TITLE: LET ALL CREATION SING
ARTISTS: Emu Music
WEBSITE: www.emu.mu
PRICE: £12.00
FORMAT: CD (12 tracks, 48 minutes)
STYLE: Christian rock / congregational
COL316: 5 stars
MUSIC: 5 stars
LYRICS: 4 stars
PRODUCTION: 5 stars
SINGABILITY: 4 stars
OVERALL: 5 stars
TITLE: WORKING AS A BAND
ARTISTS: Phatfish
WEBSITE: www.phatfish.net
PRICE: £15.00
FORMAT: 2 CDs (43 tracks, 2.4 hours)
STYLE: Christian rock / tutorial
COL316: 5 stars
MUSIC: 5 stars
LYRICS: n/a
PRODUCTION: 5 stars
SINGABILITY: n/a
OVERALL: 5 stars
An excellent pair of resources, although quite different in nature: the first is from Sydney, Australia, the second from Brighton; one is mostly the work of Anglicans, the other comes from the New Frontiers stable; the former is a performance recording, the latter a tutorial. But both share a lot in common.
Both EMU and Phatfish are firmly committed to equipping churches with high quality, God-honouring, contemporary music re-sources. Both are in tune with the Colossians 3.16 command to ‘let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God’ (ESV).
I recently attended a North West Partnership training event for church leaders and musicians led by Philip Percival, the antipodian executive director of Emu Music, temporarily based at St Ebbe’s in Oxford. Two general sessions looked at the biblical theology and history of singing in the church. As we scanned through the Old Testament, we saw that singing is often used to proclaim God’s character and mighty acts, but that it also provides a controlled environment for an appropriate response. In the New Testament, we saw that singing is an important peer-to-peer Word ministry of the church, as well as a vehicle for our corporate and personal response to God. We also sang quite a lot of songs from LACS. It was at a break-out technical session for musicians that I noticed a huge overlap with the WAAB tutorial.
Servant attitude
Both Emu and Phatfish emphasise the importance of the servant attitude (we are not playing to please or draw attention to ourselves, but to serve others). The music must support the words, not draw attention away from them. The tempo and pitch need particular care, and instruments should be layered for a rich unobtrusive texture.
Both Emu and Phatfish build the band from the bass guitar and kick drum upwards: acoustic guitars and keyboards add rhythmic and harmonic structure; the piano rarely plays the tune or bass line; orchestra instruments and electric guitars fill in gaps; the human voice provides the lead.
LACS is perhaps Emu’s strongest album to date and demonstrates the ‘less is more’ principles well. WAAB examines the role of each instrument in turn and explains how to put it all together. Of course, some churches do not have the luxury of multiple instruments, but many of the principles still apply. Disc 2 of WAAB contains submixes of various songs — each with a different instrument removed — a very useful practice aid.
A copy of WAAB and an Emu course should be compulsory for all church band members. Sheet music for the LACS songs is available from the Emu website. Sing the Word!
