Playing Together: Dynamics Part II

This post continues the Dynamics theme from an earlier post.

Have you been a part of a music ministry where every instrument played on and throughout every song?  Have you noticed that each song somehow seems to sound like the other?  I have been in several bands like this.  This seems to be a tendency of many bands. But, honestly, I must be the first to admit that I have also been guilty of this from time to time!

Sometimes we can become fully engrossed in our own instrument and performing the music piece, that we don’t, in a manner of speaking, ‘hear’ the full picture.  This is certainly often true of music ministry groups without a designated music leader, but can also be true of groups with music leaders that are singers or instrumentalists as well.


All songs need color.  Variation.  Beauty.  A comparison can be made here to another art form, painting.  Imagine an artist painting on a canvas.  To this canvas the artist applies all available colors continuously across the entire canvas.  The result is likely uniform, nondescript, bland.  Beauty often lies in the variations of the subtle and the contrasting.  Some of the music equivalents in this comparison are song arrangement and dynamics (I'm sure there are others that I can't put my finger on just now).

Varying dynamics can add beauty to a song.  It can be difficult to introduce the concept of varying dynamics in a music ministry.  An instrumentalist who is conditioned for constant playing may be surprised to hear his or her services are not required, however temporarily.

Here is an idea help introduce the concept of dynamics.  Pick a particular song and say you would like to try building energy slowly from the Intro throughout the Verse and into the Chorus.  For the Intro, start with one flowing instrument.  Add another at the Verse.  Add another (perhaps light percussion?) at the Chorus.  The variations on this framework are, of course, excitingly endless!

This is just a beginning.  Once a music ministry grasps this concept, the next step lies in developing individual intros, blends, and exits for each instrumentalist.

Would this work for your music ministry?  Have you been in a band like this?  What have you done to introduce dynamics or other elements to the bands’ repertoire?

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Playing Together: Dynamics

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