Well, several times in the video, I hear hammer-ons. An old gospel and Floyd Cramer type of thing. Usually the right pinky plays the high tonic or the 5th of the chord and the thumb plays the 2nd of the scale and the first finger hammers onto the third, or the right pinky hits the upper tonic and the thumb hits the 4th of the scale and the first finger hammers on to the 5th of the scale. But there are variations when one is moving to a new chord with a walk-down, and the exact timing of when the high tonic note is played and of course the rhythmic division of the hammer-on can vary a lot. (Contrary motion is used, often, both in going from suspended chords to the triad and in walk-downs, possibly fattening the sound, since it moves towards resolution from and onto different intervals at the same time, but I don't hear that so much in the video.)
She also slides into notes. But starting at 1:52, I think I hear the guitar player sliding into some of the same notes, and that confuses the sound a bit. Was it exactly at 1:52 that you meant?
I wish that there was a good book on this type of playing. There are many books on blues playing, of course, but little about old gospel or what I call "rock gospel." Harrison's Rock Piano has a few pages, and there is a good Homespun DVD with Ethel Caffie-Austin. Several web sites offer "gospel piano" lessons, but most seem to focus on modern, smoother gospel playing, which uses more extended chords and few walk-downs and little hammering. Does anyone else know of good books or videos? (Someone at Sam Ash once told me "That type of playing is just chords." I asked if he could play it. He said, "Well, no.")
Last edited by Jake Johnson (17-05-2012 17:41)
