Words From Some Satisfied Students
I found Youtube videos, and this led me to the main website. Warrens ability to explain and demonstrate musical concepts and ideas directly and excitingly meant I felt that any program would build from the fundamental concept to its more advanced aspect.
A musical concept is then covered in all 12 keys, and often there is a supportive manuscript. I employ a range of devices within my music: scale runs, octaves and the use of turns. Also, my understanding of chord structure has helped in changing harmony.
I also have a desire to ensure that I am playing in all 12 keys. A person who has had lessons in the past will find that Warren fills in the gaps in knowledge and encourages an individual to reach forward.
Peter Hall
I heard about Piano Lessons with Warren from a YouTube video. I am a singer first, and an instrumentalist second.
Lessons with Warren encourages you to both sing and play piano, and shows you how to do it effectively. If you have trained yourself to play by ear as I did, I had to learn the knowledge of the chords I played and recognize their sound.
Ive significantly improved in this area. Piano Lessons with Warren will teach you your role as a single pianist or a member of a small band.
Donna Self
I happened to discover piano lessons with Warren on YouTube. After following him for a few weeks I was hooked on how he teaches things, he is very knowledgeable.
Ronald Antenor
Common Contemporary Gospel And R& b Chord Voicings
The final step in playing Contemporary Gospel and R& B piano is to add your above chord extensions and alterations to your progression in an interesting way. What do we mean by interesting? Well, we want to spread the notes of the chord out on the piano so that it really has punch. We call this technique chord voicing.
What is a chord voicing?
Chord voicing is how we spread the notes of the chord on the piano. Ideal chord voicings in the left hand usually contain the root and 7th, or the root and 3rd. In the right hand, ideal voicings use chord clusters or triads. With these guidelines, you should be able to play some pretty hip voicings on this chord progression.
So here we go. Lets apply all weve learned to Voicing 1
Voicing 1
As you can see, now the chords are way more interesting! Notice in the right hand that we are playing a lot of inversions of chords and a lot of chord clusters. Lets walk through a few examples.
Do you see the first chord on measure one, the F Major 9? This is called a Rootless Voicing and its a very hip way to play a Major 9 chord .
See left hand in measures 2 and 3, where you play the A and G on the A7 and a D and F on the Dm9? These are called chord shells, and you can do a deep dive on Chord Shells here.
Youll also notice some triads, like in the 4th measure, on the C13 chord. In the right hand, this chord is actually just a simple A major. Again, this is an upper structure, and you can do a deep dive on these chords here.
Voicing 2
Learning To Read Music
Learning to read music or at least the treble clef, is really handy.
You don’t need to do this, but it’s ideal. Lots of times you can get chord sheets with a melody written out and the chords on top. This helps you both learn the rhythm and melody of a song. It also can make it sound nice.
Using written music for your intros and outros can be handy also – especially if you need to play for church.
If you want to play hymns, I’d highly recommend learning to read music. It can really work much better as they are written as music first rather than written as chords first. They are more complex.
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These Are The Struggles That Inspired Me To Build This Program
Im tired of hearing stories from passionate musical folks who just want to be able to play gospel piano by ear either for their church, or just for home entertainment but get stuck because of these myths:
- The belief that playing by ear is a skill you’re born with
- A lack of systematic direction and guidance on how to approach learning by ear
- The deception that binging Youtube videos is enough to get you playing by ear
- Thinking you can improve without regular and structured practicing
- Thinking you can play by ear by skipping over the fundamentals
Heres Your Personalized Gospel Lesson Plan
Heres the foundational section for all musicians . Understanding how to form scales is very important. Study these lessons and youll be a master in no time!
Major scales workshop #1: This simple exercise takes you through all your scales.
Major scales workshop #2: When I originally taught this, I broke it up into two e-mails. This is simply the second half of the exercise.
Major scales crash course: Ive been teaching online for 8 years so I have tons of material. This is just another lesson on scales. Itll be good for review.
Another look at major scales: If youre an overachiever, then view one more approach to playing scales. This one may be the hardest to grasp but the most rewarding because it introduces you to the circular way in which music flows.
Major scale fingering: Ok, so you know your scales now. Heres the fingering so you play them correctly. The right fingering will help you to play them fast and smoothly as you practice more.
Minor scales crash course: Weve got the major scales out the way. What about minor scales? This lesson will get you playing them quickly.
Another minor scales lesson: You already know Ive been teaching for years and want to give you all angles. Heres another lesson I created. Use it as review if the first lesson did its job already.
Modes of the scale: Heres where we take it a step further. Learn all your modes in this lesson.
So you did it! Pat yourself on the back!
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How Do I Become A Good Gospel Pianist
So here are the fundamentals of music theory that you should be familiar with:
More Gospel Piano Lessons Resources
There is a gospel piano lessons course on Udemy which at the time of writing is free. You can check out this course here.
Working With Piano Teacher
It’snot easy to find a gospel piano lessons teacher. The best thing to doif you want a private teacher is try to someone who plays gospel reallywell. Then, ask them if they’ll teach you.
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What Is The Gospel Scale
What is the Gospel Scale, and how does it work? The Gospel Scale is a 6-note scale composed of the notes C D Eb E G A. It is also known as the Gospel Mode. It is composed of the tones of the Major scale that are as follows: 1-2- 3-3-5-6. In previous jazz piano lessons, you may have come across the notes of this scale referred to by a different name from the one used here.
The Dominant 7 Sharp 5 Sharp 9
The dominant seven sharp 5 sharp 9 chord is another altered chord that works well as a substitute for dominant chords.
You may use it as a variant of the dominant seventh flat nine flat thirteen chord mentioned aboveexcept with a sharp seventh and sharp ninth.
In a 3-6-2-5-1 progression, itll sound great on the three or sixth chords, for example.
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Putting It All Together
Now that youve learned how to transform a 1-6-4-5 chord progression in the Contemporary Gospel and R& B style, you might be thinking, hey I want to really understand this theory better so that I can do this for other chord progressions.
If this is you, then I highly recommend that you go through our Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 foundations learning tracks. In these learning tracks, youll master every essential building block of Contemporary Gospel and R& B piano harmony, including major chords, minor chords, 7th chords, chord extensions, alterations, and the most common voicing techniques like rootless voicings, block chords, Drop 3 voicings, and Quartal Voicings.
And if youre looking for a little gospel inspiration, checkout my original funky gospel tune, Swag Time.
This concludes this weeks Quick Tip. Thanks for learning, and see you in the next piano lesson!
Your teacher,
This page allows you to filter by content type, skill level and learning focus.
Piano With Jonny offers three core content types:
Courses
Courses are comprised of lessons and are based on selected styles of music and learning focus topics. PWJ offers regular courses, workshops which include teacher interaction, and challenges which are divided into a 4 week learning format.
Lessons
Lessons are combined into courses. Most lessons build upon concepts of the previous lesson, with the exception of Quick Tips which stand alone.
Smartsheets
Piano With Jonny offers three core content types:
Courses
Who The Program Is Not For
- People looking to learn other styles of music beyond Gospel
- People looking to learn primarily through sheet music
- People looking for quick fixes and overnight mastery
- People who aren’t willing to spend more than a month with the program
- People who aren’t able to learn through pre-recorded video lessons
Yes, unfortunately, the membership program will not be suitable for everyone, so I want to make it straightforward so you dont waste your time and your hard earn money. However, if you believe the program is right for you based on what youve read so far, Im very confident you wont find a better program to get you playing your favorite gospel songs by ear. See below what a few students have to say about the program.
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Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child
Another classic made famous by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child first appeared in Old Plantation Hymns by William Barton. The song expresses the despair experienced by many during the slavery era, where sometimes children were separated from their mothers. Indeed, gospel music is a testament to musics ability to comfort and uplift people experiencing remarkable hardship.
How To Play Southern Gospel Piano
- To Learn How To Play The Southern Gospel Piano, Click Here. To begin, create a chart for the music . In order to play it correctly, you should alternate between the 1st and 5th of the chord with the left hand and play an inversion of the chord on beats 2 and 4 with the right hand when you play it correctly. Its really that straightforward.
Contents
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What Is The 2
The 2-5 trick is a technique where you add chords to a chord progression by using the 2 chord and the 5 chord of your target chord. So if we look at our chord progression from above, youll notice that we start on an F Major 7 chord and then the next chord is D minor 7. Because D minor 7 is our target chord, we can add the 2 and the 5 of the D minor 7 chord just before that chord. What is the 2 and 5 chords in the key of D minor? They are E minor 7 flat 5 and A7 respectively:
Now, if we continue using this logic, we can add the 2-5- trick before every chord. Using this system, we end up with the following chord progression:
Now its really starting to sound good! We have lots of exciting passing chords. Remember that we started with 4 chords? Now we have 12 chords! And we did that using 1 single passing chord technique. You can learn many more passing chord techniques in our Passing Chord & Reharmonization courses .
However, it still doesnt quite have the right sound. In order to put the final polishing touches, we need to add a few more chord colors.
What Is The 1
The 1-6-4-5 chord progression is a chord progression that uses the chords F, D minor, B flat major, and C major if you are playing in the key of F. Here is what the chord progression looks like in sheet music form:
Now, if you dont know your major and minor chords in the key of F, I highly recommend that you checkout the Key of F Major course, where you learn all of your diatonic chords in the key of F.
Before moving on, you can try other chord progressions in the key of F as well. Here are 2 common Gospel and R& B piano chord sheets on the piano:
You can learn 8 essential gospel progressions in our Gospel Groove Series here.
The next step is to make your chords more interesting by making them 7th chords.
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The Most Common Contemporary Gospel And R& b Chord Progression The 1
The first step in playing Contemporary Gospel and R& B on the piano is to pick a simple chord progression. One of students biggest misconceptions about the Contemporary Gospel & R& B genre is that it has a lot of big, sophisticated chords. But if you boil Contemporary Gospel and R& B piano down to its basic elements, most of these progressions have only 4 chords. The big, crunchy chords that youre hearing are actually just the icing on the cake, and well discuss this later in this piano lesson. But for starters, lets make sure we have a solid foundation to start from before we start adding the fancy stuff.
Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee
If playing Gospel piano is a dream of yours, youre not going to find a better and faster way to do it. One whole months subscription costs less than a single half-hour lesson with most piano teachers.
I am very confident that the courses will help you improve in no time, however, If youre not happy with the courses within 30 days after joining Ill give you a full refund. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain! Start your 7-day trial and gain instant full access.
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The First Chords You Need To Learn
In the beginning, you need to learn two types of chords, major and minor chords.
With these types of chords, you can make your way through nearly anything. Even if you’re supposed to play a different type of chord, you can start with these as they are the foundations of most of the other chords.
For any chord that has a “m”, play a minor chord . For the others, you can play a major chord.
The only ones this really won’t work for is diminished and augmented . Just skip past those, they are quite rare anyway.
You can check out the chord chart page here which lists all the major and minor.
After the majors and the minors, you can next learn suspended and 7th and then go on from there.
Transform Your Chords Into 7th Chords
The next step to playing Gospel and R& B piano is to make your chords 7th chords. By adding a 7th to each of the 4 chords you already learned, you will instantly make the chord progression sound more jazzy, or in this case, gospilly.
How do you add 7ths to your chords?
The easiest way to find the 7th of each chord is to skip one note above the top note each chord and play the next note using the notes of the F Major Scale. So on the F Major chord, if you start on the top note C and skip the D, you have E . On the C chord, if you skip the next note up from the top note G, then you will end up on a Bb chord. The trick with this method is to always use the F major scale to move up as you find your notes. Now, if you apply this system to the 4 chords you already learned, you end up with these four 7th chords:
Now, before moving on, I recommend that you practice the above chord progression with the included backing track, which can be downloaded at the bottom of this page after logging into your membership. You can also practice this in any of the 12 keys with the click of one button of our Smart Lesson Sheet music.
Now that you can play these 7th chords, lets add some more chords to the progression.
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Contemporary Gospel And R& b Passing Chords
The next step to play Contemporary Gospel and R& B piano is to add passing chords. Passing chords are a defining characteristic of Contemporary Gospel and R& B piano. Now, when you first hear pianists adding these chords, it can seem very mysterious. How do they know which chords to add and which ones sound good?! Today, Im going to show you one of the most commonly used passing chord techniques called the 2-5 Trick.
