The one thing you do not want to do in any worship transition is transition to something that is not done well. I've seen far too many churches switch to blended, contemporary or modern worship from traditional worship only to trend backwards again because the musical quality of the new style was poor. The poor quality can come from a variety of places - such as inexperience or congregational uncomfortability - but more often it comes from the band being incomplete.
Really, band incompleteness is no one's fault, but it seems to be a problem for most transitioning churches and the reasons are fairly obvious. Churches that are transitioning are transitioning FROM something - probably something most musicians (other than organists) are not attracted to. Second, many transitioning churches still fall into a quandary - paying organists/pianists while not paying band members who often do more and more complex work. Whatever the reason, the end result is that guitarists, drummers, bass players and pop vocalists are not prevalent in transitioning churches unless you're willing to pay for them to be there. But, attempting to play modern worship without the key instruments (rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, drums) is unwise.
So what then? Find it or fake it.
Find It
If you take this option, there's a few rocks that are always good to look under. For instance, even though you might not have any electric bass players in the church, you might have high schooler who plays cello in the orchestra - the principles are almost exactly the same. Other good places to look for bass players: people who can sort of play a 6-string guitar and anyone who plays a band/orchestra instrument in the bass clef - trombone, tuba, etc. In fact, almost any band instrumentalist will be able to pick up electric bass with some time and a YouTube account. [Best bass player I've found: former bassoon player]
How about a drummer? Drummers are everywhere - they just need to be found. The only non-negotiable for possible drummers: lack of rhythm. Just don't start new drummers on a full trapset. Start them on a shaker (egg shakers are about $3). Then, move them on to a djembe or bongos (djembes have a nicer sound). Then, let them play with the trapset, but use a clicktrack in your monitors to help train them (easy to create through GarageBand or with drum machine listed below). [Best drummers I found: teenager in pep band at local high school who couldn't play at his Catholic church and 50-year-old drummer I found on BandMix.com who used to open for Alice In Chains]
Guitar players are more difficult, but the same rule from above apples - no one who can't keep a rhythm, which excludes more people than you think - rhythm is rarely learned. Can they clap on the beat - even complex beats? Start there. Check your local college for guitar players - find local teenage bands - kids are often just looking for a place to play. Good drummers often make the best guitarist, by the way - challenge them to make the progression if you have enough drummers. [Best guitar player I found: lead guitarist for local teenage death metal band who would play Sunday mornings after raves on Saturday nights].
Fake It
One of the most impressive things I've ever seen was a young man who was the self-described "solo musician" at his church. He played a kick drum with his foot, played bass with his left hand and piano with his right hand. What's funny is that it sounded better than many "full" church bands I've seen. And, while I realize most of us can't pull this off, it illustrates a couple points: 1)DO NOT compromise the rhythm section, whatever you do. Keep in mind the modern worship team hierarchy (above). 2)Less on each instrument still sounds like more when you have more instruments, or three instruments playing less is better sounding than one instrument playing three times as much.
Let me assert that I think you can pull off a modern worship band with one person. You have two, you say? Well then just insert your creativity and make it happen. How can I make this claim? Because I've done it. Here's how I run my solo rig:
Guitar: This one's hard to fake, so I play a rhythm guitar. What you CAN do is make playing guitar easier. Using a cut capo (right), you can turn any regular chord in the key of "E" into a one or two finger chord. Add a regular capo and you can now play any regular chord in any key with one or two fingers. What this means for the player is less concentration, less dedication needed on the guitar alone. And, since many worship artists like Chris Tomlin and Billy Foote write for the key of E, it works (trust me!).Bass: Thi
s is also hard to fake and you could probably go without it, if you have to, but what's easy to do is pick up an octave pedal, which simultaneously doubles low notes an octave lower, in bass range. I use a Boss OC-3. You can also play on your low strings only during bass-driven parts of the song to create the same effect.Drums:
Many people hate the sound of drum machines, but they're not the worst thing in the world. As one of my vocalists said to me this week: "Wow, that thing never screwed up!" And he was right. But even if you don't like the mechanical nature of it - drum machines are better than no drummer (not to mention better than many real drummers). My drum machine is an Alesis SR-16 with two pedals - one for tap tempo (so I start the guitar, tap the tempo and it comes in at that tempo) and the other for on/off. I can also put in fills with the tap pedal.Keyboard: Although keyboard isn't essential to the modern worship band (see my previous posting), it helps, especially in this setup, to have some smoothing ambient sounds. But where is your favorite 80's synthesizer rocker? Nowhere....and that's just fine. Grab your laptop, download ambient pads for free in every key from this website [http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1006691], open iTunes and turn on the repeat-2 function. Suddenly, you've got yourself the best keyboardist you've ever played with. Run that signal through a volume pedal and suddenly you've also got yourself fade in/fade outs.
Other Options: There's many directions you can go with this - many things can be done with loops that you can download online that will essentially work like full background tracks, which allow you to add and subtract instruments as you need them. Get yourself a program like Reason, Cakewalk or even GarageBand on your Mac and you can produce an entire band sound without the band. You might also try a loop pedal, which allows you to make live loops (ie, smack your guitar for percussion, loop it, play the rhythm part, loop it, play the lead part, etc.). I've seen guitar geniuses do this and imitate full bands, as well - but you have to know what you're doing.Whatever you do, do it well. And please, please repeat after me: "I will never allow my church to sing songs to a CD." There, we just made the world a better place.
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