Beginners blues/boogie/rock discussion
I'm looking forward to this - no pressure Well, I took another shot at it today with the same result.
I think it would be really cool to be able to play blues improvs and I may do the work to make that happen at some point. Like everything else with piano it will take time! Lots of scales and drilling! I don't anticipate any sonic booms!
I've been working on improvising waltzes for the next PW themed recital. It comes down to doing what I already do, but in 3/4 time rather than my current 4/4ish maybe random time. Even 3/4 time has proven to be much harder than I thought it would be. Blues will be orders of magnitude more work!
Okay, I just recorded, edited and uploaded my recital piece (for the other forum):
I practiced this without the pedal, but today I decided to bring the pedal in. And suddenly my fingering was different. No longer the need for some awkward hand position just in order to hold down some keys for legato playing.
I've learned my lesson: start with the pedal right away, no matter if you think the piece is so easy that it doesn't need the pedal.
Unfortunately, at the very end, one note was played so silent that it is almost muted. This muted note is a result of the changed fingering. Nah - nobody can expect a total beginner to play flawlessly.
Oh that was absolutely LOVELY WieWaldi... I thoroughly enjoyed it and played it again right away. And then again. Then my husband came in and asked what are you doing? So I told him I was listening to your piece... and right now we're BOTH listening at high volume. And I will play it quite a few more times... this is my type of music! Gentle, melodious, pretty harmonies, and very well played. So very smooth and suave too. How dare you call yourself a beginner 
I am really enjoying my current lesson, but now I just can't wait to learn this Country blues too! 
And I agree, the pedal is a necessity... it changes everything from meh to wow!
Sophia Thank you for your kind words. But you know why we call ourselves beginners. The hurdles to become an intermediate player are just too big. You know, sightreading, repetoire of 500++ pieces and you know what else we have forgotten. So much more stuff that is a must have for an intermediate. I guess, I will get 20% of that in the next 10 years.
Unfortunately I am half through the Eight Easy Blues pieces. Only four more to go. 
I wish Christian had 40 pieces with that easy beginner level. So far, every piece was a joy learning and also a joy playing it.
Btw, Christian made this ad-video. Playing a small bit of every piece inside this collection. But this video was unlisted in YouTube. Only very few views, no comments, no upvotes.
I asked him why it is unlisted and he told me... nope - you can read everything in the comment section of the vid. Short story - I am his best promoter!
WieWaldi Haha yes, you promote him pretty well... you need to, he is too modest! I have the sheet music too of course, so maybe I should learn the first one after my current lesson. I listened to the trailer and I agree, every single piece is equally beautiful. Whereas I remember a "Hanon" lesson and a "Gospel" one and.... yeah. I am not sure if I'm looking forward to those (but I will of course... just maybe not as polished as Hit the Road).
I have decided to stay a beginner until Eternal Beginner, then I can stay there, well, eternally, lol. I too don't want to spend my leisure time brainlessly looping scales, or arpeggios, learning theory, do exams or adding Fur Elise to my repertoire just because everybody else does. My time to get super serious passed 40 years ago. I wasn't serious about learning music then, so I see no reason to suddenly change that now 
Though it sure is fun to be your ankle biter every now and then 
WieWaldi That was beautifully played WieWie, and the last note being slightly muted gave a nice fade out effect which fitted well with the character of this gentle piece. It's so relaxing watching you play the blues, your hands were made to play them. 
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)
WieWaldi I practiced this without the pedal, but today I decided to bring the pedal in. And suddenly my fingering was different. No longer the need for some awkward hand position just in order to hold down some keys for legato playing.
I've learned my lesson: start with the pedal right away, no matter if you think the piece is so easy that it doesn't need the pedal.
Great playing @WieWaldi! What a lovely piece and I really like your delicate expressive playing!
Regarding pedal: I was taught to hold notes for the full duration even with the pedal present and I think it has served me well.
When I learn a new piece I learn to play without pedal first, holding notes for their full durations, and add the pedal later. It sounds like this is exactly what you did, and then you switched fingering once you added the pedal. Makes perfect sense!
Having picked fingerings that allow me to hold notes for the full duration, I have flexibility in how I'm going to pedal without having to change fingerings. Last year I played Bach/Marcello Adagio BWV 974 in one of the recitals. After I learned to play without pedal I tried all kinds of different pedaling approaches to get a resonant sound without blurring the melody and I didn't have to change fingerings depending on my approach.
Of course if you learn with pedal first and decide later to use less you can always change the fingering. 
Anyway, thought I'd mention it, take it for what it's worth. And thanks for sharing your great playing!
Thank you Roger, for you insight
rogerch Regarding pedal: I was taught to hold notes for the full duration even with the pedal present and I think it has served me well.
Well, this happened to be my play style by accident. I always thought, pedaling is for later. Pealing is an addon, after my fingers are good. But this needs to have a clumsy fingering from time to time. With the use of the pedal, I can release my fingers earlier and going for an entirely new hand position. A more relaxed hand position.
Funny thing is, the pedal timing starts to be kind of automatic:
- rule 1: release pedal when fingers go down
- rule 2: press pedal shortly before a chord change, or another harmonic change happens
The most tricky pedal situation is to have a grace note right before a harmonic change. The grace note must not be pedaled, making the pedal-down window very small.
I have the same conclusion as you two. I "learned" piano (in my tadpole years) without ever touching the pedal. Of course I don't know how I sounded back then, probably horrible, but still, my fingers did all the note sounding. During my first six months as a re-beginner I started from scratch, no pedal, and again my fingers had to do all the work in tying all the notes together.
Then when I started to learn about the pedal, there was a price to pay: as soon as I stopped using it, I found that I had become lazy - move the fingers to the next position without hardly even touching the previous note. As a result the pedal suddenly made my playing choppy and sloppy. In fact this happened with my current blues lesson even.
Now I try to alternate - play a passage a few times with the pedal, and then without to see if I am not clipping the notes too much. Sometimes it is unavoidable with a big jump, but mostly it is just a matter of discipline.
WieWaldi Funny thing is, the pedal timing starts to be kind of automatic
This is true! Or, as Bart would say, at some point we lose the need to constantly look at the pedal markings and the ears take over. When I practice a bar with pedal, I now hear how bare it is, or too echo-y, and I can fine-tune my foot now to make it sound better. It even works with the grace notes, surprisingly. When it happens automatically, it's such a great feeling 
I'm still moving along at a 
pace, but steady does it... I'm now adding the grand finale at last. Well, only the first part so far. Probably one more week for the longest lesson in history... for me 
It took a while, but it was worth the extra time (to me) As usual it's not flawless, but this was my second take and after that it only went worse and worse. At first I figured I'll try again tomorrow... but this is only a lesson, not a performance. There is one small "improvisation": the ending. I tried to capture "WHAT YOU SAY?" at least once even though Christian didn't teach it 
Time to move on with... hmm. Let me think. Lesson 2 - or one of those eight lovely pieces WieWaldi has been showcasing? Decisions, decisions!
Sophia That was great, Sophia. I'm a bit confused though... you seem to be on your second blues course... but it is still called Easy Blues? This does not seem like bloody beginner stuff to me, so was the first course VERY Easy Blues?
I like the fact that often with blues music the LH often just plays a regular rhythm and almost runs on auto pilot while RH does the cool stuff. This makes it manageable for someone like me who struggles doing tricky stuff with LH - my brain can't handle it!
This genre has grown on me, but I would not cope well with downloaded music/courses, I don't have the right size tablet to fit on my music stand and anyway I prefer paper so I can add notes/highlight tricky things. Maybe I will buy a blues music book at some point - if anyone browsing this thread has any suggestions for a book at my level (grade 2ish) I would welcome them.
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)
- Edited
Yeah that is a little confusing, but the first course is called Blues for Beginners and this is called the Easy Blues Course (supposed to be the follow up to the beginner's course). Highly insulting of course, I would have much preferred for it to be called Blues For Highly Advanced Super Annoying Talents, but alas.... it is what it is. I will file my complaints to Christian! 
I'm so glad the genre is growing on you! I think his style is very pleasant and laid back, not the 100-notes-a-minute that some seem to prefer. He does sell the sheet music, but of course you'd have to print that if you don't want to use a tablet/laptop (I don't either). And his sheet music, I'm sorry to say, isn't quite the easiest to use because of the many spatial gaps and unnecessary repeats.
The left hand, though constantly repeating, is a little more tricky than it seems It's entirely different from the stuff we do in the Alfred books and in some ways I am finding the repeats rather hard to learn. It almost seems like a completely new pattern with each change of the right hand! It takes me quite a while to have it run semi automatically so that I can concentrate on the right hand more. But that might just be my perception. And as you said, once you practise it long enough, it does become more automatic.
Nightowl if anyone browsing this thread has any suggestions for a book at my level (grade 2ish) I would welcome them.
I second that! I'd be very interested as well.
Nightowl I agree with Sophia that printing Christian's scores is an option. So far, I am mostly using the scores after watching the lesson couple of times. To be honest first three lessons have repetitive bars, so the score is open just as a reminder.
I also agree that it is difficult in a different way than the method book. Even that simple LH is tricky because of swing pattern. Yes, hands separate is easy but when playing hands together, my left hand likes to rush or drag and messes up the rhythm. For example; lesson three introduces triplets that's supposed to fit together with one LH beat. There's nothing like that in my method book so far.
I saw this book review video yesterday. These are repertoire books and not just blues. But they were very tempting. I had to remind myself that I already have too many things going on. And don't have enough practice time.
I think musicians sell more stuff if they simply put "Easy" on the title. Because there are more beginners naturally. Technically it is not a lie. It will be easy for some people. But it is a trap for real beginners
hebele I think musicians sell more stuff if they simply put "Easy" on the title.
Nope. He started the easy course with something like "it is time to drop the word beginner, because we are now beyond that". I think the easy course fits quite well to the difficulty of the 8 easy blues pieces in terms of difficulty. Easy means easy. Since I tried to play a Christian's Christmas song arrangement, (a medium difficulty, I guess) I know the easy stuff is easy. This medium/intermediate level song was so hard to learn for me, I only managed to learn the first half of it. Took me 20 days. And my playing was as error prone as the water is wet. It took me an entire day to get a decent recording, and even then I had to cut two attempts into a single video to get a half of the song done.
One thing to mention - Christian is from Germany. He doesn't know about Bavarian beginner gradesTM. He constantly jumps over all the levels to amateur. I reckon it was something like this:
Bloody beginner - beginner - advanced beginner - amateur - make a YouTube channel with piano tutorials