I thought that it might be fun to begin a “column” on the general goings on of the music ministry at Encounter, and I thought that “Music Notes” was a cute title.
Feeling “Loopy”
If you were wondering what we’re doing with the laptop up on stage on Saturday nights, we’re using it to run Ableton, a software package that provides both a click track for the band and percussion loops that can be blended in with the band. It may seem “high tech” for worship, but David Crowder has been doing it for years and folks like Matt McCoy (Willow Creek) and Paul Baloche have made them an integral part of their worship sets.
The challenge is not to get distracted by the technology; it’s not up there so we can worship the glowing Apple logo (even though I’m as evangelistic about Apple as Dave D. is about USC…) It’s main purpose it to unify the band by providing a steady tempo that we can set song by song. That allows the band to truly worship along with the Encounter community rather than being distracted by issues with the tempo or the sound on stage. And there are some really cool thing that it will allow us to do down the road as well . . .
Songwriting Forum
We’ve had a great response to the songwriting forum! About 12 people have expressed an interest in serving God with their creative gifts, and we’ve already got some songs completed. We’ll probably be sharing them with you during our offering time over the next few weeks. Check out the songwriters blog to hear some of Mark Troyer’s songs that we recorded at our last gathering.
