Thursday, August 30, 2007

Hymns Arrangement Course First Update

Just wanted to give you a quick update on the hymn arrangementcourse I am working on.
The course will be covering the following:
1. Introduction of hymns

2. How to end any hymns using 3 effective methods.

3. Turn-arounds - I am showing you different ways to repeat the hymns in exciting chord progression. This can also be your introduction progression as well.

4. How to get rid of performance anxiety when playing in front ofpublic/congregation.

5. How to arrange beautiful hymns such as Amazing Grace, Holy Holy Holy, O How I Love Jesus, Savior Like A Shepherd Leads Us, and many more.

6. Offertory arrangement, Three part Amen arrangement, etc

I am truely excited about this brand new course. Looks like the course will be launched toward end of Septemberor early October 2007.

I will keep you posted as the course is getting completed. This course should have about 5-6 1/2 hours of contents.

Let me know what you think about this!

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Playing the piano for the congregational singing would require that you make a kind of rhythm pattern based on the time signature and tempo. It would be nice to have alternative pattern available.
For playing solos, its different.

Anonymous said...

i like that

Anonymous said...

sounds great.... can't wait til it comes out.... can use all help available

Anonymous said...

i would love to see what this course is all about.i cant wait for it to come!(:

Anonymous said...

I am REALLY looking forward to your new course on hymn arrangement! I have
enjoyed the emails and also joined the monthly piano club. I was
wondering in the hymn course if you would consider including how to fill some of those
longer measures. I have applied some of your techniques to hymns
already and although they sound much nicer....when I come to those long measures filled only with a whole note.....they seem to lose some of their pizzazz.
I have added alternating
octave/chords and a couple of other
things.....but there must be so much more potential there even though it is a hymn.

Thank you for all your effort that you put into these!

Anonymous said...

Yoke, I am very excited while waiting for the course to be finished. I am certainly waiting on my (autographed copy) just joking. Please let me know when it is available. As I have mentioned before, when I heard you playing chills shot down my arms and spine. Christ is in your piano playing!

Anonymous said...

Dear Yoke,
Thank you for the announcement of this new course.

Hymn arrangement is one of the most beautiful thing in music life.
Learning how to harmonise a song is very important.
Every music piece has really an intro and an ending.
Once I get the idea of how to end a song or hymn helps me improvising how I wanted it.
I am truly looking forward to this new course as well.

God bless you! Yoke

Paul

Anonymous said...

Homer: Usually the church pianist will play the melody with right and left hand arrangement during traditional congregational singing (ie evangelistic piano playing).

Many gospel pianists play only rhythm and chord nowadays during accompaniment. I think this approach is great if the song leader happens to be the pianist/keyboardist as well. Often, congregation is lost if the melody is not voiced out. Hymn's melody are beautiful and worth playing :-)

One of the goals of this course is to help a pianist be a better church pianist by understanding how to arrange hymns and make it sounds great. As most hymn books are written in 4 parts (vocal, SATB) and does not sound too exciting during congregational singing.


Also, many techniques are presented such as modulation and transposition, turn-arounds, intro and endings, how to play during meditation/offering etc.

Susan: I will add in additional sections on evangelistic runs and fillers.

Thanks for everybody's input.

Yoke

Brigitte's Blog said...

Yoke, I am looking so forward to this course! Can I just sign up now? Sounds like what I had asked you for some weeks ago, so thanks :)

Dianna said...

This course looks interesting! God bless you with wisdom as you complete it. ~ Dianna

Unknown said...

A course like this will be perfect for me. It'll be much easier to put into practice its incorporated techniques and theory. Busy people like myself who don't have much time to sort through instructions from other tutorial sources in order to perfect hymn-playing for congregational singing, will find this new endeavor very practical. I hope it comes in DVD format rather than online.

Anonymous said...

Yoke:
I am looking forward to this course -particularly tips on getting over the nervousness part. Five months ago my minister asked me to be the Church organist and I have been practicing about an hour a day out of the hymnal. I've done two services so far, and while I play the hymns without mistakes during practice, I seem to really goof up during the live service. I have very limited piano skills so basicly I have been figuring out the Chords and playing them with the left hand, melody on the right, with a few added things like arpeggios, leads, etc.

Anonymous said...

I do not know what to say, I am just beginner, I still want to take this course, it is what I want to know how to end a song or start a song.It sound great.
The

Anonymous said...

My sister plays for a church and I can't wait to see what she says when I give her this as a gift. We are both from the same classical background and have struggled with learning chords and improv. If I sell 2 more paintings, I can get the Christmas songs, too.
p.s. I am watching the Definitive lessons on my dvd right now!
Linda Dye

Anonymous said...

Sounds interesting and refreshing. Look forward to further news on the course. Best regards.

ivory said...

hi I was wondering if you can play so as i can see what you have played sometimes teachers go kind of fast and it is hard to see whats been played Ivory

Anonymous said...

Dear Mdn Yoke Wong, Many Thanks for your course on Essentrials Of Great Hymn Arrangement. Please enrol me for the forth-coming launching. Iam very excited and looking forward to learning the above program GOD Bless! Tee Fun

Anonymous said...

its marvelous, it really does help!
But is there a way i can tranfer this sort of playing onto a chuch organ and still make it sound nice? maybe some tips on this...