Grasp The Characteristics Of Gospel Music And Its Methods Become Almost Natural
Crossing many cultural barriers, black gospel still draws crowds from those who seek to benefit from its strong allure. As a gospel pianist, you must ensure that you can lift your audience’s spiritual awareness with the necessary skills. But of course that’s easier said than done! The typical gospel piano lesson attempts to give you these skills through several key characteristics of this genre — and once you’ve grasped these characteristics, playing the music almost becomes natural.
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Recognize The “Worship Sound”
The first characteristic of gospel music is it’s sound. Gospel pianists call this the “worship sound” and it incorporates modern chords with runs that are built from traditional, classical chords. Played in the beginning and at the end of a gospel piano lesson, they help form chord progressions that first, serve to bring its listeners into a spiritual state and then later, ground them.
Direct Spirituality Within Church
Be aware however that one gospel piano lesson could never teach you everything you need to know. Through additional instruction, you’ll need to learn how cadences, chord substitutions, and harmonies create the flow that not only transitions from song to song, but that also directs the emotion and spirituality within a worshipping environment.
Additional Characteristics That Demonstrate Black Gospel
Your gospel piano lesson should also provide instruction on playing chord voicings, dominant progressions, and walk-ups — features that are unique to black Pentecostal audiences around the world. “Jesus Oh What a Wonderful Child, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and Oh Come Let Us Adore Him ” demonstrate these characteristics of black gospel wonderfully.
Transpositions And Numeric Scale Tones
A good gospel piano lesson should also introduce you to transpositions and numeric scale tones. Memorizing these characteristics assist with modulation — yet another important feature of music-induced spirituality. Modulation’s ability to seemingly moving from one key to another provides a smooth transition from spiritual state to state and when used skillfully, it leads the audience from one experience to another. Of course the same follows for transpositions.
More Than Just Notes, Rhythms, And Melodies
As you can see, there’s a lot more to the gospel piano lesson than what meets the eye. Gospel music is much more than musical notes, rhythms, and even melodies. Gospel music is the vehicle that lifts up and directs spirits to a higher consciousness and the gospel piano lesson is the starting point at which this phenomenon occurs. It is thus the most important instruction in the role of the spiritual musician, for it helps the beginning pianist acquire the skills and ideals necessary to encourage the uplifting that his or her audience craves.
Further Gospel Piano Resources:
- GospelKeys 101 – Basics and Fundamentals
- GospelKeys 202 – Mastering Worship Chords
- GospelKeys 300 – Exploring Praise Songs
- GospelKeys 500 – Experiencing Up-tempo Shouting Music
- GospelKeys Xtreme – Contemporary and Urban Worship
- GospelKeys Urban Pro 600
- GospelKeys Organ Series 350 & 450
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