Electronic music/synths in contemporary worship band setting

In a different thread, ChristianRock asked a question about my band's attempt to start incorporating electronic music and synths in a worship band context, so I thought I would start a new thread on that topic.....

I'll give a little background for some context. For the past 4 or 5 years, I have played lead guitar in our worship band. We play in the third of our church's three Sunday morning services (and other events, youth events, etc.). For the most part, since the inception we have been basically "standard" CCM-type contemporary worship. Lead guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, bass, two or three vocalists. We generally play standard CCM worship music--Tomlin, Crowder, Hillsong United, Lincoln Brewster, Fee, etc.

We are very fortunate to have both a lead pastor and worship pastor who are supportive and give us a lot of freedom. As a result, we get to "rock out" a little more than a lot of the "contemporary worship bands" I have seen. This is a little unusual because our service is not a "twentysomething" or "alternative" service at our church. It is one of the three main Sunday morning services, with an extremely wide range of congregants. Anywhere from youth/teens to people in their 60s (although I'm always surprised at some of the senior adults who say they love our music!).

For most of the duration, we have been locked into a very guitar-driven sound. This is really not surprising, because almost 100% of currently popular "contemporary" worship music is likewise 100% guitar driven. With very few exceptions, there is almost no electronic/synth element (now, I'm not talking about using keys for piano or strings, or that type of accompaniment--there is plenty of that).

As a band, we have been discussing for some time the fact that "popular music" in general in the US is headed in a distinctively electronic/synth-driven direction. And not that we as a worship band want to try to chase trends, but we definitely want to keep our music fresh and relevant. Our goal is for a younger/postmodern-era person who has never set foot in a church to feel comfortable hearing our music, at least with the style, even if they don't know the specific songs or words.

So we have decided to try to incorporate a substantial element of electronica and synths into our worship sets. The challenge, though, is not to alienate the older/more traditional members who do attend our service.

As far as gear, initially it has been a matter of "make do with what we can afford." We had a really good Mac Powerbook going unusued, so we bought Komplete Elements 7 and a cheapy MI Audio midi board for that. Just to get something cheap with a basic sound set, along with good pianos and strings, I have also been using a Yamaha MM6. I just yesterday bought a Yamaha CS6X to throw into the mix.

As far as how we have started incorporating...here are a few examples. Hopefully you will be familiar with these songs if you have read this far. One easy way has been to start to incorporate good synthy-sounding pads in places where on lead guitar, I would previously have been playing volume swells and reverby-delayed washes of sound. Songs like "I Will Rise" by Tomlin, "How He Loves" by Crowder, "Glory in the Highest" by Tomlin, etc.

I have also started working in arp-based synth sequences in place of some of the guitar-hook driven intros to songs. For instance, this past week for "Sing Sing Sing" by Tomlin, I started with a synthy arp, then the drummer came in with a very techno sounding 4 on the floor beat, and we then kept that through the rest of the song.

I would point you to some audio if I had some. Unfortunately, the only thing I have is our church's archive of our web live streams, which include the music from the services. But the audio mix in those things is SO BAD that all you can hear are vocals. (Unfortunately, we have a limited supply of knowledgeable sound technicians, so the good ones of course work the front of house board and the not-so-good ones work the mixer for the web broadcasts.)

So, I would say we are taking baby steps so far. We are at the point where we are incorporating elements of synth and electronica, rather than being completely synth-based. Sorry for the lengthy post, hopefully this will be of use to ChristianRock and others who may play in a worship setting.

Very cool. Thanks for your thoughts on this! It was very helpful to see how you are approaching this.

Last year this guy posted an ad on local Craigslist looking for someone to collaborate on an Christian EDM project. I replied and we exchanged a couple of emails but nothing came out of it. That was supposed to be a full electronic effort and I was actually excited about it, but the guy lived far away from me and we never even ended up getting together.

I just finished a guitar-driven Christian album (doing a release party next month), and I've been thinking a lot about my next steps. My equipment allows for a ton of ambient exploration, and that fits in well with me wanting to do a "contemplative" album next. Something to listen to in your quiet time praying or meditating on God's word. This would feature loops and electronic drum sounds rather than acoustic drums. I'll still probably play bass on it (I love the sound of a fretless), but it will have much less guitar and the synth sounds will be much more up front.

I've also mused about a totally electronic worship set based on the vocal trance style... but that style seems to never have caught on in the US.

The ambient project you are describing sounds right up my alley. I would love to do something like that. I used to be involved in a college- and twenty-something worship service, much more of an "emerging church" style of worship service. That setting would have been perfect for ambient electronic worship. Unfortunately, that was several years ago, in my pre-synth era.

I don't know why CCM worship music is so entirely guitar-based. Maybe because they are based in Nashville, home of country music? To me, a lot of CCM worship music is basically modern country music with crunchier guitars, and no country drawl or fiddles/banjos/slide guitar. (And I like country music, so I'm not dogging on it.) But with much of even American pop headed toward a distinctly electronic, trance or techno type sound, I don't know why worship music has basically refused to follow.

Electronic music, done right, can be so extremely powerful, envigorating, moving, restful, contemplative, spiritual, and a thousand other things. Ambient electronic music for spiritual reflection and meditation time, like you suggest, is a perfect example. I would hope that it's not the case that Christian musicians have failed to even look that direction, for the most part, simply because of an attitude that "synths and electronica are for dancing and clubs, not worship music" or something similarly silly.

My fear is that if the two styles (CCM vs. "secular" music) continue to head in opposite directions, suddenly we will wake up one day and our contemporary "worship" (guitar-driven CCM) music will be as culturally irrelevant as Southern gospel is today. I'm determined to not let that happen, at least in my little tiny corner of the world.

I am not a believer, nor do I go to church, but I am interested in how people use music and instruments of various types in different settings to enable communication and also different genres of music. That includes settings where I don't go normally such as churches and dance clubs and genres outside of my normal listening range. Sometimes when I keep my mind open I even find music or a musician that I like, for example Phil Keaggy who I have come to really like for his finger-style acoustic guitar work. I have found a lot of music that I like by opening my mind to evil death metal so why not open it up to listen to other stuff as well?

I for one think this thread is perfectly on topic and was started with a rather a-political, professional, mature, and well-written post.

I imagine an IHOP scenario, more of an Encounter Service setting, with energetic electronic music that has contemplative moments. I think it would be awesome.

Speaking of IHOP, I watch their broadcasts sometimes and they do incorporate some electronic music already, it's been happening there for a while now. I think Kansas City will soon replace Nashville, because as you said, Nashville refuses to change and is becoming completely irrelevant musically.

Yeah I even call it "the Nashville sound". If you look at the CD credits of the "major players", there's usually the same musicians playing in a lot of the records. Now here in Atlanta there's a similar thing going on - a little less country-focused, and a little more 90s alternative. It helps that the two cities are within driving distance... so it's not all that different.

Yeah people who never seem to leave the 4 walls of the church, tend to end up refusing anything that is "new". It's happened since Luther brought bar songs into the church...

Like I said, I think the IHOP/prayer movement is already filling that void. It should be exciting

mmmmmm ihop.

This IHOP I'm talking about is the International House of Prayer

As an atheist, i'd just like to say that I approve of this thread.

Sometimes i play 70s children's chorus songs and methodist hymns as a nostalgia thing.

Never done an arrangement of one yet for synth though, so couldn;t comment on that part of it... probably if I did it would end up with the 'switched on' vibe.

yeah what did ANY of that have to do with Electronic music/synths in contemporary worship band setting??

i better say something music-based. um..... I think electronic music in worship band is great. our church use both Fantom and Motifs stacked up and sounds great. most of the time we rock out enough that the old people get upset over volume.

:thu::thu:

At most any church , it's still the U2 style accompaniment. Many have totally abandoned synthesizers, and if you inquire why I think you will discover it's just personal preference. (beyond the strings/pad sound thing) What I hear is "we don't know of anyone interested in playing the synth" This is from the worship leader in a church capacity of 2,000 and 3 separate services. Hummmm......

The church has never been able to balance music very well. Not only in a instrument/sound context like the discussion of this thread, but music content as well. You always hear worship music that is fairly current like whatever Hillsong has released, with the obligatory classic Amazing Grace tossed in for a bit of hipness. But I assure you, if I heard the worship band do "Shine Jesus Shine," (everybody did it in the early 90s.) it would stand out like Milli Vanelli....and it shouldn't be that way.

Since the beginning of "Jesus Music" in the early 70's it seems people have always complained about the "sameness" in CCM. I was involved in CCM from 1979-84 and will assure you in that era there were very few producers pumping out a ton of content working 7 days a week. Just look at the credits for Chris Christian & Brown Bannister. And pick up most any CCM album and you will see the same Nashville studio musicians. For synthesizers, in Nashville if you were under contract for any of the Big 3 at that time..(Word Records, Benson Company, Sparrow Records) your studio synthesizer musician would be Shane Keister. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Keister. Glenn Meadows mastered the majority of those records. Nashville has always been a close nit family and probably always will be.

Fast forward 30 years: I listen to content played on EMF (Air-1/K_love) and it still has that same Nashville sound! I really believe the issue is Nashville studio musicians...and of course money! You hear what they think will sell, and the radio station target demographics will always be 25-49...the money demographic.

There isn't much CCM originating from LA anymore. Between 1980 and today it seems things were more balanced. Michael Omartian worked with Amy Grant and several other traditional Nashville artists and look what happened! But today it's all gone back to Nashville and you can hear it on the records.

Owl City, Beckah Shae, Wake Up Starlight....those are just a few small synthesizer glimmers of hope that could be so refreshingly nice in a sea of worship music blandness.

Plawre...best wishes for you!

Well I'm a Catholic with extremely limited knowledge of CCM performances in churches, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I would say it's fine if the use of synths conforms to performance idioms typical of gospel/rock/blues/country keyboard music. But what you're doing is still musical acompaniment to a church service, so you don't want to get wrapped up in technological gew-gaws, especially if it might be distracting to some of the older folks who aren't familiar with electronic music production. Anything using, say, preprogrammed beats would probably reek of hotdoggery.

Yeah, it could be organ music with a pedal register, although I believe that's typically written on a different staff. If the voice is written on a different staff above a grand staff, I would assume that the music on the grand staff is playable on a keyboard, and not just a transcription of a chorale.

Keyboard music with intervals of a tenth or above in any hand is typicallly going to be classified as advanced, since not everyone has fingers that can span out that wide. Actually, I'm unsure if there's much keyboard music out there that calls for elevenths.

Do you have a scan? It's diffucult to comment without being able to see it.

Does it make any more sense if you assume some notes are in the wrong staff? i.e to be played on the other hand.

Could be a bunch of things, or just idiosyncratic scoring.

Argument clinic posts have been moved here: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?2736810

yeah what did ANY of that have to do with Electronic music/synths in contemporary worship band setting?? i better say something music-based. um..... I think electronic music in worship band is great. our church use both Fantom and Motifs stacked up and sounds great. most of the time we rock out enough that the old people get upset over volume.

IDK about CCM but you'd be hard-pressed to not find a Workstation in UCG.

As an aside I would like to say don't forget about classical and baroque style music in church. I grew up going to a very conservative Catholic church (Holy Trinity in Webster, NY) that was established in 1861 and has a real pipe organ, with the organ and organist at the back of the church up on a balcony. The church usually hired an organist educated at Eastman School of Music in Rochester for services and to direct the choir. In hind sight, growing up listening to pipe organ music was the best part of going there. It was something I took for granted as it was always there, but probably the only thing I really miss. Also I know that the Basilica in Minneapolis has classical music with ensembles including more than just pipe music which are really wonderful and free (well for the price of going to church). To work this in with synths and samplers is easy, as I would guess that many smaller modern churches don't have pipe organs or classical ensembles with brass and/or strings. They also don't have cathedral or basilica construction with an architecture that promotes natural reverb, so I would guess that a good reverb processor might be required to get the right sound for some types of music designed to be performed in such spaces. A creative music minister could use samplers for some of this. I think it is fun to try to play some of my piano lesson pieces using the pipe organ patch on my M3M, especially Bach and Hayden.

I'll see if I can attach a scan. I know I need literally years of practise but I doubt if I will ever be able to stretch the Bb - D interval on the lower stave near the end of this small excerpt. I can imagine being agile enough to do the C-E stretch just before it on the edge of the keyboard, but the Bb pins my little finger to the black key so that trick doesn't work here.

I have now retrieved my beloved X-Station 61 so this is on what I think is pretty much a full size keyboard. (It was on loan to my nephew - I was on the verge of getting a Nord Lead 2X to replace it and motivate my practising when he decided he wanted to concentrate on guitar. I managed to contain my disappointment at his lack of interest :-)).

I have to admit that I pretty much can't stand CCM. I admit that it is a little hypocritical and stand-offish since I love choral and gospel music. Give me a good organist (pipe or B3) with a choir and I'm front and center wailing away.

The only time my wife's grandmother and I truly bonded was when we were trapped in front of a worship band of 40-somethings with soul patches and PRS's playing Orange County punk. Hate can bring us together.

Mind you, I go to a church with a Berklee trained music director who is more soul/RnB. Even when he plays CCM there's a little more swing to it. So maybe I should shoot the messenger.

But I digress: I attended a Taize service (there's an accent on the end, it's French) and there were long periods of prayer. Candles. Dim lights. Softly chanted scriptures. It made me really want to bust out a little Klaus Schulze or Brian Eno.

There is something about synthesizers that can't be replicated easily on guitar that can lend itself to worship. It just hasn't been explored much.

There's no odds if you play the upper note on the right hand.

Just play E G then D G on the right and the lower note of the bottom staff on the left.

Combine the higher C at the start of the next bar with the E A on the right hand, then go back to what it says.

Probably that's just odd scoring, some traditional church music can be quite complex but usually it doesn't tip past the ower end of intermediate... really they needed stuff that most people of some ability could play.

The way a lot of that music is composed tends to allow for an 'inner voice', i.e. it looks like it's composed as two notes on both hands but the upper note of the bass staff and lower of the treble come together like a third part in places to add interest... it might help to think of it that way.

i know i'm probably wrong about this but i see alternative/commercial rock being the blame for modern country and modern country being the blame for CCM. a lot of Christain Rock bands sound just as bad as the big alternative rock bands and sometimes its hard to tell the difference. & a lot of CCM sounds like really cheesy, anemic Folk Rock music.

Original poster here--I didn't check this thread over the weekend, holy smokes did a poopstorm erupt out of my original thread! I'm glad the substantive discussion got separated out here, thanks mods...

I was really wrestling with this issue this weekend, talking it over with the guy who leads our band. We have a three-day youth event coming up the first weekend of March. This is definitely a time I feel the liberty to "push the envelope" a little more than our regular church services. I really want to try some new stuff out, as this is the first year I am playing synths in the band (rather than lead guitar), really make a concerted effort to make at least some of our sets as synth-driven as possible.

Here is the big problem I always run into--this weekend I got the song list for the youth event. A fairly standard list of songs by the typical big CCM worship artists right now. The problem is, my brain is so used to hearing those songs in standard modern country/adult alternative format, that it is extremely hard for my brain to bust out of that mold and think of them in a synth/electronica style.

This youth event coming up is precisely why I see this as a big deal though--we will be playing for 200-300 teenagers who will spend all week, for the most part (not to stereotype, of course), listening to synth-driven pop music. Obviously stuff like Owl City, but many pop and hip hop artists drawing big air play--Rihanna, Katy Perry, Kesha, Bruno Mars, etc.--are relying on a much more trancey or techno-y sound now.

Then those teens come in to this big weekend long event, and even though our band "rocks out" pretty well, they are going to hear music that by and large, style-wise, sounds much like what many of their parents listen to.

Now, bear in mind, I'm not some 20 year old kid saying this. I am 37, my wife is 40, we grew up listening to 80s hair bands and grunge and the default setting on my Ipod would probably be U2. So, especially as a relative newcomer to the synth world, it is exceedingly difficult for my brain to break out of that mold. Especially when all of the popular worship music being played in churches comes out in the same mold, I have a very difficult time "hearing" songs from a synth-based perspective.

And it is all the more frustrating because I am in one of the churches that would actually give our band the freedom to experiment. In a lot of places, the pastor would never permit it, and even if he or she did, the congregation would freak out and ask why that "dance club stuff" is being played in church, where it has no business.

Part of my problem is I just don't know of any good examples of bands or churches that are successfully doing this. If anyone can point me to videos or audio where someone is making heavy use of a synth-based format (in any form--trance, techno, house, ambient), that would be highly appreciated.

Interesting thread. Most worship bands here in Finland also seem to want to sound like Hillsong, and it's getting a little boring. I filled in once for a bass player with synth bass and another time played lead synth when a violin player couldn't make it to the gig, but I don't think I have heard anyone else play synthesizers at our church.

The eurodance/trance duo G-Powered is the only electronic christian band I know...

[video=youtube;gJ1vZDiauOQ]

So, here is one of the great hypocracies of modern life: listening and embracing one kind of music through the week, listening to another style on the weekend.

The dance aspect is also hard for people to comprehend... not all dancing is sinful. You can jump and shake and smile, laugh, sing, clap and flail about worshipping god and enjoying life without bumping and grinding. I do that every weekend standing in the bleachers. The kids are going to listen to Kesha and crap anyway.... unless you are singing about drinking and partying and encouraging bumping and griding, I don't see contemporary Christian "Trace" as any big deal. Kids might even enjoy a mostly synth arrangement compared to the funeral marches that most grow up believing church music to be... you know, mostly standard chords droned out on a big organ

I go to one of those "MTV" style churches* with big projection screens, large sound system, and loud kicking music, and there is a lot of synth, trance/dance style music that plays over the little video snippets... not PERFORMED, just used as background music bed but pretty loud. Here's a bunch of videos, but I'm sorry I can't direct you to one specific example of what I am talking about. But it fits just fine and this congregation is fine with it.

http://www.vimeo.com/18858086

Our YOUTH thing is a whole other story. Last I heard it is totally hip music from christian hip hop and raps to really really loud rock music and anything in between. I'm mixed them live before and they like it CONCERT LOUD back there! hahahaha

I'm 46 and it was even too loud for me. But it was a great vibe and the kids keep coming back for more.

*the spectacle is nice and all, but really, the message is why I keep coming back for more. always relevant to TODAY's world and our real lives, not just verse memorization or repetition

The youtube I'm linking to here is very amateur and not very good at all, at any standards - the vocals in particular are pretty uninteresting, and the instrumentation is as generic trance as I've ever heard. So I'm not posting it because of the music. I'm posting it here so you can look at the comments - lots of people complaining that it is "ungodly" to do electronic worship music.

So that's probably what one would be facing if trying to do this. But I'd say, do it anyway. I for one think that if you are getting religious pharisees mad, you must be doing something right

[video=youtube;pzMgAKpMwNM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzMgAKpMwNM

Also, it *might* be productive to take this conversation into the Worship Community Forums, just to see what people say. There seems to be a lot of people very set in their ways over there... but also some people that are genuinely concerned with doing something relevant instead of sticking to the status quo...

Ok I just started a thread at the worship community forums about this subject. Let's see how it goes