More Praise Band

Our praise band at Northminster Presbyterian Church had our fourth and final practice before our "debut" next Sunday during service. We are currently a 6-piece unit, with Elisabeth Leatherberry on keyboards (and musical director), Russ Hessler on drums, Steve McHenry on guitar, myself on bass, David Leatherberry (Elisabeth's husband) on vocal and Korin McCoy on the other vocal.

I think we're ready to go. We're playing three songs on Sunday, "Holy Holy", "Come and See" and "I See the Lord". Silly me, I had been thinking all along that we were only going to play two, but I guess I hadn't been paying attention. Imagine my surprise when I was informed that we would open with "Holy Holy", a song I hadn't really been concentrating on. But I was able to get through it ok looking at the sheets. I will just focus on it this week and I will be ready. The other two songs are coming together nicely from my end, I've been working hard on those to make sure I know the arrangements by heart.

We're starting to gel, but it was touch and go for awhile there. Our main problem for the first three-and-a-half practices was that everyone was holding back. We all had our different reasons for doing so, I think with Korin and David, it was the fact that this was their first real experience in a contemporary band-type setting, though both of them are very much musically inclined (Korin is an accomplished horn player and David is a great vocalist). For Russ and myself, our problem was we are both totally unfamiliar with this type of music - both of us have a lot of experience playing in rock bands, but we felt out of our comfort zone trying to play praise music. Elisabeth, who is very much familiar with the material, is not used to playing in a contemporary band type setting too, though out of all of us she seemed the most comfortable.

Last week, it took Steve the guitarist (at his first practice with us no less) to gently nudge me out of the doldrums and remind me what my best asset was, and that was the ability to rock out. Which is what I resolved to do today. I resolved to just be more comfortable and just be me, to show the joy that I have playing music. So I played the basslines as if I was playing for With Intent, and just basically dug in and let myself become one with the music. I noticed that Russ was a little more comfortable too, and I think together with Elisabeth we provided a good groove. Once we settled in, the singers got comfortable, and they were encouraged to just let loose, and they looked like they were getting into it. David told me at the end he was really encouraged by what we were doing, and he was really starting to have fun.

Alas, Steve was not here today, he was out watching the Padres. No worries though, he's the type of guy who can just step in and play, he's that good. He'll just show up on Sunday, plug in, and add the color that he adds so well.

I'm sure there will be a stumble here and there, but we'll get through it and we'll do good, and then we'll build on it and hopefully continue with the building blocks to the ultimate goal, and that is to establish a contemporary service that can attract the youth in the Clairemont area. I think we have a good foundation started, we just have to build on it, get better and help it grow. That's my Intent anyway. I think that's everyone's Intent. I'll say a prayer for us just in case though.