- Blend
One of the keys to good Backing vocals is learning to blend so however many vocalists your have it sounds like one voice. So watch the lips of the worship leader or lead singer and try to match their starts, stops, phrasing, volume tone and vibrato. - Only sing melody to emphasise phrases or key lyrics
It goes without saying that the BV’s role is not to sing the melody but to support it with harmony and emphasis on key words and phrases. If you struggle to sing harmonies check out our harmonization and backing vocals DVD - If more than one BV stick to your harmony part
If you have multiple BV harmonies try not to cross over into another range. So if you are singing lines above the melody don’t go below it if another BV is taking that part. - Riffing
Vocal riffs are kinda like lead guitar runs. They feel great for the person doing them but can be so easily inappropriate if overdone or used in the wrong place. So choose your moments wisely, maybe use riffs on ‘out there’ moments to encourage abandoned worship. Even if your riffs are great too many of them can get irritating really fast. - Don’t upstage the lead vocal!
Again the BV’s role is to support the lead vocal. Most people in congregations aren’t that musical and actually get confused if they can’t follow a clear lead so be careful that your BVs don’t do anything to cut across that melody. - You don’t have to close your eyes and adopt the holy pose
One of the most worshipfully helpful backing vocalists I ever saw used to subtly use sign language as she sang to help her express the lyrics. It wasn’t supposed to be for anyone else’s benefit but her own and the gestures were very discrete but because it was genuine worship it was a very beautiful thing. Whatever gestures you make just be natural and mean it and sincerity will come across.
Other posts you may like:
Learn to sing harmonies in worship
Creating harmony – live video clip
How to become a confident singer
Previous posts from the 50+ Tips series:
Communication skills for worship teams
3 Comments
Hi Andy,
Thanks for a very informative list of tips. However, as a comprehensive set of tips for worship vocalists, they’re very presciptive. Rather than being a general rule of thumb, or cardinal sins, I’d suggest they’re suitable suggestions for today’s contemporary ‘folk-rock’ based worship style.
By insisting that the lead singer alone carry the meoldy, with vocalists not confusing the congregation by singing in unison (think you underestimate the musical ability in many congregations. I bet they manage to hum along to far more complex stuff in the pop charts alone!) Such rules thwart creativity in both the ‘backing vocalists’ and the ‘lead’ singer. ‘Backing vocals’ end up providing a token harmony to emphasise certain phrases and are otherwise redundant.
I’ve only come across this treatment of backing vocals in worship in the last 10 years at my current church. Prior to that, leading worship with a more expressive musical style demanded the vocals to carry melody, harmony, and texture allowing the lead vocalist to ad lib, musical expression, engage with the congregation, focus on the verses – it was certainly a team effort, whether you had a couple of vocalists or an entire choir. Each vocalist carried equal weight, the entire song would be severely lacking without the consistent backbone to the melody or the richness of harmony provided by all the vocalists. No fear of upstaging anyone, it’s a team effort.
Your tips are very helpful. Teamwork requires good discipline and clear, simple boundaries. Maybe this reflects where your extensive expertise lies, but they’re not exhaustive and perhaps they’re a little limited as guidelines for several other musical worship styles.
Bless ya!!
Hi Nicki
Yes point taken, apologies if this seemed prescriptive, it certainly wasn’t meant to but this was a short tips section specifically for Backing Vocals as opposed to vocals in general to cover choirs, multiple lead singers, different congregational styles etc. I’m certainly not saying this is the only way to do it by any means, think of it more as a set of building blocks and once you thoroughly how it works then once you understand how the ‘construction’ work then you are free to modify it without wrecking the ‘foundations’. In fact I love it when churches express their sung worship in ways that are unique to their musical heritage and current culture, styles and likes. However having fielded a lot of questions and certainly with the types of churches we are asked to do training with over the years we tend to find that the vast majority of them are trying to do sung worship within the ‘folk-rock’ based style and even then, most of those are small (under 100 people) and lack a worship team with naturally gifted, experienced and trained musicians that are familiar with the subtleties of really nailing that rock/pop/folk style, i.e. Tomlin, Redman, Hughes type songs.
Many join a worship team because they have a desire to but wouldn’t necessarily have played in other musical environments and so will have missed out on some of these building block ideas that we throw out in the 50 tips sections and we often find that many worship bands could improve vastly just by learning to play the simple stuff really well.
Having done a bit of research it seems that a lot of the churches we communicate with on the blog here are smaller and less well resourced, which to be honest is probably how the vast majority of church looks in the UK. I also keep an eye what’s sung both here and in the States through CCLI which seems to point towards the vast majority rightly or wrongly using songs in that pop/rock/folk style. – so that’s where we pitch a lot of our thoughts.
That’s not to invalidate any other styles or songs at all, far from it! Its just those better resourced churches generally exist in cities and attract a much higher standard of musician that wouldn’t necessarily look at some of the practical stuff on Musicademy either because they are already doing it very well or just think they are!
I think what you may be describing is an expression from a church that is naturally and intrinsically more musical than others. The same could also be reflected in church cultures that are generally more musical like the black majority church networks that have a deep sense of rhythm and musicality that we (I mean me) middle class white boys sadly ain’t got, many Pentecostal churches and even some Mennonite churches that I’ve seen that have grown up naturally singing complex 4 part harmonies as part of their culture.
Generally I’ve noticed if the congregational members participate more and have a natural understanding of harmony and rhythm they seem to be less in need of a clear melody line to follow. But sadly i dont think that is the reality with the majority of the churches we connect with.
So apologies if you saw that as being prescriptive but in a short web based tips piece as opposed to an in depth article its difficult to caveat every tip so as to not negate different worship styles – which is why I’m glad you commented.
Hi Andy!
Thanks for your response. I confess – I suspected you’d be up for a fairly ‘meaty discussion’ on your blog, so I was a little less lenient than normal. That said – you’re right and Musicademy does a brilliant job meeting the needs of a wide sector of the UK church. All credit for bridging the gap to bring something inspired yet practical into the lives of today’s worshippers of varying abilities.
My comments were probably more a reflection of my experience taking an active role in singing/worship since the bonny age of 10 (I’ll leave you to do the maths…lol) Until recently I took for granted the ‘cultural musicality’ of our humble little congregation of less than 30 in the back-waters of Aylesbury – ocassionally we ’shared’ musicians with other local churches as we had none of our own. Had to make do with voices and work with what we had – thus the need for creativity. Admittedly, I moved on to a much larger London based church with a good supply of home-grown musicians and where everybody from toddlers to pensioners sang, so I’ve always appreciated that it’s something to be very grateful for. The worship team was there to lead everybody into worship – when they said, “sing the song…” that’s what they meant. They were there to start each song confidently, yet sensitively and inspire everyone to join in. Wow…Does it sound like I really miss those days? lol
I was watching Got to Dance on Sky last night and it was incredible to see the impact ’street-dance’ has had across the ages and classes. For worship, Redman/Hughes/Tomlin paved the way for a worship revolution bringing a contemporary style into a mainstream, accepted format. I wonder when we’ll see a new chapter of worship music which reflects what people listen/dance to now, just like rock/folk/pop style moved things away from more traditional styles? It’s a shame there’s no place for middle-class black gals like me to share a bit of our passion for worship without it being perceived as ‘just for the pentecostal musical cultural types. Even though we’re raising a generation who are more inspired by Black Eyed Peas than U2.
I long for a Musicademy equivalent willing to meet the needs of worshippers like me who are a little ‘bored’ with today’s mainstream worship style. I love my church community (and know that behind closed doors, they love and listen to some of the same music I do) but when it comes to worship I have to sneak off after dark for something a little more inspiring.
My longing is for more freedom and musical expression, not just a particular ‘cultural’ style. Your delivery of tips, musical theory, skills and technique are 2nd to none Andy. Just wish it didn’t come across as one style being the ‘norm’ and everything else being lovely, but just a little bit radical.
N