One of things that is a constant struggle for people leading church music is how to do a song differently that has become really familiar. I ran into this dilemma last weekend. On the slate was My Savior Lives by Desperation Band and New Life Worship. We have done it quite a few times in the past 6 months, most recently it was done for all our Easter services. It is a song that is driven by electric guitar all throughout on every recording I can find. So the question I was asking was how we could do this song again, and do it different so it wouldn’t get old.

I’m positive there isn’t a perfect formula for how to do a song different with success. You can switch up instrumentation and play with more of an acoustic or piano led feel/you can cut a part of the song/you can change the order the song is done/and lots of other ways.

So we did this song with a piano led feel in the verses and interlude sections, with electric guitar driving the chorus. Specifically we came out of the first song into this one with piano carrying us into the first verse. Before we did this part with electric guitar driving. I thought it went over really well and gave the song a little new life, while giving it a more simplistic feel. It also allowed us to play the song in our 9am service while not blowing people away with blaring electric.

What are some ways you try and switch up a really familiar song?

This is my creative chaos post, check out some others by going heading to Ragamuffin Soul’s post. You can also check out my creative post from last week.