NOLAF

Alright Fun Seekers, I assume you will have some free time over the next few days, so do yourself a favor:

Preparation: Determine a 10-15 minute block of appropriate “downtime”…

Step #1: Gather a handful of your family / friends with the best sense of humor around your computer…

Step #2: go to this Web site: www.nolaf.org

Step #3: Click on everything. Multiple times.

Step #4: Use tissues or shirt sleeves to wipe away tears of laughter.

Step #5: Repeat with different friend / family as necessary.

HINT: Once on the site, click once on each of these people, left to right. Then repeat (they’ve got multiple questions and sayings..)

Enjoy!

How Much Do You Pay Your Musicians?

“How much do you (North Point) pay your musicians?”

This is a question we get asked all the time.

99.9% of the time the question comes from folks at other churches who have a legitimate concern as to what they should pay their musicians (assuming they want to pay…). They just want some direction in this area as to what is fair (or unfair!).

However, we always have to remind them of something:

The rates that we pay are for full-time professional musicians in a large metropolitan area at a very large church. These wages should not be expected at a smaller church, or in a smaller city, or with semi-pro or lay musicians!

However, the ratios can still be used. So let’s go with that.

I think what I’ve laid out below is the best way to describe the way pay, and you can simply plug your own dollar amount and go from there…

In the following example, the Worship Leader receives 100%, and the other participants’ wage is based on a percentage.

So if the WL receives 100% and a band member receives 60% and your starting dollar amount is $100.00, then the WL gets $100 and the band dude gets $60. Make sense?

Sure it does

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East – 3 Services, 1 mid-week rehearsal = approx. 10 hour time commitment (apart from an individuals practice/prep time at home)

Worship Leader / Band Leader: 100%

Band: 60%

BGV: 45%

Special vocal: 50% (but only an extra 30% if they are already participating in worship, such as BGV, WL or Band member)

NOTE: A Band member also acting as BGV does NOT receive extra (still only 60%)

NOTE: A “Special” is a song outside existing repertoire, or “cover tune”, of which a specific singer’s unique ability and vocal characteristics are required in order to legitimately perform the song. It usually does not include worship songs. If the song is a mainstream radio hit, or “secular” song, we often try our best to have someone other than that day’s Worship Leader sing the song if possible. However, there certainly are instances when the WL is also the best person to sing the song.

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West – 2 Services, 1 mid-week rehearsal = approx. 8 hour time commitment (apart from an individuals practice/prep time at home)

Worship Leader / Band Leader: 100% (same as East – this might not be totally fair to the East leader, but that’s just the current system…)

Band: 50%

BGV: 40%

Special vocal: 45% (but only an extra 25% if they are already participating in worship, such as BGV, WL or Band member)

NOTE: A Band member also acting as BGV does NOT receive extra (still only 50%).

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FINAL THOUGHTS: I think our percentages for West are skewed based on the West WL receiving the same as the East WL. However, the balance between the 3 service people and the 2 service people are actually more fair and appropriate.

Personally, I would use the EAST percentages as a guide for your church, no matter how many services you have.

Hope that helps!

Happy News, Sad News

Yesterday was significant in our lives.

Jennie and I celebrated with Cooper as he took his first, real steps.

However, just as his little life is blossoming, a life in his lineage came to an end.

We found out last night that Jennie’s grandfather, Charles “Papa” Moreton, passed away in the early evening.

He was in hospice after a lifelong battle of major acid reflux, including a bout with Esophageal Cancer, that left his digestive system unable to process nourishment. We had been expecting him to pass at some point this week or next.

We’ll miss him so much – he was a great Papa….

Ironic, isn’t it, that one, young twig of this family tree found a new blossom in the possibility and potential of the bright new morning sun, while a mature branch ran it’s course of life and slowly and quietly ended with the setting of that same sun.

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We’ll be heading to Cincinnati tomorrow for the funeral and visiting with family, so things will be quiet here for a few days…

Important Public Service Announcements

You may have already seen these, but I thought I’d share a couple important Public Service Announcements…

#1 – Information regarding the upcoming Analog to Digital Television switchover… Big thanks to Dad for the head’s up on this one.

#2 – Information for those of you in Portland, Oregon, and the potential threat regarding the Waterfront Park Zombie’s fondness for turtles…

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See, I told you it was important information!

Sunday Summary: Music – Nov. 16, 2008

Y’know when something’s just “off”. You can’t put your finger on it, and there’s certainly no one, individual guilty party. There’s no “if only we had so-and-so instead of whats-his-name…”, but at the same time, the glue that is often there, and should be there – at least on paper – isn’t.

The Patriots lost the Super Bowl. The Rays lost the World Series. USC lost to Stanford.

Why? Were they out played? Maybe… Or maybe they were just “off”. I don’t know.

That’s kinda how we felt about some stuff in both the East and West Auditoriums yesterday. Nothing was bad, or not worth repeating. It just seemed like some of the spark was missing.

Most of that kind of stuff can be fixed for next time – analyzed, discussed, and ultimately tweaked, or sometimes even avoided altogether in the future.

We often have those easy insights – “Their voices do not blend well” or “their playing styles don’t compliment each other”, or even “that song went over like a lead balloon”. We all have those obvious observations.

The tough ones come after days like yesterday. Something, somewhere, even small and minute, was off. So what was it, and how do we fix it for next time?

NOW DON’T GET ME WRONG – the 4 songs we did yesterday were great, and were executed well, with passion, and the average Joe in the crowd probably didn’t know the difference… In fact, there were some really incredible moments!

But there’s still those little, nagging, thoughts…

- Were those worship tunes the best combination?

- Are they in the right keys for the WL to be set up for success but still be comfortable for the crowd?

- Are they tunes that are truly approachable for the audience to sing, and ultimately worship through?

- Did we choose the proper instrumentation for the Opener on West?

- We had 2 WL’s in East – did we pick the right tunes for each one to sing?

- Did I book players that complimented each other or hindered the end product?

- Did I spend enough time working with the F.O.H. engineer to purvey what we wanted from the PA mix?

- Did we set up the people on stage for success, or did we hand them stuff that just didn’t “spark” them?

- Did someone switch our coffee for decaf?

Those are some of the questions we’ll ask ourselves today…

Anyhoo – it wasn’t a bad or regretful Sunday by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, there was some stuff that was down right incredible:

- The Opener in East, second and third service

- The Worship Set in West, second service

- The closer in East, second and third service

There was lots of good stuff – but those were just a few of my personal highlights…

So what, exactly, did we do yesterday???

OPENER:

“The Remedy (I Won’t Worry)” by Jason Mraz

- East: Eddie Kirkland

- West: Ryan Stuart (now Ryan did do an amazing job, but in hindsight, we botched the instrumentation choice to accompany him. Nothing major, but we had Todd on acoustic instead of electric, which thinned out the tune and didn’t carry the punch that song required…)

WORSHIP:

“Wonderful The Love”

“Breathe On Me”

CLOSER:

“It Is Well” – Todd’s new version of the classic hymn. Really cool, but if it become a staple of our worship repertoire we’ll probably tweak some of the verse verbage. Some of it is lovely, but some could be modernized just a tad to make it a little more singable for the modern human…

OK, I’ve vented… But I still love and believe in all the people involved yesterday and I do love the songs we sang. But, through analysis and discussion, we’re a tiny bit wiser for next time…

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East Band – Mike Gleason, Chrystina Fincher, Brad Long, Jeremy Moyers, Richard Meeder, Scott Meeder, Randy Harper, Eddie Kirkland

West Band – Todd Fields, Ashley Appling, Danny Grady, Pat Malone, Jared Hamilton, Ryan Stuart, Karyn List

Pic of West from rehearsal…

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By the way, I’m glad we have an awesome gang of tech folks to fix this problem we experienced in rehearsal:

Big kudos to the guys for troubleshooting that before service began!

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So what musical elements did YOU feel you could improve upon for the future?

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