How to play praise music on piano – part E

Hi folks,

In this post I touch briefly on Part E on praise music from my post. These are techniques you can master by following HearAndPlay’s Gospel Music 300 course. Part E can be thought as a vamp or rendition of Part A. You play what you feel here. Some songs just consist only of Part E throughout.

Bass run is based on 1 and 4 tone of the key, unlike Part A where we use 1 and 5.

The ascending bass run look like:

A B B C D F G G A

Descending bass run can look like

A G E D D F G G A

On right hand, you can play 1-4 chord pogression

A♭7 add13 (G C F / A)

D♭9 (F B E / D)

A lick you can use on the right hand is to play

B B F, A, F, A. That is, 2 ♭3 6, 1, 6 1.

You repeat this in a rhythmic fashion.

An alternate way of playing part E is to play a 4-part progression.

You start with a slow bass run first on the left, hand then change to a fast bass run.

They are as follows:

E♭ min9 (G B D F / E)

A♭9 add13 (G B C F / A)

D♭ min9 (E A B E / D)

G♭9 add13 (E A B E / G)

E♭ min9 can be thought of as playing a major 7 of the 3rd tone of the E scale on top of E♭ min9. i.e. playing G♭ maj7 / E

When you switch from E♭ min9 to A♭13 add9, all you do on the right hand is to lower the third note of the chord by a half step, i.e. from B to A.

When you want to end a song from Part E, just transition to Part D, i.e. a 6 2 5 1 progression.

How to play praise music on piano – part D

Hi folks,

In this post I touch briefly on Part D on praise music from my post. These are techniques you can master by following HearAndPlay’s Gospel Music 300 course.

Part D is a 6 2 5 1 progression and follows Part C. When you end Part C, you will be on a 5 chord.

So, on the left hand you can walk up to the 6th tone in half steps. i.e. 5 ♭6 6.

13 chords

For the 6 2 5 1 in the key of A, we can use all 13th chords:

F7 add13 (E A D / F)

B add13 (A D G / B)

E add13 (D G C / E)

A add13 (G C F / A)

Another way to play it is:

F7 add13 (E A D / F)

B add13 (A D G / B)

E♭7 ♯9 (G D G / E)

A add13 (G C F / A)

Note that to play the E♭7 chord, on the right hand you just move all the notes down a half step.

If you have a bass player playing base run, you can play tritones on left and the following lick on the right hand:

<F E D♭ D> <F A♭ B B> <A F A>

Chromatically dropping minor chords

On the right hand you can play chromatically dropping minor chords including the 3 minor chord, ♭3 minor chord, 2 minor chord. After these 3, you can wrap up with a 1 diminished chord, and finally a 1 chord: So

3 minor – ♭3 minor – 2 minor – 1 diminished – 1.

E.g. In key of A, you can play

C minor – E G C
B minor – D F B
B minor – D F B

A dim – B D F A
A – C E A

How to transition from part D back to A

You can do a walk up on the left hand from 3 to 5. 3 4 ♭5 5.

On the right hand you can play

B quartal chord / C (B E A / C)

D9 (B E F A / D)

Ddim (B D F A / D)

Amaj / E (C E A / E)

E♭7 ♯9♯5 (G B D G / E) – hold this connector chord for a moment.

 

 

How to play praise music on piano – part C

Hi folks,

In this post I touch briefly on Part C on praise music from my post. These are techniques you can master by following HearAndPlay’s Gospel Music 300 course.

In Part C you play a 7 3 6 progression, followed by a walk up from 3 to 5 (in half steps) i.e.

3 4 ♭5 5

In the key of A, one way to play the walk-up is as follows:

A♭maj add9 / C (E A B C / C)

D♭min6 (E A B D / D)

Ddim (F A B D / D)

A / E (A C E / E)

How to play praise music on piano – part B

Hi folks,

This post touches lightly on Part B of praise music as taught in HearAndPlay’s Gospel Keys 300. The main post is here. Part B is just like part A except it is based on the 4th tone of the key of the song.
So, if your song is in he key of A♭, your bass run will be based on the fourth tone, which is D♭

On the right hand you can play 9 chord on the 4th tone of the scale. So, if playing in A, that is a D♭9 chord i.e.

D♭9 (B E F A / D)

You can also use licks like in part A.

To get the full details, go get Gospel Keys 300 from HearAndPlay.

How to play praise music on piano – part A

Hi folks,

In his post I go over how to play Part A of praise music, discussed here. Part A consists of a base run and some notes on the right hand side.

For this exercise we assume we’re in the key of A♭ major.

In A♭ that will be

A C D D E F G G …

then it repeats to the A and cycles on.

It’s easy to play. A base run hinges between the 1 tone (A) and the 5 tone (E) of the key of the key of the song.

So, in the key of A♭ major, you start with the 1 tone A, then you play the 3 notes leading to the 5 tone (C D D), then you play the 5 tone E, then you play the 3 notes leading back to the 1 tone (F G G), then you play the 1 tone and continue.

On the right hand you can play a 13 chord, i.e. a A♭ 13 chord in a rhythmic fashion.

you can also play a pentatonic scale with a ♭3 tone added to it.

You can play a 2 part chord from diminished to major chord.

An Interesting Way to End Worship Songs on 1 Chord

Hi folks,

Today I’m going to talk about a cool way to end worship songs when the last chord is a 1 chord. The idea is that instead of just playing the 1 chord and stopping, we play a short progression.

First, play 5 and 1 notes simultaneously on the right hand while you play the 7 note on the left hand.

Then play the 4 and 1 notes simultaneously on the right hand while you play the 6 tone on the right hand. Essentially you’re moving your first left and right fingers down one whole step.

Play the 2 and 1 notes on the right hand while you play the ♭6 note on the left hand.

Finally, play the 3 and 1 notes on the right hand while you play the 5 and 1 notes on the left hand.

In the key of D♭major, here are the steps:

Play A and D on the right hand and C on the left.

Play G and D on the right hand and B on the left hand.

Play E and D on the right hand and A on the left hand.

Play F and D on the right hand and A and D on the left hand.

Below is a recording of the progression.

 

And below is a recording of the end of the song ‘Thank You Lord’ using this progression.

An Interesting Way to Start Worship Songs

Here I go over a cool progression for beginning worship songs. It is as follows:

1 7 4major(third inversion)/6 1 5major(third inversion)/7 5

E.g. In the key of D, suppose your song starts with the 1 chord D♭major(add 9), you can preceed it with the progression by playing

D C Gmajor(third inversion)/B D Amajor(third inversion)/C A D♭major(add 9)

Below is a recording.

Diminished Chords

Recently I was watching a tutorial on how to transition from first to second tone chords (or 1-2 couples). The instructor said one could go from the 1 chord to a ♭2 diminished chord and then the 2 chord. This got me thinking. If diminished chords could be used in transitioning from the 1 chord to a 2 chord, is there anything else it could be used for? Curious, I decided to do a bit of research on the subject and ran into an excellent Youtube video that threw more light on it. Here I will discuss briefly what I have learnt about diminished chords: how they are formed and when to use them.

Diminished chord is one of four basic chords, the others being Major, Minor and Augmented. To form a diminished C chord for example, you start with the C note, then place the next finger on the note one minor third away, i.e. E♭, and the last finger on the note one minor third further, i.e. G♭. So, C E♭ G♭ are the notes in the C dim chord. If you want to extend it, then you can go a further minor third away to A and you have C dim7. So, generally, tones of diminished chords are minor third intervals apart.

Something interesting to note about diminished chords is that the diminished 7 chord of each tone in a given diminished 7 chord shares the same notes as all the other tones in the chord. For example. Consider Cdim7 comprising C E♭ G♭ A. Considering the second inversion of the chord E♭ G♭ A C, we have E♭dim7 chord. Taking the third inversion G♭ A C E♭, we have G♭dim7 and the fourth inversion A C E♭ G♭ is simply the same as Adim7. A consequence of this is that for all twelve tones of a scale, there only three types of dim7 chords to learn in terms of tone composition .

Now to the fun part. How can we use diminished chords to spice up our music? One way is by playing a diminished chord one semitone before the key of the chord you want to play, then playing the desired chord. E.g. if you want to play a Cmajor chord, you can preceed it with a B♭dim7 chord. This works for both major and minor chords.

Another way to use it is to first play a diminished 7 chord of the same chord tone you want to play, then play the desired chord tone. E.g. if you want the Cmajor chord, you can precede it with a Cdim7 chord.

A third way to use it is to first play a diminished 7 chord one semitone after the your desired tone, then play the desired chord. E.g. if you want to play an Aminor chord, you can precede it with a B♭dim7 chord. This method is good especially for minor chords.

Here is an excellent Youtube tutorial that explains all these in great detail.

By making use of diminished chords, one can fill some of the empty space between chord progressions and also introduce a more interesting sound to one’s playing. That’s all for now.

How to Make Checkbox Checked by Default in AngularJS

Here’s a quick tip on how to set a checkbox as checked by default when developing an app with AngularJS. In your controller, suppose you’re storing the form in a field someCheckboxField under a form variable someForm. All you need to do is set the field to true

e.g.

$scope.someForm = {
    someCheckboxField: true
};

Then in the template, make sure the checkbox has ng-model set appropriately, e.g.

 <input type='checkbox' name='someCheckboxField' ng-model='someForm.someCheckboxField' />

Web Application Testing with BrowserStack

Today while looking for a machine running IE to debug a web application I was working on, a friend of mine referred me to a platform for testing on various browsers called BrowserStack. So I gave it a shot, and boy, was I amazed!

BrowserStack allows you test web applications on various browsers on multiple operating systems. Desktop and mobile devices are supported. The website provides a free trial so users can test drive it to see if it is to their liking. Registering for an account was quick and easy.

While testing I was able to use local urls, e.g. localhost:3000, saving me time. The app worked quite swiftly as well. The only critique I have of it is that the session times out rather quickly if there isn’t any activity.

So, if you are thinking about a good solution for testing web apps on multiple browsers, give BrowserStack a try. Visit their website to get started.