Guitar for Worship

Shine Bright Like a Diamond…Just Listen to the Rhythm of My Heart

Karl — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:49:00 +0000

So last night I played guitar at a church that shall remain nameless, and we were opening up with a worship set prior to the good old time-tested and deacon-board semi-approved “Christianity Vs. Atheism” debate where we had invited atheists to come debate the existence of God. These types of debates historically have resulted in no bad blood whatsoever, and peaceful harmonious outcomes whereby the love of God is poured out upon the atheists and they immediately renounce their disbelief and become good militant Bible-loving Christians due to our incessant laughing and belittling of everything they have to say. Win-win for everyone.

Except this night, we were taking it a step further. We weren’t just going to worship God with the music. We were also going to play a Rihanna song. For some reason. A reason I did not understand. So I asked the simple question, “Why?”

“Well it’s not a sin!”

To which I responded, “Fair enough. But…why?”

“So that the atheists feel more comfortable.”

To which I responded, “I think it’s more than the lack of crappy Rihanna covers played by us 5 weekend warrior volunteer musicians with skin tight Ramones t-shirts on that is making them feel uncomfortable.”

“Would you feel differently if there were more guitar parts for you in the song?”

That last part was said seriously. Not jokingly, not even meanly. The pastoral leadership truly believed that the only reason I didn’t think the key to cracking the souls of the atheists was a bad Rihanna cover, was that I believed there to be a distinct lack of guitar parts in said bad Rihanna cover. (Which there was, but that’s beside the point.) But they said it so seriously, that I started to think about it. And think I did. And once I repented with tears and sackcloth of my wicked ways of protesting against playing Rihanna in the church worship set, I realized the pastors were correct. And so I played the solo to The Darkness’ I Believe in a Thing Called Love on repeat over the entirety of Rihanna’s Diamonds. And many souls were won that night.

Guitar!!

Splendid.
Karl.

P.S. In other notes, I ripped my boot cut jeans and have to use some of the $300 I was saving for a Klon to get new ones. Oh well. Hopefully the economy bounces back after this whole Occupy Wall Street thing is succesful.

Back to WordPress…

Karl — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:57:00 +0000

Sorry to come back so quickly, but guitarforworship.com just wasn’t for me. It’s like I could see the future laid out in front of me: I’d become even more of a snob, we’d all contribute a small part to the church going all in on tone and performance and production, so much so that they’d lose their entire identity and just become the fundraising arm for a new political party run by that weird dude from the 80’s from Celebrity Apprentice (weird, right?), that cool little company Damage Control would change into this out of control new boutique company that literally every guitarist in the world would have on their pedalboards and we’d all sound the same, I’d start offering my ambient pads online and the idea would take off and a bunch of other companies would start selling theirs (and sometimes mine) and we’d lose all imagination and uniqueness in worship music and become one big giant ambient mess in the key of nothing, blogging would become completely obsolete and in its place everyone would be recording cringey 15-second videos of themselves doing bad SNL skits, and the weirdest of all…U2 would partner with Apple and force their songs onto all of our iPhones and overnight go from the biggest band in the world to the most hated band in the world.

Well we can’t have any of that, can we? So I just threw in the towel and came back here. So how was everyone’s night?

Splendid.
Karl.

Over to Guitar For Worship dot com, Ladies & Gents

Karl — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:42:11 +0000

Same site, new place. With letters that glow.

Guitar for Worship dot com

Everything is moved over…all comments, archives, posts, even typos. hehe Wayne’s World. Party Time. Excellent. And as is my custom, I just can’t get excited to move blog hosts without a picture of Jack, mirroring my excitement by showing how incredibly excited he is to have a picture of his own face:

Splendid.
Karl.

Experiment & Damage Control Timeline Telethon

Karl — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:48:04 +0000

Telethon for the now discontinued Damage Control Timeline.

But it’s over at guitarforworship.com

Here’s the deal. I’m not one to mince words, so the honest truth is…finances are a struggle right now. And since this blog does receive a fair amount of traffic (mostly from google searches for Vin Diesel pictures…sad, I know), a little extra income from advertisements wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. hehe But since, wordpress.com doesn’t allow advertisements, I’m experimenting with my own domain name. That’s the honest truth. And if people hate the new site, we’ll just move back here. But don’t hate it yet! Me and my technologically challenged self still have a lot of work to do over there. I just want to try it out first to see if it’ll even be worth the effort. Thanks for your patience.

So, for a while, all new posts will be at:

guitarforworship.com

Splendid.
Karl.

A Collection of…Well…Something I Collected

Karl — Sun, 09 May 2010 06:06:53 +0000

This post and its comments have been moved to the way more awesome guitarforworship.com website. Click here to read this post.

Splendid.
Karl.

None of these have to really do with anything, or are even remotely connected to each other in any way that might hint at an at least slightly coherent post. These are because I was like, ‘I love music. Music is awesome. I’d like to post some rad songs on the blog tonight.’ And then I did. Because music is awesome. And because I cannot remember life before youtube.

First up is the improved version of scary Kevin Bacon in one of the most awkward scenes in movie history. Gotta love a little New Zealand parody’ing (slash respectful homage…so I don’t get things thrown at me through the internet):

Hey, at least Kevin Bacon can make fun of himself:

And then I found this, and started to re-think my entire rig:

Which led me to this, which caused me to re-think even attempting to think of myself as a musician:

Now this is just plain sad how warm it makes me feel inside to see the same look on Edge’s face that I’ve had at least a dozen times…just this year…and then he doesn’t cleanly hit the anti-solo…which sadly, makes me feel even warmer. Yikes, imagine if over 4,000 people had watched a bootleg video of you messing up:

And lastly, I’m absolutely positive you’ve seen this, but just in case. It would be a crime to come to the end of your life without watching this:

And I promise, real posts are coming soon. Thank you all for your prayers. Like, for reals. And I did actually record new Timeline videos demonstrating how to program them with the Rocktron Midi Mate…the day Damage Control announces that they have been discontinued. lol But here’s hoping for the Damage Control Timeline 2. ;) And no…I never have dreams of going on to Britain’s for talent with my rig, and hitting one swell that changes my life forever. And by ‘never’, I mean ‘at least not every night.’ Gotta save some room for dreams of me and Bono trying to avoid Sting at the zoo, and me and Edge playing the U2 360 Tour in African skirts because Bono wanted to make a statement. And then I had to sit to play my Explorer, because the blasted skirt kept falling off. Very un-rockstar-ish. Stupid Bono.

Splendid.
Karl.

DR Strings Review

Karl — Thu, 06 May 2010 02:21:07 +0000

This post and its comments have been moved to the way more awesome guitarforworship.com website. Click here to read this post.

Splendid.
Karl.

Yes.

Splendid.
Karl.

Leading Worship

Karl — Mon, 03 May 2010 06:52:09 +0000

This post and its comments have been moved to the way more awesome guitarforworship.com website. Click here to read this post.

Splendid.
Karl.

These are some of the most beneficial things I have found for leading worship. And this is normally the part where I would try to inject some type of humour, but I’ve seriously got nothing tonight. Edge. Bono. Delay. Tone. Tubes. There ya go.
Always help your drummer load in at least one piece of equipment.
Learn your sound system…or at least how to plug in a direct box.
When services run long, be the first to suggest that your ministry be the one to cut back a few minutes. (Meaning, just don’t build back into the ‘epic’ end of ‘Saviour King’ for a fifth time.)
Don’t sing lead vocals on every song, every week.
Only mention mistakes to your team when you hear them a second time; giving people a change to recognize and correct their own mistakes goes a long way. And let’s face it…when you played that G chord in the 1st and 2nd frets instead of the 2nd and 3rd frets? You knew it. You didn’t need anyone to stop the song and point it out.
Get off the stage and let your team go for it every once in a while.
If a monitor’s not working, be the first to get up and make an effort towards fixing it…even if you have no idea where to start.
Arrive before your team, and leave after.
Say thanks.
And lastly, remember that you’re probably not the best worship leader even within your own church.
All this can be summed up with simply this: lead by example. I think sometimes we’re so busy trying to lead people, that we don’t have time to even be the Christ-like example to which we’re trying to lead them. And I’ve had this post in my head for so long; but I’ve hesitated to write it down, because I am so bad at doing this stuff, and so bad at being an example. But it kind of hit me this past week that when Jesus could have been going out landing lucrative guest speaker gigs, he was instead washing people’s feet. And maybe that’s the reason people listened to Him.
And even now, I don’t really want to hit ‘Publish’, because then I have to live by this stuff. Blast. Splendid.
Karl.

Tone Tip #243

Karl — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:09:36 +0000

This post and its comments have been moved to the way more awesome guitarforworship.com website. Click here to read this post.

Splendid.
Karl.

I thought my tone could probably be a little bit woodier and a little bit washier, so I bought these:

And I know, that looks like a picture I just pulled off the internet to use as a cheesey punchline. Except that it’s true. I did buy those, and I can’t look you straight in the eye and say that it wasn’t because of the wood-paneling and the indie wave.

I also plugged it in, watched it light up, and took a picture of it……before plugging my guitar into it. But seriously…how can that not sound good? Oh, and the tap tempo pedal has a little blue led that lights up every time you tap a tempo. Not trying to contain my joy even a little.

Splendid.
Karl.

Does it Still Pump Your Heart?

Karl — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:42:55 +0000

This post and its comments have been moved to the way more awesome guitarforworship.com website. Click here to read this post.

Splendid.
Karl.

There is nothing like cranking your amp, hitting it with a germanium fuzz, and throwing some delay on for good measure. I did this a couple nights ago, and my blood literally started to rush through my body. Like, real adrenaline. If it’s not still pumping your heart, then there’s something wrong.

Of course, once service started, I had to turn back down. But there’s something therapeutic about soundwaves beating your heart for you, for even just a few seconds. And I’ve needed that this week. I apologize, as this is the longest I’ve ever been away from the blog. I literally have not had time to even check back in here. I don’t think I’ve ever asked for this publicly, but if you happen to remember throughout the day, if you could throw up a prayer for me, I wouldn’t be against it. ;) My sincerest apologies for not being around, but I hope to be back pumping my heart with tone, and your ears with U2 and delay propaganda, very soon.

Thanks.
Karl.

And because you just can’t not smile when you hear this song (and yes, Tony Levin is wearing knee pads…as he skips):

hehe You’re smiling right now. I know. Can’t help it. Even here:

Confusion

Karl — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 01:02:52 +0000

This post and its comments have been moved to the way more awesome guitarforworship.com website. Click here to read this post.

Splendid.
Karl.

Something has gone wrong.

And my lack of computer skills is not necessarily an asset in this particular situation.

Okay, okay. In any situation.

Do I say ‘Splendid’? This isn’t really a post.
Karl.

EDIT: Whoa! I actually fixed it! My computer theory still holds true: click random things until it gets better. 60% of the time, it works every time.