Fork In The Road Music » tips

The Right Key is One Key to Stong Vocals

Russell Martin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:54:40 +0000

There are many ways you can help your worship team vocalists sing strong with confidence. One thing I discovered this past year is that the right key is the key!

Last year I would introduce a song usually by listening to the cd then having the band try it and vocals sing. Many times they would like the song, however the vocalist would be struggling trying to sing out of their range, or flipping octaves between verse and chorus. Since the music was printed and we had already worked on learning in the original key, it was hard to change keys and we usually just struggled through.

This year we tried something different. This year every new song was first introduced to the vocals. After they learned the basic tune we found the key that best suited their voices. I made a note of the key and then during the next week would print music accordingly.

I have really noticed a difference in a few key areas:
1. They enjoy it more- When they are comfortable with the key they don’t have to worry about how they will hit the notes, and less worry means more fun.
2. They are stronger- Since we chose a key that fits their range they are more confident and sing out.
3. They get more done- Since we no longer take time out in rehearsal searching for keys with the whole band, and transposing music 2-3 times we get more done, learn more music and get better as a band.

What tips do you have for developing vocalists?

Moving Day Approaches

Russell Martin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:10:10 +0000

The last few weeks have been an exciing time for my wife and I. We are now in the final stages of purchasing our first house. Please continue to pray for us as closing day approaches.
I know that owning a home will come with many challenges. I know moving will have it’s share too. This is why I am asking for your help.
What are the things you wish you knew when you were moving into your first home? What are some tips you discovered that you could share? What would you do differently?
Hopefully your comments will not only help us but also others who are approaching this same point in their lives soon. I look forward to your responses. Thank you!

Video Tips- One Way to Capture Audio

Russell Martin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:08:37 +0000

Video is something I have just started doing at our church. Even though it is new to us as a way to communicate, we are already seeing some awesome results. We started out doing all of our youth updates as a video and have had some fun with that.

To start off with though, all the videos have been kind of funny and light. That changed this past week when our pastor wanted me to video the testimony of one of our members. When doing the funny, light videos it was good to hear what was being said, but with background music and other elements in the video sound quality could be compromised a bit. With the testimony, however, I knew that we had to get the best sound possible.

First you should know we are using two Everio Hard Disk cameras, set up in two locations with different angles. Its a good consumer level camera with a decent microphone. We have not invested in higher quality equipment, extra microphones or any thing else up to this point because we are just getting started and want to build slowly. But I did need to find a way to capture good audio. When telling a testimony, we really need to hear the story.

This is when I got the idea to just use the church sound system. We used the wireless lapel mic as our input. I then captured the audio three different ways. First it was captured by one of the two cameras I had set up; Second it was captured by sending it from the board, to a wireless earphone pack, to the second camera’s microphone input; and third it was captured by a CD recorder running on the sound board. We recorded the interview and I used my computer later to sync up the video, and audio from the different sources.

The best thing would be to purchase a good microphone for the video camera, and I hope that is in our future. However, this way gave great results and did not cost us anything.

Do you use video in your church? If so how? Is it effective? What is your setup?