Hahaha I was afraid of that 😃 And I'm equally happy to hear it. When I started this lesson the day before yesterday, I played it smoothly. Then I listened to the tutorial video again and realized he plays it more staccato. I asked my husband and although he is not into blues (mostly classical guy, that), he immediately picked the smooth version. And of course I like BOTH as well. I'll probably surprise myself most of all which version I end up playing as my "graduation" video 😃

Thanks for chiming in!

  • TC3 likes this.

Sophia I would play the staccato version, because I believe Christian has a reason to play it that way. Call it educational method. Or training of the skill: "one hand legato while other hand staccato".
Ok, in current exercise, the LH staccato part is solo, while the RH pauses that beat. This makes it probably easier. I found myself strugglig a lot to play LH-A staccato together with RH play a legato note of a lick. Or in other words, as long LH was solo on that note: easy👍. But if I played both hands together, both became staccato, or both became legato.👎
It cost me a lot of time to sort that out, and it is still not good by any means.

Maybe TCs tip is the best, not to waste too much time and do what you like best, if one version is problematic. On the other hand, you are as fast as a 🚅, while I am more like a 🛴... Maybe you should go staccato version, or at least try it for some time 🤔

    Haha yes you have a point there 😄 I wish Christian was active in this thread to tell us his reasoning 😆 But then maybe he should expect us to buy all his books, lol!

    But yeah it's true, the lesson gets a lot harder after that easy lick so I wanted to ask before proceeding too much!

    Hi Sophia

    I haven't read the whole thread, so I don't know what else has been suggested already, and I'm not a beginner so feel free to ignore me! Nevertheless here's a few suggestions (which worked for me):

    1. Listen to recordings of the blues. This will help you to know when to change from the C to the F chord etc. Once you've played the sequence for a while it will become completely instinctive anyway and you will change automatically.

    2. Practise the ostinato left hand patterns on their own - a lot! The one in your first video is just about the easiest. Eventually you'll get to the point where your LH is on auto pilot and you don't have to think about it. This then frees up your RH to improvise or play variations on the licks and phrases you've learnt.

    3. Learn the minor blues scale. In the key of C this is the following sequence of notes C Eb F F# G Bb C.
      You can play this scale, variations of it, and virtually any combination of its notes over the entire 12 bar sequence. It will work over the F and G chords. Experiment with the notes in this scale and you'll be amazed how much you can do with it. Sliding from the Eb to the E whilst playing G and/or C above is one of the more common techniques in blues and boogie.

    These next 2 are more advanced but something to aim for.

    1. Try recreating your first video in a different key. G is a great key for blues and boogie. My favourite in fact. Eb is also, perhaps surprisingly, very good because the blues scale is all black notes except for one note. But that is much more advanced and I wouldn't try that for a while.
    2. Try and learn a few other LH patterns. One that stuck with me and I still use to this day is the Jimmy Yancey pattern. I won't try and describe that here, but it's worth looking up. When I first started playing this one it used to throw my RH off all the time, but eventually after relentlessly practising it on its own for hours and hours it became easy. Perhaps something for the future.

    Most of have fun with it!

    Cheers


    Simon
    All round average Jazz, Blues & Rock player.
    Currently working towards ABRSM grade 8.

      Thanks so much for the pointers Simon! I really appreciate those!

      Simonb I'm not a beginner so feel free to ignore me!

      I think I can safely speak for all here that because you're not a beginner that's the one really sound reason NEVER to ignore you. I welcome all suggestions especially those from seasoned players! We all vary from "bloody beginner" (that's a bit of a in-joke by now) to "somewhat beginner" so it's really really great to read viewpoints from more advanced players such as yourself, PianoMonk, TC etc. Ok and WieWaldi who is still a huge beginner-leap ahead of me 😃

      Thanks again for chiming in!

        Hi Sophia

        [

        This is an example of the Jimmy Yancey bass line, but in C minor rather than major, used in a composition I wrote a few years ago. You'll notice my LH hardly ever wavers from the repeated pattern. As I said earlier I practised these LH patterns for hours and hours so I'd have almost complete independence with my RH.

        Aside from the simple melody (which is more of a repeated riff) there is heavy use of the C minor blues scale in the solo.

        Cheers

        Simon
        All round average Jazz, Blues & Rock player.
        Currently working towards ABRSM grade 8.

        Whoah, very impressive - are you sure your right hand is connected to the same brain as your left hand? 😂 Something we can look forward to be (maybe) able to do that too someday, right, @WieWaldi ?

          Sophia Agreed. This is impressive.
          But it is also in reach, it is nothing impossible for us, isn't it?
          Just another LH, make it really, really autopilot. Make it so autopilot, it is not disturbed from right hand. And then we have just to learn how to improvise with RH, play somthing different than ordinary blues scale, something with speed and syncopations, fitting to the rythm of LH, and make it sound good.
          I need just to chew through the remaining 25 lessons of easy (proud😎) blues piano playlist, eat some improvising videos and then practice practice practice. Pff... So easy.

          Wait! This PW recital on October is about improvising! @Sophia, do we have a goal? A pact?

              WieWaldi do we have a goal? A pact?

              Oooh October is soooo sooooon! I actually just came back from practising and trying to get that left hand lick in staccato and right hand lick (the longer one) legato... pfftt! Not easy! You are so evil to recommend it instead of the smooth one 😛 It'll be at least an additinal 3 minutes to get that perfect. Yeah I wish 😂

              Ok, the pact is: I will TRY to be good enough in October to play a blues "improvisation". For the next recital though (the one Navindra just announced) I am going to try to whip one of my Alfred pieces in ready state 😃

              Edit: I have an idea! You play one hand and I play the other 😃

                  Sophia You are so evil to recommend it instead of the smooth one

                  😸Har Har har👹
                  Sorry, I must work with all tricks to stay ahead of you - at least as long as possible.
                  Seriously, I play piano since 2021 (January) and learned only 3 pieces. Meanwhile, two forgotten, and one got rusty. No, Sophia, I am more of a lazy man. Certainly a really lazy man. Possibly the laziest man in Bavaria county. This would place me high in a runnin for the laziest worldwide. If you open a German phonebook and look under L like lazy, you 'll find my number.
                  And picture:

                  Sophia or the next recital though (the one Navindra just announced) I am going to try to whip one of my Alfred pieces in ready state 😃

                  This is the burden of being a recital coordinator, you 💥must💥 contribute. Sam did on every one in PW. Guess why I didn't raise my hand when Navindra asked for?

                        WieWaldi I am more of a lazy man

                        Nah, you just place your hobby at the location it deserves: the backburner 😃 If it weren't for PACT, I would be very lazy too. Right now, my days go "Ok, today I deserve a vacation from practice for SURE. PACT will understand. I will add my absence to PACT... oh wait. It takes longer to find an excuse than play for 5 minutes... down to the piano I go!"

                        It works, because when the 5 minutes are up, I'm too lazy to get up so I usually practice for 20 minutes or longer 😃

                          I am currently working through a slow blues course on Pianogroove and a member there shared this recording. Thought I would pass it along here as some may find it enjoyable.

                            Jazzpunk Nice!

                            Enthusiastic but mediocre amateur.

                              5 days later

                              Lesson 6! Not flawless - my little finger bounced off the key at one point, plus a few little flaws and pauses here and there. Then of course towards the end I completely flunked on the "mother of all turnarounds" and couldn't help uttering a rude word - sorry!

                                Sophia Nice work! I like the articulation of the left hand and the licks on top sound cool! Also, that’s what rude words are for…

                                  Well done. You are really getting better. The turnaround was well played. Even your cat is enjoying your relaxed mood. And you know: Cats are very picky - if something is wrong, they immediately correct you. This is why they have paws.
                                  In this video, Simba (It is Simba, right?) looks even more behaved than the AI-cat in profile-picture.

                                  Next round is on me.

                                  Thanks! I really liked this lesson. I love the slower, laid back blues. I was getting a little tired of the tumptie-dumtie tumptie-dumptie left hand which was very boring to me (not to play, it was hard! I mean the sound).

                                  Next lesson will be the 8 bar blues, I look forward to it. But meantime the next one is indeed on you 😃 It's fun learning together!

                                  Oh, and I forgot to say: yes, that's Simba... he is a real critic and he only stays when the music is relaxed enough, unlike the kittens who like it more the wilder it gets ^_^

                                  Someday I may try some free style improvisation like you, Roger 😃

                                    Sophia Someday I may try some free style improvisation like you, Roger 😃

                                    Go for it Sophia! It's fun!

                                      It's time to post the one video, that initially hooked me into blues piano. Normally, this channel does a lot of digital piano reviews and also some about acoustic pianos. As a gear head I was following this channel and by accident have seen this:

                                      And I thought: "Okay - this sounds cool. It seems not to be that hard." Left hand was easy, and I could play it together with the RH C/F/G triad in Charleston rhythm. That's it. I could play the blues scale, but not with LH together. But I knew the 12 bar blues pattern, and I liked it. Later on, the YouTube algorithm always brought me back to other 12 bar blues videos again and again. But they weren't any helpful for me - until I found Christian's beginner course.
                                      But initially, my blues journey started with the Merriam Music video.

                                      Btw, in the follow-up video, Stu Harrison reveals the secret of improvising