A question or problem that many gospel keyboardist have is knowing what to do with the left hand. This is my view on the issue. On both hands you have five fingers. Technically anything you can do with your right hand you should be able to do with your left and vise versa.

The way we practice will affect how comfortable we are with our left hand. You have to practice in such a way so that that both hands are getting equall attention. For example, when you are working on scales or something like that, then do it with both hands.

This is a good exercise for left hand development.

1) take a song that you know well and play what you normally play with your right hand with your left.

2) don’t play anything with your right hand and just concentrate on the left hand.

3) try to make it sound as good as it it does when your right hand is playing it.

This helps the left hand to be more independent. Which will eventually translate into your left and right hand working better together.

Here is a challenging exercise but it really helps.

1) play the chords and bass line of a song with your left hand only

2) It is similar to the stride piano or rag time style of playing where you play the bass note and quickly strike the chord above it with the left hand. It gives you the doo wop kind of sound.

3) Now you may have to leave out some notes when doing this but trying to make the song sound full with just using the left hand only will do wonders for using your left hand with your right.

If you continue doing exersices like this you will eventually start playing full sounding chords with your left hand and nice voicings that will compliment the right hand, and that is what you want.

Till next time.

Much Love,

Kenny Hollins

One thing that holds true for many gospel songs or for any genre of music for that matter, is that there are certain patterns that you hear often. What I mean is that harmonically songs are similar or the chord progressions are similar from song to song.

Let me give you an example.

 Lets say a song consist of

Cmaj    Emin7   Amin7

This is a 1- 3- 6 chord progression

It is 1- 3- 6 because in the key C major

the major scale is  CDEFGABC

C=1

D=2

E=3

F=4

G=5

A=6

B=7

so in a different key (lets use the key of F)

The F major scale would be F G A Bb C D E

What would the 1-3-6 be?

It would F-A-D

Specifically Fmaj  Amin7  Dmin7

So how can you use this?

It helps in alot of ways.

1) It helps in transposing from one key to another because you are thinking numbers as opposed to notes

It is a whole lot easier to think 1maj – 3min – 6min

than CEG -EGBD- ACEG

If you are using the number system the key of the song will not matter to you.

It will completely free you up. At that point it is just mathmatical.

one is always one no matter what key you are in.

six is always six no matter what key you are in.

flat seven is always flat seven no matter what key you are in.

So I encourage all musicians to

#1 Learn all of your major scales fluently and know the corresponding number to each note of the scale

#2 Learn all of your major chords (1,3,5) in all 12 keys

and then I have a method of figuring out all other chords if you know your major chords. It’s easy.

For example you have to first play the major chord in root position meaning the 1st then the 3rd then the 5th from left to right.

If you take the 3rd of a major chord and lower it a half step then it becomes a minor chord.

If you take the 1st of a major chord and lower a whole step ( 2keys ) it becomes a dominant seven chord.

This is the idea. It is simple.

So the point is you put the scale number and the type of chord it is together and you can start to applying it to other keys.

If you are interested in this further you should get my Gospel Piano Basics Deluxe DVD. It explains this is detail. Until next time

Be Blessed,

Kenny Hollins

www.hmpi.net 

You are probably wondering how can success be an enemy. It is possible for success to be an enemy. Before I tell you how lets talk about what success is. I believe that success is not measured by how much money you have or what kind of car you drive or even how well you play your instrument. I believe success is doing what you were created to do.

I believe that we all have a divine destiny that was established by God before we were even born. The problem is you have to choose to walk in your destiny because it is not automatic. Just because God created you to be great does not mean you will be great. You have to CHOOSE to be what you were created to be.

OKAY, what does this have to do with success being an enemy. Just because you do well a particular time at something does not mean you have arrived or you don’t have to keep striving.

For example you could have a good performance that really blessed people. In the back of your mind you say “that was pretty good” then you start to relax. You figure cool I don’t have to work as hard now because I am SUCCESSFUL at this.

Now remember the definition that I gave you for success. Doing what you were created to do and let me add this, and on the level you were created to do it on.

Even if you do well by someone else’s standards can you honestly say I did it on the level that God created me to do it on. If not then you have to continue to press toward the mark.

IT IS HARD WORK. Being successful takes consistent hard work.

So the point is don’t let your last victory in something cause your next defeat. Let your last victory be a point where you say “It only gets better from here”.

As musicians lets have the mentality that the apostle Paul had in the Bible where he said ” Forgetting those things that are behind me , I press toward the mark of the high calling.”

I take that as meaning the past does not determine my present or future. Whether the past was a defeat or victory I am going to continue to press toward that mark that God has called me to.

So no matter what. Whether people tell you are a wonderful musician or if they say you sound horrible. Continue to press toward that mark that you know in your heart that God has destined you to reach.

When we are consistently in the press then thats when we have true success.

Remember the press = success!

Be Blessed,

Kenny Hollins

Have you ever sat down to practice and didn’t know what to really work on? Have you ever felt like you were not accomplishing much in your practice time.

We probably have all felt like this at some point in time.

Let me share some things with you that has helped me over the years.

If you are anything like me you are probably really busy and don’t have as much time as you would like to practice so therefore you have to make your practice time count.

I have found that it helps to make out a practice schedule.

1# Specify how much time you can allot to practicing a particular day.

2# Determine what you want and NEED to practice on.

3# Divide the time up that you have so you can practice on everything.(You have to stop working on a particular thing when the time is up or it will throw off your schedule)

4# Keep a log or diary of what you practiced on so you can track your progress.

A practice schedule for me may look something like this:

Practice Schedule

Time 1hour

Finger Exercises/Scales 15min

Sight Reading 15min

New song to learn 20min

Improv/Soloing 10min

Your practice schedule can be as long as you want it to be and you can include as much as you want in it.

The point is you have an organized approach to your practicing and overtime you will improve faster because you are hitting everything you need to work on consistently.

I find that it helps when doing finger exercises to use a metronome or something that keeps a steady beat for you. Set the tempo at a speed that is a bit of a challenge but not so fast that you keep messing up. As you get more comfortable gradually increase the speed.

One more tip:

When you are learning something new many times you will run across a section of it that gives you trouble.

For example you may be learning a new song and everytime you get to the first verse you mess up. Most people will go all the way back to the beginning of the song and start over and get to the first verse and mess up again. This wastes alot of time. You should isolate where the problem area is and focus on that.

Identify the area that is giving you trouble.

Play a little before the problem area, the problem area, and a then little after the problem area.

You will save time like this. Keep doing this until you work the problem area out and can move from before it all the way to after it smoothly.

Now start at the beginning.

Just a few Tips

Until Next Time,

Kenny Hollins

We now have available one of the sections from the DVD Learn A Neo Soul and Jazz Approach. We have made the section on Tritones available for instant download with screen capture. You will learn what the Tritone is, how it is used, and some easy but effective ways to apply it to your playing.

If You have the Learn A Neo Soul and Jazz Approach DVD then you already have this lesson but if not this is an opportunity to get the same instruction for a fraction of the cost of the DVD. The DVD is $19.95 but this download is only .99 cents.

This is a very small investment that you can make in your playing that literally may instantly take your playing to the next level.

Download HERE

Only .99 cents

The sound that we consider to be contemporary gospel is made up of many chords that have tritones in them.

A Tritone is theoretically an augmented 4th or a deminished 5th.  For example if you where playing the C major scale the notes would be CDEFGABC

C is the first note and F is the fourth note. Therefore when you play the two notes C and F at the same time you are playing a perfect fourth.

But a tritone is an augmented fourth so you have to raise the fourth note up one half step. So a tritone would be C and F#. It also could be a deminished 5th which would be C and Gb.

HOW DO I USE IT?

There are many ways to use tritones.

Commonly they are used in altered dominant chords. For example G7#5#9, Ab7b9.

Usually you play the tritone with your left hand and the extentions of the chord with your right hand.

The tritone gives you alternatives to what type of dominant 7 chord to play.

You can change the extentions in your right hand and get a whole new sound and chord that will work.

If you are familiar with tritones then you know what I mean. If not you can get the dvd

Learn To Play The Hammond Organ or

Learn A Neo -Soul And Jazz Approach.

These techniques are explained.

How do I figure out the tritone.

Say for example you are playing an Ab dominant 7 chord which is

Ab C Eb Gb 

Ab is the root of the chord

Whatever the root of the chord is you play the b7 and major 3rd.

In the case of Ab the tritone would be Gb and C.

Once you figure out the tritone then you add your extentions.

One little trick I learned is to play certain major triads over the tritones and it creates different kinds of altered dominant chords.

For example if I want to find another chord for the Ab dominat seven I can figure out the tritone and play that with my left hand.

Then I can add the number 2 major triad, b5 major triad, #5 major triad, 6 major triad

on top of the tritone with your right hand.

In the example of Ab dominant 7

With your left hand you would play Gb and C

Right hand you could play the major 2 triad which is Bb major

The number 2 in the Ab major scale is Bb so therefore the major 2 triad would be a Bb major chord

So I would play a Bb major triad over the Gb and C with my left hand.

Try these alternatives for your dominant seven chords. We will get deeper a little later.

If all of this stuff sounds like chinese to you and you want to be able to do it you should get either The Hammond Organ DVD or The Neo Soul DVD

www.hmpi.net

Be Blessed,

Kenny Hollins

One of the easiest ways to learn new songs that I know is by reading the chord symbols. By chord symbols I mean symbols like Cmaj7, D7, Ebmin, F#min7 etc.

Many musicians get turned off when they see these kind of symbols if they don’t understand them. Playing chord symbols is a very useful skill to have.

1. You don’t have to memorize the song

2. You don’t have to struggle to learn the song

3. You can communicate more effectively with other musicians

4. It is down right faster

I am going to show you some things that I have learned to make reading chord symbols easy.

FIRST you have to know all 12 major chords in root position. A major chord is simply the 1st, 3rd, and fifth notes of the major scale.

For example the C major scale is

CDEFGABC 

Therefore the 1st, 3rd, and 5th are the notes C,E,G

The notes to the C major chord are CEG

You can figure out all of the 12 major chords like this by playing the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the major scales.

In order to do this you have to start off playing your major chords in root position. Root position means you play the notes of the chords in order from left to right.

For example if your trying to play a Cmajor chord in root posistion you must play the C with your right hand furthest to the left the E in the middle and the G furthest to the right. This is C major in root position.  You have to play the chords in root position to do this and then you can change it up after you know which notes to play.

To get a diagram of how to do it.

Click Here

Here is a diagram of all 12 major chords.

Click Here

Our DVD Gospel Pianist Basics Deluxe goes through how to do this in great detail.

This could be this missing ingredient to you learning the new material that you want to learn. We have developed a unique way of teaching people to play chords symbols that is Quick and Easy. The most important part is that it WORKS.

If you would like to get the Piano Basics Deluxe DVD go to our store HERE

Till next time.

Kenny Hollins

www.hmpi.net