Praise team sing together vs a soloist during congregational worship

[Greg Jones]

How often do you have the praise team sing together vs a soloist during
congregational worship?

In other words, for a given song, would you direct your praise team to
have perhaps one singer sing portions of the song, while others join in
(either unison or harmonies) for other parts? Or does this risk the
praise team from singing like backup singers?

Greg

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[Jamie Larson]

We have lead vocals on most songs for the first verse at minimum. It is just like a guitar player who switches tones or doesn't play during the a certain part of the song. It all adds to the musicality of the worship time.


Jamie Allen Larson
Sent from my iPhone 4S

[Gerald Montagna]

"How often do you have the praise team sing together vs a soloist during congregational worship? In other words, for a given song, would you direct your praise team to have perhaps one singer sing portions of the song, while others join in (either unison or harmonies) for other parts? Or does this risk the praise team from singing like backup singers."

 

Greg, I don't see anything wrong with varying whether one singer is leading alone, or whether they are singing in unison or harmony, i.e., during congregational worship.  It doesn't harm, and it might help at times.  My big complaint is over-ornamentation of the melodic line by a worship leader, or freely varying the melody or rhythm.  That is a worship killer during congregational time.  Sure, during anthem time the lead singer is free to do whatever he or she pleases as far as rhythm, melodic line and ornamentation.  NOT DURING CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP!  You'd think that would be obvious, yet I see this done very very often in churches.  The more the lead singer does these things, the less the congregation participates, until it stops participating at all.

 

I suspect the reason is that the singers are taking their style from recordings by soloists, and then imposing it upon congregational worship that the style was never intended for.  It's up to the music minister to take them aside and explain to them that it's inappropriate for congregational singing.  Unfortunately, either the music ministers don't understand this distinction or they're too gutless to confront the singers for fear of offending them.

 

In sayting these things I'm assuming that the church actually wants the congregation to participate in congregational worship time.  Nowadays there are lots of churches where this isn't true.  The leader says "now everybody stand up and let's worship the Lord", and they stand up but don't do anything but watch because the music is unsingable.  Apparently those churches have made a conscious decision that this is how they want it to be.

[Bob Marshall]

Our worship team occasionally has a soloist sing part of a song, and then
the rest of the team joins in for the other parts. Well I should say that we
used to do that. Now the worship leader is the only singer on the stage. He
got rid of all of us background vocalists for some reason. However, we
didn't use that technique as often as I would have liked. I think it's an
effective way to shake things up and have a change of pace. And, no, I don't
really see any down side. I don't think it makes the worship team look like
backup singers, and even if it did, is that a bad thing?

Bob Marshall
Cool, CA

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[Bob Marshall]

You make some very good points about congregational worship, although the subject you are discussing is an entirely different one than what Greg was asking about. But, I agree with what you say. I have worked with a lot of worship leaders, and they rarely think much about making a song conducive or easy or palatable for the congregation to sing. The focus is on making the team sound good. I am not a worship leader myself, but I have filled in occasionally in a pinch when they hit the bottom of the barrel and were desperate for someone to lead. I gave a lot of thought to making the songs easy to sing (perhaps because that made my job easier, too). You’re right, if things get too complex then the congregation will just bail out. A worship team is supposed to facilitate worship, not stifle it.

 

Bob Marshall

Cool, CA

 

From: Gerald Montagna

Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 6:17 AM

To: worshi...@googlegroups.com

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[Keith Mahay]

Sometimes we forget that everyone is not a musician, or a singer.  We desire to draw everyone willing into the presence of Jesus
but sometimes I wonder should everyone be enjoined to be involved in a worship service?  Some people should just listen.  Still, they should be focused on Christ but not all are called to be musicians or singers.  They simply are not!  And they are not necessary for worship to happen.  The question should be rather, where is the worship going, where is Christ taking us today?

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Proverbs 14:4
Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox

[Bob Marshall]

I’ll give my answer to your question “should everyone be enjoined to be involved in a worship service?” My answer is “Yes”, if they have the heart to want to attempt to worship through singing. Greg used the term “dumbing down” worship to accommodate the people who are not talented singers. Sometimes that is indeed necessary, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is a fine line between striving for musical excellence and making the music conducive for congregational singing. Not only is there a fine line, but there is a conflict, because often the two goals are diametrically opposed. My experience has been that the “musical excellence” side wins out most of the time. It’s a very difficult issue to deal with. I don’t think it will ever be solved, unless someone is a very, very special worship leader. Perhaps the best solution is to do a few “simple” songs and then mix in a few more “complex” ones. Strike a balance between the two styles. Or three styles. Or however many styles there are. But back to the original question, yes, everyone who wants to be involved should be given the opportunity to be involved, no matter how tone deaf they are. In the end, no matter how poorly they sing, to God’s ears their voice is angelic.

 

Bob Marshall

Cool, CA

 

From: Keith Mahay

Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 6:22 PM

To: worshi...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Praise team sing together vs a soloist during congregational worship

 

Sometimes we forget that everyone is not a musician, or a singer.  We desire to draw everyone willing into the presence of Jesus
but sometimes I wonder should everyone be enjoined to be involved in a worship service?  Some people should just listen.  Still, they should be focused on Christ but not all are called to be musicians or singers.  They simply are not!  And they are not necessary for worship to happen.  The question should be rather, where is the worship going, where is Christ taking us today?

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Bob Marshall <ra...@comcast.net> wrote:

You make some very good points about congregational worship, although the subject you are discussing is an entirely different one than what Greg was asking about. But, I agree with what you say. I have worked with a lot of worship leaders, and they rarely think much about making a song conducive or easy or palatable for the congregation to sing. The focus is on making the team sound good. I am not a worship leader myself, but I have filled in occasionally in a pinch when they hit the bottom of the barrel and were desperate for someone to lead. I gave a lot of thought to making the songs easy to sing (perhaps because that made my job easier, too). You’re right, if things get too complex then the congregation will just bail out. A worship team is supposed to facilitate worship, not stifle it.

 

Bob Marshall

Cool, CA

 

From: Gerald Montagna

Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 6:17 AM

To: worshi...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Praise team sing together vs a soloist during congregational worship

 

"How often do you have the praise team sing together vs a soloist during congregational worship? In other words, for a given song, would you direct your praise team to have perhaps one singer sing portions of the song, while others join in (either unison or harmonies) for other parts? Or does this risk the praise team from singing like backup singers."

 

Greg, I don't see anything wrong with varying whether one singer is leading alone, or whether they are singing in unison or harmony, i.e., during congregational worship.  It doesn't harm, and it might help at times.  My big complaint is over-ornamentation of the melodic line by a worship leader, or freely varying the melody or rhythm.  That is a worship killer during congregational time.  Sure, during anthem time the lead singer is free to do whatever he or she pleases as far as rhythm, melodic line and ornamentation.  NOT DURING CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP!  You'd think that would be obvious, yet I see this done very very often in churches.  The more the lead singer does these things, the less the congregation participates, until it stops participating at all.

 

I suspect the reason is that the singers are taking their style from recordings by soloists, and then imposing it upon congregational worship that the style was never intended for.  It's up to the music minister to take them aside and explain to them that it's inappropriate for congregational singing.  Unfortunately, either the music ministers don't understand this distinction or they're too gutless to confront the singers for fear of offending them.

 

In sayting these things I'm assuming that the church actually wants the congregation to participate in congregational worship time.  Nowadays there are lots of churches where this isn't true.  The leader says "now everybody stand up and let's worship the Lord", and they stand up but don't do anything but watch because the music is unsingable.  Apparently those churches have made a conscious decision that this is how they want it to be.

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Proverbs 14:4
Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox

[Greg Jones]

bob you are quoting me out of context. I'm sure you don't mean to. I think you are confusing the fact that there are 2 threads going on that I started in this group.

I talked about "dumbing down" within the context of simplifying worship music, not singing contributions.

secondly, I will say that when I look at church is that do black gospel, I no longer see a conflict between musical complexity and singability.

I'm not saying that we all need to go black gospel, I'm just suggesting that we need to innovate beyond hill song
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