Beginners blues/boogie/rock discussion

Sophia · 2024-05-29T17:17:55+00:00

I have always been fascinated by boogie woogie, but of course I am limited by my very limited piano skills 😃 However now that I'm in the second Alfred book,...

WieWaldi

After some fun and exotic travel pianos with a crack in the keyboard, let's come back to on-topic:
"Beginners blues/boogie/rock discussion"

This is my take of lesson 5 of the Easy Blues & Boogie Woogie course.
It is not flawless. But hey(!) this video goes for more than 7 minutes in a single take. We beginners are not yet at the level to play a whole concert without some oopses and hrmfps, here and there.

This thread is called "blues/boogie/rock", but for now we are only swimming in the blues pond. An introduction into easy Boogie Woogie stuff for beginners, comes later this course. What is missing? Rock'n Roll!
I added some at the end (Yes, drone-lick). This was necessary to have some fun after the boring Blues-Hanon.

btw: Sophia - in Lesson 11 you will learn the walking bass line!!!! have fun!

Sophia

Ahh! Yes that sounded familiar immediately!!! I was swinging along with the slow blues section - loved all of it, pretty harmonies, great sounds, loved the walking bass (mine is still a lot simpler than that).

But then oh my goodness, you weren't kidding with the Hanon part.... well played but YIKES! Endless misery basically... plonk-ee-plink-ee-plonk-ee, very grating to my ears indeed. But then around the 7 minutes mark it had a lovely ending.

Then of course the real fun started: ROCK & ROLL!!! Yeah!!! Jerry Lee Lewis, move over, WieWaldi is in town! With great hands of fire!

P.S. there was no risk of me submitting my lesson before you, I'm only at the left hand stage, trying to add the magic triangle... "I don't want to pay this, said the guest" 😅

WieWaldi

Sophia Let's call the lesson 11 bass line, the little brother of my version. This one needs a bit more concentration because it is longer and you have to pay attention to the index finger that is wandering around. But the biggest difficulty is the same on both lines: Coming from F7 down to C7, this is an 11th jump. And sometimes you can't look at your hands, because the right hand jumps, too. (Now you know why I consider mini-keys bad for the muscle memory training).
IMO, this walking bass adds about 50 to 60 percent of difficulty to yours. The one Christian mentioned as the "full version" is indeed 5 times harder to play.

Nightowl

@WieWaldi Wow, that was amazing! 👏 "Great hands of fire!" indeed - Sophia nailed it with that phrase.

You play with fluency and confidence, to the point where small mistakes seem irrelevant because the overall performance is so enjoyable. Take a bow, maestro! 😀

WieWaldi

Started with next lesson, "The Quick Five Blues". I think this will be my next recital piece. 4 more weeks to go, just perfect.

Turns out, Christian isn't very happy with my Rock'n Roll attempt 😂😂😂

Sophia

Pfft! What does he know! What was good enough for Mr Lewis, is good enough for WieWaldi! I still liked it 🤩

Sophia

Ooh! I am wrapping up lesson 11 (one more lick to get up to speed, probably a few more days). I was thinking yay, I'm catching up with WieWaldi... I will be a ~~Bloody~~ ~~Lovely~~ Total Beginner™ soon. Not so... the sheet music stops at lesson 11 but there are still more tutorials! That Christian is always full of surprises 👺

WieWaldi

Yea. The next sheet music is from lesson 12 to16, then you are awarded. Looks like you stay lovely for some more time! 🥰
I always wonder how you manage to do both, the Alfred stuff for serious pianists AND toying around with Blues.💙

Sophia

Lol! I guess my mamma was like your mamma: first, you must eat the spinach and brussels sprouts before you can enjoy the ice cream and cookies. Now that I'm old and can decide for myself, I'm finally seeing the sense in that. So first 15 minutes of mandatory Alfred 🥱😬😵 and then I am allowed to do the blues lesson 💃🤸‍♀️🧚‍♀️

WieWaldi

Haha - sounds like Alfred is a lot of fun, currently. A nice Ragtime piece! Okay, Ragtime is hard to learn, but fun to play. And it teaches an important lesson about syncopations. Me is only Blues. And forum. Fifty fifty. Both fun stuff 😉

Sophia

True! I'm slowly finding out that I'm probably not going to be into playing classical music all that much. I still love it, but I'm having much more fun with the lighthearted stuff like ragtime and blues and jazz. But I still want to finish all three Alfred books because I think it's important to learn the basics... reading, pedaling, dynamics etc. And the forum is indeed fun - it's nice to do these blues lessons together even if we only moan about boring lessons it feels a little less horrible already 😃

One of the upcoming Alfred pieces is the full version of Fur Elise. But it's been played to death already, because literally everybody wants to learn and perform it at some point. I just yawn already when I even think about it... but when you learn blues, you can improvise endlessly and come up with your own style. If you play Fur Elise in a jazzy version, every critic will dance all over you. Although... I'd go for this version 😃

Nightowl

Sophia Yikes, that video should come with a health warning! 😲 I turned it off halfway to stop my ears bleeding. I know the piece has been played to death over the years but there was no need to murder it! <Makes mental note not to stray onto this blues thread again.>

WieWaldi

Gosh!!! What an Elise! Truly, this is the best version, I ever heard.
If I would rate music styles, I would say (from Easy to Hard):

Pop (chords only, as acompaniment)
Blues
Boogie Woogie
Rock 'n Roll
Pop (chords + melody)
Minimal/contemporary classic (Einaudi, FFrench, ...)
Ragtime
Jazz
Classical
Classical in Ragtime and Jazz

Seems you love the challenge 🤪

Sophia

WieWaldi Seems you love the challenge 🤪

Ha! I'm about 876,599 hours away from being able to play like that 😃 But he HAS given me idea of making that lesson more interesting, when I get to it 😂

I'm surprised you're placing blues under rock & roll, I always thought blues was a little more challenging (one more chord). No?

WieWaldi

Sophia I'm surprised you're placing blues under rock & roll, I always thought blues was a little more challenging (one more chord). No?

Sophia I'm about 876,599 hours away from being able to play like that

876,599 hours / 24 = 36,5149 days = Nov, 14th. One day left to get a recording and submit at next recital. Just don't sleep!

Sophia

Haha, I wish! I thought 876,599 hours got us to October 7, 2124. One hundred years minus one hour, because that one hour I give myself as a present 😃 (comma and point are reversed in English language, for some crazy reason. Like $10,396.39 as opposed to €10.396,39)

WieWaldi

Sophia (comma and point are reversed in English language, for some crazy reason. Like $10,396.39 as opposed to €10.396,39)

You have no idea how I hate this comma/point thing. My work PC is English with a German keyboard, my private PC is all German with English version of libre office because I hate German words for Visual Basic and therefore I made a script to switch the numpad-point on my keyboard to whatever I want.

Sophia One hundred years minus one hour

Yea - makes sense now: (365.25 * 100 * 24) - 1 💡
I thought you hit the keyboard with random digits until it looks unbelievable big 🤣, then I wanted to screw up with the comma confusion to make it realistic again.... Come on - 876 hours practice time to get here!!! You can do it!💪

btw: In eMails I always write big numbers in this format: 876'599.99. I don't care that this is no standard, but nobody in no country screws this up and nobody ever complained. Same with dates, today is "2024-Oct-07". No standard, but impossible to misread.

WieWaldi

Nightowl Come on, keep on strolling. I want to make this thread to be the longest one in the forum. Any comments are welcome.

If you want to hear a classical in different styles, Piano with Jonny is always a good address:

Sophia

I can never hear Fur Elise in the same way again! Love it! More more more! It suddenly became my favourite piece instead of most boring one 😋

Nightowl

Thanks WW, that video was amazing - to play the piece at such speed and in so many distinct styles is incredible. I did not like the Boogie or Ragtime versions, but I enjoyed the others, especially the Tango style version. I expect that pianist has played for 15 years or more, and it really shows. I could practice for years and would never be able to play at that speed, my brain just wouldn't cope with it!

WieWaldi

Nightowl I am Following Jonny for a while now - long time before I started playing myself. He was a Disneyland pianist. I read his name on a video by Kristen Mosca and always wondered, if this is the same Jonny. Turned out, it is.

Today he is giving online lessons. His YouTube lesson videos seem to be only teasers to get people into yearly subscriptions for money. Even if his videos are more bling-bling and craziness, I would go for Christian Fuchs tutorials. Free video lessons, beginner-friendly, and his accompanying sheet music is rather cheap. If you pause learning, no running cost.

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