Six Things I Learned About Rehearsals (From Leading a New Team Every Week…For Years!)

Almost every week, I lead a new team of musicians. Sometimes all we have is a Sunday morning rehearsal. I don’t know if the bass and drums will be the railroad tracks for the band or if they’ll simply try to follow me. I don’t know if the electric guitar player will be able to play the hook. I don’t’ know if the piano player needs sheet music. I don’t know (until just before we start) if I’m supposed to ask people to meet and greet after the songs, or if I’m supposed to call for the offering or pray to open the service. I don’t know if we’ll be using in-ear monitors or if we have one monitor mix for all the wedges on the stage.

I don’t know a lot of things. And I bet more than a couple of you are freaking out internally as you read that paragraph!

It’s taught me some things I think can be helpful to everyone, even if you’ve played with the same drummer for over fifteen years.

1. Talk about your philosophy and approach

I’ll often start by saying this: “My goal isn’t to nail down an exact arrangement. It’s to get comfortable creating together. That means we will focus more on listening to each other and responding than memorizing or following the chart. Now don’t freak out, we will decide on a likely arrangement, but that’s not the focus, it’s not the goal. We want to be comfortable enough with each other to create actual music.”

Doing this both rehearses my purpose and gets us on the same page, all the while teaching one of the foundations of great music – listening and responding. Playing chords isn’t making music. You might be making it through the music, but you’re not making music if you’re not listening and responding to each other.

2. Come prepared with solutions

You’re rehearsing a song you’ve led before, but this time something doesn’t feel right. Maybe the chorus doesn’t explode with energy, or your strum pattern doesn’t seem to fit what everyone else is playing.

Here’s the deal. We have to know what makes every song “work.” (hint: it’ll feel like work if it isn’t)

So what’s driving the song? It could be the singing is driving it and the music is only accompaniment, which is often true of hymns. If the hymn sounds dated, it might be you are just playing too much – it’s getting in the way of what’s driving the song, which is the singing.

It could be the eighth notes on the bass driving the song. If the bass player is playing whole notes or some syncopated rhythm, the groove and feel are all off.

Smart musicians will arrive at rehearsal already having answered the question. They’ve listened to the recording, they’ve played it on their own, and they’ve decoded what makes the song tick.

One of your goals is to take each player and the whole team up just a few notches.

So it’s valuable to prepare well for it – don’t be haphazard and merely reactive. Look at the song list and scout out potential trouble spots and solutions. Look at the list and figure out what principle is used in the songs that you could teach.

3. Use standards

Say this with me: “Beats Per Minute.” I’ve said this before, but if you just start the song at a proper tempo, you’ll fix so many things. Songs often get crammed into the wrong strumming pattern, and words are awkward to sing because you’re singing it too fast or too slow.

I use a free app from LoopCommunity.com called “Prime” to set up all the tempos for a Sunday. You can get it in the iTunes store (bit.ly/Prime016). You can also use the built-in metronome in PCO’s Music Stand.

One of the standards is the original song. We often don’t learn the original song well enough before making it our own. A melody line is changed, the groove is entirely different, and a song's “wow” moment gets lost in translation.

During my college years, I’d be at a conference and hear a song and rush back to teach it. Though we had sung it a few times at the conference, it was a fading memory that began to be replaced by our version. Then years later, I listen to a recording of it and think… “wow, that’s that song?!” So spend enough time with the original version of the song that you get it in your bones. Then make it your own. 

4. Have a well-planned method for rehearsal

I used to lead the Rehearsal Coaching like a typical rehearsal, where you play a song and work on it until it’s done before you go to the next song. This unplanned approach works fine... if you have two songs or unlimited time. Right.

Don’t tell me you’ve never said, “We only have 15 minutes left, and we’ve only done two songs!”

So here’s how I lead them now. We play through all of the songs first. The goal: just make it through each song. No polish, no “working on it,” just no train wrecks.

Ah, now we can see the whole landscape and know what needs the most work and what’s all but ready. Then we spend the rest of the time focused on those two or three songs needing the most work. Here’s the effect: it relaxes the band because there are significantly fewer unknowns. “Will we make it through all the songs?” “Will we be here until 10:30 PM?” “Will we have enough time to get comfortable with the new song?”

5. Set up your teams well before rehearsal

“Oh, here are the songs for tomorrow night’s rehearsal,” is not a very kind statement. Giving out the chord charts and recordings of the songs (in the right keys) at least a week before the rehearsal is being considerate. People have lives, you know! Don’t expect them to drop everything and work on the music. They need time to schedule it in. AND they need time to live with the songs so they can get woven into their journeys with Christ. Let’s say this together: “The first time we listen to the songs will NOT be at rehearsal.”

6. Pick most of your songs from the middle

This is a great idea I learned from Dan Wilt. I’ve been the musician who feels either so unfamiliar or disconnected with the song that it’s next to impossible to worship. I’ve been led by teams full of musicians in that spot.

Part of this is the songs we choose to use. As worship leaders, we’re the worst at this sometimes. We get inspired. We’ve just gotta do that song we heard for the first time this week! We try to cram it into our hearts and into the hands of our worship team. Good luck with that.

I think your set can survive one of those now and then (and it keeps you on your toes), but the majority of your songs should be ones people can sing their hearts out on - songs the team is comfortable using to worship. There are so many good songs out there, but your team and your church will be well-served by having most of your songs be from the “well-known and well-loved” bin.

-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)

Six Things I Learned About Rehearsals (From Leading a New Team Every Week…For Years!) (Nº 16)