Holy Shout Music Tutorial
In this lesson we learn the basic shout music movements in gospel. Shout music is a style of playing found in the protestant churches when ‘the holy ghost would get high’. When the holy ghost started to move people would get happy, joyful, and filled with the holy ghost.
The Holy Shout Music Walk Up
Holy shout music features a scalar walk up from the 3rd of the chord to the root. This scale walk up is often harmonised in the right hand over the bass notes in the left hand and it can also be played with double or triple octaves.
In this lesson we demonstrate the holy shout walk up in the key of Bb:
The Rumble Before The Shout Music
It is common to play a rumble before the shout music starts. This rumble is played with octave tremolo bass and interesting suspensions, tensions, and leading tones in our right hand voicings:
The rumble is usually played whilst the preacher is preaching and this build up the ambiance before the shout music commences with the ascending scalar line.
Similarities with Basic Gospel Blues
When playing the shout music progression chord progression, our left hand is playing the exact same notes that we played for the basic gospel blues shuffle in lesson 1. The difference with shout music is that it is played at much faster tempos.
The War Cry
An alternate chord movement from the Protestant church is called The war Cry. The War Cry is a movement to the minor VI chord in the progression. For the holy shout in the key of Bb, we would move to a G-6 chord. After moving to the minor VI chord, we then move to the IV chord and finally resolve back to the I chord.
Lesson Downloads
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Holy Shout Music Transcription File Type: pdf -
Holy Shout Bass Lines & Voicings File Type: pdf
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Rumble Voicings & Numeric Harmony File Type: pdf
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Holy Shout Blues Left Hand Pattern File Type: pdf
Related Lessons
An important point with sus chords is that we often resolve the suspended 4th to turn the chord into a regular dominant 7th voicing.
In this lesson Hayden explored the altered tensions over dominant chords and how to resolve these tensions into the Imaj7 Chord.
Slash chords contain 2 bits of info, the 1st letter indicates what chord should be played & the 2nd letter specifies the bass note of the chord.
Practice Tips
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Shout music in different denominations is played differently so be aware that you will find variations on the changes shown in this lesson.
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If you are performing with a bass player, it frees up your hands to play the harmony in the higher registers as the bass player has the bass and the scale walk up covered.
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As an exercise, transpose the rumble figures into the keys of F, G, C, and Eb which are common keys for church hymns.
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Notice the similarities between the gospel blues bass line and the holy shout music bass line. The same notes are played but at a faster tempo and with slightly different accents.
I don’t know if i can/will ever learn how to play gospel but my whole mood is elevated just watching this lesson. So joyful. Thank you!
Just a note, there seems to be something wrong with the video in that it keeps locking into one place and repeating without intervention. just an fyi.