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,...

Sophia

WieWaldi Change the camera angle!

Ahhh, ok! But but but I don't know how to change camera angle. I must learn how, to hide my sneaky edits. Though I'm sure you'll still manage to find ways to notice...

WieWaldi What was in the barrels? And who drunk it?

Ah. Wouldn't you like to know...

WieWaldi

Wait - you have two in a row, and I am still at the beginning of mine...

This feels like:

Sophia

Lol! Have to keep you on your toes! But, let's face it: this was a very easy lesson. The left hand has only 2, 3 notes and no chords. The right hand is easy too if you can count a little.

The hard part was learning all the lines ☺️ I can't play anything from my Alfred book from memory, even after three weeks with the same piece I usually still need the sheet music.

It's one of those abilities I lost in the decades without a piano, because when I was Jerry size, my mom only had to play something for me once or twice and I could memorize it 🐘

WieWaldi

Lesson 7 is still ongoing, and I am still stuck in the first line... yawn.
Just figured out why my chord progression sounds bloody beginner like, but Christian's doesn't. He is making clever use of pedal, but don't tell in the tutorial, nor are there any pedal markings on the sheet music.
I guess I can do it with pedal, but this needs some more days to run it on autopilot. Always pedaling too early, too late, or forgot about my right hand. The only thing that works is to pedal up right in time.

How is the St. James Infirmary lesson going? First time with a chord progression, is it?

Edit: I didn't pedal the 13^th beginner lesson, but it might be a good place to do. Just don't ask me how.

Sophia

WieWaldi Lesson 7 is still ongoing, and I am still stuck in the first line... yawn.

Awwwww! Sorry to hear that. Some lessons are so much fun, others.... bwegh! Using the pedal is the highlight of all my playing though. When Alfred introduced it, it was the most exciting lesson of my entire life - because it was always such a mystery to me. But I haven't used it with Christian's lessons yet. You need more Alfred in your life 😋

WieWaldi How is the St. James Infirmary lesson going? First time with a chord progression, is it?

Well, the bad news (or good, depending on your viewpoint): I haven't actually started it yet 🦥 I did look at the chords and the melody (very well known but I didn't know the name until now, quite depressing title really for such a lovely tune) and the blues scale that he has you play with those chords. But I haven't sat down yet and tried it. Hopefully from tomorrow onwards!

Yes, this is this is the the first lesson with a chord progression. I hope he will allow for more than just four times plonking down the chord later in the lesson... but I haven't watched further just yet. Still finalizing my Alfred lesson and then it's time for leisure 😃

I can't wait to go from back to my true self again!

Sophia

WieWaldi I didn't pedal the 13th beginner lesson, but it might be a good place to do. Just don't ask me how.

I started the lesson yesterday and you are right. I sounded like a bloody plonk plonk plonk plonk beginner. When Christian plays it, it sounds smooth and suave. He definitely sneaks in the pedal there - because I played it with the pedal and it was... ok... not smooth and suave. But instead of bloody beginner, it was lovely beginner level 😁

I don't think this is going to be a hard lesson, but... it involves notes, and I'm finding out that I'm getting to be pretty much hardwired to READ those notes, instead of playing from memory. I am having a really hard time convincing my brain that it needs to store this information instead of just reading it. I can play the first page (melody first run, blues scale second run) without any issues when I read it... but as soon as I take my eyes off the sheet, I forget when I have to change and to what chord.

But it's only the second day - I moaned about this before and always managed to learn it after a while 😂

Side note: I just realized that this is now the longest thread in this forum!

WieWaldi

Sophia Sorry - your lesson stays with this chord progression all the time. Anyway, this is probably just for getting into playing slow chords instead of humptee-dumptee LH patterns. I am happy, I had this lesson before getting into a longer and more complicated LH.
I remember how long it took to position 3 fingers on the keyboard. With every lesson later on, this became easier and easier and somehow the brain got used to recall a weird LH finger shape.

Currently I feel as well like and not like .
Playing gospels chords makes this church feeling all the time. Guess I have to go through it. Even with a quite easy RH, the LH + pedal makes it quite difficult. Seems like Christian has to provide some more serious lessons, too. (But without explaining how to pedal. 😡) Who cares, the theory behind the pedal is very easy and a no-brainer to figure out. Still, it needs practice.

Sophia

WieWaldi I remember how long it took to position 3 fingers on the keyboard.

Interesting! I guess that is because you started your musical journey with this course - you did, right? And I started with "traditional lesson" material. Placing three fingers is almost too easy and I was already expecting him to say okay, after the scale exercise, the left hand goes too boogie style...

Mind you, I shouldn't assume the lesson to be easy just yet, because he usually puts some pretty evil tricks in midway 😝

WieWaldi

Sophia Interesting! I guess that is because you started your musical journey with this course - you did, right?

Well, I had accordion as little child. Not very successful and a long long long time ago. Forgot about everything except I didn't like it very much. Only thing I remember is note values, this seemed natural from the beginning. And maybe this gave me a small advantage in hand independence. Especially if LH plays a humta-dumpta ryhthm pattern. Still, finding the keys is very different from the 4 buttons I used as a child on the accordion all the time.

Piano I started with 2 pieces way way way too difficult for me and quit again because of the frustration of how long it takes to learn something new.

So, you might be right with your assumption, this course was the real start of my musical journey. Never thought about it... interesting. 🤔

WieWaldi

Sophia And I started with "traditional lesson" material. Placing three fingers is almost too easy and I was already expecting him to say okay, after the scale exercise, the left hand goes too boogie style...

Good to know. This way I don't feel like a ~~bloody~~ total unmusical with knots in the fingers. 🙂

Sophia

Haha yeah these things take time - you have to go through the learning process no matter what. Either through this course of boring Alfred type books. For me the real challenge was the steady left hand pattern repeats combined with a right hand that's moving all over the place. You don't get that in Alfred/Thompson books! But I'm getting a little better at that now too 😋

Nightowl

Sophia
Oops - I realise I misread your earlier post so I've edited my reply.

I can see your difficulty when a lesson "involves notes"... pesky things, they are! 🙃 You could always download one of those piano playing apps with pretty flashing colours over the notes - apparently they teach people to play Rachmaninoff in less than 10 minutes! 😂

WieWaldi

Sophia It is a good sign, you are used to reading the notes while playing. I had the same with both of upcoming retical pieces: take away my notes and I play something plain wrong after a few bars. Give me the notes back and all is good again.

I can now play the 1st line (out of 7) with pedal and make it sound so-so-ish. (~70% percent chance to make no mistake) But not today and not tomorrow as I am at my parents place with the Casio and its small pedal is workable, but not enjoyable.

About the longest thread in the forum... Really, I have no clue, how this could happen.
But I am happy, it is longer than the Alfred's thread with a lot more people involved.

rogerch

Sophia Side note: I just realized that this is now the longest thread in this forum!

Awesome! I lurk on this thread because it is so entertaining. You all are making great progress learning blues piano and it’s lots of fun to follow along!

WieWaldi

Nightowl You could always download one of those piano playing apps with pretty flashing colours over the notes - apparently they teach people to play Rachmaninoff in less than 10 minutes! 😂

Haha - same with so many YouTube videos. "Play Boogie in 10 minutes":
1 minute LH pattern, 5 minutes RH licks, 2 minutes intro, 2 minutes ending and done. You have everything you need to know for Boogie in 10 minutes. But for playing it, you must practice every minute for many hours.

Sophia

WieWaldi it is longer than the Alfred's thread with a lot more people involved

I guess the passion is showing ^_^

Remember, Alfred is more like this (most of the time anyway):

Nightowl

Sophia Ooh, in that second picture the man looks like he's got murder on his mind! 😱 Maybe that's what happens to teachers when they hear a student massacre Fur Elise for the millionth time?!? 😆

WieWaldi

Nah - it's not that bad. (Alfred I mean.) Your latest piece (Adagio in A Major) sounded very beautiful, tbh nicer than all the Blues over and over again. Can't wait to enter Boogie, Rock 'n Roll, Bar-Piano and hopefully make some steps into Jazz.
And besides of that I want to play filmmusic like Forrest Gump, some modern classic-alikes (Einaudi, Ffrench, Tiersen) . Oh - and we have Ragtime and The Great American Songbook. (Mancini and pals)

Nightowl

WieWaldi You certainly have a wide range of music on your wish list WW, I look forward to seeing you expand your repertoire.

Sophia

WieWaldi Your latest piece (Adagio in A Major) sounded very beautiful, tbh nicer than all the Blues over and over again

True, the 3rd book has a lot more pretty melodies. Also, for the first time I'm finding the pieces are starting to sound a bit more like actual music, rather than just a simplified version that sounds like an exercise. I agree it's not all bad 🙂 I am not even halfway through the book, but I'm already thinking that after Alfred, I might pick up where I left off with John Thompson.

The (classical) method books teach a few things that blues courses simply don't mention... such as the pedal 😁 But also dynamics, finger independence, technique, articulation, etc. Even though it's only a hobby for me, it's still nice to learn how to sound somewhat musical when I want to 😆

Now I get it. This thread is growing so fast because we sneak in Alfred discussions!

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