Guitar chaos

I’ve been doing it for two decades now, but playing guitar on a church worship team can still be challenging. At All Nations Christian Fellowship, of which my family and I have been part since 2000, I like to think that the team has gotten the entire thing down to a system, but sometimes the setup can still go haywire especially when we try to change things a little and when the equipment refuses to cooperate.

This happened last Sunday when our scheduled worship leader Dominic decided to use just guitars (two acoustics, one electric, and one bass) and drums. Normally we’d have keyboards in the mix to fatten the sound, but Dominic wanted something simpler. I was all for going back to the basics, of course, so I enthusiastically supported his idea. As it turned out, however, this was one case in which simpler was not better.

Normally Dominic and I play well together since we’ve been doing it for many years, but the other guitarist, a young musician by the name of Carlos who heads an alternative band, had a style that clashed with ours. Since he was using the electric guitar I tried to instruct him to do singing leads in order to give a violin/string sound – and some depth, since we didn’t have a keyboard – to the mix, but he couldn’t do it. His playing style consisted mainly of arpeggios, and in the context of our music last Sunday it was not “happening.”

Don’t get me wrong. Carlos is an extremely talented young man, a gifted songwriter and great singer who has been part of the worship team for many years now. But his style, as far as the worship team is concerned, is best suited to a full band with keyboard, not with two acoustic guitars, a bass, and drums.

The result was a bad mix of strums and arpeggios. The sound was much too percussive, lacking the sweetness and harmony that I had presumed we’d be coaxing out of our pared-down instruments.

On hindsight, it may have been better if I had taken on the electric guitar duties and let Dominic and Carlos play acoustic. Indeed, I had had the gut feeling that I should be playing electric, but since Carlos volunteered to do it I let him play our pastor’s G&L.

In fairness to all of us, other things went against us last Sunday. For one thing, the amps were a mess – the acoustic guitar amps had some speakers blown out so that instead of sounding acoustic, our guitars were giving out electric sounds. Dominic and I also had to share the one amp that still sounded decent (but still awful), and as any musician will tell you, that’s a bad idea as the sound becomes muddy and confusing.

Lessons to be learned? Well, for one thing, we need to give ourselves more time to practice whenever we choose to change our setup, even if it is to take away one or more instruments. Simpler is not necessarily easier.

Secondly, I need to trust my gut feelings. As I said, I had felt at the onset that I should be playing electric but decided to give Carlos the chance. If I had gone with my instinct, we would have sounded a little more acceptable.

Finally, we need to believe that God can work in the hearts of worshippers in spite of how badly we play. There is a tendency even among Christian musicians to think that the worship experience somehow depends on how great the music is, but it doesn’t. Worship is God’s responsibility, and many times He proves this to me by allowing me to fumble through the music – and then have the most number of people approach me afterward to thank me for a wonderful worship time.