I can’t even remember where I heard of this let alone who said it first. I’m sure you’ve probably heard some variation over the years. But it never ceases to impress me how accurate and consistent the rule of Good/ Fast/ Price really is. My variation looks like this. It basically says that the three characteristics effect each other. Whether we’re talking about building a house, or a process, or designing complex systems like sound, video, hvac, or computer networks, this rule inevitably applies. The Rule of Good vs. Fast vs. Cheap Always Remember: You can pick any two but it’s almost impossible to have all three. Good/ Fast/ Cheap
- You can have your project/product fast and cheap… but it won’t be good. (always at the expense of good quality)
- You can have it cheap and good… but it won’t be completed or able to operate fast. (always at the expense of high performance or fast construction)
- You can have it good and fast… but it won’t be cheap. (always at the expense of best price)
For me the biggest of these it time. The failure to plan and allow adequate time for design, spec’ing, and shopping kills any chance of quality and/or performance and leads to increased costs. Often times as tech directors we’re faced with arbitrary deadlines, budget, and undefined expectations that are not ground in reality and which we have no real control over. Failure to properly assess expectations, and design/ shop for the best and cost effective options for our application will result in 1 of two outcomes. We either pay way too much to have something conveniently overnighted and/or we make hasty purchases with our eye on the cost an acquire gear that is not totally compatible, can’t possibly perform well, or won’t last long. (i.e.cheap). Failing to plan and allow time is a loose/loose when it comes to significant purchases.
Most churches and structured organizations have a mission statement that defines how we implement our values. But do your worship and/or technical arts teams? Since a big part of what we do in tech involves the worship team we decided a little over a year ago to develop and common mission statement. It was a bit of a challenge as often the needs and tasks of the tech team can often be quite different than those of the musicians on the platform. But we serve a common purpose. Our end game is the same. So after several weeks of discussion and prayer we came up with this universal statement that I thinks describes nicely the heart and attitude that we value as necessary to carry out the overall mission of our church.
“The Chapel Worship Team: consists of individuals called to bring people one step closer to God, to each other, and to freedom in Christ by leading in worship, serving faithfully and humbly with our gifts, and by reflecting the character (love/grace) of Jesus Christ in our lives at all times.” -2013 Chapel Worship and Technical Arts
Developing the statement was a great exercise and we learned a lot about each other as a staff. And we can clearly share it with everyone on our teams. Does your worship team have a overriding mission or values statement that you share between your worship and tech volunteers and staff?
It occurred to me a few years back that there are several ways we can communicate that we don’t care – usually unintentionally.
It’s quite easy actually. One way is by withholding or neglecting routine feedback (positive or negative). Maybe it’s with dedicated people on our volunteer teams who show up every time they’re scheduled and go thru their duties joyfully and competently. Do we offer meaningful thanks and praise? What if they are not so confident or experienced? Do we offer correction, encouragement, guidance, or even criticism? Although being critical is not generally a healthy thing, I think it’s far worse to be silent and offer nothing. Have you ever been in a position where you weren’t sure where you stood? If you were doing a good job or bad job? I think often times people in the role of director can get busy and as long as things are getting by, they neglect to express anything. Few things say “I don’t care” like flat-out ignoring someone. It’s the same with an employee/employer relationship. It may not be your intent, but it can feel horrible and unsettling to the person struggling with uncertainty. The absence of praise or constructive feedback is like saying “what you do doesn’t really matter” or “I can’t be bothered with you”. And that’s not the heart of most tech directors or ministry leaders I know. Even worse is the perception can contradict the “people matter” attitude that most say is important. It can be disrespectful and even be perceived as a disregard of an individual’s personhood.
I think often times people in the role of director can get busy and as long as things are getting by, they neglect to express anything.
Make your encouragements and thank-you mean something. Follow them with a specific example whenever possible. It’s great to say thank you (and we should say it often). But If you’re like me it can be easy to get into a rut of just saying “hey thanks” or “good job” while passing in the hall or on the way out the door. I find that I can blurt it out without thinking why. The problem with that is it can sometimes be received as fake, patronizing, or insincere. Sometimes I have to consciously stop what I’m doing for the moment, make eye-contact and then say something like “Thank you …for nailing that cue in the 3rd song, I really appreciate your attention to details” or “I really appreciate …what you do on our team, including your heart for prayer and the way you care for others” or “Thanks …for checking the planningcenter and coming in prepared, it’s a joy to serve with you.” I think it’s one thing to hand out a more generic thank you when addressing a group, but if it’s an individual, take a minute to make it personal – it requires an investment of time, make it individual whenever possible.
Another way of unintentionally expressing that we don’t care is by actually saying “I don’t care”. Have you ever uttered this? Not intentionally I’m sure, but I recall times when I’ve used those exact words to communicate something totally different. Maybe you thought you were trying to empower a volunteer to make a decision, have some creative input, or take ownership. The exchange might go something like this:
Volunteer: “Would you like me to move house lights down at this moment or that moment?”
Tech Director: “I don’t care, you pick”
What the ministry leader probably meant to say was “both ways work, I trust your judgment, why don’t you decide, we’ll run with it and see how it goes?” But what the volunteer might have only heard was “I don’t care … blah blah, blah blah blah’ blah blah”. (Which can come off sounding an awful lot like “it doesn’t matter to me, I’m concerned with way more important things than your stuff”).
I had a worship leader tell me many years ago that they had a vocalist once ask if they should take the high harmony or low harmony. The worship leader casually and innocently said “I don’t care, you decide”. Some days later the vocalist expressed that they felt like what they did didn’t matter, nobody cared, it obviously wasn’t that important. Now that wasn’t the heart or the intent of the leader during the rehearsal at all, but the perception of the volunteer was shocking.
Sometimes I think it’s easy to blurt out things like ” I don’t care, you decide” when we’re talking about details that might seem routine to us or we have years of experience with or we’re in a staff meeting with people we work closely with everyday. But the fact is we really do care (or should) and so do our volunteers.
Sometimes nothing says I don’t care like actually saying “I don’t care”. As we move into the hustle and urgency of Good Friday and Easter production, let’s take a second to find the best words. Words matter …. relationships matter.
Ever since the advent of the CD audio, music had been squeezed into ever more efficient digital formats. Sure the 44.1 sample rate is good and clean but it’s not great. And mp3 is a step or two down from that. But most people are fine with that. It seems that listening to music in general has become a very passive and disengaged process from what it used to be a decade or two ago.
I recently stumbled across this article on Forbes about how Neil Young has a company trying to design a HD audio service for people like professional musicians and others who would pay a premium and be willing to manage the large download files necessary to up the quality of digital audio. Neil Young developes Hi Res Audio service
Whenever you listen to music processed at a 96 or 192 khz sample rate, you realize there’s something missing in the cd/mp3 format. It’s probably why the analog feel and dynamic range of a studio master or a vinyl album just somehow sounds fuller, richer, and warmer. Attempts have been made to create a High Fidelity Pure Audio Disk using Blue Ray format. It plays files at 96kHz/24bit.
One big problem is that files are huge and the playback devices for these resolutions aren’t readily available on a consumer level.
When I recntly posted this on facebook others quickly chimed in about what they missed about the vinyl album experience and it wasn’t just the sound quality. It was the experience. The release of something anticipated. An event that was shared with others. The cool artwork and interesting liner notes. The tactile sensory experience of cutting open the cellophane and pulling out the disk, putting it on the turntable, dropping the needle and seeing what was going to come out of the speakers. It was an event, an experience. One that you just don’t get with a CD, iTunes download, or stream.
This was consistent with some of my past thoughts about the music industry over the past few years. Long gone are the days when very many recording artists can get rich selling recorded copies of their work alone. Anyone can make music and put it online for free or stream, or download. Sure there are a lot of good musical artists starting indie labels, recording decent stuff in their bedrooms with garageband. But there are also a lot of crap artists recording crap stuff in their bedrooms with garageband and trying to sell online with the big guys. For these folks the sad reality is no one is going to pony up $.99 except for maybe a few close relatives and some good friends. In a time of limitless non-sequencial music options, the reality is quality and creativity alone probably don’t matter as much as they once did.
Sure the music has to be good. Whatever style. It has to be produced well. It has to have hooks. But probably most importantly the artist must be able to perform it really well. Because there’s a lot of streaming/niche channels filled with free and pirated content. But you can’t download the experience of being surrounded by others witnessing the performance at the same point in time.
I look back at the purchases I’ve made over the past few years. They were seldom $.99 downloads regardless of the quality or how much I like an artist. But I did pay a pretty stiff ticket price to see U2 360 and Peter Gabriel Front to Back in concert. They were not even my all time favorite bands, but they had creativity and a serious show. Something I couldn’t possibly download. These were also events in my life. The U2 tickets were actually a gift from my son and we went together the year he turned 21 and I turned 50.It was also the year my mom and only brother passed away. I’ll remember that trip and that concert for as long as I live. For Christmas, my wife bought me the Blu Ray video which wasn’t real cheap either. Same thing with the Peter Gabriel show. The followup DVD was exceptionally produced and justify the cost. I even ordered the raw board mix on USB as a keepsake from the show. The value was in the experience not strictly the songs or even the actual performance. The good music is the raw material that makes the experience even possible.
The live performance. If you’re a musical artist and are not really good at live performance, it I think it will get harder and harder to make a living. Except for a very exceptional few, being a creative songwriter, vocalist, or recording artist is probably simply not enough to carve out a livelyhood. Unfortunately people no longer pay well for just content.
As for Neil Young’s Pono service. I think it will have a niche market. I think it will need to be more than just a download service of high-resolution audio. Maybe the product needs to be bundled with some exceptional artwork, artist video interviews or some other value added surprises that would make the download an event to look forward to. Not just an efficient way to push audio thru the internet. Then some will pay a preium price for it – myself included.
According to this study 5% of the population may experience something called musical anhedonia.
bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2014/03/are-there-people-who-take-no-pleasure
Basically, they don’t emotionally or physiologically respond to music. Music doesn’t effect them and they don’t connect with it, on any level, the way the majority of the population does. (I know, I can’t imagine either)
If this is true, I wonder what that means for worship time in churches, as much of the worship experience in our Christian culture is music heavy.
Often I’ve looked out at the crowd and seen the occasional blank face or the person reading their bulletin while the room is singing. I’ve seen a very small number of people who routinely come in late or hang out in the coffee bar until the “real teaching” time gets started. I think we’ve always just assumed that this was maybe an overly intellectual person, or maybe they just didn’t like the music style, volume, song selections, or are just uncomfortable/awkward singing out among others. Do we need to change our music, singers, production?
Could it be that 5% of listeners in church simply don’t care about the music regardless of the quality or the volume or the “depth” of lyrics? Maybe they’re not music snobs after all. Maybe they would be fine if music was done away with altogether. This study seems to imply just that. If this is indeed true, it could very well explain a few things we’ve struggled with for years.
I’ve always felt that as musicians and tech artists we’re called to lead worship and much of that involves music. We lead with a medium that the majority of the population emotionally connect with and if we flex to accommodate anyone it is those who value music in general and hold worship in particular in a high regard.
But it also suggests the bigger question – As artists (worship leaders) how do we (or can we) even connect this 5% with the biblical idea of corporate worship?
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What Matters Matters 