Preparing for Rehearsal

Once your team knows why preparation matters, you actually have to help them prepare. As you get ready for rehearsal, there are four key things you and your team must do to make rehearsal as smooth and effective as possible. That’s the goal — and these tasks make it a reality.

1. Teach your team to play in parts, not just chords

Encourage your team to move beyond simply strumming the chords and to learn the specific parts of the song — the actual guitar riff, the actual piano part on the record. You don’t have to play it exactly like the album, but those signature parts should be the baseline standard you ask your musicians to learn.

There’s a reason the best producers in Nashville (or at the big churches making these records) chose those parts: those parts enhance the song. Make learning them the baseline, then put your own spin on it from there — but keep the core elements so the song retains the character and quality of the original.

2. Give your team great resources

How do you get your team to play in parts? By resourcing them well. The better you resource your team, the more you can expect from them — you can’t expect much if you give them nothing to work with. At minimum, give your players:

• A clean, clear, correct chord chart.
• An mp3 of the arrangement in the actual key you’re playing it in.
• Per-instrument resources — YouTube tutorials, or a subscription service like Worship Online.
• Optionally, practice mixes — multitrack mp3s with one instrument boosted (bass up for the bassist, keys up for the keys player, harmonies up for the singers). Alex personally just sends the YouTube tutorials rather than building practice mixes, but either works.
• Vocal harmony recordings for the chorus and bridge. Some churches even build a lyric spreadsheet marking where each vocalist comes in and out.

Upload all of it to Planning Center so it travels with the song. There’s no such thing as overkill here.

3. Mentally walk through the entire set and transitions

Before your band arrives, think through how every song will go and how each flows into the next. Great athletes do this — they visualize the race before they run it. (Alex notes reading that visualization is supposedly 80% as effective as actually doing the task.)

So run the rehearsal in your head first:

• The song structures and the specific parts.
• The dynamics — down chorus here? Full-band chorus there? How do you land each song?
• The transitions between songs.
• Any talking, praying, or exhortation you plan to do in the set.

The more clear it is in your head, the more direction you can give your team — and clear direction is how you get what you actually want.

4. Completely prepare the stage

Your stage should be 100% ready before anyone arrives — no chaos, no hectic scramble. Set out the chord charts. Check every line. Test the instruments. Turn on everything electronic. Check the monitors. Make sure all the tech is functioning. Even wrap the cables nice and clean for them to plug into. You want your team to feel loved and cared for — to see their leader going out of the way to serve them and make a space for them, so they can just show up and bring their gifts to the Lord.

This matters because a rough start leads to a rough rehearsal, which leads to a rough service. It’s a domino effect. Do everything in your power to eliminate technical difficulties up front.

You serve your team, they in turn serve you, and together you all serve the church.

The payoff

Do all four — parts not chords, great resources, mental walk-through, fully prepped stage — and you can realistically get through a five-song set twice in under an hour, walking out with everything sounding great and everyone feeling confident. Alex’s church does exactly that, every single week, in a one-hour rehearsal.

Application

• Are your players learning parts or just chords? What’s one signature part in this week’s set you’ll specifically ask someone to learn?
• Audit what you hand your team. Do they have a clean chart, an in-key mp3, and per-instrument resources — or are you expecting a lot while giving them little?
• Before your next rehearsal, block ten minutes to mentally walk the whole set — structures, dynamics, transitions, talking points — and arrive with the stage 100% ready.