Guitar Trick – Playing in 10ths James Taylor style

By Andy@Musicademy | October 2, 2008

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 […]

Hendrix-Style Double Stops

By Andy@Musicademy |

This month we’re going to look at probably my favourite playing style, which is called double stops. Double stops means playing two notes at the same time and was employed to great effect by a certain Mr James Hendrix. Hendrix is known by non musicians for his wailing solos but this style used on gentler […]

How to maintain a flow of worship

By Andy@Musicademy |

Chief Allan Hewey from Maine emailed us asking for advice on keeping the worship momentum going. He was particularly looking for some practical tips to keep the congregations’ focus heavenward. This is a really interesting question and in unpacking it we need to consider how different churches approach this – it can be a very […]

What to do if there is no musical space for you

By Andy@Musicademy |

Stephen Miessner from the US emailed to ask “What do you do when you’re the keys player and there isn’t room for you in a song?” Andy answers: Firstly I’d ask why isn’t there room in the song. Is it written in a way that is very guitar led so doesn’t work well for keys? […]

Worship Team Dynamics – the phases a new team must go through

By Marie@Musicademy |

Dr Bruce Tuckman published his Forming Storming Norming Performing model in 1965. The theory is an elegant and helpful explanation of team development and behaviour which can be usfully applied to worship teams. Tuckman’s model explains the sequence that a team goes through as it team develops maturity and ability and relationships establish. The role […]

Finally, a resource for selecting congregationally-friendly keys for worship songs!

By Kenny Lamm | November 15, 2012

One of the greatest obstacles to participative worship is singing songs in keys too high (or occasionally too low) for the average congregational singer. Understanding acceptable vocal ranges for average singers certainly helps worship leaders choose good keys, but for some, the process is quite a chore. Today I release a chart of the top […]