BETTER BY SUNDAY this in a moment.
GOING SOMEWHERE TOGETHER Perhaps my favorite part of what Steffany said related to using the click as a vehicle of where the team can go together. I can’ t imagine that she loved the experience of hearing the click in her IEM’ s( In Ear Monitors) the first time out, but over time she grew to appreciate the benefits it offered for the team as a whole.
DO WHAT THE PROS DO? Last week I had the unique privilege of leading a TEC panel at NAMM with Kent Morris and John Mills. Collectively, their professional credits include working for Charles Stanley, Andy Stanley, Lincoln Brewster, and per this conversation Chris Tomlin. At first, I felt completely out of my league, but once we started answering audience questions, I realized that the things I learned working 80- hour weeks at a small church complemented what Kent and John had to share. Without going into the details in this column, John shared his experience of working with Chris Tomlin when they first went to IEMs. As much as IEMs and click tracks have become best practices for top Christian artists like Chris Tomlin, they too had a learning curve. Which gets us to the training part of this conversation.
THE TRAINING PROBLEM A series of questions I asked the audience at the TEC Track confirmed a real blind spot that many churches have. After asking how many peoples’ teams used IEMs and click tracks, I asked if their churches had someone who trained musicians on how to use this technology – we’ ll come back the response in a moment …
The reality is that your team has a lot more in common with Chris Tomlin than you might think. When Chris started using IEMs, he needed John Mills to give him a quick rundown not only on how to operate his personal mixer, but where to set the levels and pan for the various input sources as well. Getting back to the TEC Track panel, it probably comes as no surprise that the vast majority of the teams using IEMs and click tracks did not have anyone in charge of training people how to use them. While I pretty much expected that response, it was heartbreaking. While we all lead busy leaves, not training people on how to use something as important as IEMs is one of those things that gets under my skin. Nothing says you care for your team quite the way investing in training them does. And yes, there is a column coming on“ The Training Problem!”
Nothing says you care for your team quite the way investing in training them does.
BACKGROUND The church I got saved at adopted IEMs early on and the worship pastor was missional about training the team on how to use them. Although I had a lot of studio experience, dialing in IEMs was new and like everyone on the team, I benefitted greatly from that training. The drummer at the time was a click fanatic, so pretty early on in my worship experience I was using IEMs and the click.
After a few years at a massively-resourced mega church, I found myself back at my church of origin where I eventually became the worship and creative arts director. In the same way you might be thinking about adding IEMs and the click, I was responsible for on-ramping new musicians to a IEM and click-centric culture. This took heart, work, and time. I spent many Saturday mornings training a new drummer on how to use the personal monitor system and the click. The bond we formed in the process was exactly the kind of worship team family Steffany alluded to. People will never forget when you come alongside them to help them swim when they feel like they’ re sinking.
SOLUTIONS
DRUMMERS ONLY As an addendum to Steffany’ s point, in addition to not having the click in all the time, you can opt for having just the drummer playing to it. If your team has yet to adopt using IEMs and / or the click, this is a great first step.
CHANGE THE CLICK My favorite click sound is the one that sounds like it is going to take my head off when turned up. At lower volumes I can still hear the transient( attack) of the click which means it doesn’ t have to take my head off if I don’ t want it to. If your team is using something like Ableton, you can easily change the click sound. And, with a little MIDI magic and some help from your sound techs, you can create more than one click sound for your team to choose from.
TO EVERY SEASON, TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN Regardless of what you do and how you do it, find someone( or raise your hand) to train your people on how to use the click and IEMs. They will love you for it!
Doug Doppler Doug is the Editorial Director for Worship Musician and Gear Tech + Recording magazines.
WorshipMusician. com
July 2018 WorshipMusician. com
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