October 5, 2008 by

God We Praise You In E-Flat

7 comments

Categories: fun, What the heck was THAT?, worship

Okay, time to tell tales on my good friend Aaroneous. (Don’t know why I was remembering this just now, but here we go…)

He and I were on a worship team together some time ago, and we were playing some new song for the first time in church. (Don’t ask me what song, I don’t remember now.) Not only were we having to concentrate on the song because it was new, but it was also in E-flat, a key we almost never played in. I was leading from the piano, and Aaroneous was behind me playing bass and doing BGVs (that’s “background vocals”, for you not-in-the-know, non-musical types). 🙂

Anyhow, as we ended the song, we went into one of these charismatic free-worship moments where we play a chord progression and people just sing their own spontaneous songs to the Lord. And because the song we’d just played was in E-flat, the chord progression was in… E-flat (which we almost never played in). So even though we were being all worshipy, we were having to concentrate harder on our playing, because of playing in E-flat and all.

All of a sudden, I hear Aaroneous crack up laughing at himself. And when we finished with the worship segment, he told me why….

He was trying to sing to the Lord and play in E-flat at the same time (a key we almost never played in), and he was concentrating so hard on playing the right notes that the song that spontaneously flowed from his worshiping lips was:

“God, we praise You in E-flat!”

Now, that’s REAL worship, folks.

I don’t think we ever did that song again. Probably wouldn’t have been able to sing it with a straight face.

Have any funny worship moments to share?

Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo. I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.

7 Responses to God We Praise You In E-Flat

  1. Karenkool

    Don’t guitarist especially hate the key of Eb?

    Ok. I have a story. We used to sing that song, years ago, “Mighty is Our God.”

    Mighty is our God
    Mighty is our God
    Mighty is our God
    Ruler of everything

    So, after the service a visitor-of elderly type-came up to me and said she was really confused about that song. She asked, “Why are you singing ‘Money’ is our God?

    It was a good question. Baaahaha.

  2. Jeff McQ

    Sarah, that Eb story still entertains me, even. 🙂

    Kool,
    Good story…Freudian slip in some churches, maybe? 🙂

    Yes, guitarists hate Eb. Which is why we almost never played in it…

  3. Aaroneous

    As soon as I saw the title I started laughing. I knew IMMEDIATELY what you were referring to. Hadn’t though of it in years, and the moment came back like it was yesterday.

    And yes, people, it WAS from the heart. 🙂

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