How much prep time?

[DeanZF]

You're right. It varies widely. Those who plan 2 or 3 songs have a much different curve than those whose worship song services are 45-60 minutes. Or if you're doing a 3 hour time of soaking worship.



It also depends a lot on how big your repertoire is and how large your vocabulary is! It may well also depend on your team, including your overhead flipper or your computer/video projector operator. If you're fluid (and your team, too!!) with 150 songs in a couple of keys each, you can look at the theme for the service, maybe get a sense for where you want to start and where you need to end, and let the Spirit within you be your guide.



I've spent as little as 10 minutes prepping for a service of a couple of songs, and as much as 10 hours preparing for several hours of soaking worship. I'm not a keyboard player and not a very good guitar picker, either. I have to depend on others for that, or I am severely limited as to what I can lead. If I'm alone and a capella, that's a different thing altogether. I'm not afraid to do that myself, but in today's media dependent world, many congregational people are reluctant to sing without some sort of instrumental help.



I hope that Helena will weigh in, too. I know that sometimes she spends hours looking for just the right piece on CD to do with the pageantry team for a few minutes of offertory time. Heck, we spent hours and hours and hours over a period of weeks, picking through 6 or 8 different recorded versions of Handel's Messiah to find just the right interpretation, the right tempo for the choreographies, the right mood, etc. We were part of a company that produced a visually interpretted version of Messiah. It was a wild experience, artistically. And even after all those hours and options, we had to cheat some of our own choices! We had to slow one down; it was the closest in timbre and mood for the choreography, but it was still just a bit fast. Had to slow it and thus "de-tune" it. We had to rewrite our script so that there was a narrative before and after the piece so that the 1/4-tone pitch change would not be shocking to the ears. The things we do for art!



And if you had a request from the speaker for stuff that reflected a certain obscure theme or verse, you could spend a LOT of time on it. Been there, done that!! :blink: