WorshipGuitarist

I know that this is pretty nerdy, but I still think it’s awesome. It’s a Build Your Own Clone Tone Bender MKII Fuzz pedal.

For more details on the build, click here.

I don’t know if Song of Hope is getting some serious airplay or the search engines have found my blog, but my traffic has spiked big time today. I have gotten 221 hits as of 11:40 this morning. Check out my stats:

As you can see, my traffic has been steadily increasing over the last few days. At this rate, I’ll be over 5,000 hits sometime today. I guess I need to work on more content.

Here’s a new chart for the song Shine Your Light on Us - one of my favorites from the new RSB disc. This would be a great tune to use in worship.

shine-your-light-on-us.pdf

This song was first performed when RSB first came to our church a little over a year ago. Robbie had written it a few days before the concert and just wanted to try it out on an audience. It seems like the arrangement was pretty sparse, but the song doesn’t really need too much.

There’s an appropriately simple guitar part in the middle that revolves around the open E string and fingered notes on the B string. To really nail the sound, you’ll need a couple of delays - one set for eighth notes and one set for dotted eighths. A lot of guys use two Boss DD-5 pedals connected to a tap controller (like the FS-5U) via a Y-cable.

Here’s the tab:

E-0--0--0--0--|0-0-0-0-|0--0--0--0-|
B-12-12-12-14-|9-9-7-5-|10-10-10-9-|

Here’s the tab to the intro of Rise, the first track on the new Robbie Seay Band disc.

Rise
Robbie Seay Band

  (Repeat 3 times)
  1 &  2 & 3 & 4 &     1 &  2 & 3 &  4 &
E-------------------||-------------------|
B-------------------||-------------------|
G-8/10-----------6-.||-8/10-----8/10-----|
D------8-6-----6---.||------8-6------8-6-|
A----------8h9------||-------------------|
E-------------------||-------------------|

E----------------8-8-|8-9-9-9-11-11-----|
B-9-9-9-11-11-11-----|--------------9-9-|
G--------------------|------------------|
D--------------------|------------------|
A--------------------|------------------|
E--------------------|------------------|

E----------------8-8-|8-9-9-9-11-11-13-13-|
B-9-9-9-11-11-11-----|--------------------|
G--------------------|--------------------|
D--------------------|--------------------|
A--------------------|--------------------|
E--------------------|--------------------|

E----------------8-8-|8-9-9-9-11-11-----|
B-9-9-9-11-11-11-----|--------------9-9-|
G--------------------|------------------|
D--------------------|------------------|
A--------------------|------------------|
E--------------------|------------------|

E----------------8-8-|8-9-9-9-11-11-13-13-|-8(hold)--
B-9-9-9-11-11-11-----|--------------------|----------
G--------------------|--------------------|----------
D--------------------|--------------------|----------
A--------------------|--------------------|----------
E--------------------|--------------------|----------

My traffic has really spiked since I posted the Song of Hope chart. As of this this time today, 20 people have clicked over based on a search using a combination of these words: Robbie Seay Band, Tabs, Chords, Lyrics, and Song of Hope. [Update: I had 140 hits yesterday, and most of them were from a search for either RSB or CAGED chords.]

If only I could harness this power and use it for my own personal gain… =)

As promised, here’s the tab to the intro to Song of Hope by Robbie Seay Band.

  1  2  3  4  1  2     3  &  4  &
E------------|--------------------|
B-12-12-12-12|12-12-12------------|
G-15b16-15b16|15b16-15b16r15-13-11|
D------------|--------------------|
A------------|--------------------|
E------------|--------------------|

 1  2  3  &  4  &  1  2  &  3  &  4  &
|---------11------|---------------------|
|---12-14----14---|---17----17----16----|
|13-------------16|---------------------|
|-----------------|14----14----14----14-|
|-----------------|---------------------|
|-----------------|---------------------|

There are other ways of playing this, of course, but this feels the most comfortable for me. You could play the opening m2 unison bend on the E & B strings in 7th position, but it doesn’t feel quite as natural. It may be different for you.

Bending with precision is really critical. If you put too much pressure on the strings you will bend too far. It’s really easy to overcompensate on the bends, so you’ll need to work on developing your muscle memory.

Enjoy!
[Updated 1.23.08]

RSB played at our church last night and I got some pics of their gear, just in case anyone’s interested. 

Robbie’s pedals

Robbie’s amp

Ryan’s pedals

Ryan’s amp

Jerry’s pedals

Jerry’s amp

I didn’t think to take any guitar pics, for some reason. Robbie had a tele and a couple of Taylors. Ryan had a jazz bass and a p-bass. Jerry had a Les Paul (it looked like a standard) and a Gretsch Country Gentleman. He said that the Gretsch was new and he was still getting used to it, so it didn’t get played. I’m not a drum or keyboard guy, so I didn’t take any pics of Chase or Dan’s stuff. I’m sure that it’s nice, but I wouldn’t know what I was looking at.

I should mention that Chase runs his Rhodes keyboard through a Stulce guitar amp. He said that it makes for some cool textures. He didn’t have it miked last night, so I wasn’t sure if I heard it or not.

I got the new disc last night, and I’ve listened to it a couple of times already. I’ll post a review once I’ve spent a little more time with it, but I can already tell that it’s worth getting. You should definitely plan to pick it up when it comes out on Tuesday. 

I started this influences thing a couple of months ago and never got around to talking about who I’ve been listening to lately. One trend is that I’ve been listening to music that’s less guitar-centric and more song-oriented. Of course, most of the music that I listen to is still pretty guitar-heavy, it’s just not the focus.

• Radiohead (Jonny Greenwood & Ed O’Brien) - These guys are fearless. Some of the textures and tones that they create are brand new. They are very original musicians and not overtly derivative.
• Wilco (Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline) - I love Wilco, especially the Live in Chicago double CD. There are a lot of guitar solos on this disc, but it’s not the typical flashy “look at me” guitar solo from the 80’s. The guitar very much serves the song.
• Post-Rock (Godspeed you! Black Emperor, Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, etc.) - I don’t really know how to describe this kind of music. It’s kind of like instrumental (or at least wordless) rock music. It’s not like a Joe Satriani album, though - it’s more orchestral and layered. In many instances, there isn’t an obvious discernible melody. Again, I don’t know how to describe it, you you should check it out.

There are other things that I’m listening to, of course. These people are probably at the top, though. I still listen to a lot of the old influences. If a Hendrix song comes up on shuffle and I’m in the mood, I’ll listen to it (especially if it’s not one of the big radio hits).I also listen to The Arcade Fire, Beck, The Flaming Lips, Kings of Leon, Muse, MuteMath, Neutral Milk Hotel, Sufjan Stevens, The Shins, The White Stripes, etc…

To state the obvious, Robbie Seay Band is a band led by Robbie Seay (pronounced “see”). Robbie Seay is the worship pastor at Ecclesia Church in Houston, and he also happens to be a pretty dang good singer/songwriter. They have several albums (available at iTunes) and my favorite is the indie version of Better Days that they released a few years ago.

They have a new album coming out this month, and they’ve released a couple of free downloads at freersb.com. I went ahead and typed out the lyrics and chords to the first single Song of Hope, which should become popular if there’s any justice in the world.

Get the chart here.

I also figured out the main guitar part (played by Taylor Johnson I think), which is a pretty cool little lick. I’ll probably tab it out in the next day or so. Here it is.

Okay, I whipped up a quick demo of the new phaser (plus a few other goodies), recorded on my iMac G5 with my Les Paul ‘57 Historic reissue. I used the Liverpool Clean amp sim in GB (surprisingly good, eh?) since the baby is sleeping.Here’s what I did:

1.) Quick little clean thing in A minor, just to give you an idea of the clean tone. I was using the Line 6 Echo Park on the tape delay setting. I started on the middle setting on the guitar (neck/bridge), but I switched to the neck and didn’t change for the rest of the recording.

2.)  Stepped on the phaser. Played with the rate and depth knobs a little.

3.) Set the phaser to a univibe-y setting and stepped on the Silver Kiss. Played some Trower.

4.) Stepped on the Teese Wheels of Fire wah and noodled for a while. Listen to that oscillation at the end.