Worship Musician Magazine September 2020

about right’ measure after the fact, it is a cool phenomenon, right? Ok, so why is this info in the Worship Musician audio article section? While I don’t think we need to calculate decibel levels or duration of a song to perfectly align the climax at a prime Golden Ratio position, performances like the Wilco track illustrate just how vital audio engineers are in shaping the ebb and flow and highlighting that ‘just about right’ moment within a musical experience. Let’s dig in a bit more and see just how these insights might apply to your next mix. REFRAIN FROM REPEATING THE REFRAIN? If you kept up your mixing chops with a Friday night blues band gig, you’d likely hear this basic song form in 90-95% of the tunes that night: VERSE VERSE REFRAIN Go check out Robert Johnson’s 1936 classic “Crossroad Blues" or get your groove on with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Pride and Joy”* for good examples of the AAB form. Jazz musicians steadily expanded and increased the chordal complexity under the AAB form over time, but kept the basic 12-bar frame in place, allowing even the untrained jazz fan’s ear to continue to hear these basic building blocks cycle around every 12 measures. The underlying simplicity and power of the form remains. Many contemporary worship hymns follow familiar musical forms as well. If you glanced at the notes on the worship leader’s music stand, you’d likely see something similar to the form below: INTRO VERSE 1 PRE-CHORUS CHORUS VERSE 2 PRE-CHORUS CHORUS BRIDGE GUITAR SOLO CHORUS OUTRO Certainly more complex than a 12-bar blues, but still largely centered around an ‘A’ (verse) and ‘B’ (chorus) with an added bridge and connecting transition elements to guide things along. Whether you realize it or not, this idea of guiding things along to best connect musically is where you also come in as an audio engineer. CONCERTO FOR AUDIO ENGINEER, PIANIST AND PASTOR Given the example worship hymn song form, where would you expect the most intimate and quiet part of the song to be? How about the ‘let’s see if these digital preamps will distort nicely as I push into the red’ moment? We don’t know what the hypothetical song lyrics are or how the Spirit will move that particular Sunday, but I’d bet good money that the Intro From nautilus shells to Bartók’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta”, the Golden Ratio is all around us. Where might it fit into your mix approach? September 2020 Subscribe for Free... 145

Worship Musician Magazine September 2020 | Page 145