It takes a lot of getting used to, especially when you’re used to playing chords on the right and single bass notes (or power chords like the “1″ and “5″ notes) on the left.

Don’t get me wrong… this is fine if you’re a solo musician and have to hold down the chords and bass.

But as you get more experienced and start getting invited to play in bands, you’ll have to say goodbye to the left hand bass technique, or the bass player WILL HATE YOU. And your chords won’t sound as full as the musician using two hands to play them.

So as I was going through our youtube videos (we have almost 200 of them there, check it out), I came across a pretty good demonstration of a two-hand groove by our very own Jonathan Powell from the GospelKeys Urban Pro 600 course.

He goes over this chord progression in depth in the dvd but what I wanted to do was include the notes of the groove and explain a little more of what’s going on for those who don’t have the course.

Stick with me… you’ll get a lot out of this…

If you want to check out the video first, be my guest. If not, click on this video after reading what I have to say:

So here’s what’s going on…

Jon is in the key of Ab major and he’s playing a 2-6 groove. This is very common in urban and contemporary music. This happens to be a part of a contemporary gospel theme but the truth is that you’ll find this is in R&B, soul, and other genres.

(For my beginners, it’s called a “2-6″ groove because the bass is moving from Bb to F… which are the “2nd” and “6th” tones of the Ab scale, respectively. You won’t find Jon doing this because he’s not playing the bass. He has a bass player on the side so don’t get confused).

Ok, so the groove is starting on Bb and then moving to F. But it doesn’t stay that simple for long as you’ll find Jon introducing other changes to get you from Bb to F that I’ll cover in a minute (like using the 3 to get to 6… thus a “2-3-6″ progression or using the 7 to get to the 3 and the 3 to get to the 6… thus a “2-7-3-6″ progression). Don’t worry, I gotch you!

But let me cover what you don’t get to see in the video (because it’s actually already occurred and this clip starts in the middle).

Here’s what Jon is playing on Bb:

Left hand: Ab C Db F
Right hand: Ab C Eb (but he’s using his pointer finger to play Bb slightly early to create a “grace note sliding” effect).
Chord name: Bb minor 11

Here’s what he’s doing on F:

Left hand: Eb G Ab C
Right hand: Eb G Bb (using “F” to create the “grace note sliding” effect).
Chord name: F minor 11

So these are the two chords you hear in the beginning of their groove. This is the foundation.

What can you gather from this?

Any time you want to play a two hand voicing for a minor chord and make it sound real good, you can use this voicing. Notice that the Bb and F chords use the same exact type of voicing. So if you learn all of these, you’ll have your minor chords taken care of.

To learn em’ all, just move up your notes a half step and write that chord down. Move your bass up as well even though you’re not playing the bass. Whatever bass note you’re at will be the title (or keynote) of the chord. Do this to all keys until you get back to your starting point. Then practice playing them.

Now, let’s move further.

He introduces a chord on the “3″… or in this case “C.”

(Bass player would be playing C)

Left hand: E Ab Bb Eb
Right hand: Ab C Eb (using the same “grace note slide” effect with “Bb”)

You’d put this chord in between the Bb and F chord.

So altogether, it looks like this:

Left hand: Ab C Db F
Right hand: Ab C Eb (but he’s using his pointer finger to play Bb slightly early to create a “grace note sliding” effect).
Invisible Bass: Bb

Left hand: E Ab Bb Eb
Right hand: Ab C Eb (using the same “grace note slide” effect with “Bb)
Invisible Bass: C

Left hand: Eb G Ab C
Right hand: Eb G Bb (using “F” to create the “grace note sliding” effect).
Invisible Bass: F

This is called a “2-3-6″ progression because the root bass is going from Bb (which is the 2nd tone in the Ab scale) to C (the 3rd tone) to F (the 6th tone).

But it gets even better than that…

He wants to lead to the “3″ with a chord so he uses the “7″ chord in the scale. In this case, that’s a “G” bass.

Left hand: F B
Right hand: F Bb Db

But he does change the “3″ chord from before to this:

Left hand: E Bb
Right hand: Eb Ab C (using the same “grace note slide” effect with “Bb)

If you think about it, it’s pretty much the same chord that you used above on “C” but it’s just smaller. Instead of the big ‘E Ab Bb Eb’ chord on the left, it’s just ‘E Bb’ (which is a tritone… another lesson). And the right hand is still an Ab major chord, just in second inversion (Eb Ab C instead of Ab C Eb).

So altogether, this progression looks like this:

Left hand: Ab C Db F
Right hand: Ab C Eb (but he’s using his pointer finger to play Bb slightly early to create a “grace note sliding” effect).
Invisible Bass: Bb

Left hand: E Bb
Right hand: Eb Ab C (using the same “grace note slide” effect with “Bb)
Invisible Bass: G

Left hand: F B
Right hand: F Bb Db
Invisible Bass: C

Left hand: Eb G Ab C
Right hand: Eb G Bb (using “F” to create the “grace note sliding” effect).
Invisible Bass: F

At the end of the day, you have 3+ ways to play this same progression. You can keep it simple with just the “2″ and “6″ chord. You can add the big “3″ chord in between them. Or you can add the “7-3″ pair between the “2″ and “6.”

Of course Jon does other fancy things on the video that I can’t get into right now because of time but this lesson will get you started jammin’ with this groove!

I would really like to hear from you all on this one. Did you enjoy this progression? Are you having problems playing it? Are you getting that little “grace note sliding” trick? Let me know!

I can even get Jon on here to do another demonstration or something if you let me know what you want to learn! :)

Until next time!

P.S. - Here are some other video clips in the urban series…