KEYS
A WORLD WITHOUT COLOR | Ed Kerr
I ’ m confident that a lot of you reading this article have an iPhone in your pocket or purse or in your hand or somewhere close to you . I ’ ve been an iPhone user from the beginning . I won ’ t tell you how often I seem to uncontrollably pick it up and mindlessly flip through this or that app . That ’ s another story . I was recently in an AT & T Store to , you know , order a new iPhone , and something caught my eye about the screen of the iPhone the agent helping me had . There was no color . Of course I had to ask them how the heck they made their screen black and white . Turns out Apple has a Grayscale option for phones . Try it sometime . You might be surprised how less drawn you are to pick up your phone . That ’ s another story too .
But the story here is about color . Yep . Color . You and I have the ability to add color to the music we make on our worship teams . In my last article I wrote about how 2 notes , the 1st and 5 th notes of the scale , can be the basis for pad parts that work well over most songs we play on our worship teams . I ’ ve wondered if some of you who read that article might have thought , “ That sounds pretty boring , 2 notes held through a song ”. Well , the concept does work and it ’ s heard on tons of modern worship recordings .
But , colors are available to us . We also hear those colors on modern recordings . So , here is a breakdown of the colors available if you ’ re basing your pad part ( or piano part ) on the 1 st and 5 th notes of the scale . As I wrote in my last article , most of the songs in set lists these days use four chords from the key . The 1 , 4 , 5 and 6 chords . 1,4,5,6 . That ’ s it . There are exceptions , certainly , but most songs stick to the 1,4,5,6 chords .
So , below you ’ ll find a description of some “ color ” notes you can add to the 1 , 4 , 5 or 6 chord .
• THE 1 CHORD You could add the 2 to the chord . In the key of G , for example , the G chord is spelled G ( root ), B ( third ), and D ( fifth ). Think of those as 1 , 3 and 5 . The 2 in this chord is an A . So , rather than just sounding the G and D you could add the A to your voicing of held pad sounds or move on and off of the A to provide a little movement from the G that ’ s next to it .
You could also add the 3 rd to the chord , the B , rather than only playing the root and 5 th , G and D . That 3 rd will take away from the typical “ droning ” open 5 th that characterizes many pad parts on recordings , but my point here is that these extra color notes are always available to you . Let your ear be the judge of how it sounds on your instrument and , most importantly , how it sounds in the context of your band .
One of my favorite colors to add to the root and 5 th of a pad voicing of the 1 chord is the 7 . Again , in the key of G , that note is F #. So , if you ’ ve been playing a D on top of your voicing with the G below it , you ’ d add this F # right below the G , This creates quite a potent dissonance . It may sound too intense if you ’ re playing by yourself , but in the context of your band , especially if you ’ re playing a pad sound , it ’ s a delightful color . As far as its dissonance goes , remember that dissonance wants to resolve . Kind of like the stresses that you and I face day to day . When they ’ re resolved we sure feel a lot better . Build dissonance and its resolution into your keyboard parts and the results can be delightful for the listener .
Here ’ s another idea about the 1 chord that ’ s part of your 1,4,5,6 song . The 4 of the chord could be added . In the key of G , the 4 in the 1 chord is the note C . Some of you will instantly recognize that the resulting chord is a Gsus . That ’ s correct . And that ’ s probably the reason you don ’ t hear this color note added to pad parts that often . That ’ s because the sus note , the C in this case , has a very strong sense of needing to resolve to the 3 rd , B . The other notes I ’ ve mentioned above , the 2nd ( A ), the 3 rd ( B ), and the 7 th ( F #), don ’ t have nearly as strong a “ pull ” to be resolved , so they are more effective as sustained color notes . Again , though , you and your ear and your worship team can help you determine if this added note works well in your context .
Check out what could happen to create melodic interest in your pad part if you held down the original 2 notes down , the 1 and 5 in the key , and then used several of the color notes I ’ d described as part a melodic line within these 2 held notes .
This is a great example of something color tones bring to your keyboard part beyond their color . They can add movement to your pad part . Note that in this example above all of the movement is happening between the 1 st and 5 th notes of the scale , G and D , that held measure after measure .
• THE 4 CHORD As a reminder , in my last article I showed you how the first and 5 th notes could be played over any of the chords in a 1,4,5,6 progression . Let ’ s explore some of the options you have for adding color tones when playing the 4 chord .
First of all , in our key of G example , the 4 chord , C , is spelled C ( root ), E ( third ) and G ( fifth ). In my last article I explained how you can choose to treat the 4 chord as a 2 chord . Not 2 in the key , but adding the 2 to the chord . That ’ s what allows you to hold the 1 st and 5 th notes of the scale down in your pad part over any 1,4,5,6 progression . The 2 is the note between the root and third of the chord in the key . So , in a C chord D is the 2 . For some variety , or to create movement within your keyboard part , you could move from this D to the third of the chord , E .