I was working on an arrangement of Praise (made popular by Elevation Worship) from our new Horns & Rhythm – Modern Worship – Volume 1 series when my wife, Dana, said “What about a drumline?”
That was such an awesome question….So awesome.
And then…the stars aligned in a VERY COOL way! ADHD train a coming!
Dana is a children’s vocal contractor. If you want kids to sing on a record, for a video or for a live event, that’s what she does. Back in March we went to see a local production of Anastasia (one of the girls that sings for her was the lead). I ran in to an old friend, Camp Kirkland, at this show. The Metro Instrumental Director’s Conference was in Nashville the first week of May. This is a conference of orchestra directors from large churches across the US and world. The itinerary said one of the things that was happening was ‘attend a recording session.’ I asked Camp if it was his recording session. He told me they didn’t have a session yet and were still trying to figure that out.
Fast forward to me thinking about this drumline/marching band idea and the ‘aha’ moment happens. I could record the horns during the conference and invite everybody to sit in and watch the session.
And then…a CRAZY IDEA happened…What if I asked everybody to bring their horns and they could PLAY on the session.
I talked with Mike Lawrence at Brentwood Baptist who was hosting and he said ‘Sure. We’ve never actually recorded at a Metro Conference.’
So that’s just what we did! So I think we had around 20 players from around the US bring their horns, sit in and record the marching band parts for this song.
The session was moving fast so we only had time to rehearse the song once and then play through it twice to get the best possible sound for the recording.
My instruction to everybody was simple:
If you mess up on the first pass, mess up in a different spot on the second pass so we can cut and paste.
Everybody did great. It was a lot of fun. And there was that litmus test I always talk about that Quincy Jones mentions…I got goosebumps when we were doing the run through. I knew we had something special.
Here are some photos from the session.
A friend of mine had texted me and asked if I wanted to play trumpet on a recording session for a video game. I couldn’t do it as I was writing this arrangement for marching band. My son gives me a lot of grief for not playing on that session. Turns out it was a pretty big deal.
BUT…as I was talking to my friend David Shipps about this arrangement he was going on and on about how amazing Tim Paul was with Marching Band Drumline parts. So I asked Tim if he would write and record the drumline parts for the song. He said yes and oh my word..he crushed it! CRUSHED IT!
So…if you’re wondering what a drumline would sound like on an arrangement of Praise….I’ve got one and you can hear it below:
I have created this arrangement with a fairly ridiculous amount of flexibility:
At its core, this arrangement is for Horns (2/2/2-3) plus Rhythm.
But…you can add drumline and oh my word!
BUT BUT..you can add a marching band and BAM!
BUT BUT BUT…you could also do it with Big Band and oofda!
BUT BUT BUT…you coul also do it with Big Band AND DRUMLINE and (i’m getting tired of near hyperbolic adjectives)
Concert Band
Wind Ensemble
Symphonic Band
Orchestra (I have full string section parts created that go with ANY VERSION)
All of these versions are included in the arrangement so you have the opportunity to utilize as many players as you want!!!
You can hear the arrangement here:
For more information about this series, click here
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