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 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 😋

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!

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!

WieWaldi

Now I can play the 1^st line with pedal and a metronome.
Ok, a very slow metronome, tbh...

But - if I can play it with a metronome it is the transition from learning to practicing, and it doesn't allow me to pause. Frankly, this is a good thing.

Sophia

That's good progress! My Chopin piece is still at such a speed too.

But my lesson 13 is proceeding a little better... I can play three of the four variations now somewhat smoothly. The last two (the torture and pain in a dungeon in two flavours) is still not going very well, especially when I try to add the pedal. It sounds awful without, but equally awful with because they blend together unless I pedal each note individually. And my pedaling technique is not yet at such a fine-tuned motor skill level 😛

But, steady does it, one line at the time. We'll get there! 😃

WieWaldi

OMG - you get 3 in a row! All this while you`r doing all the Alfred stuff by the way absolutely effortlessly. Me still stucking in the first line, and it is the easiest one. All the forthcoming lines look much more complicated. To be fair - mastering LH with pedal is already quite a piece of the cake, but still... I guess 10 days is optimistic; two or three weeks is more realistic.

I always said - you are a rocket fast learner, Nightowl said you have musicals genes and describes you as ~~annoyingly~~ talented. Let's face it, we are both right!

Sophia

Nah, just having fun. Sometimes I even happen to learn a little while I noodle around a bit 😁

Sophia

Well, it turns out that the second half of lesson 13 is a lot more challenging than the first part! The "pain and torture" description isn't far from the truth 🥴 I'm also not enjoying those licks very much, which doesn't help.

I think it'll probably be another week before I am ready to record... especially if I want to finetune the pedaling a little more, and record it on my keyboard with smooth (nothing missing, no barking) key pushing 😆

WieWaldi

If you are in the "Gimme Pain, Christian" part, you are almost done. The "Double the Pain" is just then ultra easy afterward. I just started a new line and have trouble getting my fingers sorted at the very first notes. And then there are two more lines* to learn. Takes some more time, but I must admit it sounds gorgeous - even when I play it. You know - pedaling makes the difference. But I can't practice for too long at a day, it is uncomfortable, and my ear gets pressure marks.
I took a look at your current sheet music and must admit, pedaling is quite difficult here. You must pedal down on eighth notes (with a tiny delay to let the previous eighths dampen silent), otherwise you hold dissonances, here and there.

*) with line I mean a 16 bar phrase, printed on an entire page on Christian's sheet music, 4 lines on my lead sheet to reduce everything onto two pages in total.

Sophia

Nice! I'm looking forward to hearing your lesson. Sounds like your efforts are worth it!

I'm using the pedal too on mine and it does make a huge difference! It's not really a blues, and of course the "improvisations" are pre-chewed. But we had to start somewhere and I'm learning so much each lesson... he is a good teacher (just a tad chaotic like all musicians) 😅

WieWaldi But I can't practice for too long at a day, it is uncomfortable, and my ear gets pressure marks.

🤣🤣🤣 It took me a minute to catch on to that one!!! Just like I'm finger pedaling my Chopin piece... very uncomfortable indeed 🦵👇👇👇

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