It was a church drummer’s worst nightmare. In the center of a service, David Wagner was playing “Heaven Invade” together with his worship band when his in-ear monitors stopped working.
Wagner posted a clip on Instagram of what happened. It includes the audio that ought to have been coming through in his monitors: a combination of the sound from the band, some added reverb, and in fact, the clicking track—a repetitive tapping sound that keeps time, often sounding for every beat. Halfway through the video, considered one of the vocalists—his wife—passes him a latest pair of headphones.
The role of the worship drummer has modified loads over the past 20 years. In addition to the evolving sound of worship music—moving away from rock and toward electronic dance music— drummers have adjusted to latest production setups, becoming the person on stage who makes sure that musicians and tech are fully in sync.
Since the rise of up to date worship bands throughout the late Nineteen Nineties, many churches have adopted technologies that were once reserved for live live shows in stadiums and huge auditoriums, where musicians needed in-ear monitors and click on tracks resulting from crowd noise and echoes.
For veteran church drummers, these changes are pushing them to develop latest skills and to adapt their approach to the music. Some say these shifts are making drumming more boring, lower stakes, and monotonous. Others are finding that latest tools allow them to be creative, to explore using their instruments in other ways, and to experience latest freedom as worshipers on stage—even in the event that they are behind a Plexiglas cage.
Wagner, who has been a drummer for 12 years, moved to a church in Murray, Kentucky, that uses in-ear monitors (IEMs) about 3 years ago. At a smaller church before that, his tech setup had drums and guitars, but no click. The music was different too, more Chris Tomlin acoustic guitar sounds than the synth-heavy songs from Bethel or Elevation.
It took time to regulate to the relentless click track in his ears, but Wagner says it’s a tool that makes his job loads easier.
“At first, it was type of intimidating,” said Wagner. “But fiddling with a click actually felt easier.”
Most church musicians who use IEMs and click on tracks aren’t just hearing a metronome; in lots of cases there are voice cues for the intro, verse, and chorus. Some churches also employ a music director that uses a microphone to talk on to the musicians on stage to call out changes or to let everyone know if something goes improper.
At first, taking in all that input while playing an instrument or singing could be overwhelming. But the precise orchestration these tools afford is essential to recreate the sounds of today’s popular worship songs.
Drew Allen went from drumming for an Assemblies of God church in Mississippi to playing for a big North Point affiliate church in Gainesville, Florida.
Accustomed to a musical worship style marked by flexibility and spontaneity, the exacting structure imposed by a click and pre-programmed tracks at his latest church felt very different. But ultimately, the predictability and clarity made it easier to have interaction within the music without the pressure of timekeeping and remembering whether a chorus or bridge was coming next.
“I used to think, I actually have to learn this exact arrangement? It’s going to be so hard to worship like that. But I’ve actually found that it’s the alternative,” said Allen. “When you’ve the arrangement on lock, it’s actually really freeing.”
Musicologist Joshua Kalin Busman points out that, during the last decade, the sound of worship music—consider the large names like Hillsong, Bethel, and Elevation—has shifted to reflect the profile of electronic dance music (EDM) greater than rock.
That shift seems to have led to less tempo variation, an emphasis on a unified musical “set,” and rhythmic repetitiveness and ease.
“We jokingly call a up to date worship service the ‘andante hour,’” said Busman (andante is a musical term for a moderately slow speed). “Everything now seems to sit down on this tempo sweet spot at around 76 beats per minute.”
In EDM, rhythmic stability and key continuity (keeping songs in the identical musical key signature) help create seemingly infinite sets of songs that audiences can move to and take part in. One song could be easily folded into one other, and transitions could be seamless. Increasingly, this fashion of participating in music is shaping worship services.
“That type of tempo and pitch matching has at all times been a part of EDM,” Busman said. “There’s more of a holistic musical trajectory. In worship music, we’ve shifted from a deal with the song as a delivery system to the set, a 30- or 45-minute experience.”
Paradoxically, the influence of EDM—a genre that’s all concerning the beat—hasn’t meant that drummers have more to do. The click track actually allows a band to rely less on a drummer and more on synth effects and vocalists, because everyone on stage has the identical beat of their ears. There’s no danger of somebody losing track of the tempo.
“For many worship tunes now, there may be a lot less groove within the arrangement of the song,” said Allen. “There are not any drums from the highest of the song, perhaps a light-weight cymbal swell into the second verse and a kick and floor tom. In a six-minute song, I is perhaps playing a full beat for perhaps 30 seconds of it.”
Hillsong’s “So Will I (100 Billion X)” is a very good example of this. For many of the song, the lead vocalist and a riff in the electrical guitar provide the sense of tempo. Drums punctuate the verses because the song slowly builds. But it’s a really slow escalation, and the drums don’t add a driving pulse until the bridge.
Church musicians who’ve been leading for a number of many years know that there have at all times been slow songs and upbeat songs. Slow songs may need a number of cymbal rolls and a full chorus, with little or no for the drummer to do throughout the verses. But until recently, the high-energy songs have tended to drag from a rock sound that involved loads more constant activity from the drummer.
Tim Whitaker, who spent his youth group years drumming in church and playing metal, recalled that mid-2000s music from groups like Sonicflood and David Crowder Band required drumming that reflected the sound of rock and punk.
“Modern worship music is all about intentionality and pocket,” said Whitaker, stating that when drummers aren’t driving the tempo, they need to develop sensitivity and subtlety. “You need to reframe these changes as a latest challenge. Playing this music well actually takes plenty of maturity and musicianship.”
Wagner has found that the protection of the clicking allows him to experiment with different grooves and plug in musical ideas borrowed from other songs or arrangements.
“I used to play almost exactly what’s on the recording. I wish to honor the parts that the drummers on the recordings have put together,” he said, “but I’ve gotten to the purpose where I can take some creative liberties.”
For drummers who developed their skills in bands where they were the indispensable timekeepers and rhythmic drivers, the changes in musical style and the role of technology can seem disempowering.
“It takes plenty of self-control and restraint to play this latest music,” said Allen. He also identified that it takes spiritual maturity to be willing to serve and worship, whether you’re playing or not.
The automation of some parts of a drummer’s job has also opened up opportunities for brand spanking new musicians to step in and play without the pressure of holding all the pieces together. Drummers could be hard to seek out.
“The simplification of drums could have to do with the form of talent pool that exists,” said Busman, the musicologist. “There’s a smaller pool of drummers.”
A drum kit is pricey and takes up plenty of space. For a child to start learning to play, parents need to make room, find money for the set and lessons, and resign themselves to a noisier home. And many school band programs require students to learn to play piano before being allowed to play percussion.
IEMs and a click mean that a latest or out-of-practice drummer can step in and know that even in the event that they wander off or make a mistake, the remainder of the band will find a way to maintain in time and finish out the song, even when the drums drop out altogether.
Will Shine, a drummer and PhD student on the University of Georgia, identified that the tech tools that make it easier for a beginner to hitch in also make it easier for churches to recreate popular worship songs in weekly services.
“You need to play to your lowest common denominator, skill-wise,” said Shine. “At the identical time, for a song to grow to be popular, it must be replicable.”
Today’s popular atmospheric anthems wouldn’t be as easy to recreate without the increased use of tech. But the brand new technology also makes it possible to automate the music, to the purpose that musicians begin to wonder in the event that they even have to be there. It also makes it harder for a worship set to have any spontaneity.
“There’s a wierd disconnect,” said Allen. “It looks like plenty of musicians and leaders want the gang to experience this vibey, unplanned worship experience but to still have the power to administer its production all the way down to the second.”
Finding balance between programming and spontaneity is a challenge for church musicians and leaders implementing latest technology. And while congregants appear to value and even search out opportunities to take part in worship that has the potential to steer to unexpected outpourings, the favored music many churches are using requires a high degree of technical orchestration.
It may also leave musicians like Wagner scrambling when there’s a glitch.
“I spent slightly more cash on my latest in-ears,” he said, “so hopefully it won’t occur again.”
