Learning to Listen

The last lesson was about leaving space for each other on stage. A huge part of how you do that comes down to listening.

Great musicians listen more than they play.

As you play, you’re also actively paying attention to what everyone else is doing — and, beyond that, anticipating what they’re likely to do next based on what you know of their style and history. Active listening plus active anticipation.

Why listening matters

Listening makes you aware of context, and context lets you make the right musical decisions in a split second:

• “The piano is covering that top frequency — let me move somewhere else on the electric so we don’t clash.”
• “The bass player is doing a fill — I’ll drop the piano fill I was about to do so we don’t sound messy.”

These are split-second decisions you can only make — or anticipate — if you’re listening constantly to everyone around you.

Listen to the vocals most of all

In worship especially, listen to the vocalists. You don’t want to play anything that clashes with the melody; you want a part that stays out of the way and complements the vocal.

Alex’s example: a staff music director was recording gorgeous, soulful organ runs for an Easter choir arrangement. Soloed, the organ sounded amazing — but it was too much. The moment he unmuted the vocal track, he heard it: “Whoa, I was playing all on top of the voices.” He simplified everything. Less impressive as an organ part? Yes. But it now supported the vocals — which is the job.

And supporting doesn’t only mean staying out of the way. You can actively enhance the vocal by matching its melody and timing. In Great Are You Lord, on “pour out our praise,” the drummer, bassist, or guitarist can accent those exact hits with the vocal — making it punchier — or the bass can do a little run under “it’s Your breath.”

Background vocalists: be a computer program

Listening is crucial for background vocalists. Their job is to perfectly match the lead vocal — in tone, timing, and intensity — and you can’t do that without hyper-actively listening to every detail of the lead.

Pretend you’re a computer program: take in the input, analyze the input, and match the input.

To be a great background vocalist, it’s more about listening than singing. Alex has a very gifted singer on his team who isn’t paying attention to anyone else — just enjoying himself, singing what feels good — and it makes him ineffective in the role. An amazing voice that isn’t listening isn’t a great background vocalist. Learn to hyper-actively listen and you become an incredible one.

Make sure you can actually hear

None of this works if you can’t hear your team. Whether you use in-ear monitors or a floor wedge, make sure you can hear what everyone else is playing. Turn each other up. If you can’t hear them, you can’t make the right decisions — and the result is a sloppy mess where everyone steps on each other’s toes. Listen, analyze, and adapt your playing to match the room.

Application

• Can each of your players actually hear the rest of the band — and the lead vocal — in their monitors? Fix that before anything else.
• Try the organ test on your busiest player: have them solo their part, then unmute the vocals. Are they playing on top of the voices?
• Coach your background vocalists to “be a computer program” this week — match the lead’s tone, timing, and intensity instead of singing what feels good to them.