Quote:
Originally Posted by Trimmed&Burnin
I am the only electric guitar player on our team and often play with two other acoustic guitarists. Niether are very accomplished, have cheap sounding guitars, and generaly play the same positions slightly out of "phase" with each other. Sometimes we have a violinist that plays the melody line about a quarter flat through every song,, non-stop,,,   . We have two drummers that share the duties and two bass players, one of whom is loosing the use of his hands because of M.S. Sometimes I sit in on bass. We have a wonderful key board player that plays on our Baby Grand, when she's there we share the lead instrument roles and work really well together. When she's not there I am the lead instrument.
There are four of us that rotate leading worship, When I lead I still play my Belly Boy Tele but there is no lead guitar work,, I just shape the songs and tempo, staying on the neck position playing as if it were an acoustic guitar. I will sometimes use a little Tremolo and reverb as accents in certian songs. When I am the lead instrument I try to stay out of the way using short and I hope subtile phrasing with the occasional finger style or slide solo, and I keep that short. Sometimes it's not what you're playing on an electric guitar in this setting but what you're not playing that works the best.
Playing with other people is like making a pot of savory sauce,,, hopefully,,,sometimes it like a pot of kitchen sink soup,,, it's got everything but the kitchen sink in it. Find the tastiest licks and phrases that you know, seek out more of them, and use them to enhance the sauce wthout bringing to much attention to yourself as that can disrupt the flow of worship. |
Are you sure we don't go to the same church?
Yup, cheap sounding guitars sounds familiar. The violinist that plays melody all the time non-stop. For years I've been playing lead in our church. It's very similar to yours. Most of the time it's me and the keyboard player that are able to communicate better and follow each others playing.
I stepped aside at the time being because the team has grown and it's probably time to hand over the ministry to the younger generation. Besides, I'm more concentrating on playing solo jazz guitar and thinking of transcribing some songs to jazz instrumentals.
Anyway, I didn't get the chance much to play with another electric guitarist. I would have wanted to. If you want to find out how more than electric guitars work, just listen and watch Hillsong DVDs. They have around at least 4 electric guitarist. I think what they do is play riffs & licks. Since the their music coordinator is a guitarist (watch some instructions on youtube), guitar parts are dominant and their music nowadays.