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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
After forming chords and using rhythm well the next step is to add colour using melodic fills. As the title suggest these fill in where there is a gap rather than going on all the time. Look for opportunities in songs where there is no singing or when there are sustained notes to play a […]
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 […]
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 […]