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,...

Sophia

Nightowl... my teacher just mentioned something you probably love to hear 😃

Slow and simple can sound good.... well that should be music to our ears! (Literally)

Nightowl

Sophia Yep... that's me... very slow and very simple hence me stating the obvious about beery Bavarians. 😃

WieWaldi

Sophia Slow and simple can sound good....

So true...

Unfortunately, Boogie-Woogie isn't slow. Except mine. Too slow for a real Boogie — Christian played faster in the tutorial. But for me, it was still too fast to play proper. I was constantly getting muddled over my own fingers.

Moving onwards to the next lesson. This one started to me out. Or learn the next recital piece, to be precise...

btw - how do you like my new camera angle?

hebele

WieWaldi you made me believe that is a slow recording. It is not! And played in sync with a Random mute 63% metronome. That thing looks so intimidating 😱.

Sophia

First things first! Before the AL recital, I must listen to your latest lesson. Where to begin.... that was FANTASTIC, WieWie. I know it gets boring (probably not for you, lol), but every time I listen to something from you, I notice such HUGE improvement... you're on a roll lately! And I like the new camera angle! (no need to mention your lovely bracelet, wait, I just did) Anyway, I'm now listening to it for the second time for some details.

Your feel for blues/boogy is becoming so good, for example that PROOP at the 40sec mark. Perfectly timed, very professional. And I'm sure you remember (I believe it was Simon or keff) telling me/us to lean into the melody, well you did just that with the next note... very nice!

Then the spider crawl afterwards... your fingers can surely move now! Yet you managed to stay relaxed and confident - something I have never been able to do especially with a longer lesson such as this one 🙂

I can see your metronome now, and in earlier lessons, I caught you quite frequently trying to catch up with it, or skip a beat to slow down into it because you were galloping away... I don't think you do that anymore now. Ok, maybe a leeetle bit, such as around 1:50 mark. But eh, that's peanuts, after all, we ARE still learning 😃

What happened at the 2:09 mark?

A great lesson, well done! And... the last part without metronome, you are finally getting brave huh?

WieWaldi

Sophia Thanks Soph. I must admit, this one was definitely harder than the previous Boogie lessons. Especially the LH with our trusty humpty dumpty pattern is so harder to play than the other bass lines. When played faster than Blues, it gets really tricky for us beginners. Same is the case for the 16_th notes, followed by triplets. And this exactly when I fell over my own fingers. Like in the 1:50 mark. Should have practiced slower, then it would be maybe cleaner.

Sophia What happened at the 2:09 mark?

Key change. From C to G. Couldn't connect it. Cutted out a pause and then a major mistake...

WieWaldi

hebele Thanks. Yes, I remember when I started with a 50% (or even smaller) random mute rate. It felt so hard to hit beat if there were a few clicks missing in a row. I told myself to raise this just a tiny bit every piece (or lesson). Seems to work. Can only recommend this to everyone.

Sophia

Quiet in this thread 🙂 I am still busy with lesson 7. Just adding the 3rd variation... halfway there! But I'm STILL struggling with the chords, so I am not done polishing the first lines either 🙁 This one is hard!

hebele

I should update my status. I have found a teacher in a music school very close to me. And unfortunately the blues piano for beginners course was the first thing to go on the back burner. I had too many things going at the same time. However I am still watching this thread to see progress of my online friends 👀. So you guys better deliver 😄.

WieWaldi

hebele i absolutrly second Soph's opinion. Let us know how it goes. And upload some of whatever your teacher makes you play.
Congrats for being a little bit more serious student, now.

WieWaldi

hebele And unfortunately the blues piano for beginners course was the first thing to go on the back burner.

I know this too good. Recital here, recital there, PIYW everywhere. Currently, the WeWishYouAMerryChristmas thing is holding me off. Note for myself: never ever vote again for a title that long.

Sophia

Well congrats!!! Tell us more about the teacher, what you're learning and how you're liking it 😃

hebele

Sophia & WieWaldi thank you both.

Her main degree is on violin and she picked up piano afterwards. I was hesitant at first because of that. But I went for a trial lesson and I like her teaching so far. Also she is patient enough to listen my rants about practice 🙂.

I showed her what I was doing which is basically Faber Adults AIO 1&2, John Thompson 1, the blues course and a few random pieces. I said I'd like to finish the method books. She is OK with that. But she wanted to put something a little bit more challenging too. We have picked a pop song arrangement because it has alberti bass, some broken chords and regular pedalling.

She did not insist on technical exercises like scales, hanon. But she is making me practice sightreading.

We will see how it goes. I hope we will get along fine because the lesson time is really convenient for me. I am constrained on time because of family and work.

Simonb

Hi hebele

My teacher is primarily a Viola player, and I've been with her for nearly 3 years. There's no problem with that.

Scales, arpeggios and Hanon are good for developing technique, if they are practised correctly. There are exercises in Hanon that I have done on a regular basis for quite a long time, and I've found them beneficial. They can be boring!

The schedule that was set up for learning hundreds of years ago, works, that's why it is still used in Music colleges etc today. I'm all for playing Pop music, Jazz, Rock & folk (and do so, on a regular basis) as well as the classical music that I mostly study at my lessons. However it can lead you to develop a lot of bad habits... I certainly did in the 30 year period when I wasn't studying Classical Piano.

That said I completely agree that playing the music you like is one of the best ways to ensure you continue playing, rather than giving up.

Cheers

WieWaldi

Sounds very promising to me. No scales and no Hanon - a time killer in my opinion. Scales are maybe ok, but Hanon 🥱. If you can use a Hanon exercise in one of your pieces, you will learn and practice this exercise with the piece, anyway. If a Hanon exercise isn't used, then the time was wasted. Simple like that.
Nice to see your teacher is allowing you to pick pop music. This tells me, she is not strictly keeping on a piano learning schedule that was set up hundreds of years ago. A big plus in my opinion. Play the music you like and you are motivated. It does not matter what genre, you will find any difficulty level with any genre. Big thumbs up!!

Sophia

I can't add anything to what WieWie already said... I'm so pleased for you hebele! Sounds like you found yourself a great teacher!

hebele

Simonb thanks.

I do want to play classical music. OK, maybe except the advanced pieces. I don't think I have patience for those.

And I agree with technical exercises. I also know I should eat more veggies and less junk food. But here we are 🙂.

WieWaldi

Sophia Any updates?
Your last lesson is quite old, already

Sophia

Yes boss! Working on it boss! Right away boss! Immediately boss!!!

But I do have some progress to share 👍 Not much though 🙁 Not nearly enough 👎But still, a little! 🙂

I can now play the 16 bars fairly consistently, and fairly smoothly. I can also play the first three licks from memory. I just started learning the 4th - after that, three more. It's a HARD lesson, pff! But I'll probably get it done before the year is over, and I can already say that it won't be polished even then. At this tempo, I will have finished the course by 2077 😂

Sophia

Oops, this thread moved onto page 3 now. That won’t do 😋

Just here to report that I’m still practising the lesson, it’s very slow, but I’m still making progress of sorts. I’m one and a half licks removed from finalizing the lesson, and it won’t be smooth when done.

WieWie I said it before: lots and lots of respect 🫡 how you did with it. Quite the talent you have, and I’m realizing it even more as the lessons are getting tougher! 🥰

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