The country gospel waltz, a delicious mixing of two home-spun and uniquely American musical genres…
Notice the extensive use of octaves, triplet pickups, walk-ups, walk-downs, and Floyd Cramer licks… all definitive features of the country gospel style…
Practice and Performance Notes
Pattern Recognition: Don’t merely “memorize” this. Use your knowledge of scales and chords to discover the very simple patterns being used. Notice, for example, that all the repeated notes are either “the 1” or “the 5” of the chord, the walks are scale-wise, and that all the triplets are the “2-3-1” of the prevailing chord.
Interpretation: Don’t overplay the triplets. Think unhurried and understated. They are embellishments, not infrastructure.
Technique: (1) It’s ok to release the repeated notes and chords before playing the next one. (2) No flams between your left and right hand. Play each chord as if you have one giant 10-finger hand! (3) Feel and keep time with your arms, not your fingers, (4) Have some momentum going into each note and chord, using full arm and hand gestures to control the timing and dynamics.
learn more… Gospel Piano Lessons Library
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