I believe everyone can experience ‘no fear’ performing, especially if it’s playing worship music! Here are some specific tips to conquer performance anxiety or stage fright.

Tips On Overcoming Performance Anxiety

1. Practice your music. It’s easier to play in front of people when you are prepared. When you practice, always pray first. God can help you learn the instrument quicker and it’s much more fun to be focused on Him in anything we do!
2. Choose songs that are easy. Pick the songs that you play the best. If there is a song that you have trouble playing at home, you will also have problems playing it in public. Choose songs that you are very comfortable playing.
3. Don’t stop or make a face when you make a mistake. That only amplifies the mistake. Most people don’t even notice if you’ve played a wrong chord, unless you show it in your facial expressions. One of the reasons people have performance anxiety is the fear of making mistakes. Mistakes are OK... just keep playing.
4. Smile and enjoy the people. When you start and end a song, it’s always nice to connect with the audience. Just eye contact and a smile is enough.
5. Know that you are wonderfully and fearfully made! Often people are thinking about what others will think of them or that they are not good enough. You never need to worry about what others think of you because the God who made you has already made you unique in all the universe. There is no one else in the universe with your specific gifts and talents! 

For specifically playing and leading worship, remember the focus is not on you at all, but it’s all about worshipping and focusing on our Amazing God. I would add one more step before playing the music. That would be another prayer asking God to help you and everyone there to truly worship and focus on Him.

Also, play for others often. There is an old saying “Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.” Jesus often told His disciple to ‘Fear not.” As a Christian, the power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you and you can certainly do all things in Him! Amen!

Have posted some Free Christian guitar lessons on a new streaming video platform at WorshipGuitarClass.com/streaming-videos/. If you would like to signup for the Free Lessons or see what's included in the videos go to the Registration for Free Video Guitar Lessons here.

The goal is to eventually get all of the Worship Guitar Class lessons in this format. Will the videos play on an iPad you ask? YES... they do. I've checked them on both iPads and iPhones and they play beautifully. Most of the lessons will continue to be available on DVD's, but the market is definitely shifting to videos that are viewable as streaming videos on tablets, smart phones and computers.

Do you have a question? Email us, or leave it in the comments below this video and I'll try to answer those that may be helpful for others too. Here's a short video with a question from Del and Bonnie.

Del wanted to know how to figure out the key of a song that has already started. I suggest making sure the instruments lead out so the songs will be in the same key as the music. If that isn't possible, then ear training and knowing guitar music theory will definitely help.

He is also asking about playing without looking at the sheet music. That happens when you 'own' a song... when you've played it so much you no longer need the music. Again, knowing guitar music theory will be helpful here too since you'll actually understand the relationship of the chords to the song.

Bonnie wanted to know about transposing songs... Anyone can learn how to transpose songs, but in the short term I suggest asking the pianist for the chords she might modulate to just to have them written out on your music.

Ear training is a good idea for help with recognizing chords. The Hear Harmony CD's could be a helpful place to start.

What questions do you have about playing the guitar?

It's simple to enter our weekly Facebook Giveaway. We are giving away a free copy of the new 'Easy Christmas Songs For Guitar' every Friday until Christmas 2012. To enter the giveaway just:

Like our Fan Page at Facebook.com/worshipguitarclass

Then either leave a comment or like a comment

Winner will be announced on Facebook every Friday until Christmas

The giveaway ends the Friday before Christmas.

Left Hand Guitar Exercise 1

Place all four fingers of your left hand on the first four frets of the the first string. Lift the four fingers and hop to the 2nd string first four frets all at once. Try to land squarely on the string for each finger. This is a hoping exercise to each of the strings. If you watch the video, it can help you get into a good left hand position. 

Left Hand Guitar Exercise 2 - The Spider

The second left hand guitar exercise is called the spider. Try this exercise in the third position. The third position is when you are playing the notes on the 3rd fret with your first finger. Play the first finger on the 1st string, 3rd fret, then play the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers on the 2nd string at the 4th, 5th, and 6th frets. Like the left hand guitar exercise #1 this is a hoping exercise of sorts.

Instead of moving all of the fingers at once, you move the first finger to the 3rd string, 3rd fret, then move the other three up to the 4th string, as a unit. Next the first finger touches the 5th string, 3rd fret and the three fingers go up to the 6th string. You come down on the same strings going up. The spider exercise is played 2 more times with a different finger starting on the 1sr string.

The second time lead out with the 2nd finger on the 1sr string, 4th fret, then the 1st, 3rd and 4th fingers play on the 2nd string at the 3rd, 5th, and 6th fret. Watching the video above should make it easier to understand. Hope you enjoy these little exercises.

One of the Worship Guitar Class students recently asked how to get a clear sound when holding down guitar chords. I decided to make a video for everyone about guitar nails and what's a good length for guitar fingernails. If your guitar nails are too long, it's near impossible to get a clear clean chord.

On the hand that holds down chords, your fingernails should be very short. Only the pads of your fingers should be touching the strings. You want to come directly down on the strings so no other string is damped.

The guitar nails of the hand plucking the strings are best, in my opinion, when they are quite short. Watch the short video below for closeup shots of my favorite lengths for guitar nails. You can hear the difference when tapping your fingers on an object, like the music stand in the video. You should not hear the  nail sound on the hand that holds down strings.

Big Screen Video Of The Guitar Nails

To see a super large picture, you can click the expand button on the bottom right corner and this video about guitar nails will fill the screen. It's located between the 'HD' and 'vimeo' at the bottom of the video. I hope this video will help those of you who may be having problems getting a clean sound. Let me know if this was helpful.

(For learning worship songs, try our Worship Guitar Class video lessons.)

I'm sure there are many ways good worship set ideas. This is one I learned at a worship conference that works very well in helping people to worship our wonderful creator God. It's good to start with 'call to worship' songs. Some good songs are 'Come Let Us Worship' or 'Come, Now Is The Time To Worship'.

In the Lord's prayer, it begins by focusing on the facts that God is our Father and He is Holy. Start with songs that talk of God's attributes and greatness. Songs like 'Indescribable' or 'Great Is Thy Faithfulness' are good songs to use.

My preference, and what they also taught us in the conference, is to start with faster tempo songs, then end the set with slower more intimate songs. A fast song could be something like 'Today Is The Day'. Slower songs to end a set could be songs like 'Above All', 'Calling Out To You' or 'How Great Thou Art'. One of my all time favorite songs to end a set is 'I Love You Lord.'

To break it down... here are good worship set ideas:

• Call To Worship Songs and Songs Of God's Greatness in quicker more energetic tempos.
• Slower more intimate and personal worship songs.

What are some of your favorite worship set ideas or favorite worship songs?

Want to learn to play guitar? Once you know how, it's really quite easy to play. I just had a fun phone conversation with a woman who picked up one of our Worship Guitar Class DVD's. She was surprised how much fun it was to learn to play the guitar.

Her original intent wasto get guitar lessons for her kids, but instead she decided that it was also going to be fun for her to learn to play worship songs.

How to learn to play guitar is easiest with help. I like to begin new students with an understanding of the parts of the guitar, how to hold it, and then move into guitar chords. It's easier to concentrate on changing chords first and then adding different strumming and finger picking patterns after you can change several of the chords.

I also think it's more fun to start playing songs from the beginning. As an example, you can watch the first lesson free of our Christian Guitar Lessons. Learning to play the guitar can be the beginning of a lifetime of musical development and fun. We have lots of free videos for your to learn from and our newsletters should be helpful for you too!

The psalms were originally songs sung by writers like King David. Using music to convey the truths in the Bible is a great place to get ideas for the lyrics. If you look at our most popular worship songs, they are based on God's truths. 'How Great Thou Art' is a beautiful illustration of this. Although the song was written in an earlier century, the song is still sung today and loved in many cultures.

You can put whole sections of the Bible to music or get take some ideas and create a song around specific concepts. A while back I wrote a little song on Jeremiah 9:23-24. That verse talks about not boasting about ourselves, but boasting about our relationship with our God who exhibits lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth.

There are simple chord patterns that work well with most songs called the I, IV and V chords. You can see these in the 'Common Chord Charts' that are free with our newsletters and it's also taught in Volume Two of the Worship Guitar Class lessons. Here's the little song I wrote:

If you would like the music... just request it from the form below.

A common technique used to write songs is with using walking bass notes. It's a style of writing music for literally hundreds of years. I think of the very famous Pachelbel's Canon in D that dates back to the Baroque period in the 1700's. Pachelbel uses a repeating descending bass line throughout the piece.

'As A Deer' is a well known worship song that uses a descending bass line in much of the song. There are several ways to write and make song arrangements. In the video below you can learn the walking bass notes for a number of different keys. I've filmed a 6 minute lesson for you. This is also in one of the Video Newsletters but I thought it might be easier to find on the website to have the lesson stand on it's own, too. The video shows some walking bass notes in major keys, but it also works for minor keys.

If you would like to learn and apply many ways to write songs, you might enjoy our Guitar Music Theory course. I hope you enjoy the lesson.

The Walking Bass Note Video

Guitar Practice Tips

With a new year people often make new goals or New Year's resolutions. Maybe you have made one around becoming a better musician this year. Here are a few guitar practice tips to help.

1. Pray First
In Scripture it says to pray without ceasing. We can, and should pray about all the details of our lives. Why not ask Him for help in playing music and in keeping focused on Him.

2. Have A Goal

It's a good idea to have a goal. Do you want to learn a specific song, learn more chords, or play with quicker chord changes? It's easier to accomplish a goal if you have one. Do you want to become a more skilled worship leader? 

More Guitar Practice Tips

3. Warm up
If you've ever been at a health club a trainer usually tells you to spend the first 5 minutes warming up. This isn't a bad idea for musicians, too. There is a reason that professional musicians play scales and exercises. Any player can benefit by focusing on their technique.

A choir director warms up the voices in their choir and you can warm up by working on some chord changes or by playing guitar scales or exercises. If you are using our Christian Guitar Lessons you can also just follow the practice sessions. This is one of the guitar practice tips you shouldn't skip.

4. Isolate Sections
Instead of just playing through songs and solos... isolate the sections that are difficult for you. It may be just changing back and forth between two chords. Play it smaller sections and then play the whole song.

5. Be Consistent
Try to play your guitar every day. Even playing for 5 minutes is better than not at all. Especially when you are worshipping with great worship songs you will find this time refreshing and well worth the time.

6. Play for others
Every gift God has given us is for the benefit of others. A marvelous thing can happen with worship music. When you are worshipping God with your music, other people can experience His presence too! Plus, playing for others also gives you an aditional incentive for becoming a better musician.

Other specific things that can help includes having no nails on your left hand, for holding down chords, and remembering to relax between each chord or note.

We have a good Christian Guitar Lessons program that can be an excellent Christmas gift. And for easy song this Christmas, we are still adding to the Easy Christmas Songs For Guitar program.

In the video above a couple of the items, like the quilted place-mats, were gifts I received this year. What are some fun gift giving ideas that you have?

Would you like to learn easy to play Christmas songs for the guitar? I've asked on my Facebook page and learned that Terry, Christy, and Chris love 'O Holy Night'. Tammy and Ryan liked 'Do you hear what I hear' and 'Little drummer boy'. Chalmers suggested 'Angels We Have Heard' and I know that Christy also loves 'Mary Did You Know'. Am planning on including all of these songs plus 'It Came Upon A Midnight Clear'.

Here is the first song and excerpts of the songs already posted at the website.

Five of the songs are finished and more are coming. Since it is so close I've already posted them at the streaming video website. If you would like to get the lessons, the page is here Easy Christmas Songs For Guitar.

For the music of 'Silent Night' free, just request it from the form below.

What other songs would you like to see included? Just leave your comments below... or at Facebook.

I remember well how difficult it was to originally change to any guitar chord. In particular the 'C' chord tends to be a little tricky for new guitarists. With a bit of practice, the chords do get easier to play.

Daniel's question included help in how to transition quickly between chords. He took the recent Worship Guitar Class Newsletter Survey. Here are some tips that should help any guitar player in changing chords quickly.

Changing Chords Quickly Tips

1. Put down the bass finger first. For example, for a 'C' chord the root note is 'C'. It's better to work on placing the 3rd finger down first so you can play the bass of the chord and still have a second to get the rest of the chord down. Eventually try to place all of your fingers down at the same time.
2. Think ahead to the next chord. Think about where your fingers are moving before they actually move. This is especially true for shifts in position on the guitar. Look to the frets you are moving too before you actually shift your fingers. If there is a shift from the first position to the 7th position, your eyes should be on the 7th fret before beginning to move your fingers from the first fret.
3. Don't play with excess tension. It's much easier to move quickly when your hands are not tense. Check the fingers that you are not using to make sure they are not holding tension. It's also helpful to relax your shoulders and face which can help to relax your hands.
4. Isolate the harder chords and work on them separately. If there is a chord progression that is not coming quickly, isolate it. Play the progression extremely slowly, then little by little speed it up. You may want to play the chord progression 20, 40 or even 100 times.
5. Break it into smaller units. If it's a chord that is awkward for you to play, break it down and change to just a few of the fingers first. When that is comfortable try changing to the full chord. I show this technique in the Worship Guitar Class volume one DVD with the change from 'D' to 'G'.
6. Practice. Learning to play the guitar does take practice. Playing worship songs on the guitar is a double blessing because you can be worshiping and playing the guitar too.
7. Pray. As a Christian, we have access to the Creator of the universe and have the opportunity to request help in all of our endeavors.

God's richest blessings over your desires to learn how to play the guitar and your desires to use it for Him! With time, and His help, you should be changing chords quickly soon.

Basically, it's how you are holding the guitar. when your wrist is too bend it causes wrist pain. If you change how you are holding the guitar, it can make a significant difference regarding any pain in your hands.

Besides the wrist pain, a few people also asked for help in improving their singing voices. You can find some tips for improving your singing in the video,in addition to help for the guitar wrist pain.

For the record, you should not be experiencing any unusual pain when playing the guitar. It is common for the tips of your fingers to be a bit sore when first starting to play the guitar, but you should not have wrist or hand pain while playing. That means there is something wrong with your technique.

Guitar Wrist Pain And Other Questions - Video Newsletter

Watch the 6 minute video below to get ideas of how to eliminate guitar wrist pain. If you have not taken the survey yet, you can find it here. If one person has a question there are pretty good odds that others may have the same questions, too

These days I've been using an ErgoPlay Guitar Support.

If you would like to see the vocal mask blog post mentioned in the video, the Vocal Mask blog video is here.

This is where you can find the Vocal Warmup CD mentioned in the video. As mentioned in the video above, it's a great idea to warm up your voice before singing. This is especially true for Sunday Morning worship leaders. It takes a while for your voice to 'wake up' in the morning and vocalizing on the way to church is a great way to start the morning.

The exercises in the CD are excellent material for choirs to use too. In fact, the creator of the vocal warmup CD is a choir director and is quite accustomed to helping people get their voices in shape to sing.

And here is where to find the 'How Great Thou Art' arrangements.  

Guitar Wrist Pain

What other topics would you like to see covered in the Newsletters? I hope you don't have guitar wrist pain too, but if you do taking the simple steps outlined in the video should help.