WORSHIP LEADERS
ESSENTIAL LISTENING: SONG DYNAMICS | Grant Norsworthy
Having a good command of dynamics is an essential element of good musicality. From start to finish, a song should have varying levels of energy, intensity, fullness of sound and volume. Dynamic rises and falls- whether gradual or more sudden- are vitally important as we invite our church congregations to sing together worshipfully.
But for any musician to have the ability to use dynamics well, they must first have the ability to listen well.
This is a subject that I covered more generally a couple of months ago with my article“ LISTEN FIRST: THEN MAKE SOUND” Check that out for more background on this topic of listening for better musicality.
Those of us who lead or Musically Direct( MD) a team of musicians- especially our amateur, volunteer church musicians- must encourage the team members to develop their ability to listen. Being able to listen critically, I believe, is actually more important than making sound.
First step: We should encourage our team members to listen critically to an original artist’ s version of a song that we want to add to our repertoire. Ideally, this should be done during each team member’ s personal preparation time. And I don’ t mean just having a song play once or twice as we make our way to rehearsal. No! I’ m talking about listening with intentionality. Without any other distractions. With focus. And maybe multiple times over. How many times? As many as it takes!
But what should we be listening for? Well, let’ s start with the dynamic rises and falls of the song.
In my article last month“ ARE YOU MAKING MUSIC? OR JUST READING MUSIC?”, I( perhaps a little harshly) described the sound of a pre-coached team’ s rendition of Phil Wickham’ s“ Great Things” as,“ Overly full. A constant near-cacophony with very little( if any) dynamic rise and fall nor capacity for emotional connection.”
This was a team that could sing and play“ Great Things”( sure) but they had not listened to Phil Wickham’ s version of the song, had not noticed the wonderful, musical, dynamic variations to be found there and, as a result, their version of the song had no dynamic variation. I have no
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