5 Tips for Using an Electric Guitar to Lead Worship
Eric Roberts

For about 2 years I have been leading worship from the ELECTRIC guitar! Certainly a challenge and something that has taken a long time to get the hang of during a worship service. Here are my top 5 tips for getting started with it.

Tip #1
If you are new at the approach of leading worship from electric guitar, be sure to have a strong acoustic player in the band with you and get the right gear. Click here for Eric’s top 5 tips for electric guitar worship leading!

Tip #2
Get the right guitar. Make sure it stays in tune. Make sure it is a good quality and can produce the right tone for worship. I use a Fender Mexican Strat with 3 single coil pickups.

Tip #3
Get the right tone…. This is huge and you can work for years tweeking it so be patient and be diligent. I currently use the Pod Live X3 Pedal. Very versatile though sometimes hard to set up.

Tip #4
Get the right monitor system. I found that stereo floor wedges worked great for this. I sent my electric through one and the other guitar player through the other. This gave great separation and allowed me to really hear what was going on. I play with a band with 2 electric guitars so this is really important. I love the Aviom system…. it is the best thing that has ever happened to me concerning sound system technology…. more about that later.

Tip #5
Once you are all set up and ready to play the electric guitar for worship, be sure you don’t melt anyones face off (except for maybe yours). Work with the band, your tones, your sound team to get the best blend for your instrument in the worship setting. You are going to have to change the way you strum, pick and overall how you play the guitar to make this work.

I switched to electric in the beginning because many of the players at my church were unable to play the lead parts and my background as a lead guitar player for my previous bands gave me the edge for playing the new electric parts.

The above article, “5 Tips for Using an Electric Guitar to Lead Worship” was written by Eric Roberts. The article was excerpted from www.8cordsonline.wordpress.com October 2017.

The material is copyrighted and should not be reprinted under any other name or author. However, this material may be freely used for personal study or research purposes.

This article may not be written by an Apostolic author, but it contains many excellent principles and concepts that can be adapted to most churches. As the old saying goes, “Eat the meat. Throw away the bones.”