For church pianists, accompanying small groups or soloists is a ultra-important skill that is sometimes a bit neglected. So today, I thought I would give a few tips that are especially geared toward situations where the pianist is not given a written piano accompaniment.
Category Archives: Free Lessons
I was working on an illustration in an upcoming class for music school and thought I would share it here as well. It is a representation of a good way to think of modulations using what we call pivot chords.
I always seem to know a few people that are dealing with hand pain from playing the piano. I am not talking about arthritis issues that might affect older people; I am rather talking about people who have injured themselves because of the way they play.
Making the decision on what software to purchase.
Here is a question I get all the time:
My choir director throws a piece of music on me at the last moment and I have to play it on the spot. How can I do this without struggling?
The question I asked on my Facebook page today was this: which note in a dominant chord is most expendable.
The answer is the 5th. The 5th is not only unnecessary but actually hurts the sound a bit I think. In fact, I never put the 5th in a dominant chord unless the melody is the 5th.
We all have those awkward moments when accompanying a group or soloist where a page turn goes horribly wrong. I don’t know about you but I always take a moment before starting a song to bend all lower right page corners, but things still happen. Pages stick together, fall off the piano or any number […]
Triads are sort of the basic building block of homophony, which is a technical term for the dominant way that harmony has been used in Western music for the past few centuries. They are useful without doubt; you can play most any song with triads.
But remember this: triads are not the end of harmony as we know it; they are the beginning of harmony as we know it. Being dependent on triads today is sort of like driving around in a Model T. We can celebrate the history of triads but they have severe limitations in music and music development has grown past them.
People often ask when they should use secondary dominants in their music. The short answer is this: when it sounds good. But let’s talk a little more about it. Here is the simple rule: any time you play a minor 7th, you can change it to a secondary dominant by raising the third of the […]
Here is a practical real life consideration for those of you who write or arrange.
Three concepts discussed in just 2 bars.