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Attached is a list of the songs we played this year and the number of times we played them. This is all through the end of the year.
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yes. it is twisted. but very useful as well.
It makes me wonder what the breakdown at my homechruch would be like.
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Why is it twisted? I've got a sheet listing what songs we've done, broken down by the week we did them.
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I've never thought of keeping track of what songs we do, and how many times, or when.
Would it be really naive of me to ask why?
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Originally Posted by agrimes87 I've never thought of keeping track of what songs we do, and how many times, or when.
Would it be really naive of me to ask why? Not naive at all. It's a good question. Song usage and rotation is a good subject to discuss, which is sort of what trpullen is suggesting.
When he says twisted, he's referring to himself.
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The twisted part is calculating percentages.
I have a full Excel spreadsheet of everything we do all year long.
We track this for CCLI, for sanity checks, etc.
We keep around 40 songs on our active list at any one time. We do a lot of work to make sure the band, vocalists and congregation really know the song well.
I have attached the full list.
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We do a lot of work to make sure the band, vocalists and congregation really know the song well. Talk about this some more. Why do you believe this is important?
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Originally Posted by trpullen The twisted part is calculating percentages.
Is that the total percentage of songs played the song is, or the percentage of sundays it is played on?
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Humm.. I think that would be interesting to do. It would be neat to know what music style we do a lot of and where we don't really spend much time. I'll have to consider keeping track now.
Peace and love,
Rhonda.
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Originally Posted by agrimes87 I've never thought of keeping track of what songs we do, and how many times, or when.
Would it be really naive of me to ask why?
We do it because we're making a concious attempt to not do songs so often that people get sick of them, but that we do them often enough that people don't forget them. This is something that helps. We have probably ~300 songs that we might do at any given time.
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Originally Posted by Tony Talk about this some more. Why do you believe this is important?
When we first redesigned the leadership of the praise team, we had about 425 songs to pull from. We were not playing them as well as we could have and the congregation was looking at us with a totally blank stare. We decided to go down to only 40 for a while and see what happens. We shifted to a practice scenario where the vocalists and the band took sectional time apart from each other to really learn their parts. When we got back together, we were just putting the song together instead of learning it from scratch....saved a lot of tense times.
We have been able to move the vocalists off of books to where they just have words prompted for them. The band has the songs memorized. And more importantly, the congregation knows the songs. They sing songs the second they hear them.
We were a bit concerned that they would get burned out but....if we do a song every week, they only get to hear it (in the style we do it) about 4 times a month. If you have a song that you like...you would not dig that in a radio play scenario. Obviously, we are not playing anything that much.
Another interesting benefit. We figured that we as the praise team would get burned out on them. To the contrary, the band and vocalists "attack" the songs with much more confidence now.
We keep the rotation fresh by adding or subtracting about 10% of the list every quarter. We take 2 weeks in practice to learn a new song before presenting it to the congregation. We then use 3 Sundays to play the song pre-service so the congregation can hear it. Then we do the song 4 or so Sundays in a row to let the congregation sing it with us before making a keep/no keep decision. We have had a lot of people in the congregation tell us how much they like this approach. They are already comfortable with a song when they get to sing it.
I am sure there is more but the Cardinals are getting ready to beat the Sox.
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Originally Posted by georgeo Is that the total percentage of songs played the song is, or the percentage of sundays it is played on?
Both. We do songs at 2 contemporary services each week. So the # of times is double but the percentage stays the same.

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Originally Posted by trpullen Both. We do songs at 2 contemporary services each week. So the # of times is double but the percentage stays the same.
ah, and you do about the same number of songs from week to week...
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Originally Posted by georgeo ah, and you do about the same number of songs from week to week...
Yep, we do 2 songs pre-service and the 3-4 songs for the praise set and one after the sermon.
We do 4 services on Sunday morning 8, 9, 10, and 11. The 8 and 11 are the traditional services. We do the 9 and 10 and have a pretty strict schedule to stick to.
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Originally Posted by trpullen Yep, we do 2 songs pre-service and the 3-4 songs for the praise set and one after the sermon.
We do 4 services on Sunday morning 8, 9, 10, and 11. The 8 and 11 are the traditional services. We do the 9 and 10 and have a pretty strict schedule to stick to. wow. we don't have anything like that. we just kind of go with what we feel like we should do.
just out of curiosity, what denomination are you a part of?