NOT many people can say that they have played in a band with Lady Cora from ‘Downton Abbey’. But Simon Nelson can. Last month, the guitarist completed a tour with the period drama actress Elizabeth McGovern, who heads up the group Sadie and the Hotheads.



‘I met Elizabeth in her pre-“Downton” days,’ says Simon, when I meet him at his home in London. ‘My brother Steve is a guitar teacher and about seven years ago he put an advert in a local paper, offering lessons. Elizabeth got in touch because she wanted to learn to play some Bob Dylan music.



‘When Steve started her lessons, neither of us knew who Elizabeth was. We gathered that she was quite a famous actress, but we are not particularly into films so didn’t recognise her. Steve encouraged her to write some songs and straight away she did. She is very bright and creative, so was able to come up with some really quirky, interesting material.’



After a few songs had been composed, Simon put together a band to back her and record the songs. Since then, Sadie and the Hotheads have been making music. They try to arrange their diaries around Elizabeth’s busy filming schedule.



‘Elizabeth is very open to talking about being in “Downton”,’ says Simon. ‘She was also in a lot of films in the 1980s’ [such as ‘Once upon a Time in America’, with Robert De Niro] ‘and it is funny to hear her mention some of the stars she has worked with. She’s very friendly.’



Simon explains how the band’s name came about: ‘The name Sadie gives Elizabeth a character to slip into, which she likes. The “Hotheads” part is ironic, because none of us is.’



Even before he became a (hypothetical) Hothead, Simon made his living making music. He got into playing guitar in his early teens. He used to go home from school during his lunch break so he could practise. ‘I was very enthusiastic,’ he says. ‘I played with bands in my teens, and when I turned 21 I became a full-time musician. I’ve performed in some beautiful places, such as Bermuda and Australia. I’ve also enjoyed playing for a variety of singers, including Beverley Knight and Alexandra Burke.’



Even after 30 years of playing the guitar, Simon’s enthusiasm for performing remains. He loves the creativity of writing songs and the excitement of gigs. He also enjoys teaching. For 12 years, he has been running ten-week courses at Holy Trinity, Brompton – the church where the Alpha course was born – teaching people how to play in worship.



‘I also play in a worship band at St Barnabas Church in Kensington,’ he says. ‘Doing that helps me to stay grounded in my Christian faith. Playing guitar for worship is completely different from playing in a non-church environment. In a worship band, the musician is giving everything over to God as an act of service, and there is no room for egotism. It’s like tapping into a different headspace.’



Simon became a Christian after he attended an Alpha course some 15 years ago. Before that, he admits, he saw God as an ‘old man with a big beard’. ‘Today, my faith in God brings a focus to my life,’ he says. ‘I see some Christians wearing wristbands with the initials WWJD, which stand for “What would Jesus do?” That’s a good question to think about when facing any situation.’



As Simon continues to explore his faith, he finds that music is key in helping him to understand it. He says it enhances his experience of God.



‘In my mind I can’t separate music from spirituality. I hear some of the old Christian hymns and think they are amazing because the words have so much substance. I also think that the tunes themselves can be touching. If I see people in a church congregation who are clearly in conversation with God, it is great to think that music may have helped to facilitate that.’



As well as playing in church and teaching, Simon hopes for a bright future with Sadie and the Hotheads.



‘At the moment, Elizabeth is filming, so we have to apply the brakes on the band a little bit,’ he says. ‘But when she gets her time off we will be sure to slot some gigs in. Our latest album ‘How Not to Lose Things’ has just been released in Scandinavia, so there are some interesting possibilities opening up for us. It should be an exciting year.’

For more information visit tenweekworshipleader.com
War Cry 2 March 2013
Pictures: War Cry and Kirsty Grant

You can hear and see their responses here:

Worship Leader Interviews: Part 1

Well I vividly remember the very first time I led in a main Sunday service at a church I used to go to. And it was a hot summer’s evening and I rather foolishly made the decision to wear shorts because I remember you know the practice had been fine, the band felt good I was feeling very relaxed and then as soon as the service kind of started and I suddenly looked out and saw all these people. My knees just went to jelly and my knees were just knocking and shaking throughout the whole first few songs and all I could think about: I wasn’t even thinking about what I was singing, what the band were doing I was just trying to concentrate on locking my knees together because they were just shaking everywhere.
Tim Hughes

I first learnt to lead worship and play the guitar in my bedroom with a CD I had a friend of mine had given me of some worship from a festival and I had another friend who was a guitarist and I kind of grew up with guys who played a lot of guitar so I end up just figuring out the chords and playing along with the CD. That was kind of how I learned. I used to kind of really simplify the songs down to one chord mainly if it was in the key of G, I’d just play G all the way through. Even though there was like nine different chords sequences in the song I used to go for the one chord because it used to see me through.
Al Gordon

A mate of mine just literally put a guitar into my lap when I was 16 and became a Christian and he said this is a D chord you can play and I just found myself finger picking straight away. It’s quite a crazy story.
Nick Herbert

I started to lead worship you know as quite a young Christian really. I was very inspired by the music around so it was very natural for me to start to want to play the guitar. And in those days that was really quite a novel thing you know acoustic guitar in a meeting. It wasn’t kind of common-place like it is now.
Dave Bilbrough

I had a few guitar lessons with a teacher who taught me chords and rhythm and a whole bunch of stuff. Spent hours practising and actually I guess the main way I learned the guitar in the end was just learning all these worship songs – Vineyard and Graham Kendrick and early Delirious stuff. And so it was through a few lessons but also lots and lots of hard work and just times hidden away in my room.
Tim Hughes

First time I led worship was in a home group at my church Holy Trinity Brompton, and the guy who led the home group was the worship leader and he was ill that week. So I had to be the emergency worship leader with like half an hours notice. I only knew one song, which was ‘He is the Lord and He Reigns on High’ by Kevin Proche and it has four chords in it and I knew at that stage two chords G and C. So I kind of boldly set around playing that song for 15 minutes just playing the two chords I knew to get by.
It sounded terrible. And in fact there were ten people in the room when I started and about three when I kind of finished because it was so painful they had to go outside to laugh.
Al Gordon

I think you can begin – it’s like children, you don’t discourage children when they’re first starting. But eventually they grow up and become adults and you don’t want to have to be helping them how to walk and put on their clothes. And it’s the same way with your playing or your singing. You begin and everyone makes allowances when you are a beginner but actually it’s a high calling and it’s the highest calling of any musician to use this fantastic gift of music to draw people closer to God in worship and so we have to invest in our talent I think. So that the simple answer is that you can facilitate worship very simply we can sing an unaccompanied song now or I could play one chord and that might be the thing that leads us into a place of worship but how much more can we explore the beauty and the majesty and the mystery and the wonderful nature of God by using that gift of music in a way that does just that it reflects that creative beauty that we see all around us in nature and it’s like I often think about it in terms of the nature that is revealed you know flowers and plants and things. You know you look at the intricacies of a flower you think well God could have done it with just one petal or one colour but you look at nature and it is this myriad of beautiful complex design and we can reflect that I think in our worship. And so a very long answer to a very short question but I think its essential really to invest in our gifts and the more skilful we are the more of a language we have because praise and worship is a language and the language of music reveals different elements and emotions and things. Not that we control peoples worship of God but it reveals different aspects of God I think.
David Clifton

I was impressed I heard this interview with Chris Martin the lead singer of Coldplay just the other day and he was talking about how his vocal coach was trying to teach him to do something new and I just thought that’s amazing that here’s this guy one of the biggest bands in the world you know everyone loves his voice and yet he has been doing it for x numbers of years and yet he’s still having regular lessons and that really challenged me so I think man I’ve got to take it a bit more seriously. So yeah I think it is very important that we never get complacent and we never think right well now I can play the guitar, done. Actually we always can get better.
Tim Hughes

To help guitarists to improve rhythm playing with a simple, step by step, structured method we invented 8strummer.

Move from this…
“I’ve been playing guitar for years – I know all the chords but my rhythms stinks!” A common complaint.

To this…
“I’ve been a metronome all my life. If you set the groove it ain’t going to go nowhere.” Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper. (Dock of the Bay, Midnight Hour, Blues Brothers).

Understand rhythm and you will be a better guitarist!

Be the first to experience the
brand new iPhone App
‘8STRUMMER’

http://8strummer.com/app

8 Strummer will help you to:
• practice and improve your rhythm guitar skills
• write songs
• prime your rhythm guitar skills
• hear and internalize rhythm patterns
• feel the combination of down and up strums that make the rhythm pattern happen

8strummer is …

• A rhythm guitar primer;
• A vital resource for practising and improving rhythm guitar skills;
• A useful song-writing tool.

Strumming in 8ths is…

• 4 down-strums on the numbered beats
• 4 up-strums on the ‘ands’:
• 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & = down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up.

IMPORTANT – Keep your right hand moving up and down in 8th notes – even on rest strokes.

Settings.
Pick a chord from the basic open-string triads: C, G, D, A, E, Em, Am, Dm

Pattern.
Chose the number of rests.
• 0 rests means playing on all 4 down-strums and all 4 up-strums – there is only one possible pattern.
• 1 rest – there are 8 possible permutations; the rest stroke can appear on each of the 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
• 2 rests – 28 permutations
• 3 rests – 56 permutations
• 4 rests – 70 permutations
• 5 rests – 56 permutations
• 6 rests – 28 permutations
• 7 rests – 8 permutations

Total of 254 different 8ths rhythm patterns available in 8strummer

Practise a pattern by repetition.
Looping a rhythm helps you to…
• Internalize it;
• Hear it;
• Feel the combination of down and up strums that make the rhythm pattern happen.

Save your favourite patterns.

If you have tried the 8strummer out and it helps it would be great to hear from you, or I you can review it on iTunes.

www.tenweekworshipleader.com
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www.twitter.com/10WWL
http://8strummer.com/app

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Toblerone and the beginner guitarist

Learning the guitar has nothing to do with age, past experience, or gender.

Learning the guitar is a form of training – like learning to swim. It requires learning some new physical activities that are coordinated into the activity of producing music on the instrument. You can’t learn to swim by reading about it, or by being told how to do it: “To learn to lay bricks, it is not sufficient for you to be told how to do it, but you must learn a multitude of skills that are coordinated in to the activity of laying bricks – in order to lay bricks you must hour after hour, day after day, lay bricks”. (Stanley Hauervas, After Christendom p. 101.) Likewise you learn to play the guitar by playing the guitar. On the Ten Week Worship Leader Guitar Course we show you the building blocks that you need to get started on the guitar.

It’s okay to be a complete beginner – in fact beginners have an advantage in the way that they think. As Mick Goodrick says ‘To keep learning: aim at always being a beginner.” (The Advancing Guitarist, p. 109).

The beginner guitarist and DIY

Someone can show you the tools you need to play the guitar but then you have to do it yourself.

Playing the guitar is not a destination but a journey. I’m not a teacher with a group of students; it’s rather that I am working with you as a guide – someone who has walked this path before – a fellow traveller. My aim in teaching is to encourage people to think for themselves and to realise their own potential and talent.

Ten-Week Worship Leader: Beginners Week One.

On week one we talk about the components of music: rhythm (the pattern of movement in time), melody (a coherent succession of pitches) and harmony (a collection of tones sounded simultaneously); the musical alphabet; and tuning (if the guitar isn’t in tune it won’t sound so good).

We examine two of the prime chord shapes on the guitar; D major and A major. In order to learn these shapes it’s good to form a strong visual picture. Some years ago I taught a very bright little girl called Louisa who asked all sorts of clever questions like “Why are the frets closer together at the top end of the guitar?” She had a way of remembering the shapes of the chords – she said that a D major chord, a triangle shape, looked like toblerone chocolate.  For her, D major became known as the ‘toblerone chord’.

Oh, and on week one we play a Matt Redman song too.