How can I improve songs that sound the same

[hayat]

After not playing piano for years, a few months ago I started playing at an Assembies of God church.  Most of the songs have the same basic chord progressions (1, 4, 5).  We do some hymns but they are soooo boring.  I want to give the songs a little more flavor but I don't know what to do.  Any suggestions?

[T-Block]

Well, first give an example of a song.  Type out how you play it now, and maybe we can add in some stuff for you.

[kadman92]

don't yell at me, I say that cause it's happened in the past...

I got a break through from trying to learn some of the old hyms from Carlto Pearson recordings on the azusa cds

I too was stuck in the 1 4 5 progression and variations of it

I learned that those same songs you can replace the standard progression and add in the 6 2 5 progression.... for instance

Amazing Grace is as basic as it can get and can get boring but try like this

5 walk to 1  A.... Maze
4 with 1 in the base    ing
1 7th            Grace
1 walk to 4   How
4                 Sweet  the
1                  sound

5 walk to 1    that
1 7th             Saved  a
wald down to 6m7   wretch
2      Like... walk to 5 7th  ME

repeate the first part and then whe you walk down to 6m7 again... the next chord is 5 7th walk to 1 then the "amen" 4 and then 1

[T-Block]

To add on to the "Amazing Grace" example, you can also add in the 7-3-6 progression right before you go into the "saved a wretch like me" part.  When I get home, I am going to post my version of this song that uses the 7-3-6, 2-5-1, and all those different type of progressions.

[kadman92]

now that I think about it I sort of use that by accident sometimes
and also somtimes when I'm walking up from 1 to 4 I pause on a tension chord wich is a 3 7th add the 6th just before goint to the 4 chord

[hayat]

I'm at work and I don't have any of the chords.  Basically, I don't play the songs too much because for a lot of the songs they only have the words with the chord names (for guitarists) and it takes me a minute or two to figure out what the chord is.  I will have to get back to you next week to give you an example of the type of songs we sing.  I can't remember any off hand.  But I really appreciate your quick response to my message.