5 Important Tips To Help You Master This Gospel Piano Chords Lesson
1. Watch How I Use Decorations In My Piano Chords To Add Excitement
Can you hear how every chord I play has some sort of decoration or extra style? For each chord in the chord progression I use a variety of sweet techniques to add style to each chord. This is a signature element of piano gospel.
If you want to keep your audience excited, then you should do the same.
Chord decorations are essential. It sounds a 1000x times better that way.
2. If You Love Chord Symbols This Is For You:
Yes, I love you. So, here are the chord symbols for the 13 gospel piano chords i teach in the video.
C7, E7, F7, F#dim7, C/G, E7/G#, D7(#11,9), G7b13, C7, Fm7, C6, G7altered, C7.
Feel free to use your own voicings for the piano chords listed above, but I’d highly recommend you try and grab several of the voicings I introduce in the video. They’re hipper!
3. Here’s A Cool Jazz Scale To Check Out
On the D7 chord I throw in a #11 and a 9. Then, to create some melodic motion I resolve the #11 to the 5th. Super jazzy and super subtle. The notes comes from the scale known as the lydian dominant.
This is a chord scale trick that I picked up from Ray’s version of “Hard Times”
Ray’s version of “Hard Times” changed my life as a piano player. It’s a tune every piano player must be able to play. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how to play “Hard Times” and breakdown Ray’s style in the course.
We want you to be able to apply the discoveries to a million more songs.
4. How To Use Hidden Triads To Spice Up Your Chords
The very 1st chord I play is a C7 chord. To decorate that chord I pivot across basic triads from the mixolydian scale. In this case I’m playing an Am triad moving to a Gm triad.
I love taking simple chords and superimposing them onto more complex chords.
5. If You Love Music Theory Shortcuts Then Check This Out
It’s one thing to know the names of the chords you’re playing. But, that’s not really enough to truly master any chord progression….especially a chromatic gospel chord progression.
So, I highly recommend you also think about the roman numerals of the overall chord progression. It will shortcut your learning. Here they are written in roman numerals.
I7, III7, IV7, #IVdim7, I7, V7 of ii, II7, V7, I6, ivm7, I7, V7, I7.
Play attention to the #IVdim7 chord. The power of the diminished chord is simply amazing. We’ll be talking a lot more about these type of piano chords in our next lesson. Stay tuned…..
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