What Do You Do When…The Wrong Song is on the Screen and the Projection Volunteer can’t Find the Right One?
This past Sunday at Living Word we had a bit of a minor technical difficulty where the wrong song was put into the schedule for the day and we didn’t have a backup of the correct one. Although it was humorous and everything else went well, there was a bit of an awkward moment and it would be good to know how to avoid any awkwardness when things like this happen. So, what do we do to avoid the awkwardness?
Plan Ahead
The first thing to do is to make sure that you’ve planned well enough ahead of time. Check and recheck things. Very often there are several worship songs (or even hymns) with the same title. Check with the data entry volunteer, the volunteer who proofs and/or runs projection and yourself that you have the right song entered in. Remind the volunteer who enters the songs that when they are in doubt which is the right song they should put in both (or all five) with the same title. That way, if the wrong song is on the screen the right song can be found quickly (with the use of decent projection software anyway). It is especially vital to triple or quadruple check things when you are working in a church plant and several different people in several different places are putting the elements of the service together.
Teach Everyone What To Do
It won’t really help much if you as the main worship leader know what to do when a situation like this happens but the rest of your team is clueless. Teach them some simple ways to keep a musical flow going while you lead the congregation through the distraction. Teach the team to:
- Keep playing through the verse of the song that isn’t up on the screen (or the chorus, if that’s where the team is currently playing)
- Be ready to keep playing through that song if the worship leader feels led to use it as a solo
- Be ready to find an ending point if the worship leader feels led to go to the next or a different song
Main worship leaders need to be able to do these things while the team is doing the above:
- Recognize that the song is not correct. If you can see the projection screen or if you have a confidence screen or monitor that will be an easy way to tell. If you can’t see the projection screen, watch people and see if they’ve stopped singing.
- Don’t focus on the problem. Quickly and gently inform the congregation that the correct song is not on the screen, then move on to what you feel the Holy Spirit is leading you to do. A short, “It looks like we have the incorrect song up at the moment” is sufficient.
- Use this as an opportunity to let the congregation pray and worship on their own. After you’ve informed them that the wrong song is up, you could say something like “While we see if we have the right song, take a few moments to pray and worship God silently or with your families.” Lead them through a couple minutes of corporate prayer or praise. This also gives the projection volunteer time to find the correct song and get it up if they can.
- If the projection volunteer can’t find the correct song, it’s obviously time to either move on or inform the congregation that just the worship team will be singing this song and the congregation should worship by listening to the words. Only do this if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the vocalists are always clearly understood through the sound system. If you sing with no words on the screen through a muddy, unclear system, no one will be able to worship without being distracted by the fact that they can’t understand the words.
- If you feel led by the Holy Spirit that having the congregation listen isn’t the right fit for the moment, decide to move on to the next song for the morning. Hopefully you’ve taught your team to keep playing the verse or chorus for a bit while you’re waiting to know what to do next. Give them a cue to end the music at an appropriate spot (not in the middle of a verse!) and then lead the congregation into the next song.
The absolute best thing to do would be to plan ahead well enough to avoid these situations but if they do arise these are some simple things you can do to help minimize the distraction and keep people’s hearts and minds focused on Jesus, not on the technical difficulty at hand.
We just ask our projection volunteer to come to practice and expect them to run through every slide as we go through the song to check for typos, etc. With the software they use they don’t have to re-type any slides but it’s always good to check.
Having them come to practice avoids any of the awkward scenario on Sunday morning when the wrong thing gets put on the screen.
Comment by Chris from Canada — July 1, 2008 @ 9:58 am
Very good point Chris! For whatever reason that one slipped my mind. At the moment since we’re not in a building yet we don’t have the projection people come to practice because we’re practicing at people’s houses and the computer used for projection isn’t there.
Comment by Ryan — July 1, 2008 @ 10:03 am
Ryan - good stuff…we are also a portable church with the same issues of not having our video guys at practice… Some random thoughts…
Leading worship is like being a hiking guide (I equate it to being a sherpa getting people up Mount Everest) As Worship Leaders, while *we* know where we are going, it’s important that we don’t leave who we are leading behind us - as guides, we are responsible that everyone is right there with us.
Not sure if loading all 5 versions of a song hurts or helps - it could get confusing.
My suggestion would be giving the folks running the projection software a copy of the band’s lead sheets with very visible handmarked notes on song flow. With lead sheets in-hand, there’s virtually no question at the projection desk about which version of a song is being done.
When leading, after we practice, I also try to send the sound guys an quickie idea of what’s going on - songs, the song pattern (v-v-c, etc) style.
We do try and run through our complete set on Sunday Mornings with our lyric software live, so that helps those last minute kinks, but we know nothing is ever 100% failsafe.
As far as what to do if things just don’t right, you have good ideas - here are a couple others:
- If it’s early in the service and hasn’t been done already, do a quickie meet and greet. I’ve found that most sound and technical errors happen early in a set during upbeat music and as people are gathering, so this is a good option
- If it’s a slow or mid-set song and things go awry, the band should be prepped with a signal from you (rolling your hand) as a sign to find their way back to the verse and stay there until verbal instruction from the leader (let’s pray, etc)
Last, it’s crucial that the leader and team have some way of knowing that lyrics are matching the song. This is much simpler than you think - at my old church, we used a 19″ monitor hooked up to the video out on the projector. Worked great, even from 40 feet away. We did this until we could find a cheap projector to bounce off the back wall. Really, really helped.
The kicker? This freed singers from staring at lead sheets and hiding behind music stands.
-drew
Comment by drew — July 1, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
Thanks for your thoughts, Drew! I really appreciate them.
It would be helpful to do a run through on Sunday morning. Unfortunately for us at the moment, we get into the building at about 8:30 and the service starts at 9:20. We only have 50 minutes to set up the sound system and instruments and possibly run through any music at all. Actually, we only have a half hour, because 9:00 is dedicated to prayer time and we don’t want to skip that! I wonder if we can get in the building any earlier…
Comment by Ryan — July 1, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
Sorry for puking out so much info - as you can tell, I am passionate about this stuff! Ryan, in your case, I would definitely make an extra set of lead sheets for your video guys to clear up any confusion. This helps a lot and helps the video folks feel more like a part of the team.
If you can, think about a screen or something to show lyrics for you and the vocalists - this was also a real simple thing to do with a big bang for the buck. Folks who had been hiding behind music stands and lead sheets and microphone stands were suddenly transformed into leaders!
Looking forward to more stuff you plan to share.
Comment by drew — July 2, 2008 @ 9:57 am
Drew - don’t apologize! I appreciate your thoughts and they’ve been very helpful to me! You have some very good suggestions that I plan to use.
I’ll be working on the next blog post after lunch sometime today. Where are you writing from? It’s really nice to hear from you.
Comment by Ryan — July 2, 2008 @ 10:00 am