This Sunday I visited at a Church which is
not my regular Church to fellowship with them. It was, different like really
different. Religion and faith aside it was different.
The sermon was superb with the preacher
talking about divine visitation, why and how it happens then he summed it up
with intercession for our nation that God would visit our institutions. It was
well delivered and he kept time which is a big issue for me.
Anyhow, before
offertory time the choir did a rendition of Detrick Haddon’s Amen and
boy or boy, my ears were under prepared for what then ensued. It was brutal,
brutal, brutal like literally speaking. The female tenor pitched not sang
through the song. The soprano was too soft, the alto guy was too loud and the
instruments were double loud. So the lead singer had to shout to out compete
the instruments and I was seated near one of the speakers.
The shocker for
me was that there were no monitors near the choir so they by no means could
have guessed what they sounded like but even more I looked around and I seemed
to be the only uncomfortable person in the place. Everyone else was enjoying or
not minding the performance. The people in the sound booth seemed unbothered by
the volume levels of the different things happening. It was really strange for
me.
So I had
service, finished, moved out but the performance kept bellowing in my head like
woaah! I am still asking myself what, how? And its not that I expected to hear
Detrick himself but I atleast would have hoped to hear something neat and practiced. I am not in any way saying they did not practice the song because I
am sure a lot of time and effort was put into preparation for the special but
mayne no! they could have and should have done better.
I’m pretty sure
that practice cannot have sounded much different from what was delivered but
was it that they were super excited about the song or that that’s usually how
it is?
I really
sometimes wish that as the body of Christ we could aspire to greater things
because really, if some unsaved person that is crazy about music passed by
during the performance, they would not have thought twice about continuing to
where they were going.
We have been
gifted tremendously in this Kingdom of God but we need to step up and steward
our gifting accordingly. The singer can have vocal training or just do their
own vocal exercise though its more motivating as a team. The team leaders (read
music directors) should determine what the choir can do and what they cannot
do. If the song has not been nailed at practice, the performance won’t just
magically become good. Choose another song better suited to the choir’s level
of vocal maturity and be wise about which back-ups stand on the microphones.
Find out
individual singers’ strengths and weaknesses and place them strategically on
the team for a full, beautiful sound. Not every singer can lead a song and not
every singer can back up especially not if they have not had the necessary
training as a singer. Every singer has a different vocal range and vocal
maturity and should therefore be helped accordingly and placed strategically.
But hey, that’s
just what I think. Have a beautiful week people!
Comments