While technically any music you worship to is worship music, “Worship Music” is a style of music has evolved over the last 20 years or so. It’s different than gospel and is played in mostly white churches. It started with Hillsong and has moved on to Bethel, Jesus Culture, Elevation, and so on. I’m trying to describe it without being negative, but it’s hard because I can’t stand it. To my ears it doesn’t really have a groove or melody. It’s about creating soundscapes. One local mega church calls them “soaker songs”. You are supposed to stand there and sway back and forth and soak up the Holy Spirit. They are usually slow and in the 60 something bpm range. The singer sort of talk sings over the sounds the band makes. There are a lot of sustaining synth pads, while the guitar players just noodle around with lots of effects. The drums are mostly cymbal swells and tom fills. It rarely settles into a traditional kick/snare/hat groove. Like I said, it more of a soundscape. “Worship” cymbal packs are usually larger darker cymbals. 18” hats, 22” crashes, 26” rides are common. I don’t think the Zildjian one has sizes that big, but they are larger and thin. The cymbals help make the wall of sounds more than punctuate accents. We had a well know worship leader come to our church back in 2019 before the shutdowns. We played 5 songs, the opener was 68bpm, the next four were all run together at 62bpm. I had to make notes because all of the songs were so similar that I couldn’t keep track of which was which. They were all just cymbal swells and slight variations of tribal type tom grooves.
