guitar player for christ

This blog has moved to Guitartropolis.com

Hi. If you're still subscribed to or are following this blog, I've incorporated my writing about guitar playing, including playing and singing contemporary Christian music, to a new blog, www.Guitartropolis.com.

Rather than a blog that only I contribute to (I have other blogs that I do this for already), I decided to transition to a blog with many contributors (contact me if you're interested in contributing a blog post). I've never been a solo player, mostly because my skills and my desire is to play with and complement other players. I decided to do the same with blogging about guitar playing.

Though you'll find a lot of secular content on www.Guitartropolis.com, I still talk about playing, recording and writing music for the contemporary worship setting. You'll find the Praise & Worship Chapel section on the blog that I'll be contributing to over time.

I hope you'll join me and other contributors over on Guitartropolis.com

Worshiping In The Moment

Over the years I've participated as a player and leader in contemporary worship, I've had moments where I was experiencing the most powerful worship and those where I felt like a struggling guitar player, bass player or vocalist. While I've swapped in and out of those two situations at different times, I've achieved a much better ratio of being in authentic worship over the last few years, while participating as a guitarist, singer and worship leader.

I used to think it was 90% attitude. If you concentrated on being in a state of worship, you'd put yourself there. To some degree I've found that true. I guess I should back up and say a bit more about what I'm referring to as being in a state of worship, or what I'd call "worshiping in the moment".

For me, worshiping in the moment is where I truly feel like what I'm singing or playing is an offering I'm making to God, while in some type of conversation with Him. It's praise, it's offering myself and my heart, it's about prayers I'm offering, and it becomes a worshiping experience. I just feel like I'm giving it my all, leaving nothing left on the field. It's not that I'm ripping off some blazing guitar lick or giving some of Steve Perry vocal rock concert performance. (If you've heard me, you know neither of those are possible anyway, lol.) Those would be examples of playing well or at a certain level of professionalism, not necessarily worshiping.

Worshiping in the moment is feeling that while I'm playing and singing, I'm connected to God. The music and singing by everyone in worship are almost like a warm blanket wrapping us all up in that relationship experience, both individually and together at the same time.

So if it's more than just an attitude thing, what is worshiping in the moment and what does it take to do it. Today I wrote an email to our praise team and praise choir about an upcoming worship service we're designing and preparing for. In that email, I laid out how I make sense of getting to that place of worshiping in the moment. Here it goes...

I think of it in five priorities: (1) worshiping in the moment, (2) passion, (3) energy, (4) singing/playing, and (5) preparation. But the way these five priorities work is they build on each other, and you have to fulfill each one in order to gain and add on the next higher priority. Let me explain.

It might be counter intuitive but (5) preparation is THE KEY to the entire process. The more preparation, the easier it is to achieve and visa versa. Without it, you might have some amounts passion and energy while playing but you probably haven't fulfilled them, and you'll only fleetingly achieve worshiping in the moment. By the time you approach playing your worship music, you want the music fully ingrained in your heart, so much so that you know the pieces by heart. I didn't say memorized, or knowing them by memory. I really mean the songs are in your heart, with the message in the songs connecting with you, building an internal fire for worship. When you think about them, the songs spring up inside you, before they are ever even externalized. When you learn the parts to play or sing, the song leaps out of your voice and instrument. Playing and singing (4) is then the delivery of what's in your heart, using the parts, voicings, licks and patches you've chosen to create the song.

If you've done that, the rest is easy. It's about releasing what's inside you to bring you and the congregation to a place of authentic worship. A worship experience. Energy (3) is being free to release what's in your heart, not holding back because you're worried about how others might perceive it. Expressing what's in your heart, by movements of your body and your soul. Passion (2) is making what you are singing and playing personal, so personal that your are sharing with God at the same time you are playing or singing with others around you.

The culmination of bringing passion, energy, singing/playing and preparation together through you is worshiping in the moment. Those things coming together in a powerful way creates worshiping in the moment. The preparation took the mechanics and process of singing and playing out of the way so energy, passion and worship could fuse together, right now, right here... in a personally authentic way. That's worship in the moment. The multiplier is when others around you have done the same thing and are worshiping in the same way, both personally and as part of that congregational experience. That creates a feedback loop, where the worship of each person builds on and accelerates worship amongst all of us worshiping together.

Together everyone is lifted up even higher. Have you had one of those "wow" worship experiences were you just walked away saying or feeling "wow, that was so powerful", "I felt so moved", or "now, that was what I call worship!" You were worshiping in the moment. It's where worshiping took over from singing and playing, and became about praising, praying and just being in a space that's all about your relationship with God. Most of the time during a worship service, that's what I'm feeling, that's where I'm at. And I hope that's adding to the congregational feedback loop, creating the environment for worshiping in the moment that everyone present can experience. That's what I'm shooting for.

I hope the explanation gives you a new perspective, tools and ideas about achieving a powerful worship experience for yourself and everyone around you -- in the band and in the congregation.

Gear Talk with Lincoln Brewster

My buddy Dave C at church shared this mp3 of Lincoln Brewster talking guitar gear. I don't know where this talk was from but it sounds fairly recent. You undoubtedly know the great tone and playing style of Lincoln and his music. I've also included a YouTube video Lincoln has on his site. Initially I was surprised to learn Lincoln was such a good player -- I had just assumed the player cranking out the tones on his songs were by another lead guitar player, but not so, it's Lincoln.

Listen:

YouTube video from Lincoln's site:

I enjoyed this gear talk and thought it worth sharing with you because, frankly, I agree with a lot of Lincoln's approach to guitar tone. He likes to keep things simple, and I've learned after playing a while that I feel the same way about it. I'd much rather walk in, plug in my one box (my POD) direct into the board, plug in my Strat, connect my mic and in-ears, tune and I'm ready to play.

I'm always working from three basic tones: the Strat and classic Marshall tone, the glassy Strat chimey tone, and that throaty blues tone. The other sounds I use are typically to get a specific kind of sound, such as a U2 or Coldplay echoes setting, or a classic Fender tremolo, or warble horn tone when the tune calls for it.

Lincoln uses a POD and plugs directly into the sound system for both recording and playing live, except in small rooms where he might use an amp on stage to balance out live drums. I mix my POD X3 Live into a stereo Marshal MX stack and Mesa Boogie 50/50 for recording, and direct into the board when playing live. Lincoln does a great job of explaining how the POD isn't an effects box, it's an amp simulator (and a very good one) with additional effects you can layer on top. The POD really does amazing things and I've gotten great complements, and some requests for my patches, from other guitar players and studio guys on my tones. Truth be told I collaborate with my friend Michael Reese, a professional musician friend who lives in Colorado Springs. Michael's who turned me onto PODs and we're always calling each other ready to share our latest patch creation by verbally transcribing patch settings to each other over our cell phones. Lincoln has his POD patches up on his web site if you want to download and check them out.

Why is tone so important? Well, I think that once you reach a certain proficiency in playing guitar (somewhere past intermediate, I suppose), you start to be able to create tone through your playing style and your touch on the guitar. You notice how you play influences the tone you produce. Using your fingers a certain way, or even up stroking with a pick can change your tone significantly. Realizing this started the quest for tone for me anyway. Lincoln has a great way of explaining it. You want the sound coming out of your guitar to inspire you to play. You know how it is when your guitar plays that sound you've been craving for a song. Now it's about what you do with that tone, rather than how to get it.

In a worship setting it means you're inspired by the worship and what you are giving to it through your playing. That doesn't mean you are loud and blowing people away by your amazing face melting licks. I never know how loud I really am because when you're playing with in-ears, it's all up to the guys at the sound board to set your overall level in the mix. When you feel that inspiring tone, your giving that tone to the song, lifting the music to a level that helps it soar and gives it that special music chemistry, whether that be in a slower worshipful song or a faster energizing worship song.

Yes, you can. We've each been equipped to worship.

I received an email of this YouTube video this week about Tony Melendez. I'm always wondering...would that new guitar help me play better, should I get a different amp, maybe different strings would change my tone. But maybe it's not about the equipment, it's about being equipped. Equipped with whatever gifts God's given us, and equipped with a heart for worship.

Enjoy this video about Tony. Now, there's someone who shows what it's like to be equipped for worship.

Guitar Skill or Passion - What's More Important?

I was reading a thread on the Telecaster Forums about the debate of skill vs. passion. It got me thinking about how I might answer that question, or if I could come down on just one side of that debate. At some level, skill and passion go hand-in-hand, one without the other certainly wouldn't serve our goals and worship players and leaders. But lets open this topic up a bit more and see how this shakes out.

Guitar Skills - It's always important isn't it? At a minimum, the ability one has (or a band has) to bring the music together in a way that at least doesn't detract from worship is important. You don't want to play badly enough that participants and listeners are distracted from the message during worship. But our goals are much, much higher than avoiding a bad worship experience.

I look at it this way.  You want at least a little bit more skill than the music you are playing demands. That's the bare minimum. You need that reserve, that extra headroom. And the more headroom, the better. If you aren't there, then it gives you some new goals to work on. If you are at or below the skill your worship music requires, you might pull it of (barely) but some bad stuff could squish out or the overall quality might suffer enough that it brings down the worship experience. Lets explore this concept of headroom as it applies to our guitar playing skills.

Ever notice how many guitar solos on recorded music aren't really that hard or complicated. When you break it down and really listen to what they're doing, it's pretty simple sounding. Maybe they're doing some double stops, octaves, but underneath all that, the playing or solo has some simple concept it's built upon.  Sure, there are face melting solos too, and really amazing tasty stuff, but a lot of really good music isn't that complicated when you actually listen to it and understand what's being played. If you really think about it, what's on the recording isn't at the top of the range of the recording artist. That's because the best always make things look simple. If you tried to record yourself playing the same thing, it might not come out sounding nearly as well done as the recording artist. They've got that headroom, that extra capacity to create something beautiful that brings what's needed to the song, not what's needed to feed their look at me ego. So while the notes might be simple, the tone, the finesse, technique, and quality of what's played really shows the skill and the capacity of the player.

I guess what I'm saying is, get your playing at a level above what your music requires, or simplify the music, or do other music so it gives you and the band that headroom.  Then you have more capacity to produce sweet tones. A simplified version of Lincoln Brewster's All To You glorifies God much more than a botched attempt at sounding like the record. And, work on your skills offline so you are constantly increasing your skills to play current and new music. What challenges you today could be easy to play tomorrow. A friend of mine used to say, "everything's easy when you know how". Well, worship is through playing the guitar is easy when you don't have to think so much about playing it. Now you can concentrate on worshiping.

God deserves our best, our very best, that we can offer him during worship. Our music is our offering to the God, and just as God offered up His very best to the world, and even though our offering far pales in comparison, we must offer up our very best and most authentic worship to Him. That very best doesn't mean barely best, it's what we can do to serve Jesus with our best. Leading a congregation that's is a powerful place of worship is much more of what we are about, than seeing if we can pull off something that could bring down the worship experience.

In my next post on this topic, I'll talk about the passion side of the equation.

Welcome to guitar player for christ

I'm so glad you took time out to check out this site, guitar player for christ. Let me first begin my introducing myself and then I'll share with you a bit about why guitar player for christ is here.

I'm Mitchell Ashley, a guitar player, bass player, song writer and contemporary worship musician. For the last ten years or so I've been playing bass, acoustic and electric guitar (my primary instrument), singing and leading worship as part of God's House Band at Broomfield United Methodist Church in Broomfield, Colorado, where I've also served as the GHB band leader. Recently I was invited to also play lead guitar monthly at Southeast Christian Church (SECC), a larger church in south Denver, Colorado. In 2006 I recorded my first Chrstian music CD, Shelter: River of Souls, with two friends and long time professional musicians, Michael Reese and Tommy Stephenson. I also serve on the board of The Kingdom Project (website under development), a non-profit organization chartered to help Christian song writers get their music recorded and published.

Worship through contemporary Christan music is a ministry I have a passion for and to which I've dedicated myself. I can imagine no greater way to worship God and Jesus Christ than to sing and play music which worships and glories Him. Worship music is ministry for me and one of the primary ways and I can be a servant to the Lord. I've created this website as another way of giving and serving the Lord.

guitar player for christ is a website and blog for contemporary Christian guitar players, bass players, worship leaders, singers, song writers, and musicians who love worshiping Jesus Christ. Our focus is that of the contemporary worship guitar player, though we'll talk about many topics besides guitar-centric topics. Together we'll cover topics like worship planning, playing guitar solo and with a worship band, guitar equipment and tech, favorite artists, new music, playing better as a band, serving our pastors and worship leaders in our churches, and much more.

I hope to share with you my own ideas, insights, information, resources, struggles, prayers, and blessings being a musician serving Christ. I hope you will do the same here through your comments, guest blog posts (contact me if are interested) and being a part of the guitar player for christ community.

I'm glad you decided to share this journey of worshiping God as a Chistrian guitar player with me. I pray the Christ guide and bless your life as you life, worship and serve Him.

Blessings

Mitchell Ashley
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