Sophia So after I finish lesson 9, does that mean I have graduated to lovely beginner? Which is somewhere in between bloody beginner and total beginner? 🥳

Hmmm.... I don't think so. But feel free, to set your beginner grades as you like. haha

    Wow!!!!!!!! First of all, I absolutely ADORE Fever. Before, my two most favourite versions were Rita Moreno in the Muppet Show, and Elvis smooth voice. But they may have to make place for WieWaldi now 😋 (proof: I cranked up the volume and I'm playing it AGAIN as I'm typing this)

    You are really make great progress WieWaldi. Your timing is becoming bang on and very confident, relaxed playing now. Also I noticed lots of little emphasized notes that show you truly feel the piece now. Plus you look like you are having fun with it... number one most important feature of our piano hobby that we should never forget 🙂

    Well done! I'm so proud of you!

      Sophia My favorite is Peggy Lee's version. Followed by Rita Moreno, because of the Muppet coolness factor. She even won an Emmy for her role in The Muppet Show. And Elvis! Ahh - if moves his hips and the ladies gets loud. 😆😆😆 I am so in envy of his talent. ^^

          WieWaldi Hahaha, well, I'm too old to be fainting at Elvis now, and too young to faint when he was still alive (and by then he wasn't all that faintable anymore).

          I'm not familiar with the Peggy Lee version, I must listen to that soon. But yes, Rita and Animal had great chemistry together. I think that, together with Mah Nah Mah Nah are my favourite Muppet scenes 😃

            Easy lesson 5 is weird... It has two parts: one is very lush and has some beautiful chords, the other one feels like Hanon exercises in Blues from.

            Ooh Hanon! Blegh! Actually I'm struggling with my lovely lesson 9 too. I can play all the variations now (somewhat, my left hand still messes it up sometimes). But I can't seem to decide on how to put it together now. I could play each variation each over the full twelve bars, but that would mean EIGHT boring repeats. Why eight? Because there is the initial drone lick. Then six variations. That is seven. But Christian cheated a little and he sneakily snuck in two different flavours of variation 4!

            So my alternative idea is to record all the variations over two twelve bar progressions... but my poor brain refuses to remember when to switch and to what.

            I could cheat all the way and just record four bars of each variation over the C chord, but I don't want to do that. So with my break and with the start of Alfred 3, I feel a little stuck with lesson 9. Right now I feel like Rowlf.... just replace "onion" with "blues lesson" lol!

              Sophia but my poor brain refuses to remember when to switch and to what.

              I know exactly what you mean. Each lesson is spread out over several sheets with a lot of empty space and unlucky line and page breaks. The drone lick lesson alone has 10 (ten) pages. That is a lot to remember and I struggeled with that, too.
              But good news: In lesson 4 (fever) of the easy-blues&boogie course I came up with the idea to add a lead sheet, to have everything on 2 pages. Bass line repeats anyway and is a waste of paper. I did it for lesson 5 as well and I will probably continue as long I am a total beginner. It costs a few hours per lesson to do it properly, but I think it is worth the effort.

              You have only ten more lousy lessons to go, before you can benefit from that. Keep going! Each lesson will be more fun than the last one. (Execept the Blues-Hanon, yawn... Still struggling with line 1 of 7 - and it is the easiest one)

              Until then, you should lay out the sheet music like this:

                Lol! Good idea 😁 I don't really like to use sheet music for my blues lessons. It is one of those styles where you would like people to believe you come up with those ideas on the spot 😆

                But I may need it for this lesson. You gave me an idea to take just one bar of each variation and print those, that should fit on the piano stand. Or I could spend a little longer to remember them all... there is no rush 😊

                Last time I tried to come up with my own ideas, I was lost in the Blues Scale... 🙄

                4 days later

                Ok, here is my lesson 9. Truth be told, I wasn't enjoying this lesson very much. There were too many variations, and the drone lick was straining my hand - I know that once I go into full improvisation mode, I will not use it much 🙄 About halfway I started making mistakes, but it was my third attempt and my hand was getting really tired. Not to mention my grumpy mood, so this will have to do 😋

                I played each variation over 4 bars, namely

                1st CCCC: the notes after a false start "these are the notes in the drone lick"
                1st FFCC: the drone lick, "practise 100 times"
                1st GFCC: variation 1 (forgot right hand smooth with left hand staccato)
                2nd CCCC: variation 2 (noticed the same there, obvious a WIP)
                2nd FFCC: variation 3 (oopsie there in the left hand)
                2nd GFCC: variation 4a (I forgot to switch and corrected that)
                3rd CCCC: variation 4b (I like that one!)
                3rd FFCC: variation 5 (I was getting tired, lots of mistakes)
                3rd GFCC: variation 6 (not good at all, but too grumpy by now! no way I'm doing this again!)

                On to lesson 10, I hope I like that one better!

                  First of all - congrats you succeeded this dry lesson. (Yes - it was dry for me, too) Unfortunately, this wasn't that much of fun for you - it was impossible to overhear. Especially the last note said: "FINISHED! AND I NEVER TOUCH IT AGAIN! AHHHHHH!!! " Next lesson is more musical - promise. I am very confident you will finish it before I have mine half done.

                  Sophia and the drone lick was straining my hand

                  That's bad to read about. I got a nice hint from another youtube channel and this is helping me out to avoid hand strain: Play faint. This makes you also play slower in many occasions and really helps to reduce the strain.

                  Sophia I know that once I go into full improvisation mode, I will not use it much 🙄

                  sorry - Sophia. You won't get rid of it! And for improv this is a real powerful tool - play a one-finger-melody and bump it up with the drone. Works always.

                  Maybe the drone lick was the boring "Hanon" work of the beginner lesson, but it will be used a lot in the future lessons from now on. So it is good you masterd it.

                  Speaking about Hanon: I am at the 3rd of my 7 Blues-Hanons right now, and I bumped my metronome up to 70% of final speed. Okay, if I switch from C7 to F7 or G7 my RH starts to make nonsense. Anyway, I see a light at the end of the tunnel - but it could also be an incoming train

                        Haha yeah I was so happy for it to be finished. I guess I don't mind the drone lick in one or two bars. But 36 bars non stop woompa doompa is too much!

                        WieWaldi Play faint. This makes you also play slower in many occasions and really helps to reduce the strain.

                        Do you mean the same way Bart suggested - one hand soft and the other normal volume? Or both faint?

                        WieWaldi I see a light at the end of the tunnel

                        Hang in there 😃 Boring lessons are for our own good (or so they try to tell us) 😝

                              Sophia Hang in there 😃 Boring lessons are for our own good (or so they try to tell us) 😝

                              Reminds me of my mother: Food that doesn't taste delicious is healthy! Always!

                              Sophia Do you mean the same way Bart suggested - one hand soft and the other normal volume? Or both faint?

                              I don't know what Bart suggested (didn't read all forum). But it makes sense to play faint with the one hand you feel the strain. And then you should play more faint with the other hand, too. Otherwise, it starts to sound bad. Anyway, it is a good exercise - if you play chords with LH (3 or 4 notes at the same time) and a simple one finger melody with RH, you run into the problem that LH is droning the melody out.

                                  Yeah that's what he said too 🙂 Great minds... etc 😃

                                  I started to listen to lesson 10. He finally said the magic word.................... IMPROVISATION! Wheeeeeeee! Of course the first thing he recommends is the drone lick... you are right. There is no getting away from that anymore 🤢

                                  9 days later

                                  Well, this one is @PianoMonk's fault. He mentioned he wanted to see cats... so I decided to play a duet with my OTHER kitty. Yes, it's terrible. Yes, I'm sitting here my jammies. Yes, it's 75% Christian licks, 25% "improvisation" attempt. Yes, there are too many mistakes, but I had 100% fun doing this 😂 Behold... lesson 10! I needed that after the previous boring lesson!

                                    Instantly, I can hear Christian singing "🎶 I have no money 🎶", hahaha
                                    "🎶 I need no money 🎶" - LOL

                                    And yes - there were some parts I didn't learn. Good job to start to develop your own licks. Well done! Honestly, I expected you to make a fun video, but I was more thinking about a fancy dress with a big fruit or this elegant red keyboard. Your idea was even better: What a brilliant idea to play a duo with the cat!
                                    I see - If the kittens are out of town, the Cheshire Cat appears from nowhere and jumps in!

                                    Oh - and the MOAT as intro works perfect. Well played

                                    Next one has a really cool bass line.
                                    How cool? So cool:

                                    Currently my favorite one. Enjoy!

                                    Oooh nice! I look forward to lesson 11 😃 I know my playing wasn't very good, but I can play those licks without the kitty duet part and I just wanted to have some fun. I refuse to sing about money though, because I sound way worse than poor Christian lol! 😛

                                    I had this idea because of PianoMonk and also because we talked about keyboards with narrow keys a while ago... I wanted to see if it is possible to hot swap (answer, yes!). AND I wanted to play this keyboard so badly. It was the only way I could sound more than 2 notes at the same time 👇🏼👇🏼

                                    A two note polyphony cat?!? What a high tech device - normally only pro stage keyboarder use it^^
                                    I was already wondering how you to manage to play fullsize keys together with minikeys. I will never be able to do this. But as I already said: Your brain🍟, my brain🥔

                                    Anyway - good news here: I managed to get all notes of the Hanon lines... Okay, still very slow, a lot of mistakes, switching from C7 to F7 often disturbs me, and going to G7 makes a knot into my fingers. And I am about half through the slow Blues section. The good thing about the slow Blues part is, there is no need to get it played fast. I think in one ore two weeks I can show you...
                                    Only one thing: Don't you dare to post a third time in a row before!!!!! 👺This feels humiliating. 😖