Kim Gentes

Hear Harmony I, II, and Warm Up

Hear Harmony was the winner of the 2004 Resource of the Year from WorshipMusic.com.

Hear Harmony are Vocal Training CDs focusing on harmony through independent singing in rounds, parallel 3rds, finding a starting pitch and harmonizing above or below the harmony. There are 3 CDs available in the series and each focuses on training through actual particpatory exercises. Demonstration followed by an opportunity to sing along.

REVIEW :

Hear Harmony is a wonderful 2 CD set that introduces the concept of learning to sing harmony. The Lessons begin with the very basics of teaching the listener come concepts for ear-training. In order to sing harmony one must start with ear training. Hear Harmony does a wonderful job of teaching the listener to pick out the differences between melody and harmony lines in a song using 2 familiar songs most of us learned as children. 

Succeeding the first five sessions, the lessons break in to the real strength of the Hear Harmony method: the exercises. The exercises start at a very basic level and as they progress the build on each previous exercise. The exercises begin by singing numbers in the steps of the major scale and learning to sing in parallel thirds, which is the most common that we hear on a daily basis. The lessons then segue into singing notes using solfeg (i.e. doe, ray, me) and the first CD finishes with the building upon previous lessons and singing over different chord progressions and harmonizing to melodies that have skips in the intervals of the notes. When you break in to the second CD, the fun really begins. You are shown what it sounds like to sing in and out of tune on a harmony line and how to train your ear to hear the difference. The harmony exercises become more complex with continuing to learn to sing harmony at a third and forth interval above the melody line and when each is appropriate. 

The reward start to come in the second half of the CD as you move from exercises to working out harmony parts on familiar songs such as Are You Sleeping, Jesus Loves Me, Amazing Grace and others. This is where the exercises really begin to make sense as they are applied in these songs. As you continue to practice the exercises and sing along with the songs, you will grow stronger in learning to sing harmony. The only difficulty that I noticed in working through the lessons is that it can get tedious and at times, monotonous. But if you think back to learning to play an instrument in school the practice although time consuming and sometimes difficult to follow through on, did pay dividends if you stuck with it. The same is true of these lessons. 

If you have never been able to sing harmony in the past, this double CD set will help you, but it is not going to come overnight. If you are able to sing harmony to some degree, this CD will help you understand some of the wherefores behind singing harmony and you will improve. Even if you have been singing harmony for years, you will be able to glean something from the Hear Harmony CD, even if it is just using the scales as warm-up exercises. All in all I think that the Hear Harmony CD set would be a great tool in any worship leaders library. 

Review by Brian Bloom

Editor's Note: Not only as an editor, but as a worship leader, I must completely agree with Brian's review of the Hear Harmony Vocal Training CDs (see the review below). We need more solid resources like this in the church. So many vocal resources strive to fix & perfect technique but don't actually teach people (from scratch) the simple how-to's of attaining proper pitch (whether in a harmony or melody context). I was so happy to see this being done, and done with excellence, we decided to select Hear Harmony Vocal Training with our Editor's Choice Award. Great work, Hear Harmony! Great review Brian! I strongly encourage ALL you worship leaders and vocalists (current and hopefuls!) out there to seriously investigate this great new resource. Be sure you check out both Part 1 and Part 2 of this resource (available on separate CDs).  Kim Gentes

Executive Producer: Joe Randeen 
Producer/Instructor: Rachelle Randeen 
Vocalists: Andreana Arganda, Raquel Cooke, Murray Hiebert, Tony Sanchez 
Engineer: Jeff Dykhouse

Available online at Amazon at:

Hear Harmony Part 1
Hear Harmony Part 2

In the harmony with you,
Kim Gentes

The era of the DVD has arrived. This has become more evident by the number of various products found in DVD format. And the area of worship music has actually been a recent strong adopter of the digital video format. From iWORSHIP brand products by Integrity, to great live worship videos from Hillsong Music to artist worship concerts with Michael W. Smith and Third Day, praise and worship has gone digital with the major releases. Now worship leader/songwriter Paul Baloche has blazed the trail by presenting the first edition in a series of instructional DVDs for worship leaders and worship teams. This first DVD is entitled "Worship Styles".

While the DVD is an independently produced effort by Paul Baloche, the videography on this DVD is top notch. A nicely set 6-camera presentation, with excellent audio, transitions, effects and edits, this DVD is far above normal indie video efforts. Introducing the main content is a brief talk with Paul, as he strolls down the street, coffee cup in hand. And this really sets the mood for the presentation of this DVD- you are invited into a relaxed, but intentional session with Paul and "the band" bringing you fruther along on your trek as worship team.

The main content of "Worship Styles" is a worship team teaching tool that walks through a single song in no less than 6 different stylings: traditional, celtic, reggae, rock, country and R&B. A jazz rendering is also added to the end of the DVD, but not discussed at length. The DVD works this way: first, the song is played through once in the style; then Paul Baloche discusses the main concepts of the style. Finally, each instrumentalist breaks down the individual parts of the song in that style, describing and playing the part for all to see and play along with. The instruments covered are bass guitar, drums, keyboards, electric guitar and acoustic guitar. Each instrumentalist is an extensively accomplished musician, who talks the language and plays the grooves with precision and meaning.

It would be unrealistic to try to match the level of musicians presented in this DVD with your local worship team, but fortunately, that is not the goal of this instruction. Instead, the musicians play precise stylings that most mid-level players can copy and practice to make their own. The beauty of this DVD is that Paul taps in on something all of us have known for a long time- don't tell us how to play something, show us. Nearly all of the garage band musicians out there learned (at least in part) by watching someone else play. The weakness of some traditional training is the "book and classroom" methods that don't incorporate extensive amounts of "show-and-tell". Paul brings us some digital music mentors in this video, letting us sit in on sessions on how to construct (one instrument at a time) a song into the style of your choice.

Let's be clear, you won't learn basic music theory or simple "how to play your instrument" lessons on this DVD. But you will take the essential rudiments that each instrument needs to compose a consistent, polished sound for a given style. For example, drummer Carl Albrecht gives precise example and instruction on how to lay down the two variations of country beats needed in two parts of a country style rendition of "All Hail The Power of Jesus Name". After that, bassist Don Harris explains and lays down the bass parts. And so on, with the keyboards, electric guitar and the rhythm acoustic guitar. Each style is walked through in this same fashion, giving the video consistency and content. Throughout the transition from style to style, Paul also talks candidly about his struggles as a worship leader in a local church to use various styles. The talk is light, but meaningful, and a refreshing bridge across the "meat" of the musical examples laid out in this presentation. Paul and his coffee penchant return as the DVD is concluded by a lengthy black and white interview with Southern California pastor Bob Branch. In that discussion, Paul and Bob settle the melee for worship leaders and pastors on how they can come together and work as a team for the good of their local churches.

If you are wanting to sample some of the DVD, we have created a short online preview for you of the Worship Styles DVD Preview [ Windows Media | Realplayer ] . Click on the format you prefer to see the preview.

I liked this DVD so much, I watched it over and over to see if I had missed any obvious flaws or gaps in the content or production- to make sure my lauds wouldn't be misplaced. I could find any flaws. What will be evident to anyone leading a contemporary worship team (drums, bass, piano, guitars) is the excellent encouragement this will bring to you and your band. Not only do you learn the proper rudiments for the style, but (as a leader) the language for communicating that to your musicians. Giving an Editor's Choice to "Worship Styles" DVD is a no-brainer, as this product blazes the trail to an era of digital training resources which many will, no doubt, follow. And as they do, they would do well to follow in Paul's example by using not only top quality people, but excellent production in the project. Congrats on a great resource, Paul!

Product Link:  Music Styles With Paul Baloche Modern Worship Series (DVD)

Review by Kim Gentes

Friend, this is Kim Gentes. As a worship leader, I occasionally like to write about resources that I know are specifically helpful and made for worship leaders and musicians. In that category, we find there are a plethora of collection songbooks - from "best of" to those that try to include hundreds of songs. But most of the time, either the collection is too sparse (top 20 doesn't make sense a very complete worship resource, in my mind) or it is so expansive that the cost is outrageous. Recently I found a great new resource that includes a very extensive list of songs, at an exceptional price. The resource is this product you found here called "Survivor Songbook".

What is great about this songbook is not just its extensive enough to cover most of the popular modern worship songs- but it also includes an amazing set of files on the included CD-ROM. The companion CD disk (included in the songbook) has complete piano sheet music files and overhead masters for every one of the 200 songs in the songbook. The printed songbook itself has lyrics, chord charts and teaching articles. This means the songbook is of manageable size to actually use (wow! imagine that!). But that decent size doesn't mean you give up having access to every single piano sheet music score for the songs in the songbook. This is a marvelous thing, and allows you to print the score off for just the songs you need. Of course it also has the formatted lyric masters for the overhead and projection uses that most of us need. All the scores are in PDF format, so it is completely portable across computer systems, which is great! Check this out (above) for an overview, list of features, and song list of the songbook. I think this is the best songbook available anywhere! And while we normally give "Editor's Choice Awards" to CD projects, this song definitely deserves for what a great resource it is!

Product Link  http://amzn.to/nTMbI5 

Many blessings,
Kim Gentes