Beginners blues/boogie/rock discussion

Sophia This piece seems a bit disjointed - the first minute is a bit dull and seems to go nowhere, but around the 1.10 mark there is a nice note run before it morphs into a new piece completely. That said, it's a blues lesson rather than a named piece, so that's probably why it doesn't follow the usual format of the short classical/folk melody pieces I'm used to playing from the method books. Anyway, it's another lesson under your belt.

Sophia This one was played really well. The transition from straight to swing sounded a bit bulky, even with the use of the turnaround. But I remember very well, the lesson is what it is. Christian didn't tell exactly how to softly move over, he simply had another line, he played it in swing. Period. But you showed in a very impressive way, you truely mastered this lesson and you are free to move onto lesson 3. I will be a very smooth and calm one, with a wonderful ending.
My takeaway of your recording - my positive takeaways is that someone can easily also learn some classical music from the classical era, despite spending a lot of time in blues lessons. This gives me confidence in one bright and shiny day I'll be able to do so, too. My other takeaway - my frustrating takeaway is that I am only 7 months ahead of you. I mean 7 WieWaldi-months, this translates into about 2 Sophia-months, two short Sophia months while Sophia is still learning Beethoven and Chopin along the way.
tl;dr: congratulations for mastering the Peter Gunn Theme lesson. It was - as always - a joy to listen to your recording and see your cute tomcat on the screen.

WieWaldi My other takeaway - my frustrating takeaway is that I am only 7 months ahead of you. I mean 7 WieWaldi-months, this translates into about 2 Sophia-months, two short Sophia months while Sophia is still learning Beethoven and Chopin along the way.

It's true! Sophia lives in a different time dimension to the rest of us bloody beginners! She began Alfred's book 1 a couple of months after me, then zoomed through book 2 and has nearly finished book 3! All this while tackling the blues course! It's enough to give normal folk an inferiority complex! Don't worry WieWie, I share your pain and will not let Sophia forget that her MUSICAL GENES (which I rarely mention) are doing the heavy lifting for her!

Sophia You made my day

Nightowl Sophia lives in a different time dimension to the rest of us bloody beginners!

Us bloody beginners? Us? Hey!!! How do you dare and promote me down. I am a total beginner^TM. And I am moving forward, not backward. This means, I will go on and become a mediocre beginner one day. And I won't stop there. No, I have set my goals very high. I want to become something better, like an exceptional mediocre beginner.

Sophia I will definitely continue on a classical path as well, ok, I don't want to become a concert pianist, but my end goal is to become an intermediate* player and stay there forever. There, I finally said it out loud

I am on that boat too. After beginner stuff, I'd like to think there is much more to keep it exciting. I am not very interested on advanced pieces and I will never get there anyway. But I do want to gather enough skills so I can noodle on the keys, play fun stuff in classical/blues/jazz/pop etc. I wouldn't mind if they have to be "intermediate" arrangements.

Sophia That's brilliant, but also quite disturbing!

WieWaldi My sincere apologies WieWie, it was never my intention to demote you. You are the BBK (Bavarian Blues King) and there is nothing mediocre in the way you play.

hebele Same here, I think intermediate level is a nice place for hobbyists to be. I don't want to spoil my hobby by trying to attain skills that are probably out of reach anyway.

WieWaldi Yes, WieWie, this title was already conferred on you previously (see my post 12 days ago). I gave you a crown already.

Sophia u said the piece was exactly your level, for me it is a bit of a stretch

Come on - a bit of a stretch is exactly your level. It is always a bit of a stretch, otherwise you wouldn't learn something new. For myself, I am quite through the lesson, but a few lines are still very cluncy. They need to be polished a bit more. And every time the LH changing throws me completely off - this needs even more practice. This and my attempt to modify the humptee dumptee pattern. But I'll stick to it, because it gives me a bit more of a stretch to learn something new, and I really like the low down groove. And because it is my own pattern, even there might be people playing this before me.

I guess, I made a mistake, today. I decided to change my LH fingering to gain more control. Instead of sliding with the middle finger down from black to white key, I decided to use fingers 4 and 3 instead. Unfortunately, LH finger 4 seems to be underdeveloped. I can play LH the new way, when I concentrate on it. But not on autopilot. Always falling back to the old fingering. Still, I think in the long run it should pay off because of more control.
But now... Now I wish I would have stucked to the old fingering and never thought about changing it.

Sophia that looks tricky. If it sounds OK to you then I would play it as F. At least you have an idea how it sounds. In beginners course lesson 4, Christian said something like "Pay attention to semitones. Don't play F and E at the same time. See, it sounds horrible.". I was thinking, nope I don't hear the horribleness there. Then he followed with "If you don't hear it, get your ears checked"

hebele It turns out my internal rhythm is worse than I thought. Whenever I try to go over beginner blues lessons with a metronome, it goes out of sync very quickly. So I think that means I have to play with the metronome a lot.

This happened to me, when I played the turnarounds. I got so easily out of timing, and the metronome revealed my flaws. In the beginning I thought, my playing might be good as I sometimes landed on a click. But it had been 5 clicks instead of 4. Or 3 clicks. Go and use a metronome with a different sound for the 1, it pays off.

btw: I recorded many of my earlier lessons with metronome. And still sometimes do, but now the clicks are hidden from the recording.

Sophia (sorry, can't link to it, I think it's only for people who purchase the sheet music)

Well - his video is public listed, no worries about that, you are fine if you share.

Actually, I got notice with this video about the 8 easy blues pieces.
I remember when I read this title the first time and listened the introduction words, I assumed some of his students would accuse him, to not make easy sheet music.

It looks like I won't be able to finish beginners blues course in 2025. There are too many things to practice but not enough practice time . But... I've managed to practice lesson 4! Even though it is a mishmash of unrelated things and doesn't sound very good with humpty dumpty LH. I think this is a good sign that I might stick with it to the end:

Sophia thanks, that's too kind. And I appreciate any feedback. I will try to pay attention to that RH. Apparently I default to staccatos. It happened with my "Minuet in G" too. Or maybe use the pedal and try to hide behind it

hebele Aaaawwww.... nicely played though. Give yourself a big hug. (If you can't, a tap on your shoulder is okay, too) About this legato/staccato play - I think both are possible. Albeit, I tend to go for more legato in the first 15 seconds, too. Anyway - switching from legato to staccato and back is a strong artistic device. Like playing a smooth legato run, following by some staccato notes that are further apart. I also like the mother of all turnarounds. Still, I encourage you to practice it metronome - this was exactly where I found out for myself, my timing is off. Yours is better than mine was back then, but still I think you are rushing the last three notes.

I don't know if critic is welcome: (pls tell me, if not):
The note in those time marks sound very off to me:
0:54 1:03 1:12 1:21 1:30 1:38
And I think I know what the problem is: Christians sheet music program has problems with grace notes. They don't get the space on the sheet music and if there are accidentals used, they are automatically naturaled for the rest of the bar. This is wrong notation. So I assume what you play is perfectly correct according to the sheet music, but the sheet music is wrong. (I assume it is wrong, because I don't have the sheet music for lessons 1 to 7, but I know his sheet music issues).

You play:
F#>G + C' (F# is the grace note)
C
F# + A
C
D#>E + G (D# is the grace note)

But you should play this instead:
F#>G + C' (F# is the grace note)
C
F + A
C
D#>E + G (D# is the grace note)

Christians software doesn't remember the # from the grace note and therefore forget to natural the green F.
Please redo this phrase with the natural F - this phrase happens to be played so often. Unlearn this muscle memory as soon as possible.

General tip: if something sounds strange, compare the keyboard of the video with the sheet music. If it is different, the video is always right. And as you know, if something is wrong, you can hear it - hopefully. Otherwise, you have something in your ears. Maybe a cat.

WieWaldi thanks for spending on time on this. Like I said all feedback is welcome. And you are right, I think I've misread the F as F# here:

It looks like the same issue Sophia raised three days ago.

I will go over it with the correct notes. Although I think I've repeated the wrong note hundreds of times already .

General tip: if something sounds strange, compare the keyboard of the video with the sheet music. If it is different, the video is always right.

Unfortunately my ears are hopeless to detect strangeness and I hate following videos for detailed instructions. So I need to do extra cross checking between the notation and the videos.

hebele Nicely played! This piece is so relaxing.

hebele And you are right, I think I've misread the F as F# here:

It looks like the same issue Sophia raised three days ago.

No - you didn't misread. It is a F#. The sheet music is wrong, It is the same issue Sophia raised.

hebele I will go over it with the correct notes. Although I think I've repeated the wrong note hundreds of times already .

This was my fear. Sorry. There is no other way than unlearning and relearning. Especially this phrase is so useful for improvising, later.

hebele Unfortunately my ears are hopeless to detect strangeness

That's a pity. Unfortunately, I found two other places with strangeness: The F7 part at 0:22 and 0:24 is exactly the situation when Christian told, not to slide from E_b to E, but to stay on E_b all the time.

WieWaldi thanks. I thought I was being careful to stay on Eb during F7 bars. But I was also getting annoyed to silly mistakes. So it's quiet likely I've let the autopilot on which slides to E . I will check it out tomorrow.