How to practice like a worship leader ninja

Written by Bryan Nelson | posted in behind the scenes, innovative, music, productivity, technology, tip, tools | 4 Comments

So you need to practice lots of songs you aren’t as familiar with — and you need a tool to help you out.  That happened to me lately and discovered a new tool within the great Evernote app for smartphone/computers.

Here’s what happened.

I was asked to play electric guitar for a large worship environment at another local church. It’s a great event — and one that I’ve played keyboard for several times.  Historically they’ve had some very gifted electric guitar players.  So when they asked me, I thought I’d be one of several electric guitars.  Um, nope.  I was the ONLY electric guitar.

Needless to say I was in a little panic. Being the only electric guitar means you carry the whole load.  For most guitarists, they’d love this.  For me, I like to have safety nets around me.

At any rate, I went through 20 songs (yes, twenty) for this event.  As I listened to the recordings and looked at the charts, I ran through just my EG parts.  Here’s what I learned.

I used Evernote’s audio clips — and put them into one single note with my iPhone. If you don’t use Evernote, it’s a great tool.  It captures everything from web clips, typed notes, pictures, and even AUDIO RECORDINGS.  With my iPhone in hand, I recorded the main guitar lick each song required.  It looked like the following.

The magic wasn’t in the capturing, but in re-listening to the clips later. When it came to game time, I sat in the parking lot of the church in my vehicle.  Sweat started to bead on my face, not because it was hot, but I was nervous.  I got out my iPhone and began to review the audio clips for the last time.  It was great.  What a relief to have an instant recall of my parts for the songs I was about to play.

This tool can translate to many situations as a big help. If you are in a choir rehearsal, start recording clips for your song set when your vocal part is rehearsed.  If you teach guitar lessons, record an ongoing progress report for a student — then “share” the note online with your student.  If you are a song writer, capture clips of an idea in your head for a song — sing or play them into notes in Evernote.

What tools have you learned to help you with what you do?