chords ’ in the right hand if I ’ ve got a nice , ambient delay or reverb effect on the sound I ’ m using that adds a bit of complexity to the sound . The simplicity of the note choice is dressed up a bit by the effects and has the opportunity to shine .
DOUBLE THE POWER As a teenager I had a terrible time learning barre chords on the guitar . If you ’ re not familiar , a ‘ barre ’ chord involves using one finger to fret across all or nearly all of the strings , and when I was first starting out it may as well have been a form of torture . Playing those kinds of chords hurt ! Besides , most of the songs I wanted to learn relied on simpler chord voicings anyway .
As I grew as a guitarist , and especially as I began to dive into playing modern worship music , I traded complex chord voicings for ambient , delayed timbres coupled with simple , repetitive melodic parts and chord inversions that typically only required two or three strings at a time . The power was in the note placement and the tone .
This skill was an absolute disaster when I attempted to translate it to the piano . Instead of sounding tasteful , polished , and well-placed , my keys parts sounded simple , weak , and sometimes a bit amateurish .
It took me a while to realize the disconnect : I was so used to being limited to always choosing between six maximum simultaneous notes , and however I could voice those strings with my fretting hand , that I wasn ’ t truly appreciating just how much more powerful the piano could be .
Once I started to consider that it was possible for me to spread my notes out much further on the piano than the guitar , to overlap and blend notes in more interesting ways , and that opening and closing my hand positions throughout an arrangement could have a powerful impact , it was a near immediate change .
It was important for me to get outside of just my musical intuition and focus on the practical realities of just how different these two instruments were .
POP PUNK PIANO In the end I think I owe a lot of my musical ability to the blend of environments I started out in . If it weren ’ t for the juxtaposition of learning Beethoven , Vince Guaraldi , Phil Keaggy , and Relient K all within a few years of each other I know I ’ d be a different musician than I am .
The main thing that ’ s made a huge difference for me in this area as an adult is realizing that much of what I do by default came from the stuff I learned as a kid , and then purposefully evaluating those gut instincts to see how I can learn from them , improve them , or in some cases , stop them in favor of a better path .
So , I invite you to think back to the early days of your own musician progression . Where did your ear come from ? What worked then that is still helpful now and what do you think could be updated or improved ? Take the time to travel back to those days and I bet you ’ ll find a few areas to improve the way you approach voicing your chords .
David Pfaltzgraff Founder and Lead Sound Designer at SundaySounds . com , a site that resources worship keys players and guitarists around the world . David currently resides in Des Moines , IA with his wife and two boys . He enjoys volunteering in his church ’ s worship ministry , old synthesizers , and a good super-hero movie .
SundaySounds . com
98 April 2024 Subscribe for Free ...