Transcript 0:00 Hey, welcome everyone to Titans of Transition. This is a little special episode from me. 0:05 I usually I interview folks who have gone through career transitions and they're down the road further than many of us, and have lessons learned to share about how to discover your, your gifts and make sure you put them into the world to share them with everyone else. 0:26 I believe that fulfillment really comes from discovering your gifts and using them to guide you into career choices and life choices. 0:38 I think a lot of people get frustrated when they go against the grain or they listen to other voices that they have heard growing up. 0:45 Maybe it's parents who thought they should be a lawyer or a doctor, and maybe they have some aptitude and skill for those things, and they go down their career path for many years and reach a point where they're very unfulfilled. 1:01 And so I, I've met up with these people as I've led IT organizations, believe it or not, and coached people to step out of that career. I've also done coaching, and so this is a very common thread. 1:15 With all that being said, 1:17 worship ministry, being a worship guitarist has been a passion of mine on the side, and so that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have this live stream is because all these folks that are on the stream right now, I follow online, and they help me prepare for serving on a worship team in my church, and I wanted to share that out with everyone. 1:40 I wanna have a little bit of conversation with each of you about how you landed on what you're doing, what it is you're doing, and then we'll get into the nuts and bolts of advice you give to those who follow you, to those who buy your courses, or what you have to offer as well. 1:56 So with that being said, I would like to have, let's see. Who am I gonna pick on? I think I am going to pick on Jason. All right. That means I'm your favorite, right? 2:12 You are, you were the early bird that caught the worm. Because I was trying to set up my, make sure everything worked. That was the main reason why. 2:19 Tell, tell us where you're coming in from, of course, and then go through what you're currently doing, how you arrived there quickly, a- and what you offer. Sure. Five minutes. My name is Jason Houtsma. 2:29 I founded worshipartistry.com about, back in 2011, with the intention of just equipping, at the beginning, equipping guitarists to be able to just play with passion and confidence, and to lead that way in church. 2:42 And I had actually just quit music full time when I, when the kind of conversation started. I was like, "I can't do this anymore." [laughs] I'd been in bands. I was, I had led worship a long time. 2:52 And but this, I ended up having a conversation that just sparked this dream to... At the time, there was very little online. 2:59 Like, you had YouTube and it was, like, me and Brian Wall, Brian Wall from Worship Tutorials, we each had, like, 200 views on YouTube. And, and so I leaned more into the arrangement and coaching. 3:11 I had taught, I've taught private lessons for years, and so it was a real natural move for me to just lean more into 3:18 the actual online teaching and arranging and just trying to help guitarists, if there's a single guitarist for a church, which is my experience, to be able to take that, to be able to prepare every Sunday and understand a song. 3:29 And so we do tutorials that lead in- lean into that and really focus on everything from, like, total beginners all the way to, I sometimes use my own website to learn songs, so we go more for the experts as well. 3:40 So all that, just trying to equip the church. Oh, man, we lost Joe. Oh, sorry about that, guys. There he is. He's back. I was so bo- I was so bored. Oh. And I'm supposed to be a IT person. All right, folks. 3:54 Sorry about that. First time with this platform. Go ahead. I will not push any more buttons for a while. And you- I'm good. Go, go, go to the next. [laughs] Did you finish without me? Dead. Okay. 4:04 So the next person will be Matthew. Boy, if, if Jason was the early bird that got the worm, I guess I'm the second mouse that gets the cheese. It's a little joke. My name is Matthew Dale. 4:16 I am here to help you play better, sound great, and understand more. What I do in, on my YouTube channel and in my online business, my website is matthewdale.com, uh, one T in Matthew. 4:28 And what I really try to do is connect a guitar player together where music theory knowledge, guitar and fretboard knowledge, and gear all come into one to basically create or help you become a very dangerous guitar player that is well-equipped for all musical situations, including worship, worship guitar. 4:47 I've been a worship guitar player for more years than I can count at this point. Trying to think back to all of it, but seems like I've always played guitar in church. 4:57 And worship guitar and worship, modern worship guitar styles or modern worship styles I guess I should say, is really one of nuance, and it is really tricky for, let's say, classical players or jazz players or rock players or blues players to just come in and set up shop and jump in with a worship guitar, worship band and play guitar, 'cause it's such a different language. 5:20 And in my own teaching philosophy, I really break down all of that individual stuff and really get at the nitty-gritty to see what makes a music style sound like a music style, what makes this guitar part sound like that style's guitar part, and and so on and so forth. 5:38 I'm a nerd. Hey, guys. Yeah, it's Grady, uh, Beevers everyone tonight. My voice sounds a bit funny. So I don't normally sound like this. You probably know that from the video. 5:51 From Table Bay, South Africa, and run a site called worshipguitarskills.com. 5:57 And our main focus is to help guitarists develop that specific skill set that they need in order to play worship with confidence and lead their, their congregations well. 6:08 And not just to be great, uh, guitarists, but great musicians and ultimately great worshipers, because ultimately I think that's what we've been created to do, and, um, it really just makes sense when we enter those awesome moments of worship. 6:22 So yeah, we, it was really awesome for us to use our skills and our abilities, the things that we love about guitar and gear and all those kind of things, to for God kingdom and for His glory, so that's really an awesome honor and a privilege. 6:36 It's gone past 10, 10 past 11, so it's 11:00 PM. Okay. Hi, hi guys, I'm Justin. I am Justin Chan. I am from Singapore. 6:47 It's 5:00 o'clock in the morning, and thank you, Joe, for having me here, and I wanna joke that I'm the earliest of the lot because I came in 24 hours earlier thinking it was the previous day's date. [laughs] Oh, yes. 7:02 Yeah, so that's the, the glory of dealing with multiple time zones. Thank you, Joe, for coordinating all this. Um, so you guys are seeing my new house. So this is the living room. 7:14 I, I don't have a workstation set up yet. I don't have any internet. My current workstation is, is in a basement with no Wi-Fi coverage, so I gotta be out here where my phone is hotspotting. 7:23 Hopefully the video quality and audio quality is okay. Yeah. Yeah. I am, as I mentioned before, I'm from Singapore. It's, uh, pre- it's pretty far away. 7:33 It's a little red dot in, just at the bottom of the Malaysian, Malaysia and Indonesia. 7:38 So if you imagine Malaysia's up here and Indonesia's down there, we are like this one tiny dot [laughs] that's, that's in between the two of them. And I am... I used to be a chemical engineer. 7:49 I have a degree in chemical engineering. I used to work, I used to work in a pharmaceutical, uh, manufacturing plant. So that was, it was fun. 7:57 It was like full day shifts, so y- you start at 8:00 AM and you end at 8:00 PM, or conversely, if you do night shift, it's 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM. And those were the days where, um, I- it was good money. 8:09 I'm not gonna lie, it's good money, but I, it felt, there was a sense of this unease in me, because years prior to that, I had served at Singapore Youth for Christ after finishing school. 8:20 In Singapore, there's this, there's this phase where if you finish school and before you start uni or before you start work, and there's a little bit of like downtime before you, before life carries on. 8:30 Most people take a part-time job, most people, um, take a six-month vacation and go see the world or something. I decided to... 8:38 I, I felt a call to go into Singapore Youth for Christ, which has a program, it's like a six-month-long internship. 8:44 And in that internship I was at, I was in the performing arts ministry in Singapore Youth for Christ, and during that time I felt this call to, to merge my musical interests with full-time ministry and, and that was when I first felt the seeds of a call. 9:00 Uh, that call has evolved very much from a sim- from sharing gospel through music to where it is now with my channel, All About Worship Guitar, right? It's my YouTube channel where I, um, I, I... 9:13 My, my tagline is, "To sound and play your best for Jesus." And I think Matthew Dale must have taken a look at my script or, or at least I've- [laughs]... 9:20 I've submitted a script, 'cause a lot of what I wanna say about, about the philosophy and ethos is what similar to Matthew. Um- That's amazing... break, 9:29 break it, it's actually breaking apart tones and songs, figuring out how they play, and very guitar-led stuff. But guitar-led stuff just tweaked to Christian ministry. 9:37 And I, I love, I love to see it when musicians are able to walk in on the stage and to, to play with their fullest potential, especially for a guitar player. So soft spot, right? 9:47 'Cause I'm a guitar player, if you guys haven't, like, figured that out. [laughs] You guys are... Okay. Yeah. Basically, I've been on YouTube for, I guess, about five years now. 10:00 I was working, uh, so I'm in central Florida right now. About five, six years ago, I was working at a church. 10:06 I was the music director up there, and it was one of those things, post-college, I felt like I landed my dream job. It was just like, this is amazing. I really had a heart for ministry and music ministry. 10:17 So I did that for about a year, and then everything was going pretty well, but then got married, and then pretty soon my wife started, uh, running into some health, kind of chronic health stuff. 10:26 And long story short, we ended up needing to move, and came to this place of, I felt like I was doing what God called me to do, but then wasn't able to do it. 10:36 And then she was really encouraging me, "What if you just did, did YouTube?" 10:39 At that point I was serving a lot and there, like what Jason, I think what you were saying earlier, there wasn't really a ton of resources out there. 10:46 I found myself struggling sometimes and just wanting to learn how to do this better. So at that point it was like, okay, we're in this new city. 10:54 Let's just try YouTube and start putting some song tutorials out and, and stuff like that, and try to continue this ministry thing. 11:00 And maybe it doesn't look the way that I thought it was gonna look, uh, a couple years ago. 11:03 But yeah, now it's, I guess, about five years later and it's evolved and, yeah, really just trying to reach other guitar players who were similar to me when I first started playing in church. 11:13 And it was like, what is all of this? How do you learn these songs? What is tone? How do you do this thing with excellence? From the gear side of things to the actual learning how, how to do all this stuff. 11:24 Yeah, just trying to provide resources for those people out there. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, in an Airbnb right now. My house is getting worked on, so I don't have hardly any of my stuff with me at the moment. 11:36 But yeah, so I've lived in Nashville for about six years now. I play lead, lead guitar on a worship team here in Nashville. 11:43 We actually just merged with the Life Church out of Memphis, so they've got a few locations all across the globe actually, so really cool to see what God's doing there and to see how that develops. 11:53 Other than that, I play country music professionally. I play kind of whatever other gig I find opportunities for as well. 12:01 I manage a country artist, I manage a hip hop artist, and then I also have a full-time job completely outside of the music industry as well. You guys all had angels talk to you, right? Yeah. That's what happened to me. 12:13 That's going on, right? I could, yeah, I could jump in real quick. I think opportunity is something that happens at different times in different places. I don't know anybody who is actually a full-time musician that, 12:27 that took a straight shot. It's not like being an accountant where you're like, "Oh, I graduated college, and I got this degree, and now I just go down this road." It's doing a lot of different things. 12:36 For me, I was in different bands. I was in an indie rock band, I was in a worship band. That band almost got signed. Whole label rearranged, like, the day after we did our audition. It was great. It was super cool. 12:48 I had quit music- Yeah... as a full-time job, and then literally three months later started up Worship Artistry. And so 12:56 I think it's something that it's, you're passionate about it, and so you're constantly preparing for it 'cause that's just what you do, 'cause that's what you love, and then the opportunities, opportunities come along. 13:07 So I'd... Yeah, I would love to hear other people's stories, 'cause they're, they're never normal. Mm. Yeah, I feel like I've fought with it for a little while. Like, I always knew that I wanted to do music. I've been... 13:19 I, I took guitar lessons all the way from when I was, like, six years old and that big and was always just highly interested in music. And then when college came around, I went to a... 13:31 First I started going to a university here in St. Louis for audio production. I'm like, "Okay, I wanna be a musician, I wanna be a guitar player, but maybe..." And at the time, 18 years old, this is back 2008, 2009. 13:43 At the time, okay, maybe I'll own a studio. That's where the money is. 13:47 And so I go into studio production, and I wanted to have a studio, but then record my own music and whatever, and, and I spent about a year there, two semesters, and all the audio, all the audio professors were like, "You, you wanna own a studio one day? 14:02 That's not gonna be a thing." They were very encouraging. It was great. 14:05 And then I just figured if that's the best I'm getting out of these people, if they're like, "You're not going to do that, it's not realistic," I'm like, if nothing is realistic, then I guess I just might as well pursue what I want to do anyway, which is play guitar. 14:18 So then I transferred up to a, a really small school called McNally Smith College of Music and I went to school there. I finished my bachelor's in guitar performance. 14:27 And I took a, a couple of production classes and some songwriting classes and some other music business classes and stuff. 14:33 I tried to not only do my degrees in guitar performance, but I tried to make myself a little more well-rounded in that regard. 14:40 I really wish McNally Smith was something that I could actually tell people about, that it's still... It's unfortunately not there anymore. It was a, it was a for-profit school, and then it was unfortunately mismanaged. 14:50 But a guitar player by the name of Cory Wong also went to McNally Smith College of Music. He was a couple years older, or a couple years ahead of, of me. 14:59 But I got to know the guy that is currently his drummer fairly well. Pardon the name-dropping. If I just say McNally Smith, no one knows what I'm talking about. 15:07 So I finished my degree, and then again wrestled with the idea of what am I actually doing for my future? Music is just, it's not happening, right? So then I came back to St. 15:17 Louis and I joined a post-baccalaureate pre-med program, and I thought, "I wanna be a doctor," because that's the straightened path. I know what I need to do. 15:25 I go to med school, I, I get a residency, I'm an attending, or I go into private practice. That's just laid out. That's the plan. Did fairly well for the first couple of semesters. Hated it. 15:37 It just was not for me, even though I'm a little bit of a science nerd, but just not for me, because my guitar would stare at me in the corner of my room like, "Hey, what are you doing? Pick, pick me up. 15:46 What are you doing over there?" And I did. I actually, I probably practiced more during that time period of my life than ever, even after going through four years of music program. But that's when I like... 15:57 That's when I really feel like I became who I am as a player or laid the groundwork for who I am as a player. And I had a wonderful mentor at the time that was... His, his kinda claim to fame is helping. 16:08 He taught a class that was preparing people for going into, into med school, and he... 16:15 And during this class, he talked to everyone, he said, "By the way, I'm just, I'm a really friendly person, just, I teach 200 students a semester. 16:21 I can't write everyone a, a letter of recommendation for med school, so please just don't ask me." I, I ended up, like, being a TA for him, and I was working with him and developed a relationship with him. 16:30 And he said to me, before I was just gonna- going to out the program, um, he said, "Hey, by the time your med school stuff comes up, let me know. I'll write you a letter of recommendation," and just, it killed me. 16:40 So I had a, a really long conversation with him. I'm like, "I don't think I wanna do this. I think I actually want to go into music." And he was actually really supportive and really happy for me. 16:50 He's, "It's great that you actually know what to do, and you have your passion and you have a calling to do this. Go do it. I wish you the best of luck." So I really appreciate who he was for me at that time. 17:01 His name is Dr. Gregory Politis. Wonderful guy. So I'm gonna ask you that question. Mm. So how did you get into this thing? What was your journey? Yeah. I had a bit of an interesting journey. 17:15 I, I never played music growing up, but then I started going to a charismatic church when I was 14, and then they had electric guitar and bass and all the things in the band. 17:25 And that's how I started playing guitar, because one of my friends was a, a really gifted musician and, uh, he started playing drums, and he said I must also buy a drum kit. 17:34 And I didn't really know anything about music, but I did know that drummers, you'd only have one drummer in a band. So I, uh, ended up buying a bass guitar so we can start jamming, like rhythm section stuff together. 17:45 And then another friend of ours started playing bass, and he could sing, and then that's why I had to learn guitar so we can start a band. So this was all in, in high school, and that's what the journey took. 17:55 And then I started becoming a professional musician after school. In South Africa, yeah, we were touring with different artists. I was basically a hired gun. I played for- Mm... whoever needed a guitar player. 18:06 Did some sessions and studio work and touring. And at some point, I got a little bit bored with doing the same thing over and over, and one day I said to my wife, "Why don't we move to London? 18:18 I wanna go and study music there and see if we can start touring internationally and get better gigs and all those kind of things." 18:24 And it was during that time that I realized, sure, I'm surrounded by all these awesome musicians, like the best of the best, but most of them are on the road all the time, and I didn't know any of my teachers that had a happy marriage and, and family and kids and all those kind of things. 18:39 And then that kind of unsold me on the whole music thing. So I stopped doing music and I got into, um, other parts of business, mostly to do with marketing and online business and those kind of things. 18:50 And then when we finally moved back to South Africa, I decided, let me take my skills and my, um, passion for playing guitar and specifically worship guitar and all the marketing things that we did together and start building a platform that we can reach more people out there. 19:03 So that's what we're doing now. We've got a full-time gig doing just that. 19:07 We're still doing a couple of other things as well, but we're trusting that we can start making this the full-time gig because that's some real eternity impact that we can get made, like us particularly at just helping and raising worship guitarists across the world because we know now more than ever, people need that connection with God and that touch from God and hear His voice and all those awesome things, and what better way to use the stuff that we love and are super passionate about. 19:32 So that's my story. Um, happy to dive deeper into anything else there- Oh, great... but, um, that's about it in a nutshell. All right. Thank you, Charlotte. 19:42 Now, we heard a little bit already from Justin and also a bit, I think Sam, you all, both of you touched a little bit on your transition story. Tyler, I think we, 19:52 we got a kind of a feel for the multiple things you're doing. So do you have anything to add? Was there a, a moment that took you into worship ministry to begin with? 20:01 'Cause I know you've been doing that in parallel with other things for a while. Yeah, pretty much as soon as I could play a song on guitar. I've been playing guitar in church. 20:10 Can't remember a time in my life where I knew how to play guitar that I haven't played in church honestly. It's all I've known since being able to play guitar and do the thing. I maintain it. I love it. 20:20 In my opinion, the best guitar tones are in CCM music. All right. And I'm a big tone guy, and just that alone keeps me, keeps me engaged on a pretty much weekly basis there. 20:31 And then I've just grown up in a household that's always been church. Been a Christian my whole life, and I think what I know, that's a big part of my life, whether I play music or if I didn't. And, uh, it just, uh, 20:43 happened to coincide with music in this, in this situation. That's awesome. That's a good segue to the next question. I'll go ahead and pop it up on the screen here. 20:51 How is worship ministry music different from the other genres out there for guitarists? How, how would you differentiate? Some of you guys are, are playing, we have you playing in, uh, a country band, Tyler. 21:03 We have other people playing in, uh, different settings as well. So what are the key things that worship guitarists need to understand about the differences between other genres? 21:13 'Cause I think this will lead us into tone discussions, gear discussions, a- and other, uh, questions. Mm-hmm. So anyone can jump in who wants to. I would say that, 21:26 and, and we were talking a little bit about this in the chat before, before the live stream, but, um, understanding the proper chord voicings and the proper ways to, to actual comp, like rhythmic, rhythmically comp in a, um, in a worship setting are dramatically different than blues, rock, and, and, and other like classic styles from, from the 1950s up to the 1990s, something like that. 21:51 Um, the best thing that I teach people when I teach on this is get to know your triads, and please believe me. [laughs] Sean's got a course going on that. Yes. 22:00 And, and it's, it sounds bad that we have to like, we have to just plead with people. Please study your triads. They will make a world of difference. 22:10 And, and the way that I got started with it, I was in that same boat where I was playing, I just joined a church after college, and I was... 22:17 They needed a guitar player, so I was, I signed up, and I got all this music and I got all this re- recording, but I never did worship guitar player in, or worship guitar playing in, in college, and it was a newer style, especially when, like, Hillsong and Bethel and, and a lot of these more contemporary bands came out. 22:33 It was very different than just your worship leader strumming G, C, and D and just following suit. 22:38 There's these s- really subtle parts, and everything is highly nuanced, and you've got a ton of delay, so if you hit a bad note, it's gonna sound bad for a long time [laughs]. So you gotta be careful. 22:49 You gotta be careful when you, when you're doing that. And the best thing that I did was when I was listening to and picking out parts was, okay, this is a triad thing. I had the school knowledge, so I knew what it was. 22:59 Okay, this is a triad thing. They're voiceling a lot of triads, and oh, you know what? They're actually not always playing the full triad. 23:06 They're actually doing one sus four, and that's what they do for the four chord, and they're doing, like, one sus two, and that's what they're doing for the five chord. What if I take that and I move it around the neck? 23:15 Oh, well, now I'm getting these other parts together that sound within that style, and I can make up my own stuff if we don't have any, you know, dedicated written out parts. 23:25 I can sound in the style of this, this music just like you would with jazz, blues, rock, whatever, and you develop a language that way. 23:34 And it comes from, from my experience, it comes from really breaking things down in a musical context. What is this musically? How can I apply it to the fretboard all over the place? But it's, it, there's... 23:46 Y- you can't really go to a blues gig and only play big tenths with a bunch of reverb. People will look at you like, "What are you doing?" 23:52 And that's just the same way if you show up Sunday morning and you plug in your Les Paul to your Marshall half stack- [laughs]... and you're, and you're chunking power chords the entire time. People look at you like, 24:03 "All time? The whole time you're gonna be doing power chords?" That's not what, not what you're doing. So that's a little bit my answer. 24:08 It's highly nuanced, and you have to know really how to feel your way through a song appropriately. Yeah, there are a lot of choices. 24:17 It's every time I pull up a song for a tutorial, there is at minimum seven stem tracks- Yeah... of, of, of just electric guitars. Never mind the 17- Yeah... keyboards and the loops. It's crazy. Mm-hmm. 24:30 It's so different- Yeah... than most of the music I listen to. And, and so learning how to make the choices around, okay, what are all these parts doing? What's standing out? What role are they playing? 24:42 Not even just where is it on the neck, but okay, this is a rhythmic piece. Okay, if we don't have this rhythm, the song starts dying. Okay, this part's more of a lead piece. Oh, we need this hook in here. 24:50 And so there's so much, I always say, like, with worship artistry, the main thing I'm doing is just taking away your five hours of arrangement, 'cause I do that, and then just, okay, focus on these and then play these well. 25:01 So I think when it comes to worship, and on top of it, you're not always playing with the same people. 25:05 We talked about a little bit before we got on, but okay, the people on my team are all over the place in terms of skill. Mm-hmm. We don't always play all the same time. 25:14 So it's like being aware and just being adaptive and being able to make good choices in the moment, I think are just, are really important to the worship environment. Yeah. 25:26 I feel like adaptive is such a good word, 'cause it really is. 25:28 You don't know what you're stepping into on a Sunday morning, but I feel like also with it just being in the worship context, like, we play such a more supportive role to the vocalists too, like the actual, like, word of God being sung and, like, the congregational singing happening. 25:45 So yeah, definitely not, trying not to come in with these, like, ripping guitar solos and stuff, like, totally going off the rails. 25:51 Obviously, there's a time and place, so if it calls for that, you'd go for it, 'cause yeah. But I agree. 25:58 Yeah, I think def- adapting with what the setting calls for and what the worship leader calls for and what the environment looks like in that moment. And I'll just tag in with one other thing. 26:07 Also being adaptive when you're playing with another guitar player is huge. Mm-hmm. And understanding, like, what are you doing, what am I doing, and how do we not cross each other's toes? 26:19 And also working with different people. 26:21 When you're trying to get a couple of parts together to arrange what you're gonna be doing on a weekend, working with other people of varying skill levels and, and knowledge levels to try, try to get together the best possible thing that you can have. 26:37 Other, other thoughts, guys? Yeah. 26:40 No, I think the one thing also to, to bear in mind, like some of the guys have mentioned, is if you go to a rock gig or a blues gig, it might be a blues trio, so there's a lot more space for the guitar to fill, number one. 26:51 But in worship teams, there, there's a lot more people on stage, so you need to adapt your playing so that you can support properly. And because if you play the same chords, it's not gonna cut through the mix. 27:00 If you play the same licks, it's gonna step on toes. You're adapting your playing to fit within that role. 27:06 And then I think two other things that's quite important, Sam mentioned that, is, like, the ultimate purpose of worship is to bring that congregation together so that they can, you know, engage in powerful moments of worship. 27:18 And if you play the wrong thing at the wrong time, you can either jolt somebody out of the moment or... 27:23 But if you play the right thing at the right time, then it can really give expression to something that someone might feel in the moment and actually pull them into that worship experience. 27:32 So I think in order to do that expression part and, like, getting people to engage, that requires a different skill set as it relates to your voicings that you're gonna play, the kind of melodies and emotions that you... 27:44 The story that you might tell on the guitar, emotional. If you look at the Psalms, right? Uh, David was a man after God's own heart and, and he didn't have problem with emotions. 27:53 So we've gotta be able to pull up some rocking power chords versus some ambient tones versus some sweet stuff versus some whatever the case may be. 28:01 I think when you start adding those flavors, then it makes a sweeter aroma for people, pull people into that moment. 28:08 So we get a lot of comments on, not a lot, but the hater comments that we get is that there's no such thing as worship guitar. And then I always think there's jazz guitar- Mm... different kind of voicings. 28:18 There's blues guitar, there's rock guitar, so definitely there's worship guitar from that point of view. It's a different style, and also the outcome is different. 28:25 Instead of us being the main thing, and like you would get at a blues gig or whatever, we are there to, to play a serving role. 28:32 So I think those couple of things, when you take that into consideration, it helps your approach. And to prepare your heart as well, because your heart has to be right. 28:40 You can't have all the skills and step on stage with your heart not being right. 28:44 Whereas I heard Bono once say something about the fact is that all the rock stars definitely need to have big issues that they're dealing with because they need all these thousands and tens of thousands of people to scream at them and tell them how great they are, so there's like a hole that they need to fill. 28:58 And maybe he was saying that as a joke, but I think that having the heart right and understanding community and connection and all those kind of things, there's quite a lot to get right. 29:06 And yet, at the same time, God can use whatever you've got in your hands. So you just gotta bring that with the right heart and, um, then God can multiply that. 29:15 I used to joke that mu- worship music as a genre, it's like how if you hear... And the beautiful thing about worship music is that it's multi-genre i- in that y- you hear all the music of the world, right? 29:27 Like blues, rock, country even, and all these genres exist in worship CCM as well. 29:33 And the joke is you take the difficulty slider from 10 and you drag it all the way down to a two or three, and that's where you get the level of music in church. And I don't mean that as a bad thing. 29:44 I say that because the music that resonates on most on Sunday is the music people can relate to, people can sing along to, and the musicians who can play the most proficiently at. 29:56 So I, I do find that worship music is at least the, the music that resonates more with the congregation. 30:02 It's simpler and vocal focused and, and the parts are not instead of 128 bar riffs about a blues solo, it's eight bar solos or, or four bar solos even. 30:14 And this having to s- the, the vocals, having to serve that vocal layer to make sure that every people are singing that, the, the lyrics right. 30:24 That so, and that influences note choices as to both note and tone choices as to whether the part is going to be taking away attention from that vocal layer or, or from the lyric- And so there's a acute sort of attention paid to layering, I think. 30:39 And es- especially for modern CCM and modern worship, I, I, I like when Jason said that you had to choose between seven or nine g- guitar stems, and, and some of those parts are the one-note throughout the, the- [laughs]... 30:52 session. Some of those are just like this 100% reverb mix and, and just, like, this guy in the background, like, doing a mosquito trail thing, but you just hear- Those are the parts that I always learn. 31:02 That's what- Yeah. [laughs] They're a great way to get ready for Sunday. Yeah. But... [mimics guitar] Yeah, so that's, so that's, that's worship, worship guitar. 31:11 A- and we, we had to play these parts without distracting people. And I think that, to me, is both the beauty and the challenge of playing in church. 31:21 You remind me of Steve Luthe- Luthringer's comment about, I think it was Human Nature, where he was brought in to that session. I don't know if you guys saw that where the producer basically said, "I need something here. 31:33 I need something. It's missing something. I need glue." And he had, has that little rhythmic line that he plays over and over again simply, and then repeats. 31:43 And if you listen to that song, it's, oh my gosh, you can't imagine that song without that little hook and that lead part in there. Mm. And I think the challenge sometimes, this is where 31:53 I think God deals with people internally. When you're a guitarist on stage, you wanna do more sometimes when really, it's much more powerful to do something clean and simpler. Less is more kinda thing. 32:06 But that's hard to swallow sometimes when you come in and the worship leader says, "Can you simplify that?" You're like, "I spent 15 hours working so..." [laughs] And I really wanna hear it. Wow. 32:15 You gotta park it and park it. Well, not only that, but- Go ahead... well, knowing when not to play as well. When not... White space. There as well. Yep. Yeah. You definitely gotta leave space, for sure. Yeah. 32:26 And trying to coach other younger players, that is something they don't easily get right away. Mm-hmm. Otherwise, I think you have to be, in, in CCM, I think you have to be a little more surgical with your EQ as well. 32:40 Um- Oh, yeah... there's so much more going on in the tracks or on stage or both that you need to find your specific lane that you're occupying. 32:50 Whereas if you're playing in, like, a five-piece rock band or a country band or whatever it may be, it's not quite as relevant along with the sound guy. But in CCM, it really is. 33:00 Otherwise, it gets muddy up your mix super quick. 33:02 And then on top of that, like, paying really close attention to, like, your reverbs and delays because usually if you dial a decay wrong or a repeat too high, it can get in the way of the part and ruin that as well. 33:16 So I think tonally, and EQ-wise, there's more attention that need to be paid, especially on modern CCM music- Uh-huh... than you would maybe have to the same degree in, in other genres. So true. Mm-hmm. So true. 33:29 I, I call it the mid-range mush, mid-range mush, and we were talking before we started, a few that were in the green room here were talking about the battle between the pianist's left hand and the bass player, and then there's so many other kinds of instruments that aren't traditionally in, say, a, a rock band. 33:48 You, you might have orchestra instruments and tonally, it just gets so muddy so fast. So I really love that comment about being surgical on tone. 33:57 Uh, let's press on, and I would like to just get into some things that are probably a little more specific, and people who have hung on with us this long, thank you for your patience. 34:06 You probably wanna talk about this question, and, and that is, what are the common questions you get from your followers or from people that you're mentoring and coaching, either through your offerings online or just your interactions on the worship team in regards to gear, in regards to voicing? 34:25 Yeah, just what are the common things people ask you? I, I... We're starting to bring out sort of some irritations or pet peeves you might struggle with. 34:34 And that there probably is a bit of an overlap here, so let's tee that one up. Can I, can I go first? Absolutely. Hmm. Uh, one question I keep getting on, especially for, like, DMs and stuff is, uh, how do you get that 34:50 bracket expensive reverb sound with a $200 reverb pedal or, like, a $100 reverb pedal? And I'm like, that's not... Why is that the first port of call when it, when it comes to, to gear questions? 35:02 But, yeah, so not just reverb pedals, but delay pedals, overdrive pedals. So there's... And particularly because I think my audience was also from the Southeast Asian countries, so budget guitar gear is a, a big concern. 35:17 And so the, some of the questions I've answered revolve around getting, I guess, the studio sound from the albums with these $100 pedals. Yeah, I get similar... I get a lot of gear questions as well. 35:32 It seems like most of my questions are gear related. 35:34 Now, I'm a Fractal guy, so I get a lot of Fractal people usually asking me stuff about routing and stuff usually with regard to FRFR speaker systems or, or going in, in, in front of house. 35:49 And usually the thing that I say that kinda goes in with, like, mid-range mu- mush is you don't need the amount of low end you think you need. In fact, you need quite a bit less of it. 35:59 A lot of, especially my tones that are put together for worship are much brighter than I would be playing in, in- Yeah... other bands. Usually I like the Vox AC style of amplifier. 36:11 I think we are probably all familiar with that platform. If not, we all probably use that platform. That just seems to... It already has such a nice bright high mid that cuts through, and there's not a lot. 36:23 You don't need a lot of bass going into that amplifier. They don't have a ton of bass. And then you have drives that cut less bass, and then you have boosts that probably cut less bass. 36:32 And then having a little bit of a, of a high shelf. For me, it's anywhere between 5 and 6K. I- What's your low cut? My low cut, if I'm doing live stuff- A hundred hertz, a, a fairly aggressive 100 hertz- Mm-hmm... 36:46 if not going up to maybe 120. And if I'm dialing in that low and I really wanna hear it in the space, in the worship space, and these are big rooms we're usually talking about, so low end can build up there. 36:55 So in my studio I start at about 80, 80 hertz, and then if I'm dialing in a- an EQ specifically for live, I start around 100. And then from there I give it to the, the sound techs. 37:07 If you need less bass from me from there, you can wind it up some more. Other comments? Yeah. The gear thing is definitely the biggest one. People always ask, "How do you get the tone?" 37:18 And so yeah, that comes up a lot, and the guys have already touched on all of the things that you need to have dialed in. 37:24 And so one thing I normally tell people, of course you gotta get all that stuff dialed in correctly, but tone is definitely that, they always say in the fingers. 37:32 The, I think there's a lot of truth to that because I never truly understood that, but I used to work for the Guitar Techniques magazine in London, and one... 37:40 I used to like then go and interview famous guitar players, and then I'd sit and talk with them for an hour or so while they would play. 37:46 And then afterwards we film it, we'll transcribe it, and then it goes into the magazine. 37:50 And one day we were lucky enough to do an interview with Joe Satriani, and we had to take an amp to the hotel because he didn't have all of his gear with him. It wasn't at the venue. 38:00 And so a friend of mine who I was studying with, he had like a Blues Boutique amp and like a Tone Bone pedal, and it was like all super like classic blues sounds. 38:10 And then Joe just had his guitar with him, and as soon as he plugged in, even into that bluesy rig, it just instantly sounded like him. And it wasn't a high gain amp or any of that kind of stuff. Mm. 38:20 So then that just reminded me that I always read about that, the tone is in the fingers. 38:25 And then as I thought about it more, it's like when you can trust your technique to really dig into your guitar and you can strike the strings with confidence, you're not gonna get a, a idle string ringing out that's gonna make your voicing sound bad, or you're okay with your picking or whatever, all those kind of things, that just, that bit of confidence can make average gear sound much better. 38:43 Mm. So people tend to think that I need to have this mega rig. 38:47 And yes, it does help when you have proper deal delays and reverb, and you can do your EQ, and you have drives and boosts and all these kind of things that we have access to right now with all the units. 38:57 But yeah, so the technique thing is something that definitely helps people. And then on top of that, the second biggest thing then is, like Jason mentioned, there's all these stems and you gotta learn all these parts. 39:07 So for a Sunday, and that brings a lot of anxiety for people because you only have so much time in the week. A lot of them are volunteers. Their, their skill level is at a certain level as well. 39:19 And so with the little bit of time, with the skill that they've gotta prepare all these songs and that brings that level of, of anxiety and overwhelm. 39:25 And if you're in that state of mind, your playing is not gonna be good because you're gonna be worried, you're gonna be stressed, or you're not gonna prepare well. 39:32 So they're looking for ways to learn new songs, um, or guitar parts that's gonna sit well in the mix, that's gonna perform well, and that they can play on, on, at the drop of the hat. 39:42 Because obviously if you're gonna play something like if you do, do Lion and the Lamb, the congregator are gonna expect to hear that intro line. Yeah. Right? 39:50 But I, I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't learn all the other songs note for note because first of all, you can't, it's too many of them, and you need to find that balance between serving the song, playing the parts, but also giving your unique touch on that. 40:02 And then how do you do that if you haven't studied music and if you don't have incredible fret board knowledge and all the rest of it? And then I just tell the guys there's a couple of techniques. 40:10 If you look at King David, he had to put on Saul's armor, it was too much, right? So he just took that off. He had a slingshot and a couple of rocks, and he took down Goliath like that. 40:18 You've gotta find your slingshot and couple of rocks and see what you can do with that. So that's fun, reversing those two big things, the tone and preparing songs, and then obviously everything in between. Yeah. 40:30 That's great. That's so good. And just to- Yeah, I get a lot of questions. Oh, sorry. Yeah, go for it, Sam. 40:34 I was just gonna say, just to piggyback off that, that, that's really good 'cause I think it's one of the coolest things about music in general. 40:40 Like we could, I could plug into any of your rigs and sound like me, and likewise, like you could plug into my rig and sound like you. 40:48 And so I tend to get DMs or, or comments a lot that are like, "Hey, here's a picture of my pedal board. I bought all the pedals that you have. Why do I still sound the same [chuckles] as I did before?" 40:58 And it's gear can help a lot, but like Charles, like what you were saying, it's you really gotta use your ear, and you really gotta learn, and you gotta listen. You're gonna sound like you, which is super cool. 41:08 That's such an asset to your unique context and your church, like to be able to step in and, and serve in that way is like one of my favorite things about all this stuff. So the gear is like the icing on the cake. 41:19 Mm-hmm. But you gotta have a really good base. You gotta have a really good cake- Yeah... that you're working with in the first place. 41:24 And I think that's more worshipful too if rather than focus on, say, learning a part note for note, at least for me, it's much more worshipful to not only play the song, actually play the structured song, but add in your own voice to that is a much more worshipful experience for me. 41:39 I would say the go-to, if anyone asks me, "How should I go about learning worship songs?" Start with just your basic chord progression and learn the melody. 41:47 I think the melody is something that is absolutely essential to learn and, and actually to absorb and, and live within a song is learn the melody, learn the lyrics, actually understand what the song is about before you go, you just dive into, let's take a look at this part that is played in the bridge of this song and do that sort of thing. 42:06 Really understanding the song from just a foundational point is a great place to start. Yeah. 42:12 I get a lot of questions about-- I taught privately for a long time too, and it's a c- constant question of, okay, I play it, but I don't sound like you when you play it. How do I make it sound like music? 42:23 And there's so much that's just time on task. Like a lot of worship musicians are just, all they're doing is getting ready for Sunday. So it's just I gotta play all new songs. I gotta figure out these parts. 42:33 I got five new songs I gotta do. And, and we try and help that with our service and go, okay, here's how you, here's how you can do that. 42:40 But it's very different when I-- Even when I'm teaching a, a lesson, I always have to do the music video and I have to do that in a full take. I can't punch anything there. 42:48 And so there's always like the first time I get it through And then there's, if I do this about three more times it's gonna be awesome. 42:56 I'm gonna feel better about it, I'm gonna fall into the pocket a lot more, I'm going to just play it very differently and I think so many musicians stop at that, like worship musicians especially stop at that like 80% mark. 43:07 Mm. 43:07 And so they never get that feeling of being confident and starting to move outside of what they practice because their heart is involved and they're engaging with the congregation and what's happening in the room because we're just staring at our pedal board and our fingers going, "This is what I need to do." 43:23 And it's that time on task, just that extra hour or two can make such a difference. 43:28 If you do that over 52 weeks, like you're going to become a much better player and you're gonna do all the stuff that Matthew's talking about. 43:35 Oh, we'll find these different spaces, and like being able to adjust in the moment. And so that's the question I always get, how do I make this sound like music? You practice. 43:44 It's like the most teacher thing to say ever. Practice. [laughs] It's like the most... Like the dad, my, my dad-ness just comes out. 43:50 If you stop playing around with your pedals and you actually practice the part, you'd probably be just fine. [laughs] When was the last time you played this? Oh, last week in lessons? Yeah, that's why, yeah. 43:57 Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So, so the mantra is no expensive piece of gear is gonna make up for that lack. Unless it's a vintage 808, then- [laughs]... you sound like- I was about to say that... Steve Albini. 44:10 [laughs] Are we guitar players or what? Well, of course. Yeah. Long as you've got Slammer pounds, you'll be fine. Yeah. [laughs] That silver Klon pedal. Ha. 44:21 And actually that, I'm just gonna step outside of the whole worship genre, worship guitarist or musician genre. This is true in other walks of life. As, as a career coach and executive coach, I... 44:33 These types of questions come up there in a completely different venue. It's... 44:39 Or maybe for Sam maybe, if people are trying to figure out how to make a living on video on YouTube- I was gonna say, there's a lot of similarities here... 44:46 so they're gonna, they're gonna say, "Uh, what do I need to do to get more clicks?" Maybe- Make the-... better videos [laughs] and content people wanna watch. 44:53 Because you might have a cool thumbnail, but in two seconds they're out of there. 44:57 So that's a, a basic principle and I think people tend to go, especially in this hyper en- engaged world with no attention span, people get programmed to try to get the quick solution right now, and they don't wanna go pay the price. 45:15 And, and in this particular setting, we have mostly volunteers, and when you get a professional musician in the worship team, I was blessed to be i- in a, a worship team in California at a larger church, and there was a, a bassist there that was phenomenal. 45:35 And I learned more under him because he'd just lean over and go, "You don't have to play every string." Or he'd say, "You might try playing the second or third inversion this time." [laughs] He'd just like... 45:47 Or he might lean over to the worship leader who was leading from the piano and say, "Put your left hand in your back pocket." But it made such a difference 'cause he had such so much skills. He was a master. 46:02 So he had the freedom, but he paid the price. He put the time in. And so yeah, anyway, that's a bit of a rant. Even though I get ra- I've gotten ranted at on those points myself because I get... 46:14 Matthew and I engaged a little bit on his channel and I'm like, "Uh, I think I might need to throw my HeadRush in the trash and get a Fractal." 46:22 I like the HeadRush, but the thing is like 250 pounds it seems like for an old guy like me. Oh, geez. It's just a monster. So it is- Yeah, you could get an FM3. Yeah, that's- Or an FM9. Yeah. 46:32 So anyway- That Blueone's great. Yeah, so anyway, that's a key principle that has leverage in a lot of our discussion I think. Other thoughts though? What, what are some other common things that come up? 46:44 Yeah, I think it, it's really common to just sit, e- especially like with a lot of my students, the tone under the fingers sort of thing is really, is really common because if I teach a younger student, "Here's what a C chord is" and then we play the C chord, I've played this C chord 47:01 hundreds of thousands of times at least. Yeah. No, you've learned this 10 seconds ago. 47:07 It's not going to sound the same, and that, that I think is a little bit of a different experience from, say, like a piano player or the instrument, the way that piano is constructed. 47:17 If I go up and I just hit middle C on a piano, it's not gonna sound that different from a master piano player going up and just touching the middle C. Now, master piano player could just play circles around me, right? 47:29 But the mechanism for creating tone on the instrument is much more automated on something like the piano. So the tone is being generated by the piano, but with guitar you need calluses, you need proper technique to... 47:43 Sometimes it's an arch technique, sometimes it's a flatter technique. It depends on what you're playing. 47:47 You need to sit with the guitar for much, a, a much longer amount of time, and whenever I see someone getting caught up on these minute tiny details of- Mm-hmm... 47:58 just trying, you're just trying to strum this one C chord in the song, just try playing the entire song. I don't care how it sounds. It might sound absolutely terrible. Just make the video. 48:07 It might look bad, but complete the task and- Yeah... 48:13 try to make it a little bit better next time, and then make it a little bit better next time, and then as you do that, as you live within it, then you're actually going to improve and you're going to enjoy the process so much more than just saying the C chord isn't still sounding right or this frame of this video, my jump cut isn't looking and I have to spend a half hour or 45 minutes trying to get this cut to be exactly right. 48:35 Just sitting on one and ruminating on just one minute thing really pulls you out of the element of actually developing skills. Yeah, there's a lot of... I get a lot of questions too about breaking out of patterns. 48:50 Mm-hmm. Yeah. How do I- Blocks... how do I grow? 'Cause because what ends up happening, I think especially with worship guitar, I'm totally guilty of this myself, "Oh, it's a new song? 48:58 Okay, I'll click on these pedals and I'll go bing bing, and I can do it" I can fit in, I can stay out of the way. Yeah. I can do it in my sleep. 49:05 And usually it's, I do think it's sometimes looking at some of those details and learning things note for note, because it's like you... Being able to copy something allows you to create things, and so it's... 49:18 I know what I tend to do even when I'm, like, learning these songs, 'cause I'm trying to learn them like the record, right? And how much that actually expands what I normally play. Mm. 49:26 Because yeah, I always do this run, and I can just do this and nobody'll know the difference, but I know the difference, and if I start going, "Oh, actually, weird, that's... 49:33 He's throwing the third in there, and there's this little- Mm... actually it's more of an arpeggio there." Okay, cool, now I can start incorporating that into everything else I do. But sometimes it's taking the time. 49:43 We so quickly wanna be like, "Cool, I can play it", that we jump over those things. And people are always like, "What scales do I need to learn? What, how, what theory do I need to learn?" 49:50 It's, how are you at playing that one riff? It, it sounds great. No, it sounds like, uh, tennis shoes in a tumble dryer. [laughs] It's, uh- Brf. Maybe tighten that down. 49:59 And it's funny, 'cause when you force people to slow down and actually really work on those stupid little details that we think don't matter, it make a, it actually makes a huge difference. 50:10 Everyone wants the secret, and then- Right... you tell them there isn't. Just slow down and take a really close look at this, and then apply that. 50:18 It's all these YouTube guys that keep going, "If you just do this one thing..." Yeah. I- Just- The, the, the... 50:23 This is a guitar thing, but I don't know if you guys have seen, but it always annoys me when someone just pops up on the YouTube ad or something, and they're like, "This one pattern will get you to break out of the box", but it's that- Yeah, right... 50:32 classical pene- pentatonic trick. Yeah. And I'm like, you're not breaking out of the box, you're just- Tying them together... you're just moving the box. Exactly. [laughs] You're just, it's, you're stretching the box. 50:39 It's the same thing. You wanna break out of the box, you truly wanna break out of the box, solo on one string at a time. Yeah. 50:47 The best advice I can give to any of my guitar students, try to make music without any boxes, just one string, and if you can't do that, then you don't know the music. You don't know how music actually works. 50:59 Try to build nice, compelling melodies on one string at a time. Great tip. What about specifically musically, then? So are there... Obviously triads are powerful. 51:13 Understanding your scales, understanding common tones to keep yourself out of trouble. What are some tips we could offer that we think would be helpful, especially in this genre? The major scale is pretty good. 51:27 [laughs] It's a good, pretty good place to start. Yeah. I would say that for, for most worship musicians getting into it, understanding how chord progressions work is really good. 51:41 I, I said major scale for, as, as a joke, but it is true. Like, really understanding where a lot of... 51:46 Most worship music is diatonic harmony, and understanding the one chord, the four chord, the five chord, and the six chord. The four- And-... main chords. And being Mr. Nashville- Mm... 51:57 Tyler, Nashville numbering system, to be- Uh, yeah, it's, uh- Yeah... pretty critical. I've, I played a four-hour gig with 30 minutes notice knowing only the Nashville number system and the key we were in- Mm... 52:08 so it's pretty helpful. Otherwise, I would say internalize the song and the chord progressions. Be really familiar with- Mm... the song, where, and especially dynamically, big difference. 52:19 Sound more professional, or playing with dynamics, and a lot of people miss that. And so knowing when those moments are and why they're there is important, too. Yeah. I'd add learn to play in time, I think nowadays, too. 52:32 It can be helpful. [laughs] It's true. Nowadays- Just click everybody uses click tracks now. Yeah. Yeah. 52:38 There have been so many times back when I was working in ministry where we had great musicians, they just couldn't play to a click. They, they couldn't stick to it. 52:47 So I, I think that, like, more and more nowadays where more churches are using tracks, and especially as a newer musician, it can be intimidating. 52:54 Like put- I remember putting in ears for the first time and it was just difficult, but I had learned to play to a metronome. 53:00 I had a old, when I was like 12 years old, I had one of those old-fashioned, like, analog metronomes- Yep... and just slowly learning licks that way. So it's really important to learn to do that, yeah. 53:11 Playing in tune, pretty big, too. Yeah, boy, you're- Learn how to tune your guitar [laughs] Yeah, yeah. The bass sets make a big difference. What to do for, for worship guitar. Play in tune, play in time, play in key. 53:25 Those, that's a good start. Turn on reverb. You're pretty far with those three right there. Then turn on- Let's-... the reverb pedal. Yeah. 53:31 Here's something about playing in time I just want to throw out and see what you guys think. 53:34 There are certain parts that we, we have in, in worship music that, that are U2-like, where they have a dotted eighth and a quarter delay, and sometimes someone's playing the part but they don't have any of those delays in, and they're somehow or other thinking they have to cover it without the delay. 53:52 Have you had that come up? [laughs] Mm-hmm. It's a wild situation where there, there's no hope for them to be able to cover the part without understanding. 54:00 So that's a case where you do need certain gear to make it work if you want to be faithful to what the recording is. Yeah, in those, in those situations, the effect is the part, for sure. Yeah. Mm. 54:11 It doesn't hurt to do, play a different part, though. It doesn't. Like, if you don't- It doesn't... if you don't have the stuff- You don't have to be afraid... that's fine. Yeah. 54:19 Come up with something that fills the same range. And let's be honest, sometimes the parts I don't like. [laughs] Even if I can play them. That doesn't really work, at least not with this worship team, right? 54:32 So- Well, I did that in the last 17 songs. Maybe I should do something- Yeah. And that's true. 54:37 Yeah, there's something like you might learn the song and practice it in your own playing time through the week, and then you get Sunday, you get to a, a Sunday morning or a Saturday rehearsal or whatever and realize, "These parts that I thought were gonna be what I play are really not what I need to play here, and I need to switch gears." 54:56 Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah, or the other guitar player plays those parts, so then you're like, "Okay, I gotta be open. Yeah, we gotta communicate what's going on here." 55:04 Or you're like, "I think I'm playing it better, so you better, uh, just change." [laughs] Yeah, it's the- Okay... awkward eye contact. You're like, "Are you gonna change parts?" Now, I wanted to- Yeah... 55:12 leave enough time to get into the fun stuff and see you guys go back and forth, so- Mm What is your go-to stuff? Oh, boy. Oh, what's your gear of choice? We leave enough time for this part? [laughs] Probably not. 55:27 I'll give, I'll give my short answer. It's whatever's closest. [laughs] Love it. Yeah. I am, I bounce between two guitars right now. 55:37 I have my PRS's, I have a DGT and a 594, and I have Strandbergs, which I have played in worship before. 55:42 I did a, a worship guitar video on my channel, and I played my Strandberg fusion for it and, and someone commented, "Imagine playing this on Sunday morning." I'm like, "I just did." 55:50 And then I am, I'm totally of the modeler camp. I use a Fractal. I, I have the whole ecosystem, the Axe-FX 3, the FM9, the FM3. I probably use the FM9 the most. 56:00 It just has all the most switches on board for all of my tone changes and effects, and I can run stereo. And running stereo I think is huge to get that worship sound and to get those expansive delays and reverbs. 56:13 I run two different IRs, so sometimes I'll run two different amps and I'll do a Fender and a Vox sort of thing. 56:18 But sometimes I'll at least just do, have a couple of different IRs going, so I have a 57 and a 121 on one side, and really go for just the big added width that you can get. 56:28 But I will probably very rarely turn on my tube amps at a live gig these days. All right. Yeah. Next up. 56:36 I was gonna say, I used to have a, a big pedal board with all the amps and everything, but then I realized when I made the move to the Kemper, 56:44 it was just so much more convenient to play a couple of songs on a Sunday, and you can just dial in all the stuff. And like Matthew said, you can do the different amps, all those kind of things. 56:52 So I think you just need to get a piece of equipment that can do what it needs to do, and you just need to get to know it, right? 56:59 Because it doesn't help if you've got the latest and greatest, but you don't know how to use it. Mm-hmm. It's all about actually knowing how to use what you've got. 57:05 And so it's not necessarily the latest and greatest gear out there, because GAS is a real thing, that gear acquisition syndrome, but that's one of the things that gives you a false sense of making progress. 57:15 But you're not actually, you're just spending more money, and you're not spending time with your guitar. So I think, yeah, that's a, a big thing. 57:22 And for, for me guitar-wise, I've got a couple of guitars, but I mostly just use my PRS Custom 22, which I've had for over 20 years. And I think that's another important thing. You just gotta know- Yeah... 57:33 where to find things. Because when I go to my Music Man or Strat, then all of a sudden the neck length and everything is different. Mm-hmm. You know, it's not quite like it. 57:40 So I can play that guitar with my eyes closed, and I can really trust my gear, so I think that's important. If you need to get a certain tone or you need to get a certain note, you trust what you've got. 57:50 And the funny thing is we normally do a, a live stream once a week, and we get qu- uh, questions and stuff. But I guess most people are doing other things while they're watching, so they're not always that engaged. 57:59 Mm-hmm. But the one day I just asked people just to let me know what gear they use, and then the chat was just lighting up like a crawl, right? Mm. Because just everyone's just, like, letting you know their gear. 58:08 That shows you there's a little bit of unhealthy obsession on that side. Of course, it's important and you've gotta get what you need. Mm-hmm. 58:15 But I think we've covered those elements, just improving your playing and then Jason said the gear that you've got closest by should do the trick. It, it's not the gear. 58:23 It's about the, the application and how you use it. The green machine is what I look at your guitar, your PRS, right? That's the one you're talking about, isn't it? Exactly, yeah. It's a green machine for sure. 58:35 I, I love that one. And there's something too about really mastering the gear that you have. 58:43 If like you said, Charlie, if you are just moving from the latest and greatest and, and moving from platform to platform, you're never going to master that new, that newest platform. 58:53 If you can get, if you can get absolute epic tones out of a 10-year-old piece of equipment, you're not gonna get that same level of, of epic-ness from something that you picked up last week. 59:04 You're gonna be, you know, learning that for the next couple of years or so. So using what you know the best is going to be a much safer and a much easier path forward, and better sounding path forward too. 59:17 Yeah, that's so true. I had a funny story about like photographers. People would then say, "You must have a really great camera," or whatever. But it's not the camera, it's the photographer. Mm. 59:25 But I heard a story about Chet Atkins was doing an interview with somebody. Oh. And the interviewer said to him, "Wow, that's a really... That guitar sounds amazing." 59:33 And he just put it down on the chair, and he said, "What does it sound like now?" [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] A great response about it's- Yeah... it's not the gear and it's how you use it. 59:42 But at the same time, I mean, we, we all love our gear, so there's nothing wrong with it. Mm. But you just gotta get your balance right and not be over-extended in one, one area. Yeah. 59:52 I'm always one to, I'm like, yeah, you can do with anything with anything. But at the same time, there are certain things that are just feel so much better. Like I have, I have an El Capistan Tape Echo or whatever. 1:00:05 I will never take that thing off my board, 'cause I love it. It's quirky, it's weird, it does all kinds of stuff. [laughs] But I understand that thing, and it's just... 1:00:13 I've had people be like, "Hey, why don't you put this on?" No, I don't want to. [laughs] What? I don't care what your thing does. I love that thing. And I feel like the gear, ultimately what it... 1:00:21 It shouldn't be this, I need to get this because that will allow me to chi- achieve something. Yeah. The gear should be something that inspires you. That's... Yeah. 1:00:28 I, I joke around, say, oh, the thing that's closest, but honestly, I play every guitar really differently. Mm-hmm. Everything changes when I pick up my Strat versus when I've got my Tele- Totally... versus the Les Paul. 1:00:38 Like e- the way I play the notes, the way I approach every part, it all changes. Which for me, I get crazy bored. I've taught 700 song lessons at this point. [laughs] Guys, I'm going insane. 1:00:50 [laughs] Charlie, can I quit my job most of the [laughs] Anyway, uh, the... It's... And so, like, anything that kinda helps inject new life into things- Mm... is really fun. 1:01:00 But it's all about, like, how is this going to inspire what I do, rather than help me achieve some thing that I hold at some standard that I think I need to hold because that's what everybody does. Yeah. That's so good. 1:01:11 That's, that's exactly what I think through if I'm gonna buy new gear. Maybe the first thing is, is this a wise financial decision? [laughs] Do I have the money to do this? Is the juice worth the squeeze? Is it worth it? 1:01:20 Your wife is usually good at telling you that. Oh, yeah No, but really I think it's- it really is just an extension of our creativity. 1:01:28 And so I, I always think of just, is this gonna wa- is this gonna make me wanna create more? Yeah. 'Cause I think it- a lot of this comes down to the, like, consumerism versus creating as well. 1:01:38 So if we're just consuming all of the time, and let me just buy the newest pedal, let me buy the new Big Sky MX because it's new and it's gonna make me sound better type of thing. 1:01:47 Maybe it could really inspire you to pick up your guitar and play more, but I think whatever's gonna lead you to create more, that's gonna be the thing that's probably gonna be worth it to, to keep on your board. 1:01:56 'Cause similarly, Benson preamp, that's the, the El Cap for me, similar to what you were saying, Jason. Right. Ben- Benson preamp, I got it, it was amazing. 1:02:03 Made a horrible decision, sold it to try something else, and it was awful, and I got it back. [laughs] And I'm just playing so much more, so it's keeping its spot from now on. 1:02:14 So- I think that's important too for, for, like, students. If I'm teaching a younger student and a parent doesn't really want to, like, "We're just trying it out. We'll just see. 1:02:22 We got this old guitar from our neighbor who bought it 20, 30 years ago and, and it's not- [laughs] Bowed neck. Yeah, bowed neck, not in tune. Like, they're not gonna enjoy playing on this. Right. 1:02:31 You'd be better off buying something that, that is enjoyable- Decent... to play on. 1:02:35 And if- and I'm of the camp, like, if your, if your student has been telling you time and time again they wanna learn electric guitar, don't buy them an acoustic guitar. Yes. 1:02:42 Get them an electric guitar 'cause that's what they want. That's what they're actually gonna pick up and practice. If you wanna get you the most bang for your buck, get them the thing that they've been begging for. 1:02:51 That's the parents with the acoustic guitar over the electric guitar is the, "You gotta learn piano first." "But I don't want to learn piano." [laughs] Yep. 1:02:59 "You take six years of piano, and I got better on guitar in six months than I ever got on piano." [laughs] This is literally my story. Jason. Picking up the guitar. "No, I don't wanna play piano. Give me an acoustic. 1:03:09 I don't like acoustic. Give me an electric." And then here we are. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. Any other thoughts there? Let me have a couple pedal board folks. 1:03:21 I know Sam and Tyler, are you still pedal board primarily as well? Yeah, I'm back to pedal board this year. I was on the AMP9 for about four years and- Yeah, back to the pedal... back on a big board right now. Yeah. 1:03:32 And Jason, you're pedals mostly. Yep. Yep. And then we have Matthew and Charles doing all-in-ones of different types. And, uh, I know Justin, you go back and forth between pedals and all-in-ones as well. 1:03:47 So that's an interesting thing, and then this whole capture technology versus modeling. I think all these things fit into the same theme as don't get distracted by the... 1:03:58 It's like the first 95% of getting there is all in the fingers and in the time practicing and in the stuff that in the trenches grinding it out. 1:04:10 The last 5% are these, where we spend most of our time talking to people about, right? Mm-hmm. So it's, uh, yeah, that's an interesting thing. They're all, they're all tools. You just need to be familiar with which one. 1:04:22 Right. Yeah. Exactly. And we live in a time where, like, 20, 20 years ago- Ugh... 15 years ago would've been like, no one's using digital anything. And now we have... 1:04:31 Not only do we have the full, like, analog camps and the full digital camps, Strymon's been putting out digital pedals, fantastic digital pedals ever since they've been in the inception. 1:04:40 I just recently got rid of a Flint, and I thought I'd never get rid of a Flint 'cause I think it sounds awesome. Mm. But I'm paring down and- on, on all of my analog pedals 'cause I, I do so much digital these days. 1:04:51 But that's another thing. 1:04:52 The- we're never really gonna sacrifice, in this day and age, we're really not sacrificing tonal quality for analog, for digital, for plugins, for modelers, for, uh, for capture devices, tube amps, whatever. 1:05:04 We're never really gonna be sacrificing... If you're buying, let's just say general professional grade equipment, we're not really gonna be sacrificing tone quality. 1:05:12 But like we've been talking about, whatever you find is most inspiring to you, you're gonna get the best results out of. Mm-hmm. 1:05:21 And what we need is a company like a gear timeshare where you have s- nominal credits and you can just swap things out. I, I- There are s- there are pedal subscription services as- Are there? Yeah. 1:05:32 You know- You can actually- I never get an idea out there first. [laughs] You were that close, Joe. You were so close- Yeah... to being part of the revolution. Oh, yeah. So close. [laughs] Yeah. 1:05:42 Back in Singapore, we've got a service called Rent a Pedal, and this company will... You apply for it, and they send you a pedal out. You play for it. You play for a bit. 1:05:51 Once you're done, the 30 days, whatever, send it back and, uh, that way you- Wow... can have a revolving door of gears. I wanted to switch back to another topic that I think needs some more discussion. 1:06:04 I'll pop it up here. And that is the whole silent stage challenge. And one of my biggest frustrations over the years is the crappy sound I get back into my ears. 1:06:15 And it actually wasn't until recently that I started going stereo and got two channels just so they could send it back to me in two channels, and I could pan them both left and right. Mm. Because it was so distracting. 1:06:28 I would dial my tone in at home, and I'd start playing, and I'm- I just couldn't even play because it just sounded like the hammer had come down on my tone and just completely crushed it. So I just... 1:06:41 That's one thing, and then the challenge of working with... And it's all vol- a lot of volunteers, right? So you got volunteers on the desk too. And, um, how do you guys deal with that? 1:06:51 I've seen some of you have dealt with this a little bit in your content, so I thought I'd throw that question out. I think it's an important one. 1:06:57 They won't let you put the Marshall stack on stage usually in churches, I don't think. No. Maybe backstage- Um, yeah... amped up in a, in a cab, you know? 1:07:06 I think inevitably that's just the, um, the direction a lot of things are moving. Um, our church, we just overhauled everything these past couple weeks and even the drum set. Yeah. 1:07:16 Finally, we got a $10,000 BWD kit, and so it looks and sounds just like the real thing, but it's still a filing kit. 1:07:25 It- Sounds incredible, but that's my first experience playing with a decent, even electronic kit that's been enjoyable and haven't even noticed or missed- miss it compared to other electronic kits I've played. 1:07:37 But, like, even, even outside the church spaces, a lot of natural stages- Mm-hmm... or silent stages, a lot of tours are silent stages minus maybe the drum set. And I think 1:07:48 unfortunately inevitable, but thankfully the timing of that being inevitable, we have so many choices of solid gear that not really missed. I'm always gonna love plugging into a tube amp. 1:07:59 Just bought another one actually a couple weeks ago. Mm-hmm. 1:08:01 Um, I think it's always gonna have its time and place, but it is, it is an adjustment, but thankfully the gear is so good, and there's so many players in the game that offer great gear that I think it's a great time to be a guitar player and have access to even the ToneX one that had came out for- Yeah... 1:08:19 almost nothing you can have an incredible sound and go stereo if you want for a couple hundred bucks, and nobody would know the difference in audio. 1:08:29 And otherwise, like you were saying with in ears in front of house, unfortunately the guitar player or any musician, the best you can do is just make sure you're sending the best signal to front of house- Yeah... 1:08:39 as you can. And inevitably what happens to it beyond that, you're at the mercy of who's in charge of the gear they're running through. Sometimes it'll sound great. 1:08:47 Other times you don't wanna pick up the guitar ever again after that gig. Um, it's tough. 1:08:53 And I, I think just being, again, really familiar with your gear and adaptable and flexible and knowing how to provide the best signal you can, and if it's not, how to communicate properly and work with front of house or monitors to try to find that signal otherwise, and then ultimately 1:09:12 if they're not usable by the time of the show or the church service, whatever the event may be, uh, try to be a professional caliber musician and just play whether it sounds good or not 'cause you don't have a choice most of the time. 1:09:26 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think having a really good understanding of signal flow, not just from a guitar player, uh, standpoint, but front of house volunteers having a really understanding of signal flow is huge. 1:09:38 One thing that I always say whenever I'm plugging in my modelers is I'm sending them line level signal and professional grade line level plus four, and I'm also sending them a self-contained processed guitar. 1:09:51 So not only am I going through- EQ... was, yeah, so I have EQ in place, a lot of EQ in place. I have IRs, so there's already a mic signature within the IR. I have compression already in place. 1:10:04 So really the only thing that you really need to do if your patches are set up correctly on a modeler, you just bring up the fader and then adjust to the house. Very- Adjust to the room... adjust to the room. Yep. 1:10:16 So- Yep... so a little bit of EQ, maybe some shelves on either side of the extremes, and maybe a small, if any, part of compression at all. 1:10:26 And I think that big, like that hammer coming down and squashing your tone, that happens to me all the time because there's a certain level of s- signal process- processing that happens on a board that I see with volunteers because, okay, maybe if you have a little bit of a background in audio that, okay, I'm getting a g- a guitar signal, so I'm gonna want this EQ, I'm gonna want this compression, and I'm gonna wanna set it up this way, and we need to turn up the preamps. 1:10:49 And you strum a chord, and it's crunchy, and it's compressed, and it's absolutely awful, and that's... 1:10:54 I- I tell them all the time, I- I try to be as nice as I can, but can we try turning off everything that you have on my channel- [laughs]... and just start from there? And usually- Yeah... 1:11:04 nine times out of 10 it h- it ends up being better, and I- I tell them bring the preamps way down or bypass them if you can bypass them. And understanding that level of signal flow is really important. 1:11:13 As, as you mentioned, Joe, going from mono to stereo- Mm-hmm... 1:11:17 for in-ears is huge because not only does that give you a little bit of a wider space to actually exist in as we're here in, in our head, but it also cleans up rather than actually getting dual mono through your one aux send. 1:11:32 It actually frees up. Now that you have two channels going, you have a m- you have much more headroom. The common thing if you're on your app and you're mixing, I can't hear the vocals, so I'll turn those up. 1:11:41 Now I can't hear my guitar, so I'll turn that up. And now I can't hear this, so I'll turn it up, and you just... It keeps going up and up. 1:11:47 [laughs] And you don't really realize 'cause you can turn your master down on your pack, but now before you know anything- GarageBand time... 1:11:54 yeah, and you're clipping your, your output, or the board is clipping the output, and you might even have... 1:11:59 It might not even look like it's clipping because there's a limiter in place, but then all that means is you're shoving everything up to that limiter, and your dynamic range in your in-ears is about that big. 1:12:08 Pulling things down, using that master volume on your pack, and leaving plenty of headroom on your aux. It's easier with stereo. It's harder with mono. 1:12:18 Those sorts of things, like if anyone's listening how to get a better in-ear experience, that's been my experience so far. Can I share a quick tip with HX Stomp or Helix? Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. 1:12:29 So with the HX Stomp, you have the option of, uh, decoupling the volume control knob from the level you send with the outputs. So- [laughs]... 1:12:38 uh, what we can do with the outputs is the outputs will send line level at max volume and the, and the, and the volume knob only affects the, the headphone. 1:12:46 So what I've been doing sometimes when I don't get a good mix is that I have those headphone splitters- Yes... that I will create a more me mix. 1:12:54 So I, I will connect an aux out from the HX Stomp to- together with my in-ear mix 'cause I have a live- I've done that too... I have a, yeah, I have a live, it's the live mix station, and I... 1:13:05 As long as I route them correctly, I'm able to have a more me mix using the, the headphone output on the HX Stomp, which is the final element in my signal chain anyway, so that, that gives me total control. 1:13:15 So what I hear in my ears is completely the same as what I hear back home. Yeah. Um, yeah, but I- Just make sure you turn down your in-ear. Do a mix minus on what they're sending back to you. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, yeah. 1:13:27 Consequently, yes, uh, um, in the IM mix I do, I will turn down my, my electric guitar. Yeah. And because it's a shared live station, live mix station, they always... Everyone doesn't like the electric guitar. 1:13:36 They turn the- they turn it down, way down, like- Just wrong... right at the mix. They miss the blessing. Yeah. Huh. 1:13:43 That is one of my favorite features about the Line 6 stuff, is the fact that you can remove what that output knob... 1:13:49 'Cause I've, going back and forth from being different guitar players on a weekend to me coming in on a weekend, whatever, those channels are always turned up way more because someone i- is using a Helix and they have the output really far down low because that's what they're... 1:14:03 If you're plugging into, like, their FRFRs at home, it's really loud here so I'll turn it down. And you go and you have no signal when you go into a front of house system. And then I come in, I'm sending line level. 1:14:12 Mm-hmm. This huge amount of volume that comes in. They're always, "You're really turned up really loud." Actually, you're turned up really loud and you need to turn down. 1:14:20 [laughs] These are the things that go through my head when I'm setting up sometimes. Yeah, the whole front of house thing is interesting in church world because there's some... I don't know what it is, [laughs] man. 1:14:31 I swear everywhere I've ever played, the sound guy's just, that's his little fiefdom and he's a little mad all the time, and he's really sure of himself, and he doesn't, and in- inevitably it doesn't sound very good. 1:14:42 Yeah. And like, I think zooming out as we... When we're, the question, we had the question about, like, working with front of house. It's like- Yeah... treating the sound engineers, like, pastorally as part of the band. 1:14:54 Yeah. Just recognizing that we're all on the same team and we're trying to get a good sound, you're trying to get a good sound. And you know what? 1:15:02 Matthew's got some good ideas about what's wrong with this, and that's okay. Getting some humility built into that arrangement. And it's difficult, especially if you're having different people all the time. 1:15:11 But a lot of times it's, there's kinda these undercurrents of, like, bitterness and pride, [laughs] all this stuff- Mm... built in there. And just being able to go, "Hey, man, we're all trying to lift up Jesus. 1:15:20 We're trying to make some good sounds." Amen. Like, "I can learn from you, you can learn from me. High five." [laughs] You know? Yeah. 1:15:27 The other thing in, in ch- smaller churches in particular too is that tends to be a position where they, all the Sunday morning experience gets to be thrown on them that's not on stage. 1:15:37 So at least at our church, a smaller church down here in Florida, that's what's going on with that individual. He's a young guy, but he also has to make sure he has all the tables and chairs set up in the foyer. 1:15:49 He's gotta make sure that all the classrooms are ready to go. He's like the detail- He gets the last minute- Mm... stu- uh, PowerPoint or slides to push up for the pastor. 1:15:57 So he, they're under a lot of pressure, and they typically don't have any training on what they're doing. Mm. 1:16:03 And so, uh, the other part of being on the same team, I think, Jason, is also advocating for them to get training- Yeah... and, and just say, "We really need to invest in this person. This person's critical." 1:16:15 And yeah, but 100% agree. We, sometimes we're a little rough on 'em 'cause we get frustrated. [laughs] Mm. You will always get way more value, way more ROI on investing in people rather than other things. Amen. 1:16:28 So training people, building relationship is always gonna get you way further than the next- Amen... big speaker or we got a bigger fog machine or whatever it is. 1:16:37 Guys, we've been going for an hour and a half, and that, that was our target time. I wanted to just pivot and see if you have any final thoughts that you think could be good to share. This is a, a weird mashup. 1:16:48 [laughs] But it's been great. I think we've got a lot of connection points here. We've... I, uh, help me pull together some of the threads. 1:16:55 We talked about not getting distracted by all the gear and all the shiny light syndrome, understanding that there isn't really a shortcut in being prepared. 1:17:06 That, you need to be prepared spiritually for Sunday too, and that kinda dovetails into the other thread that came in, is it's serving the song like in any kind of a musical ensemble, but it's also serving in a whole other different dimension, and making sure the message is heard clearly through the lyrics, but also that we're serving the environment to help people approach their Lord. 1:17:29 What are the things did we come up with? Don't worry about the box or what [laughs] we were talking about, the other musical things. Yeah. But help me pull together a summary here, if you would. 1:17:39 Yeah, use a lot of reverb. [laughs] Oh, that's what worship is, just all that washy stuff. Yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. Yeah. Especially if you have a big room, you, you need more than, than- More is less. Right. 1:17:53 I think one of the big things is just you, you gotta work with what you have. Yeah. Right? Like, we, we don't all have all the stuff, but worship music, like leading worship, is accessible to everyone. It totally is. 1:18:05 Like, you can sit there with a out of tune guitar and you can lead worship. That's a doable- Yeah... thing. Yeah. It might not sound great, and you might wanna get better, but it's like- You know, dang... 1:18:13 God is accessible. Right. And he will work miracles in the listeners' ears. And it's, yeah, it's not just- Correct... we all love music. We're all super passionate about music. Yeah. 1:18:21 That's what we enjoy doing, and it is supposed to be fun and, and, like, fulfilling and all those things. But it's, our God is accessible. That's the craziest thing about Him to me. 1:18:30 [laughs] And just remembering, remembering that as people, I think too, in, in leadership in the things that we do, to be inviters and be welcomers, and just like, how do we help, how do we help you in? 1:18:39 How do we help you get in? Let's help this win, 'cause we, the more, the, the merrier. Amen. Charl, you have any closing thoughts? You, it's late there. Yeah, no worries. 1:18:49 No, it was great, a great discussion, and I like what, uh, Jason is saying here as well. 1:18:53 At the end of the day, it comes down to us just understanding our role there because it's not like we send a ride and you get to the venue, and if the stuff is not there you can make a scene about it. 1:19:04 That's not the way the kingdom works, so we've gotta go there with servant's hearts and be open to whatever challenges we might deal with, when it's volunteers, it's different levels of skill, it's different levels of equipment. 1:19:17 And I think if your heart attitude is the right way, and you work on your people skills, and make the main thing, then God can do awesome stuff. 1:19:26 But I think if, when we take it a little bit too serious- Then we can use a plot. So I think it's important to keep your heart right. And with all those challenges, then God can still move. Yeah. 1:19:35 Because that's why the word even says above all things, guard your heart. And I think that helps for worshipping guitarists, right? So if the tone- Mm... 1:19:41 is not quite right or if the sound guy put some stuff in your, on your channel that you didn't like, there's different ways to respond to it. 1:19:48 And I think it's a big challenge and we can definitely learn by leaning, leaning more on the Holy Spirit to help us. How do we solve this? How do we respond to this? 1:19:57 And at the end of the day, I think that will serve the body of Christ in a much deeper way than trying to be a little bit more, um, pedantic about stuff that has to be the right way. 1:20:07 Even though we'd love it like that, the, the word we've thought at the beginning is saying it's being adaptable. So that will serve you super well. 1:20:15 I think I'd like to have a closing s- summary thought, uh, for, for little child. Uh, I, I liked his, I really love his analogy of the slingshot and, and having your personal slingshot. 1:20:26 What's your slingshot versus the standardized military equipment that you see out there? And I- Mm... 1:20:31 I think it's important for worship guitar players to realize that, that they have a unique voice, they have a unique, they've been made uniquely and- Mm... and so they've got a voice to contribute to their ministry. 1:20:42 So it's not about chasing after the Duesenberg and the $10,000 pedal board, but if God has called you into a place where to serve Him, y- if you just need an I- Ibanez and a $100 Mooer pedal, let that be your, let that be the personal slingshot. 1:20:58 Let the, if that is your slingshot, use that slingshot to, to- Yeah... to serve the Lord with. Amen. Amen. Mm. Great. Great word. And I would say that vocationally as, 1:21:09 Joe, you've put this podcast together to, to- Yeah... take people from one career into the next career, looking for something that is a better fit or h- they have a better calling to do. 1:21:18 We're all here as musicians because there's something within us that just calls us to music, th- that calls us into this thing, and it's really easy for us to have these conversations. 1:21:29 It's really easy for us to be really involved, and I think that's a big thing where we can always get into the minutia of what effect settings, what, what part to play, this, that, and the other thing. 1:21:41 We can ruminate on all those things, but living within what it is that you're called to do and continuously doing it and going the distance and worrying more... 1:21:53 Now, I guess worrying isn't the word, but pursuing it over a longer period of time more day after day is much better than seeking perfection- Yeah... before you go do the thing. 1:22:03 So even if someone is starting a brand-new vocation and, and they're really worried about this sort of thing, it's better to be r- just really involved in the process and do what you can with what you got. 1:22:16 And then enjoy as much as you can. Not that, that we don't have days that we feel like are work. I'm sure we all have days where this feels like work today. 1:22:27 But at the end of the day, I would assume that we all love music and doing what we do so much that we can enjoy the process going throughout and don't get too hel- held up on seeking perfection. Yeah. 1:22:38 You're not gonna get there. Tyler, any closing thoughts? Man, I'm gonna have to. Y'all have- Don't have to... said it already. Practice that guitar. Yeah, there you go. 1:22:49 I will say, uh, it's been a, a real joy for me to have you guys together. 1:22:52 I appreciate you having the hearts you do to, to serve the Lord and being sensitive to that, that talent that the Lord has given you, the parable of the talents, that you're getting maximum gain out of it for the Kingdom of God. 1:23:04 So with that, guys, God bless and get ready for Sunday. And- Awesome... Jason, you gotta hit 1,000 tutorials before you complain at least, right? Think of it this way. I've done an acoustic lesson and- Oh, that's it... 1:23:20 for everyone, so technically it's more like- It's-... 1,400. [laughs] There you go. Yeah. Just going from there. I'm playing a new song Sunday. How quick can you get a video out? [laughs] What's the song? 1:23:29 He's probably got it. Another one. Elevation. I need- Oh, gosh. I mean, I'm literally working on that this week. All right. So you guys have each other's emails. Send it over before Sunday if you got it. 1:23:41 [laughs] All right, guys. Again, this was really cool. God bless you. Thanks. Stay in touch. Later, Joe. Bye, guys. God bless. Take care. Thanks so much for having me on. Yes. All right. Bye bye, guys.
