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,...

WieWaldi

No pressure.... right?

Sophia

Never! 🥰

Sophia

Wait, what??? That is not fair! I finally learned the four variations. I was happy, now I can polish it a little more and put together a nice recording... Then I find out there are more variations in this lesson! And hard ones too - though he keeps saying that EVEN you beginners can do this 👺

WieWaldi

The video is only half through at this point, and there are still 2728367 pages of sheet music in front of you... What do you expect? 😄

Don't be overwhelmed by the amount of sheet music. There is a lot of copy&paste going on. The drone lick itself isn't hard, or hard to learn at all. Actually the licks itself are easier than what you have learned so far. The only complication is to use a more hand-stretched fingering, with the pinky always on C or B_b, meaning you have only 3 fingers left for the lick itself. And if you consider, the actual lick can be played with three fingers, in very limited range of your keyboard, it must be easy. So everybody can play this, even you lovely beginner, right? 😘

Sophia

True! So after I finish lesson 9, does that mean I have graduated to lovely beginner? Which is somewhere in between bloody beginner and total beginner? 🥳

WieWaldi

Sophia So after I finish lesson 9, does that mean I have graduated to lovely beginner? Which is somewhere in between bloody beginner and total beginner? 🥳

Hmmm.... I don't think so. But feel free, to set your beginner grades as you like. haha

WieWaldi

Okay, if you are moaning about soooooo much more variations to learn, it is a sign you will upload your video in a few hours...

In this case let me post first:
Eight lines and a chorus was a lot of stuff to learn. I bumped it up to 123 bpm (this is the speed of Rita Moreno in the Muppet Show) and voilà: Under 4 minutes - not enough time to mess it up.
The lesson itself was quite easy to learn. Left hand just is doing here and there a chord. Mostly the same chord. Every 2nd bar or so. Right hand plays a simple melody, most of the time only a one-finger-melody. And in backing track, my trusty drummer and the bass player make it sound well. 😎

Basically it more cheating than playing piano, but this lesson is what it is. 😀

This time I tried another audio recording, because my recital had a lot of hiss noise. I used headphone-output to the PC and recorded with audacity in overdubbing mode. The 1st version was a recording test and for the 2nd one I did't delete the first version, so I was distracted by my last playing. You can hear that I messed up the 2nd trill around 2:03, looking to my computer with three question marks in my face. 😵

rogerch

WieWaldi Very cool piece! Nice playing!

Sophia

Wow!!!!!!!! First of all, I absolutely ADORE Fever. Before, my two most favourite versions were Rita Moreno in the Muppet Show, and Elvis smooth voice. But they may have to make place for WieWaldi now 😋 (proof: I cranked up the volume and I'm playing it AGAIN as I'm typing this)

You are really make great progress WieWaldi. Your timing is becoming bang on and very confident, relaxed playing now. Also I noticed lots of little emphasized notes that show you truly feel the piece now. Plus you look like you are having fun with it... number one most important feature of our piano hobby that we should never forget 🙂

Well done! I'm so proud of you!

WieWaldi

Sophia My favorite is Peggy Lee's version. Followed by Rita Moreno, because of the Muppet coolness factor. She even won an Emmy for her role in The Muppet Show. And Elvis! Ahh - if moves his hips and the ladies gets loud. 😆😆😆 I am so in envy of his talent. ^^

Sophia

WieWaldi Hahaha, well, I'm too old to be fainting at Elvis now, and too young to faint when he was still alive (and by then he wasn't all that faintable anymore).

I'm not familiar with the Peggy Lee version, I must listen to that soon. But yes, Rita and Animal had great chemistry together. I think that, together with Mah Nah Mah Nah are my favourite Muppet scenes 😃

WieWaldi

Easy lesson 5 is weird... It has two parts: one is very lush and has some beautiful chords, the other one feels like Hanon exercises in Blues from.

Sophia

Ooh Hanon! Blegh! Actually I'm struggling with my lovely lesson 9 too. I can play all the variations now (somewhat, my left hand still messes it up sometimes). But I can't seem to decide on how to put it together now. I could play each variation each over the full twelve bars, but that would mean EIGHT boring repeats. Why eight? Because there is the initial drone lick. Then six variations. That is seven. But Christian cheated a little and he sneakily snuck in two different flavours of variation 4!

So my alternative idea is to record all the variations over two twelve bar progressions... but my poor brain refuses to remember when to switch and to what.

I could cheat all the way and just record four bars of each variation over the C chord, but I don't want to do that. So with my break and with the start of Alfred 3, I feel a little stuck with lesson 9. Right now I feel like Rowlf.... just replace "onion" with "blues lesson" lol!

WieWaldi

Sophia but my poor brain refuses to remember when to switch and to what.

I know exactly what you mean. Each lesson is spread out over several sheets with a lot of empty space and unlucky line and page breaks. The drone lick lesson alone has 10 (ten) pages. That is a lot to remember and I struggeled with that, too.
But good news: In lesson 4 (fever) of the easy-blues&boogie course I came up with the idea to add a lead sheet, to have everything on 2 pages. Bass line repeats anyway and is a waste of paper. I did it for lesson 5 as well and I will probably continue as long I am a total beginner. It costs a few hours per lesson to do it properly, but I think it is worth the effort.

You have only ten more lousy lessons to go, before you can benefit from that. Keep going! Each lesson will be more fun than the last one. (Execept the Blues-Hanon, yawn... Still struggling with line 1 of 7 - and it is the easiest one)

Until then, you should lay out the sheet music like this:

Sophia

Lol! Good idea 😁 I don't really like to use sheet music for my blues lessons. It is one of those styles where you would like people to believe you come up with those ideas on the spot 😆

But I may need it for this lesson. You gave me an idea to take just one bar of each variation and print those, that should fit on the piano stand. Or I could spend a little longer to remember them all... there is no rush 😊

WieWaldi

Last time I tried to come up with my own ideas, I was lost in the Blues Scale... 🙄

Sophia

Ok, here is my lesson 9. Truth be told, I wasn't enjoying this lesson very much. There were too many variations, and the drone lick was straining my hand - I know that once I go into full improvisation mode, I will not use it much 🙄 About halfway I started making mistakes, but it was my third attempt and my hand was getting really tired. Not to mention my grumpy mood, so this will have to do 😋

I played each variation over 4 bars, namely

1st CCCC: the notes after a false start "these are the notes in the drone lick"
1st FFCC: the drone lick, "practise 100 times"
1st GFCC: variation 1 (forgot right hand smooth with left hand staccato)
2nd CCCC: variation 2 (noticed the same there, obvious a WIP)
2nd FFCC: variation 3 (oopsie there in the left hand)
2nd GFCC: variation 4a (I forgot to switch and corrected that)
3rd CCCC: variation 4b (I like that one!)
3rd FFCC: variation 5 (I was getting tired, lots of mistakes)
3rd GFCC: variation 6 (not good at all, but too grumpy by now! no way I'm doing this again!)

On to lesson 10, I hope I like that one better!

WieWaldi

First of all - congrats you succeeded this dry lesson. (Yes - it was dry for me, too) Unfortunately, this wasn't that much of fun for you - it was impossible to overhear. Especially the last note said: "FINISHED! AND I NEVER TOUCH IT AGAIN! AHHHHHH!!! " Next lesson is more musical - promise. I am very confident you will finish it before I have mine half done.

Sophia and the drone lick was straining my hand

That's bad to read about. I got a nice hint from another youtube channel and this is helping me out to avoid hand strain: Play faint. This makes you also play slower in many occasions and really helps to reduce the strain.

Sophia I know that once I go into full improvisation mode, I will not use it much 🙄

sorry - Sophia. You won't get rid of it! And for improv this is a real powerful tool - play a one-finger-melody and bump it up with the drone. Works always.

Maybe the drone lick was the boring "Hanon" work of the beginner lesson, but it will be used a lot in the future lessons from now on. So it is good you masterd it.

Speaking about Hanon: I am at the 3rd of my 7 Blues-Hanons right now, and I bumped my metronome up to 70% of final speed. Okay, if I switch from C7 to F7 or G7 my RH starts to make nonsense. Anyway, I see a light at the end of the tunnel - but it could also be an incoming train

Sophia

Haha yeah I was so happy for it to be finished. I guess I don't mind the drone lick in one or two bars. But 36 bars non stop woompa doompa is too much!

WieWaldi Play faint. This makes you also play slower in many occasions and really helps to reduce the strain.

Do you mean the same way Bart suggested - one hand soft and the other normal volume? Or both faint?

WieWaldi I see a light at the end of the tunnel

Hang in there 😃 Boring lessons are for our own good (or so they try to tell us) 😝

WieWaldi

Sophia Hang in there 😃 Boring lessons are for our own good (or so they try to tell us) 😝

Reminds me of my mother: Food that doesn't taste delicious is healthy! Always!

Sophia Do you mean the same way Bart suggested - one hand soft and the other normal volume? Or both faint?

I don't know what Bart suggested (didn't read all forum). But it makes sense to play faint with the one hand you feel the strain. And then you should play more faint with the other hand, too. Otherwise, it starts to sound bad. Anyway, it is a good exercise - if you play chords with LH (3 or 4 notes at the same time) and a simple one finger melody with RH, you run into the problem that LH is droning the melody out.

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