Sunday, July 29, 2007

Tim Hughes Worship Leader Tips

Tim Hughes the guy who wrote "Here I Am to Worship" had a few worship leader tips on his blog recently. There are a few good nuggets within. Below is a little segment on the importance of dynamics.

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We need to embrace musical dynamics

There can be a danger in our sung worship that we sing songs in the same way, same tempo and same musical arrangement. Pretty quickly it becomes very boring and people disengage. Let’s encourage each other to be creative and thoughtful in our song arrangements. It’s great to have the band rock out for a while, but after a number of songs there’s a danger that it can become over-bearing. Songs with just an acoustic guitar or just the piano - even just acapello. Let’s have songs that are loud and fast, songs that are powerful and emotive mixed with songs that are tender and quiet.

By working on the dynamics of the band we can keep things much fresher and more interesting. Constantly ask yourself - what is the song communicating lyrically and then ask yourself, does the music communicate a similar message. By really thinking through the musical dynamics it keeps us from doing the same old, same old.

(HT: Vitamin Z)

1 comment:

Adam said...

Interesting you should post this from Tim, Scott. This past weekend the music team led Mighty to Save, a song Tim may describe as "powerful and emotive." The team also led Uncreated One--a "tender and quiet" song. Such a great contrast in our genre repertoire, but we must be sure the songs are presented and led with the propensity within them to worship...not just for the sake of singing a popular song. It's like dissecting a hymn to get underneath the poetry to really "get at" how the author was worshipping. Music as a conduit for worship--beautiful thing. :)