I love the words from this song where it says, “Shout Jesus from the mountains, and Jesus in the streets…”
I’ve played “I Speak Jesus” for worship at my church many times and it’s a great song that we all love to worship Jesus with.
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If you want to learn how to play this song on piano, and learn it the BEST way, keep reading, because I’m going to show you exactly that!
Also with a comprehensive video to follow.
This song is by Charity Gayle and it’s been very popular in the last year or two.
So let’s get into it, starting with the basics!
The Basics
It’s best to start with the basics of course, and this definitely includes the scale!
This song is originally in the key of E, and E major has four sharps.
Those are F#, C#, G#, D#.
In my video tutorial for “I Speak Jesus”, I show you how to play this scale if you don’t know.
And whether you already know how to play it or not, do yourself a favor and make sure you play it through plenty of times before you practice the song!
That way you’ll know exactly where you can play and where you can’t play.
After you’ve gone through that, then you can go through the chords and the more spicy improvisation if you’re wanting to do that.
The basics is mostly just making sure you play through the scale.
But it’s also important to understand the “important” chords, the I, IV, V and vi (or the 1, 4, 5, and 6), and how they function and sound.
The Chords
Speaking of the chords, let’s look more at those too.
If you don’t know what it means when I say the 1 chord of the 5 chord in a key, it’s a good idea to understand that and get a good feel for it!
Although you don’t have to understand a bunch of music theory to play this song.
Anyway, with that being said, the chords used in this song are E major, A major, B major and C# minor.
If you really want to learn the chords for this song and see them in action, then please watch the video where I thoroughly explain how to play all of them!
With the left hand I always suggest playing an octave with a 5th in the middle.
If you don’t understand that, my book explains how to understand it and how to play it, as well as where you should and shouldn’t play!
But for one example, with the left hand, the E major chord would be the notes E – B – E.
The right hand to go along with that would be E – G# – B.
There are of course many other options and many places you can go with it, but that’s a great starting point.
But let me emphasize it again, the video will likely hep you better than me spelling everything out, so be sure to check that out.
The Rhythm
Rhythm is a hard thing to teach… I’ve tried with both piano and guitar and it can be a difficult concept to grasp just by saying it.
You kind of just have to feel it and get it!
But with that being said, let me break it down for you how I think about rhythm.
My formula is this:
- Hit all notes together
- Do some right hand work
- Arpeggiate the left hand (play the notes separately from bottom to top) before you switch chords
Make sense?
I hope so!
But if not, let me explain more.
This “formula” isn’t engraved in stone and you don’t need to and shouldn’t follow it for every single chord, every single time.
But most of the time this is what I do.
If I’m not doing that, I might likely be doing a “single hit” which means hitting all the notes for a chord at the same time, just once in a measure.
And this is usually on quiet parts of a song or “down” parts, meaning it’s not loud and heavy hitting, to provide good dynamics.
But here’s how my formula works…
When you play a chord, the first thing you should do is play all the notes at the same time, both right hand and left hand.
After that, I think it’s usually best to do some stuff with the right hand.
This can be just playing the chord plain and simple, or super complicated improv; you get to choose!
I talk more about that in the video, too.
Lastly, it’s important that before you change to a new chord, you play the left hand again.
But playing all the notes at the same time just doesn’t work too well in my opinion.
So I suggest playing the notes separately, from bottom to top, or left to right.
You can also choose when you do this, as there are quite a few options from beats 2 to 4.
Rhythm is not only a hard thing to teach, but it can be difficult to get a feel for it.
You really just have to practice, practice, practice!
And you don’t need to do exactly what I show you.
I highly suggest doing that of course, but you can try it and see what sounds good to you.
Closing
That’s how you play “I Speak Jesus” by Charity Gayle on piano, the best way!
I hope this article helped you, and the video too.
It’s not a very difficult song, and I’m sure that wherever you’re at with piano, whatever skill level, you will get it nicely down under your fingers with some work!
Just keep practicing and don’t let yourself get discouraged.
And, always spend some time practicing slowly.
That’s insanely important.
And if you want to take your piano playing in worship to an amazing level, I’d highly recommend for you to purchase my book, Basic to Amazing Worship Piano.
I know that it will help you out greatly.
It talks about the left hand, right hand, what sounds great and what doesn’t… and gives you an absolutely amazing trick for improvisation that’s fail-proof.
I seriously think the book is worth it just for the section on improv.
If you have any questions or comments please write them in the comments section below and I’ll be so happy to hear from you and help you in any way that I can!
This song is worth learning and playing, whether you’re worshiping by yourself in privacy, or with a congregation.
And if you’re interested, you can check out other tutorials for songs like “Honey in the Rock”.
Again, please let me know if I can help you and I’ll be happy to.
Happy practicing!
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