Photo © 2007 Tony Unruh CC BY-ND 2.0

I really needed a quick and easy post for today (because I had spent so much time and so many words getting carried away Monday). And I had no idea what I was going to write about. But you know what we always say: The Lord will provide.

And provide He did.

First of all, I want to state, for the record, that ever since George Orwell, the term “big brother” has gotten a bad rap. Big brothers are older, wiser, and in this case, more promiscuous. That is, they’re like pride-blinded parents, fawning over their little ones’ performance and gushing about how good it was, even though we all know that it sucked. But before you get the wrong idea, maybe I should explain…

I hadn’t heard from my little brother in quite some time, and I was wondering what he was up to. As time has passed, he and his Beloved have established their own routine and their own life, and I and my family have done the same, and that means we don’t really get to hang out anymore. We get to catch up only at family get-togethers— and on Facebook. So I flipped over to his Facebook page, to see what I had missed of his recent ongoings, and I discovered this delightfully entertaining YouTube video. Apparently, he and Mario and Dan and Chris all got together with two iPhones and a web-cam, and recorded this indie video of a song so silly and meaningless, it’s destined to be a hit.

Seriously:

1. It’s simple.
2. It’s catchy.
3. It doesn’t mean a damn thing, so it won’t piss anyone off.
4. It conjures up images of fun and relaxation.
5. Who could want for anything more?!

Pop hit material, I’m tellin’ ya. And this unplugged performance, in my little brother’s living room, is just “real” enough to sweep the Internet like a giant, digital vacuum cleaner.

On a tree-lined avenue,
With nothing left to do,
We’ll lay back on the porch
Under a bamboo tiki torch.

Aah… A bamboo tiki torch…

-TimK

The words of the chorus are based on an old Hebrew prayer: Establish peace, goodness, and blessing, grace and kindness and compassion, upon us and upon all Israel, your people.

He turned it into a song for peace for the world:

Establish peace, goodness, and blessing, life, grace and kindness and compassion upon us; establish peace, our children; compassion upon us and upon all Israel, your people; and say, ‘Amen.’

Sim shalom tovah uvrachah chaim chên vachesed v’rachamim alênu sim shalom benênu rachamim alênu v’al kol yisrael amecha v’nemar amên.

See how many names of how many different countries can you recognize in the bridge (the rap portion of the song)?

-TimK

P.S. My Hebrew is only good enough to catch bits and pieces of the verse, and I really don’t know modern Hebrew very well to start with. Can anyone translate it?

The lyrics are from Proverbs 3:17-18 and Lamentations 5:21:

-TimK

Isn’t it amazing, with the amount of time we as Christians spend in worship, and especially singing in worship, that we understand so little about it.

This thought strikes me now, just a couple nights away from the next “In the Deep” (Saturday night, at which I’ll be subbing on bass, because their usual bassist is getting married). “In the Deep” is a biweekly, interdenominational praise and worship concert. Concert after concert through the autumn and winter, crowds gather from all over the area to soak in the candlelit ambience, to fill the Newton, MA sanctuary with over an hour of passionate worship in song, and then to gather downstairs for snacks and fellowship.

Why?

Worship is essentially an emotional experience

You may not realize it—and you may even recoil at the suggestion. But singing in worship—whatever your worship style—is essentially an emotional experience, because it invokes emotional responses and fulfills important emotional needs:

• Worship is a group activity. Even when you’re worshipping alone, you’re probably doing so in the style and with memories of a group worship experience. We as humans are instinctively social, extraordinarily so. So doing things together as a group is very important to our emotional health. At its best, it allows one to be part of something bigger than oneself. At its worst, it produces herd mentality and groupthink. (And churches can experience both.)

• We naturally express emotions via song. Music is primal, innate, spanning cultures and languages. We sing to express happiness, sadness, anger, despair, love. And this is a quality we share with other animals, too. Birds sing. Whales sing. Even mice, it has been found, sing to potential mates. Something inside of you is hard-wired to express yourself through song. This is not something any of us thinks or reasons about, because logically, singing is no more valuable than speaking. Rather, it is something that you do naturally, out of the impulses of your heart.

• Singing relaxes and hypnotizes. When you sing or chant, you breathe deeply, exhaling over long periods of time. You also focus your attention on the words and music that you’re singing. And in worship services, you may be reading lyrics off a song sheet or overhead projection screen. All of these relax you, clear your mind of distractions, and focus your thoughts on whatever the song is about.

• Worship comforts and encourages us by focusing our attention on God’s love and power. If singing in general relaxes and hypnotizes, then singing in worship focuses your eyes on God. But more than that, it allows you to connect whatever issues you’re facing with God’s promises. This can help relieve stress, reduce anxiety, and lift depression, because it can be a way for us to see how to get our other needs met—or at least to trust that God will make a way.

Dr. Lynne Ransom, Music Educator and Director of VOICES Chorale, talking about why people sing, described a choral performance that was for him a deeply emotional and spiritual experience:

When I performed Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion… I found that performing the three-hour piece was a deep and mystical experience, creating a musical mood that lasted for several days after the performances. Bach’s music and the physical, emotional and intellectual energy involved transported me to another way of being, of sound and energy-flow that is not based in language.

Worship and spiritual growth

No one would argue with me that singing in worship is linked to spirituality. But the nature of that link many of us misunderstand.

Why do tribal holy-men spend hours chanting in order to achieve a heightened plane of consciousness? Why do mountain climbers risk life and limb on an essentially pointless goal, to reach a challenging summit? Why do any of us step outside of our comfort zone and try new things or seek new challenges, when what we’re doing is working fine enough?

Psychologists Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell propose an answer in their book Human Givens: A New Approach to Emotional Health and Clear Thinking. They describe spirituality as “seeking to fulfill an inner need through finding its completion in the environment.” This is why the holy man chants. This is why the mountaineer climbs. This is why Dr. Lynne Ransom sings and why singing the Bach piece was so significant to him. And this is also why we worship.

But Griffin and Tyrrell make an important distinction, between spiritual growth and spiritual stagnation:

What a large part of this world mistakes for spirituality is nothing more than brainwashing by ideological organizations—from the extreme activities of fundamentalists like the Taliban in parts of Asia today, so reminiscent of the Christian Inquisition in medieval Europe, to the evangelical cults and happy-dappy new age religions that thrive in Western countries by gathering people together in groups to sing and emote. They sincerely believe that the feelings they generate in their practices are related to spirituality, whereas, however enjoyable they may be, they are manifestations of the “herd instinct,” which we share with rats, sheep and wildebeest. Whilst herding does indeed fulfill an inner need (safety in numbers), it is at a very primitive level. [emphasis added]

See, spirituality is not in itself just an emotional high. It means something much more. And spirituality is something unique to humans. Rats may sing to their mates, but humans can actually grow by it.

Or we can stagnate.

This is why it’s important not just to attend service and chant through the liturgy only as a religious rite. Rather, it’s important to chant through the liturgy because you really want to, because it holds meaning for you, because it focuses your mind on God and his love and his promises, because it heightens your awareness of your place in the world around you, because it helps you to mentally link your needs, goals, and desires with the means to make them a reality.

So this is why…

This is why, I hope, people attend “In the Deep”—mostly 20-somethings, probably searching for meaning, if they’re anything like I was at that age. Not just for the emotional high, but for the spiritual high as well. And it’s why, I hope, they come back over and over again.

The first time I attended “In the Deep” was last year’s season opening. Afterward, I wrote:

Just got back from the 2008-2009 premiere. It’s been a long time since I sang that loud or got so emotional over what I was singing. I hope I didn’t destroy my voice, because I’m leading songs tomorrow morning.

Afterward, I asked the gang how serious they were about filling up the whole place, because I think they could do it, and easily. They just have to let not-yet-fans know what they’ve got!

Maybe I was a little over-exuberant. But that night, I had realized something about social marketing that had completely eluded me before, that people love to share what excites them. And so I suggested that the “In the Deep” leaders go around to each person afterward, during the fellowship time, and just ask informally what was the most significant thing that happened to him that evening. Get a quote for the website. Or encourage people to comment on the website, because other people could have been here getting what you got here tonight, if only they knew it was available.

Now, whether or not “In the Deep” ever does that is irrelevant. The point of the story is what happened to me. This fundamental marketing principle had never been so real or so obvious to me before that night.

That’s my little story of spiritual growth, how God helped me understand and internalize a marketing principle.

-TimK

I don’t think I’ve ever written before about playing bass, which is kind of strange, because I’ve been playing bass ever since I just picked up a friend’s on a whim back in 1986-ish and started jamming. (I’ve been playing other instruments for much longer than that, since the 1970’s.) Today, I play most Sundays at the Christian Pentecostal Church of Newton, where we have the rockingest praise & worship band on the east coast. (Probably not, but allow me a little hyperbole.) And half of the Saturdays, I also play bass at Ruach Israel.

Music for me is a labor of love and passion, as I have only earned a penny or two at most from my music, and that I’m sure is because someone felt guilty for enjoying what I have to offer. I’ve also recorded songs for fun, like my semi-unplugged rendition of “Amazing Grace.” (I’m doing everything in that recording, by the way, even though my brother and I originally performed it together, him on guitar, me on bass.)

Several weeks ago, Mario called me in a non-obvious semi-panic, wondering if I could play bass for In the Deep, because most of their other musicians had to cancel at the last minute. When I describe In the Deep, I say it’s candlelight ambience, loud worship music. I agreed to play. That was a fun, fun gig. Almost made me want to start another band again… But that’s a different story.

Afterward, I received a number of complements on my rockin’ bass playing. At first, I attributed them to two facts: 1. Mario had actually introduced me publicly to the group as the stand-in bassist, and 2. Dan the drummer and I have been playing together for years on Sunday mornings. We groove together, almost without thinking, so much so that sometimes I wonder if we’ve gotten into a rut. So when I subbed in at In the Deep, opposite Dan, we naturally provided all the backing needed. Yeah, that could be it.

But after thinking about it more, I’m thinking there’s more to it than that.

Enter WSRS

WSRS is an adult contemporary radio station that my teenage daughter insists on listening to whenever we ride in the car. Around here, they syndicate the popular Delilah program. (That’s yet another story.) Delilah plays approximately the same kind of music WSRS plays the rest of the time, so if you’re familiar with her, then you have an idea of the genre of music I’m talking about.

I’m not sure when it happened. But I do remember I was listening to WSRS, because I was in the car with the family, and the radio was on. I suddenly realized that even though I was listening to smooth, lite adult contemporary, I was being dragged along by the groove. Almost every song had an interesting drum-bass foundation that almost exactly mirrored my style. And then I understood what had actually happened at In the Deep. The attendees were probably used to the way that most worship bassists play, and now they were hearing someone who cut his chops–not on contemporary praise & worship–but on actual music.

When I went back and reviewed the original recordings of popular worship songs by Hillsong, David Crowder, Matt Redman (whose music I love), and others, I discovered a common thread. The bass lines were all boring. There were a couple of exceptions, like “Beautiful One” by Tim Hughes. (Although our arrangement of that song still blows his out of the water.)

And this boringness is not a characteristic of contemporary Christian music in general. If you turn on your favorite contemporary Christian radio station or Music Choice channel, you’ll hear plenty of interesting stuff happening. In fact, musically, CCM mirrors much of what you hear on WSRS.

What’s the difference?

There are specific differences in almost every instrument, every part. And having played almost every part at one time or another during my decades-long music career, I hear them all. The general difference is that most contemporary worship music is played with the skill of a 12-year-old. That’s probably so that even amateur church musicians, who just last week learned how to play that chord, can still feel confident in leading those songs in front of their congregations.

I could offer specific advice to every instrumentalist in the band on how to address this deficiency. The general advice is just to treat your instrument as a profession, become better and better, even though you’re just doing it for love and passion. After all, the fact that you’re an amateur is no excuse for not treating your music seriously, for giving God anything less than your best.

Since I began from the perspective of a bassist, let me offer some unsolicited, specific advice to worship bassists. (All of these points you can hear in song after song on the radio, if you listen for them.)

1. Focus on feeling the groove, and practice play with it. As a bassist, you’re not just playing the right notes, but you’re playing them at the right time, in order to set down the groove of the song and establish the mood of the song. When you play is just as important as what you play, because the bass is both a percussive and a melodic instrument.

2. Listen to the drummer, and play with him. This goes hand in hand with #1 above. This will require you to learn a little about what the drummer plays and when, but the effort is worth it. You should pay particular attention to when he hits the kick (i.e., the bass drum) and the snare. These are points in the rhythm you should enhance with your playing. Note that each drummer has his own style, and if you’re doing it right, drumming from a different drummer should suddenly throw a monkey wrench into your bass-ing. If you can go seamlessly from drummer to drummer without a hitch, one of you is doing it wrong.

   (I know that some church bands don’t have drummers. That’s okay. As a bassist, you can still play both parts. Learn about what a drummer would play, if he were playing with you. Hear his drumming in your head, and play along with it.)

3. Master the mute to intensify the groove. That is, not playing can be just as powerful as playing. For example, try intentionally stopping your bass note short, on the beat where the drummer hits his snare. It’s a more dramatic effect than holding your bass note through the snare hit. Use this effect when it feels right, in order to emphasize the groove.

4. Master scales to add effortless variety to your bass lines. Chord sheets only list the lowest note in the chord as the “bass” note. But an effective bass line also uses other notes from the scale, and those are never listed on the chord sheet. Yeah, I know: you thought by playing bass you wouldn’t need to learn scales. Well, absolutely not true. On any melodic instrument, learning your scales is one of the most effective uses of your time. Listen to bass lines on the radio, and experiment with playing different notes, and you’ll suddenly discover that most of those complicated bass lines are within your reach.

5. Master bass chords. Yes, you heard me right. Bass chords. Usually played on the upper strings, high on the neck, these moody additions can really spice up a bass line. They can also add thickness to the other chord instruments, making up for the paucity of instruments in most worship bands.

6. Use slides, octaves, bends, hammer-ons, and pull-offs. A slide is when you slide your finger from one note to the next. An octave is when you play the same note one octave above another, either alternately or simultaneously, doubling up the note and giving your instrument a whole new level of tonal depth. (The next slow, melancholy song you play, try doubling the bass note on octaves and sliding up and down the neck to play the bass line.) A bend is when you bend the string you’re playing in order to make the note a little higher, especially effective in conjunction with blues scales. (Try playing an octave and bending the upper note a little to create a bass-chorus effect.) A hammer-on is when you play one note, then hit the fret on a higher note without plucking the string, especially useful for quick riffs. A pull-off is the converse, play a note and then quickly lift your finger from the fret, allowing another note to play. (See this video for a demonstration.) Frankly, the bass is the most versatile instrument in the band, more versatile even than the electric guitar. Do your part to add variety to the arrangement.

7. Play high notes sometimes. The bass is not just for low notes. Yeah, it’s easier to play high notes if you have one of those trés kewl 6-string basses. But even if you only have the much more common 4-string variety, you probably have over 3 octaves at your disposal. (My 4-string can play anything from a low E up to a high G, 3½ octaves above.) Try experimenting with guitar-like leads, to complement the electric guitar or to sub for it (if your band is missing one).

8. BONUS: Don’t play the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again. Play something different once in while. Even if the song consists of the same 4 chords repeated ad infinitum (e.g., “Trading My Sorrows”), that doesn’t mean you have to play the same 4 notes over and over again like a robot. Vary the rhythm. Vary the intensity. Play different inversions (that is, different bass notes from the same chord). Play different fills.

But it’s not a performance!

Heard this objection before. If you’ve thought of an objection, I’ve probably heard it before.

Actually, playing worship is a performance, because you’re performing. It’s just a performance of a different sort to the one where you stand up on stage and entertain the masses. I’ve done both; I know the difference.

But just because worship is not “a performance” is no excuse not to treat your craft seriously, to invest in it all the skill you have to muster, to improve your skills and to use them, to give God everything you have and are. I’m tired of musicians using “not a performance” as an excuse for shoddy musicianship.

There’s a reason why professional musicians (except in the worship genre) play the way they do, and it’s not to get attention. Any professional musician will tell you that if you’re doing it right, your playing should not stand out, but should effortlessly merge into the background. Because playing that grabs attention is not rockin’, but rather is awkward and distracting.

When you listen to the radio, the musicians who set down those tracks chose to play those particular parts, because they enhanced the song and make listeners want to get into the song, want to get up and groove, want to sing along, all the things that the worship artist also wants.

-TimK

Click here for more, including a synthesizer demo, lyrics, preview, and other information.

-TimK