technicians did their work efficiently and effectively, talking almost constantly. “camera two, zoom… stop”, “watch that feedback, sounds like 250 Hz”, “vocal three needs a mic switch at the next song break”, “Dave, start the chase in 3… 2… 1...”
Overall it was awe-inspiring, and outside of the sound booth it seemed smooth and uninterrupted. Mark took down plenty of notes regarding things he wanted to ask Caleb afterward. When the service was over and most of the people were emptying out, Mark took his team down to the stage.
“Wow,” Mark said, “you guys sounded great. There’s so much going on that the congregation never sees.”
“Yeah,” Caleb responded, “We’re kind of obsessed about everything being perfect. We don’t want anything external distracting people from worshipping the Lord.”
“Your musicians are some of the best I’ve ever heard,” Mark went on, “I presume they all attend Southern Mountain?”
“Absolutely,” said Caleb. “Some of the team members are professional musicians who have recorded in Nashville. And some of our sound techs also work basketball games at the university or concerts at the arena, but before they joined the praise and worship team they had to be regular attenders here.”
“Do you have any kind of agreement they have to sign to be on worship team?” Mark inquired.
Caleb nodded. “It’s pretty standard,” he said. “We know that everybody struggles with sin, including praise team members, so we have access to professional counselors here. And of course we meet regularly in a small group Bible study so we know everything that’s going on in each other’s lives. The contract is just a formality saying that we agree not to do anything that would reflect poorly on the church.”
Mark asked if he could get see a copy of their contract and Caleb said he would grab one from his office before they left. “Everybody who serves in the church has to sign it, not just the praise team.” Caleb said, “But honestly, if someone has a real problem, they’ll usually step down voluntarily before I have to say something.”
Mark’s next question had to do with parts. “How do you determine which guitar players play what parts, and which keyboard players play which parts? Is it hard to have more than one person playing an instrument?”
“With the guitar players,” Caleb said, “there are particular parts each player is more accustomed to playing or more adept at. We belong to a praise and worship website that has the parts for most of our songs separated into guitar 1 and guitar 2. On the songs that the website hasn’t transcribed yet, sometimes we have to get together for a couple of hours and work it out.”
Mark typed into his phone.
Caleb went on, “With the keyboards, the synth player does more pad stuff, so swells, ambient sounds, that kind of thing. The pianist does more lead stuff; it’s really two completely different parts.”
“What about the vocals?” Mark asked. “I notice that you have all four singing during the chorus, but it’s not like a four-part harmony.”
“Yeah,” Caleb replied, “we like to use a lot of vocals. Sometimes we’ll have two singing harmony and two singing lead, but it fills the song out so much more when you have additional voices. And when it comes down to it, the words are the most important part of corporate worship.”
“We’ve got more musicians available than we use each service,” Mark said, “I’ve been considering using more than one at a time.”
Caleb encouraged him, “I would, it just really adds to it. And if you’re only using one electric guitar, try running him in stereo.”
“Running him in stereo?” Mark seemed confused.
“Yeah,” Caleb clarified, “you run his line out to two different amps, hopefully two different sounding amps. Then you assign each to its own channel on the board and pan one completely to the left, pan the other completely to the right. Try it; you’ll be amazed at how much it adds.”
“I will.” Mark said, typing feverishly into his phone. “Any other advice?”
“Just one more thing,” said Caleb. “Be open to trying, and letting your team try, anything musically: Marimbas, slides, violin bows, effects… but not on Sunday morning. That’s what practice is for. If it fits, keep it. If not, drop it. But don’t make a decision until you’ve tried it.”
Mark smiled. “Got it.” he said. “Thanks for showing us around your church, and I appreciate your advice.”
“Any time,” Caleb finished, “maybe we can come out and visit you guys sometime.”
“That would be great,” said Mark. “Definitely come see us sometime.”
BRIDGE
(The Sunday Before Christmas)
Mark was excited to try out some of the things that Caleb had talked to him about, but he wouldn’t be able to do it this weekend. This week he hoped to go full bore in preparation for the Christmas Service next weekend. He would want to have Kat Driggers, Jennifer Mitchell and Susan Levitz all performing vocals. He would try to run Justin’s guitar in stereo next week while Ted Kinney was out of town, but the following week he wanted to try both of them on guitar at the same time. Mark wondered if Lexi would be willing to do some percussion. “Oooooohhhh!” He could hardly contain his excitement. But that would all have to wait until after today’s service. Concentrate, Mark.
As the musicians began arriving for Sunday morning service, Ted and Mary Lynn were the first to arrive. Mark was always impressed at how well they got along, two pillars of the community and the church. Someday he would ask how those two met; Mark would bet it’s an interesting story.
Kat Driggers wasn’t too far behind for once. And for the second Sunday in a row, she was dressed more conservatively than usual. “Kat,” Mark addressed her, “you look very nice today.”
She looked down for a minute and smiled. Then she looked up at him and said, “Thank you.” There was an awkward silence for a moment, then Kat spoke again, “Ummm… so, how was your week Mark?”
“Oh, uh…” Mark stumbled briefly, not really expecting her to engage. “Good, it was good. We missed you at Southern Mountain yesterday, but I got some good ideas on vocals that I’d like to try next week if you’re up for it.”
“Sure,” she said. “Whatever you need.”
Mark liked this new Kat, but for the life of him he wasn’t sure what it was all about. He knew that the team’s spiritual health was his responsibility though, so he resolved to ask her about it after service. Had she lost a relative? Wrecked her car? Something was up for sure.
At about 40 minutes before service, Brad Williams came in and started setting up his bass gear without saying a word. Looking around, Mark asked what everybody else was thinking, “Where’s Brian?”
“Don’t know.” came the reply, as Brad began tuning his bass with no expression on his face.
“Did he not ride with you this morning?” Mark asked.
“Nope.” came the reply.
Now a little perturbed, Mark asked, “Do you know if he’s coming today?”
“No idea.” Brad said, still expressionless.
Mark looked at Brad, then over at Kat. Kat was looking down at the floor now. He looked over at Ted, who shrugged his shoulders. Mark got out his cell phone and tapped on the face of it a few times before putting it up to his ear. After a few seconds, Mark spoke into the phone, “Yeah Brian, this is Mark. It’s now 30 minutes before the start of service and you’re not here, can you please give me a call when you get this?”
Doing what they could, the rest of the band proceeded to do a sound check and adjust their monitor mixes. Mark called back to Soundman Ron, “Ron… if Brian doesn’t get here in time, how comfortable are you with loading the drum tracks from the sequence and running them through the system?”
“No problem, Mark.” Ron said.
About 10 minutes before the start of service, Brian came in sipping on his travel cup.
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“Where have you been, man?” Mark asked him, obviously upset.
“Sorry I’m late.” Brian mumbled as he sat down at the drums and started adjusting them.
It was too late for Mark to address it now, but he would definitely be having a talk with Brian after the service. In fact, he would probably need to speak with both of the Williams boys to see what was going on. As they rushed through sound-checking the drums, Mark tried to refocus. “It’s not about us,” he tried convincing himself, “this is about glorifying God. Calm down and get into the right frame of mind for worship.”
As Kat sang the lead on the first song, Mark couldn’t help but notice she seemed to be very ‘at peace’. Something was different about her, but Mark couldn’t put a finger on… what in the world was Brian doing on the drums?? That fill was out of place even if he had played it smoothly (which he hadn’t). Mark shot a look at Brian, but he didn’t seem to be paying attention. Mark looked over at Brad, but Brad just shook his head and looked down at his bass. To her credit, Kat didn’t let the flub affect her. She just kept singing.
The second song was supposed to start with a drum lead-in, but Brian totally missed it. He came in about halfway through the second measure, and the rest of the band tried to synchronize with him. It was awful. They got through the song as best they could, and at the end Ted leaned over to Mark and whispered, “Maybe you should do the last two songs with just your