There are so many amazing songs to choose from for our Easter services… but what makes them EPIC can also make them a bit (or more than a bit?!) challenging to sing! High notes, low notes, octave jumps, wordy lyrics, songs that cover a huge amount of range… it’s enough to make our rehearsal times downright intimidating! So try out these 9 strategies as you practice—and hopefully you’ll experience more success (and less stress!) as you sing!
It’s the middle of rehearsal, and the music is sounding, um—chaotic… loud… just all-around muddy, and… you have no clue what to do to fix it! Ever been there? Have you found yourself asking… “How come my team of reasonably-skilled musicians always seems to sound messy when they play together?” Join the club! The good news is: there’s a surprisingly simple—but radically effective—principle you can apply that’s guaranteed to make your team sound a whole lot better. Sound too good to be true? Trust me—it’s not… so let’s dive in!
As worshippers, there are many ways to be influential and effective for the Kingdom of God. In order to make this a reality in our own lives, we need to understand the “why” behind our worship. But before we dig any further into the why, we must know “what” worship is and what it isn’t.
This month, I watched some of my own lessons back, as well as lessons that I co-taught with my coaching students, and it was so enlightening to watch from a why is this working (or not working!) and what could we do better perspective! As I watched, I jotted down some strategies that I saw working well—and I wanted to share them with you, as I know that many of you, even if you’re not in the coaching program, already teach lessons or have an active role in giving feedback to other singers on your worship team… or maybe you have a desire to teach private voice lessons in the future! Or maybe you’ve taken voice lessons and you’re curious about what makes a lesson successful (or not!).
Feeling a tickle in your throat? Have an important service or vocal performance coming up? It can be downright stressful when you need your voice to be there for you… and it’s feeling like it might not be! So here are my top vocal remedies and tips for combatting alllllll the bugs out there and keeping your voice in tip-top shape.
Yes, Christmas songs are lovely, but many are tricky to sing—am I right?! Lots of lyrics to remember + octave jumps galore = challenging times! So try out these 7 tips as you practice—and hopefully you’ll experience more freedom (and enjoyment) as you sing!
Week in, week out, we’re up on stage trying to do the best we can to lead our congregations in worship… and so much of that depends on how well we can hear—hear ourselves, hear our instrument, hear our team members and hear the congregation! Today I wanted to focus on what actual in-ear monitors (IEMS) we are wearing. Those tiny little speakers we put in our ears often get overlooked, but they are immensely important to our role as a singer or worship leader on our worship team!
Most weekends nowadays, with our social feeds full of other churches’ live streams, the latest Elevation service and—gulp!—our own church’s livestream with US out front… tell me these thoughts haven’t run through your head: “Oh man, that sounds SO much better than me” … “She sounds pretty good, but I think I sound better than that” … or“Haha, at least I don’t sound like that…”
Our body is truly incredible—if we’re being chased by a lion, the stress of the situation triggers a reaction in our body that helps us run. the. heck. outta. there. It’s called the fight-or-flight response (or if you want to get science-y, our sympathetic nervous system). The heart beats faster. The lungs take in more oxygen. The brain is more alert. The senses become sharper. But this newfound energy doesn’t just come out of nowhere—other important functions in the body are, in essence, weakened in order to supply energy to where it’s needed.
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