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

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.

Nightowl

I just googled that pianist - he began playing at the age of FOUR! He comes from a family of professional musicians. He's the result of natural talent, family nurturing, early tuition and decades of practice - all boxes ticked. I'm so envious of him, he lucked out in every way, but I'm sure he still has to work hard to maintain his skills.

Sophia

I have a question again. So far we have had the slide from a black key towards a white one which is not super hard to do (except when it is stinking hot and your hands are slippery) 😜

However, now we're learning another slide - from a white key upwards to a black key. Obviously we need two fingers to do that, as Christian explains here:

But I'm having some difficulties... it sounds more like a rolling movement (all three notes separate), rather than one note followed by the other two simultaneously. Any tricks on how to work on that?

WieWaldi

There are no tricks. Just repeat until it sounds satisfiying and until it is in your muscle memory. You need to build up the muscle memory for every possible finger pair, when you need it. But it will get always a bit easier than before. The power* slides are indeed way more difficult than the regular down slides. But I can calm you down, until now he used it only two times in total.
* I don't know why I call it power slide - probably he used the name in the later lesson; don't remeber which one. But I reckon, it was a different finger pair.

Sophia

Thanks! He did say later that you can just play all three simultaneously, so maybe I'll try that at first. It's the hardest lick of all three, so my guess it would be a few days to finish the lesson was a too overly positive. Probably closer to another week - but I'm fine with that because it will allow me to say a lovely beginner a bit longer still 😃

WieWaldi

Lesson Six of Easy Blues Piano Course
Quick Five Blues
Four Choruses
Three Pages
Recorded for Recital Two
At least One hickup

Sophia

Wait, what? Let me remind you:

WieWaldi Only one thing: Don't you dare to post a third time in a row before!!!!! 👺This feels humiliating. 😖

With that out of the way 🤐, I could listen with an open mind twice in a row 🤩:

Wow, lovely!!!! It's starting to sound like real music... very very very nice WieWaldi! You deserve that fedora hat! Also I love how you played with the tempo: slowing down at appropriate times, little breaks that build tension, smooth transitions... your hard work is starting to pay off. Well done! Every time you submit a lesson I am even happier I started this same course, because it always gives me incentive to keep on going 🙂

WieWaldi

Thank you for your kind words. This one was way way way more fun than last lesson: Hanon.
And it was actually not that hard, lot of repeating patterns, just with a little variations. Intro and turnaround were familiar. And come on - the bassline! We can do this while sleeping.

Sophia Wait, what? Let me remind you:

WieWaldi Only one thing: Don't you dare to post a third time in a row before!!!!! 👺This feels humiliating. 😖

Oops

Sophia Every time you submit a lesson I am even happier I started this same course, because it always gives me incentive to keep on going 🙂

This is great to hear. But don't forget Alfred and Gale! They are teaching you the fundamentals you could probably miss out on the Blues lessons. Pedaling for instance. Or playing with dynamics. Understanding 7th chords in major, minor, diminished, augmented, half-diminished, flat five and then there are the 9th and 11th and all the inversions on top.

Btw, A Classy Rag sounds really nice. I would try to learn, but I don't have the sheet music.

Sophia

WieWaldi But don't forget Alfred and Gale! They are teaching you the fundamentals you could probably miss out on the Blues lessons. Pedaling for instance. Or playing with dynamics. Understanding 7th chords in major, minor, diminished, augmented, half-diminished, flat five and then there are the 9th and 11th and all the inversions on top.

Nod nod, yes. I know. Eat your horrible vegetables before the ice cream. I hear you!

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