You are obviously aware of one of the constant streams of criticism leveled against Christiam worship music: it all sounds the same!  I have to admit, at times I really agree with this critique, and I think that it is important for the modern worship leader to appreciate the validity of this claim.

Part of the reason that many worship songs sound so similar to one another is that worship songs have to be singable, so they can’t contain bizarre melodies and strange chordal shifts.  What can we do about that?  Sadly, not much.  People can only sing what they can sing, and it would be wrong to willfully toss aside their skills in favor of new experimental sounds.

There is something that each of us as guitarists could do to add variety to our worship songs though.  Part of the reason that worship music sounds so similar is that nearly every song, regardless of key signature, are played using the same chord shapes.  We’ve discovered that the valuable little capo will allow us to play every song using the chord shapes for the key of G (or maybe D, if we’re feeling adventurous!).  If a song is in the key of A, we slap the capo on the second fret and play just as if we are jamming along in the key of G.  It’s no wonder that all of our songs seem to drone around the same chord structures; in essence, they do!

So, here’s my admonishment to all of you worship leaders out there.  Try playing the song in the key in which is was written!  Now, some keys (like Bb) are nearly impossible to play in with any beauty on the guitar, but keys like A and E sound great played in first position, and by using these first position chord voicings, I think that you’ll find a variety in your music that you’d been previously missing!

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