so many vocals with just acoustic do not blend well together like Shane and Shane. Something had to give, and I’m not a fan of pushing through rehearsal with something that sounds like a potential train wreck to begin with.
My plan b was the most difficult decision that I could have made but the easiest to execute: I simply walked off the stage. David’s intuition with lone rhythm guitar in a worship setting is improving, and I thought that the stage time would do him good. I’m always hopeful for opportunities to reproduce myself and we have just the team to do that, especially since every one of the guys that we sent off to Bethel in Cali has already served as a worship leader in some capacity.
So, after shocking the team by taking a seat, we agreed on the following set:
- Beautiful One – D – Tim Hughes
- Amazed – D – Jared Anderson
- Healer – G – Hillsong
- Breathe – G – Vineyard
Things went well. There were a couple of speed bumps. For instance, I’m encouraging whoever is leading the song to arrange it on the fly based on how the community is responding. We ended up singing the bridge in Healer too long, I felt, though that was a response to my observation during rehearsal that we only sang through it once the last time we played it and that wasn’t enough. The group responded better to the oldie-but-goodie Breathe, and that could have used more time.
We also decided to add the second verse for Amazed, which we haven’t sang in the year that we’ve been doing the song, and I suppose that went okay. I did notice more people staring up at the screens at that point.
Speaking of Amazed, I’m amazed at my continued dependence upon music stands and how distracting it is when the team stares at the sheets through the whole service. From a performance standpoint, nothing that we play is ever as complicated as Beethoven or Bach, so we can’t compare ourselves to an orchestra in order to justify using sheet music. Isn’t it easier to engage in worship when the team is engaged in worship, not reading a sheet of paper? I don’t mean to make this sound legalistic, but I believe that we’ll do a better job of leading a song that we actually know. Let’s compare it to a pastor who reads his sermon instead of reciting a message from memory, one that he has actually lived and experienced.
Fred McKinnon has graciously let me get away with using a stand on Sunday morning because, otherwise, I had to memorize chords and lyrics, which I claim to be not so good at. To be honest, this allowed me to continue my horrible habit of failing to thoroughly practice at home before rehearsal. I know from experience that I can remember the chords and lyrics to countless songs from Led Zeppelin, Weezer, REM, U2, etc, so it isn’t really a memory problem. The music stand is an odd security blanket.
I am participating in Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Setlists but, since we meet on Tuesday night, this post is really about Tuesday, see?
To fully experience this set, I suggest you obtain a copy of said songs, turn the stereo up loud, close your eyes, and lift up your hands…unless, of course, you are behind the wheel of a moving car. That could be dangerous.
One Response to “Tuesday Setlist – June 23, 2009”
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steff Says:
June 29th, 2009 at 12:40 pmWe have the same struggle with music stands (to use them, or not to use them). I agree it does look much better when music is memorized and noses aren't stuck in the sheet music. But the reality for us is that most of the people on our team….. work, have 3 kids and very little time that they can put in to memorizing songs. I hope to eventually get to the place of chucking the stands but for now we're still using them.