Playing with a Band in Worship

Brant Fuller, Mclane church worship director, talks about playing with a band in one of the refocus breakout sessions.

Technical side….
1. Always tune… always always… simple but vitally important.
2. Be an instrumentalist with one eye open. Keep your eye on the worship leader; listen to each other.
3. Practice with a click track! At least start on the right tempo!
4. Decide which instrument is the lead instrument on each song.
5. Challenge yourself to read music, and to learn how to read music. Brant prefers actual charts to chord charts, to show the specifics of how many bars are where…etc. (We have argued about this before.heheh)
6. Expand your musical style…(If you always listen to Hillsong, pull out some Isreal Houton) ect…

Personal side….
1 .Band members should be engaged in worship when they are not on a specific part , and while playing.
2. Must prepare themselves personally for worship.
3. Music is important, but if the heart stuff isn’t there..it’s worthless

Demo
The band played some examples of layering...dynamics..etc
He used the percent rule.. (for example, if there are four musicians; each play at 25% to make 100%)
The guitar player who flew in from Boca Raton in Florida (forgot his name) is smokin'..and you should be jealous that you are not listening to him right now)

Best source for charts..
Praise charts.com
They have charts for different versions of each songs...

I just found out that Brant has played trumpet for 7 years. (strange new fact)