Other than this year, I spent the first 16 years of my worship leading career playing the acoustic guitar. After all, I grew up in the time when some candles, a couple of stools, an acoustic guitar and a djembe were cutting edge in the worship world. It was all very MTV unplugged, and it was glorious. Worship music certainly had electric guitars in some instances, but they were mostly ancillary to the sweet strumming of the worship leaders sweet dreadnaught. At best, those days in the late 90s and early 2000s had a the token Edge-riff knockoff and a few chorus rakes.
So my beginning, like many leaders I know, consisted of picking up an acoustic guitar, learning G-C-D (and eventually Em), and just singing. I was never a guitarist in a band. I just became the defect worship leader. I have always led, and so I never saw the need for the electric guitar to become my instrument.
Alas, worship music has changed. There are many more songs that require a great deal of electric guitar then they used to. While this does not mean the acoustic guitar is not needed, but unless you have a large band with a few electric guitarists, the electric guitar is becoming a bigger need for a leader to know.
Here are a few tips I learned in the past year of making the switch from acoustic to electric. Keep in mind this is for the novice. If you rock hard on the electric, this may be a bit boring.
The Guitar
I cannot honestly tell you which guitar to buy, or even which style to buy. But as a worship leader, especially one switching from acoustic to electric, the name of the game is rhythm. In most cases, the leader will eventually be best served as the “chorus rake” guy. You see this with lead singers of rock bands often. They sling the guitar over their backs for the verses, only to bring them front to play some big chords during the chorus. Since this is the case, for me, I like a guitar with humbuckers in them. Personally, I like a Les Paul (or a similar style singlecut guitar).
While I will not get too far into the different types of guitars, the two most common are the Fender Stratocaster/Telecaster styles, mostly with single coil pickups (although the Telecasters often have both single coil and humbuckers in it). These guitars are great for lead lines and quick rythms, but due to the bolt on neck, and thinner body, the sustain is often missing and the tone is almost always brighter.
On the other side of the spectrum is the aforementioned Les Paul style guitars. On the whole these guitars are a bit thicker, with a dark tone wood as the body (often mahogany) and brighter tone wood top (most often maple). Combined with the humbucker pickups the result is a dark tone with some clarity brought in by the maple top. Aside from some cheaper models, they usually have a set-in neck that offers a lot of sustain. These guitars, paired with a good tube amp and some decent pedals will be a great sustain chord machine with a lot of snarl on the overdriven effects.
Like I said, it really depends on the player, and your preference, but for me, long chorus rakes with some sweet overdriven grit is my jam. There are certainly other guitar styles out there, but as I said these are the two styles that many are built on.
Do yourself a favor and do some research and get a decent guitar within your budget. I had a tough time on a tight budget finding a good sounding guitar, but it can be done. Go play some and find the style and the one you like.
The Amplifier
Apart from the pickup style in a guitar, the amp has the most impact on your sound. Again, there are different types of amps in a wide spectrum of prices. If you are on a seriously low budget, then a solid state amplifier is about all you can afford. While these amps often offer built-in effects, they fall way short in sound. For a great sound, the way to go is the venerable tube amp. These amps provide open, warm, and rich sounds that, with the gain turned up a bit, gives the guitar the signature breakup most guitarists desire.
From mass produced to boutique hand-wired, tube amps can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars. They also come in different sizes and wattages. Essentially, for the worship setting, a small amp with a mic in front is going to be more than enough. If you need a bigger setup for your church, then you probably already know more than I am writing in this article.
A small 7-30 watt tube amp with a 10-12 inch cabinet (speaker) is sufficient. Also, since many churches are trying desperately to minimize stage noise, a smaller wattage amp will break up at lower volumes. The results can be a great sounding amp at low enough volumes to have little or no stage bleed. Like the guitars above, different amps will have different sound profiles. Again, go play some and find the one you like.
Pedals
The final (main) ingredient in the electric guitar setup are the pedals. Unlike the average acoustic guitar which often goes directly into the amp or sound system, the electric often gets manipulated with the use of effects pedals. Like the amps already mentioned these come in different varieties. While pedals are more varied than amps, they again fall into two main categories.
The first is the combination effects pedals, and the second are individual effects pedals. The combination effects essentially are digital effects crammed into a compact board. These effects are often digital representations of famous sounds within the music industry. While this is a great option for a beginner, or again for the budget minded, the sounds produced are almost always inferior to those one can coax out of individual pedals.
The individual pedals, as you may expect often specialize in one sound, and this often gives them the ability to make that one sound great. For the worship leader, the first effect necessary is the overdrive. Having an overdrive pedals allows the leader to go from a clean to distorted sound at the stomp of a foot. Without this, there is really no need to play electric guitar. This is far and away the most necessary pedal. From here, a volume pedal becomes a necessity, followed by reverb, and delay.
If you can manage these four pedals and a tuner, your rig will get you through almost all that you need as an electric playing worship leader. You may be wanting as a lead guitarist, but for the use of those, like me, who play during the chorus and such, this will get you through, especially at the beginning. This is the basic setup I was given when I first started and that advice was invaluable as I began my journey.
As I said, these are the basics, and everyone has their own flavor and opinions. As you learn, there are other things to consider when dealing with electric guitars. You will eventually need to consider everything down to the cable length, position of the pedals within the chain, whether you need a true-bypass pedal and more. But when beginning there are some basics to know in order to produce a decent sound.
My opinion is this: If all you can afford is a student guitar, solid-state amp, and a combination pedal, and there is nothing wrong with that, understand you will not reproduce the sound coming from your favorite worship record. With a little research you can upgrade to the right guitar (even a budget one), a tube amp, and some value-priced but great-sounding pedals, which will provide a huge upgrade in sound.
The transition may seem daunting, but the end goal may be worth it. For many of us, making the switch from acoustic guitar to electric opens a much needed door of creativity and sonic possibility, as well as allows us a greater breadth of music to reproduce in our individual worship settings.
2 Comments
Would you mind sharing your list gears? Thanks.
where you have the word “defect” band leader, I think you wanted “de facto”