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

Sophia How did you do it? Screenshot one bar of each lick and place them all on a single canvas?

Musescore 4.0

Sophia

Omg, I suddenly feel like a complete

Thank you!

Nightowl

Sophia I'm actually the resident dinosaur, but it's good to know you're not a wizard in all areas - that could give the rest of us mere mortals a complex! 😁

WieWaldi

With musescore it costs indeed a lot of time to put everything onto one single page...

But the original was 7 pages in total - quite impossible to play to the sheet-music without losing the rhythm because of turning pages.

Sophia

You anticipated my next question 😄 I haven't installed Musescore yet (I know! Pathetic for a budding musician 😂) so I was wondering if you copied it directly from the pdf or put in the hard work. Sounds like there is no quick shortcut!

I'm still hoping I can stamp the lesson into my memory instead. I guess that once we go into full improvisation, it doesn't matter either way, but for now I feel I should follow the lesson closely.

Skipping the easy warm-up drill is no option, because that's the one I have firmly wedged into my active memory by now 🤠

Whoops, cross posted with my fellow 🦕 I mean 😴🦉🤣

WieWaldi

About warm-up licks: I would not skip it for learning the lesson. But often after you mastered the later licks, you often recognize, the warm-up is a subset in any way. Either it had a long pause and the follow-up lick filled this with notes. Or a follow-up lick adds a 2nd voice to the 1-finger melody. In this cases I assume it is safe to replace the warm-up lick by the next one.

Sophia I was wondering if you copied it directly from the pdf or put in the hard work.

This I do, too. Often I copy entire staffs from many pages to fewer pages and be careful about bad page breaks. Guess I can join the dinosaur club, haha

Sophia

So what's the difference between a lick and a riff? Christian mentioned something about "some licks can repeat like riffs" but he didn't quite explain anything further. And of course the Big Question is: does it actually matter?

WieWaldi

Sophia It is a very good question, because they seem similar.
AFAIK, a riff is a repeating section inside a song, so repeating that it basically can define the song. A lick happens to be in a song occasionally.

E.g. "Smoke on the water" has this very famous riff, repeating all over the song. Actually, this is the essence of the song itself.

"What'd I Say" from Ray Charles has a lick at 0:26 sec, (Youtube). It belongs to the song but does not define the song in a way like the famous "Smoke on the water" riff does.

TC3

A riff is usually a repeated phrase. It's often used as an important theme in a song, possibly the main melody theme or some other signature melody phrase that identifies the song.

Licks are shorter phrases, mainly used in the context of solos.

Sophia

Aaah thank you! Short but to the point! Makes sense... this lesson is entirely different with, as you said, a phrase that repeats every two bars and a lick that changes each time. It's strangely satisfying to play too, considering that and the left hand are so repetitive. 😄

WieWaldi

Oops - cross post with TC3.

Sophia

Thanks WieWaldi. Yours was longer but just as much to the point. All clear now 😃

Sophia

Pfew, lesson 12 is super long! I finally managed to get the licks and riffs of the first part into my active memory. Including the two-octave blues scale with the new riff. Now I'm halfway the lesson, and he is continuing to introduce new patterns and variations! TC I am not sure if I will include one of your lovely endings in this lesson just yet because it's sooo long, but I fully plan on going back to it during a less daunting lesson 😄

At least I'm enjoying this lesson, so it's not a huge strain to play the Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum for 5 solid minutes just to get through the first part. And still as much to add! 😬

TC3

Sophia At least I'm enjoying this lesson, so it's not a huge strain to play the Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum for 5 solid minutes

😃 That's the part I like -- it's way easier for me!

WieWaldi

Sophia your current lesson is the last bloody beginner one. After that, your LH is going for chord progressions. It is then more of a slow blues, easy because it is slow. Not easy, because you probably cannot play LH blind in autopilot that easy.

Anyway, I found your current jamming lesson ultra enjoying. It was the first one, I created my own licks because LH is so soothing and repetitive, that my brain got free capacity to invent something by my own.

Sophia

Haha true! It's so easy to go into full improvisation mode with such a basic left hand. In fact that's what I do sometimes with my keyboard: set some rhythm with auto left hand patterns. Then all I need to do is one finger on CCCCFFCCGFCC and my right hand is free to explore whatever my ears enjoy!

However for this particular lesson I need full brain capacity (all 3 cells) just to remember the licks and riffs and variations... so I'm not deviating from the lesson right now 😅

WieWaldi

Sophia CCCCFFCCFGCC

Ahhhhhh

Sophia

OMG... you are so right. This is a mistake I shouldn't have made since bloody beginner lesson 1...

Corrected! You're too bloody alert!! WieWaldi: 🤠 Sophia: 🫏

WieWaldi

Sophia Haha, true. I believe it was lesson 1 where Christian said something about we beginners think with our beginners brains we are right, but are actually screwing up something in the 12-bar scheme. He said, he knows us.

Sophia

Ah. But YOU saw it. That means you may need to rethink your levels. Add one especially for you:

bloody beginner
lovely beginner <-- I am here
total beginner <-- you just left from here
absolute beginner <-- you almost made it here
early beginner
true beginner
pure beginner
real beginner
late beginner
prolonged beginner
extended beginner
eternal beginner
12-bar-specialist <-- your new rank, well deserved

How is your lesson going?

WieWaldi

Sophia No no no. Easy Blues piano has 19 lesson in total and I am at the beginning of lesson 7. This means, there is a long way to absolute beginner^TM.

And I am really in the beginning of lesson 7, not mid, and three times not close to the end. Currently I daddle around with the walking bass line and waste time. And I learn a beginner-friendly blues-piece with the lovely name "Before You Accuse Me". Maybe it get it ready for November recital, then I can post different pieces in both forums. 🧑🏻‍🎓

WieWaldi

Sophia 12-bar-specialist <-- your new rank, well deserved

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