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 When we formed the St Rose Band in 2005, I decided to focus on only teens to provide the talent for our band under the supervision of my wife and I. We prayed that the Holy Spirit would provide us with young talent to achieve great praise in the name of our God. He provided, right from the get-go, with teens with energy, open ears, awesome attitudes and sure they're busy, but we have bench depth to deliver outstanding contemporary music during our 10 am Sunday Mass from Labor Day through to the End of June, every year since 2005 when we started our little group. We generally follow the school calendar.
Rehearsals are pretty much every Saturday morning, 11 am-12:30 pm. Our repertoire is solid now, so there's only one or two new songs every season, but it's interesting because there are new parts to sing, new approaches to the execution of the song, and new instrumentals involved.
InstrumentalsWe have a solid rhythm section - drum kit, piano, bass and guitar. The drummer sits in plain view of the assembly with piano on one side and singers in pews behind. Our configuration is defined by the space we have for music and we make it work. The visibility of the drummer appeals to the young men that have played with us over the years and the youngest members of our assembly love watching the drummer in particular.I do keyboards, and cue the musicians from the bench.
Every singer is mic'd - we've had as many as 12 at a service at a time, so this can be a pain, but it's worth it. This is a lot of work each week in terms of cabling setup and coiling and in terms of sound board mixing, but it works really well for us. Some kids just want to be part of it, while others have what it takes to do a solo verse of the psalm or of a song.
I do this so I can blend their voices and so they can be heard over the rhythm section, which can be pretty strident (our pastor says we are from time-to-time just loud) at the beginning and end of Mass. We're a really joyful bunch!
We've also benefitted from young people who want to play their orchestral instruments. Namely trumpets, tenor saxes, clarinet, flute, violin and more recently a cello. The hard part of working with all these instruments is arranging what they should play, rehearsing them while the singers are idle, and having the vision to tell them that they should not play every song, every verse. We need to mix things up to keep the music interesting for the musicians and of course, for the assembly.
We have had alto saxes, french horns and trombones ask if they can play. I turn these instrumentalists down. As much as we are a band, and that we're driven by the Holy Spirit, we can't accept everything and maintain the quality we're committed to. I've asked them to sing with us instead of playing these instruments (alto saxes are an Eb instrument, while french horns are an F instrument - just way too much transposition and arranging).
Some have taken me up on this offer, while others stay with their families.
My arranging skills generally align the Bb instruments in loud places like the refrain, and the C instruments in softer passages such as the verses where the lyrics are more complicated and where I will often cut down the number of singers and pull the piano and drums back so we can hear the lyrics better.
Sometimes, like on this arrangement of the great Advent classic - O Come, O Come Emmanuel - it's all about the rhythm and tempo. We make this great classic chantsong, really, really rock out!
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