Almighty God (The rising sun) - Tim Hughes
This Man - Hannah Kelly
How Deep The Father's Love For Us - Stuart Townend
Our God is an awesome God - Rich Mullins
What A Friend I've Found - Martin Smith
Open The Eyes Of My Heart - Paul Baloche
Majesty (Here I am) - Martin Smith
Everything (God in my living) - Tim Hughes
Mighty To Save (Everyone needs compassion) - Reuben Morgan/Ben Fielding
The problem? A good number of the songs you see above are not written for our vocal range. I have a mezzo soprano/alto vocal range so generally if it's in a key I can sing, pretty much everyone in the congregation can sing it too. Which is good for a benchmark if you want the congregation to be able to fully engage with the songs. The majority of your average congregation cannot usually do what I do when a song is pretty high pitched and break into a lower harmony.
However a lot of these songs - the lyrics were so totally right for the message that was being brought this evening, so you've got to balance that need to serve the leadership team who had requested one of the songs that I'd usually avoid like the plague from a singing perspective and the need to not be singing so terribly out of tune that you're a distraction to people trying to sing to God!
An hour into the practice we realised that the other vocalist probably wasn't going to show (I'm a bit worried, because it's not like her?) and because of our new set up on the stage upfront I was feeling extremely vulnerable and exposed. Especially as I realised I'd now be the lead vocalist, not just the backing vocalist. Help! It's so rare for me to do that, and with a lot of these songs I've simply never sang the melody.
I also realised that people were beginning to look to me to partly lead, and I just simply didn't feel up to that challenge. I was mucking up the songs because I wasn't confident singing some of them, wasn't sure of some of the melodies and sometimes would just get to the chorus and break into my usual Laura Anne-made harmony out of habit. I started to get stressed, and was very grateful when our pianist/keyboardist (?) agreed to sing as well as play keys and help me out. Being a guy and a much more skilled musician than I, he could do those Tim Hughes/Martin Smith crazy high pitched songs!
Somehow it all went fine, and I think that's testament to the lovely folks who make up what I call our 'mottley crew' who were there tonight - Brisaac, Keith, Peter, Sam and Thomas. By working together, communicating and supporting each other we hopefully were able to serve by leading some songs of praise to God.
I confess though that I was holding back tears before the service, because I was frustrated at my own inabilities. I was so afraid of letting the team and our church down. I was so very aware of being on a stage in the middle instead of standing next to someone who I'd be following and just adding some vocals to enhance theirs. As I sat on the edge of the stage next to Keith and Peter beforehand Thomas asked me why I was sitting there and I was just like 'I'm freaking out'.
During the second half though, I felt so encouraged when I opened my eyes for a brief moment to see someone standing up on a pew, arms wide open and face up towards the heavens. And there were others do the same standing on the floor :) - I could breath a sigh of relief that I could just sing to God and they were too. Otherwise it would have just felt like me singing badly in front of them.
Ok, yes, I'm my own worst critic! I think I'm a good (but not amazing) backing vocalist, but I don't think I'm a good lead vocalist.
So I was surprised when people complimented my singing (after I'd been praying with one of our pastors and ended up in tears as a result! Not a good night to wear mascara, oops). I had one person feel that I had a prophetic calling to lead worship and another say to me that they thought I should do more lead vocals.
I never know whether to believe people when they say stuff about my singing or leading worship in any way. Are they just being nice to try and encourage me, or are they encouraging me in a genuine gifting I have? I'm just not sure.
Hmmm. A little off topic today. Apologies for that!
What A Friend I've Found - Martin Smith
Open The Eyes Of My Heart - Paul Baloche
Majesty (Here I am) - Martin Smith
Everything (God in my living) - Tim Hughes
Mighty To Save (Everyone needs compassion) - Reuben Morgan/Ben Fielding
The problem? A good number of the songs you see above are not written for our vocal range. I have a mezzo soprano/alto vocal range so generally if it's in a key I can sing, pretty much everyone in the congregation can sing it too. Which is good for a benchmark if you want the congregation to be able to fully engage with the songs. The majority of your average congregation cannot usually do what I do when a song is pretty high pitched and break into a lower harmony.
However a lot of these songs - the lyrics were so totally right for the message that was being brought this evening, so you've got to balance that need to serve the leadership team who had requested one of the songs that I'd usually avoid like the plague from a singing perspective and the need to not be singing so terribly out of tune that you're a distraction to people trying to sing to God!
An hour into the practice we realised that the other vocalist probably wasn't going to show (I'm a bit worried, because it's not like her?) and because of our new set up on the stage upfront I was feeling extremely vulnerable and exposed. Especially as I realised I'd now be the lead vocalist, not just the backing vocalist. Help! It's so rare for me to do that, and with a lot of these songs I've simply never sang the melody.
I also realised that people were beginning to look to me to partly lead, and I just simply didn't feel up to that challenge. I was mucking up the songs because I wasn't confident singing some of them, wasn't sure of some of the melodies and sometimes would just get to the chorus and break into my usual Laura Anne-made harmony out of habit. I started to get stressed, and was very grateful when our pianist/keyboardist (?) agreed to sing as well as play keys and help me out. Being a guy and a much more skilled musician than I, he could do those Tim Hughes/Martin Smith crazy high pitched songs!
Somehow it all went fine, and I think that's testament to the lovely folks who make up what I call our 'mottley crew' who were there tonight - Brisaac, Keith, Peter, Sam and Thomas. By working together, communicating and supporting each other we hopefully were able to serve by leading some songs of praise to God.
I confess though that I was holding back tears before the service, because I was frustrated at my own inabilities. I was so afraid of letting the team and our church down. I was so very aware of being on a stage in the middle instead of standing next to someone who I'd be following and just adding some vocals to enhance theirs. As I sat on the edge of the stage next to Keith and Peter beforehand Thomas asked me why I was sitting there and I was just like 'I'm freaking out'.
During the second half though, I felt so encouraged when I opened my eyes for a brief moment to see someone standing up on a pew, arms wide open and face up towards the heavens. And there were others do the same standing on the floor :) - I could breath a sigh of relief that I could just sing to God and they were too. Otherwise it would have just felt like me singing badly in front of them.
Ok, yes, I'm my own worst critic! I think I'm a good (but not amazing) backing vocalist, but I don't think I'm a good lead vocalist.
So I was surprised when people complimented my singing (after I'd been praying with one of our pastors and ended up in tears as a result! Not a good night to wear mascara, oops). I had one person feel that I had a prophetic calling to lead worship and another say to me that they thought I should do more lead vocals.
I never know whether to believe people when they say stuff about my singing or leading worship in any way. Are they just being nice to try and encourage me, or are they encouraging me in a genuine gifting I have? I'm just not sure.
Hmmm. A little off topic today. Apologies for that!
Oh, and we didn't get to do Awesome God. Perhaps another Sunday evening... :)
Wow - what a set! So many cool songs with profound lyrics! I think most of us are our worst critics. Blessings!
ReplyDeleteWow! You did a great job to pull this setlist off, not knowing until rehearsal that you would be leading and then not being comfortable with some of the songs. Way to go.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteI can't take credit for the set, as it was my friend Brian who was coordinating it all and had really put in to choose the songs.
And I have to say it's so good to work as a collborative team. The guy playing keys (Thomas) took on the lead vocals for some of the songs that were too high for my vocal range so could do some lower harmonies.
Definitely the setlist was pulled off as a team. :-)