i am an offering

I’ll give you a little hint behind this one.  This post comes directly out of personal experience.  Keep that in mind as your reading.

There are probably going to be times when something is out of tune.  Badly out of tune.  It could be your own instrument.  It could be the instrument of an inexpereinced player.  Regardless of whose instrument it is, something that’s out of tune is a major disctration that keeps us from focusing on Jesus.  If something is slightly out of tune it will distract any skilled musicians in the congregation because they can pick it out.  It will distract average non-musical people in the congregation as well because they know something is wrong but can’t quite figure out what it is.  If something is badly out of tune, everyone notices and everyone is distracted.  So what do you to when this happens?

Plan Ahead

Like yesterday’s post on screen projection, it is so important to plan ahead.  If you are the guitar player - make sure you have fresh strings and you are in tune.  Get a tuner or ask the church to buy you one (preferably a pedal tuner that you can use during the worship time to always make sure you’re in tune.)  If you are the piano player know how to tell when the piano is out of tune and make sure the church is on top of getting it tuned.

If you are overseeing guitar players always make sure that they tune before rehearsal, before soundcheck, before the worship time and during the worship time.  Ask your church to be able to budget for new strings for the guitar players.  Buy your guitar players tuners if they don’t have them.

A Personal Account

These things seem fairly obvious to most of us, but let my share a story that happened when I was a bit more inexperienced.

We made plans to bring Arlen Salte from Break Forth Ministries to do a worship team workshop at our church.  We had planned well and there were about 300 people from different states coming.  It was an exciting time for us.  Our worship team agreed that we would do a worship set in the afternoon and them let him critique us.  Unfortunately, in my excitement about the workshop, I forgot to plan ahead so that I would have new strings that weekend.  My strings were old.  Ancient.  It was bad.  In my rush to make sure all of the logistics were worked out for the weekend, I completely forgot about the fact that my strings were not going to stay in tune.  We started our set with “Blessed Be Your Name” with a driving acoustic guitar part.  After about two measures I thought, “Uh-oh.  This is bad.  Really bad.”  What did I do?

What To Do If It Happens

I could have kept going and played through the whole song with a badly out-of-tune guitar.  But I knew it was a major disctraction - especially in a room full of musicians.  So, I stopped the band, addressed the problem, admitted that I was out of tune and had the band restart the song without me.  Things went well and Arlen mentioned that it was better that I took a couple minutes to address the distraction and then move on, rather than letting the disctration keep going.  That night, I bought new strings and restringed my guitar as Sunday morning worship was the next morning. (Although, I hate to admit it - I bought strings from Wal-Mart.  They’re the only place open at 10:30pm that sold guitar strings!)  What I probably should have done is just let the band keep going without the guitar.  At the time, they relied heavily on the guitar leading things, so sometimes if I would stop, the whole band would stop.  So, if you’re the one out of tune, drop out in a non-distracting way, tune if you can and then come back in.  If you can’t tune, be able to communicate to other musicians that they need to lead the music.

But, what if it’s not you that’s out of tune?

Work out a signal before hand that might be able to let your guitar players know that they are out of tune and they need to drop out (hint, don’t use the hand cutting through the throat signal!).  Find a subtle gesture that says “sit out” to someone.  If you have an opportunity to lean over and talk to them quickly (during a prayer time or instrumental interlude) tell them that they need to retune and ask for a thumbs up or some sort of signal that lets you know they’re back in tune.

Being in tune is so important in music and is a skill that we should always take care to remember.  Do you have any suggestions for a situation like this or any stories of your own experience?

One of the things that can keep a congregation from worshiping God is being distracted by unprepared musicians or teachers. What are some things that keep us from getting more skillful at our instrument or voice technique?

• Lack of desire to get better. This can come from thinking that you’re already good enough or it can come from believing that it doesn’t matter to do things with skill and that “God accepts us just the way we are.” While that is true, it is a Biblical concept to play with skill and also a Biblical concept to do things to the best of our abilities, doing everything we do for the Glory of Jesus. There is always room for improvement and it is so important that we are life long learners. If you are struggling with a lack of desire to get better, you might want to take a listen to this great message from Ken Boer and Pat Sczebel.
• Not practicing. So many worship team members think that it’s okay to just show up for rehearsal without preparation and then show up for the service without practicing. Why do we expect the pastor to spend literally hours upon hours preparing for the message but we’re fine with the musicians putting in only practice with the team but not any personal preparation? Not only does practicing make you a better player or singer, it’s makes you less of a distraction during a meeting because you are confident at what you’re doing and can look like you’re enjoying yourself and worshiping God instead of being buried in the music.
• Not listening to a variety of styles and genres, or just plain not listening to anything. It is so important that we constantly listen to music for inspiration and examples. Listen to new songs, listen to old songs, listen to rock songs, listen to jazz songs, listen to chant, listen to everything you can listen to (as long as it does not focus your mind away from God with its message.) Pick out your specific instrument or listen closely to how the vocals blend.
• Along with that, we limit our skill by declaring that we only like a particular style of worship. It is just as dangerous to proclaim that we can only worship “contemporary” music as well as proclaiming that we can only worship with hymns. Take in both and take in a lot of both.

Can you think of any more skill lids?