Lately, we’ve been talking about power chords, tritones, and substitutions.

Today, I want to show you how to use tritones and minor chords to form crazy-sounding dominant ninth chords.

Yes, that means if you know all your tritones (…there’s only really 6 to learn) and all your basic minor triads, then you can play dominant ninth chords — instantly!

But not just any kind of dominant ninth chord. This voicing sounds really good!

As you know, two musicians can play the same dominant chord and make their versions sound totally different. I’m going to give you a “behind-the-scenes” look at how that’s possible.

Here’s the regular C dominant 9 chord:

C E G Bb D

It’s basically a C dominant 7 chord with an added “9″ tone. If you don’t understand where the 9 comes from, read yesterday’s lesson.

There are only two steps to transforming this boring, “standard” ninth chord into a snazzy one!

Step 1: Play the tritone replacement for the dominant chord on your left hand. Remember, you can always substitute the appropriate tritone for a full dominant chord since a tritone utilizes the key tones of the dominant chord. Basically, take the 3rd and 7th tones out of the dominant chord and play them on your left hand. That is a tritone.

Example:

C dominant 9
C + E + G + Bb + D

You’d take out E and Bb and play them together.

* As you probably know, “E” is the third tone of the scale and “Bb” is the flat seventh tone.

So far, my left hand has “E + Bb” in it.

Step 2: After you have determined what tritone to play on your left hand, you’ll want to identify the 5th tone of the chord. You’ll want to play a minor chord off this tone on your right hand. If I’m playing a C9 chord, the 5th tone of C is basically G (which is in the chord). I’m simply going to play a G minor chord on my right hand.

It’s that simple! Find 5th tone of chord (or scale) and play its minor triad. Point blank!

Example:

C dominant 9
C + E + G + Bb + D

*The fifth tone in C major is G. Therefore, I’m going to play a G minor on my right hand: (G + Bb + D)

You can try different inversions of this G minor triad but I prefer first inversion, which means the keynote will always be on top: (Bb + D + G)

Same for the tritone, you can try the alternate inversion but I like my flat seventh on the bottom (Bb + E) but feel free to try the other way around too (”E + Bb”). They both work.

So my full chord looks like this:

C dominant 9
Bb + E on left hand /// Bb + D + G on right hand

If you do use the opposite tritone “E + Bb,” you may find that the “Bb” from your tritone meets the “Bb” from your G minor chord if you’re playing both hands close to each other. This is fine. It actually results in a nice little effect with simply “E” on the left hand and “G minor” on the right hand.

Now here’s the best part.

In gospel music, you can really work this! Try going down a half step and doing the same thing. Then quickly move that chord back up to your original chord.

So basically, take this same exact voicing of C9 and move it down to B9.

If you understand “big picture thinking” (yesterday’s post), this shouldn’t be hard.

What is the tritone that goes with “B?” Bam! That’s your left hand!

What’s the 5th tone of B? Play it’s minor chord in first inversion! Bam!

B dominant 9
A + D# on left hand /// A + C# + F# on right hand

*I’m using informal naming to make it easier to follow

And this B dominant 9 (a.k.a “B9″), which is the same exact chord as C9 (but moved down a half step), leads perfectly to the C9:

B dominant 9
A + D# on left hand /// A + C# + F# on right hand

C dominant 9
Bb + E on left hand /// Bb + D + G on right hand

In fact, if you play gospel music and know the classic “shouting” bass run:

C - E - F - Gb - G - A - Bb - B - C

*It’s a bass line so play each of these notes separately.

…Imagine playing this same dominant 9 voicing over each of these bass notes.

But here’s the thing — with this voicing, you don’t really play the bass. Either you rely on someone else playing the bass or you just play the chords rootless.

Imagine replacing each of those “shouting” bass notes with this dominant 9 voicing?

Try it! You already know the notes for C9 and B9.

Just take the same formula and match up the chords for each of these bass notes. Then practice playing them because it won’t be easy at first. You’ll love what you come up with! Sounds a little crazy at first but this is how top gospel musicians like Jason White and Michael Bereal think.

I hope you enjoyed!

Until next time —

Popularity: 17% [?]

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed for regular updates. If you'd rather subscribe by e-mail, click here. Thanks for visiting.

This course is now available! Click here for more information

You can order this course right now by clicking here!

This is 30 minutes in preview clips (yes… 30 minutes!!!) of a 4.5 hour course entitled “GospelKeys Ministry Musician” Volume 1, which will release on Monday, August 25, 2008! You can pre-order now by calling 1-877-856-4187.

Put your name and e-mail in the box below and get the other 2 clips now!

Winner of “Comment” Contest: Bryan, comment #74 (how we chose the winner)

UPDATE: I’ve added sound clips from 20 albums (out of the many) that Jason has either played keyboard, organ, or produced. Scroll below to see it…

 

 

 

Want to get up-to-the-minute
updates and 3 more free clips?

 

Sign up to be on the GospelKeys
"Ministry Musician" interest list now…

 

Use the scrollbar on the right side to view more…

 

Package deal will be available if you don’t already have Michael Bereal’s course!

 

 

Want to get up-to-the-minute
updates and 3 more free clips?

 

Sign up to be on the GospelKeys
"Ministry Musician" interest list now…

 

I want to know what you thought of this clip? Leave your comments below…

Popularity: 56% [?]

Shouting music is one of my favorite topics because at the tender age of 8-years old, it was probably one of the few things I had to master very quickly.

By 10, I was playing for several churches (COGIC, Baptist, Apostolic, Pentecostal) and most of them “shouted” for at least 30 minutes during each service.

…So needless to say, I got good very quickly at playing fast left-hand bass runs, right-hand chordal movements, and more!

In this lesson, I’m going to show you some of the essentials to playing shouting music by ear.

If you have no idea what shouting music is or how it sounds, click on the link below to hear a sample:

http://PlayAudio-234.com/play.asp?m=257323&f=KZHHYD&ps=7&p=1

In fact, I’m going to be using the same concepts from GospelKeys 500 for the online classroom lesson below.

The first concept to master is the left-hand bass run because it provides the foundation and rhythm for your shouting music.

Concept #1: Left-hand bass runs

There are tons of bass runs that can be used in shouting music. If you listen to the sample above, you’ll hear a variety of different “runs.” Some runs move downward (from high notes to low notes). Other bass runs (aka “bass lines”) move in an ascending direction.

MAJOR KEY:

We’ll be in the key of Ab major for this lesson.

Let’s learn a few ascending and descending bass runs.

 

 

Ascending bass run (1-5):

 

Ab C Db D Eb F Gb G Ab

 

Note: These notes are played separately, one after the other (not together)!

 

Tip: If you were to imitate the sound of a “shout” by stomping your feet and clapping your hands right after (that is: “stomp - clap - stomp - clap - stomp - clap”), your bass notes would be played on every beat, each time you stomp and clap).

 

 

Descending bass run (1-5):

 

Ab Gb F E Eb F Gb G Ab

 

 

Notice that I called both of the examples above “1-5″ bass runs.

 

Why?

 

Because they focus on the 1st and 5th keys of the scale. Let’s look at the Ab major scale:

 

Ab major: Ab Bb C Db Eb F G Ab

 

If you were to place a number (starting at 1) by each of these notes, Ab would have a number “1″ by it and Eb would have a number “5″ by it.

 

Since the bass runs above are both focused on Ab and Eb, they are called “1-5″ bass runs.

 

You can also “1-4″ bass runs in shouting music. I’ll give you a few below:

 

 

Ascending bass run (1-4):

 

Ab Bb B C Db F Gb G Ab

 

 

 

Descending bass run (1-4):

 

Ab Gb Eb D Db F Gb G Ab

 

 

Congratulations.

 

Now you have four bass runs to practice. In GospelKeys 500, you get many more to choose from. If you’re really into this style of playing, I highly recommend it.

 

 

So now that you have the left hand taken care of, I recommend that you practice it with a metronome.

 

Metronomes are little $15 devices that keep rhythm for you at different speeds. You can choose the tempo so you can start off slow and build your speed as you get better.

 

Also, if you have a keyboard with rhythmic and performing features, you can find “shouting rhythms” to accompany you while you practice these bass runs. The key is having some type of rhythmical device to keep your “timing” as you practice.

 

Once you’ve mastered the left hand, there’s many things to do on your right hand.

 

 

Concept #2: Right-hand chordal movements

 

While there are tons of things to do on your right hand, understanding how “13th” chords work is essential.

 

 

A thirteenth chord is built on the (1), (3), (5), (b7), (9), (11), and (13) tones of a major scale.

 

In C major, that would be:

 

C + E + G + Bb + D + F + A (this time, played together).

 

Now…

 

Obviously, that’s a lot of notes and most gospel musicians don’t play thirteenth chords like that.

 

An easier route is to play the C on your left hand and just play the Bb + D + F + A on your right hand. If you can reach, try adding in a high C and playing Bb + D + F + A + (C).

 

C13 (abbreviated):

 

C on left /// Bb D F A (C) on right.

 

 

Now, let’s bring that formula to Ab major.

 

Ab13 = Ab on left /// Gb Bb Db F (Ab) on right.

 

 

Putting it all together

 

 

Playing an Ab13 in a rhythmic fashion over an Ab ascending or descending bass run is the foundation of shouting music.

 

This combination, alone, can be played the entire time. The only thing is…

 

…Because shouting music is so repetitive (it’s generally the same bass run over and over), you want to include other things (like variations in bass runs and different right-hand chordal movements and fill-ins) to spice things up. This is exactly the idea of GospelKeys 500 but I’ll show a few concepts below.

 

 

 

 

Three main parts of shouting music

1) The “Intro”

2) The “Main Loop” Period

3) The “Cool Down”

Part One: The Intro

The Intro is the start of the “shouting” period.

You won’t find full-length ascending and descending bass runs like I’ve posted above.

Instead, you have teasers like:

C — Db — D — Eb. Usually the C and Db are played in pairs and the D and Eb are played in pairs.

 

That’s your left hand. As for your right hand, as shown in GospelKeys 500, you’ll play something like:

 

Bb Eb Ab (over the “C” bass from above)

 

B Eb F Ab (over the “Db” bass from above)

 

B D F Ab (over the “D” bass from above)

 

C Eb Ab (over the “Eb” bass from above)

 

 

This generally repeats for a good amount of time. The “Main Loop” period will usually follow right after.

 

 

 

 

Part Two: The “Main Loop” Period

 

You’ve already learned some things to do during the main loop period (concepts #1 and #2 from above).

 

This is the moment of your shouting music when the bass run is fully active (unlike the 4-note bass runs used in the “intro”). You’ll use full-powered ascending and descending bass runs along with right-hand chordal movements. For now, you’ve learned that the Ab13 chord can be played on your right while running the bass on your left hand. Other concepts that are covered in GospelKeys 500 are:

 

- Diminished chord tricks

- Right-hand fill-ins

- More Fill-ins: b3 and b5 fill-ins

- Three “magic” chords

- Pentatonic and blues tricks

- Chromatic drops

 

and more…

 

 

Part Three: The “Cool Down”

The “Cool Down” period is just what it sounds like.

It’s the moment where the shouting music is coming to an end but instead of just abruptly ending, the cool down period allows you to play certain movements that are less active than the main loop period.

More information…

Other sections: “Beyond the Basics”

Other concepts covered in GK 500 “Experiencing Shouting Music”

1) Role Reversal Techniques

2) Stride / Ragtime Effects

3) Linear Shouting Patterns / Vocal Accompaniment

4) Modulation

More information…

I hope you enjoyed this month’s lesson and I’ll be back soon!

Explore these chord types to prepare for the GospelKeys video course:

• Major triads; see pg chapter 5 of 300pg course
• Minor triads; see pg chapter 8 of 300pg course
• Major sixth chords; see pg chapter 13 of 300pg course
• Minor sixth chords; see pg chapter 13 of 300pg course
• Seventh (dominant) chords; see pg chapter 10 of 300pg course
• Minor seventh chords; see pg chapter 10 of 300pg course
• Major ninth chords; see pg chapter 14 of 300pg course

Popularity: 16% [?]