I’ve never been in a church where there was a “trained” music leader.
Its always started with group cooperation and one person who naturally
leads the group and we all muddled through.
Usually the person who comes up with the idea ends up as leader, so mar be warned. Lol
You do need someone who can coordinate things decide how to go about things
who others respect and are willing to go along with, it doesn’t work if everyone
wants to do there own thing with no cooperation.
Start small maybe with pianist and a flute player or guitar. Don’t feel it has to
be every Sunday either. Maybe start with the occasional Sunday.
When I was 18 I got the teens together one Christmas to play a carol. They loved it and
so did the congregation. I was on the flute then, we had a clarinet, actually 2 flutes,
plus the recorder and a few shaky banging things! I’m sure we made mistakes but
hey who cares sometimes it’s just good to have a go and build up confidence.
I was in a large worship team for 10 years playing the saxophone, but in the summer time
lots were away on holidays summer camps etc. Many times on Sunday it was just me
on my soprano saxophone and the keyboard player who could also sing, leading a congregation
of up to 700 at a time. (We had all the amplification etc but that meant all and any mistakes
were louder too!)
Sounds like it shouldn't work but it did. I had a good idea as to how the keyboard player led
and what he liked. He was happy and trusted me to improvise and he knew that I knew my
limitations, when to come in, when to shut up etc.
So another thing I would add is the importance of getting to know each other and
practising together. Getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and
playing to them literally.
When the entire team was together saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, drums, base,
guitar, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, keyboard, flute, main singers, chore. It actually
took far more working out and far more cooperation. Plus the leader used hand
signals a lot when to play loud, when to play quite, when to shut up, plus head
nods simple gestures.
Not to mention some verbal indications along the way so we knew when to go to the
bridge, verses, etc.
In fact the smaller the group the easier it is to organised! You can just play it by ear
in a small group and improvise more, where as a large group has to be very much
more disciplined and follow a set routine. Or it’s easy to pick a piece of music and
one person pick out the main tune while another picks out the harmony.
I once did a show piece with me playing my alto saxophone and a friend on the cello.
We did great is thy faithfulness. As both have a sort of wood sound (sax is a reed
instrument) and both have nice rich deep notes, it worked perfectly. We played around
with the main tune and harmony and kept swapping between them.
Another way of playing if you have lots of musicians is to let the keyboard and
guitar do their thing, which usually entails lots of chords. And if you have an
instrument like a flute or sax, to play something different in the gaps.
So like this chorus “great is thy faithfulness” da daa da. “Great is thy faithfulness” etc.
At one point in my teens I even played the piano accordion and led a few choruses at the
start of the church service once a month in a small church. It made a change from the
piano! I was a lot braver back then!
I suppose what im saying is give it a go, be ready to make mistakes and be ready to
learn along the way.
Ps when I made a mistake I just turned it into a blues note so people were none
the wiser. Lol