The Worship Accompanist
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Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash [/caption]
I was a band/choir director for five years right after college. Along with teaching and directing, every spring, solo and ensemble contest season would come around. Since there were a large number of kids, to make sure everyone had an accompanist, the other director, an accompanist and I split up the various solos to accompany.
Accompanying a high school student is very different from accompanying a college student or professional. In the more professional setting, the soloist is a first among equals. While the focus is on the solo, the accompanist is also performing, and neither is complete without the whole. Accompanying high school students, on the other hand, is often a more frustrating endeavor.
While there are certainly exceptions, more often than not, the soloist struggles in one way or another. Singers often need a really obvious starting pitch, instrumentalists sometimes wander off and get lost or forget to come in on time. The order of the song is often "creative." So, it is the accompanist's job to make the soloist as successful as possible. This means vamping until the soloist comes in, giving the occasional helpful notes, and generally holding on for the ride and trying desperately to follow the student on their journey around the song.
Primary when accompanying a student is to accent their performance and not distract from it. Sometimes the judge would give you a wink, but at the end of the day, you weren't the one being judged, the student was.
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Photo by Kathy Hillacre on Unsplash [/caption]
After years of leading worship on Sunday mornings, I have come to the conclusion that of all the things I did as a band/choir director, accompanying students was the thing I did then that most relates to what I do now.
Just as my job was to support and enable the student as a teacher, my job as a worship leader is to support and enable the congregation as they praise God. Certainly the worship team is participating as a part of the congregation, but we are not the core of the singing, the congregation is.
As an accompanist, it is important to practice and know how to play the song so that you don't detract from the student's performance. In the same way, it is important to be skilled when playing/singing on worship team. An instrument who is playing all the right notes might barely be noticed, but when someone isn't "on," it is painfully obvious to everyone and distracts. In his book Worship Matters Bob Kauflin calls this playing with "undistracting excellence." In this way, the goal is to play competently, but not be so flashy as to draw attention to oneself and again distract from the congregation's singing.
In our culture of people sometimes looking for a church based on how great the band is, it seems counter-intuitive to not focus on having a really cool band, but Sunday morning is not a concert, it's a worship service, and it's not just the band up front worshipping, it's the entire gathered Body of Christ. The worship team is just the accompanist!
