The key to rehearsing is to look at it as a time to build arrangements and to get the band to gel with a song. Rehearsing is different from personal practice times. I always try to get my band members to learn chords, parts, lyrics and melodies well before they come to rehearse. Try to create a culture where set lists, charts, MP3s, etc. are e-mailed to the band a few days before the rehearsal, and it really will speed up the creative process on the day. This also allows musicians to bring a worshipful offering of a part they have thought through.

Offer Direction
It's very unusual for a band to operate efficiently as a democracy, so have a leader or musical director for your rehearsals. That person doesn't necessarily have to be the worship leader, but they do need to have a broad understanding of each instrument's role and some creative directional ability. Most great pop music has been made in teams, so you should welcome and be able to integrate creative input from other musicians.

Can you see each other?
Bands often rehearse facing a fictitious audience, but for developing arrangements, physically arrange your team where they can see each other, even facing each other, perhaps in a circle. Communication is much easier when you can see everyone and read their expressions.

Very often musicians may not have played at all for a week, or two, so start off with a fast familiar song for a couple of minutes that allows everyone to warm up, show off their latest chops, turn the amps up to 11, pretend they are Eddie Van Halen. Afterwards they should be much more docile.

Set Up Success
Whatever ability level your musicians are at, the key to a great sound is to work on playing simple stuff well. Lock down a rhythm that everyone can add parts to. Work on timing and use a metronome if necessary. Practice changing dynamics without changing tempo. Many inexperienced bands slow down for softer song parts and speed up for louder sections. Listen to a good contemporary album, in most songs the actual tempo doesn't change at all. However, by getting your band to practice--playing a song really loud then really soft over a metronome--you can create huge shifts in its feel. This can be very beautiful especially when it matches the expression in the lyrics.

Encourage your musicians not to twiddle between songs, it wastes time, distracts others and generally means they are not paying attention. Try to minimize chat and leave as much time for playing as possible, but don't be afraid to stop a song if a section goes wrong. Loop it around three or four times for everyone to get it into muscle memory and then go back and play it from the top. Repetition is the key to building memory pathways.

Lock It In
Remember there are three ways to arrange: before you play the song, as you play the song and to correct the mistakes after you've played the song. For worship music I prefer to spend less time arranging complex forms as they may well change once the congregation interacts. Many musicians can't remember lots of complex arrangements unless they are charted out or the leader heavily conducts, so a great way to arrange as you play the song is to work on musical listening skills, communication and expressing parts to support the lyrics and melody.

Make sure the musicians look around at musical junctions so they don't miss direction changes and communicate two bars ahead at key transition points. As long as they are looking, you can conduct so much verbally, bodily or even just with your eyes. Lastly, what do those lyrics make you want to do? Bow down, shout, laugh, cry, dance? If you can interpret those expressions on your instrument, it's a very powerful tool to help others engage in worship, too.

Andy Chamberlain is a founder of Musicademy, the UK music college specializing in courses for church based musicians. Musicademy has developed series of worship training DVDs in vocals, guitar and keyboards available from www.musicademy.co.uk. Andy was involved with the Soul Survivor movement for a number of years and has played lead guitar with Matt Redman, Brenton Brown, Tim Hughes, Vicky Beeching and other well known worship leaders.

Reprinted with permission from Worship Leader Magazine (May 2007 issue, vol.16, no.3, Andy Chamberlain)

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