Thepiano is the glue that holds worship bands together. And being a church pianists, serving your community, and playing with others who share your passion is a truly rewarding experience. Learn to play piano at church with confidence with our worship course taught by Lisa Witt and Amberly Martz. Free with your Pianote membership.
Lisa Witthas been teaching piano for more than 20 years and in that time has helped hundreds of students learn to play the songs they love. Lisa received classical piano training through the Royal Conservatory of Music, but she has since embraced popular music and playing by ear in order to accompany herself and others. Learn more about Lisa.
This article is supposed to be comprehensive. So if you are brand new to piano and music theory, I would recommend taking your time while reading through the theoretical parts. Understanding the different concepts will help you later in your musical development.
There are many ways you can go about learning the piano. The most common one is learning how to read sheet music, which requires an understanding of notation in the bass and treble clef.
While being able to read notes is undoubtedly valuable, it can be a rather slow and lengthy process.
Even though 88 keys may seem like a lot to remember, there are, in fact, just 12 different keys. As you can see on the piano keyboard diagram below. These 12 notes repeat throughout the rest of the keyboard.
There are two most common ways to learn the notes of all 12 major keys. You can either memorize them or learn a simple formula on how to build scales which will also tell you the notes of a given key, since major scales and major keys share the same notes.
As I mentioned earlier, every major scale consists of 7 notes. The distance between each note of the scale is called an interval. The smallest interval we can play is called half step (H), which is simply the closest note to the one we are playing (either black or white). The second important interval to know in order to build a scale is a whole step (W), consisting of two half steps.
Now that you understand the two basic intervals. Here is a formula for creating major scales: W, W, H, W, W, W, H. As an example, I built a G major scale using the rule above, where I show how the formula works.
Tip: When playing chords, make sure to use correct finger placement. For example, when playing G major chord, play the note G with the thumb, the note B with your middle finger, and D with your pinky. By doing so, you will minimize the tension in your hand, and start forming the right habits.
As you may have already figured out a chord progression is nothing more than a sequence of 2 or more chords. Majority of worship songs are built around one or more different chord progressions, which generally tend to repeat throughout the song.
TIP: Often, the first chord of the song tells us the key of the song, but not in this case. This can cause you to have a problem singing the melody. If so, start with 4 beats of G major chord to establish the key of the song in your ears.
Probably all of us face moments when we reach a plateau in our playing. Those are times when it's a good idea to seek out some inspiration to overcome the rut. If you're bored of playing the same chords over and over again, wondering how to make your chords sound more...
I was around 13 years old and had been thinking about quitting my piano endeavors because, for the past six years, I was almost exclusively playing classical music, which as a kid I didn't enjoy. As much as my classical training helped me develop my piano technique,...
If you are looking for a digital piano for your church, you might be wondering what are the key factors and features I should consider before the purchase? There are dozens of factors you can take into account, but not all of them are equally important.I've been...
Four easy chords are all you need to know to play any of these popular worship songs, carols, and hymns. All the arrangements follow the original recording so that you can still play along with the recording. All the chords have been simplified down to G, C, Em, and D. You can transpose all of these songs into any key and even edit the arrangement online. If you want to stick with G, C, Em, and D chord shapes, pull out your capo to play any of these songs in any key. Every song starts in the key of G.
PraiseCharts features a large, online sheet music catalog of popular praise and worship songs offering lyrics, chords, stage charts, vocal chart arrangements, orchestrations, plus multitracks and patches, all ready to download and play. Go into services feeling confident in the song resources at hand, knowing the band will sound great, and you will make the most of your limited time and budget.
With a depth of resources created by a professional team of producers and arrangers, you can involve many from your congregation with parts for trumpet, trombone, tuba, french horn, harp, violin, cello, alto and tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute, along with guitar, piano, keyboard, choir parts and more. All on a platform that makes the songs and resources easily accessible and affordable.
...And it's notas hard as you think. What most musicians don't realize isthat chords are recycled over and overagain in song after song! In the last 12 years ofplaying, I've never (I mean NEVER) had to learn or "invent"a new chord progression. I've learned new "licks" and"tricks" but the patterns have forever remained the same.
"I had been playing for 11 yearsand still couldn't follow worship leaders and soloists in mychurch. I would always hide behind the organist but wouldn'tdare play by myself. Then a friend of mine told me aboutHearandplay.com and how they were teaching gospel music. Soto make this real short, I started working with yourresources and made up in my heart that I would be seriousabout my playing and in about 2 months, I began to pick upsongs all by myself. I've learned about a dozen or two songsand am constantly learning new ones each week. I no longerfeel the need to hide behind another musician and ambuilding my confidence because of HearandPlay.com. This is aGodsend.
"I haveto admit. I was one of those people that would post help ads onwebsites asking for chords to this song and that song. I justcouldn't figure out these songs on my own no matter what I did. Ihad no structure to my playing and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Thatwas before I came across HearandPlay.com. Your videos have helped meto understand how gospel music is structured and I can't exchangeanything for this knowledge you've given me. It feels good to learnsongs on my own now instead of bothering other folks for chords allthe time. Now I'm glad to be helping people myself."
I played the violin in my youthbut had been out of touch with music for several years. At my church,one of the ministers decided to start his own church so many of themembers and musicians left to support him. We still had many membersleft but no piano player. For about 3 weeks, we went without music.Then God spoke to me and gave me a strong desire to take up the piano.So I began to research online and came across your website. It wassomething about this website but I just couldn't explain it. Then Igot your videos on praise songs and I could just feel the anointing onyour life. That video started it all for me because those were thesame songs we sang at our church. I practiced it daily as much as Icould and soon I started playing my bass lines. Then my right handcame together after some more practicing. Now I am playing many praisesongs and am waiting for your worship video. You let me be the firstto know when this one comes out because you don't know how much you'vehelped me. You be encouraged young man and keep enlightening the people ofGod.
* Discover my "3-4" principle toplaying literally any worship chord progression by ear ...INSTANTLY! Chord progressions don't occur randomly. Certain chords lead toothers and with this 3-4 calculation that I'm going to reveal, you will neverever have to guess where to go next! This has never been taught this waybefore!
My accountant thought I was crazy to even offer ANY type of return policy or guarantee on advd or audio course because of the many ways people could cheat us... let alonea full 365-day year guarantee. However, I believe in my programs, and I believe in my students so much that I am willingto allow you to test drive it on me. Heck, I'm even willing to take on evenmore risk by letting you break up your payments into multiple months.
So not only do you get the flexible paymentplan, but you have a full year to decide whetherthis course is for you. At 2 monthly payments of $40, you are losing absolutely nothingand the risk is all on me. What else can I say?
I've personally invested $15,000in building a "download center" from the ground up. This download center allowsyou to log in with your e-mail address and birthday (as your password so thatyou'll NEVER forget it) and retrieve your digital courses from anywhere... anytime you want.
You can download our courses onevery computer, at work, on your laptop, anywhere. And if your computer evercrashes, no problem... just log into our state-of-the-art download center andretrieve it again. A piece of cake.
It depends on your connectionspeed. Our downloadable files can range from 70 megabytes to 500 megabytes. Yourfile can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours or more to download dependingon how fast your internet is. Most people just let it go overnight and wake upto a fully downloadable file!
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