How fun is it to play guitar? To express yourself through your instrument and to see people respond. It’s beautiful. But what about when you join a worship team . What’s your role on a worship team? What is expected of you from your team? From your leaders? Now you might say, perfection, don’t mess up, etc., but today I want to talk about joining a team as a guitar player.
What are you to do?
Sure, I love to rock out and toss in some super cool leads and solos because, well, they’re cool! But if I sound so disconnected from my team, I’m in the wrong. That’ll help you earn a bad rep with you team and might not be wanted for future projects.
The biggest struggle you will probably have as a guitar player joining a team or playing with someone new is feeling like you are being contained. You have this cool idea but your leader said no. You tried something different that your team didn’t approve or understand. What needs to be earned before you can experiment live is: TRUST.
Sometimes I lead worship teams for events. One thing I make sure of my musicians is that I can trust them. One form of trust is to have history with a musician. That’s easy. So now we have someone coming in who is new. I’ll check out what they are capable of, how well they can execute parts and keep time and if are able to help me produce the sound that I would want the team to project. After a worship service and I felt good having them on the team and we were able to get our ministering across smoothly, then they earned some of my trust. After a few more sessions, they are allowed to experiment more and more and my trust in them develops more and more.
This is from a worship leader’s perspective, but this is also the same way that I learned how to gain my worship leader’s trust. Little by little. They have to get to know you as a musician. Be humble, you’ll get there. It might be longer or quicker than you think, it all depends on your leaders. That’s okay, serve and do your best to give a great impression. With hard work, dedication, and a relationship with Christ, you will get there.
I hope this has blessed you and would love to hear stories here, or on Instagram or Twitter @anhonestsound!
TIP: Come in with your guitar clean. Your clean tone or a light overdrive. Hold the fuzz and heavy metal crunch. Also, light effects as well. That could come in a later for certain parts. Let them hear YOU.
-AO
anhonestsound.com 