Jason Houtsma discourages bad worship habits.
10. Never stop playing.
Not before the set starts. Not in between songs. Not when someone is talking. Not when someone is praying. Not even when the service is over and the sound guy has put the background music on. NOT EVER. Silence is for players who don’t know the blues scale.
9. Recognize every song you play is beneath you.
The chords are too easy. The riff isn’t creative enough. There’s not a single augmented chord in the whole thing! If it was a real song it would include finger-tapping, now wouldn’t it? Be sure to let out an audible groan when the song is announced so everyone knows it’s lame.
8. Don’t waste money on a tuner.
Tuners are for rookies and you don’t want to dull your ear. If you go out of tune in a set, you can either turn up your volume and tune over the song or better yet, just keep playing out of tune because the musical idiots in your church can’t tell the difference anyway. Don’t worry about any dirty looks you might receive. They’re just jealous of your musical superiority.
7. Always take on a disgusted and irritated demeanor when communicating with your sound engineers. I like to scowl, point emphatically at my guitar and then jam my thumb into the air. Throwing both hands up in the air with an exasperated shrug is also acceptable. Just be sure you exaggerate enough so everyone in the congregation knows all your wrong notes are the sound guy’s fault. Speaking of sound…
6. Understand that you are never loud enough.
You can combat this by bumping your instrument volume up a few ticks as soon as the set starts. That way if you aren’t loud enough in the house mix, the stage volume can overwhelm the house and at least a few more people will hear that raging solo you decided to add to the middle of the chorus.
5. Make sure everyone knows your time is more valuable than theirs.
This is easy to do and super effective. Simply show up to practice late and then wait until everyone else has set up before even taking your gear out of the bag. Bonus points if you have technical problems once you are set up.
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