Have you been singing the song “Way Maker” recently? I sure have. I’ve been blessed by this song and getting to sing it for the last few months. While singing it and coaching others on the worship team with this song, I’ve come upon some common challenges with this song as well as some helpful tips when it comes to leading it.
1. Let the last syllable of several words just “fall off”. Don’t over sing it.
In the Chorus, I’ve found myself reminding my worship team singers to not over sing the final syllable of the words “maker”, “worker”, and “keeper”. Similarly, in the Bridge do the same fo the word “working” at the end of the 1st, 3rd, and 4th lines. The 2nd line of the Bridge (“Even when I don’t feel it, You’re working”) the melody goes up on the final syllable of “working”, so that is the only time it does not need to be “thrown off”. If you’d like to hear some demonstrations of this, you can find this starting at 0:16 of the video.
2.1 Sing the whole song on a hum
I really like to sing the whole song on a hum to really get each note solidly in my voice. It’s a great way to make sure I’m singing with good technique. And if feels super relaxing too! BUT, I don’t just mindlessly hum… no, not at all.
I’m specifically making sure that I’m singing with good connection between notes (in musical terms this is legato). I’m also paying attention to whether I’m giving enough breath support to each note. The higher the note, the more breath support is needed. And I try to internalize what it feels like to sing with good musical phrasing.
2.2 Sing the whole song on a single vowel
After singing on a hum, I recommend choosing a pure vowel (ah, eh, ee, oh, oo) and singing the song on it in the same manner. This is a bit more challenging than humming, but it is closer to singing the actual words. While singing on your vowel of choice, you should be keeping the same three things in mind as before (connection between notes, breath support, musical phrasing).
2.3 CHALLENGE! Sing the song on the vowels of the words with no consonants
Now, here’s my challenge to you! Sing the whole song on the vowels of the words without the consonants. This is not easy because you have to imagine each word that is in the song but eliminate each consonant. The reason for doing this is to get one step closer to singing the actual words but still maintain a sense of connection between the words… since there are no consonants to break up the vowels of the words. If you’re still confused about this and can’t imagine what this may sound like, check out 3:30 of the video where I demonstrate this.
Finally, put the consonants back in, and sing the song normally… but still try to maintain all the technique that you worked on before. Believe me, you’re voice will feel great after practicing like this!
Alright! Now that you got the song nicely in your voice, it’s time to focus on some details.
3. Plan out your transition from Verse 3 to the Chorus
If you plan to lead this song at your church, it is very helpful to have a mental roadmap of how you plan on singing this transition. The words are simple, “I worship you, I worship you”. But, you’ll soon find out after listening to several recordings of this song that each person sings this transition a bit differently. So, how will you choose to sing it?!
Let me quickly explain what you’re trying to do vocally and as a worship leader at this point in the song. You have just sung Verse 2 and Verse 3 and are about to sing the Chorus for the second time in which you will “jump the octave” and sing an octave higher than the first chorus.
Vocally, you want to find a melodic line that is both interesting and will help to bring you from a lower register to a higher register seamlessly while building the energy of the song.
As a worship leader, this is a moment where you don’t need to stick to a certain melody and can instead express your heart in worship, help to energize the song and ultimately help to direct people to Christ in how you sing this build up to the Chorus.
If you’d like to hear several examples of how different artists sing this transition, I sang a few of them in this video at 4:30 (I also encourage you to listen to several recordings yourself to get an idea of what people sing).
My main recommendations are to sing within your zone and know what would sound good in your voice. Often times a single note can sound better than a riff… and certainly better than singing a bunch of notes off pitch.
4. Don’t sing too heavy or you will strain your voice
Starting in the second Chorus onward, you are now singing in a very high tessitura for the majority of the song. The basically means that the “median note” is very high which makes it challenging to sing. In other words, you are singing repeated high notes with little to no low notes to give your voice a break. Therefore, it is extremely important to sing with a light vocal production and avoid singing too heavy. If you sing with any undue weight in your voice, your voice will get very tired over the course of this song. You can hear what I’m talking about at 6:01 of the video.
5. Find the right key for your voice
The Leeland version of this song has a range of an octave and a sixth… if that doesn’t mean much to you (which is fine if it doesn’t)… that’s a relatively large range for a worship song! The good thing is that some of the lowest notes are not very emphasized and you can easily modify them. If we take that into account, the meat of this song is only an octave and a 3rd (which still isn’t small).
My advice for you is to find what notes are comfortable in your voice for the high chorus, tag, and bridge. Then settle which key you will sing this song in based on that. If this results in a key in which the first low chorus is completely too low to sing, you have two options.
- Don’t sing the first chorus down the octave and sing it the same as you will for the second half of the song.
- Try to see if you can manage to sing this in one or two keys higher so that you may just be able to sing the low chorus. And, with this option, just keep in mind that the extremely low notes can be modified and you can either just completely throw them off and not sing any pitch on them (but you still must annunciate the word) or else you can change the lowest note and sing a higher note instead of it… which also works.
I put together this chart to give you a good starting place for knowing which key may work well in your voice depending on your voice type. But, I’d recommend still trying it out for yourself and modify if needed.
6. Worship leader interjections
You can probably recall hearing worship leaders either speaking out (or perhaps singing) the next lines of a song, right? Well, that is what I’m talking about here. It is helpful to go ahead and plan out where you might want to do this so that you are prepared and can better lead the congregation.
There are two primary ways you can do that in this song.
- You will need to stop singing the last few words of a section and call out the upcoming word or two. This is best exemplified in the final Bridge before the Chorus. You can stop singing the last “you never stop working” and call out “Way Maker” to let people know that is where you are heading. I give an example of this at 7:47 of the video.
- You can purposefully use a musical interlude between sections to call out the upcoming word. A good example of this could be going from the Chorus to the Tag you can call out “that is who you are” to help guide the congregation and the band. You can hear this at 8:06.
My main recommendations when doing this is to stay within your zone as a singer during the interjections. Sing notes you know you can sing well. And plan ahead what you would like to sing so you have everything mapped out in your mind. You may even have two versions that you have planned out so that you can decide on the spot between the two versions depending on how you feel.
7. Mean the words when you sing
This is by far the most important. It is so easy to practice all the details and get caught up in them and forget to actually mean the words. I believe it’s important to put in the practice… after all we are doing this to bring glory to our Lord. But, I’ve had to remind myself to get out of my head with all the technical things and simply mean the words I’m saying. Here’s what I do and would suggest you try as a starting place.
- Read the words out loud (or quietly in your heart) and internalize them. Stop to ponder them and consider what this song is really saying. What words and lines stick out to you as you read it.
- When you sing this song, really mean the words as you say them. Don’t just mouth the words, but ponder them and mean them as you sing. When you do this, people will be able to tell… and your own heart will be able to tell.
Conclusion
I hope this has given you a few things to focus on when preparing Way Maker for the next time you get to sing it at church or for your own personal worship.
If you’d like to go deeper into some of the techniques I mentioned in this post, I put together a Free Vocal Technique Mini-Course which covers several of these. And if you really want to lay a solid foundation for your vocal technique, whether you have been singing for years or consider yourself a young singer, we have a full online course called Vocal Groundwork. This will cover all the fundamental techniques needed to really use your voice as an instrument and sing with freedom, ease, and power. I only open it up a few times a year currently, so make sure to hop on the waitlist if it isn’t open currently so you are notified when it’s available!
Other posts you might be interested in if you enjoyed this are How to Improve Your Voice for Worship which covers the essential techniques needed to sing better. Also this article covers some more general ways to go about improving your voice. Oh! And I also made a whole video on each individual harmony part for this song, so check that out here!
