Worship Guitar: Group Ettiquette

     Whether you've been playing worship guitar for years or just starting out, there are basic expectations that you can and should observe to get along as part of a worship team. Most are common sense and almost all of them are available elsewhere on the web, but they are important enough that I think we should go over them.

     1.  Show Up On Time: Seems easy enough, but people who are late eat up valuable rehearsal time. Worship is serious, and you should treat it like it is important. If talent call for rehearsal is at 0730 on Sunday morning you should be in place with your gear ready for sound check before 0730. Don't be that last guys who comes bumbling in and disrupts rehearsal.

     2. Be Prepared: The boy scouts have it right. Be prepared. Check to make sure that you have everything you are going to need for the rehearsal or service. Everyone's rig is different, but you should have at a minimum:

• Guitar
• Effects
• Power Supplies for effects
• Cables (having a backup cable is a plus and takes up very little space.)
• Extra set of strings
• Extra picks (if you use them).
• Tuner (Tune before your turn at sound check!)
• Music/service order for the worship set.

     3. Tuning: Nothing is more annoying to the group than someone who is out of tune. You can get a Snark tuner like the one here on the right for less than $15 and they work really well. This particular tuner has a built in metronome. You can just clip it on to your guitar and tune up, which brings me to another point. Turn down your volume while you are tuning. Clip on tuners work off of vibrations and do not require the volume to be up while in use. I have a volume pedal in both of my rigs that I use a LOT. This is a very good use for one, but if you don't have one, you can still turn the volume pot down and get a good tune. I've used my Snarks to tune guitars (electric and acoustic), basses, mandolins, even violins.No fooling, they are that good. 

     4. Riffing/Jamming: It's really annoying when people are trying to set levels on the monitors or work out the timing on a passage and someone is working on a riff they just learned. It's not as bad if it's from a song that you are doing at this rehearsal, but it is inconsiderate of other team members time, and it will sometimes create a colorful outburst from the worship leader. 

     5. Maintain Your Gear: Stuff fails. It's a fact of life as a musician, but knowing this we can have a spare cable in our bag. Most larger cities have a music store that can turn you onto a luthier. I recently took and old Frankensteined Telecaster in and had my guitar guy go through it. He set the action, dressed the frets, set the intonation, and set the pickup height to factory spec. The guitar sounds great, and it stays in tune all of the way up the neck.How much did this wizardry cost me? $65 and worth every cent of it. Even if you buy a new guitar you should consider having someone set it up. It will blow your mind, and you won't be out of tune when playing inversions up the neck!

     6. Pay Attention: In a good worship team there are a lot of talented people, and you can learn all sorts of stuff if you pay attention. If someone does something tasty, ask them to show you what they did, or explain why they did it. Most of the time people like to share what they have learned with one another. 

     7. Be Flexible: There are commonly two other guitarists on our worship team. The leader plays an acoustic, and the other guitarist plays an electric. Depending on who is playing each week it could be a solid body or a semi acoustic jazz box or a hybrid. Sometimes people don't show up and it's just me and the leader with the acoustic guitar. In any configuration I need to be ready to play one of several parts on the recordings that people are familiar with hearing. Sometimes I am asked to come up with a lead that sounds vaguely arabesque. Who knows what you are going to encounter. It's our job as guitarists to know a couple of different parts, and to be able to play something similar to what everyone else is playing, but in a different voicing so it doesn't turn into a big ball of goo. Knowing how to play inversions helps in this regard, but then again so does transposing the song a fifth above where the band is playing it and capo up so that you can use other chord shapes to get the same chords.  Flexibility is huge. Sometimes the best flexibility is being able to sit out for a song. 

     8. Remember Why You're Here: Worship is service to our holy and living God. God has given us an amazing gift in the salvation offered through Christ and the miracle of his resurrection, the least we can do is honor and praise him with our feeble gifts. Remember to love each other and have fun. We serve an amazing God and it is a rare opportunity that should really be appreciated. 

     I have probably missed some really important points, so if you have something I should have included, please add it to the comments below! Peace and God Bless!

Guitar String Beta Test?

Looks legit...

     So the D'Addario string company has decided to revamp their guitar string making process. They've revamped the coating, mettalurgy, heck - they even go so far as to say that these are the strongest strings out there, but are they?

     So the other day I get a kraft paper envelope from D'Addario in the mail. Opening it I find this stealth looking strings packet inside. I waited until this morning to put the strings on because I am a busy guy. (Actually I have been fighting a wretched cold.)

     I generally like D'Addario and their strings, so I was sort of excited to get the packet. I recently wrote about how their EXP strings compare to Elixir's on my Taylor 414e ltd.

     I put the strings on my Frankentele. It looks like a tele but has dual coil humbuckers and all of the pots have been swapped out. IT sounds more like a Les Paul these days than a Tele. It's a solid chunk of over driven tone with a slug of sustain and a face built for grunge. She's my second most used electric so I thought she was good candidate for the string beta. How did it go? I'm not so impressed with the performance of the strings or the tone, but rather than ramble, I will attempt to address all of the manufacturer's claims.

     Strongest set of guitar strings ever made. It's 30% stronger than any of it's predecessors: When I pulled the high E string out of the package I noticed shiny spots on the string. These are almost always nicks in the string that can cause strings to snap. While tuning the high E, the string broke halfway between the nut and the machine head. I was at D# and worrying that the string didn't sound right. You can usually hear when a string is getting ready to go. Based on where the string broke, I believe it to be a manufacturer's defect.

     Settles to pitch and holds pitch better: This seems to be correct. The strings did seem to settle out pretty quickly which for me is usually only an issue if I have to change right before a show or during a break, so for those limited instances they would be pretty good.

     I suppose this is as good a spot as any to mention that they have gone with a tin coating on these strings. This is to aid in corrosion inhibition. They also have a really good grippy feeling to them. You can play pretty fast and not have to worry about pull off slipping at all.

     The strings have 6% more magnetic permeability resulting in higher output in the 2 - 5 khz range for punch, crunch, and bite. Yeah... they don't sound that great to me. If a string is going to sound great with distortion it should sound great clean. I thought the tone a little on the dull side, and definitely not better than the original strings.

     Bottom Line: I probably won't buy these strings, nor do I think they will transform the industry. The company has a contest going on that invites people to put up a YouTube video of their "hardest fastest, best solo playing", and label the video with #XLFORMULA3. So far all I have seen is teens playing in their bedroom, which is the likely demographic for this product. For a good laugh go check out the dude who wears a cold weather face mask, and a hat with chicken bones all over it who calls himself "Bones The Guitarist". But hey whatever works for you eh?

*Update* I called the company and spoke to customer service. I wanted to let them know about what i saw on the high e. They sent me out another set of strings. Great job of Customer Service!

 Let me know if you have had a different experience with them, or if I overlooked something.