13 Gospel Piano Chords + 1 Must Have Progression
Want to learn some gospel piano chords with sweet jazz flavors? Want to learn a must know gospel chord progression? If you said yes, then this monster video & lesson is for you.
Why A Free Gospel Piano Chords Tutorial?
We’ve created this free lesson to celebrate the release of our brand new super course on October 22nd, 2018. It’s called …
“The Play Like Ray” 2 DVD Set
Blues Hall Of Famer, Bruce Katz & I created “The Play Like Ray” program after spending THOUSANDS of hours on stage, in the rehearsal studio, & in lessons with students.
Fortunately, you won’t have to spend thousands of hours and years of your life learning how to play genius piano like Ray Charles.
We’ve made the learning process easy for you. So, we reveal decades of Ray’s iconic piano discoveries in the 2 DVD set.
Yes, we share 1000’s of Ray’s most closely guarded piano secrets. The same sounds that Ray used to revolutionize the musical world.
Update: Play Like Ray has been released! Click here to grab a limited copy now.
How To Be A Well Rounded Piano Player
Want to be an all around great player in jazz, blues, gospel, country, & R&B? Want to wow your audience with the coolest techniques? Then, Ray Charles is the single best piano player to study. Period.
99% of piano players don’t know these techniques. And those that do rarely share them. Bruce Katz is an incredibly generous soul!
So, we’re very excited to be able to show you how to play all these amazing techniques. They will dramatically change your piano playing and musical life.
We’ll be releasing several sample lessons from the DVDs and more free goodies in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, enjoy today’s free vid and get started learning these gospel piano chords and progression. They’re super fun to play and sound great!
13 Gospel Piano Chords & Progression Video Tutorial
Take 7 minutes and watch as I show you how to play these gospel chords. They’re easy to play and sound awesome.
I’ve used these gospel piano chords on 1000’s of gigs. You can use them to:
- Set up a soulful intro for a blues, gospel, or jazz tunes.
- Lay down a repeating chord progression vamp.
- Most importantly, you can use the chord decorations I show you in dozens of styles.
Just make sure you play cool sounding voicings with them. I’ll talk more about this below…
5 Important Tips To Help You Master This Gospel Piano Chords Lesson
1. Watch How I Use Decorations In My Piano Chords To Add Excitement
Can you hear how every chord I play has some sort of decoration or extra style? For each chord in the chord progression I use a variety of sweet techniques to add style to each chord. This is a signature element of piano gospel.
If you want to keep your audience excited, then you should do the same.
Chord decorations are essential. It sounds a 1000x times better that way.
2. If You Love Chord Symbols This Is For You:
Yes, I love you. 🙂 So, here are the chord symbols for the 13 gospel piano chords i teach in the video.
C7, E7, F7, F#dim7, C/G, E7/G#, D7(#11,9), G7b13, C7, Fm7, C6, G7altered, C7.
Feel free to use your own voicings for the piano chords listed above, but I’d highly recommend you try and grab several of the voicings I introduce in the video. They’re hipper!
3. Here’s A Cool Jazz Scale To Check Out
On the D7 chord I throw in a #11 and a 9. Then, to create some melodic motion I resolve the #11 to the 5th. Super jazzy and super subtle. The notes comes from the scale known as the lydian dominant.
This is a chord scale trick that I picked up from Ray’s version of “Hard Times”
Ray’s version of “Hard Times” changed my life as a piano player. It’s a tune every piano player must be able to play. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how to play “Hard Times” and breakdown Ray’s style in the course.
We want you to be able to apply the discoveries to a million more songs.
4. How To Use Hidden Triads To Spice Up Your Chords
The very 1st chord I play is a C7 chord. To decorate that chord I pivot across basic triads from the mixolydian scale. In this case I’m playing an Am triad moving to a Gm triad.
I love taking simple chords and superimposing them onto more complex chords.
5. If You Love Music Theory Shortcuts Then Check This Out
It’s one thing to know the names of the chords you’re playing. But, that’s not really enough to truly master any chord progression….especially a chromatic gospel chord progression.
So, I highly recommend you also think about the roman numerals of the overall chord progression. It will shortcut your learning. Here they are written in roman numerals.
I7, III7, IV7, #IVdim7, I7, V7 of ii, II7, V7, I6, ivm7, I7, V7, I7.
Play attention to the #IVdim7 chord. The power of the diminished chord is simply amazing. We’ll be talking a lot more about these type of piano chords in our next lesson. Stay tuned…..
Questions On These Gospel Piano Chords Or The New Course?
If you have any questions on today’s gospel piano chords lesson or the new DVDs please leave a comment below. My team and I read every comment and we’re very happy to help!
We’re committed to help you unlock the goldmine of piano secrets inside Ray’s playing.
See you next lesson and get some practice in!
By the way, there will be an instant online streaming version of the course too!
Update: Play Like Ray has been released! Click here to grab a limited copy now.
