Ask the Expert - why won't my guitar stay in tune?

Andy Shaw, a worship leader from New Malden in the UK emailed saying: “Can I ask a question about keeping your guitar in tune when playing live. I play electro-acoustic, normally a jumbo Tanglewood. Often, I tune up the guitar for rehearsal but once I have been playing for a while, the strings have gone […]

What is worship?

I’ve been reading Exiles (Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture) by Michael Frost and I liked his take on Paul’s definition of worship. Paul writes: “Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is true worship” […]

Substitute Chords in B

In this little mini series we’ve looked at substitute chord shapes taken from our Acoustic Intermediate worship guitar DVDs that with help you find some easy one finger changes and hopefully inspired you to you use some different voicings with different sounds. Now let’s look at a key that most guitarists shy away from unless […]

Substitute Chords - B with a detuned E

Substitute Chords – part 7 This next little trick is again about playing in the key of B without barre chords or a capo but this time uses all the open strings and gives you some great new voicings simply by detuning the top E (string 1) down 1 semitone or a ½ step to D#. […]

Why men hate going to church

I found this interview at crossmatch.com with David Murrow author of the book Why Men Hate Going to Church. I was fascinated, partly because I (as a motorbike riding not very typical female) related quite well to a lot of the “male” characteristics he lists but also his comment on worship music: “Tom is less […]

Small Amp, Great Sound - Part 5 - The Andy Chamberlain Pedal and Amp Combo

The best laid plans… Basic Lil’ Dawg chassis  $279 stripped ebay cab   $115 Weber 12A125A Alnico $105 Total     $500 So my original idea was to go for a used or inexpensive pine cab with the Weber 12A125A alnico speaker – i.e. the best speaker in my budget range. I tried my chassis with an Original Celestion […]

Brian McLaren on Worship Songs

Greetings, fellow songwriters, fellow worshippers, fellow leaders in worship, fellow musician/artists, and fellow followers of Jesus: For the last few years, I have been privileged to be “on the road” a lot, speaking mostly with young emerging leaders. I suppose I was asked to speak to them because of some over-forty quota system, and also […]