Soulful Keyboard Styles (DVD)

 Review

"Soulful Styles" is a series of 4 separate DVDs (Piano/Keyboard, Guitar, Drums and Bass) that teach musicians and worship teams the secrets of playing contemporary gospel worship music. For the sake of this review, let's loosely define "contemporary gospel" as congregational modern worship music that contains elements of styles like gospel, funk, jazz, Latin or R&B music. I think that Israel Houghton and Martha Munizzi, among others, might fit well into our definition. Whatever you want call this style, not many musicians in the average local church can pull it off very well, probably for lack of knowledge. We've been blessed with many instructional resources showing us how to play styles like modern guitar-driven worship, adult alternative, Celtic, and country, but there haven't been many that teach worship teams how to play the harmonically and rhythmically rich styles of contemporary gospel music. Until now.

What's most appealing about these DVD's is that separately, each one offers in-depth instrument instruction. But when you put the four together you have a virtual clinic for the worship team as a whole. This is because each individual DVD covers the exact same 15 songs and styles as the others. So, for instance, we watch the entire band playing together in-studio doing "O Lord You're Beautiful" reggae style. When the song is over, each musician will explain exactly what they were playing for that song on their respective DVD. Watching these DVDs is almost like attending a worship team seminar and then getting one on one instruction in a break out session with the individual players.

Individually, each "Soulful Styles" DVD stands on it own as an instrument specific instructional resource. They are packed with information and, trust me, the clinicians/musicians on the DVDs definitely know what they are talking about. These guys are rock steady, groove machines. Not only will you discover how to play new styles, you will learn how to develop the chops to pull them off! They also throw in practice tips and techniques, and in-depth interviews with the players.

The bottom line - All 4 of the "Soulful Styles" DVDs succeed in addressing the needs of worship players and teams that don't necessarily want to play old-timey gospel but would like to put a urban, soulful spin on today's worship songs. Pick up these DVDs and get ready to be catapulted into new musical territory.

Review by Jeremy Dunn