Beginners blues/boogie/rock discussion

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.

4. 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.
5. 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

Hi Sophia

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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

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?

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?

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!

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.

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

A 6 minute video into Boogie? Hahaha, lol, hahaha. Muhahaha, rofl, hahahahaha! Ha ha ha, pfffff.... hahahahhaahhahahahahaa, really? ahahahahhhahahaha.
To be fair, all information is there you need to know. But to spend three months or more just to learn it, is unmotivating. Especially if nobody tells you that it is really hard to learn. You will feel like a fool, then. On top of that the speed you don't gain in early stages, that make you really feel dumb.

But if you play Boogie like the Dad, your kittens go crazy!

WieWaldi "There's no difference between sounding like you're improvising and improvising." Love it!