Yes, I’m back! (I’ll explain why I’ve been gone so long in a subsequent post but please come through and comment to let me know you’re still anxious about hearing from me… even though I’ve been gone for a couple of months. I apologize.)

(By the way, thanks for all your support. You have been tremendously supportive on our radio show, the new gospel music training center, our various product launches, etc. I appreciate you).

Well, since I’ve been helping out with e-mails lately (to make sure we keep response times under 1 day), I’ve had an epiphany. Why not take a question a day from the REAL e-mails that come in and elaborate on them? It makes it easier on me because I’m answering that e-mail anyway — now I can simply format it, expand it a little further, and post it on the blog for all to see. Works for you?

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I promised yesterday to show you something else you could do with the 3-chord in “Amazing Grace.” As you learned on Thursday, substituting major for minor can sound much better at times. It doesn’t work all the time but it’s usually worth a try. If it sounds worse, you just revert back to using minor… it’s that simple!

The reason it works is because it’s sort of operating like a 5-chord temporarily…

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Today, we’ll continue to use the circle of fifths to create even bigger chord progressions that are sure to spice up our songs! We’ve certainly come a long way since Wednesday’s lesson on primary chords. And after this post, you’ll be one step closer to picking out these common circular progressions in your favorite songs, guaranteed!

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(If you haven’t read Wednesday’s and Thursday’s post, it’d be a good idea to start there as this lesson continues with what we’ve already learned…)

Today, we’re going to keep exploring the number system and circle of fifths and see what else we can do to spice up the primary chords we already know.

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Yesterday, we talked about the primary chords of a scale. We established that the 1, 4 and 5 are the most important degrees of any scale and that you can pretty much play tons of songs with these chords. In fact, you can play most songs with just these chords.

But now, I want to take it a step further and show you how to get those other tones of the scale working for you.

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Today, I want to slow down and go the other direction.

I wanna talk to my straight beginners in this post! I want to give you guys some hope that if you know just two chords, you can actually sit around the piano or keyboard and have fun with your kids…

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Beginners! Listen up! Here are 5 ‘getting started’ tips that are sure to kick-start you in the right direction…

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The "Secrets to Playing Piano By Ear" course covers everything from the basics and fundamentals to Cmin13 (b9b5) chords. The following lesson focuses on chapter four from the course. If you are already familiar with major scale fingerings, you may skip this lesson.
 
Fingerings for major scales (02)
 
Note: Please pay attention to this lesson as […]

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The key to learning major scales (01)
Note: Please pay attention to this lesson as you will need to know how to play scales when forming various major chords.

Get the rest of this lesson by clicking here
 
Note: Disregard the "SLXYZ" numbers (if any) as they refer to sound examples. […]

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The "Secrets to Playing Piano By Ear" course covers everything from the basics and fundamentals to Cmin13 (b9b5) chords. The following lesson focuses on chapter one from the course. If you are already familiar with flats and sharps, you may skip this lesson.
 
Sharps & Flats (03)

Note: Disregard the "SLXYZ" numbers (if any) […]

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