We struggle with music in our church. We have a lovely and talented organist, but he only comes in the evening. We have a Ministry Trainee who plays the guitar, but not all songs suit the guitar, and Rocky often has other things to do of a Sunday morning. There’s another lady who plays sometimes but she often plays at other churches.
So mostly we have cds. And midi files. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to plan a service where you have to factor in ‘have we got a singable version of that on cd?’ but it complicates matters enormously.
Often the Vicar will come through humming a tune and I will mention how much I love that song and he’ll tell me how suitable it is for the theme of the service. And then he’ll have to choose something else because the version we have in our (now rather extensive) Christian music collection is utterly dire. Or it’s a version from a conference with far too much fancy twiddling in between the verses. *sigh*
We are continually praying that the Lord would send us some musicians, but since we’ve been here the best bet looks like training up the Vicarage kids into a band. But the Engineer, although the best pianist amongst them, is still only six. So in the meantime we keep on buying cds and smiling at anyone we meet who plays anything.
I was prompted to blog about our church music when Rachel tagged me in a meme. I’m not normally a memer (? is that a word?) and I notice that Rachel didn’t answer the question herself!
Please try to name ONE (I know, there are so many to choose from) CCM [Contemporary Christian Music – I know, I didn’t know what it was either] praise song that you find unbearable and at least 2-3 reasons why, pointing to specific lyrics if you must.
Since the Vicar mainly chooses the songs at church we don’t actually suffer from songs that we can’t bear very much at all. There are a few old faves of the congregation that wouldn’t make my top ten, but I’m glad to sing them for the encouragement they bring to others and the gusto with which they are belted out. So I’m struggling to think of a song that’s unbearable too. Apart from this, which isn’t actually unbearable either – it’s gone past unbearable and out the other side:
I know I posted this before. But it was ages ago. And sometimes I need to be reminded that having musicians who can play instruments isn’t everything. Although if you’re reading this and have musical gifts and think you could serve a small inner city church in easy commuting distance of Birmingham, in a parish where 3 bedroomed terraced houses can be purchased for £90,000, we would be overjoyed to hear from you…
The Vicar's Wife 
I am struggling a lot at the moment with a song we are singing every week at StAG. It’s a new tune for To God Be The Glory. I know I am a conservative reactionary who hates change but honestly, I can’t see that there was anything wrong with the old tune, and the new one is dirge-like and dull beyond belief apart from one line in the chorus that is ridiculously complicated and no one can get right. I mostly find myself singing ‘blah, blah, blah, blah’ because it seems to fit so well.
Was that the one sung on Songs of Praise last night?? In which case I sympathise. Like you I much prefer the old but livelier tune!!!!
Ha! At our little church we sing along to CDs – often on the song sheet there will be a warning like, “mad instrumental”, or “surprise key-change”. So hard to find a balance. Our three year old has insisted on bringing drumsticks and his mini guitar recently. I think that’s put people off real musicians even more!
Something we’ve struggled with for years … we’ve muddled along somehow. But while my husband is on sabbatical, I’ve been visiting local churches each Sunday … and I’m sure now that bad music is worse than no music at all!
Those instrumentals on CDs are very frustrating. A perfectly good song for listening to in the car, but cannot be sung with others because we all have to stand there looking sheepish while someone rocks out.
I’d be interested if you posted a list of good songs and the CDs that can be used.
Tim, there is a list that is being developed. We are now trying to add to it every week, having tried the songs in church. It might be worth releasing in a few months!
At the moment I’m running a sound desk at my Church.
During any song I have up to 4 singer microphone feeds, the worship leader (also pianist) microphone feed, the piano feed, the keyboard (slaved to the piano to create more depth of chords) feed, The Pastors radio microphone feed (must be muted for songs – honestly), The pastors electric guitar feed, the other electric guitar feed, the front of stage microphone (pressed into service as a boom mic for the 2nd guitarist) feed.
All of these feeds go through a mixing desk where they join optional feeds from CD, PC, MP3 etc. All have about 10 twiddly little knobs that do strange things to the sound of you play with them during the service. (Occasionally creating a feedback screach that wakes the congregation up)
They also have volume sliders (which give you a chance to mute singers who do strange things to the tune during the service). Just to top it off we also have a drum kit which can be played when either of our two drummers aren’t working. That doesn’t have a feed but its amazing what a full size drum kit in a small church can do to your earwax.
How would I feel about being forced to go back to a church which played the best of Hillsong through an old stereo?
Some mornings? – Oh. Yes. Please…
Thanks everyone for your comments. Our song words are projected, so it might be a bit strange to put ‘mad instrumental’ up there Alicecrumbs, but I have to say that it is *extremely* tempting!
Thank you for posting the clip, which certainly livened up lunchtime on our day off, stuck at home with an ill child. The Rector didn’t believe that this was an original clip, he thought it was a send-up until I did enough research to persuade him.
The Rector likes to collect examples of terrible songs, although not for using in church, I hasten to add, just his own personal amusement. The current favourites are “G.I.V.E with generosity” (has a terrible line about giving from the hip) and “Higher higher higher, lift up Jesus higher” (which continues, “Lower, lower, lower Satan lower”), although I don’t think either of these can quite compete with the “writing silly songs” line in your clip!
We are blessed with an excellent organist, and enough other musical people around that we would be unlikely to never have any “live” music. Other churches in the team struggle more, especially with modern music, and the CD option is the only solution sometimes.
At our last church, we very occasionally used the backing tracks CDs for some kids songs for midweek services/clubs when the guitar-playing rector wasn’t around – although you do need someone to lead the singing to know when to come in! And they do go on a bit! “Our God is a great big God” is really good except that the chorus is repeated about 5 times at the end!
I need a copy of G.I.V.E!
I’ll ask the Rector to send it to you!
Greetings! We are tearing our hair out trying to find the chords and melody for “G.I.V.E with generosity” by Ishmael (Ian Smale). We need them for this Sunday the 27th of March and it is now the 24th of March – yikes! If anyone can supply them we would be very grateful. Many thanks, Frustrated in Wye
Try asking Ish direct
ishmael@ishmael.org.uk http://www.ishmael.org.uk/whoisish.php
Ish is Deacon Ish at Chichester Cathedral nowadays
Thanks Alastair – hope the info below helps, Jo!
Hi, in one of our last churches we had a very elderly organist who I have to say was starting to get a bit past playing in the services due to her hearing starting to deteriorate. This led for some entertainment in the service and left a lot to be desired. In another 2 of the churches they used cd backing tracks which seemed to work quite well, in the rest we had reasonable organists. The cds didn’t cause too many problems probably because the congregations preferred the traditional hymns. We wait to see what the music is like in our new parishes, the induction service for the vicar is on Sunday
This subject really stirs the comments! I agree with Jackie that backing tracks (like ‘No organist no problem’) are much easier for hymns. Although at our last church we had a Digi-hymnal which played things in such a strict metre that the congregation was always ahead or lagging, depending on the hymn.
I’m cracking up at the metal image of everyone looking embarrassed while the singer ‘rocks out’ on a CD! We also have lots of CDs but somehow it actually works – mind you, our vicar is v gifted at picking good songs.
The song of late years that really grated was one that sometimes happened at family services whilst at college with a line about Jesus saying ‘he’s great and he’s my mate’. Friend of sinners, maybe, but this is the LORD OF THE UNIVERSE we are talking about!!! Have some respect. Rant over.
Oh my goodness — I love the ‘little British church’ fixes you come up with! I’m in New Zealand, and promise to never again complain about the erratic line-up each week at our main service of anything from one guitar and two singers to seven folk in various voice/instrument combos. (Our suburban church has 200 folk, but spread over three services on Sundays, so there’s another music team in the evening, and an organist at the ‘trad’ service before ours. I guess we are privileged!)
How do I get “Jesus is my friend” out of my brain?
zap…!
At a church I attended for many years in London we were a church plant of a larger church. We had musicians at the start but then we didn’t have any and had visiting ones from our Mother church. They couldn’t come every week and eventually we realised we needed to be self supporting. So one of the congregation started a music group who sang along to CD’s and backing tracks. We were so low tech that the words were on OHPs and the CD’s on a conventional CD player.
Now the group still exists and they have a rota so that not all singers are on every week. They still sing when there are musicians available but when there are no musicians it does mean that the singing is lead by people who know the tune which helps others to join in the worship. It also means that people who can sing but not play an instrument can get involved very easily with the life of the church. Better to have a good singer than a bad organist!
Hi,
I have had a similar problem when we started a new service in our church with no musicians but with a desire for more contemporary worship. we have used both youtube videos with lyrics and worship cds. There is a great bit of software called audacity which is free and with which you can crop out the long instrumentals and rocking out sections of the songs to make it more congregational. You can also fade out and fade in bits. It sounds hard but it literally takes a couple of minutes per song.
Having just been told that there are no musicians available for the service I am taking on Sunday morning, my mind drifted back to this subject…
I’d be really interested in any views on the relative merits of the different piped-music options, particularly of specific products. For example, how good are the Kevin Mayhew “No organist”/”No music group” options? Do they actually work for a congregation to sing along with?
I see that you can get MIDI files with a subscription to http://www.missionpraise.com (and that’s the hymn book we have) but there’s only one sample file and it’s hard to judge how usable it would be. The subscription is very much more affordable than a large stack of Kevin Mayhew CDs would be, but some means of playing the MIDI file through the sound system is then required…
Hmmm. At least Sunday’s sermon is largely sorted.