Anyone else wearing a lot of hats in their band?

[74 Deluxe]

It's not a complaint! I love what I get to do. We have a good band with two guitars, (I'm rhythm) two keyboards, a bass, and a drummer. I also sing leads (male) and we have two women who also sing, either accompanying leads or as backup. I also own the PA and run the sound, it's an old school powered board with huge main cabs (on 4 wheel dollies) and wedge monitors. Guitars, keyboards and vocals go thru the board, bass player has his own rig and volume. I'm lucky enough NOT to be the Music Director. Our Pastor, who is also one of the ladies singing, does that. She does a great job of keeping the music relative to that weeks Gospel.

It is a blessing to run our sound. We are basically a blues rock band, although the songs we play are P&W, most of us are old rockers from tavern and garage bands, let's say we're experienced. With the board I keep us all loud enough, but with plenty of headroom and no effects added, both of us guitarists are using modelers and split our signals between the board and small tube amps, I like it that you can hear our amps just a bit over the mix in the PA. The mixer is also right by me when we are playing so I can tweak on the fly, usually only during practice, or if we have a guest vocalist. No one else uses our gear so the boards stays set, another plus. Singin' and slingin' a guitar is one of my favorite things, I'd play all day everyday if I could. So I'm just happy to be here doin' what I can. Peace. Carl.

[BuckyB]

I'm the only guitarist, so with a piezo bridge and stereo output on my solid bodies, I cover lead, electric rhythm & acoustic. I also sing lead and function as WL on about half the songs each week. I program and operate the drum machine, which includes 2 footswitches for fills, tempo and pattern changes. I put together charts for myself and my wife (keyboard, key-bass & vocals). I don't usually pick the songs, as our AP/WP (keyboard & vocals) does that. I usually greet the congragation at the openning of the service and lead them in prayer before the announcements are read (again, not me). I also record the sermon every week on a laptop and burn CDs for the children's church teacher(s). Of course if anything breaks or malfunctions, I'm usually the one to trouble-shoot and fix it. I was a board member for about 7 years, but currently (thankfully) am not, since my wife is.

Oh, and I almost forgot: Yes, I often do wear a hat.

[jbmando]

I used to wear the main three hats (acoustic, electric, bass) but now in a new church I'm strictly an electric guitar player. No one on our team ever wears a hat during a service.

[praisebass]

I play bass every other week. I also help lead worship for children's worship, play acoustic guitar for the nursery, trumpet in the church orchestra, president of the UMM and last week, I got to substitute teach for 17 3&4 year olds when their Sunday school teachers couldn't show up. But I NEVER wear a hat while doing so.
See 1 Corinthians 11:4

[gatimberframer]

Just guitar and bass here. But never at the same time. Yet.

[tjalla]

I have de-hatted alot the last few years. The less you wear the more snug the fit, I've found.

[Duncas]

no one at my church wears a hat.

but i play bass sometimes, i like it cos that means theres usually only one guitar so i get to be more, adventurous on bass

[SoVeryTired]

I play bass, acoustic guitar and lead guitar (never more than one at a time) and sing lead and backing vocals. Sometimes singing with an instrument, sometimes playing without a mic and sometimes singing without an instrument. And I'm often the on-stage MD when not singing, and I'm the overall MD (i.e. working under the worship pastor on the musical side of things, developing musicians, working out arrangements etc).

Really I do whatever needs doing. I led worship for the last 14 years or so but stepped back when I realised we had plenty of people more gifted than me and I didn't want to hold anyone back. The MD role then developed from me changing my focus.

At the moment I'm mainly playing bass as I'm now one of two bassists (plus a couple of guitarists who can probably play bass better than me, but I enjoy doing it and actually own a bass!), and the other is out of the country a lot of the time.

[Gary Mitchell]

I play lead guitar and bass, I rotate everyother week. They ask me if I ever thought about getting a double neck with bass and regular 6 string. But at 61yrs old I thank God for every day I can play, 30yrs playing worship about. I also play in a few bands here and there right now, I am a big blues fan Darrell Mansfield. In the 90's I played some Christain Metal.