Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

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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I got this note from my friend Megan from Memphis, TN.

“We are lucky enough to have a very talented guitar player at our club every week. However, if you aren’t that fortunate, I struck Karaoke gold. No worries. There are no "backup singers" and cheesy synthesizers. Instead, it’s just straight acoustic of songs high school kids love. Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers, Colbie Caillat, Coldplay, Katy Perry, Beyonce. The guy’s name is Kris Farrow and I would use him in a heartbeat at club.”

Well I looked into it and it looks really helpful. You can get individual songs from him on iTunes and they happen to be many of the songs I use in my own club. Check it out! Thanks Megan!

http://www.itunes.com/krisfarrow

http://krisfarrow.com/?page_id=2

One of the best ways to learn the lyrics to a song is to play it at an event at camp. You will inevitably have a young leader or student come up and say, “don’t you know what that song is about?!?!” On the other hand it is also helpful to actually know the words to the songs you sing along to in club. It is embarrassing when a leader has been singing “Brown High Girl” all these years only to find out that is not what the lyrics are. OK maybe it is not that bad.

I have found a great free program that is linked to my iTunes. It displays the lyrics for whatever song is playing automatically. You can even copy/paste them or whatever you want to do with them. It is a small program that simply does what is supposed to and little more. And again, did I tell you it is free? It is even open-source, for those of you who care.

Just as a reminder, if you are going to do a song in club, you need to have purchased a copy of the sheet music and have it with you.

One of our last clubs in the semester is our “best of” club. I look back at our songs, our mixers, our games, our skits and I put them on a poster. Then for a couple weeks I have kids vote on their favorite ones. Then I pick kids to run them. We also have a student share his or her story.

It really sets kids up for success because they have already seen how the mixer/game/skit works. Also it is a nice break for our leaders near the end of the semester. Though sometimes it is more work to help the students Also it adds buy-in because the kids are looking forward to seeing what they voted for. For the songs I played guitar and picked different kids to lead each song.

Here are our plans from a week ago… Enjoy!

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.