Creating guitar parts for worship: Space and Dynamic [Video]

New electric guitar video series by Matt Isaac

Welcoming guitarist Matt Isaac to our team of bloggers with the first of a series of videos exploring ways of creating electric guitar parts in worship. This first video is quite “talky” but those coming up in the future are a lot more hands-on.

Space and dynamic in worship

I’ve found myself regularly having conversations with people about creating
guitar parts on the fly, from chord sheets and context. This is quite a common need in
contemporary church music, and can be easy either to lose sight of the fact it can need a fair
amount of skill to do so convincingly, or to be too aware of this and feel that without lots of
advanced practise, it’s off limits. In my experience however this isn’t the case, and there are some
simple principles, which we can apply to our own playing, to create some effective and musical guitar parts.

Musicianship and instrumental ability are something of a toolbox, as our capacity increases, so do
the options that are available to us to draw on. There are lots of really practical skills and
understanding that are important to developing as any kind of instrumentalist. In the case of
guitar, you can find some valuable material on the Musicademy Electric courses: fretboard
knowledge, chord voicings, double stop intervals, scale shape, lots of vital stuff!

What I’ve tried to do with this video series however, is create some simple ideas, drawn from a mindset with which you might approach arranging parts, that can be applied to your own playing, regardless of level. Hopefully these will be helpful in giving you some tools to make the most of what you already have, and to gain a new perspective going forwards.

All the ideas are going to be applied to the progression below. This means that whatever your capacity already allows you to do with this progression, these principles can hopefully be applied directly to your playing.

Video 1: Space and Dynamic in Worship

Space and Dynamic: key points

  • Contrast makes things interesting.
  • Use to follow the structure of the song e.g quiet moments.
  • Use to exaggerate a build, buy dropping out/down at the beginning.
  • Use space in your own part to create phrases.
  • Listen to what else is happening, and use space in your part, to enhance hooks and phrases
    in others.

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Save at least 25% on the Musicademy Electric Guitar Course

Use the coupon code ELECTRICSALE to save an additional 25% on either the Electric Guitar DVDs or alternately, the downloads. With the downloads you will get an automatic 25% off when the full course is purchased and the code will take another 25% off whatever your total is when applied during the checkout process.

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Click HERE for the downloads. Buy however many of the lessons that you like and apply the coupon code at the checkout.


Matt-IsaacBased in London and the South of England, Matt Isaac is a composer, arranger and trained guitarist working across many genres, both within and outside of the UK.

Matt studied classical guitar with Alexander Levtov and completed a first class degree in both performance and composition at the University of Chichester, where he was a prizewinner in the Robert Headley Memorial award.

Matt is a member of Westminster Chapel, London where he is involved with the worship team and musical projects.

Matt’s website is www.mattisaacmusic.com