Here's a little of what we do on Wednesday nights normally:
On Sunday nights, we have two youth group things going on. We have a drama group at 5, and a discipleship group at 6. I've also got a lot of students who like music and wanted to start a youth band. During our drama time, we have some extra students sitting around (sometimes running around, distracting around), and I thought I could take some of these guys and start working on music.
We penciled in January 9th to be our first practice, but got snowed out...so our first practice was Jan 16th. 2 things happened that were totally unexpected: 1) We had a great turnout with way more students than I expected... but 2) This only left about 3 students to stay in the Drama group. We're trying to figure out how to make both drama and the band still happen and how both can still be successful.
So, our regular youth worship band consists of:
- Me - Electric Guitar
- Tim (my bro-in-law) - leading/acoustic
- Tyler - Drums
- Zack Attack (a student) - Bass
We were all there for the practice, ready to see what would happen. We had no clue how good or bad these students were at their instrument. Only a few have experience playing together like this, which is way different than school band. We had 3 guitarist, 1 drummer, 1 bassist (who never picked up one before this), and 6 vocalist (along with our 4 regular band people), and a sound and lyrics guy!
The ultimate goal is to have a totally student led band. Is this possible? How did our first practice go? Well...we made music! Sure, it was a little rough, but that was to be expected. I told them, "Guys, this probably won't sound very good, but its going to be SO MUCH FUN!" And it was! And they sounded way better than I ever expected.
We began with two songs....really easy ones. "Every Move I Make," and "Open the Eyes of My Heart." Both in the key of G, both really simple progressions.
3 Things I Left With:
- A great laugh at seeing Tyler (who plays many instruments) teach Wess the bass...from scratch
- Seeing the students smiling, hi-fiving, and making this group and band theirs
- Readying myself for the reality that I am not training musicians, but molding these students into worshipers of God. These students will be poured into!
0 comments :
Post a Comment