youth group

OK, so youth band tonight wasn’t half bad.  I KNOW I was off-pitch but I knew where we were in the songs and I knew where to come 99% of the time.  That is HUGE.  Wanna know what helped?  One of the guitarist that was not there at practice yesterday got on the stage with a mic and sang with me.  He’s not a great singer either but because he’s playing, he knows EXACTLY when to come in.  Now with him giving me more confidence in the timing, I feel more open to singing louder.  And not saying it was great, but it was a vast improvement.  AND turns out he has a keyboard so he’s going to bring it next week and I think one of our other leaders that plays keyboard on Sunday morning is going to give it a whirl (don’t worry, Jaynee, I’ve still got you on MY LIST and will let you know how it goes).  As much as I’ve whined and complained this week, tonight I’m pumped because I see hope!

OK, so only the lead and bass guitarist and myself showed up for practice.  It was enough that we could actually run through the songs and me to learn the intros and transitions and such.  But.  I sounded even worse with absolutely no one else to sing with and no keyboard for me to hear the melody. 

It sucked.

They said I needed to sing louder and that it sounded “boring”.  I kept trying to explain part of the problem was the song was quite redundant and I was trying to sing notes that were way too low for me and I knew we needed to change keys but I don’t know enough about my singing to know and they aren’t experienced enough yet to know either.

I was straight up with them saying I know right now I can’t lead this music but I’m willing to sing crappy just so someone is at least leading the group.  They were insistent they wanted me to sing with them.  As for other singers, they seemed game for getting a “praise team” of several youth to also sing.  But trying to get random people to commit is hard.  And if this is going to work, they HAVE to be at practice.

Last evening I went over to St’s new church and listened to them practice hoping to glean some insight on how to run practice with a band.  They actually are doing some songs we are.  But I’m not sure if the practice served anything except to show awesomely excellent they are and how horrible I’m doing.

I talked to St after he got out for about an hour.  We realized I have a few problems.  For one thing, I’m trying to lead songs with a male lead line.  He has a high male voice so when I go to sing the songs the band is used to, I’m either way too high, or way too low.  And obviously during practice yestrday, I was singing way too low.  Another problem is I’m used to singing in the choir and I can either hear the melody with the track, piano or other sopranos singing.  With the band (no keyboardist right now), I have nothing.  No point of reference. 

I have to know how to sing it. 

Period. 

And I don’t. 

I’m no soloist, have never been. 

And here I’m trying to lead a band.  But honestly, part of me feels like I’m supposed to be doing this.  St has agreed to meet with me Friday and help me figure out what keys I should be singing in and we’re going to have a keyboard there.  And he’s going to show me all the resources online for the lead sheets, transposing, etc.

He also ensured me I CAN sing.  I’ve stood directly in front of him for two years as he’s lead our choir and he knows I can sing.  And St is picky.  I know he’d tell me if I couldn’t.  So I know I can do this. 

My last problem is I’m just scared out of my mind and I have to let loose and just let it go.  Get over myself and do it.

So for now I’m hanging in there.  I want to learn how to sing and how to do it my way, not St’s way.  I want to be the singer the band needs because those kids are talented and I don’t want to see it go to waste.

I got the black hair last night and then I sang in our youth band tonight.  Neither are related but someone did make a comment that I looked more rocker-ish now…let’s hope it’s less Ozzy-ish and more Kat Von Dish.  I should have painted my nails black and put on red lipstick.

Anyway, the entire afternoon and evening was spent at church.  The guys in the band asked if I would sing with the band two weeks ago.  I sort of ignored them, sure they were joking with the old-lady youth leader, and then they asked again last week if I would come to practice.  I wasn’t sure if any other youth had volunteered which is the optimal choice but I didn’t want to leave them hanging tonight.  And hey, I DO like singing and usually manage to hit a few good notes when I sing.  Although before tonight I had never held a microphone to sing and have only sung as part of school and church choirs starting in middle school. 

At first, I was having a really hard time singing.  I wasn’t belting it and the other guy that had ended up showing didn’t really know how to lead either.  We sounded like two 8 year olds singing to a cassette tape in their bedroom. 

Yeah, that good.

And then a girl got up with us and while she was good at timing, I don’t think she hit one note, bless her heart.  The other youth dragged her away from the stage and the guy singing with me’s girlfriend got up and sang with me.  She used to sing with St when he was there but she hadn’t been at practice in a long time.  After she got up, I did much better.   She was familiar with singing with the band on those songs, so she knew when to come in more than we did..which wasn’t hard.

Practice was generally horrible though.  We had a hard time knowing when to come in as all we had was chord sheets to follow and none of us stayed on tune the whole time.  But once youth group started and we did the 4 song set and we did purdy darn good.  It was far from perfect.  We ended songs in mid-sentence as the players weren’t sure whether to do the bridge one more time and all of us were not singing in tune the whole time and one song we missed almost a whole verse.

It wasn’t pretty.

But we tried and with the whole youth group singing, no one hardly noticed.  It’s sort of a joke in our youth group that no one can keep time and no one can stay on tune so there’s no high expectations, they just need someone to lead. 

So anyway, I’m going to go next week to practice hopefully with the other two youth singers and we’ll be a lot better. 

And to be honest, I sort of dig the whole being on stage singing thing.  But shh, don’t tell anyone.

So tonight was the first night at youth without St & Sh.  And 3 other leaders weren’t there either so it was a lot of work but I think it went over well. I think the comment by one of them was “well that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.”  And coming from a teenager I think that meant it went well.  We really need a good singer to lead the band, otherwise it’s a little bit of struggle.  And our drum player won’t be back until next week so that will help. 

Our guest speaker tonight was our former youth pastor.  He’s really good and I think the kids enjoyed it.  In fact, I’ll probably post one of the videos he played tonight, it was really good.  So I think we’re going to make it until we get another pastor.  We had probably at least 20-25 kids there which is decent for the summer and the way the numbers have been going lately. 

We’re having Mark Rodenhauser, a former Carolina Panthers player, come in next week to talk.  So I really hope they enjoy that and the numbers are up since school will be back in.