Category Archives: Free Lessons

How to use the half-diminished chord (Part 1)

Someone recently mentioned to me that I have never really discussed the half diminished chord and how to use it –and I realized they are right. I want to remedy that over a short series of two posts. As a quick reminder, a half diminished chord is a stack of 4 notes that are separated […]

Arranging for dummies (Part 2)

Last week, I discussed a simple idea behind arranging and today, we are going to start taking a look at it in action. Our example is last month’s arrangement, “Just As I Am,” for the arrangement club. To start, let’s talk about the song itself. When I was young, this song was what we called an “invitation” […]

Arrangement analysis: “MasterBuilder”

Thanks for all the kind comments on my MasterBuilder video. I transcribed what I played over the weekend and you can now purchase the sheet music with the performance track on my sheet music page. Assuming you learn the sheet music, your performance should sound pretty much the same as the one on the video. […]

How church pianists can adjust to new church music (Part 3)

Read previous installments: Part 1 Part 2 Reading String Reductions (A related detour) Sorry for the delay in getting back to this topic. Let me give you a quick few bits of news before we dive in. I am announcing the 2017 Arrangement Contest winner on Wednesday 11/22. Look for it by the end of […]