Dan Gillette is the Music Pastor and Tech Director at Valley Bible Church in Pleasanton, CA
Interview conducted 4/14/15 at Valley Bible Church…
Ted: Easter just completed. I think most people (myself included) don’t really appreciate how much work the Worship Pastor has during this time. Can you help my readers get a sense of what its like preparing for Easter?
Dan: Well I think there is a pressure that is… well I’m not really sure where it comes from whether its the western church or how things are culturally in America, but there is a pressure for Easter to be epic, or a step up. I try to fight that pressure because if there is somebody coming to our church for the first time on Easter I want them to get a real representation of how we do things. I don’t want to make this spectacle or special program and then they come the week after and its totally different. So what I try to do is make it as normal a Sunday as possible.
There is a lot of work, but the thing that makes it different is we’ll have some additional rehearsals. This is because we want to get the music down really tight. What that does is push our time table up where we have to get our setlist up earlier and have longer hours.
We had a special song and a couple of solos [a song where a singer is featured vocally and the congregation doesn’t sing along]. We also had a vocal ensemble which is different. Its definitely a lot of work but I would say that of every Sunday. I’m definitely glad its over, I can exhale a little bit.
We had about three to four additional rehearsals to get the music tight. We had a Friday service and two on Sunday. Part of the work is in the staging setups being different for Friday and Sunday. Monday we had a vocal rehearsal for Easter, Tuesday we had a band rehearsal for Good Friday, Wednesday we had the band rehearsal for Easter and Thursday there is another church activity. Each of those days required set and equipment changes, so you get an idea about the extra work. Not to mention Friday and Sunday themselves. Lots of extra hours involved. It turned out really well.
Ted: Tell me about your process for choosing a setlist.
Dan: We always try to consider what the message is going to be about, or if there is a special holiday or time of the year. The way we talk about it here is we have guidelines that help us as we pick our sets and we are also trying to stay in a prayerful, attentive mindset throughout our week. This is because I’ve found that the Lord will bring songs to your heart or mind and it will turn out to be exactly what is needed. So you’re not just sitting in your room with your guitar or out and about and hear something interesting – we train our people to be prayerful and attentive so that the songs are inspired choices.
Part of the guidelines involve considering the worship culture at our church. Every church has a different flavor or feel to it. We want to serve our people. While we will do things that will kind of shake things up, ultimately we want to create an environment where people are comfortable. Our church is not the most punctual group of people so we typically won’t start off with a song that is super intense or high energy right at the beginning. People are still trickling in. We start with like ten people [laughs] and by the second song there are 300 people. So our set is sort of a ramp up in terms of energy level. By the time we end our first set, that’s when we are going to do something that’s more dramatic and high energy.
The other thing we consider is people are coming in, rushing to church, getting the kids ready, maybe they got into fight on the way there so we kind of want to gradually bring people along. That’s one example of our worship culture that we use as a guideline.
Another guideline we use for our set lists is we value balance. We generally look at our songs in two ways: vertical songs to God and horizontal songs about God. So we like to have a good balance of that in our sets. That way it isn’t always us singing about God but we are also singing to Him. Another way we try to get balance is we like to have a number of eras represented in the musical styles. We like to do stuff that has come out in the last couple of years but we also remake a lot of hymns and we’re not afraid to pull something from the 90’s either [laughs]. And for musical variety we’ll try not to do a bunch of Hillsong songs for example, because those have a certain feel to them and build a certain way generally. So by using different artists’ catalogs, it helps keep the setlist varied and the songs not all sounding the same.
Ted: You mentioned the message… can I read between the lines and say you are trying to link the lyrical messages with the sermon message?
Dan: That’s not something that we work super hard at. The reason for that is our experience has been… if you are just trusting the Lord and you are picking the songs that are gonna capture people’s imaginations about who God is and what He’s done… We tend not to do the songs that are like, “God you’re so good”. We want songs that express why God is so good like His steadfast love or His work on creation. So since those are the kind of songs we do, those types of songs go with every message. We coordinate with our teaching team and we look at the texts that they’re doing and we’ll use that as a springboard but its not something we belabor over. Its cool to see how God makes it just come together.
Ted: Do you have an ideal or typical instrumental configuration for most services?
Dan: We value variety and have an incredibly talented team that can handle a lot. So about once a month we’ll do something that is totally different where maybe we’ll just have a big vocal team a guitar and a piano. Then the next month maybe we’ll do a full set where we have a cello, mandolin and banjo. Typically what we run is one or two electric guitars. One of my pet peeves is having two people doing the same thing. So you will rarely see two people playing rhythm acoustic guitar here. So we typically have rhythm electric guitar and rhythm acoustic guitar (which is typically what I do), lead guitar, two keyboards (piano, hammond organ and/or synth), electric, bass drums and one or two vocalists. People will kind of bounce around from song to song for variety in the instrumentation. I want to take the congregation on a journey and don’t want every song to sound the same. We’ve got the people to make that happen (both musically and sound tech wise) so that is great. Oh, and sometimes we have “color” instruments like cello, banjo and mandolin that we sprinkle in when appropriate.
Ted: Do you generally take artistic license with song arrangements/improvising or do you try to be faithful to the recordings?
Dan: I’m all about preparation. So if you are going to be on our team you must be committed to practicing on your own. 80% of what we do is based on an arrangement we found as a guide. 20% is where we want people to be creative. What I found facilitates that is if people know what to practice. I found people need a point of reference and a chord chart isn’t enough. A recording is usually just the reference.
So much of leadership is communicating about where you are headed. So if you communicate the vision of where you are going with the arrangement, people generally do well with that.
Ted: What is your approach to background music during prayer/quiet/communion time?
Dan: For every service there are prayer points. Also, almost every song has an extended instrumental break. However, for communion we start with about 30 seconds as silence to allow people to commune with God.
Ted: Let’s talk a bit about technology. Do you prefer wedges or IEM on stage and why?
Dan: Because of size of our room we use strictly IEM unless there is an exception. We use myMix personal monitors and love them. 95% of the time we use IEM. If we had a bigger venue I would love both. However, there is usually too much bleed.
Ted: What is your stance on wireless vs wired mics?
Dan: We tend to go wired for reliability reasons. Also, you tend to get nicer mics for your money with wired.
Ted: Do you allow guitar amplifiers on or off the stage?
Dan: They are on stage in custom made isolation boxes.
Ted: Do you mic the amps or use some other approach?
Dan: Generally they are mic’ed.
Ted: Do you have a preference of analog or digital mixing boards.
Dan: Digital. It really has become a necessity. It is also very nice to have motorized controls.
Ted: What is your approach to music volume?
Dan: We have a gracious church and haven’t had to deal with complaints for the most part. This church is intergenerational, so for hearing safety we run in the high 80s to 90dB range. We give out pamphlets about our approach to volume which seems to have helped as well.
Ted: Moving on to team dynamics, what suggestion would you give to new worship team members to assist the soundman, lighting and/or projection teams?
Dan: I would say you have to start on the relational level and cultivate a team environment where the musicians and tech are part of the same team.
Ted: What is your approach to giving feedback to performers when a part needs adjusting?
Dan: I like to use Ephesians 4 as a model in terms of giving criticism with grace and receive it with humility. If you are going to be a part of our team it is expected that you can handle criticism.
Also, if you know something is going to be hard in terms of confronting someoneIf, be preemptive .
Ted: Have you ever let musicians or other team members go?
Dan: I have been in this role since from 2011, and I have never had to say you’re off the team. I have asked people to step aside for a season to deal with more important family matters however.
Ted: Thank you for your insight Dan.
Dan: Anytime
Contact information:
Dan Gillette
Music Pastor and Tech Director
Valley Bible Church – http://www.thecrossing.org/
