Can some one tell me how to play piano from a lead sheet?

Question:Trying to play contemporary Christian music.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Trying to play contemporary Christian music.

First, you memorize all the possible chord combinations in all the possible keys, including 7ths, 9ths, 11ths and 13ths, and with all their major/minor/dim/aug permutations. The shorthand notation is what is written out above the melody in a leadsheet.

Then, for a basic rock beat, you strike the tonic note in octaves with your left hand on the 1 & 3, and the dominant on the AND of 2 & 4... then, you improvise on the chords that you've memorized with your right hand, always picking out the melody on the top. You can start out with straight quarter note root position chords, but that gets really boring really fast.

If you don't have your chords memorized, this won't work for you any time soon. It takes lots of practice, even so. Like everything else, it is easy if you know how! =)

Translating from guitar stuff, your right hand is rhythm guitar + melody, and your left hand is the bass guitar. between the two, you almost have a band! As a church musician myself, I wish you good luck.

Most contemporary Christian music is written in guitar easy chords, rather than piano-easy. So, knowing E major ( and C# minor!) really well (sux for piano) is kind of a must. Happily, piano players also write the Christain praise stuff, so you may luck out with some C major/a minor stuff.