reading piano chords in worship music?

Q. Hi. I play guitar and used to play the piano. I know most of the basic chords on the piano.

In church, i serve on the worship team and usually the song sheets are just the lyrics with chords printed above them. yet the piano/keyboard player manages to play a piano part. i was wondering what they do. any help would be appreciated.

thanks

A. The ability to play and improvise with chords ('chord method') is definitely a skill and something that many classical pianists never learn to do with fluency. Worship and jazz pianists can usually play with chords.

I'm worship leader at my church (though I don't play piano for my church) and my pianist is amazing at this!

A basic way to begin:

Play the chord in your right hand (middle C area). With your left hand, play the bass note, 2 octaves down. So, with a C chord, play the chord and a bass C. You can also try playing a bass note that's one of the other notes in the chord (E and G). Repeat the RH chord with the beat while leaving the LH bass note down until the chord changes.

To spice things up, you can:

Play bass octaves. Play 2 C's at the same time, with your thumb and pinky.

Add the 2. In your RH chord, also push your pointer finger (2 finger in piano, also the 2 note of the chord). This is a cool-sounding chord and much more interesting than a plain chord.

Rock your RH with the beat. Alternate playing 3-5 (top half of chord, E and G) with 1 (C). Rock back and forth like a seesaw, in time with the music.

From there, you just need to start growing your knowledge of chords, and practicing. The more you play, the better you get! The more chords you learn, the more you understand how they relate to each other, and how music works. You're actually learning music theory via chords.

Check out Duane Shinn's chord stuff - he has a free email course with 101 free chord lessons!

Original Question

Music books for piano chords?

Q. Hi,

I'm currently teaching myself piano and I am learning chords through online lessons. However, I'd like to be able to recognize chords on sheet music as well as just know where to put my fingers on the piano. Does anyone know where I might find a book that teaches all the possible chords for piano (yes, all of them) and lists all of them on staff lines? Sort of like a chord collection book, if you will. Any help would be much appreciated!

A. Hal Leonard has such books.
Includes The Hal Leonard Student Piano Library, piano methods and supplementary materials, solo piano songbooks and sheets, Pace Piano Library, piano duets and ensembles, Lee Evans Publications and much more.

to be more specific:

CHORDS FOR KEYBOARD AND GUITAR
Series: Paperback Songs

Artist: Various

This convenient reference features a clear, concise, simple and visual approach to keyboard and guitar chords. Includes over 800 keyboard chord frames, over 1000 guitar chord frames, and a helpful explanation on how chords are formed. Multiple voicings (with explanations on when to use each) are given for each chord.

$8.95 (US)
Inventory # HL 00702009
ISBN: 0793545366
UPC: 73999020090
Width: 4
Length: 7
256 pages

Original Question

Piano chord structure?

Q. im working on Alicia Keys' unthinkable....the Chords are Am7 CMaj7 FMaj7 in the key of Bminor.....what is the roman numeral and symbol for the chords?

A. Well none of those chords are from the key of B minor.

I looked up a chart, and without verifying that it's correct, it says that those are the chords, but there's a capo on the 2nd fret (it's a guitar tab). That would mean that the chords are actually Bm7 Dmaj7 and Gmaj7... that's not really B minor either... it's kind of a B Aeolian thing (yes, there IS a difference between Aeolian and minor, minor implies tonality, Aeolian implies modality).

You could analyze that as i7 - III7 - VI7, or Im7 - bIIImaj7 - bVImaj7, depending on which method of analysis you want to use.

If you don't know how to play a Bm7 chord just by the name, then watch these videos:
http://www.tinyurl.com/lucasmanchords1
http://www.tinyurl.com/lucasmanchords2
http://a.1asphost.com/LukeSniper/ccc.html

Original Question

Title : reading piano chords in worship music?
Description : Q. Hi. I play guitar and used to play the piano. I know most of the basic chords on the piano. In church, i serve on the worship team and u...