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,...

hebele

Sophia wow that is looong 🙂. There is no way I can memorise such a long piece. I would've used pages of sheet music. And it was not painful to listen. Impressive.

And this reminds me I had forgotten about the blues beginner course 🤦‍♂️. I shall return to it when the school holidays are finished so I get my free time back.

Sophia

Simonb But the video and pdf will be really good for teaching you

I watched the intro and a bit beyond now, and so far, I was nodding yep yep, all true. And felt really good he told me that I'm being analytical AND creative even though he said 100% of mankind has this ability, I still felt special 😋!. I go to the part where he starts playing the first chords (very jarring sounding, but I'm sure that will all come together soon enough) 😃

hebele I shall return to it when the school holidays are finished so I get my free time back.

Look forward to it!!! It's so nice to share this journey with others 🙂

Nightowl I'll admit that I don't find the content of this lesson very appealing

Boy, you can say that again! But then, as you also mentioned, I see it as a stepping stone towards building those needed skills. I forgot now who said it in an another thread (could have been Simon in fact) that improvisation isn't quite as spontaneous as it seems. I can see that already happening. My brain tells me something that sounds nice, but for now it takes a while for my hands to find those keys (hence those many pauses). But next time I'll be able to find those pretty sounding notes quicker, for sure.

It's sounding less like and more like with every attempt 🙂

rsl12 Congratulations on expanding your horizons!

Next lesson is more conventional I think, but perhaps I'll manage to sneak some improv into that too 🙂

Nightowl

Sophia Well done! 😀 I'm impressed that you persevered through the pain barrier and completed this lesson that seems to have been more bothersome than previous lessons. I'll admit that I don't find the content of this lesson very appealing and I preferred the final couple of minutes to what went before... I think that's where you improvised? Anyway kudos to you for managing 7 minutes of continuous playing through a less than inspiring lesson. I feel that you've probably learned enough now to add a few licks and flourishes to simple arrangements of blues pieces.

I'd suggest you find a blues song that you like, then find a simple arrangement and make it your own - I think you'll find that much more enjoyable than this lesson (although I'm sure it was useful to build skills).

rsl12

Sophia Most of the variations were close to the actual lesson, with a few embellishments here and there. More rhythm than different notes

Well, the rhythm of improv is the most important part, so that's good! Congratulations on expanding your horizons!

Simonb

Hi Sophia

Yes, the sound quality of the video is pretty poor.
But trust me he's a fabulous musician!

Cheers

Sophia

Oh I never doubted that for a second 😃 I hope he joins this forum too! Since he's active in PW, there might be room in his heart for two forums 🙂

TC3

I've been going back and reviewing some of Christian's early lessons and noticing his lack of organizational skills on occasion ... 😃

If you're in the Easy Blues and Boogie Woogies Courses playlist:

Lessons 1-10 are in order. There is sheet music for 1-4 and 5-8 in his store, but not 9 or 10 (that I can find, anyway).
There is sheet music for lessons 11-13, but those are actually videos 13, 15, and 16 ...
Videos 11, 12, 14, 17, and 18 are boogie lessons (in the mis-order 2, 1, 3, 4, and 5 ... ) that he added to the playlist but should have put later (and in their own order). I'm not sure if there is sheet music for those.
The last few videos in the play list just look like miscellaneous lessons, with no particular order and no sheet music that I'm aware of.

Hope that helps when you get to them! I found it rather confusing ...

WieWaldi

TC3 Haha that's right.
Sheet music for lesson 9 does not exist. But if you want it, I can send it to you.
#10 was sold as a separate sheet music, but Christian took it out of his shop. Now, it comes for free if you buy the sheet music bundle. About the numbering, he inserted some boogie woogie, screwing up the numbering of the blues lessons. On top of that, he mixed up boogie 1&2. And he added a rock'n'roll lesson at the end. Don't know if there is more to come.

TC3 I found it rather confusing ...

it is

Sophia

Well, you can be organized, or a musician. I guess we know which one Christian is 😆

hebele

I also got hit with the disorganization on the blues for beginners lesson 7. After some fiddling I found the sheet music for it. The pdf has some copy/paste errors, some lessons are duplicated, out of order etc. And then quickly realized it doesn't exactly match what Christian plays. He holds some notes which is missing on the pdf. I think that is artistic interpretation 🙂. The virtual keyboard on the video also has an extra note or two which he clearly does not play.

I wish sheet music matched exactly to the lesson or he recorded a full play through (without rushing or stopping to explain something).

But despite all that, the lesson is fun! And short and (dare I say) easy.

This is how it sounds so far. I played extra slow (similar to Christian's demo):

As usual, I've checked @Sophia's take afterwards and it is better:

WieWaldi

hebele I also got hit with the disorganization on the blues for beginners lesson 7. After some fiddling I found the sheet music for it. The pdf has some copy/paste errors, some lessons are duplicated, out of order etc. And then quickly realized it doesn't exactly match what Christian plays. He holds some notes which is missing on the pdf. I think that is artistic interpretation

Yeah, sometimes the sheet music doesn't match. Luckily, 90% of the time, his sheet music fits very good.

Now to the good points:
You got the blues! Slow swing, the blue feeling, all is there. I would say this is a big step up from your last one. It sounds way more polished. And the best bit of your recording: Christian played the 8-bar lesson straight, not in swing. Well - what should I say - last time we told you to swing more and you did it. It sounds good in swing. It is blues. You managed two things in one lesson - learning something new AND applying swing by your own.
If anything, second 53 sounds a bit strange, but it does not sound like you learned something wrong, it is just one wrong key. A random glimpse.

hebele As usual, I've checked @Sophia's take afterwards and it is better

Don't compare yourself to Sophia. Maybe it is time for Sophia to write all her musical heritage into one single page. The stuff that she was born in a family with all musicians. Professional musicians. That she learned guitar. Had earlier experience with piano in her life. No wonder there are people calling her annoyingly talented. (No, not me. I would never call her this. )

Nightowl

hebele As usual, I've checked @Sophia's take afterwards and it is better:

Not better IMO - just a little faster and more fluid, but your rendition is played with swing, which definitely adds a nice blues feel to this piece.

@WieWaldi Yeah, all videos from Sophia should come with a trigger warning: "This was played by somebody annoyingly talented and may arouse feelings of envy from those who lack Musical Genes." 🙃

hebele

I also had a light bulb moment during the lesson:

Pentatonic scales are just normal major/minor scales but without two notes.
Those two removed notes gets rid of the halfsteps from the major/minor scale. So remaining five notes sounds nice. That is why pentatonic scale is popular in folk music.
Blues scale is just a pentatonic scale with an extra note (flat third or fifth). Is this extra note the "blue note"?

TC3

hebele You got. 🙂

A word about the so-called "blues scale(s)" ... Christian is (wisely) teaching us the simplified textbook versions of these scales, but in actual practice, early blues musicians weren't really thinking in these terms, especially guitarists, vocalists, fiddle players, etc. It's closer to say they were bending notes, or just plain singing / playing "between the piano keys" as it were, with lots of microtonal variations between the notes of the western chromatic scale. We blues pianists have to stick to those textbook versions because we can't bend notes, but we do have some tricks to approximate the sounds, such as hitting chromatically adjacent notes together.

WieWaldi

TC3 We blues pianists have to stick to those textbook versions because we can't bend notes, but we do have some tricks to approximate the sounds, such as hitting chromatically adjacent notes together.

Christian does a lot of slides. And sometimes power slides (from white to white or from white to black).

hebele Blues scale is just a pentatonic scale with an extra note (flat third or fifth). Is this extra note the "blue note"?

AFAIK, the major blues scale is the pentatonic with an extra note.

Sophia

Ooooh that was definitely one my favourite lessons- it sounds so lush and mysterious! Yours too suffered from the "no ending" - I think that was when TC3 kindly provided some ways to finish a piece because I didn't like how it suddenly dropped to nothing 😃

But apart from that: really well played! I actually preferred your slower version, so there 🙂 Funny enough you play it with a little more swing than I did - which is okay because this piece can be played both ways, obviously. It was one of those lessons I didn't mind spending extra time on, I loved that sound. Nicely done hebele, making progress, steady does it 👍

TC3

Oh, and another thing @hebele might find helpful. Just as there is a relative major and minor scale, the pentatonic major and minors have relatives as well: C major pentatonic is the relative of A minor pentatonic. AND that goes for the blues scales: C major blues and A minor blues are each other's relatives.

TC3

WieWaldi

Minor pentatonic = R b3 4 5 b7. Minor blues is that plus the b5.

Major pentatonic = R 2 3 5 6 . Major blues is that plus the b3.

Simonb

Hi TC3

A lot of guitarists think of the major blues scale as the minor blues scale a tone and a half away.
So the C major blues scale is the same as the A minor blues scale.

They think this way because of the layout of the fretboard.
So you just move 3 frets down and the same pattern you played 3 frets up gives you an alternative blues sound.

It wasn't until I heard Peter Martin (a great Jazz Pianist) on the You'll Hear It podcast actually spell out the major blues scale that I realised you could think of it in the way you've described it (the correct way in my view).

Cheers

WieWaldi

Nightowl "This was played by somebody annoyingly talented and may arouse feelings of envy from those who lack Musical Genes." 🙃

Your words. Not mine.
but brilliant...

Sophia

WHAAAAAAA!!! They're picking on me again!!!!

This is probably not a good time to mention that I can already 🐢 through 1/3 of the Quick Five Blues...

WieWaldi

Sophia picking on you? Never

Sophia This is probably not a good time to mention that I can already 🐢 through 1/3 of the Quick Five Blues...

Well - ehrm...

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