So often, worship bands take the easy way and play an entire song with the same textures and intensity. Variety is so important.
No matter how large or small your group is, you can use different textures – just piano, just guitar, or a cappella, or everyone playing and singing, or just the ladies or men alone, etc. Think “accumulation,” not “repetition.” On each repetition, do something subtle to add life and a sense of unfolding newness – change the rhythm, the chords, the dynamics, the accompaniment, etc. Don’t just always build up; ending a song in a quiet, reflective texture can create a great worship moment.
Paul Baloche created a video to give insight into what his worship band does to create great worship moments. He maps out each section and what each instrumentalist should be doing to add variety, texture, and accumulation. Take a look.
Take time to map out how you will approach each song to get beyond the same old same old. I guarantee the worshippers in your church will appreciate it!
It often helps to map our your ideas ahead of time as Paul Baloche showed in this video. Here is a Google spreadsheet to get you started. Be sure to change the row names to match the instrumentalists that you use and the columns to fit the song map for the particular song.
