Where words fail,

This five-level program will help students accompany their church congregations with beautiful, exciting, and colorful versions of the hymns found in their hymnal.  While there are many hymn arrangements for pianists to use when playing solos, until now there hasn't been much help for pianists who want to accompany a singing congregation!  Many beginning church pianists start by playing strictly the notes found in the hymnal.  They quickly find that more notes are needed!  The goal of a church pianist is to improvise the hymns to enhance the singing.  I developed this program to teach pianists of all levels how to improvise and it can be used as a supplement to any pianist's keyboard and theory curriculum.

 

I chose 40 hymns for Level One that showcase a variety of styles and keys and I wrote them so that even a beginning pianist can use them to accompany a church congregation with confidence.  I rewrote each of those 40 hymns for Levels Two, Three, Four, and Five, each time building on the previous level by adding that level's new idea, or "color," and making it more advanced, exciting and colorful.  

 

The new idea for each level is written in that level's color and has a short, simple "code" so it can be learned and added to a hymn easily.  After learning each level's idea and code--and working through the five levels using these colors and codes--the student will be able to add them on his own to other hymns in the hymnal and to popular and traditional music as well.

 

I use colors and codes for two primary reasons.  First, color and number codes can be more easily written into a hymnal than dozens of notes.  Second, if we think of a pattern of notes as one unit with one sound, it's much easier to learn, remember, and then add to another piece of music.

 

The overall objective is for the student to be able to read the code quickly and know what pattern of notes to use and for his hands, over time, to be able to play them automatically.  With very little effort, the student will be able to transfer the patterns and ideas in these 40 hymns to all the other hymns and have a very "colorful" hymnal and music library!