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What's the most embarassing thing that has happened to you...

I was thinking it would be fun to hear how we have embarassed ourselves when leading worship or playing in our worship teams. Did you fall over on "stage" or forget to turn your guitar on..

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Permalink Reply by Michael Letus on June 18, 2011 at 5:12pm

"Now getting a band to play 6/8 (especially a drummer) in the first place, and make the music interesting -- that's a challenge! "

It certainly is--or can be--a challenge. It's kind of sad that 6/8 or 3/4 time is considered so irregular. It's such an expressive beat and so much can be done with it as musicians. I KNOW I'm wierd, but I take 4/4 songs and practice playing them in 6/8 or occasionally even 5/4 time. My mind has no trouble going there either with the sax or on percussion, which I spend most of the summer doing. I sometimes have more trouble coming up with interesting ways to play in 4/4 time than the other time signatures.

Now--try having the band (especially the drummer!! HAH) stay in 6/8 time when the sax player is soloing a few measures in 4/3 time!!!

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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on June 18, 2011 at 6:15pm

I take it you mean 3/4, Michael;:) but 4/3 would be a pretty cool time signature. Third notes! You could also use them for triplets and forget all that slurring.

Since you play both sax, with its living, liquid rhythmic tradition, and percussion, you can manage both worlds in your head.

I just met a 6th-grade girl that says she is unable to multitask in music (say, play treble and bass on piano) because she is genetically disinclined to multitasking -- it short-circuits her whole brain, and she can't hear anything. Her dream is to become a brain surgeon.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Letus on June 18, 2011 at 7:48pm

Greg,

I actually did mean 4/3 time. It's not an 'official' time signature, but it's playing 4 equal notes over the 3/4 or 6/8 (would be 8 equal notes in the 6/8 measure). I've seen it a couple times in jazz transcriptions and (for me at least) takes quite a bit of concentration to do it over a few measures and jump back into normal 6/8 playing. If done properly it creates quite a distinctive sound, but I think only one instrument can pull it off. Otherwise it'd throw everyones timing off.

I know I'm nowhere near the best sax player around and have a lot of work to do on my tone (especially from Memorial Day to Labor Day when I'm usually the sole 'drummer' available and sax takes a back seat), but timing and 'expressiveness' are something the Lord seems to have gifted me with.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on June 18, 2011 at 8:03pm

Just this morning I was writing a piece for a musical comedy script a friend gave me. Scene: Rahab meets the spies. I have her singing a 6/8 song that sounds foggily like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and already the spies have been doing the typical spy thing (40's dark jazz). So when she invites them in, I keep the 4/4 beat going under her tripletey thing - creating a wonderful cross-rhythm.

Reuben Morgan's "My Heart Will Trust in You" (Hillsongs) prominently accents the in-between beats in a 6/8 song (something I've heard in other Irishy songs). It adds rhythmic interest and keeps a 6/8 song from going "here we go scattering flower's in May" swingy-swingy.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Barker on June 19, 2011 at 9:33pm

Just today we opened with Everlasting God....I did a quick key change from A to G to start Forever. During practice 30 minutes before it went fine....during the actual service I started the guitar part...other instruments came in but I started on the wrong beat, kept playing a G over and over. Other instruments dropped out. I then started to sing the wrong song. and finially just quit and started cracking up...Of course everyone on the team and congregation did too. One of the girl backup singers came over and wispered in my ear the correct tune. We started again and everything went great the rest of the set. It happens...when it does, just make a joke about it and move on......I bet the big boys make mistakes too.

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Permalink Reply by scrffy doodl goff on June 22, 2011 at 10:51pm

i hve to really true with you im not a worship leader i will like to be the drums is my calling

but some day i will i siged up bekues i love to do the drums plesae forgive me

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Permalink Reply by Scott Kantner on July 8, 2011 at 2:40am

Mine would be having the intro to a song, and then starting it in the wrong key...twice on two separate occasions. Our WL handed out "Counting on God" in B, but asked us to do it in B flat. The first time we did it I forgot to hit the Transpose key on the keyboard. The second time, I was using MainStage and forgot to change the Midi mapping on the patch to take it down a half step.

As an encore, I actually DID remember to hit the Transpose key properly on yet another occasion, but forgot to reset it before the next song. <sigh!>

//Scott