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Hollywood Session Player Jay Leech Talks About the Rhythm Section[Veteran guitarist Jay Leach has performed on numerous Maranatha Music! and secular CDs, TV commercials, movie scores, Broadway shows, and produces his own worship CDs. See jayleach.com] My friend Barry Liesch asked me if I would share some of my thoughts regarding the rhythm section in the church. So here they are. As worship leaders and musicians we have an awesome privilege to be given the opportunity to lead congregations in the act of worship (the process of ascribing worth or value to our Lord through the medium of music), but as normal, earthly people we have great capacity for being mediocre, lazy, or just plain not very good. When Oswald Chambers wrote his famous book, " My Utmost for His Highest, " it was all about Our best for His best- and so it should be in our musical expression. Think about this: When a show come to town (like currently "Les Miserables"), the show has a conductor that knows the music inside out, and an assistant conductor who is equally qualified to step on to the podium and with little or no notice and lead 30 or 40 musicians through incredibly complex music seamlessly. Contrast this with a worship team whose leader has incorrect charts, or knows that one or two of the singers on the worship team aren't cuttin' it but doesn't want to say anything because feelings might be hurt. Another scenario might be an instrumentalist on a worship team that struggles with a certain song or certain section of a song but doesn't bother to bring it to the attention of the leader because: 1) he or she can fake their way through it, 2) the leader is cool about it, 3)"I'm not a pro anyway and it sounds ok to me." First let me say what I'm NOT saying: 1. All worship teams are 2nd rate. 2. Church worship teams should be just sharp as traveling musicians who receive thousands of dollars a week for their services. 3. All worship leaders have mediocre standards. What I AM saying is that anything less than our very finest is just not acceptable as musical leadership in the church and that " to whom much is given, much is required" and again," if a man judges himself he'll be not judged." If you're an instrumentalist, I challenge you to go over how you play certain tunes and assess your performance of them. Are there some cooler voicings? Or how would it sound with some different inversions related to what the keyboard player or guitar player is playing? If you're a drummer, how's the time? Is it locked? When you practice do you always use a metronome? If you're the bass player, do you have a team mentality of knowing that you're laying down the foundation that the entire church is gonna build their worship on musically? If you're a worship leader:
In closing I just want to say that there are no perfect musicians, no perfect leaders (although I have met leaders that would disagree), and no perfect people, period. God knows that so I just want to say that let's just notch it up to prayerfully ask the Lord to show us any weaknesses, or areas that can specifically be dealt with immediately and forthrightly to make the musical worship experience as wonderful, professional, and real as it can be for the people who come to church to worship (ascribe worth to) our wonderful Lord. God Bless You! Jay Leach (c)Copyright 2001 Dr. Barry Liesch |
