Same old chords new shapes

By Andy@Musicademy | October 5, 2016

Recently a guitar student asked me to teach them a cover version of Katy Perry’s California Gurls by YouTube boywonder Alex Goot. This kid is one of the many internet viral sensations building a readymade fan base poised for when they come to release their own music by covering other people’s songs and filming themselves […]

What chord comes next in a song?

By Andy@Musicademy | October 25, 2012

One of the members of the Musicademy website sent me what you can see in figure 1 below. He struggles with playing by ear and remembering the chords in common keys so he came up with this little chart that he sticks to his keyboard or guitar when he leads worship. The basic idea is […]

New Super Worship Backing Track Chord Charts!

By Marie@Musicademy | January 3, 2012

Praise and Worship Backing Track Super Chord Charts Our new Worship Backing Band MultiTrack Player and the simpler SplitTrack video downloads are selling really well. Inevitably we’ve had lots of people asking for chord charts. With so many free (read “illegal”) chord charts on the internet, often with inaccurate chords and different arrangements to our […]

Strumming pattern – The Stand

By Andy@Musicademy | September 8, 2011

Taken from Hillsong United, this is another common and useful pattern for moving a slower song along. It fits nicely with the changing accents in the rhythm of the melody too. Just be careful not to make it your only default strumming pattern for slow songs. Other posts you might like: Our archive of strumming […]

Strumming Pattern – Agnus Dei

By Andy@Musicademy | April 25, 2011

I’ve taken this version of Agnus Dei from Michael W Smith’s album Worship. There is no acoustic guitar in the version per se but this will work if you are leading worship on guitar. The pattern itself is refreshingly different and provides a sense of rolling consistency as the accents on the beats change in […]

Strumming pattern to Lord Reign in Me (Over All the Earth) by Brenton Brown

By Andy@Musicademy | March 9, 2011

This is an interesting one which I’ve taken from the original Brenton Brown recording. Many people highlight the pushes in the melody with their strumming patterns but Brenton Brown, who wrote it, doesn’t. He plays a straight, rock solid strumming pattern. Sometimes playing all the pushes can just be overkill. I’ve listed this in a […]