WORSHIP TEAM
3 WAYS TO ARRANGE A WORSHIP SONG | Jon Nicol
You’ve just encountered a fantastic new DUPLICATE as part of one spectrum versus three
worship song that you want to introduce to Now, at the other end of the spectrum from separate tactics. See the graphic below.
your church. On the live recording, you hear ‘Create’ is a worship team who says, “We want the bass, drums, two live electric guitars, four to sound like the recording." So that band will In many cases, even when we set out to create
overdubbed electric guitars, three keyboards, be working to duplicate the arrangement. To a new arrangement, we might actually be
two acoustics, a loop track, a percussionist, six make that happen, they’re probably going to borrowing elements of the original arrangement,
vocalists, and a choir. buy the stems or create their own tracks to fill like the melody of the introduction riff. Maybe
in all those extra parts. it was played by an electric guitar on the
And then there's your band: piano, acoustic
recording, but your band plays it with a violin.
guitar, and an overly-caffeinated tambourine-ist. For most worship teams, doing a spot-on And if you are going for close duplication, there
Have fun trying to replicate that arrangement. duplication is not realistic, nor is it an efficient are still things you can’t match perfectly. So,
use of time and energy. And let me tell you a there’s an element of approximate mixed with
Now, you might have a bigger band than that. little secret: recorded music needs way more both creation and duplication.
But even so, trying to reproduce the sound of going on than live music. A live band doesn’t the typical modern worship song recording is need all the extra overdubs and layered Another thing to consider when approaching
a tall order. So, I want to walk you through the instruments to create feeling and energy. a song arrangement is the skill level required
three approaches to worship song arranging
to play specific parts. If a part is too technical
that I teach in my Arranging Essentials for And we also need to remember that the music for you or another instrumentalist, simplify it. It’s
Worship Musicians course. is not the worship - the music accompanies better to perform a simple version really well
the worship. We’re not gunning for a Grammy than muddle through the ‘correct' one.
CREATE or album sales. We want a clean, uncluttered The first approach is to create your own arrangement that encourages people to sing One of the reasons I’m showing you this
arrangement. If you’ve got something akin to their worship. So, for all these reasons, most spectrum of arranging is to give you a common
the three-piece band listed above (hopefully teams opt for a middle ground. And that’s the language to use within your team. When
without the espresso-fueled tambourine-ist), next approach. you introduce a new song, you can now
you’re never going to achieve that full band
sound. And that’s perfectly OK!
communicate to your team what they’ll need to
learn (or create) before rehearsal.
APPROXIMATE
Rather than create a brand-new arrangement,
And even if you do have a full band and could or duplicate a song note-for-note, sound-for- Clear and uncluttered arranging is critical
attempt that sound, you may decide that you sound, you can approximate the recording. to accompany the musical worship of your
want to do your own thing. So essentially, you’re
creating a new arrangement. You’re throwing
church and engage your congregation. I hope
You’ll probably want to keep some of the this
out the signature riffs and instrumentation. And signature riffs of the keys and guitars. The bass brings extra clarity to the development of those
you might even change up the form. player and drummer will work to get the same engaging arrangements.
feel. You might even use an enhancement track
In some cases, your musical director or worship with some of the original sounds. But you’re
leader may decide to simplify the chords in not trying to reproduce it perfectly.
a section or create their own harmonization.
That’s cool. That’s creating an arrangement.
Now, it’s helpful to see these three approaches
directors, and musicians who love to create
new arrangements. That’s fine if you do. But
don’t create a new arrangement every time you
do that song. Your team will hate you.
August 2019
concept
Jon Nicol
Jon’s the founder of WorshipWorkshop.com and
WorshipTeamCoach.com, two sites that help worship
leaders build strong teams and lead engaging
worship. He lives and serves in Lexington, Ohio with
his wife Shannon and their four kids.
WorshipWorkshop.com
WorshipTeamCoach.com
A quick aside for worship leaders, musical
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Create/Approximate/Duplicate
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