If you’ve spent any time on social media lately, I’m sure you’ve seen lots of content created by worship musicians. Typically these are short clips with a POV camera showing the musicians doing their job. Sometimes we get a glimpse of their equipment, but for the most part these videos provide insight to the sounds and techniques used by these extremely talented individuals. I enjoy many of these posts. They can be educational, inspiring, and sometimes funny. As the social media algorithms do their thing, my feed is now flooded with self-produced worship musician videos. I’ve viewed dozens, if not hundreds at this point, and I’m seeing and hearing a disturbing trend. In almost every video, the audio portion is the feed from the musician’s in-ear-monitor mix, consisting of the musician, the click and the guide, and practically nothing else. I have a problem with this.
Understanding the widespread influence, musical mentorship and educational value of these videos to aspiring worship musicians; I believe these influencers are misleading their followers in multiple ways. I don’t think it’s intentional, but I see some bad habits, musically, technically, culturally and even spiritually that are worth considering.
As I’ve mentioned before, I began my career as a professional drummer, touring and recording albums. I don’t say this for any reason other than to point out that for the purpose of this discussion, I have walked a mile in musician’s shoes.
When I was actively touring and visiting other acts that did as well, it was common practice for a band to rehearse in a fairly large space. With few exceptions, the PA system in this environment was in place solely to support vocals. Each electric guitarist and bassist played thru their amplifiers, and the drums were not mic’d. This was before IEMs were developed, so the small PA (consisting only of wedge monitors and side-fills) was used for vocals and sometimes keyboards. Out of necessity, the band essentially “self-mixed”. The drummers in those days were great at self-mixing, laying down a firm foundation with kick and snare, and not tearing everyone’s head off with cymbals. Multiple guitarists could work together developing well orchestrated parts, complementing each other. An interesting thing came out of this style of rehearsal and I witnessed it many, many times. You could walk into a rehearsal space and the band sounded perfect. No sound engineer, no main PA, just a band, some monitors for vocals, and you got a full on, intimate, personal rock show. The beauty of this rehearsal style, that had basically been the standard since the birth of rock music, was that when you put that band on the road; in a large venue, or festival with the giant PA system, the result was magical. They already sounded fantastic as a unit, and a large concert PA simply amplified what was already excellent.
With the advancement of in-ear and personal monitoring technology, those days are gone, at least in church world, and the good far outweighs the bad with our current technology. I can honestly say that in my touring days I would have loved to be able to craft my own personal isolated in-ear mix, eliminating the effects of the environment and basically re-creating a recording studio mix on stage. Any musician from my generation, who worked in the “pre-IEM” era will agree that one of the greatest benefits of IEMs is the isolation factor. But I think musicians today have created a monster when it comes to isolation.
So, why does it matter?
I was filling in as FOH engineer for a friend at a church once. Like most churches, the worship team consisted of some veterans and some relatively inexperienced musicians. In this case the bass player was a newbie. The guitarist, serving as MD (musical director), and the worship leader were very experienced. As rehearsal got going, I noticed that occasionally the bass player would activate a cheap overdrive pedal in his signal chain and ruin the mix. By the time they had worked thru most of the set, apparently “young Skywalker” decided he liked the distortion on every part of every song. It sounded horrible. I dealt with it as best I could, hoping that the “MD” or the worship leader would speak up. This put me, the “fill-in” FOH guy, in a very awkward position of either gently addressing the situation or simply trying to bury a horrible sounding bass guitar in an already-thin mix. Fortunately, a senior worship staff member happened to come in to check on us. I cued up the bass for him to hear in headphones and he quickly dealt with it. But we were both perplexed as to why neither the designated MD or the worship leader didn’t catch it. The answer was obvious, they weren’t listening!
As much as I love my worship guitarist friends, I have to point out that one of the most challenging aspects of my job, as an audio engineer, is dealing with multiple electric guitarists who haven’t coordinated their parts. Adding to that complexity is the presence of the pre-recorded guitar tracks, that may or may not have been curated in advance. (I’ve discussed curating tracks in a previous feature) I completely understand that there are only so many hours in the week to prepare, and finding time to work with your other guitarist may be impossible. But at the very least, how do you think you can contribute effectively to the song when you cannot hear the other guitarist, live or pre-recorded?
I don’t want to just pick on guitarists here. I think the question can apply to every musician on the platform. How can you blend tonally and rhythmically with other instruments if you can’t hear them and they can’t hear you?
All drummers know that locking in with the click is crucial to your ability to even make the team. A well-seasoned drummer can create a groove, or pocket, by either laying on the back-side of the click or getting a bit on top of it. These are advanced techniques that take years to develop. For younger drummers, I’m certainly willing to give some grace in this area. Someone once asked Larry Mullen Jr., the drummer for U2, why he looked so serious when he played. His answer was, “I’m just trying really hard not to screw up.” As a drummer, if you’re just getting started, I get it! Do what you gotta do. But I want all drummers and bass players to know that the real magic, the groove, the pocket, the feel, happens when drums and bass are playing together! I will continue to preach this, because you will be better when you listen to and play with your teammates.
As a young kid, I became a musician because I wanted to be in a band. I wanted to make great music with great friends. God allowed me to live that dream, which also opened the doors for what I get to do now. I suppose it’s hard for me to imagine any other motivation. I spent thousands of hours playing alone with a metronome to prepare myself to go make music with my friends. Playing alone with a click was not the payoff, the payoff was making music.
On some level, I have to admit, if I was forced to play music with just a click, guide, and a mere smattering of other players, it just wouldn’t be fun! We have the best IEM technology ever developed and this is how we choose to use it?
On a deeper level, beyond the technical and musical aspects, is this how we want to worship? Have we become so performance-oriented that we have to eliminate the distraction of everyone else on the worship team?
In a strange way I feel like the worship musician experience in this context reflects our society in general. We are surrounded by other like-minded, talented, passionate worshipers but are opting to worship alone, with a machine.
I love the opening line of Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, “It’s not about you!” My challenge to worship musicians and singers for Sunday is this; Play, Sing, and Worship, together!
And more than ever, don’t forget to listen!
