Interview with Kristian Ponsford
So I’m Kristian. I love Loop Community. I’m married with a superb little boy and I live in the UK. I’m a worship leader, song writer and Ableton geek. I have just accepted a post as Creative Director for a great church in Cornwall, England and will start in September. I’m super blessed that I get to lead worship and some amazing events such as New Wine, Spring Harvest and also Spring Harvest in France. I’m also part of the extended Worship Central Team and work as an advisor and regional coordinator for them.
Q1 – I actually learnt to lead worship using loops and midi. My Dad is a church minister and sadly in 1998 most of our worship team moved away from our church and left us very short. Someone in our church bought a yamaha keyboard that played midi files on 3.5″ floppy disk!! It was my job to download the tracks edit, them and trigger them off from the keyboard. Later on I learn to play guitar and God brought some amazing musicians to join our team.
In late 2010 I was looking at how we could creatively fill out our sound and I came across a YouTube video from Matt McCoy. That started my Ableton addiction!
Q2 – Initially I started out creating in Propellerhead’s Reason but over the last year I’ve been primarily using Ableton Live. I love Ableton and it makes sense and matches the way I work. With Live 9 I have all I need for the loops I create.
Q3 – My loop setup and Ableton have become my main instrument! When I’m leading I’m using my voice, my guitar and my ableton rig. I find it really useful to see it as another instrument in our setup.
Loops have dramatically improved my worship leading and have made all the bands I use them in sound tighter and fuller. I’ve used loops in a variety of settings from bands with inexperienced musicians that need the help of additional instruments to bands with professional musicians where it supports and fills out the textures in our sound.
I have also seen churches more engaged when leading with loops, the textures and additional sounds capture people’s imagination and help inspire them in their worship. I thank God for the technology available to us right now!
Q4 – Loop Community is AMAZING! I love the fact that this level of technology is available to churches of all sizes and contexts. Loop Community is right at the sharp edge of equipping, training and resourcing churches and worship teams to utilise all this technology for the glory of God. I’d used lots of loops that i’ve found on LC that I couldn’t have found with out it and I’ve learnt loads that I wouldn’t have without LC. Its now a massive prilledge to be part of the training team and getting to meet people from all over the world and help them along the way on their ableton journeys.
Q5 – I find it helpful to try and keep a broad pallet, although I find myself drifting between styles at different seasons etc.
I’m loving Imagine Dragons – Night Visions at the moments. Here is snapshot of some of the stuff currently on my iPhone.
Hillsong United – Zion
Ben Howard – Every Kingdom
Bon Iver
Worship Central – Let it be Known
Gungor
Sigur Ros
Imagine Dragons – Night Visions
Jesus Culture & Martin Smith – Live from NYC
Martin Smith – God’s Great Dance Floor
Catfish & The Bottlemen
Passion Pit – Gossamer
Mumford & Sons – Babel
Message to Bears – Folding Leaves
Of Monsters And Men – My head is an animal
