Wednesday, August 4, 2010

History of Worship Ministry Sound

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If it is one area I find many small and medium-sized church music ministries struggle today, it is in the area of sound.  Not in talent.  Not in practice.  Not in faith, motivation, or worship.  It is in sound.  Why do I say that?

To answer this, I invite you to take a brief journey back in time.  We'll head back to a time before the sound systems existed and see what life was like.  Ready?  Let's rewind the clock more than an handful of decades.  OK, here we are back in the mid twentieth century and we find that the organ, piano, and choir dominate the church worship music scene.  As we walk into a church during this time we find that these instruments and choirs have no trouble filling even the biggest churches with beautiful, prayerful song and sound.  Note that these instruments had volume enough to fill even the biggest churches.



Now we fast forward in time a couple of decades to about the 1980s.  Now in these same churches we see a variety of other instruments engaged in the sacred art of worship music.  We find acoustic guitars, violins, flutes, etc.  These instruments don't have the volume their earlier cousins had, so they struggle to fill the church with sound.  Congregations struggle as well to hear.

Now we fast forward back to the present day.  Welcome back!  :)  What do we see at these struggling churches?  Most of these churches now have purchased and installed a sound system.  The sound system is supposed to solve the problem of the soft instruments.  It should amplify their sound and balance it with the other (perhaps louder) instruments for a beautiful mix.  It only requires someone to operate the sound board and dial all the confusing rows of dials properly.

And this is the point where I find things usually break down.

At smaller churches few, if any, know how to operate the sound board.  Who knows what all those dials and sliders do?  It looks like something out of Star Trek!  What is it doing in a church of all places?  Often it is set by the knowledgeable people who installed it at the time of installation.  Then it is seldom touched.  As a result, the sound is not mixed properly for the various music groups at each service.  

It is in this way that I feel so many music ministries and churches struggle chiefly with finding a good mix of sound.  What is your experience and thoughts on this?  Please share your thoughts by adding a comment for the greater music ministry!

Image courtesy the Warwick and Kenilworth Choral Society



Related Posts:
The Dreaded Mixing Board!
Unfolding "Testing 1-2-3"

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