Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

This is a great idea. Ali commented on my earlier post regarding sharing songs for club to sing, and for background music on Spotify with an idea of his own.

Ali is a Work Crew boss this summer at YL camp. I’ve had the privilege of being a Work Crew boss a few times at summer camp and there are some moments when it really helps to have some great music.  One of the challenges is finding the right music. I suggest you check out Ali’s playlist and see if it will work for you:

YL Dining Hall Music

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For months I have been using the free version of Spotify and love it. If you don’t know what Spotify is then you should just check it out yourself, but more or less the free version gives you access to over 15 million songs while you have wifi access. They also offer accounts you can pay for at $5 and $10 per month that allow you to use the music when you don’t have wifi, or are offline (I have not used this paid service). It all ties in with Facebook and this and that and whatever and I’m sure it will morph over the months and years to come.

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Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. If you have anything you learned from last year that you would like to tell me about, send it my way smcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org

In our club, I normally play guitar and lead the music with some help from another leader. This has been the norm for me for a long, long time. When I was in high school going through WL leader training, the person training me briefly mentioned, “oh, and you should probably learn to play the guitar.” So, I borrowed a guitar and taught myself the four chords needed to play 90% of club songs.

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Looking to spice-up music in club? Try using a Cajon. It is a drum type thing. You hit it in the middle and it makes a loud and strong bass sound. If you hit it near the top it make a snare sound, like a snare drum (it actually has snares in it, if you know what those are).

It’s pretty cool because it adds the feeling of drums and rhythm without a drum set. I’ve played drums for 20 years and I think it is a great substitute for the Monday night club environment. It is easy to use. You cold have a club kid play it. They cost about $100-200.

Maybe we should have turntables at club..? Here are my reasons:

1. COOL – They are cool.
2. INTRIGUE – Most kids have never seen one but hear it everyday.
3. RETHINK – It will help us rethink the kind of music we do in club (wisdom needed since much of hip hop is scandalous. See HERE if you need an example.)
4. UNIVERSAL APPEAL – Hip hop music is universal. More universal than “oldies” and much more universal than “top 40″ songs we work into club every now and again.
5. SKILLS – Chances are, no one you know uses a turntable, so with some practice, you are the best spinner anyone has ever met. Also it might work for people who simply can’t learn guitar.

I have seen turntables in YL clubs. Over 10 years ago I helped out an urban club. I played 2-3 songs on the guitar, but they had a DJ spin tracks inbetween skits and transitions. Also in November, the music team at weekend camp had a DJ. Imagine Brown Eyed Girl with scratchin’, yes they did it.

I gotta be honest, I’ve never tried it. But being somewhat musical I think I’ll give it a try. One of the leaders today said a friend has one we can borrow. Any tips would be appreciated.

P.S. I’ve been a high school basketball coach for 6 years now and pretty much none of them like club. This might appeal to my basketball guys who think life, basketball and rap are all the same thing. Efrem Smith got me thinking about this at ASC08.