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 Lovely! That's my dream too, to be able to just sit down at a piano somewhere and make music come out 😃 He can boogie!

Nightowl

I envy his confidence and the relaxed way he switches from one piece to another, it must be wonderful to have that level of skill. He's been playing piano professionally since he was 16 - over 4 decades ago! I smiled all the way through the video, then watched another one (even though BW is not really my style)! 😄 No doubt there are some imperfections in his playing technique but what he lacks in finesse he makes up for with enthusiasm.

WieWaldi

Nightowl Funny thing, the same guy popped up in my YT feed, but he appeared to be a guest star in a different channel:

Sophia

Well, it was a large egg to lay, but my lesson is finally done. I made one concession in case it isn't obvious: I recorded each lick separately and then glued them together in Final Cut Pro. And even then there are a few flubs and bleeps, but at last I can move on. Been on this lesson since August! Ok, not entirely non stop, but it feels like forever. Now I can FINALLY call it done 🙂

Funny story: I had recorded the first four licks at 100pbm (yes, I used a metronome for this lesson, so all the licks would be the same speed). Then I found the last two licks sounded horrid at that speed... rushed and ugly. So I did everything again - this time at 80bpm. Here's he final result:

Nightowl

Sophia Well done, that lesson looked quite tricky in places but it all sounded pretty good to me. Job done! 😄 Do you think you will buy a book of blues music now, or are you going to continue with CF's lessons?

Simonb

Hi Sophia

I'd suggest you start trying to apply what you've learnt to a different key, and without reference to sheet music or the course. G is a great key to play the blues in on the Piano.

Much easier said than done I know.

Cheers

WieWaldi

Sophia OMG, I almost missed this. Was very busy with my 40 pieces challenge the last days...

Wooowwww! You nailed it. I like this one so much better than your last recording attempt. Even if you did use Final Cut Pro to stitch all those snippets together. (Should it be called Final Glue Pro, instead?). One thing I immediately recognized were your modifications of Christian's original licks. I like the original ones, but yours are not worse. In many cases, I would even say yours sound more interesting, more vivid. That's a great achievement. Learn something from the master and then improve it on the fly. I am happy you revisited this one, now I agree you are ready to move on.

Sophia Last lick only took me three days to learn so I think part of my very slow learning was due to disinterest. ☺️

Hey - the last lick cost me much more time than only 3 days. I think it was a week and a few days....
OMG - turbo rocket fast learner Sophia-On-Crack is back!!!

Sophia

Nightowl are you going to continue with CF's lessons?

^ This 🙂 Next lesson is all about improvisation, how timely! I'm glad this lesson is over... I was <this> close to giving up, but it feels good to have finalized it at last. Last lick only took me three days to learn so I think part of my very slow learning was due to disinterest. ☺️

rsl12

Sophia Next lesson is all about improvisation

Can you link it? Christian seems to have many improv videos, not just one set path from beginner to advanced, and I'm curious how they link together.

Sophia

Haha yes, I should broaden my horizon... but I think first I will follow this lesson about improv rather than just noodling aimlessly as I have been doing so far 😃

Sophia

Thanks so much WieWie! It feels good to have your seal of approval 🥰 Now I really can move on!

In fact I had a sneak peak of lesson 8. Sorry Simon, it's still in C 😃 It's a lesson where Christian does a lot of talking, but the message basically seems to be to create a collection of licks, and then play them. Or more exactly, select a series of HIS licks and then play them randomly 🙂 It should be fun, I already have a few favourite licks that I can implement. Hopefully (presumably) this lesson won't take me 4 months - I have some catching up to do 😂

WieWaldi Was very busy with my 40 pieces challenge the last days...

Good luck! Only three hours to go (no pressure) 😃

Sophia

While we're patiently waiting for the next person to announce the next finished lesson, here a little piece of classical music that may please the boogie crowd. Or some boogie to please the classical crowd. Or just some incredible playing to please everybody 🙂

Showed up in my YT feed!

Nightowl

Sophia Thanks for posting - that's incredible! What a great pianist and showman he was! Bumblebee is not a favourite piece of mine but there's no denying the huge skill involved in playing that piece.

WieWaldi

Nightowl You don't like the Flight of the Bumblebee - and you don't like Boogie. But if like this one, you seem to have a crush for Liberace.

Sophia

Right, I'm not a fan of too-many-notes either, but I agree with one thing: there has never been anyone like Liberace!

Nightowl

WieWaldi Guilty as charged! 😃 I find him spellbinding to watch.

Sophia

Of course! Here you go:

rsl12

I see! He's getting you closer to true blues improv by having you plan solos using learned vocabulary. And that's what I heard in your recordings as well. Sounds like a good lesson for you. This type of exercise is good for vocabulary agility, so that you can think to yourself "pine top" and then play the pine top with almost no thought. You didn't ask for it, but my advice is--don't just do one solo using these concepts and say you're done with the lesson. Do it a few times--plan out the chunks, solo with the plan in front of you, repeat. A good finishing point is when you can freely solo but smoothly incorporate your planned chunks whenever you lack ideas. (Also, maybe do Lessons 8 and 9 together, since 9 talks about another kind of practice that's complementary.)

Sophia

Yes, exactly. It's funny though because when I purchased the course, instead of the three lesson books, Christian accidentally included the book "Licks in C" instead of one of the books. Rather than challenging it, I just bought the missing book separately

But for the longest time, I didn't know what to do with the Licks in C 😃 Until now... so rather than using his examples, I have been selecting nice sounding licks from that book and trying to mix and match them "randomly".

I think I will submit that when it's smoother, perhaps in a week or so, and then continue seamlessly with lesson 9 🙂

rsl12 You didn't ask for it, but my advice is

All advice always welcome 😃 Thanks for the tip!

WieWaldi

rsl12 (Also, maybe do Lessons 8 and 9 together, since 9 talks about another kind of practice that's complementary.)

Great minds - I tried to do that as well, but figured out too soon, it would be a looooooong lesson.

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