At the end of each 10 Week Worship Guitar courses we gather together for an end of term party.
The 10 Week Worship Guitar End of Term Party is a wonderful, relaxed opportunity for all of the students to get together, mingle in fellowship, and have a time of worship.
The plan is that each of the groups plays together, exactly like we do in the class, and lead the others in worship. It’s a great opportunity to see how it feels to lead worship for real.
Students can see the progress that the other students have made during the term, and find out what the next level entails. (There are currently 4 levels; Beginners, Improvers, Intermediate, Advanced.)
The party last term was held at St Barnabas, Kensington, London, W14.
The guitar tutor was caught on camera bashing through a few songs at the end of the party.
I first learnt to play the guitar when I inherited my brother’s old guitar – a cheap, nasty and practically unplayable unbranded, nylon string guitar from Woolworths. As my dad was a semi-professional keyboard player we had lots of music around the house. I found a couple of songbooks containing songs by the great country songwriter Hank Williams. The songbooks had chord diagrams, which showed you where to put your left hand fingers to play the chords in the song. I learnt the fingerings from the diagrams, and used to play the songs over and over when I got home from school. Ready to Go Home was one of the songs that I learnt from these songbooks.
There’s coming a day when the world shall melt away
And Jesus shall come to claim his own
No more tears no pain no woe in this wicked world below
Then will you be ready to go home
Will you be ready to go ready to go home
To live with Him up there around the throne
When He says come unto Me will your soul be clean and free
Then will you be ready to go home
In this world of greed and hate will you wait till it’s too late
To claim the Saviour for your own
For He’s coming someday to bear your soul away
Then will you be ready to go home
As you travel day by day down life’s long highway
Are you on the road that leads to wrong
If you’ll just travel in His light and pray both day and night
Then you’ll be ready to go home
My dad’s record collection was largely country music and jazz. Another big favourite of mine is the great Louis Armstrong. Here is a version of What a Wonderful World.
Some hymns are guitar friendly – particularly where the hymn writer has taken a popular, of folk type melody and written worship text. Others, composed by serious composers, are more problematic on the guitar. My favourite hymn is Dear Lord and Father of Mankind; This hymn was composed by, teacher and music historian Charles Parry. Parry was also the director of the Royal College of Music. The music is composed in a contrapuntal style – interweaving lines of music – and doesn’t really lend itself to the guitarist’s block-chord approach. I simplified the part as much as I thought possible to retain the basic harmony of the hymn, and make it playable on chord-style guitar.
On the BBC’s Songs of Praise viewers voted this hymn as the second most popular hymn in the UK.
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
