If you are leading worship with guitar, be sure to have a capo and learn how to use it! When I was younger and learning how to play guitar, I never used a capo. I always used the moveable shapes of chords like Eb and C#m. Once I began performing and leading worship I found that the capo enabled me to be more free and put my brain power toward the things that really matter. When I transpose the song to a simple key like G or D and use the capo, several great things happen:
- I can play the song with simple chords without ever looking at the fretboard.
- I can focus on leading the people and the band instead of playing the barre form chords.
- The modern worship songs are much easier to play and sound better with the open chord forms.
I could play every worship song in the key of Eb and use barre chords for the whole worship set, BUT it is not necessary and it is much harder to do. You see, even though I CAN play the barre chords I choose to transpose to an easier key and play the open chord forms.
Plus, when you get comfortable with the simple chords in G and D that I teach in my 8chords program, you can play any song in any key and it sounds modern and amazing. Just a few minutes of preparation on the chord chart can save you brain power and help you succeed. It is my opinion that all beginner and intermediate worship leader guitar players should always use the simple chord forms and a capo!
If you are paying attention, you will see that Tomlin, Baloche and every professional worship leader and artist that I have ever seen has used a capo instead of playing the harder moveable chord forms. Even superstar acts like Taylor Swift will always use a capo and the simple G C and D forms that I teach in the 8chords program.
So, start using the simple chord forms and put your capo on! If you need further instruction on the capo, you can learn it all in the 3rd method book of the 8chords program along with simple charts to help you transpose all the harder songs to the easy keys.