Note: All of the songs from this point onward will be played with 4 chords. Even though I could've simplified a few of them even more into just 3 chords, they just wouldn't have sounded the same. I decided to do all I could to keep the "essence" of the music.
Contemporary Christian Songs In The Key Of G
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You'll notice that the remainder of the songs listed here sound a bit "richer" than the first song we simplified down to only 3 chords (Amazing Love). Even though Amazing Love still sounds good, adding an E Minor (Em) into the chord progression would significantly improve the sound. Just my two cents!
And we finally come across our first 5-chord song! Don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds. And if you've been following along with some of the earlier songs I mentioned, you should already have G, C, Em, and D down.
To get around this and simplify this song to a playable beginner level, what I did was transposed the entire song down 9 half steps (-9 transpose). This brought it down from E to G, giving us the same chords we've been playing the rest of these songs in!
"God of wonders beyond our galaxy...", as the song goes! This is one of my favorite worship songs. It's easy to pick up and play (using our same four chords once again), and it's a little more upbeat allowing it to fit in the middle of any worship segment easily.
3-chord songs, on the other hand, are perfectly reasonable. If we're talking about a simple song here, simplifying it down to 3 chords should (in most cases) keep the essence of the song and let you play it and sing along to it.
And that's all there is to it. Keep practicing, choose a worship song that you like the most, and you'll be playing these worship songs like a pro in no time! If you're up for it, maybe you can even play them around the campfire sometime!
One of the greatest obstacles to participative worship is singing songs in keys too high (or occasionally too low) for the average congregational singer. Understanding acceptable vocal ranges for average singers certainly helps worship leaders choose good keys, but for some, the process is quite a chore. Today I release a chart of the top 100 CCLI songs, listed alphabetically, with the best keys to insure great congregational singing.
The resource also includes a link to the audio for every song to help you in evaluating new songs for worship. In addition, I have constructed a playlist of the Top 100 CCLI Songs that you can stream anytime you have an internet connection.
The chart of songs and their choice keys is copied below (current as of November 2012) but a regularly updated table will be located on the Renewing Worship website that you can reference any time you need it. I will be adding additional songs to the list in the coming months.
Musicademy established a local music school in 2003. Progressing from live lessons in contemporary instruments, our worship guitar DVDs were launched in 2005 followed bycourses for the rest of the worship team.
Christian worship songs that are quick to learn on the guitar; most of them will be 3-chord or 4-chord songs, with varying strum methods each. Quite a lot of people become interested in learning how to play the guitar, especially for contemporary Christian worship music.
When we play this in the current day, we generally find songs that are more simple in structure to be more effective at relaying their message. So for this version we just use three chords which are G, Cadd9, and D over F sharp. The strumming pattern is the good old D-D-D-DU where that last upstroke sits on the & of the 4th beat.
Today, we're going to look at a few of the top worship songs of the past few decades and, more specifically, what chord progressions are being used. When you listen to these songs, the most engaging parts are the words and melodies. Those are the parts that really sticks with you because there are a lot of meaningful prose and beautiful melodic phrasing. In juxtaposition, the chord progressions are usually very similar and common. They are usually the simplest, most common parts of these incredible songs of faith.
In order to understand what's going on musically in these top worship songs, you must first understand how the number system works. Here's a great video by an incredible guitarist who knows a thing or two about worship songs:
Basically, you take a major scale and assign a number to each note in the scale. We'll take C major as an example, as it is one of the most popular keys in worship and it's the original key of several of the songs we'll look at today. The notes in C are as follows:
Okay, the 7 chord is a mystery to most, but we're going to take this fun little H2 header to explain it, and we might even throw in one of the top worship songs, which includes the seven chord so that you get some use out of this knowledge.
The natural chord that occurs at the seventh degree is a minor chord with a flat fifth. It's a pretty nasty sounding little chord that most songwriters avoid like the plague and/or bill collectors. The tension in this chord can be used to great effect in styles that thrive on tension and release, like jazz and flamenco. But since there aren't a lot of top worship songs in flamenco, we'll show you how worship writers side step this little monster.
Now that you know all of the chords in C and what they're corresponding numbers are, let's take a look at two of the most popular worship songs ever written, "How Great Is Our God" and "How He Loves".
Next time someone tells you all worship songs are the same four chords, ask them to play "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)". One of the top worship songs of the past ten years, this song is incredibly well written. Beautiful melodies and poetic lyrics over a great series of chord progressions. It's time to put your thinking cap as we look at "Oceans", which uses six of the seven chords in the diatonic scale.
Speaking of the satisfaction of completion, That will wrap up our look at progressions in top worship songs. We took a look at two very "in the box" songs, and one song that refuses to believe there is a box. As you learn more and more about music and how it works, it's very important to not look down on simplicity. There is beauty in the simple, and beauty in the complex.
Oh yeah, one more thing. While we discuss top worship songs to learn on guitar, this will be slightly technical, especially for the beginning player. So, if you would like to find out what all this means click here.
If you would like to learn these kinds of top worship songs on the guitar, then you might want to click on the link below. Also, if you are looking for easy worship songs to learn on guitar, click here. At Pro Lessons the professional guitar players that play these songs night in and night out will actually show you how they personally play these songs, along with a few of their own shortcuts and tricks to go along with it.
For your solo arrangement of this and all of the easy worship songs on guitar, you can choose how fully or quietly to play your guitar. It helps with a singalong to be a little more full so everyone can hear and follow!
As you may have already figured out a chord progression is nothing more than a sequence of 2 or more chords. Majority of worship songs are built around one or more different chord progressions, which generally tend to repeat throughout the song.
In this mega list we are going to provide some great examples of easy guitar songs for beginners , with a limited number of basic guitar chords (click here for a complete chords ebook).
It just doesn't get much better than Hank Williams, who wrote Jambalaya back in 1952 (well he most likely co-wrote it based off an old Cajun melody). This is another simple two chord melody that can be strummed or picked. Sometimes when playing simple two chord songs we want to add a little spice to the strumming since we don't have too much going on musically. Once you have the basic melody and song down, experiment a little!
This 50's song had a big comeback after the movie Beetlejuice, it is a traditional Jamaican folk song made popular by Harry Belafonte. While this song is simply C major and G major like the rest on this list, the key to playing it is to get the strum right. Jamaican and reggae type songs often have an emphasis on the 2 and 4 beat, strum with a percussive type effect on these beats as you play the Banana Boat Song.
As mentioned before, most songs that only have these two chords in them of C and G will often be kid's songs or folk songs. However, it is always good to know these really simple songs like Mary had a Little Lamb because you never know when you will have a young audience that will want to hear a familiar tune!
Some of these songs have the F chord in some parts. Full bar chords are not easy for beginners. If you're not comfortable yet with bar chords , you can use one of the simplified shapes that you find on the F major chord diagrams page.
The Penguins released the song Earth Angel in 1954 and it was one of the first songs to crossover from the rhythm and blues charts to the pop charts. Which along with a few other songs from that era helped pave the way for the Rock explosion. Doo Wop songs nearly always followed this same progression as Earth Angel.
Love him or hate him, John Denver wrote many songs and many hits. However, this particular tune was made famous by Peter, Paul, and Mary. In fact it was their final and biggest hit, back in 1966. This is a great song when you begin playing these five chords, slow and easy changing between each chord.
This song was the first hit by the band The Plain White T's , Time magazine even put it on there list of best songs of 2007. They make great use of these five chords and are a great song to have in your repertoire.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are great at writing songs for people learning to play the guitar! This song was released in 2000 and as usual is about their struggles with addiction, and they always knew how to make great music from serious issues. This song has the five necessary chords we are using however it starts on an A minor, giving it that solemn and serious feel. 2ff7e9595c
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