CAPO GUITAR
THE MAKING OF A MASHUP | Mitch Bohannon
This March, I posted a series on Instagram called“ March Mashups for Worship” where I featured some song combinations that I think could work in a worship set. Of course, if you did that for every song, it could come across like a worship tribute-band!
I’ ll never forget being at the Christian Musician Summit conference a dozen years ago where Stephen McWhirter and Joel Gerdis were teaching a class … I believe it was Joel who said,“ Just because two songs have the word‘ heart’ in the title does not mean they go together.” I have repeated that lesson often and I think it is one to learn. In worship, we have a destination … the feet of Jesus. It’ s important that our song selection leads us there with minimized distraction.
You mean we need to plan to minimize distraction? What is even distracting? Well, yes. Accidents do happen and they happen to be distracting, but there are distracting things that we can plan against. Planning songs back-toback that change keys dramatically or even just a half-step difference can create awkwardness and disengagement. Planning songs back-toback with drastic tempo differences can do the same. When you need these songs to be in that specific order, a comment, statement, or prayer can assist in the transition. be purposeful, and I believe they work best when using very familiar songs. For instance, one of my favorite examples is combining Chris Tomlin’ s“ Holy Forever” with the familiar chorus of“ Agnus Dei.” As the final chorus ends,“ Hear Your people sing,‘ Ho – ly’ / To the King of Kings, Ho – ly / You will always be / Ho – ly Holy forever” then that last chord drives into,“ Holy, Holy / Are You Lord God Almighty / Worthy is the Lamb / Worthy is the Lamb / You are Holy …” The power and familiarity of that second chorus is an uplift even from the power of“ Holy Forever” and can create a wonderful moment in worship. I borrowed that mashup from my son-in-law, Michael Bennett at Fellowship Austin.
Another example that I have used several times is the combination of Josh Baldwin and David Leonard’ s“ Every Hour” and Matt Maher’ s“ Lord, I Need You.” After singing the last chorus,“ Every hour of every day / Oh I need You Lord and that will never change / Every moment in every way / Oh I need You Lord and that will never change / No that will never change,” we can cleanly transition into Matt Maher’ s chorus,“ Lord I need You / Oh I need You / Every hour I need You / My one defense, My righteousness
/ Oh God how I need You.” After that, it’ s very easy to step right back into“ Every Hour.”
Sometimes I’ ve mashed songs together because of time constraints, but most times I use them because the combination takes the spiritual expression of a song to a deeper place, remember our destination? Many of the examples that I used in my reels came from natural flow in personal worship. Others came from thoughts of,“ Hey, that song reminds me of …” One more example with Tomlin’ s“ Holy Forever” is to tag it with the chorus of Kari Jobe’ s song,“ Forever.” I find that equally powerful as using“ Agnus Dei.”
Spending time in personal worship is a big key to finding songs that fit together. Praying, reading, playing, and singing on your own in worship is a great place to start. Look up my Instagram and YouTube to find other“ mashup” ideas. New to the Short-Cut Capo? Email me and I’ ll send you my instructions!
Mitch Bohannon Mitch developed the Short-Cut Capo for Kyser and is the Director of Live Production at Trinity Baptist Church in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
These problems can come in like a bad car wreck if we go beyond playing the songs backto-back and we combine or“ mashup” the songs when they differ greatly in key or tempo or feel. For instance, as I was working on examples I could use on my reels and several times I had two songs that thematically were the same, but one song was in 4 / 4, and the other was in 6 / 8 and there was no way to flow between them. The perfect mashup will be similar in key, feel, and theme. The combination needs to
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