Transitions

One of the most difficult things for worship teams to do is to transition from song to song. Most bands never have to think about this because their songs are solitary, self-contained. But a good worship set is anything but solitary; it encompasses a consistent thought and purpose. Therefore, it must be fluid, not disconnected. Here are some ways to make sure you have good flow in your transitions.

1. Practice them!!!
- I find that a lot of worship teams practice their songs but don’t ever make a plan on how to move from one song to the next. If you attend one of our Sunday morning sound checks, we rarely go over all of our songs in their entirety but most certainly go over the beginning and end of each song making sure there is connection and fluidity.

2. Relatable Keys
- If songs are in multiple different keys it makes transitioning very difficult. It is near impossible to transition smoothly from F to E to Bb three songs in a row. Instead, try to group songs together that have the same key. You can easily transpose E-F so do the first two songs in F which is an easy transition to Bb. Here are some relatable keys that I use all the time. C-G, E-A, B-E. It is very simple to find a few songs in C and G that are thematically congruent. Likewise with E-A and B-E.

3. Tempo
- Make sure whoever is starting the song and ending the song that they are aware of the tempo of the next/previous song. When I end a song and I know that the piano player is opening the next one, I will often slow down to the proper tempo as a retard from the previous song in order to make the piano’s transition much easier and fluid. Likewise, if the next song has a faster tempo, I will usually come to an end where I can let the final chord ring out in order for the next song to overlap just a bit. This brings continuity and a great sense of flow.

4. Have a “go to” progression
- My whole team is taught chord progressions on a numbering system. Here’s an example in the key of A.

I – 1 major (A)
ii – 2 minor (Bm)
iii or I/III – 3 minor or 1/3 (C#m or A/C#)
IV – 4 major (D)
V – 5 major (E)
vi – 6 minor (F#m)
V/VII – 7/5 (E/G#)
VIII – 8 major (A)

Our default progressions are I-IV (A-D) or I-V-vi-IV (A-E-F#m-D). We know these progressions in all the keys we play in. That way, if we need to extend a time of free praise or need to take more time before we end a song, we know that we will be doing that with one of these two progressions. They are very simple and extremely easy to transpose. I highly recommend at least memorizing how to find a I-IV progression in every key. That way there is continuity when outside the lines of the chord chart. This is often where teams fall apart and don’t know what to do. SO PRACTICE AND MEMORIZE!!