Tammyid: thank you for the comment and the websites that you offered for the LGM family. This information that we share on here helps us all in the ministering of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!!!
Pianist84: thanks for your comment.
God Bless!!!
ShawnG
You're welcome! People that already know all their basic chords may find it a lot faster and easier to play by chord charts. We play by chord charts at church. I find it a lot faster to play that way than to play by sheet music or by songs that are chorded out (ie on the Earnest And Roline site and chords given on this site). Those two sites that I gave in the previous post are the best ones I know of for praise and worship chord charts. There's many more and you can Google for other sites, and for other genres. There's a lot of sites listed in this thread in the forum on the Hear And Play site:
http://zone.hearandplay.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=1214Of course, playing by chord charts or sheet music, the notation is not LH/RH, it's the opposite, written as a fraction; it's Chord Symbol (RH)/Bass Note (LH), ie C/E means to play a C chord (w/ RH) over an E bass note (LH). In sheet music, it can also be notated as a fraction like this:
C
--
E
The top being the chord and the bottom being the bass note. This is what they call a "slash chord", if you just see a letter by itself, it's just the chord symbol (ie "C" means play a Cmajor chord). I explained it awhile back in another forum on Hear And Play site:
http://zone.hearandplay.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=3216Also, if some people are not used to playing by chord charts but already know how to play by sheet music, I highly recommend that you get some fake books or lead sheets, which only have the melody line (treble clef) lyrics, and chord symbols. It's called a fake book b/c you have to "fake" your own arrangement. I have 2 Praise And Worship Fake Books, one from Hal-Leonard (I got from Books-A-Million) and the other from Brentwood-Benson (I got from local Christian bookstore but you can get from any major bookstore or online). I've had them for 2 yrs now and they really helped me learn a lot of songs and to improvise. There's also a new one, The Modern Praise And Worship Fake Book by worshiptogether.com that came out last Fall.
There's some hymns in my Brentwood-Benson fakebook. Also, Hal-Leonard has a Hymn Fake Book, they even have an Easy Hymn Fake Book that has all the hymns in the key of C.
To play by a fake book, start out by playing the chords and melody in the RH (use your chord inversions to play the melody on top, ie if the chord is C and the melody note is E, play your C chord G-C-E, so that the E is on top) and the bass note in the LH (same as the chord name unless it's a slash chord).
Also, fake books are also good for people that play by chords, most fake books have hundreds of songs and it saves a lot of time and money printing out hundreds of chords online. These are just a few but you can find a bunch more (Hal-Leonard has all kinds on their site, all genres, including Contemporary Christian, Christmas, Rock, Country, Jazz, etc...):
Hal Leonard Praise And Worship Fake Book:
http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.jsp?itemid=240234&order=1&catcode=00&refer=search&type=product&keywords=praise+and+worship+fake+book+
Brentwood-Benson Praise And Worship Fake Book:
http://www.brentwoodbenson.com/product.aspx?ProjectCode=457570714Worship Together The Esstential Modern Worship Fake Book:
http://www.worshiptogether.com/store/productdetail.aspx?iid=481226&tid=196Easy Hymn Fake Book:
http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.jsp?itemid=240207&order=0&catcode=00&refer=search&type=product&keywords=hymn+fake+book+
Hymn Fake Book:
http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.jsp?itemid=240145&order=1&catcode=00&refer=search&type=product&keywords=hymn+fake+book+
Lead Worship (Paul Baloche, worship songwriter, great site for chord charts, sheet music, band charts, lead sheets, and mp3s of his music and other worship songs):
http://www.leadworship.com/resources/songbook.htmlAlso, if you want to learn to sight read (play by sheet music), Hal-Leonard has an E-Z Play Today Series of keyboard books. It's similiar to fakebook format, except the letters are written on the notes. Also, they have an Easy Adult Piano Beginner's Piano Course that teaches piano w/ the letters on the notes.
http://www.halleonard.com/search_items.jsp?keywords=E-Z+Play&catcode=00&type=producthttp://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.jsp?itemid=1101&order=0&catcode=00&refer=search&type=product&keywords=easy+adult+piano+course+
I got started in Elem. school teaching myself on a Casio ROM keyboard w/ alphabet stickers, ROM cartridges w/ notes light up, and books that came w/ the cartridges w/ books that have the same format as the E-Z Play Today books. When I got to HS, I took a class in 9th grade that used the Bastien Older Beginner Course book 1, where I learned the LH as well and worked thru 2nd book on my own. I've been learning since (I got out of it for a few yrs). Anymore, I mainly play by chord charts, fake books, and by ear.
I highly recommend that everyone learn their chords. I know there's people here on all levels. Start by learning your major scales and the number system (aka Nashville Number System). Instead of thinking of "do-re-mi" think in terms of numbers 1-2-3, etc... Then it makes it easier to learn your chords (ie major chord is 1-3-5 notes of major scale). Get a keyboard chord book or find a online chord finder (ie
http://keychord.com) and learn the different formulas for chords (ie minor 1-b3-5, etc...). Everyone needs to at least learn their triad chords (at least major, minor, diminished 1-b3-b5) also it's good to know sus2 (1-2-5 ie C2 or Csus2 is C-D-G), sus4 (1-4-5 or C4 is C-F-G), augmented (1-3-5#) and 5 chord (not the V chord of a scale, I mean 1-5 ie C5 is C-G).
After you learn your triad chords, you can pretty much play any song, but it's good to go on and learn 7th and extended chords (extend beyond octave: 9th, 11th, 13th chords) b/c they build on the triad chords and give a fuller sound to your chords. Most chord charts only use the triads, 7ths, and 9ths, but it's good to learn all your chords.
I'm sorry this post is a little long. I just wanted to share a few things to help everybody but I kept thinking of more to share as I went along. I think this is enough to help a lot of people get started or improve their playing.
God bless!

Tammy