Archive for March, 2008
Creative Chaos: Week 3
With school conferences this week, and Easter this weekend and spring break next week, I won’t be at worship team rehearsal this week. That said, I’m anticipating the week after Easter when I resume my role as pianist/keyboardist in my church worship team.
So how to be creative in this role? I sum it down to a few basic ideas: Listen to everybody around you. Play off of them and respond to what they’re doing musically. Take the lead when you have to, give it up when you have to. Don’t play over everybody else, especially when they’re doing something important. Good taste over musical verbage any day of the week. And most of all, remember the reason you’re up there in the first place. Just play.
That’s all I’ve got.
Technorati Tags: Carlos Whittaker, Ragamuffin Soul, music, church, worship, piano, keyboards, Christianity
Just for posterity
You’ve either seen it and love it, or you’ve seen it and are picking it apart. I’m just saving this to come back to when I need to. Personally, I think there are some great points here.
Tags: BarackObama, politics, election
Flock: Last Call
Ok, last post for Flock. Just a few random thoughts:
- I like the feed reader, I’m just not ready to switch from web-based Google Reader.
- It’s a great way to keep up with Twitter while I’m doing other things.
- I’ve got it set up almost exactly like Firefox; I hardly notice the difference any more.
- Watch a YouTube video some time and see what Flock does with it. I especially like the ability to do one-click embedding for a post of my own. Cool feature.
- Streaming media out the ears.
- One last request: When I click on favorite, it goes to my del.icio.us account. Can we set that up to go to Google Bookmarks also?
What more can I say; I’m sold. I’m ready to just use it instead of talking about it now.
Technorati tags: Flock
Creative Chaos: Week 2
Here’s Week 2 from Carlos Whittaker’s Creative Chaos challenge.
I still won’t be playing in worship team for a couple more weeks, so for now I’m continuing as my role as…whatever it is you want to call it. I played acoustic bass guitar for a while and helped with some of the arranging with some newer songs that this group is learning. This group is doing “In Christ Alone” for Easter, and it was fun to work with the piano player on the intro, as well as the rest of the group with the direction of the song. It will be interesting to see how I continue this role when I assume piano/keyboard duties the week after Easter. Still, though this is a cool way to get involved, get to know other musicians, and offer some musical guidance and direction along the way. Maybe this is what collaboration is all about.
For a variety of reasons–both spiritual and logistical–I haven’t played in church for over a year, and it’s good to start getting back in the saddle again. I grew up playing music in the church, and have spent most of my adult life in worship teams wherever I’m at church. This time off has been important for me, but I do believe that I was created, in part, to utilize these skills in a worship setting.
