Alex over at Better than Blank posted some stuff regarding worship environments a while back. He gathered some cool worship environment photos and let us all have copies. Not that it's anything special, but I thought I'd contribute to the compilation with this little video.
When I started at Chorus Church they were running two lighting trees from the back corners of the room (about 30' away from the stage) and no back lighting. They shot a single projector down the middle onto an oversized screen which split the band and the stage in half. It got the job done, but took a lot of setup and didn't look so great either.
Needless to say we've made some leaps and bounds in the last year. Here's a look at where we are today. I can't wait to see where we'll be tomorrow!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The next M. Night Shyamalan
This is Daniel and his little brother Grant. Daniel's a freshman in High School and he plays lead guitar in the Youth Worship Team.
Oh yeah... and I think that he's going to be the next M. Night Shyamalan.
Oh yeah... and I think that he's going to be the next M. Night Shyamalan.
Worship Confessional
Keeping with the Classic Rock theme in this series "Love Revolution" we did this song this week...
The Youth Band played this week and they nailed it! I think they're getting better every week. It's so much fun working with these High School kids (and one Middle Schooler). I even had one of our tech guys make the comment, "I like working with the kids better than the adults". That's because they're there at 7:00am and work hard to get everything setup on time so we can get a good sound check. By the way, I think our sound is getting better every week too!
Here's what we did...
Band:
Me - Agt/Vox
Daniel (aka PK) - Lead Guitar (he's beginning to shred!)
Crawford (aka hippie) - bass
Hannah (aka Middle Schooler) - Keys
Ross (aka Arnold) - Drums
Brandon (aka Dance freak) - Drums
That's right, we have 2 drummers. They're totally cool about switching it up. This week Ross played the first half of the set and Brandon played the second. Ross is a super tight Rockin' drummer and Brandon is a totally creative groove drummer. They're both excellent drummers and better than most adult drummers I've ever played with.
Set:
Oh Praise Him (Crowder)
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)
-welcome-
We Can Work It Out (The Beatles)
-message-
Bend In The Road (Dave Reynolds) He did this toward the end of his message on his 12 string. Pretty cool... Check it out here
-message-
Amazing Grace - My Chains are gone (Tomlin's Version)
-offering-
Amazing Grace
-dismissal-
Amazing Grace Groove (this was fun!)
As you can see we mixed it up with kind of an old-school meets new school. It was great!
How often do you use your Youth in your Main Services?
The Youth Band played this week and they nailed it! I think they're getting better every week. It's so much fun working with these High School kids (and one Middle Schooler). I even had one of our tech guys make the comment, "I like working with the kids better than the adults". That's because they're there at 7:00am and work hard to get everything setup on time so we can get a good sound check. By the way, I think our sound is getting better every week too!
Here's what we did...
Band:
Me - Agt/Vox
Daniel (aka PK) - Lead Guitar (he's beginning to shred!)
Crawford (aka hippie) - bass
Hannah (aka Middle Schooler) - Keys
Ross (aka Arnold) - Drums
Brandon (aka Dance freak) - Drums
That's right, we have 2 drummers. They're totally cool about switching it up. This week Ross played the first half of the set and Brandon played the second. Ross is a super tight Rockin' drummer and Brandon is a totally creative groove drummer. They're both excellent drummers and better than most adult drummers I've ever played with.
Set:
Oh Praise Him (Crowder)
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)
-welcome-
We Can Work It Out (The Beatles)
-message-
Bend In The Road (Dave Reynolds) He did this toward the end of his message on his 12 string. Pretty cool... Check it out here
-message-
Amazing Grace - My Chains are gone (Tomlin's Version)
-offering-
Amazing Grace
-dismissal-
Amazing Grace Groove (this was fun!)
As you can see we mixed it up with kind of an old-school meets new school. It was great!
How often do you use your Youth in your Main Services?
Friday, April 18, 2008
Amp Mod
Okay, so it's official. My buddy Andy is a genius. I had this little Crate VC 508 tube amp that I liked because of the fact that as a tube amp it had some warmth and it was small. However, I didn't like the fact that it had this solid state gain control on it and that I couldn't turn it up past 2 without getting this nasty overdrive sound. Well Andy not only took care of that little problem, but he converted it into a head and cab model. And he did it all while his wife is super sick. What a guy!
I used it last weekend and it worked great!
It used to look like this...
Now it looks like this (notice Andy's dog in the background!)...
And sounds like this...
Okay, maybe not quite like that, but it's closer than it was before the mod!
Andy did a cool write up over at his page with some better pictures and a complete description of what he did. Check it out.
Thanks Andy!
I used it last weekend and it worked great!
It used to look like this...
Now it looks like this (notice Andy's dog in the background!)...
And sounds like this...
Okay, maybe not quite like that, but it's closer than it was before the mod!
Andy did a cool write up over at his page with some better pictures and a complete description of what he did. Check it out.
Thanks Andy!
Worship Confessional, Super Late
We're doing a series called "The Love Revolution". Each week we're doing a different classic rock tune. 2 weeks ago we did Michael Bolton's version of "When a man loves a woman" (see video below). Last week we did the Cheap Trick song "I want you to want me".
I have to say that "I want you to want me" was a little trickier than "When a man loves a woman". Our drummer had to learn cut-time and I had to sing a couple of verses pretty quickly. We pulled it off, but I don't think anyone was mistaking us for "Cheap Trick".
I personally thought it was one of the roughest Sunday's that we've had in a long time, however one of our Elders told his son that he thought it was some of the best worship that we've ever had at the Church. And it doesn't hurt to know that he was a music major in college! Just goes to show you that worship really is in the eye of the Beholder... ;) I believe that's because we were all praying like crazy..., "God, please help us pull this off!"
Here was the set...
All we need
I am free
-welcome-
I want you to want me
-message-
Rescue
Oh yeah... when we came up to do Rescue my electric guitar just so happened to be out of tune... both services!
Do you ever have weeks like that?
What song do you think we'll do this weekend?
I have to say that "I want you to want me" was a little trickier than "When a man loves a woman". Our drummer had to learn cut-time and I had to sing a couple of verses pretty quickly. We pulled it off, but I don't think anyone was mistaking us for "Cheap Trick".
I personally thought it was one of the roughest Sunday's that we've had in a long time, however one of our Elders told his son that he thought it was some of the best worship that we've ever had at the Church. And it doesn't hurt to know that he was a music major in college! Just goes to show you that worship really is in the eye of the Beholder... ;) I believe that's because we were all praying like crazy..., "God, please help us pull this off!"
Here was the set...
All we need
I am free
-welcome-
I want you to want me
-message-
Rescue
Oh yeah... when we came up to do Rescue my electric guitar just so happened to be out of tune... both services!
Do you ever have weeks like that?
What song do you think we'll do this weekend?
Monday, April 14, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
When a man loves a woman!
We launched our new series this week titled "Love Revolution". We're focusing on Godly relationships and to kick it off, we did this version of "When a man loves a woman" only about 3 keys lower... ;)
I had Brian from Morningstar come in and look at our sound system. Surprisingly enough, he took one look at it and said, "I don't think I would do anything different". As we looked closer at the compression, he suggested we move it from Vocals Only to the whole system... Needless to say, it made a huge difference! Thanks Brian.
On top of all that, the school let us mount some backlighting on the stage over Easter Break. What a huge difference that made.
We left the High Schoolers in the service since Pastor Dave was talking about love, dating & sex. Dave unloaded and he looked so comfortable. I think it was possibly the best message I've ever heard him preach... Except for the fact that he went 45 minutes (usually 35 minutes)! Check it out...
We got so many comments on the stage, music and message this week that I think it might even have been better than Easter Sunday!
God is moving in the French Valley!
I had Brian from Morningstar come in and look at our sound system. Surprisingly enough, he took one look at it and said, "I don't think I would do anything different". As we looked closer at the compression, he suggested we move it from Vocals Only to the whole system... Needless to say, it made a huge difference! Thanks Brian.
On top of all that, the school let us mount some backlighting on the stage over Easter Break. What a huge difference that made.
We left the High Schoolers in the service since Pastor Dave was talking about love, dating & sex. Dave unloaded and he looked so comfortable. I think it was possibly the best message I've ever heard him preach... Except for the fact that he went 45 minutes (usually 35 minutes)! Check it out...
We got so many comments on the stage, music and message this week that I think it might even have been better than Easter Sunday!
God is moving in the French Valley!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
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