Cheating in Church!!!

**Enviroguy** · 04-04-2011, 03:01 AM

Today was our day to provide special music for Sunday morning service. Last Thursday (3 days ago), I asked my wife what she wanted to do? She said that she really liked the Casting Crowns song, "Here I Go Again". I'd never heard the song, but I went ahead and downloaded the performance tracts from Amazon.

I plugged both the performance backing track and the full version track with vocals into Audacity. Then I looped the intro to give room for a little saxophone at the beginning. This gave about 20 seconds to blow sax until my wife would begin singing. Next I went to the guitar break. Luckily, the guitar already sounded kind of muted and was really only playing an embellished cord progression. A sax break would fit perfectly over it without modification.

I made both performance and vocal tracks into mono tracks and then put one on the right stereo channel and the other on the left. This gave me a "split track" rendering. Then I prayed (because I'm not the world's best at improvisation) and I started blowing my sax to the music until I worked out the intro and break. Plus I added a little light sax work during the ending below the singing, which lasts right up to the last note.

Now for the performance, I put the split track MP3 onto an iPod and plugged in a cable that splits the left and right stereo channels. The channel with just the backing music was patched into a microphone port below the preacher's podium going to the house sound system. The track with vocals went into a set of ear buds. My wife was then able to listen to the original vocals via the ear buds while singing. This helped her with timing and kept her on pitch. As for me, I just closed my eyes and prayed that my figures would remember the sax parts I had worked out by ear.

Now you may ask how did all this work out? Well, the answer was volunteered by a teenage future college music major that was seated in the second row. After the performance, he came up to me and said in an amazed tone, "Dude. That was compleeeetely legit! You owned that solo".

This was one of those times where we were unprepared and performing something well outside our comfort zone. But through faith we pulled it off, once again. And I now have a better way to keep my wife on beat and on pitch. It was another great day worth remembering.

**bandmommy** · 04-04-2011, 03:11 AM

I wouldn't call that cheating. I'd call it 'insuring that you make a joyful noise unto the Lord'.

**Soul Patch Paul** · 04-04-2011, 03:47 AM

Faith without works is dead. I read that somewhere. You made good use of the resources at hand. It was clever and obviously successful, so just feel good about it and go with what works for you. Such an undertaking should be a joyful thing, so HAVE A GOOD TIME!

**saxguy007** · 04-04-2011, 03:17 PM

Don't beat yourself up. In today's era of ipods etc, the vast majority of music that is heard is recorded and is essentially technically flawless. It's not old Mabel at the piano doing the best she can. I believe that musical perfection is now what our brains unconsciously expect, even at church. Violations of that ideal, such as a messed-up chord or muffed entrance, have significant potential IMO to disrupt spiritual reverie.

You did what you had to do to ensure that the train stayed on the tracks. You should be commended, if anything.

**saxmangeoff** · 04-04-2011, 09:32 PM

Ditto to what others have said.

I'll add one more thing. The more you do this, the less you'll need the "cheats." It will get easier. I promise! :-)

**CiaranAudio** · 04-04-2011, 10:40 PM

If God had a problem with it, he would of had the battery in the iPod die, your reeds all break, or maybe just smite the entire church down.

Either way, congrats!

**hakukani** · 04-04-2011, 11:20 PM

I did sound for several denomination's national conferences over the years (yeah, I worked for anyone that paid me

). The performers ran the gamut of completely live, sung to tracks, play to tracks, and complete lip-sync (except during the 'exhortation' section).

**saxmanjack** · 04-05-2011, 12:15 AM

Damn, I assumed this thread would be about adultery.

**blowforjesus** · 04-05-2011, 02:36 AM

Sound like you did a great job

**Enviroguy** · 04-23-2011, 04:14 AM

I just started working on the recording for this piece.

I'm trying a new recording setup using both a condenser and diaphragm mic together. Here's about twenty seconds of the intro. I'll post more after we lay down the vocals. Let me know what you think:

http://cierra.cc/HereIGo%20intro1.mp3