The topic of “Praise and Worship” is not so much about the music that is played, in other words the beats that are needed. As someone else already pointed out “Christian” music actually has many sub genres. Really anything in any style that speaks about the Christian lifestyle can be considered “Christian music.” Anything in any style that focuses on worshiping God is “Praise and Worship”.
“Worship Leaders” have some unique issues to deal with when they are leading worship that make the BeatBuddy a very good tool. Here are a few that I can think of:
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[]It’s common for a worship leader to repeat a verse or chorus “as the spirit leads”. If the congregation is getting into it, and the worship leader feels like repeating the chorus a few more times at different intensities, or even “voices only”, s/he can do it easily with a BB beat whereas a one press song doesn’t give you this on the fly flexibility.
[]It’s common for a worship leader to need someone to lead the congregation in the hand claps - 2 and 4, or 1 and 3 - so that the congregation doesn’t get confused. By carefully assigning hand claps or tambourine hits as accents, a worship leader can cue the congregation.
[]Worship leaders might play vastly different styles of music in one set. A set might start with basically a rock/pop style (Chris Tomlin), then go into something in 3/4 or 6/8 (David Crowder), then finish on an odd metered hymn or a 2/4 Celtic rock (Rend Collective) song. The BB can handle all of these, but out of the box support for 3/4, 6/8, 2/4 or “free” rhythms is not very good and how to handle these songs is a topic that often comes up.
[]Some songs ask for nothing more than a “stomp box”, or tambourine, or shaker to go along with someone else who might be playing cajon, or tambourine, shaker with you THAT WEEK. How do you handle that? It’s common for the worship team to change from week to week, except for possibly the worship leader.
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