Popular Worship Songs on Guitar: Songs & Keys

• September 17, 2016
• Guitar Lessons

It should be very encouraging to know that like Pop, Rock, and Country music, Worship songs are generally easy to play and very repetitive. It’s very cool that with only a few chords, you can play hundreds of popular worship songs on guitar.

The 1, 4, 5, pattern with a 6mi or 2mi and an occasional 7b or 5/7 pretty much sums up most of the modern songs on the radio. Ok so a 3mi maybe, but the diatonic chords of any major scale generally are used in our western music. Just take a simple “C” scale. “C Dmi Emi F G Ami Bdim C” We usually substitute a G/B for the 7th scale degree because diminished chords just don't sound modern.

Also, you’ll hear a 7b or Bb in the place of the diminished chord. So, if you’ll learn these basic chords in the key of C and also in the key of G, you can capo and play in pretty much any key. The diatonic G scale chords are: “G Ami Bmi C D Emi F#dim G.” You can substitute a D/F# or F for the 7th scale degree and you’re off and jamming. Let’s look at some of these popular worship songs that are so easy and overlap so well.

Popular Worship Songs on Guitar: “Our God” by Chris Tomlin

This song starts with a very familiar pattern. 6mi 4 1 5/7. If we’re in the key of G it’s Emi //// C //// G //// D/F# ////. Then he throws in a 2mi7 and it resolves to a 5sus4 //// 5 ////. There are variables but this is the basic structure. The chorus and bridge are pretty much the same. 6mi 4 1 5/7 and the song builds and does a cool unison rhythm for the release. You can pull this song up on youtube here or just buy it on iTunes and jam along. It might be in the key of A so just put a capo on the 2nd fret and play these G chords. It’s a great place to start.

Popular Worship Songs on Guitar: “One Thing Remains” by Jesus Culture

Let’s stay in the key of G and change the chords around and like “Our God,” you can easily play along to this one. Again, our scale is G Ami Bmi C D Emi D/F# G. But, we’re only using 5 chords out of the diatonic scale: 1 2mi 4 5 and the 6mi. This time it start on the 4. Intro and verse goes:

C G D C G D Higher than the mountains that I face… stronger than the power of the grave… and so on.

Why the reference to numbers you ask? Because no matter what key you’re in, if you know your scale in the key, you can hear the chord changes and too, if you make a number chart, you don't have to make a new chart if you decide to change keys, just think in the new scale. Ok so, the chorus is: 6mi // 4 // 1 // 5 // . Look familiar? It’s exactly like “Our God” accept the measures count differently. Now it’s 2 beats for each chord and it moves along more swiftly. The underlined measure means it’s a split bar. 4 beats but split between at least 2 chords as marked.

Having fun yet? Now, Ironically there’s a 2mi also in this song. In the bridge it goes:

C G D Ami7 G D In death, in life, I’m confident and covered by the power of your great love… The Ami7 is a nice change to break up the sound a little. What’s the 7 in Ami7? You can play just an Ami but the 7 adds a nice open sound. You just need a “G” note in the Ami chord and it becomes an Ami7. If you’re holding an Ami, just lift up the 3rd finger of the chord and that allows the G open string to ring out in the chord. You see this chord a lot.

Popular Worship Songs on Guitar: “Great Are You Lord” by All Sons and Daughters

This song is using our same G chords with the exception of a Gsus4 which is easy enough if you just make a C chord and move your low C note up to the big string and mute the A string. It’s more or less an Ami/G but functions well as a Gsus4.

Now, this song feels a little different. It’s because it’s in 6/8 time or each measure gets 6 beats instead of 4. The intro is simply C ////// Emi ////// D ////// D ////// and check this out, the verse and chorus is exactly the same pattern. It doesn’t get to the 1 or Tonic until the release which is very cool. The release is G ////// G ////// Gsus4 ////// Gsus4 ////// C ////// C /////// G /////// G //////. and it continues on into the bridge the same.

There is an interesting triplet feel against the tempo that we hear on the recording so just match what you hear and you catch on. The sweetness of this tune is the feel of the 6/8 time that seems to just waltz you along and the lyric is very worshipful. So here’s an example of a 3rd worship song that you can do with just simple key of G chords. If you’re just beginning and this seems very hard to you, join us on prolessons.com and study with the pros on how to play these chords and others in their perspective chord families.

The main thing is to challenge yourself, grow and play these popular worship songs on guitar. Just take these 3 songs and use a capo if you must to get it in a key you can sing it in or to play along with your mp3 or youtube. Review the chords, download a chart from online and play the song by yourself till you get up to speed and ready to jam along. Then play along to your mp3 or whatever source you have and get to where you can play the whole length of the song. Once you get that happening, you can add many more songs.

Feel free to click the link below and join our instructors as they teach you many popular worship songs on guitar.