4 Modern Worship Guitar Roles

Updated 2022
Estimated time to read: 7 minutes

In this post I’m going to cover the 4 guitar roles in a modern worship team: rhythm acoustic guitar, rhythm electric guitar, lead electric guitar, and lead acoustic guitar. I’ll wrap up by covering how some experienced guitarists can fulfill multiple roles during the same set. Not sure which type of guitar you’d like to play? Keep reading and find out!

Sections:

• The Role of the Rhythm Acoustic Guitar

• The Role of the Rhythm Electric Guitar

• Lead Electric Guitar

• Lead Acoustic Guitar

• Fulfilling Both Roles of Rhythm and Lead Electric Guitar During the Same Set

• Should I Play Rhythm Acoustic Guitar Parts on an Electric Guitar?

• Wrapping it up

The Role of the Rhythm Acoustic Guitar

The rhythm acoustic guitarist is the primary rhythm instrument when it comes to chord changes. You’ll play chords 100% of the time.

In contemporary worship music, the rhythm acoustic guitarist plays most of the set and creates the foundation on which the other guitarists add texture and dynamics.

Usually, but not always, if there is only one guitarist on the team, they are playing rhythm acoustic guitar. This makes for a more versatile worship set as the rhythm acoustic player can play solo during an announcement or message and also play with the rest of the band during the worship set.

Rhythm acoustic guitar is perfect for someone who wants to play all the chords and maybe even write their own songs. Minimal gear is required, usually just an acoustic guitar!

The Role of the Rhythm Electric Guitar

Just like the rhythm acoustic guitar, a rhythm electric guitarist plays chords 100% of the time. If there’s a chord, you will play it. If there’s a lead line, a guitar solo, etc. you won’t play it.

Usually as a second guitarist on the team (next to a rhythm acoustic guitarist), you’ll compliment whatever he’s doing. If it’s a quiet verse, you may only strum once per chord. Once the song builds into a big chorus, that’s when you’ll shine by bringing the energy and fullness to the song.

You can play similar or different strum patterns than what the rhythm acoustic guitarist is playing. This adds some variety. You can also play swells and syncopated rhythms, all still with chords.

Rhythm electric guitarists should be careful during an announcement or message as to not be too aggressive or harsh and create conflict with the atmosphere.

Rhythm electric guitar is perfect for someone who wants to play all the chords, rock out on the big choruses and bridges of songs, and maybe likes amps and pedals more than an acoustic guitarist. You’ll need some additional gear, including an amp and maybe an overdrive pedal — we won’t be able to hear you without some kind of amplification!

Lead Electric Guitar

Next we have lead electric guitar. While the rhythm guitars are laying the foundation for the chord changes with the rest of the rhythm section, the lead electric guitarist adds what I call “icing on the cake.”

Typically, the lead electric guitarist plays the opposite of chords — leads! These are melody lines (and occasionally diads and triads). You play intro and outro lead lines. You can mimic the vocal melody or harmony lines. You can add note swells and soundscapes to create a pad-like texture to an ethereal intro or verse.

Lead electric guitar is perfect for someone who has some guitar experience under their belt. You need to understand all the chord changes that are being played and then be able to play complimentary melody and harmony lines. You like amps and pedals, but prefer creating hooks and soundscapes that add “icing” to songs. You’ll need an amp, maybe a delay or reverb pedal, and some cables to connect them all.

Lead Acoustic Guitar

Finally we have lead acoustic guitar. This is the least common guitar role in modern worship because an acoustic guitar is build (literally) for amplifying sound. When you only play one note at a time, there isn’t much sound to amplify compared to full 6-string chords.

The strings that are usually on acoustic guitars are some form of metal, which makes lead acoustic guitar sound a little “tinny” or “metallic.” You can add a delay or reverb pedal to change the sound, but it will often sound more stuck-up than smooth. There are other types of strings you can use, but they don’t give as big a punch for those full chords. It’s a tradeoff so bear this in mind.

Another big reason is that if the acoustic player stops playing the rhythm foundation for the rest of the band and starts picking a dinky lead line, then there’s a big gap in the sound levels where a few picked notes on an acoustic guitar doesn’t fill that space anymore.

The most common settings where you’ll see a lead acoustic guitar is in a duet (two acoustic guitars), or any other all-acoustic band. In that setting, a lead acoustic guitar can shine and be heard. The sound will match the other acoustic instruments and it won’t seem out of place.

Although possible in a dual acoustic guitar set, or even when there are two acoustic players in a full band, lead acoustic guitar doesn’t often fit in a full-band worship setting.

Lead acoustic guitar is perfect for someone who’s an experienced rhythm acoustic guitarist and is complimenting another acoustic player. You’ll need minimal equipment, which can just include an acoustic guitar! You can also add delay or reverb pedals, but you’ll need some type of amplification.

Fulfilling Both Roles of Rhythm and Lead Electric Guitar During the Same Set

Now, for more advanced players who have experience fulfilling the roles of rhythm and lead electric guitar at different times, you can fulfill the roles of both on a team at the same time.

Covering both roles in a worship team can be tricky as it takes a great deal of skill. You’ll need an understanding of the songs, chords, and strum patterns. You need to know what the other instruments are doing at any and all given point in each song. You will also need to be conscious of how your playing impacts the way the worship set sounds and is perceived by the audience.

This may seem like a lot to process for one person — and it is! There’s a lot of musical ground to cover for someone who accepts a dual guitarist role in a band, but it is possible by learning and improving your skills, one concept at a time.

If you think you are all that and a bag of chips and you strum away on some chords and play some loud solos during quiet verses, you aren’t really fulfilling the role of both guitarists. You are only fulfilling yourself and what you think would be cool or maybe get some attention.

This is not what worship and playing on a worship team is about. I don’t believe this is what your skills should be used for.

Instead, you might play a melody line during the intro, play some clean single-strum chords during the verses, play some good solid rhythms (strum patterns) in the choruses to match the energy of the rest of the band, and in the bridge, build with the rest of the band by starting with a simple lead line and building into big chords.

If you’re thinking that you want to fulfill both rhythm and lead electric guitar roles on a team, ask yourself two questions. Be honest with yourself. Am I actually ready to hold both roles? Do I have the skills in each role to take on the additional responsibility? If you can honestly answer, yes, than awesome! If not, take some time to hone your skills individually as a rhythm guitarist and as a lead guitarist.

Should I Play Rhythm Acoustic Guitar Parts on an Electric Guitar?

Maybe you’re thinking of learning rhythm acoustic guitar. Great!

Although you can play rhythm guitar on both acoustic and electric guitars, the way you play and the role you fill, including the quality of sound, are different.

They’re similar just because of the fact that each type of guitar has 6 strings and 20+ frets, and you can make the same chord shapes on each.

However, the sound quality, the tone, the dynamics, the space it fills with the rest of a band, and the energy it brings are all things that can make playing rhythm acoustic guitar parts on an electric sound “off,” or just not quite right.

More experienced players can get away with playing acoustic guitar parts on an electric guitar, but it has to be in the right setting to fit well with the rest of the instrumentation, the songs in the set, the energy and atmosphere of the worship for that setting, what the message is about, the age group of the audience, and the previous experience that the audience or congregation has had with that style of music.

Wrapping it up

Sometimes learning to play guitar or determining what role you want to fill on a team can seem overwhelming, but don’t let it be! Take your time learning the basics and enjoy the process of learning to play guitar, whatever type of guitarist you choose to be. After all, being a great worship guitarist isn’t about how good you are, but how good you make the rest of your team sound.