Developing Your Own Style Part 2 of 2
Once you have learned all of your notes, chords, chord symbols, note values and time signatures, it’s time to put it all into action. For me, the way I developed my own style (which led to me writing my own music) was to play along with songs I was familiar with, keeping up with their chord changes, but using my own rhythms, licks and melodies. As long as you stay in the same key, keep up with chord changes and stay within the structure of the time signatures, your ideas will blend. Your interpretation will bring a unique facet to the song.
As a matter of fact, when I got transferred from Pontiac to Centralia, my new praise band dumped tons of lead sheets on me that allowed me to sit in with whatever they were doing. (A lead sheet or a cheat sheet are the full lyrics to the song with chord symbols written with the words so you can see where to change chords. It appears in most sheet music, but can also be obtained with no notes, just lyrics and chord symbols). If you memorized your chord formulas, you will be able to follow along on any song if you have the lead sheet.
I want to teach you four different ways I followed lead sheets to songs I was familiar with. (when you get good, if they play a song you have never heard before, all they have to do is run through it once or twice so you can catch on). I will use whole notes, half notes, eighth notes and quarter notes. With your left hand, you will play single notes, with your right you will play 3-note chords called triads, and to teach it all to you, I will use the song “How Great Is Our God” as an example since there are a zillion ways that are acceptable to play it.
“How Great Is Our God” is your basic praise and worship song that uses the same four chords over and over and over… From beginning to the end…beginning to the end… (get it?)
The chord changes are simple. We go from C major (C) to A minor (Am) to F major (F) back to C major (C)
[CHORUS]
(C) (Am)
How great is our God, sing with me How Great is our God
(F) (G) (C)
And all will see How Great, How great is our God…
I showed you the chorus, but that chord progression is played for the verses, too
To create the three-note triad chord with your right hand, your thumb, middle finger, and pinky finger will play the first, third, and fifth note of each chord (so, C-E-G is 1-3-5 played with your thumb, middle finger, and pinky.) At the same time, you play the root note of the C major chord (which is C) with your left thumb, on the C under the middle C on the piano.
For A minor, you will play A-C-E with your 1-3-5 on your right hand, using your middle finger on your left to press a low A.
For F major, it’s F-A-C-(1-3-5) on your right hand, using your pinky on your left to hit a low F.
For G major, it’s G-B-D-(1-3-5) with your right hand, and hit a low G with your left ring finger.
Okay…now we can get to the nitty gritty…
The first style I want to show you is the easiest. Setting your keyboard to organ or strings, you use all the whole notes that you hold down for four counts for each measure. I call this the Blues Organ Accompaniment…and you simply lay on the chords and create an emotional undercurrent to whatever rhythm the rest of the band is doing (think “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins). This style is not only good for How Great Is Our God, but if you get the music to O Come To The Altar….this style makes these songs mesmerizing.
On the sheet music I have provided, take note of where the 4/4 time signature is located. Also, check out the double line with the dots at the end of the chord progression; whenever you see that it means to repeat from the beginning or from the first time you see that double line/double dot signal facing the opposite direction…you usually see it at the beginning and end of choruses, or at the end of songs.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW SHEET MUSIC - Broken Chord Rocking
The second style of play that I love to use I have coined is “The ’80s Rock Bounce.” When you bounce the bass line using a string to eighth notes, it’s called “Peddling,” or “the Pedal point.” Used with timely stabs or attacks of the chords from the right hand, it gives a song a rocking, masculine push. Check out “Jump” by Van Halen to get a better idea of what I am talking about, or better yet “Every Praise” By Hexekiah Walker.
As a matter of fact, since I am giving up trade secrets, the chord progression used in “How Great Is Our God” is the exact same chord progression used in “Every Praise! I play “How Great Is Our God” in the key of C (when it was originally written in Db). ”Every Praise” is also written in in Db, but can easily be transposed down to C…but I challenge you: sing the words to “Every Praise” Over the music to “How Great Is Our God…and vice versa.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW SHEET MUSIC - '80s Rock Bounce
Style number three: we will call it “The Classic Rock Bounce.” It is basically right-handed chord pedaling giving the music a high-powered, fast-paced drive. No one used this style more effectively than Tim Hughes when he wrote “Happy Day.” Just go ahead and let that right-hand fly! Lots of young Christian rock bands love to hammer out these rhythms on guitar, and it is most effective if you have a huge crowd that is Spirit-driven to ride the musical wave with you.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW SHEET MUSIC - 'Classic Rock Bounce
Finally, we come to number four…(which is my go-to move when I am at a loss for what else to do). I’ll call it “Broken Chord Rocking.” All it is. is simply taking your regular triad chord, and breaking it into two parts, rocking back and forth from your thumb to your third and fifth fingers (see my example.) Better yet, listen to “Let The Water Rise” by MIKESCHAIR…during the chorus, this style is employed…
…It’s actually pretty funny, because in showing you four different styles of play (both using my examples, and showing you other songs where the style I am referring to is used, “Let The Water Rise” by MIKES CHAIR uses every single style that I have taught you in this lesson, all in the same song:
It opens using the line “Don’t know where to begin…” using the Blues Organ Accompaniment I first showed you…the music picks up at “Sometimes it’s hard to pray”, where the musician uses the Classic Rock Bounce I showed you. The first time that the chorus is played where he sings “There is a raging sea…” he uses a combination of Broken Chord Rocking (with his right hand) and 80’s Rock Bounce (with his left…)
Then…he does what I hope you go out and do once you get the hang of these rhythms… He mixes them all up…taking pieces from one style and using it with another…and when you do that, you are on the road to finding your own signature style.