WORSHIP LEADERS
IMPROVING PERSONAL PREPARATION: SONG RECORDINGS IN OUR KEYS | Grant Norsworthy
Photo by Connor Stelow on Unsplash
The band line-up for this coming Sunday has been solid for weeks.
You chose the songs for the service by Monday evening.
The team has been informed of the selected songs and their order within the service.
Very importantly, the key you’ ll be using for each song has also been communicated. Chord charts and lead sheet PDFs in those keys have been made available.
Along with the PDFs, you’ ve provided access to sound recordings of the original artists’ versions of each song- perhaps as a Spotify playlist or a collection of YouTube links.
Job done! You feel like you’ ve done all you possibly can. Now you can only hope that each team member will use the PDFs and song recordings to fully prepare themselves before the all-too-brief rehearsal prior to the first service.
But there’ s a problem- a significant hurdle, even a barrier- that will make proper personal preparation by your singers and instrumentalists( except perhaps the drummer) far more difficult than it needs to be.
Most, if not all, of the provided sound recordings are not in your keys! They’ re in different keys from the PDFs. During their personal practice, instrumentalists won’ t be able to play along with the recordings while reading the chord chart or lead sheet. Singers may be able to sing along to the recordings, but this won’ t truly prepare them to sing the songs in your chosen keys.
It hasn’ t always been like this. But these days, it’ s almost guaranteed that the original artist’ s version of a song will not be in a suitable key for congregational singing. The recording will be in the performing solo vocalist’ s key- chosen, probably in consultation with a producer, to highlight that singer’ s particular strengths and
42 October 2025 Subscribe for Free...