29 Worship Tools for Under $29, Part 4
By Jon Nicol
Awesome chord diagram maker, getting snarky about tuners, and a whole new world of chord voicings.
As I dug through the $29 (or Less) Tool Box on this Valentines Day, I decided to show the love to guitarists. If you’re not a guitarist, but you play near one every Sunday, you might want to read this to as a way to help the axe-wielding worshipers on your team.
#8. QwikChord
This product has been a favorite of mine for several years now. I discovered it when I began to teach guitar workshops. I needed something that created chords diagrams. Trying to create grids and dots in Word just wasn’t cutting it.
A Google search turned up QwikChord.com. I tried the free version and LOVED it. At the time I had very little money to spend. But I decided that if the premium version was around $30, I’d buy it. It seemed worth a whole at least that and more.
Turned out it was $12.95(!). For that I could create a chord or scale diagram in about 10 seconds, then copy and paste into my handouts. I could use different colors and shapes to show roots and variations. There are tons of features wrapped in this little app-type program (before anyone knew what an app was).
About a year into owning my last PC, I knew it was, well, my last PC. I was going Mac. It was just a matter of time. I knew Lonnie West, the creator of QwickChord, had been working on a Mac version of it, but it had gotten stalled in the recession.
So when I got my Mac a few weeks ago, I went to his site desperate to hear that Mac development was underway and I’d have my QwikChord on my MBP.
When I got there, I encountered a huge bummer. Lonnie has decided to stop development on QwikChord for various. You can read his open letter here.
Rather than take his football home with him, he’s leaving it on the playground for the other kids to use. You can now download the premium version of QwikChord for free. That really qualifies it as a $29 or less tool. This app is a must for guitar teachers and worship leaders developing less experienced guitarists.
But here’s the thing, even though it won’t cost you anything financially, I’d love for you to stop by, read the letter, and take a moment to thank Lonnie for his great program.
And if you dabble (or are downright awesome) at developing software, Lonnie has made the QwikChord source code available in the public domain. My hope is that the open-source community can keep this thing going (and develop a Mac version of it).
Thanks, Lonnie, for all the work you put into developing QwikChord! Huge blessings on your future endeavors...
Rummaging through in the guitar section of the $29 worship tool box, I found something every guitarist needs, even though some think they don’t: a tuner.
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Awhile back, one of the students in my worship team came in with a Snark tuner. I had been seeing these clip-on vibration tuners for awhile and was a little skeptical. But I was blown away at how well it worked.
And the real beauty of it is that outside noise doesn’t effect it.
So now my $90 Korg Pitch Black (which I’d highly recommend for a stomp box tuner) sits in my accessory bag 90% of the time. And I’ve been toying with purchasing another Snark just to leave on stage for anyone to use.
So if you have guitarists or bassists that routinely show up without a tuner, this $20 tool will cover a multitude of their sins.
[By the way, as of this writing, this Snark link*
#10. Chord Voicings For the Advancing Guitarist
Once you’ve got your guitar in tune you’ll want to learn some chords and techniques.
Enter Chord Voicings for the Advancing Guitarist.
If you’re fingers are bored of your chords, this is the tool you’ve been looking for. This DVD/Digital Download is over two and half hours of chords being moved around, opened up and turned upside down.
The training dives into inversions, barre chords, power chords and the concept of “open movable” chords.
If you like to pick and choose, you can purchase the sections a la carte. Each one is like four or five guitar lessons worth of training packed into 10 - 20 minutes.
Want to watch some?
The full digital download and all the a la cart sections are well below our $29 ceiling. But the DVD is, at this writing, priced at 32.99+shipping. So to put in the $29 range, I’ve created a discount that you can use for the rest of February. Use the code 29TOOLS and it’ll discount your total to $29, including shipping.**
Got some great "under 30 bucks" tools for worship? Please share them with me and the other readers here in the comments.
*Disclosure - affiliate link.
**The DVD is available in the US only for this shipping price. If you are outside the States and prefer the DVD over the digital download, email me and I’ll invoice you the difference for shipping. Normally it’s only a few dollars more...and a few weeks of waiting.)
February 14, 2012
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