Playing in Church.

[Minininjarob]

Ok so I got my first date for playing on the worship team! We support another smaller local church with a worship band once a month to let their small team take a break and I’ve been rotad on to serve there end of next month. 
Absolutely bricking it to be honest!!! 
I think I’ll get the songs a week or two in advance so it’s gonna be some intense practice before the day in question!

[TrevorR]

So I’m now officially on the worship team rota at our church - which is so great. Looks like it’ll be once a month for the evening service, plus some ad hoc fill ins. Right now that really suits me right now. It’s also good that the regular band has a really good drummer who is a joy to play with (the previous two times I was asked to play he was on). So that’s a result. 
 

It was a lovely communion service this evening with an absolutely cracking set of songs. The running order was:

 

To open:

1. Gonna Trust in God, in E (CCLI 2737744)

2. Here for You, in F (CCLI 5925649)

3. Better is One Day, in D (CCLI 1097451)

Response songs:

4. I Will Offer Up My Life, in D (CCLI 1083764)

Communion:

5. Trust in God, in E (CCLI 7206001)

6. Goodness of God, in A (CCLI 7117726)

To Finish:

7. Lord I Lift Your Name on High, in E (CCLI 117947)

8. This is Amazing Grace, in E (CCLI 6333821)

 

It was really great fun to play and all the team are great folks. With a female pianist and vocalist leading there were lots of songs in keys different from the recording but they were easy enough to change and worked fine. When we started rehearsing “Lord I Lift Your Name on High” bashed out a piano riff and asked, “Trevor, could you start with this?” So I said, “Ah, we’re going full ‘Steve Miller Band’ are we?” to which she grinned. So that song began on bass and drums with the bass riff from “The Joker” 🃏🤣 Next time she wants to do a tune which fits with the bass line from “You Can Call Me Al”!!!

 

Played my lovely Sandberg VM4 through the house Warwick amp. Sounded great. Can’t wait for next time!

 

Edited September 28 by TrevorR

[Richard R]

23 hours ago, TrevorR said:

So that song began on bass and drums with the bass riff from “The Joker” 🃏🤣

 

It's "Lord I lift your name ON high", not "I lift your name WHILE high" 🤪

Edited September 29 by Richard R

[Richard R]

https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/steve-miller-band-the-joker-bass-tab-s83239

 

For any youngsters who may have wandered in 😉

[SimonK]

On Sunday I was the only person in the band without a tablet/phone for the music, albeit the singers were just using simple pdfs on their phones. The guitarist suggested I should think about getting "OnSong" (I have an ipad), so I was just wondering whether anyone here have used this and what they think about it?

[GoodShowSir]

So... I would highly recommend you try JustChords instead. It's free so you can have a good play around, made by a few people really fed up with Onsongs stupid subscription costs for basic functionality. 

 

I love it. Just build up your database of songs, write notes if needed. Can change key easily and share set lists with people easily. I'm very much a music reader, (or chord reader for church i suppose :D) couldnt do without it now.

 

 

[GoodShowSir]

12 hours ago, Richard R said:

 

It's "Lord I lift your name ON high", not "I lift your name WHILE high" 🤪

Ah yes followed by This is Amazing Grass 😅

[SimonK]

32 minutes ago, GoodShowSir said:

So... I would highly recommend you try JustChords instead. It's free so you can have a good play around, made by a few people really fed up with Onsongs stupid subscription costs for basic functionality. 

 

I love it. Just build up your database of songs, write notes if needed. Can change key easily and share set lists with people easily. I'm very much a music reader, (or chord reader for church i suppose :D) couldnt do without it now.

 

 

 

Does JustChords link into SongSelect?

[LukeFRC]

I have the 2020 onsong - it was pay once and then no subscription model. 
It works if everyone has apple devices and uses it. 
I've spent so long building up a database of every song we ever sing in onsong format - to then find the new person who heads up the person reverted ... not to PDFs, but to folders of paper. 
I will be looking at this just chords thing

 

[LukeFRC]

having just glanced at it (and not tried it) I would be trialing just chords before onsong. 

What's the file format @GoodShowSir? I got used to the onsong syntax, is it similar? 

[GoodShowSir]

22 minutes ago, SimonK said:

 

Does JustChords link into SongSelect?

Actually I am not sure if it does, I will have a check later to see if it's there. Might be a feature they could add. The team that make it are really good at listening to feedback and feature requests. 

EDIT - Sorry just asked on their discord, apparently SongSelect have stopped allowing any new people to use the service to link into their site. They are continuing to support existing users which I am sure would include Onsong.

 

 

12 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

having just glanced at it (and not tried it) I would be trialing just chords before onsong. 

What's the file format @GoodShowSir? I got used to the onsong syntax, is it similar? 

 

Can basically read them all. ChordPro, Onsong etc. You can also save your files in whatever format you like to. So I can make a set list and send it to others in the band for their onsong apps. 

 

Two features I especially like are the ability to search for songs online, so if someone requests a song, fumble to search and add   And also being able to share your set list and music via a web link. Although with the second one they will need to be using JustChords for that to work. 

 

Where it does lack would be beaming set lists to others if they arent using JustChords. So sharing with people can be a little, "Oh email me that and I will add it." But other than that, for free, I think its amazing.

Edited September 30 by GoodShowSir
Additional info.

[SimonK]

So I'm guessing the idea is to download songs in ChordPro format from SongSelect, and then add into your JustChords database? Are you able to increase the font size, scroll using a bluetooth footswitch, change keys on the fly (or at least relatively easily) and annotate?

[GoodShowSir]

1 hour ago, SimonK said:

So I'm guessing the idea is to download songs in ChordPro format from SongSelect, and then add into your JustChords database? Are you able to increase the font size, scroll using a bluetooth footswitch, change keys on the fly (or at least relatively easily) and annotate?

Yeah that would probably be the best way. We just had a big folder of our Church songs in ChordPro format which I just added.

 

And yes you can do all those things easily. You can also set up a transpose button, meaning when I change I just hit the plus or minus symbol to go up or down keys quickly.

 

 

[TrevorR]

3 hours ago, SimonK said:

On Sunday I was the only person in the band without a tablet/phone for the music, albeit the singers were just using simple pdfs on their phones. The guitarist suggested I should think about getting "OnSong" (I have an ipad), so I was just wondering whether anyone here have used this and what they think about it?

 

3 hours ago, GoodShowSir said:

So... I would highly recommend you try JustChords instead. It's free so you can have a good play around, made by a few people really fed up with Onsongs stupid subscription costs for basic functionality. 

 

I love it. Just build up your database of songs, write notes if needed. Can change key easily and share set lists with people easily. I'm very much a music reader, (or chord reader for church i suppose :D) couldnt do without it now.

 

 

I’ve got the old bought OnSong app and love it! Have used it extensively over the years. However, I hate the idea of subscription software so have never “upgraded”.But I’ve noticed that certain functions have started to fall away for it. You used to be able to search for songs generally on the web and that’s stopped working recently. But like orders I’ve got a large library which I’ve built up over the years and also just create my own files using the internal editor.Which is t so hard when you get the hang of it.

There are a few ChordPro / pdf compatible apps out there and many are free so not a bad idea to check them out.

 

[TrevorR]

By the way, Worship Together’s website is a good resource. With a free membership account there are loads of chord charts available for a load of worship songs including in ChordPro format…

 

[Risk101]

Like others, I've used the free OnSong for many years and it works just fine for me. You can download songs from other sources although sometimes some downloads don't allow the ability to transpose. Our church has a shared library of songs on DropBox which you can download into OnSong from.

[SimonK]

Managed to use a pick and the fuzz pedal this morning on Our God 🤘. Sadly we didn't have an electric guitar today but I tried to make up for it!

[Grahambythesea]

On 30/09/2025 at 17:36, Risk101 said:

Like others, I've used the free OnSong for many years and it works just fine for me. You can download songs from other sources although sometimes some downloads don't allow the ability to transpose. Our church has a shared library of songs on DropBox which you can download into OnSong from.

Just the same at my church, but still the keyboard players and 1 guitarist stick to scrappy paper photocopies.

[TrevorR]

I guess that I’ve been a bit derelict in my duty of keeping y’all up to date with how things are going on the worship team… well, I guess I’m now officially on the worship rotation, playing two evening services a month - the first and last. It’s with two different worship leaders with quite different styles. One leads from the grand piano while the other brings his own Nord keyboard to lead from. They both choose a nice range of choruses, drawing from more contemporary stuff but some oldies and oldies, which is great. The “cult of the new” in worship gets kinda tiring and there are many fantastic songs which were written ages ago. I like the mix. 

 

It’s our local(ish) Anglican church and the evening services is more of a modern format with just the band leading worship. Morning is a family-based service, again with a worship band and the traditional, organ-led hymnal stuff is done at a 9AM traditional service. 

 

The bands are similar - leader on keys/piano, a couple of singers, bass, drums acoustic guitar and occasional other instruments - in particular a saxophonist. All a really nice bunch. There are a couple of other leaders but I think they mostly play the morning family services. It’s hard for us to get to those as we’re ferrying our teenage boy to and from his theatre classes on a Sunday morning.

 

The set list for the 26th October was as follows:

 

Start

1. I could sing of your love forever (F)

2. Firm Foundation (He Won’t) (C)

3. Hallelujah (Be High and Lifted Up) (Eb)

Response Song

4. New Wine (C)

Communion Songs

5. Trust in God E

6. Only By Grace C

End

7. The Potter's Hand G

8. Living for Your Glory C

 

The following week, 2nd, it was…

 

Start

Break Every Chain

Bless God

Waymaker

Response song

I Will Offer Up My Life

Salt & Light

End

Give Us Your Courage 

Worthy

 

Really looking forward to getting to know everyone better (musically and personally) as I play with them more. Nice to have found a new spiritual home where we feel at ease.