WOL Worship

Upland Venue September 6, 2011

Hello friends,

I’m sure most of you have already heard about the new venue we are launching in Upland on September 18th but I wanted to take a second to write you an give you some details on how this will effect our department.  As you all know first hand we do A LOT around here.  Everything from Club 56, to Men’s BBQ’s, to Activate, to Sunday Mornings and on and on.  We calculated it out last year and the worship department lead well over 1000 services and this year I am sure will break last years number.  You all are so faithful and servant hearted and I can’t tell you how privileged we are to have all you working with us.  Now with the launch of Water of Life Upland we will branch out on a new path that some may look at as simply adding more to our plate, but I hope we all can see if as more than that.  A new opportunity to lead people into the presence of a God who heals, transforms and restores people back to him.  I am so privileged to stand next to you week after week and  partner with a living God that is hungry to meet his people.  Upland is simply another opportunity to do that.

All that to say we are adapting, changing and growing and with that comes growing pains for all of us.  The schedule may look different, the people you play with may change from time to time and there may be opportunity for us all to fill in some empty spots on the schedule.  You may get calls to fill in but please remember this DON’T GET BURNT OUT!  Please say no if we ask and you can’t do it or simply need a week off.  You are more important than filling a spot to us and you are people before you are musicians.  I would ask that if you are able and willing to step up for a season and are able to serve more we are more than willing to use you.  As far as the regular schedule goes it is pretty ironed out but there are some holes that we may need filled.   As you have seen September is posted but it will take a few months to work out the kinks to get a regular flow going.  So, if you are planing on taking vacations or needing a week off please let us know in advance; it helps us massively to be able to plan those things out.

Logistics of the Upland Venue

The venue is located on 1020 West 8th Street, Upland CA.  There will be one service at 10:00 am on Sunday Mornings to start with.  We are soft launching (meaning just flying it to the WOL congregation) on Sept 18th and a hard launch (inviting the community) on Oct 2nd.  There will be no rehearsal except on Sunday mornings but there will be a place on the preparations page where you can view the upcoming set just like all the other venues.  Call time will be 8:00 am on Sundays but you should be out by noon so comparatively it will be a shorter easier day.

Again thanks so much for all you do we don’t take it lightly,

Andy & The WOL Worship Staff

Rehearsing Software Tool February 28, 2011

Hey everyone Brian Charpentier shared this software tool with me and I thought it be a big help to all of us in our rehearsing time.  It’s called iRehearse and here is a brief description on what it does:

iRehearse Software, v. 1.2
Platform:  Mac and PC
Cost:  $14.99 (full version)

iRehearse software is a great tool for preparing to play a worship set. This software offers several tools to help musicians practice along to existing MP3 music files. This software allows you to create and save playlists, change the key of the song, loop a section of the song, slow a song down to examine specific musical parts, and more. Here’s an overview.

CREATE A PLAYLIST
iRehearse allows you to create a song list by importing MP3s either through the menu system or by simply dragging and dropping MP3s into the playlist window. Once created, a playlist can be saved and recalled.

CHANGE THE PITCH
I know we often change the keys of the songs – in the Pitch area you can change the song key by moving the pitch 9 semi-tones in either direction. For instance, if the original song is in the Key of B but you want to practice the song in the Key of D, the Pitch setting can easily be set to +3 semi-tones and the song is now in the Key of D. Once set, the new Pitch setting can be saved for that song by simply saving the playlist. (NOTE:  Although the music will be in the correct Pitch, the vocals may sound very odd.)

LOOP A SECTION OF THE SONG
The Loop section allows you to repeat a specific section of a song by placing “Mark In” and “Mark Out” settings on the sound wave. This settings can be moved in very small increments to achieve perfect placement. Once set, you can use the Play Loop button to repeatedly listen to that section. With another button, the loop settings can be cleared. Using this Loop section can allow you to work out a specific musical part.

CHANGE THE TEMPO
Another section that can help you work out a specific musical part is the Tempo section. This section allows you slow down the tempo of the music in 5% increments so you can hear the specific notes more clearly. Once you have figured out the part, you can practice it at slower pace and increase it slowly until you can play it at it’s original tempo. The Tempo and Loop sections work very well together.

iRehearse is also available in a free “demo” version, but not all functions are available (such as saving playlists) and the software will quit every 30 minutes. There are also other similar programs available that offer the same sort of features (such as Transpose). Some are free; some are platform specific.

Here’s the link: iRehearse

Hope this help,

Andy

Random thought of appreciation July 21, 2010

Hello all – I just wanted to take a second to thank you all for all that you do.  You are the reason worship happens here at Water of Life.  Your availability to God gives Him a venue to work in the hearts of thousands each weekend.  We get to interact with this massively powerful unexplainable God and through our interaction in worship leading he heals the broken, touches the hopeless, brings joy to the hurting, provides peace in chaos and meets people and their need in such intimate yet powerful ways.  Thank you for being available to serve and allow God to minister through you.   I believe God is massively blessed by what you do and how you serve him.

Andy

How To Download Files Directly to Your Phone May 21, 2010

I’ve heard a couple of people have had trouble downloading to your phones… some phone operating systems are better than others at it but there are workarounds. Obviously, as with all mobile devices, the best (and fastest) way is to download and store them on the computer then transfer them to your device’s memory card via USB, but with a few programs and geek tweaks it is possible to download directly or at least over wi-fi.

iPhone – iPod Touch & iPad

The best solution by far for the apple devices is Goodreader. There are 3 flavors: Goodreader Lite, Goodreader, and Goodreader iPad. This program is the BOMB! You can download from the web or via wi-fi connection directly to your device. You can also connect to mobile me accounts, email accounts, and Web-DAV servers. Without getting too geeky that means it’s REALLY THE BOMB! The free version is cool but for larger PDFs I recommend the reasonably priced at 99 cents app. They can all be found at the Apps Store.

Android 1.x – 2.0 Devices:

This mobile OS requires a 2 program solution so far as I can tell. The best downloader is a free alternative web browser named Steel. It give you the option to open or save downloads. Steel automatically places the files directly into a download folder on your phone’s memory card. This free app is great!

On 2.0 devices the built-in Gallery program will find the movies and pictures, but the built-in Music program isn’t quite as good. This is where the 2nd free program, Meridian, comes in.  When you download the music file with Steel you will be asked to save or open it. You can then open the file with Meridian, which has ugly icons, but works great for music and even plays movies better than Gallery.

Android 2.1. (and above) Devices

If you’re fortunate enough to have a Droid, Incredible, or other 2.1 or higher Android device, Google has fixed the issues in the player and browser so you can just download and the mp3 will instantly appear in the Music program with album art and all!

Blackberry

By far the hardest to download directly to a device is with the Blackberry. The OS designers have felt the need to limit the wireless file download size. I’ve scoured and googled to little avail, but did find a couple of cool programs. The most promising program is BeFTP. I wouldn’t buy the program without testing it first. I don’t own a Blackberry device so I can’t help you there. The program website is www.beiks.com/rim/BeFTP.asp While our website is HTTP not FTP, it looks like you can browse HTTP sites from the photos on their site.

The other cool program is called WiFi File Transfer for Blackberry. I found this on crackberry.com. You can use your computer to wireless download to your blackberry via a WiFi network. Obviously if you’re not using a wireless router in your home this won’t work, but it eliminates the extras steps of plugging in the USB cable and using the Desktop Media Manager.

If you find or know of any programs please pass the info on. I will keep poking around until I find a complete solution for Blackberry (besides getting a better phone) LOL

Hope this helps a little – tq

*** UPDATE ***

Oooh… just found a Blackberry program that may do it. Podtrapper is made for podcasts but looks like it can be a mp3 download manager and player as well! There is a trial if someone could check it out. You can download the free trial HERE on the developer’s website. The only downside so far is the $9.99 pricetag…  they mention something in the forums about emailing the links to files you want to download to yourself and the pasting them in Podtrapper…..

Water of Life Worship April 19, 2010

Welcome to our new webpage.

We are excited to launch our new and improved website that will help you prepare for the weekend and keep you up speed on all that is going in the worship department at Water of Life.  We hope this website will be used as a tool to enrich your playing abilities as well as your understanding of worship and how it creates a venue for us to interact with God.  Thank you so much for all you do and  the countless hours you pour into this ministry – it couldn’t run without you.

Sincerely,

The  WOL Worship Staff