PIANOKEYS
PERMISSION GRANTED( PART 2)
ED KERR Director of Worship Studies at King’ s University / Gateway Church in Dallas, TX. Masters in Piano performance, songwriter, clinician with Yamaha and Paul Baloche. www. KerrTunes. com
In my last article here I discussed harmonic options you and I have when we’ re playing modern worship songs. Please refer to that article for details I won’ t duplicate here.
The essence of the article was that there are chords we can add to songs to support specific harmonies. In particular, I described how effective it can be to precede a minor triad with its 5 chord. Since I presented the article, I’ ve made an exciting discovery. Students at The King’ s University / Gateway Church, where I teach songwriting classes, introduced me to a recording on the Speak Revival project from Elevation Worship of their great song,“ Resurrecting”. The arrangement is quite distinct from the arrangement on their first
Example 1 release of the song.
This discovery was exciting for me because the specific things I’ d talked about in my last article were used to delightful effect in this new arrangement. Because I trust that some of you will share my students’ interest in what harmonies are used, I’ ll look in detail at it. First, here’ s a phrase from the bridge using the chords from the original arrangement. Example 1
Now, check out what happens the next time this phrase is sung. Notice the extra chord above“ resurrecting”? Example 2
That chord was chosen because it has a very significant relationship with the Bm chord used over the word“ me”. F # is the 5 chord of B minor. Play the two phrases back to back, noticing the momentum created in the 2 nd example with the addition of the F #/ A #. The takeaway from this example is that it can be very effective to precede a minor chord with its 5 chord. Notice that the arranger chose to use an inversion of the chord, placing something other than the root of the F # in the bass. The result of this choice is a nice movement in the bass line from A to A # to B. Had the arranger not chosen to use the inversion of the F # chord, the bass line would have moved from A to F # to B. The choice made to use the
A, A #, B results in nice chromatic movement that enhances the momentum created by this added chord.
There’ s another nice surprise in the next few bars, and it’ s an additional example of preceding a chord with its 5 chord. The first time the bridge is heard, the chords are Bm, D / F # G over the lyric“ By Your Spirit I will rise from the ashes of defeat”. Example 3
Look at what’ s done the next time we hear this phrase in the bridge: Example 4
What’ s different about these two examples? The chord in the 2 nd measure changes. In the second example, a C / D takes the place of D / F #. It’ s important to see that this C / D is functioning as 5 of the G chord. Strictly speaking a D is 5 of G, but C / D gives a similar effect moving to the G chord. In case you’ re not sure what C / D means, please note that this simply indicates that a C chord is played over a D in the bass. Those of you who speak with chord numbers within your teams will find it useful to call this chord 4 / 5,“ four over five”.
There’ s one final moment in this arrangement I want to examine. As the bridge is ending the lyric“ Our God has robbed the grave” is sung. Here’ s what the original arrangement presented:
D Dsus D Dsus Our God has robbed the grave
Example 2
The new arrangement instead presents:
Our God has robbed the grave
D C / D D C / D
Example 3
As in the earlier example from the bridge, C / D is serving as 4 / 5 of the G chord that starts the chorus. What a powerful moment in the song AND the arrangement when the chorus returns.
Example 4
As I mentioned in my last article about this topic, these harmonic choices don’ t fit the usual chord limits in modern worship. Regardless, apply these principles in songs your worship team uses and you may discover some similarly powerful moments.
14 Nov � Dec 2016 WorshipMusician. com