Sunday Summary – Music: May 24, 2009

Ugghhh…. Holidays are great and all, but they sure do get you off your schedule. Seems like Tuesday and Wednesday are just for playing catch-up for what you couldn’t do on Monday.

Are you with me, people??

OK, well, here’s a look at this past Sunday….

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Every once in a while one of my hair-brained, off the cuff comments actually becomes a reality. Y’know when you say something expecting a laugh, but are delighted when people actually say “Yeah – that’d be fun!” That’s what happened this past week.

As we looked at Andy’s 4-part series “Staying In Love”, we had margin to put in specials 3 of the 4 weeks. So two of them were love songs (“Faithfully” week 1, “L-O-V-E” week 2). Week 3 was consumed by celebrating the graduating High School seniors, and we wanted something special for the final week.

So I threw out the idea of a cheesy lounge/wedding singer doing some schtick and some wonderfully classic/horrible love songs – complete with the powder blue tux.

Well, that idea stuck – as long as the right person was available. And, by God’s mercy and grace, he was!!

Brandon O’Dell is an unbelievable talent – actor, comedian, writer. He writes for The Re:Think Group, acts professionally around town, and is one of our KidStuf hosts.

Imagine a taller, lankier Steve Buscemi who loves Jesus, and you’ve got Brandon…

As the concept progressed, it turned into Brandon – as wedding singer Chet Maxwell – rolling out his “audio cart” to the middle of the stage. A rolling audio rack, complete with mixer, CD player, and the coveted tape deck all the way at the bottom.

“Chet” introduces himself and the series, “They’ve asked me here today…” Then proceeds to do the verse and chorus of 4 of the greatest (cheesiest but recognizable) 80′s love songs.

The Power of Love – Huey Lewis

I Just Called to Say I Love You – Stevie Wonder

Hello – Lionel Richie

I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston (oh, yeah – he did the big key change into the out chorus!!)

BUT!!!!!

What sent the whole thing over the top was the idea to use wretched MIDI tracks, easily found for free on the Internet. They end up sounding like a child programmed them on their Casio. Wonderful. Horrible, but wonderful….

The whole thing was a big hit!

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WORSHIP:

God is Alive

Glory to God Forever

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)

East Band - Steve Fee, Matt Adkins, Heath Baltzglier, Brandon Coker, Jared Hamilton

West Band – Chrystina Fincher, Steve Thomason, Jayce Fincher, Danny Grady, Doug “Slug” Mitchell, Trammell Starks

Sunday Summary – Music: April 10 & 12, 2008 EASTER!

A few years ago we tried something out of the box – before we had the ability to broadcast Andy live…

Due to the other campus’ strong desire to have Andy do an Easter message on Easter (and not a week delay like all other messages), along with an attempt to solve our Easter Sunday morning crowd dilemma, we tried something radical on a Good Friday:

We did an Easter service on Good Friday – the exact same one as was going to be done on Easter Sunday.

It gave a chance to record Andy’s message AND a chance to help offset a few thousand people from Sunday morning.

Remember, it was the same thing Friday night as it was on Sunday morning.

Well, the experiment worked, and we’ve kept up that practice at the Alpharetta campus for a few years now – and based on this morning’s Easter Sunday crowds, we won’t change that anytime soon…

That said, the service over the last few years has taken on way less of a formal, solemn Good Friday vibe, and a far more “up” tone, celebrating Christ’s conquering of death. Although we’ve done our best to incorporate some elements that reflect the whole Easter.

This year we opened with Andy giving a short welcome, a couple announcements and roadmap of the service, and then invited folks to just sit and listen for a few minutes…

Then we went into Charlie Hall’s song “Mystery“, which is absolutely incredible. During the bridge build up, a video started (created by our incredible media team!) that showed historical art depictions of Christ, each one landing on the quarter note beat. Interspersed was text on how Christ came to save the whole world.

As the drums hit the 8th note builds, the picture then turned to photos of people from around the world and continued to intersperse text reflected the lyric of the song.

The building bridge of that song is powerful enough, but the video and stage lighting elements added to the experience 10-fold. GREAT job by all our lighting, video and media teams!!

We then went straight into worship without skipping a beat. Someone in one of our meetings played “Human” by The Killers (a great song, if you’re a fan…), and someone noticed that you could sing the verse of “God Is Alive” over top of it and it was super cool!

So we gave Jared Hamilton, our part-time Music Assistant, the task of creating a similar sounding loop at the same exact tempo and key as “God Is Alive”, which was going to come straight out of Mystery.

The loop ended up sounding very cool, and added a new depth of energy that was really palpable in the room.

By the way, we purposely raised Mystery 1/2 step up to Bb and God Is Alive down 1/2 step to – you guessed it – Bb! Kinda like a smooth flowing medley

After G.I.A., we went into “Stronger” by Hillsong – a tune we introduced last week that has a message and lyric that fit in really well with Andy’s talk.

But we did end the worship set with “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” – a tune strategically picked to connect with the first-time guest (of which there many on Easter!”.

It’s so cool to break it down in a few sections and listen to the audience sing, and sing loud!

Then, after the message and as a response, we did a shortened, moodier reprise of “Stronger”, which ended up being quite powerful following Andy’s invitation for folks to make this the day they put their faith in Christ.

Now you see why it was important for us to introduce that song last week and also sing it in this morning’s worship set!

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Anyway, everyone was a trooper, doing 1 service 4 different times (plus a ton of tech rehearsals and run-throughs!).

East Band: Todd Fields, Steve Thomason, Ben Snider, Earl South, Ashley Appling, Christ Arias, Ryan Stuart

West Band: Eddie Kirkland, Brad Long, Danny Grady, Scott Meeder, Richard Meeder, Mike Bielenberg, Rosie Pinkermann

Thanks for working so hard all weekend, folks! I believe God did some amazing thins in the lives on the people that came on Friday and Sunday!

Sunday Summary – Music: February 1, 2009

Well, if you weren’t here yesterday, you missed some of the best guitar pickin’ to be heard ’round these parts.

We opened yesterday with “Start a Band” by Brad Paisley and Keith Urban.

And Todd Fields and Danny Grady played their pants off….

And thankfully that was just figuratively…

That was the tune that we were going to do last week, but we had to cut it due to time. So instead, we tackled it this week, and with a new band singers. And man, it was fun.

WARNING: This tune is not for the meek or the layman. I watched 2 of the best guitarists I know work on this tune more than anything since, well, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra tune we did in December. OK, so I guess that’s not saying much… But trust me: approach with caution! It’s tougher than it sounds!

But it was great, and the blend of Todd and Eddie Kirkland on lead vocals, along with Rachael Gillis’ backing vox was a super treat.

Man, I love watching great people do great stuff. Gets my blood moving and puts a smile on my face.

As for worship, we ventured into some quasi-unknown territory…

We decided to switch things up a bit instrumentally, just for a different vibe. Not all the way to the singer/songwriter coffeehouse vibe, but at least something different.

Here’s the assignment we gave to each side:

- Only 1 Electric, playing more organic lead parts (no whale calls or swirlies)
- Rhy elec plays Acoustic, really drives the songs
- Keys players just play piano and/or B3 (no synth stuff)
- Drummers use Blasticks

and, as an added treat, West will have Bethany Olds on fiddle

The results on each side were quite different, with a lot of the individual players’ personalities and musicianship coming through. And while it may not have been the greatest result, it was at least a good experiment.
Here’s my quick analysis… Instead of varying slightly, we should have varied more. Meaning, it should have been so different that folks really knew that we were stretching beyond our norm. Instead, on some parts it ended up sounding like anemic version of what we normally do – as though something was wrong.
Now it wasn’t bad by any means. I just think that next time we could change up a few things even more to capture what was in our imaginations. Like no electric guitar at all (2 acoustics), and perhaps a different, scaled down drum kit. Also featuring the piano / B3 more.
We do full-blown rock and roll so well, that when that’s not what we deliver, it can feel awkward unless it’s really different.
Also, song selection was vital in this scenario, and I think we may have missed the mark a bit. Some songs translate better to a different vibe than others, and I know we all wished that we had switched up at least one, maybe even two of the songs that really needed a rock band behind them.
Anyhoo – we stretched our comfort zone and learned a lot!

WORSHIP:
All We Need
Glory To God Forever (Fee tune, to be released soon!)
It Is Well (new Todd arrangement, also to be released soon!)

- – - – -East Band – Todd Fields, Danny Grady, Ashley Appling, Earl South, Jared Hamilton, Rachael Gillis, Eddie Kirkland
West Band – Chrystina Fincher, Danny Howes, Matt Melton, Scott Meeder, Richard Meeder, Bill DeLoach, Bethany Olds
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East during worship:

High Def screen in West during Opener (East feed):

- – - – -What have you learned lately “the hard way…”?

Sunday Summary – Music: January 4, 2008

Welcome back!

Hope you all had a great, restful, relaxing Christmas and New Years with the people you love.

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We got a chance to gently ease back into the swing of things around here. We opted to have one of our stripped down Sundays, with just one or two people on each side. (No bands – just a Worship Leader and an empty stage)

Eddie Kirkland led from acoustic on East, while Kristian Stanfill lead from acoustic on West. Also, Jared Hamilton joined Kristian on West on “piano” (the Roland X8).

Having just one or two people on stage creates a really cool, unique feeling in the room. But what ends up being the greatest thing is that the crowd can really hear themselves sing, and it causes them to sing even louder!

It’s really quite a phenomenon – the less sound coming from stage (meaning no full band), the more the congregation sings. Very cool.

However, if you choose to do a day like this, 3 things are IMPERATIVE:

#1 – The Right Leader.

Not all Worship Leaders are appropriate or capable of this kind of scenario. Some are not strong enough players or singers to carry the whole crowd by themselves. And there is a very high level of natural personal charisma needed to lead a whole room of folks without the aid of a band.

There’s almost an indescribable unbridled passion and confidence needed to lead a big room of people in “naked” worship.

#2 – The Right Songs.

Not all songs in your current catalog will work. Some rely too much on instrumental hooks and riffs. Others have too many spaces and gaps between lyrics. Some have too many weird chords that are simply not reproducible with one acoustic guitar.

And many are just not familiar enough (yet). There’s one thing to remember with these acoustic weeks. If the audience is expected to sing, then you need to do songs they know. And know well!

That probably means digging deep into some older, familiar songs. It’s actually amazing to see how un-cheesy some older stuff becomes when there’s no band.

This week we did:

Everlasting God

How Great Thou Art

Glory To God (Fee)

I know Glory To God is a newer tune, but it’s an easy, catchy tune that our church has really latched on to.

#3 – The Right Time

Obviously this is not the type of Sunday that is appropriate for every week, but it’s something we’re going to try to do about every 8-12 weeks. It’s a nice change of pace and is certainly helpful to our budget.

The change of pace is the key factor – the budget issue just ends up being a nice benefit.

It also helped that there was no need for a special song. That’s been a deal-breaker in the past when we’ve scheduled an acoustic week. We’ve had acoustic booked, and then decided to do a full band special, thus having to book a full band.

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What change of pace are YOU going to implement / continue this year?

Sunday Summary – Music: December 7th, 2008

We were all over the map planning out this week. Stuff that we thought would work, and was working, got changed at the last minute for stuff that we eventually felt worked even better.

Kinda like a lot of situations: Trust your gut instinct, even after the plan is in motion. If there’s time to change it and it’s the right thing to do, then do it.

So what did we do/not do?

We had originally planned to do a version of “Do You Hear What I Hear” – it coincided with the introduction of the Christmas season, as well as tied into Andy’s wrap up of his “Listen and Learn” series. Makes sense?

But we wanted something different and original, so we put our thinking caps on…

The next day, I pitched a demo of a rewrite of the song. Our music team dug the new additional chorus I wrote, but we all agreed the verses needed some more work, and maybe a different direction (I agreed too!). Todd got the “see what you come up with” assignment, and after a few ideas and some more input from Eddie and I, we had a working concept. Todd’s new verses, my original chorus, and a collaboration of arrangement and form.

So we brought in Ashley Appling and Pat Malone – two of our creative stalwarts – to join Todd, Eddie and I and record a full band demo on the Wednesday morning, to later be learned by an entirely different group of guys that night at rehearsal. Last minute? Yes. Impossible? Nope.

So we were feeling good, right?

Well, an hour later Eddie saw the “Lanny 10B4″ video, which was really funny, but (accidentally) directly referenced that someone was going to be coming on stage in a minute to more clearly explain what he had comedically confused…

So that meant that Lanny did a funny video that set up Andy, but that we were going to try and squeeze a Coldplay/U2 type epic rock tune that was a tie in to Christmas and the message series before Andy actually came up, and so he was going to have to end up explaining the tune, and then reference back to the Lanny schtick from 6 minutes ago.

Yeah, confusing is right!

AND we were cutting a worship tune to do the opening tune, too.

We talked it through, and agreed that cutting the “Do You Hear?” opener was the right thing to do, and that would give Andy the chance to reference Lanny, and we’d do 3 worship tunes.

Plus, we already had a closer to do that wrapped up Andy’s message and series.

But I was bummed. The “Do You Hear?” tune we worked on seemed like it was all for not. UNTIL, in the same conversation, we realized that this upcoming week, Dec 14th, we are planning to do a few pre-service Christmas tunes, WITH Ashley, Pat, Todd and I, and that it would be a great spot to do the tune without having to teach it to a new group of musicians.

You know, that whole “when God closes a door, He opens a window” thing…

So that’s a little story for you on how, even a few hours before Wednesday night rehearsal, and after all the pre-planning and technical meetings, a service can change.

SO….. What DID we do this Sunday after the dust had cleared?

WORSHIP:

All Creation Sing (Joy To The World)

**This is an arrangement that Steve Fee wrote years ago, but finally was able to record it with the rest of the Fee boys and Jason Hoard and release as a single – and it’s now available on iTunes, and will be available on North Point Music in the next few days (including Multitracks, Accompaniment tracks, charts, etc…)

All Because of Jesus

Glorious One

CLOSER:

Revelation by Third Day

We took some musical liberties on this one and kept the chords from Chorus 1 and played them in all the choruses and even the outro. Those chords and vocal harmonies were too cool to do just once

East Band: Mike Gleason, Todd Fields, Steve Thomason, Joe Lee, Richard Meeder, Jared Hamilton, Rachael Gillis

West Band: Steve Fee, Matt Adkins, Heath Baltzglier, Brandon Coker, and honorary “Fee” member for the day Chris Arias

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What have YOU changed lately because it was the “right thing to do”?

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