Well, I started lesson 16 today. Just four beautiful chords for now to prepare for some cool licks 😊 I think I will enjoy this lesson! But for now, I am just learning the left hand.

Funny enough I started my next Alfred piece (I will write a little more about that in the Alfred thread) and... it's a boogie! But a very interesting boogie in C# minor, with just one single chord pattern for the left hand throughout the entire piece. It's very hard to do (for me, so far), so that means that today my right hand had nothing more to do than scratch my nose. The left hand had to do all the work! Luckily I have two left hands, and they are both all thumbs 👍🏼

WieWaldi I was just waiting for the best occasion to add the 500th post in this thread! 💯💯💯💯💯 🥳

Whoooo hooooo!

      Enjoy - if I recall correctly, this is the 2nd lesson with a LH chord progression instead of a pattern. Comes often more and more, but there will be the patterns again, too. When I did the long gospel chord progression with 16 chords, I was sitting in my armchair, watching TV, and had the Casio on my lap. Did the chords again and again, until the grips felt more and more natural.

      Sophia Funny enough I started my next Alfred piece (I will write a little more about that in the Alfred thread) and... it's a boogie!

      See - no matter how hard I tried to rush throgh the course, you reached Boogie Woogie first. 😡
      🐎 vs 🦥
      🚴🏻‍♀️ vs 🛌🏻💤
      🍔 vs 🥔

      (Can't wait to listen to it. Will you post it here or in Alfred's thread?)

          WieWaldi Can't wait to listen to it.

          Haha well, I think it will be a while! Technically it's not a boogie... it says it's a Jazz Ostinato. Then the footnote explains that this means it has a pattern of notes repeated throughout the composition. But it sounds to me like a boogie... in a minor key. Very interesting! I will need a very steady left hand though, so it won't be ready any time soon. I may prove to be a 🦥🥔🛌🏻💤🥔 after all. Because after I get the left hand done, the right hand has the learn to provide all the frillies. I'm excited to learn this 😋

          WieWaldi I was sitting in my armchair, watching TV, and had the Casio on my lap. Did the chords again and again, until the grips felt more and more natural.

          I saw a Youtube video of someone who practices the boogie patterns like that! I don't think I would have the patience for that... though now that the lessons are becoming more and more challenging, I may need to rethink my laziness and start doing the same. Simon also told me that I need to do just that. You guys are hard taskmasters 😂

                Sophia Technically it's not a boogie... it says it's a Jazz Ostinato.

                Ohhhh. This doesnt make things better. U know, I am in this blues and (hopefully next year) boogie thing only, to get a foundation to be able to play jazz one day.
                And you 🏇 are right into it, now!
                😱😱😱

                    You can blame it on our friend Alfred. He pushes the envelope all the time - Nightowl gets involved in blues and I get into boogie/jazz. Just by following the book

                      Sophia Nah, no one's falling for that line, Sophia! You are flaunting your musical genes again by moving along at the speed of light, don't try and pin the blame on poor old Alfred. His taste in music might be dubious, but he's not the one responsible here!

                      WieWaldi I feel your pain, we stand together against an annoyingly talented person who is making us feel bad. I'm going to ask Nav to stop her posting on any thread for beginners/learners, because she is clearly not really a BBB (bloody blues beginner) like me/us! <stamps foot, stomps off to find Nav>

                      "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

                            Nightowl His taste in music might be dubious

                            Say what now? Alfred's taste is improving all the time... blues! ragtime! boogie! jazz! HOW DARE YOU just when the book is finally getting better and better 😂🤣

                            Nightowl she is clearly not really a BBB (bloody blues beginner) like me/us

                            Watch your mouth 😃 WW is well ahead of me/us and probably always will be, because I need to slow down considerably now that the lessons are becoming more and more difficult 😃 I'm not catching up with him any time soon 🧑🏻‍🦽

                                  It cost me 20 month from the first beginner blues piano lesson to the St. Louis Blues.
                                  You did the same in 7 month plus playing some Alfred here and there, recalling the entire Thompson book, playing Ragtime and Chopin.

                                  Maybe I am ahead in the Blues journey (currently) (still) (at least for now), but it is only a matter of time when will you overtake me.
                                  And I am only talking Blues, not to mention you are at home in multiple genres, including Chopin.

                                  nag nag nag nag nag nag

                                  Sophia Say what now? Alfred's taste is improving all the time... blues! ragtime! boogie! jazz! HOW DARE YOU just when the book is finally getting better and better 😂🤣

                                  Well, maybe book 3 might be better, but don't forget I'm still in book 2 - despite the fact that I started book 1 several weeks BEFORE YOU!!! 😡 I rest my case. Please do not refer to yourself as a BBB again!!! Truth be told you're probably indulging in all sorts of extra curricular activities that you are keeping quiet about... like playing a bit of Rach for light relief when Alfred gets on your nerves! I'm on to you Missy!

                                  "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

                                    Oooh ganging up on me! Ok ok ok, I surrender, I surrender!

                                    I confess, I'm secretly a concert pianist (very famous! very skilled! very suave!) posing as a lovely beginner 🤠

                                      Ha, ha, ha, high five at you WieWie, together we are strong against the might of Sophia! 😃 Now the truth has been exposed!

                                      Sophia - You are indeed lovely... but you are not a BBB! Now have the decency to slow down a bit, before you give the rest of us mere mortals an inferiority complex!

                                      "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

                                        Hehe, now, everybody coming back to earth again... let me derail the topic just a little bit. I did practice today, but only briefly. I got side tracked when I started to toy with DaVinci Resolve - what a complicated program! I have only scratched the surface of all the things it can do....

                                        I tried a few small things when I recorded the JT book, but there are seven tabs and so far, I only used three of them (and only one or two things at that). I have no idea what Fusion, Color and Fairlight even do, let alone tried any of that! I don't think that's a rabbit hole I wish to descend in too deeply, that's for sure 😂

                                          Sophia DaVinci Resolve - what a complicated program!

                                          I wish, I knew this program before I bought mine. Mine is quite easy to use, very intuitive. But lacks of some functions, or others dont work as expected.
                                          Even if it has almost 100 effects, I am only using a very limited number of them, but still missing some others that don't exist.

                                            DaVinci Resolve is free for non-commercial users, so if it has the features you need and are missing on yours, you can switch between the two 🙂 I have been playing around with it a little more, but honestly I wouldn't even know what to use most of those effects for... especially since I only use one cellphone to record my playing and most angles are too horrible to even try. So no matter what effects I add, the result will always be boring - there are only so many ways you can make two hands (and sometimes a frog cat) on piano keys interesting 😁

                                            I have paid for Adobe Premiere (and still paying because I use other apps in their suite). But once I switched to Davinci Resolve, I never looked back. It is that good!

                                            If you only need to trim video, there are better and simpler tools (e.g. Shutter Encoder). As soon as you need to apply any transition, or effect, or tweak the audio, it's worth to learn a real video editor like Davinci Resolve or Adobe Premiere. The reason is they all work quite similarly in concepts and in workflow, so learning one pretty much means you can easily be good with another. Davinci's own training videos on their website are superb.

                                            Here it is, a first draft of Jazz Ostinato. I'll probably need another week to polish it, but I think it's ok enough to give an impression what it should sound like 🙂 So much fun to learn! Actually that left hand pattern is almost addictive to play... so while I was learning that, the actual blues course had to wait. But that means I'll be a lovely beginner that much longer, so I don't mind ^_^

                                              Oh yes - LH makes are wonderful groove! Really addictive! Aaaaaand - honestly, it sounds already quite polished. This one is certainly fun to play and I can understand why you want to "polish"😉 it a bit more. And nah - the Blues course doesn't have to wait, this was a nice excurse to a close relative style. And wonderful to listen to.
                                              You are really gifted, music runs through your veins. If you believe it, or not - you got a lot of talent from your parents. This plus the work you put into your practice routine makes us mortals look like... like... like... dogs with brown fur sitting in front of a piano.

                                                WieWaldi

                                                You are really gifted, music runs through your veins. If you believe it, or not - you got a lot of talent from your parents. This plus the work you put into your practice routine makes us mortals look like... like... like... dogs with brown fur sitting in front of a piano.

                                                You said it, WieWie! I could not put it better myself. 🙂

                                                Sophia You nailed it! Your left hand seemed to run on auto pilot, as the rhythm ran as smoothly as a Swiss watch movement. Your soul has found its musical home.

                                                "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

                                                    Oh but animals with brown fur are excellent pianists and great buddies... especially when they play a duet for the first time!

                                                    The ostinata isn't as hard as it looks 😃 Because the left hand never changes, same same same notes over and over... so all I had to do was add the right hand and match the rhythm. The triplets were a bit tricky, but that was all. And you have to make sure the left hand doesn't start to drift, which it did once or twice. All those Christian blues lessons really helped prepare for this though 😅

                                                    Funny enough I don't really have a practice routine, I just sit down and, well, play the tricky parts until they are no longer tricky 😃 I think I spent about one hour per day on this lesson, this was so addictive. Definitely a little more than usual. That left hand pattern really has the ability to put you into a trance after a while!

                                                    I'm just surprised about all the joy people get out of playing the blues, I always had the idea that blues was quite depressing, a bit like this scene from Naked Gun 2.5:

                                                    "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)