I had dinner with some friends the other night – we had formed a singing group around the turn of the century and led worship in churches with some of my songs.
For old time’s sake we gathered around the keyboard and sang our “hits.” One in particular, Grace to You, sounded sweet with their nice 3 part harmony. Everyone remarked on how you don’t hear harmony these days with the current praise songs. Download a free MP3 and transposed chord charts for Grace to You.
The modern worship songs used in guitar driven churches don’t lend themselves to thick 3 part harmony. The DNA of these songs come from the pop/rock world and are designed to be lead by a male tenor vocalist (with maybe a little backup harmony on the chorus by a female vocalist.)
What’s interesting is that some of my singer friends go to a blended/modern church that’s literally crawling with fantastic vocalists any music director would give their right arm for. I heard their church CD and the talent level sounded like an American Idol greatest hits collection. This church is about 2,000-3,000 in size. Since the worship leader is a great keyboardist I’d guess their songs lean toward being keyboard driven.
In contrast, I can think of several trendy, guitar-driven 10,000ish megachurches that have very little vocal talent – one I know of only has a single great female singer. Why does it seem like guitar driven churches don’t attract a lot of great singers?
Vocalists of a feather flock together: In my area, at least, it looks like gifted vocalists shy away from guitar driven churches and many end up at one blendedish church.
No specials: Guitar driven churches with a rock band format (lead male tenor) sing mainly congregational praise songs and typically don’t do many “specials” (i.e. the latest CCM radio hit) where the congregation sits and listens. And when they do perform a “special” it’s often a cover from a secular rock band… led by a tenor vocalist. Gifted vocalists like to sing specials and will gravitate toward churches that have specials in their worship.
What type of vocals does your church have? Leave your comments below.
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Wasn’t there just a recent article on “Worship That Fits Your Culture”? I, personally love all types of worship music. I have a vocal degree, and have sung in lots of “harmony” oriented groups over the years. And that does move me. However, when I turn on the radio, flipping through the stations I hear a pretty wide mix of music that our culture is listening too. Some of it has great harmony, yes, but a whole lot of it is guitar driver, 1 main vocalist (not necissarily tenor) driven music. And I have to say I’m moved by a lot of this as well. I’m getting a sense from this article that if a church is large and doesn’t have 20 incredible classically trained vocalists, that they’re just sub par in the music world. That kind of bothers me. This other type of worship might not “draw” a ton of “trained” vocalists, but instead draws a ton of great instrumentalists. How about a followup article about churches with great vocalists where great instrumentalist shy away from?
I guess my point is just to say that both of these types of churches are reaching people, so why does it matter where the vocalists land, as long as they’re serving and connecting somewhere. They both fit a certain type of culture and neither model makes you more or less of a church. Let’s celebrate God with or without harmony!
God bless you all as you serve and reach out the culture in your area.
We have a guitar driven band with a male tenor vocalist, but we also do special music, and he lets me take lead sometimes. I like that we can be both blended and modern. I also play keyboards and drums, so there is always something for me to do. Praise God, because I think my life would be so dull without His music! =)
“The modern worship songs used in guitar driven churches don’t lend themselves to thick 3 part harmony.”
This is an over-simplification. Those thick 3 part harmonies take place in chord progressions that a) don’t particularly lend themselves to being strummed on a guitar, and b) took time and care to compose.
That being said, we once had a praise band lineup that had vocalists who had both the ear and the training to harmonize from a chord or lead sheet. Not many bands are so blessed.
Those same vocalists also sang in our choir, where they reveled in the harmonies (and dissonances) of note-composed worship music.
Our church’s worship teams would be considered blended, but as the leader, I usually determine if a song or part of a song will be sung/lead by one vocalist, two, or more. For us, it depends on the song. I also have been making our songs either guitar or keyboard driven. We have many talented vocalists and musicians. I want to highlight all of our talents. Sometimes that means we all blend our voices, resulting in some great harmoies and some amazing music. Other times the result is a great song, with less vocals but still amazing music.
I always try to incorporate the entire group and stress that no one in our group is greater than or above anyone else, most especially me. The goal is to lead our congregation into meaningful, life-changing worship with the Lord. God bless!