Backing Tracks

New favorite hobby - watching local churches on TV. Why? Because I have nothing better to do. So I am watching this church service that is around this area (sorry if by some off chance you attend the church that I am showcasing here - it is not a bash, just an example), and I am witness to this. Listen to the whole thing, and keep in mind...everything except for lead vocal is a backing track (goofy keyboard strings and vocals too!). I really feel sorry for him, the church is probably pretty big and he probably doens't have a great mix of the CD they stuck him with. Poor guy...

When I say the term "backing tracks", what pops in your heaad? I know that when I think about backing tracks, I think of cheesy church, special music. Now, don't get me wrong, I believe taht people should feel comfortable to do special music, and most churches do this - including my own. I am going to get phone calls from the thousands of readers that I have about how I "badmouthed special music" and how they did special music one time and like fifty people came up after church and told them how amazing it was. NO! I just think we could do better.

The churches that I have been to, the band was at a level where they could perform the music to backup the vocalist that wanted to do music. And if that is not suitbale in your church, surely, there is someone who could play a piano or guitar rendition to fufill the much needed instrumental accompaniment.

Here's my beef with special music. First off, it is a hassle to setup special monitoring situations for the vocalist(s) to hear well enough to keep up with the backing track. Most of the time, monitoring is cruddy, so the special music ends up being somewhat amusing with the vocalist(s) and the backing track being on two different tempos. Secondly, no matter how talented your vocalist(s), the backing track is mastered...meaning, your junky live sound setup is not going to compare to what you're asking your special music person to sing with. It sounds way different. Finally, why does the special music have to sound so cheesy? What I mean is, why do they (the folks who record these wonderful backing tracks) have to pick the most corny keyboard patches and ugliest drum tones? To me, live instruments would sound so much better.

I figured I would share my observations with my readers and see what you all felt. I don't think special music should be stripped from church, but, can we fix it so that special music doesn't make such a drastic jump in the service? It just feels out of place....

Thoughts?