An (Ideal) Week In The Life of Music Ministry

Réamon Bateman and Kath
April 30, 2011

A While ago I was talking to Simon Cooper, having a general update on what I was doing and how things were going, and I ended up giving him the low down on what a normal week should be like with regards to the work Music Ministry is doing. He was somewhat enlightened and suggested it would be good to let people know what we're doing, so here you go….

At the beginning of the week, we (Kathleen and Myself) meet to discuss what we're working on and what needs to be done, from this we can compile our 'to do' lists. Most of our weeks work is preparation for our two worship services every Sunday as well as HARP and CARP service at the end of the month, so the first thing is to find out what the topic is for the next week or even the next month and start compiling and researching material both from our now existing repertoire and finding new songs, to fit the theme. While doing this we often come across other inspiring songs that I'll save to be used at the appropriate time.

Since at the moment we can only manage to work on one song a week (in terms of something new, either improving an arrangement or a completely new song) I will decide once the songs are selected which one we should focus on. In the case of a new song the process would be, firstly to decide the best key in which to arrange the song with the congregation in mind. Then ideally download the official sheet music, that usually contains the melody, chords and piano part, from this I can create an arrangement suitable for our band to perform, by recording or programming the parts in a recording. Once this instrumental 'demo' recording is made I then record the vocals, including the main melody and harmonies. From this, the music can be transcribed (at the moment by hand) for the band to follow. These are sent out to whoever is playing that week to prepare for our band practice and finally service.

Since all of that takes up most of the time in the week other projects and things we're helping with have to be scheduled around that, we hope that everything we create now will be a resource everyone can use in the future. Our Plan is to eventually be able to share the experience we gain and the resources we create with regions across the UK, and even further afield. Watch out for our next blog where we'll explain our plans to accomplish this….