Using a High Strung Guitar

By Andy@Musicademy | October 2, 2008

If you’ve got a spare acoustic guitar lying around, even a cheap one, why not convert it to a high strung or Nashville tuned guitar? This is a great way to get yourself effectively another different sounding instrument just for the cost of a packet of strings.

Small Amps – Great Sound

By Andy@Musicademy |

One of my missions in life is to get guitarists involved to consider buying a low wattage tube amp instead of aspiring to their favourite valve icon (some say I should get involved with more meaningful topics!). I’ve owned most of the most of the stuff that every guitarist wants including a 64 JMI AC30, […]

Light Weight Les Paul?

By Andy@Musicademy |

I’ve been trying to find a decent Les Paul for ages. I’ve owned 3, two 70’s Deluxes with the Mini humbuckers and a 1990 Standard, but really being a Fender guy I’ve always found them way to heavy. So what did I find the other day? A brand new custom shop chambered Gibson Les Paul. […]

Electric Guitar Styles – the U2 Sound

By Andy@Musicademy |

  The U2 sound has always been popular in churches since the Edge’s style leans more towards rhythmic ‘pad’ sounds than a typical lead guitar rock riff. A U2 style sound is great for songs with big dynamic changes and great for filling up space behind very clear melodies in a way that is not […]

Electric Guitar Styles – The Coldplay Sound

By Andy@Musicademy |

Since Coldplay broke onto the scene in 2000 many worship songs have Coldplay-esque guitar parts. I think it’s partly because it suits the style of many modern worship songs well and partly because it doesn’t require an advanced technique to play credibly.

Introduction to worship keyboard – Part 2

By Tim Martin |

Understanding contemporary rhythms Once you can use different chords and inversions properly it’s time to tackle the Achilles heel of most keyboard players—rhythm. While guitarists naturally add rhythm to a piece of music it’s much harder work for a keyboardist. It’s often easy to play very ‘straight’ rhythms (like crotchets on each beat of the […]

Introduction to Worship Keyboard Playing – Part 1

By Tim Martin |

This is the start of a new mini series for people that have played keyboard using the traditional music score but want to move into more contemporary chords-based playing. In this first part we will look at which chords can be expected to show up in a given key (this information will be useful for […]

Leading Worship From Keys

By Marie@Musicademy |

Florence Benton from Alaska emailed to ask for advice on leading worship from keyboards for the first time. It’s a big jump to go from playing keys as part of a band to leading (and singing) as well. Not only are you leading the congregation in their worship, but you will be needing to lead […]

Guitar Trick – Playing in 10ths James Taylor style

By Andy@Musicademy |

I’ve just come back from doing some seminars at the National Worship Leader Conference in Texas. One of the teaching sessions that was really popular was “Cheats, Licks & Tips for Acoustic Guitarists”. So as part of our contemporary guitar styles series, here is this James Taylor style trick. “I was quite surprised that one […]