I’ve often used the phrase “serving the song” with teams I’ve led when referring to the way we should be playing.
Sometimes I say it so frequently and in passing that I worry not everyone fully understands what I mean by that. Unpacking my intended meaning in that phrase is multifaceted, so I think diving into the layers would be helpful.
Understand the message
Worship music, and Christian music in general, should be most focused on the lyrical content. Each team member, whether they be instrumentalists, vocalists, tech team members ought to know the meaning of the song. The songs we use are being used intentionally to set our mind’s attention and heart’s affection on the things of the Kingdom of God: on God himself, Jesus his son, the Holy Spirit, the church as Christ intended… They are also being used to shape what we believe, help us communicate our feelings to and about God, appropriately process our struggles, and celebrate all that God has done for us. Even further, they are being used on a particular day, in a particular set because the service is meant to bring us into an encounter with God that primarily emphasizes a specific idea that we intend people to leave with at the end of that service. For each of us to serve the song appropriately, it is necessary to understand the song on an intimate level.
Know the arrangement
For those of us who have been classically trained in music, it is fairly obvious that there are right and wrong notes and rhythms in a song. In classical music, this is expressed through notation on sheet music. Reading music is necessary to play a song correctly when you are in a band, orchestra, choir. However, in worship music, right and wrong are not relative, but are often not as explicitly obvious to us. Most of us are using chord charts which doesn’t give us the actual notation, so for many I think it leads us to think that we can just play whatever we’d like within the parameters of the chord progressions as long as we are with the click and in the right time signature. So, those of us who would never dare wander from the pages of our sheet music in a symphonic band setting feel like we can kind of play whatever we want in a worship band setting. If an orchestra were to play a Beethoven symphony and Beethoven himself were present, he would know exactly how it should sound to communicate what he intended to create. We’d agree he likely put great thought into composing it the way he did, and thus playing it correctly would be an expectation that we would all deem non-negotiable. There’s a disconnect though when it comes to worship music for some reason. The arrangements of the songs we are using have a right and a wrong way to play it. With just the chord charts as a skeleton most of the time, the onus lies on the player’s ability to learn the parts by ear mostly. Serving the song means being faithful to do the work to learn the parts in the particular arrangement, because the songwriter has intentionally painted a picture to communicate the message as best as they could.
Build the platform
While knowing the arrangement is mostly about what we play, building the platform is about understanding how to play what we play. Remember, the goal is for the message of the song to be communicated most clearly, so the platform we are building is for the message to ride on. The message is most clearly communicated through the lyrics, but what we put the lyrics on musically also helps communicate it’s meaning. Our dynamic choices, tempo choices, tone choices, note choices, in some cases even our instrument/tools choices go a long way to help us give the message the best platform to ride on. For many, worship music is so simple that the experienced musician often feels the need to play more. I had a composition teacher who used to say “music is made in the space between the notes.” I can honestly say, I struggled to be as great technically as other pianists and saxophonists in college, even now I am not as solid technically as a guitarist as I am working toward becoming. But one thing my teachers always pointed out was that I thought and interpreted things “musically”. It really is an instinct or feeling that those of us God has given the gift of musicianship to, and when I’ve been in a room of great musicians, you just know when you are going through the motions to play the right stuff or you are truly making music. The space matters immensely. Helping people think about and focus on the message is the goal. When we overplay, we aren’t sticking to the songwriter’s intended creation, and we are at times even drawing attention off the message and onto what we are playing.
Ultimately, we want to help people connect to God through music. For us to do this effectively, we need to be faithful in understanding the message we are trying to help people communicate, in knowing and learning the arrangements of the songs we are using, and in building the platform for the message to ride on by playing in a way that emphasizes that which we want people most focused on in worship. This is what I mean by “Serving the Song”.
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