KEYS
SAFE RISKS , OR “ PLAY IT SAFE ’? | David Pfaltzgraff
As a young worship leader , I had my share of crazy ideas . I fancied myself , if I ’ m honest , fresh , innovative , and creative . My wife and I only had one kid back then and I was loving fulltime worship ministry . Plus , I led the youth band where it was a bit of ‘ anything goes ’ when it came to the way we played with different ideas and arrangements .
Today , I want to write about taking risks . I ’ m not talking about doing things that are irresponsible , are likely to negatively impact your band , or that will stir up confusion in your congregation . And I ’ m definitely not talking about the kind of edgy , ‘ pushing boundaries just because we can ’ attitude that you can fall into if you don ’ t actively work to keep yourself focused on what truly matters .
I ’ m talking about taking risks as a creative exercise , as a purposeful , artistic effort , and as an act of musical worship .
But first , I have to go back and tell you how young worship leader me did this all wrong .
THE WRONG RISK Two ingredients led to this disaster . One , I had recently discovered the Mac software MainStage . I was fully enamored with the wide world of software-based synths , keys , sounds , drums , and percussion it offered for me to explore . Two , I had gone down a deep , deep rabbit trail one Saturday morning , and after a trip to the local Radio Shack ( which should help you get a sense of how long ago this was ) I had all the supplies I needed to make my own , DIY drum triggers . If you ’ re not familiar with what a drum trigger is , in its simplest form it ’ s something you attach to a drum that detects when the drum is hit and can pass that info to a music software to play additional , layered sounds , usually drum samples .
But I had the bright idea , these two ingredients in mind , to do something weird . You see , we were going to do some slow , dark , ambient song for the upcoming youth night . I wanted to build this big wall of sound , with lots of dynamic potential . I knew I could get MainStage to bring the ambience , but I thought it ’ d be super cool to go experimental with it .
My friends , I attached a drum trigger to our drummer ’ s kick drum , ran that into MainStage , and programmed it so that every time the drummer played the kick , this reverb-heavy , ambient pad drone would swell into the room .
In rehearsal it sounded interesting , quirky , cool , I thought . The drummer very much had a ‘ whatever you want to do ’ attitude about it , so we went forward .
DRONING ON After soundcheck we always took a dinner break for cheap pizza while the youth group
82 October 2024 Subscribe for Free ...