A New Song for Your Team

Now that you’ve learned the song for yourself, you’ve gotta teach the team. Hopefully you’ve done all the really tough legwork of figuring the ins and outs of the song out for yourself. The first essential step in teaching your praise team a new song is to create a chord chart for your team. If you have managed to get your hands on someone else’s chord chart (or downloaded it from a website) I still recommend making your own. The reason is so that you can have a pretty standard format for your chord sheets that your team is familiar with, as well as formatting it specifically for how you want the song to be done (in case you’re chaning the structure from the recording) and having specific notes you want on there for your team.

Something I strongly encourage is to have measure markings for any sections of a song where chord progressions are less clear (rhythmically). I have played with doing a full-on rhythm chart for an entire song. This is incredibly helpful for your instrumentalists, but a little tedious to make. You at least want to write out instrumental sections with measure markings so they can know when they are needing to change chords.

Here’s a simple style:

| G   D | C  Em | D    | G  Bm | Am       G/B  C | D

What I’ve called the “simple style” might take a little explaining, but it’s a very effective ‘reminder’ of what they’re supposed to be doing. More of what I think is called a Nashville style chord chart goes something like this:

| G   \   D   \ | C  \  E   \ | D  \  \  \

The big difference is the beat markers in the ‘Nashville style’. I think I’m going to do a separate post later about making chord charts…so that’s all I’ll say here. Mainly, make sure the chord chart you are giving the team is as simple and clear as possible – hopefully they could play their part for the song along with the CD without ever hearing the song before (maybe not well, but at least get their entrances and exits right…).

Another very helpful thing to do for your team, if you’re going to be playing the recorded version of a song, is to try and (legally) get a copy of the song into their hands. Websites such as grooveshark allow you to upload songs and then let people listen to what you’ve uploaded – that’s always an option.

Now, in teaching them the song, I would suggest having them listen to the song during practice, without playing – just to make notes on what they’re supposed to be doing in the song (entrances, exits, rhythmic breaks, etc.). This is also where you can point out specific things you want them to note. Next, play the recording again and have them try and play along. This is always a little weird, but it gives everyone a chance to try it out. Then, finally, dive in and attempt to play through the song without the recording. Sometimes (most of the time!) you’ll have to stop along the way to discuss problem areas, but as best you can, attempt to just ‘force’ your way through the song. It really allows the team to realize what they need to work on in their own time.

Our church is fortunate enough to actually have two teams that rotate from Sunday to Sunday, so each team is able to spend two entire practices only working on the music for their next Sunday. If you do not have that luxury, which I know most churches do not, you will want to plan when you will introduce songs very much in advance, so you can spread the team’s time spent on a particular song over several practices, introducing the song and letting them get comfortable with it.

Here’s the key I have found: clarity. It is essential for each member of the praise team to know specifically what they should be doing at any given moment in a song. Many times they decide this for themselves, usually based on what they are hearing in a recording that they are attempting to duplicate with their instrument. Your job is to make sure that there is no confusion. There are always parts or layers in a recording which cannot practically be reproduced in a live setting. And other times elements left out will be dictated by the instruments you are working with. Always have an idea where you want to go with a song and what you want everyone doing. That way you can be open to all their suggestions, but if they need direction, you can give it to them.

In learning the song beforehand you should be ready to address any questions or concerns any team members might have about different sections. And you can break down the song into its most simplest elements so that they understand it clearly.

Next we’ll discuss introducing the new song to the congregation.