Transcripts
1. Blues Piano & Improvisation in the Slow Blues Style: Hi, I'm Arthur Bird, the best selling online
piano instructor. And I've been fortunate
enough to have over 20,000 pupils enrolled
in my classes worldwide. And in this course, you will learn how to
improvise blues piano, specifically in the
slow blues style. In it, I'll take you from a basic slow blues progression
and methodically build your skills all the way
up to being able to freely improvise
impressive blues piano, giving you a huge array of blues techniques that
will ignite you're improvising, including
lifts, risks, turnarounds, jumping
base patterns, tremor, lows, octave
harmony, and much more. You may have already tried to learn from videos on YouTube. But there, you'll often learn
an individual lick or riff without being shown a way to fluently integrated
into your improvising. Which is why this course has
plenty of exercises that incorporate your new skills throughout giving you full
control over each riff, Nick, scale, or technique. On top of this, there are especially designed
blues pieces that integrate what you're
learning as you progress, giving you the opportunity
to put your new abilities into practice within great
sounding blues tunes. Everything in the cost
has been fully notated. For those of you
that prefer to read sheet music with over
50 downloads available, however, you don't
need to be able to read sheet music in order
to enjoy this course. Because all of the lessons have a highlighted keyboard
graphic for those of you that prefer to
copy and play by ear. In addition, any notation within the video lessons include the note names inside
the note heads. For those of you that
would find it useful. I understand that everyone
learns differently. And so to further enhance
your learning experience. Because also comes
with an added bonus, which is an e-book that
you can print off and follow along with to supplement
the video tutorials. And finally, to make the
learning process even more fun. The exercises and
practice pieces come with backing tracks. So you can play along
with a blues band sound in the comfort
of your own home. So if you want to
have fun improvising smooth blues piano off
the top of your head. Then sign up and
get started today.
2. Minor Blues Scale in C: Alright, let's dive straight in. We're going to be working
in the key of C. So let's start off with
the C minor blue scale. You already know this, please feel free to
skip this lecture. But if not, here's
how to play it. So it starts off on C, E-flat, F, F sharp, G, B-flat, and then octave c above. The fingering I'd like you to do is focus first on the scene. Second on the E-flat, third on the F, falls
on the F sharp, then some Antonioni on the G. Then the second
thing on the B flat, and then third, see above. And that is a fingering
for just one octave. It change at the top.
If you're going up again, just start off like that. So practice that
first octave just to get you to the notes
and the fingering. And then on the way down, just making sure
that you go off with your fourth finger
onto the F sharp. You took your hand in a
second on the E-flat, C. So that's one octave. Practice that until
they get control of it. And then if you go
up another octave, you just need to slightly adjust the fingering when
you get to the octave above. So we're gonna go 1234 from
underneath on the B-flat. And then if you're going
to go up another octave, rather than put your third
finger down on the sea there, you're gonna go underneath. The fingering is
exactly the same. 234 twist on the on the top. If you go up again, you could
just go from underneath and carry on with
the same fingering. So let's just get
to there, to there. Then third on the top because we're going to go to
Octave for the moment. That you're going
to go back down, making sure your fourth
is over the top. F sharp, three on the left. I think it's important to go
over the two and then thumb underneath the cheek.
So just practice that. The other top with a sharp fall. Okay? So I'd like you to practice the two octaves of C
minor blues like this. So practice that
until you feel really comfortable with those notes
and the correct fingering. And then in the next lesson, we're going to put it
straight into practice.
3. A Quick Improv: For those of you
that have already taken my beginner's blues costs, you will be comfortable
with playing the blues in the key of G. We're going to get stuck into the slow blues that I showed you at the start
of this section. But before we do, I thought it would be nice
to have a quick go at improvising with the
minor blue scale in the key of C that
you've just learned, or you may well have
already known it. And it will be interesting
to see if you can transfer over some of the skills that you
already learned, already know particularly
the rhythms. Now, don't worry if you haven't taken my
beginner's course. This is just a quick bit of fun. And I'm not going to go
into huge detail right now. I'm just going to throw you into the deep end and
see what happens. But if you don't fancy it, you can move on to
the next lecture. So if you fancy having
a quick go using the Minor Blues scale in the
key of C. All I want you to do is play around with the notes and the
rhythms and the right hand over the top of, for single notes in the left. These are C, B flat, a, a flat. And notice I started
below middle C here. Okay? So all the way to do is
play around with the scale. C minor blues, playing
around with notes, changing the order of them, and then those fall
notice in the left hand. And it can be pretty free. For example, if
you start off with a colon response where you play a left-hand sum of the nerves? Yeah. I was just playing
around is quite free. So if you don't feel too comfortable with
the scale just yet, you can maybe try
that colon response. Left-hand players,
but not as far nuts. Right hand doodles around. And then if you want to be
a bit stricter with it, you can try paying
it with four beats. It's going 12341234123123. I'm going to improvise. Okay, So I wasn't doing
anything too complicated. Purely single dots
in the right hand, playing around with
the rhythms and those four left-hand notes. So have a go at that
and see what happens. It's just simply start
playing around with a C minor blue scale
straightaway before we start digging into
this slow blues style. If you want, you can
also add an octave into the left hand to make
it a bit more powerful. Also, if you're
improvising around those far left-hand
notes and your fancy just one extra
tweak to the sound. Can add in a G in the
left hand or a G7 call. Yeah. Like this.
4. Slow Blues in C - Basic Left Hand Chords: Now you've had a play around with the minor blue scale in C. It's time to start learning these slow blues style I
showed you at the start. To do this, we're
going to be using a classic 12 bar blues form. Here's how to play the basic
cards in the left hand. So here are the cards
in the left hand. As you can see, it's in
the key of C. I'll just quickly go over
the full structure of the 12 bar blues we're using. So it starts off with
one bow and the sea. Then it goes up to the
far card and the F, and then back down
for 2 bar on the sea. And then it goes up to 2
bar and the F back to 2 bar and the C. And then one
on the G, one of the f, and then one of the sea, and then it finishes off
with a turnaround on the G. And as you can see, we're working with
four beats per bar. So these are just
the basic cards. The left hand is going
to get more advanced. So the first card is a C seven. So the full C7 is this. But I've taken out the
fifth there, the G, so it's just a B-flat. The F7 called normally
would be this. I've done is I've inverted it and also taken out
the five as well. So it's gonna be the E-flat and it's just
been inverted there. Then the only the
card is the G7. Again, normally it would
be just play simply there, but I've taken out
the five again, an inverted it for
the F score below. So the three cards that you
need to practice now, C7, F7 plate here, E flat, and then the G, which is their GP. And as far as fingering goes, I would do 531 from C7, the F7, slide the
thumb down to the a. You're too is
already over the F, and your third is very
close to the E flat, so it's going to
add that to that. Then it can easily
slide back to the CSF. Then for the G7, I
need to do is slide is thumb up to the B
and 2.3 go to the G. So practice those cards
with that fingering and want to use to
it and you feel comfortable moving
between them smoothly, then you can try play the
full left-hand progression. So there's four beats per
bar on each card has been played once per be, like this, 1233, and so on with the counting. And then you can repeat
to the start if you want. So practice this
until he can play smoothly without stopping
between the chord changes.
5. Minor Blues Exercise - Triplet Eighths (Basic Left Hand Chords): Hopefully you've had fun
learning those cards and can play that left-hand
progression nice and smoothly. Now it's time to take
your two per step and introduce the Minor Blues
scale into the right hand. This exercise that
you're about to learn will help
with coordination. Also eventually make improvising with the blues
scale much easier. We're going to start off using triplets with the right hand. If you don't know already, a triplet is when you play three notes in this
same time as two. So in this case, a
normal quarter notes or crotchets is split into
two eighths or quavers. A triplet makes it so there are three eighths or quavers played for every
one quarter note. The right hand, C
minor blue scale is going to be going up and down by two octaves using that
triplet rhythm like this. 12 312-312-3123 chip
chip, chip chip. So practice that C minor blue scale in
your right hand with that triplet rhythm 1234
chip, chip, chip, chip. Then we add the left hand, which creates this really
cool sounding exercise. So if I just show you an example of the timing of the first bar, and then you should be able
to get the idea from that. Is, the left hand
is playing on the first of every three beats
in your right like this, 123123 or can you see that the
right-hand groups of three and the left hand
is playing on the wall, 12 312-312-3123. And if you want to just
count the main beat, it would be 123. Then that idea just carries on throughout that whole
left-hand pattern. And your right
hand is just going up and down two octaves, starting middle, C,
finishing up here. So I'm now going to show
you the full exercise with a ram scale of the top of the left-hand chord
progression. Let's go. And then you can go around
and repeat if you want. I'll finish on the C. So practice that until
the complete without stops between bars
and hesitations, you may have to start
off slowly at first, but then you can
gradually build up the tempo as you
get more control.
6. Minor Blues Exercise - Triplet 8ths Exercise with Backing Track: Hopefully you've got it
to the point where you can play that
exercise comfortably. And now you can have
a go at playing along with a backing track, which is great because it
turns what is essentially just an exercise into
playing along with a band. Well, almost with the bump, it just sounds cool
and it's more fun. Another benefit is that
it will help you to play along with an even tempo. So what I've done, I've done two version to
the backing track. One slower version, which
is at 50 beats per minute, and then a slightly faster
170 beats per minute. So if you feel like you need to start off slightly slower, you can try it using the
slower version first. These backing tracks just
run through the 12th bars, want so there's no repeats. So you can go through
the 12th bars and then just finish
on the C code. Just as a reference point. I'm now going to play through the exercise with
the backing tracks. First of all, the slower one, and then the one at 70 bpm. And there will be eight clicks before it starts to give you
some chance to get ready. Alright, so that was
a slower version. Feel free to download the
track and have a go at that. And now I'm going to show
you that same exercise, but with the slightly
faster backing track, which is at 70 bpm. They go sounds cooler without
backing track, doesn't it? So have a go yourself, and I hope you have fun
while you're doing it.
7. A Quick Tip on Playing Along to Tracks: This is just a quick tip on
playing along two tracks. So if you are now at
the point where you are wanting to improvise along
with the backing tracks. And if playing along to tracks
is new to you, at first, it may seem a little bit tricky because obviously the trap
just keeps on playing. So if you feel like you're stumbling are
getting left behind. My advice is to just stop and listen and to try and hop
back in where you can. Sometimes I've seen people when playing along
to tracks to try and catch up with the track
if they've missed something I stumbled,
are paused. But like I said, the best
approach is to pause, listen, and then dropped
back in where you can. And I'll just show you
a very quick example so you know exactly what I mean. Okay, so I'm just going to
pretend to get left behind. And then I'm going to miss
the left-hand August 2, 34 and back. Can you hear how I listened
past and found my place? Yeah. Can you hear that? I didn't try and catch up. I just paused, listened,
and dropped back in. You don't have to wait
as long as that or you can wait long if you want. I just wanted to
suggest that approach. If playing along with
tracks is new to you.
8. Minor Blues Scale Exercise - Swung Eighths (Simple LH Chords): Another great rhythm
used all the time in blues is the swirl rhythm
or a swung eighth rhythm. Again, you may already
know this, but if not, the swirl rhythm turned
a straight 1.2 and 3.4 count into a
shuffle like this. 1.2 and 3.4 and 1.2 and 3.4. What is essentially
happening is, remember, when I talked about
triplets being, each main beat is
split into thirds. Well, the swirl rhythm, it's just playing
on the one and the three of those
thirds. Like this. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three,
one-two-three. Except the counter like
this, 1.2 and 3.4. If you're counting
with a one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three,
one-two-three. That's all that's happening
with a strong rhythm, 1.2 and 3.4. It's like along and
then a sharp beat. Now we're just going to
play the minor blue scale in C with that rhythm. Though. For the purposes of this
exercise that you're doing, we're not going to play on the first beat of each
bar in the right hand. We're going to come in on
the end after the one like this, 12 and 3.4. So you can hear that I'm
coming in on the end after the 11 and 2.3, and then that continues. So each time you're
going to go up and down the blues scale
to optimize again. But you just go to not play it on the first
beat of each bar. So I'll just show
you two octaves. The right hand. Show
you what I mean. 1, 2, and 3 and 4 and 1. 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2, and 3 and 4 and 1, 2, 3 and 4. So feel free to practice
that right hand with that rhythm and accounting
on its own first. Then you try that over the top of the left-hand
chord progression. This is what it sounds like. And then you can
repeat that round if you want or you can finish on the C. So some of you might just be
able to read the music there and go straight ahead with exercise or
playing it by ear the same. You may just be able to
pick it up quite quickly if you're already aware with
these rhythms and stuff, for those of you that need
a little bit more help, just to go through
it a bit slower. So your left hand
place the first card on its own of each bar, and then your right hand
follows up at this one. Together are the
main beats, 1.3, and then it continues
to fall back down. Notice something with
the right-hand finger in there all the way
down. It might help. Is when you come in
down from the top here, stopped your third finger, that it's easy to come down. And then it just continues
with that same pattern. And 3.4. Together. Together. Together. Yeah. Right? Right together,
right together, right, left, right together, right
together, right together. Right. Hopefully you've
got the idea now. So practice that as
usual so you can play it nice and smoothly
without stopping.
9. Minor Blues Scale Exercise - Swung 8ths (Simple Left Hand Chords): Another great rhythm
used all the time in blues is the swirl rhythm
or a swung eighth rhythm. Again, you may already
know this, but if not, the swirl rhythm turned
a straight 1.2 and 3.4 count into a
shuffle like this. 1.2 and 3.4 and 1.2 and 3.4. What is essentially
happening is, remember, when I talked about
triplets being, each main beat is
split into thirds. Well, the swirl rhythm is
just playing on the one. And the three of those
thirds. Like this. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three,
one-two-three. Except the counter like
this, 1.2 and 3.4. If you're counting
with a one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three,
one-two-three. Want to say? That's all that's happening with a
strong rhythm, 1.2 and 3.4. It's like along and
then a sharp beat. Now we're just going to
play the minor blue scale in C with that rhythm. Though. For the purposes of this
exercise that you're doing, we're not going to play on the first beat of each
bar in the right hand. We're going to come in on
the end after the wall, like this, 1.2 and 3.4. So you can hear that
I'm coming in on the end after the 11 and 2.3 and then that continue. So each time you're
gonna go up and down the blues scale
to optimize again. But you just go to not play on the first beat of each bar. So I'll just show
you two octaves with the right hand to
show you what I mean. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1. 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2, and 3, and 4 and 1
and 2 and 3 and 4. So feel free to practice that right hand with that rhythm, the counting on its own first. And then you play that over the top of the left-hand
chord progression. This is what it sounds like. And then you can repeat
background if you want, I can finish on the C. So some of you might just be able to read the music there. Go straight ahead
with the exercise or playing it by ear the same. You may just be able to
pick up quite quickly if you're already aware of
these rhythms and stuff, for those of you that need
a little bit more help just to go through
it a bit slower. So you left on place if first card on its
own of each bar, and then your right hand
follows up at this one. And then it's together. The main beats. So this 12.3. And then it continues. Free, fall, back down. And notice something
with the finger in there all the way
down. It might help. Is when you're coming
down from the top here, stopped your third finger and that it's easy to come down. Then it just continues
with that same pattern. Three. Band together. Together. Together. Yeah. Right? Right together,
right together. Right, left, right
together, right together, right together, right? Together. Hopefully you've
got the idea now. So practice that as
usual so you can play it nice and smoothly
without stopping.
10. Minor Blues Exercise Swung Eighths with Backing Track: Just like you did with
the triplet exercise. You can also play this exercise along with those
two backing tracks. And so you've got
a reference point, and so you know what
you're aiming for. I am now going to
play it through along with those
two backing tracks, starting off with
the slower version. Now here it is with the
backing track at 70 bpm.
11. Thoughts on Practice: If you're early on in your
piano learning journey, can I suggest making
sure you have full control over
each specific lick, riff or technique
before moving on. And by this, I mean, being
able to play it smoothly and comfortably without any
parties or hesitations. In some cases, this may mean particular practice over a
few days or even longer. This is to give your fingers and hands a chance to build up the strength and
technique in order to play the particular
part in question, which will in turn make
the learning process more comfortable as the difficulty level increases
throughout the course. On top of this, if you can memorize what
I'm teaching you, this will make it much easier when it comes
to improvising. This is because
when improvising, you don't want to be
thinking too hard about which particular lick or riff
to play are how to play it. You want to be able to
play in the moment. So getting them to the
point where you can play them at the drop
of a hat will make a big difference and
make it improvising much more fluent and enjoyable.
12. Mixing Up the Rhythms & Improvising: Light you will have
found out if you took my beginner's costs with just that one scale
and those two rhythms, you can actually do quite
a lot, for example. So all we're doing there was playing around with those
two rhythm to triplet and this room using the C minor blue scale on top of the left
hand progression. Just by moving between those two rhythms and playing around with the
notes in this scale. You've actually have
a lot to work with. So I'd like you now to have
a go at playing around with those two rhythms using that C minor blue scale over
this chord progression. And again, this is
just quite free. It's just so you can
start exploring. So it doesn't matter if there's
any mistakes or anything. If we want obviously
at different levels. So some of you might
find it nice and easy to get stuck into
that straightaway. So those of you that don't
feel comfortable enough to improvise straightaway over that left and progression to
the four beats per bar. Your right hand
doing its own thing. Just an approach you
could use is with that call and response
technique I talked about were left and play something and your
right hand answers. So what you could do, instead of using the four beats per bar, your left hand could just play one of one card and then
your right-hand answers. And it doesn't have to be extra strict with the timing either. For example, you could do this. So that's one
approach you can use. But of course, if you
feel comfortable enough, you can go straight away with the left hand playing
far beats per bar. Once you've done that, we're going to take it
to the next level and introduce some jumps
into the left hand. Just to comment on
improvising with a scale in your right
hand if you need it, that is so, but I'd see people that may be relatively
new to improvising. What they tend to do
that tend to go up and down and constantly
try and play new nuts. But don't be scared to
repeat notes and use the same area of the piano
over and over again. For example, you
can play circles. If you like the sound
of that, you could repeat that bad assembly. The rhythm we've been working
on those two rhythms, tried to sort of pick and
choose between the rhythm. It's almost like singing with the piano, like this triple. That's where I was
moving in between them. And I wasn't just doing
a full bar triplets and a full bar of swim hours
of mixing and matching. So try to do that if you can.
13. Minor Blues Scale Exercise - Alternating Rhythms (Basic Left Hand Chords): Some of you may need a little
bit more help getting used to switching between these two rhythms that
we've been working on, the swung rhythms
and the triplets. So if you do, here is
an exercise to help. The way this exercise works is the left hand is exactly
what we've been doing. The right hand, It's alternating between the swung rhythm
and then the triplet. And they alternate every 2 bar. So it starts off with a swung rhythm for 2 bar, then triplets for two. Now notice you going
down and up here, there's twice as many notes. Then also notice you don't
go all the way to the top. See there you stop at the end
of that bow and the B flat. And then it goes back to swirl. On the left 2 bar. It's going to change again. Repeat this seat at
the bottom there. Again, you don't go
all the way down to the end of that bar. Then the G, and
then back to swell, still swell, and then triplets. And finally, I decided
at the end of this, rather than doing triplets for the last two is going to be one each triplet on the way down and then
Swan the way out. Yeah, the last 2 bar. You've got triplets on the sea. Then swirl on the gene. Then if you want, you can
repeat the exercise as many times as you want until you
feel you've got used to it. But if you want
to finish it, you simply go from the last G card. Then finishing up. Yeah. So I'm now going to
play the whole thing. So you can see altogether
without any stops.
14. Using the Sustain Pedal: I always think that adding
the sustain pedal TO playing improve the
sound when necessary, especially in this slow blues style that
we're working on. So if you've got a
sustained pedal, when you can try and include it, you may already be familiar
with using the sustain pedal. But if not, a good approach, is to use the left-hand card to guide when you're
resetting it. So in this case, for instance, the first card is a C, so you're going to
play, and then they're going to hold this
sustained pedal down. Then the next card is
an F, So you'd play, and then you reset it just
after you play that card. And then just going back to see, see a play and then reset it. So you're basically using
the left-hand cards to know when to change
the sustain pedal, auto reset the sustain pedal. You can use it more
often if you want, e.g. if you're playing and
you're doing some solo in resetting throughout the bar. Reset. So that's up to you if you
want to do it more often. And that might be the case if
you're doing lots of notes, because if you're
playing lots of notes, we'll merge them all
together, make them sustain. So if you're doing
lots of notes, you may want to reset it
in the middle of the bar, but that's up to
you for the moment. As I said, a good
approach would be to use a left hand card to know when
to reset the sustain pedal.
15. Jumping Left Hand Pattern: Now let's take it up a notch and start adding some variety
in the left hand. And depending on your
playing ability, this may mean some good
practice separately because it involves some jumps if you are finding
it too tricky. Especially when we start
adding the right hand. I'm going to include
a simpler version for those of you that
would prefer it. So first of all, I'm just going to show you the new
left-hand part, but I'm also going to add
some right-hand improv on top so you can hear the direction that we're
going to be moving. You can hear the fire
that's building up here. I was only improvising with a C minor blue scale
in the right hand. But as soon as I added
this left-hand jumps in. Can you hear the
change suddenly? It steps up and towns a lot
more advanced, doesn't it? So the left hand, it's the same pattern,
the same cards, but the changes that the
root of the card there, the root is the C
on that C7 chord is just going to go
down a full octave. Yeah. It's far as that. Now. It's this. Yeah. And then you play the top path of the card three times
to pay the root. And then he'd play the third
and the flat 73 times. The next card was the F,
which was there before. So all we're gonna do is
move it down an octave. So you've got this wrong. Three for the C and the F there. And finally the G1, same thing before you played it like that. Now we're going to take
the gene octave that. So first of all, practice
just their new moves. It's the jumps which some of you might find a little
bit challenging. So it may just have to put some extra practice
into these jumps. If jumping up and down in
the left arm, isn't it? Yeah. So I'm just going to play the full
left-hand part now. But with this new
jumping pattern, I think sustained pedal. It helps you because
it holds the ribs, alternates to the
rest of the card. Sometimes five and then 123. The fingering comes to the top. And that's it. So it's important to get this
so you can play it easily and without any stops. And also, if you come
from memory, if you do, it will make it much, much easier when we start
adding the right hand. And also for when we start including passing notes
into the left-hand, which we will get onto as
we progress into the cars. So practice this again and again until it becomes
second nature. And you can do it
smoothly and easily.
16. Minor Blues Scale Exercise with Jumping Left Hand - Triplet Eighths: So you can get used to playing this left-hand jumping technique along with your right hand. We're going to take the triplet eighths
exercise you did a few lectures ago and apply
the new left-hand pattern. This is what it sounds like. As you've just
seen. All this is, is that New Left and jumping pattern that
you've just been doing with the triplet minor
scale in the right-hand. Same manner, please exercise. But that New Left hand. I just do a couple of hours slowly so you can
see what's going on, but you should be
able to just apply that if you've practiced
the left-hand separately. So as you can see, just making sure the left hand is going down to the octave
below each time. Just going through
that triplet exercise with the jumping
left-hand pattern. So practice this until
they can play it smoothly. Then you can have a go at playing along to
the backing track, which I think
sounds really cool. So you can hear what it sounds like with the backing track. Also see you've got
a reference point would be paying it
nice and slowly. I'm going to play it now with that backing track at
50 beats per minute. So the slower one. Here we go.
17. Easy Left Hand Version (Without the Jumps): If any of you are finding
those big left-hand jumps, a little bit too
tricky for the moment. Here is the easier
left-hand version, which has been
modified so that there aren't any jumps. And
it still sounds good. All I've done here is taken the left-hand roots
of each card, which was the C, F, and G, and the father
played down there. All I've done is taken them
and move them up an octave. So before you are
playing the cola, that leads do is break up. Now you'd go to three. Then here you just play
the F. Yeah, you got it. And on the G1, I actually
just kept that one the same because I thought it
didn't work quite as well. The sound of it. So
I just kept it as the card from the original left-hand
corner, the first land. That's all you're doing rarely, the left hand is just
been moved up an octave. So you play the root. This plethora it now
so you can see it. I think it can sustain pedal helps hold the roots underneath. So basically rocking the boat. Here on the G, just the fill
color as you did originally. And finally on the G, again, G7. So if you're going
down this route using this slightly easier
left-hand practice that until you can play
it nice and smoothly.
18. Minor Blues Exercise Triplet Eighths (Simplified Left Hand Pattern): Here is the same exercise, but with the simpler left-hand
for those of you that might find the bigger jumps too challenging at the moment. So all it is is the Minor Blues scale in
the right hand using the triplets going up
and down, two octaves. Along with that
left-hand pattern where the root is
an octave higher, so you don't have the victims. Yeah. Then it's just a case
of putting them together. All it is, is that
triplet eighth exercise that we did right at the
start of this section. But with this
slightly simplified, broken pattern in the left-hand. I'll just show you it with
both hands. Nice and slow. You can repeat as many
times as you want, but I just showed it once there. And then finishing
on the C at the end. And of course, you
can play that one along with the backing
track as well.
19. Minor Blues Scale Exercise - Swung Eighths with Jumping Left Hand: So you can get more
and more comfortable playing this left-hand
jumping pattern. You can also apply it to the Minor Blues exercise with the swung eighth
rhythm in the right hand. And learning these
exercises will make it much easier when you start improvising and
having full control over these left and jumps
with their right hand. Playing over the top
will also make it easier when we start
introducing different licks, rifts, and other
blues techniques. So when you did
this blues exercise before you were playing
like this with the cards, are going to do now
is add that jumping left-hand pattern
underneath this. Then you can repeat,
I can finish. So have a go at
that. Try and get full control of it
without any stops. And then you can move
on to the next lecture.
20. Minor Blues Exercise Swung Eighths Simplified Left Hand: For the moment you
are choosing to use the simplified left-hand
without the jumps. Here's that same
Minor Blues exercise, but with this one-eighths with
the simplified left hand. So the original exercise
was just using the card. So this should be a
nice, simple tweak it. All you're doing is playing
the same exercise for the left hand is going
without broken CAR pattern. Yeah. So I'm just going
to play it together. Hopefully it shouldn't
find it too difficult too. Move over to this version. They go from letting that. And I'll see you in
the next lecture.
21. A Quick Improv - Swung & Triplet Rhythms Over Left Hand Jumping Pattern: Just to keep on easing you into improvising in this
slope loose style, I'd like you to
have a quick go at using what you've
learned so far. So have a play around with the minor blue scale
in the right hand, using the swung rhythms. And the triplets. On top of either the left and
the jumping pattern. Or the one which is simplified, the big drops below. So I'm just going
to play around only using what you've
learned so far. So let's see what happens. So all I'm doing there, can you see moving between a small rhythms
and the triplets? The right hand over the top of that left
hand jumping pattern. But I wasn't always playing a full bar of either their
swim or the triplet rhythms. I was sometimes joining
halfway through it. Watch this. Can you hear that? And I'll
do the same thing. You cannot count 12343. It's that swim with them over
the top of the left hand. But I was just picking and choosing when
I was joining in. So you don't always
have to be playing. That's what creates nice
sound and rhythms and cool sounding rhythms is picking and choosing
when you're playing. For example, a few times
I was doing this rhythm where I was playing
that triplet with them. But I wasn't coming
in on the one. Listen to this triplet rhythm. But coming in on the
second of the triplet, listen to this trip. And then I went swirl
the end. That trip. And that's, It's all about playing with
the different rhythms over the top of the left hand. So with that in mind, you
can also have a go at moving between the triplet and the thrill with them within one line of melody
and your right hand. I'm going to start
off with the swing. Swing. So that there was plenty
of examples of me moving from the swung to the triplet
within the same line. But also you don't always
have to be playing. For example, it can be lots
of gaps in the garden, then the gap triplet. There's some space again. He's got sound cool down then. If it does feel really
difficult at the moment, improvising over the
top of the left-hand. Remember, you can
keep it super simple. For example, what you could do is just take a
small section of the scaling your right hand
and just focused on the left-hand jumps and the
rhythms in your right color. I'm just going to take four
notes in the right hand. Now what I'm gonna do is play
around with the rhythms. I'm not going to choose
lots of different nerves for the parts of the
scale. So watch this. You see that? Always an option. So sounds cool. There's another approach you
can use at the moment if you find it tricky,
doing too much. Moving around in the right
with the left hand jumps are just the left-hand
broken pattern. Just start off using three or
four notes of the scale in your right hand and try to focus on playing with those
different rhythms.
22. Minor Blues Scale Exercise - Triplet Eighths (Without the Left Hand Jumps): Here is the same exercise, but with the simpler left-hand
for those of you that might find the bigger jumps too challenging at the moment. So all it is is the Minor Blues scale in
the right hand using the triplets going up
and down, two octaves. Along with that left-hand button where the root is
an octave higher, so you don't have the victims. Yeah. And then it's just a
case of putting them together. All it is, is that
triplet eighth exercise that we did right at the
start of this section. But with this
slightly simplified, broken pattern in the left-hand. I'll just show you it with
both hands. Nice and slow. You can repeat as many
times as you want, but I just showed it once there. And then finishing
on the C at the end. And of course, you
can play that one along with the backing
track as well.
23. Minor Blues Scale Exercise - Triplet 16ths (Simplified Left Hand) : Here is the 16th
triplet exercise, but with the simpler left
hand without the jumps. So all you're doing is playing six notes of the Minor Blues
scale in your right hand, but over the left-hand, simpler pattern like this,
123456123456123456123456. Again, yes, it takes you from the bottom up to the top two
octaves and back down again. And that was one full bar. So practice the right hand
so you can play speed. And then you can apply
that to octaves up and down to the simpler
pattern in the left-hand. If that's the choice you're
using at the moment, here is the full exercise
with both hands.
24. Rocking 3rds Riff in C (from the 5): So we started off with the Minor Blues scale
in the right hand. I'd like to balance
that minus sound with a great sounding
riff that you can use. It's based around the
classic blues riff, except it's rocking from
the fifth of the chord. Here's what it sounds like. I'll play it with
the left hand as well so you can
hear what it sounds like along with some of
the minor blues scale. So you can hit a nice contrast. Sounds cool, doesn't it? And as you can see, it's still
using these thirds on top. So here's how to play it. It starts off up here. So middle C is here, above, and then
the G above that. And then your third is
going to play the D sharp. And it's gonna be crushed like
this. So it's quite fast. So really what's
happening is your third is crushing from
the D-sharp E-flat, depending on what
you want to call it. And it's gonna go like this. Crushing differed. But then you five is
played at the same time. Yeah, I'll slow it down. And then once you've done that, thumb is going to
play the G below. That's what I mean
by it's rocking from the fifth of the chord because the C code there, 12345. So it's going from the 35 here. Thumb goes below. Then you have three
fives is going to stretch up to the a. Then you're going to bring
your three-five back down onto the E-flat and the g. First bit. Yeah. Then here, you
third thing is going to slide from the E-flat to
the d. So this is not a crochet is a slide
that so it's slower. Notice your five, its
health and the G like this. And then it finishes on the sea. So you can either finish
with your thumb or your second finger up to you. If you're finished with
your second finger, it means that if
you want to repeat the riff is easier with
just some free below. So plentiful thing
here, so it's crushed. And then if, if it
goes up, down again, E-flat G, slides 5 is held above. Then
finishing on the C. You can practice that nice and slowly and then you
can speed it up. You need to make
sure that you stick with this swung
rhythm like this. 123.4. So start off by practicing
that riff in your right hand. And then once you've
got control of it, it's just a question of adding it over the
top of the left hand. And I'm gonna be
showing you using the jumping left-hand pattern
that we've been working on. So here it is with both
hands, nice and slow. So it starts on
the one together. And then your thumb goes
to the GI in-between. Then together again on the two. Then your three-five on
E-flat G in-between. Then together here at your third is going to
slapped onto the anion. Right. C is in-between again. Your left hand
players on the phone. I'm going to play a bit faster
now with a certain rhythm. And then once with
the timing, 12.3. Okay, so that is it
with both hands. So have a go with this. And it might be a good idea just to start off playing over the top of just the C
card in the left hand. So don't worry about playing the different jumps with their left arm to the
F and the G, etc. Just stay on the
sea card like this. So practice that
with both hands. Make sure you get full control of it
because then it'll be much easier to integrate
into your improvising. In the next lecture, I'll
quickly show you how to play it. On the F card. I'd also the G chord.
25. Crushed/Slide Notes: Let's add some crushed or
slide notes into the mix. So if you've just learned
there were some crush notes, but we're just going to have
a quick look at them so you can start improvising
using them as well. Of course, if
you're already very familiar with using crush notes, feel free to skip, but for
the moment, let's continue. So they're generally
played using semitones or half-steps and played very quickly like this. You can pretty much slide
from any notes you want, as long as you finish on a note from the scale that
you're playing. For example, if we're using the scale of
the C minor blues, you could slide from
notes outside of it and move into it with a
semitone, a half-step. You see, use a C-sharp
than two. So it does work. But quite often people slide
from the flattened fifth, which in this case would
be the G flat, F sharp. So you could slide from there. Oh, cut off people's
slide from the third. So they could slide from the
E-flat to the E natural. And you'll see that in
the common blues riff. So when you are playing from
a black to a white key, I would suggest using the same thing as
it sounds smoother. But if you're sliding
up to a black sheet, you'll have to use two
different fingers. So have a go at playing
some slide notes with this, see monopolies and see
what you can come up with.
26. Octave Harmony: Adding an octave harmony TO scales can really live
and up you're playing. And it's used all the time
by blues musicians, e.g. so as you could see then, I was adding octave, harmony, minor blue scale. And all of a sudden, it, That's not really stylish
sound that you'll recognize from all sorts
of different boost tracks. So you can either repeat the seat at the
bottom of the scale. Add the octave c
above, like this. You may have to slightly
adjust the fingering to what you've already learned in
order to do either of these. So if you're doing it below, I would suggest maybe just doing the first four
notes of the scale. So you go through the minor blue scale and
each time you move up, you repeat the sea underneath. That's quite nice
thing to be able to just quickly add in
underneath there like this. You can add that in
anywhere really. But if you want it
to go all the way up the scale with
the sea underneath, you have to adjust.
And usually five. From the GI, they have
to go up to the B flat. Five again. If you're adding
the octave above, you have to again
adjust the fingering. If already done. I would suggest this fingering, 51525 to 5353 gain and 54. And then you can
just go back down. The same fingering,
type, 3535252. I'll just go through that. On the octave. You can play these
octave harmonies. Anywhere on the piano, you
could play it down here. I could play it up
here. So practice this scale with the
octave harmonies until you feel comfortable. And you've got used
to the fingering. Because when you've
got used to it, you can then start to
play around with it and integrate it
into improvising. You don't always have
to go up and down. You can change the order of the notes and play
around with the rhythms. Added a crescendo underneath. Mixing up. Then you can play
around and just well. In the next lecture,
we'll go over an exercise that will
help me to integrate the octave harmony of the 12th bar blues
in the left hand.
27. Octave Harmony - Swung 8ths Exercise: Alright, now let's
integrate that. So you can get used to playing the octave harmony along
with the left-hand pattern. So I put together another
exercise for you to learn. This is what it sounds like. And I'm also going
to play along with a backing track. Here we go. Okay, so that's what it
sounds like. Nice, right? So the right hand is basically the C minor blues
using the octave harmony. And it just goes
from a C E-flat, F, F sharp to the G, doesn't go up to the B-flat. The fingering is like I suggested in the
previous lecture. So you're gonna go to
52 and then three. And then three that again, five above on the C each time. And then the timing
is 1.2 and 3.4. So with that strong harmony, then that would repeat
itself 1.2 and 3.4. And then just goes down
again using the same nodes, 1.2 and 34, and 1.2 and 3.4. So that's the right
hand. It just goes to up, then two down. And then that just repeats
itself over the top of the left-hand slow blues
pattern that we've been using. And then as far as
putting them together, the left-hand stats on the one, and then the right hand
comes in on the end that this one and 2.3. And then the next
bar, one and 2.3. And see that then the
way down said rhythm. And two. And 3.4 and 1.2 and 3.4 will continue 12.3 and speeding up slightly once the g. But then as usual, you can repeat that exercise round
when you're doing it. Or you can just
finish on the sea.
28. Octave Harmony - Swung 8ths Exercise (Simplified Left Hand): Here is the same exercise, but with the slightly
easier left-hand, which is without the jumps. For those of you that
are using this approach, the right-hand lick is the same, but it's just on top
of the left hand. Without the jumps. Yeah. So together, I'm just going to show you
a couple of bars together. Then I play the full thing. Starts on the left. The right hand follows
on the end, 1234123. And you see that then it
just continues 12341234. So that's the basic premise. That's what happened in there. Your right hand is play that riff over the top
of the left hand. So try and get used
to that nice and slowly than it can
build up the speed. I'm just going to clear it now all the way through
from start to finish. And I'm also going to play
along with the backing track.
29. What You've Learnt So Far - Etude/Practice Piece: So far, you've learned quite
a few different techniques. And it's all building on this slow 12 bar blues
pattern in the left hand. So what I've done is I've
put together a short, a 2D, which is a musical
composition designed to help you to practice
certain skills or techniques on the piano. And there will be more of these attitudes
throughout the course, getting more advanced
as you progress. This is the first one and it's pretty
straightforward really, is combining all the
exercises you've done so far. So it's just alternating between the different
techniques you've learned. This is what it sounds like. Alright, so that's what it
sounds like. Nice, right? All it's doing is alternating between either the
octave harmony, the rocking first riff, and the Minor Blues scale
rhythms every 2 bar. So it's a nice, simple way to combine everything
you've learned so far. It sounds like a nice
blues piece as well. Again, it's an exercise
so you can repeat round and round if you
want to go for it. But I just played it wants
through the 12-bar blues, just that if you did want to break free of this pattern of alternating between two
and just go straight into improvising using
everything we've done. Feel free to do that.
We will look a bit more of that in the next lesson, but this is a bit
more structured for those of you that need
it. So let's look at it. This won't take
long to go through because if you've been
following the course, you should already
be able to play. All of this is just a question of putting
the different parts together. So it starts off with the octave harmony lick that you just did in the
previous lecture. For 2 bar. And then the rocking third riff. And then it's the
Minor Blues scale, but with a swung rhythm. For the next 2 bar. Then the octave
harmony lift again, but coming down the next 2 bar. And then for the next 2 bar It's triplet eighths with
the C minor blue scale. So starting from the top, bottom to top again, petition on the B-flat. And then finally, here,
the octave harmony. Going down. Then here it just a slight
changes to break it up. It goes back to the
rocking thirds risks. So it's not a repeat of the
same one. Rocking thirds ref. And then if you want, you
can repeat that round again as many times as you want until it's
comfortable and smooth to play. Then when you want to finish it, you can just finish
on a C7 chord. And of course the
phone, you can also try playing that along with
the backing tracks.
30. Building the Improv: Now, I'd like you
to have a go at improvising with what
you've learned so far. This includes the Minor
Blues scale in C with the swung rhythms,
the triplet eighths. Then the triplet 16th, which were twice as quick. The crush nuts, the
octave harmony, and then the rocking thirds. So have a play around to see
if you can include all that. Now some of you may find this more challenging than others. If it feels too tricky
to move fluidly between the different
rhythms and techniques at the moment. One thing which may help
is just being able to focus on what you're
dealing with a right hand. So what I've done is I've included the backing
track with this lecture, which is playing through the
12 bar blues four times. And it's got some piano
in there as well. So all you need to
do is just focus on the different techniques and
rhythms in your right hand. And that is also something which I want you to
think about as well. If you can try and break out
of just using the same line, just going up and down with
the exact rhythm per bar. If you can try and
play around with the rhythms and the orders
of the notes as well. Syncopation really does
add a lot to improvising. Syncopation, meaning
playing off of the beat. For example, you could
use that swim with them, but just playing
on the off 1234. And that's just a short example. I am going to include
a lecture which will focus more on playing
around with rhythms. But if you can, right now, Just have a go, just so
you can see what I mean. I'm now going to do a quick
improvisation myself, and I'll include
everything we've looked at so far. Here we go.
31. Slow Blues - Chromatic Transitions & Turnaround: To add some variety
to the left hand, you can add some
passing notes and also a turnaround using a walk. Here's what they sound like. Skin here, those little dots
between the normal pattern. Again, yeah. Some awesome and up, walk up. Then he can go round again. Fish in the sea. So there's a couple of new techniques
and your left hand there, which adds some real variety. I wasn't doing too much
and my right hand there, I just wanted you
to be able to hear what the new left hand
technique sounds lame. So to include this
technique in your plane, what you do is before you hit the root of the next
card, play a note, a semitone, or half-step above or below to where
you are going to. For instance, if you are on the C chord and this four beats on the
last beat of that bar, you either play an E or an F sharp because you're
moving to the right. So you're going to play a
semitone below the semitone, up both the f as a
transition to the, select this 123,
the fourth beat, you're going to play a. And then it can be
bound to the F car. Yeah. The alternate would be given to the F
sharp or G flat. So if we're going to move
from an F down to a C, We're going to transition
to this C root here. So you can either play a, B on the fourth b,
then moved to the C. Yeah. Oh, go from the C
sharp or D flat. C. So if you're moving
from an F Codd, so 123, would it be first B, C. C caught that? Yeah. The alternate again, it would be from the
F, C sharp or D flat. That down to the sea ribs. Yeah. Let's just do one bar. So if you are going
from a C to a G, So our choices are either
read it from the F sharp or G flat on
the fourth beat, or moving from a to a G.
So if we go like that, yeah, I can see
123 go from above. Sometimes what you
might do is you might do to transition
or two semitones. So for example, on the
sea, you could do this. Again, technically, you could then go the other way
if you wanted to. You could go 123. Well, yeah. So using half-step semitones
is transitioned to the next card is a great
technique to be able to use for the turnaround
at the end, turnaround meaning a link which takes you back to
the start of the 12 bars. You can do a walk. It's called a walk-up, simply because you walk up
the notes to the next card. The last bar of the
12 is on the G, and the start of
the 12 bars is a C. So if you're on a G, You can walk up
through the notes, G, a, B-Flat, Fabio. Then you can route to the c. So let's just take you
from the sea before. So you'd go 1231. Yeah, background to the root of this C. But then what we can do is we can add an octave
and use the swinger written. And it sounds like this. Yeah, sounds cool, doesn't it? So what I did there showed you the simple one from the G here. So a middle C is
here, octave below, and then there, why did I drop the whole G it down
another octave? Then I played octaves. But with that swung rhythm
using those notes, G, a, B flat, B natural at this. Yeah, 1231. So what I want you
to do is learn a specific left-hand using
both of these techniques, then we can start
building on top of that left hand as well.
32. Left Hand Pattern With Chromatic Transitions & Turnaround Walk Up: So the left hand you're
going to learn now is this starts off
on the C here. Then you're gonna go to the E. Yeah. I then move up to the f. That down to the C-Sharp. The fourth beat of the bar
are then back to the sea. Then say it again. Then we move into the f card. So we're going to go to the
F sharp and then down to the F to say, but again, the transition
on the C-Sharp, C, C again. And here we're gonna
do to transition. So we're gonna go shop. Then up to the j, i, then the G flat. Now that the app,
just a novel CBA, they're not turned around to fall back around to the wall. So I'm now just
going to play that full left-hand part once more, nice and smoothly fire. So practice this left hand. So again, you can play it smoothly without stops
in-between the transitions. And if possible, from memory.
33. Turnaround Walk Up in Left Hand (Simple Version): I'm going to continue teaching this slower blue section using the jumping
left-hand version. Although if you
still find it too challenging to do as you progress through
the next lectures, all you need to do is
replace them or advanced left-hand with this
simpler version here. This simpler version also has a walk-up turnaround
with single nodes. So here we have just the same simplified left-hand
that you've been doing. If you've been using
this simpler approach. But with this walk-up on
the 12th bar, like this, G, a B-flat, B-natural, and
then back to the background, to the start of the 12th bars. So I'm just going to
play it once through, but hopefully that looks pretty
straightforward for you. Here we go. So like I said, I'm going
to continue the rest of this section using the jumping left-hand
version, this one. But if you do find it too challenging whilst we're adding all the extra skills
and techniques, then feel free to just use this simplified left-hand
version instead.
34. Syncopated Rhythms: In the previous lecture, I mentioned syncopation and how we can use it to create
more interesting rhythms. Now, syncopation is when you
are playing off of the main, be, the main beat being,
for instance, 1234. So off of the beat would
be in-between those beats. So 1234. So technically that is a
syncopated rhythm because you're playing off
of the main beat. So when you're
improvising rhythms, if you start to explore
using syncopation, it really can create more interesting rhythms and it can really start to explore. But most importantly,
it's also used a lot in this blues style
that we're learning. So some of you may just
be able to pick up and improvise these syncopated
rhythm straight away. But for those of you that need
a bit more encouragement, something you can do is just practice playing
off the beat. For example, we're gonna be
using the swung rhythm, 1234. But just practice
playing off the beat with this C minor blues that
we're using at the moment. For instance, 12341234. You see, so you
can straight away start doing syncopated rhythms, but then you can start to not play on every
single offbeat, but combine this
syncopated rhythm with the other rhythms
that you've been doing. For instance, 1234123134123. You see that I was
just mixing up the different rhythms with
those syncopated off base. I'm just going to add
a simple left-hand that's still a few
more, 1234233323123. So have a go at
that. Try exploring these off beat rhythms. If you wanted to recreate
what I was just doing then for this exercise
in the left hand, I was just doing four beats
per bar with the notes C, E flat, F sharp, or G flat. Then I was just using
the syncopated rhythms combined with the other ones
in the right hand, 12341233. So have a go and explore
these syncopated rhythms.
35. Slow Blues Lick 1: I'm going to give you
another small practice piece that I put together so that you can practice these new
left-hand chromatic transitions as well as the walker. But first, I'm
going to teach you a couple of blues licks
that you can use. Here is the first. Sounds cool, doesn't it? It's got some octave, harmony, crush nuts, as well as
the use of syncopation. So it starts off middle C here, up an octave and then
onto the F sharp, the C above, with a
third of your fifth. Then you're going
to crush from the F sharp to the CI, this. I'll play it slower. Yeah. And then you're gonna go down with your second
finger onto the F, again playing the seat above. Then your thumb is gonna
go to the sea below. And then you're gonna go to on the E-flat
again, see above. Then your thumb down to the sea. That's the first half. Timing wise. Like I said,
it's using syncopation. The first notes come
on the end after the wall, not this one. And then on the second bit here, you've got a triplet with them, but you don't play on the
first part of the triplet. So with a trip per lit, you're gonna go like this, trip, trip per one. And then the two and the five and the E-flat
and C is on the three. Then the C comes on the
end and fall like this. One. Trip 3.4. What's my slightly slower one? And 3.4. And that's it. Then the
second half of the lift is pretty much the same except it doesn't go down to
this C at the end. Like this. The timing is the same as well. One and 3.4. The same except it doesn't go down to the sea,
like I just said. So I'm gonna play the
full lift enough for you. Then once more with
the counting 3.4 and 1.3 and 4.1 and 3.4. Okay, so practice that and
if you can't memorize it. And then in the next lecture, I've got another link
for you to learn.
36. Slow Blues Lick 2: This one is incorporating the rocking thirds risks that
you've already learned. But with just a bit on the end. Here's what it sounds like. So like I said,
it's incorporating that rocking third riff. Starts off the same. But before you went like
that and finish that. But here, when it comes to the third and the fifth
and the F and the G, you can slide it
third up to the e, but then it goes into
a triplet with them, with your third on the E, second on the sea. On the G. Then triplet rhythm carries
on third of the top, onto the second on the
D sharp or E flat. And then your thumb is
going to come under fire. On the E natural. Then it's going to hold, and then your phi is going
to play the seat belt. So that new part is doing this. And also if you can
when you do the first 321 there on the ECG, if you can hold the
G above like this. That'll be nice. Then. So altogether, you've got this. Then with the timing, one trip. And that's it. So practice that until you've
got it in their bag. And then we're going to use those two links in the attitude, which also includes the
chromatic passing notes. And octave woke up in the
left-hand, which sounds cool. You'll hear it in
the next lecture.
37. Slow Blues Licks 1 & 2 Practice Piece - Etude 2: So here's that practice
piece that I mentioned. And the main aim for it
being a way for you to practice the left-hand
chromatic transitions, as well as the octave
walk-up turnaround. First of all, I'll play it to you so you can hear
what it sounds like. And I'm also going to play it
along with a backing track. There we are. So
let's take a look. You should have already
learned the separate parts. It's just a question of
putting them together. Then if we take a look
at the right-hand, it pretty much alternates
between the blues lick one and the blues lick two. Except for the last
four bars where it just plays the blues
lick one twice through. Now let's take a look at
combining the right-hand blues licks with the
left-hand jumping pattern. So it starts off with the
left hand on the one, and then the right-hand
pairs on the end. Then the left-hand pleasant
or to the right hand is playing the triplet. So trim. And then together on the three. And then the thumb
Kim's in on the end. And then the left
hand goes to the E on the phone, like this, one, trip and fall. And that's the first bar. And then the second bar. The left-hand players
on the one again, one trick. That three. And the same rhythm, the first part and the
right hand, except again, you're not coming
down to the sea. Those two-pass together. 134134. Okay, That's the first to pass. The next two bars. You've got the blues lick to the right. It starts together 12. And then here, trip, trip together on the 1234. Again, 121234. So that's the timing. Then it's just a
question of playing those right hand licks of the correct place
in the left hand. I'm going to continue. So then it moves
on to the F bar, and it's back to the
blues lick 11313, down to the C-sharp. And then back to the sea card with the blues lick
to the right, 13. Your left hand is going
to jump down to the F, then the F sharp, and then
go on to the G bar here. Back to the blues lick one here, 1234, left hand, and the G-flat continues
onto the F bar 13. And then here, it doesn't go to the loosely to hear
like we've been alternating, it stays on another blue one. And your right hand,
left hand side is C 13. And then on the 12th bar, It's got that walking
pattern for the turnaround. And then it's the right-hand is the second half
of the blues lick. Well, so putting them together, left hand is on the wall. Well, then together on the
left hand moves on its own, on the two and it's
triplet, trip. See that trip. And then again on the three
together, three. And I get on the 12th bar, one Tripp, three. And so now I'm just going to play the full
piece nice and slowly. So you've got
something to refer to. That allowance account
while some play. Well, 3131, 3231313123131, and done 31313. Then you can repeat back round and flat as many
times as you want. I can just finish on
a C. It's up to you. I hope you have fun
practicing that one. I think it's a nice pizza learn. And it'll help you
get full control over that left and pattern. And if you do get
full control of it, it may also be
nice to play along with the backing tracks.
38. Chromatic 3rds with Octaves Turnaround: So as you can hear, the
slope blue sound we're creating is really
starting to come together. Now let's introduce a great
sounding turn-around. This is what it sounds like. Alright, so that's what you're
going to be learning now. It's really cool when
you can throw that in as a turnaround at
the end of the 12 bar. It's also sounds quite
cool, uses an introduction. But anyway, first of all, let's look at the basic
cards behind this. Because if you understand
the basic cards behind it, then you can create
variations of it. So first of all, it starts off with a
seed, and then it's a C7. Then it's a C diminished. Then we've got an F minus six. And it will have
a C in the bass, C, F minus six year inverted. And then back to the
C column, C major. So what you can do
is with those card, you can invert them and
you can break them up, like I said, to create
different versions, because this is quite
a common turnaround. You'll probably
recognize that the vibe, and there's lots of
different variations you can do to learn the specific one that I showed you just before. This
is how you play it. So starting off with the
right-hand middle C is here, and it starts off
on the C above. You're going to play
that with your fifth. And they're going to come down the middle seat and then backup. And then you're going to take you to your second finger here. But on the D-Sharp, and then your third on the
G. And then you're going to crush or slider second
onto the E Like this. Yeah. Nice and slow. Then you're going to go back up to the
CBA and then to the middle. See, that first part is, and then you're going
to go with it again. Second and third finger to
the left by a half step to D sharp, F sharp. Then you're going to go back
up to the C, and then again, thumb down to the middle C. And then you're going to take
your first film and then U2 on the D and the F. And then it's back up to
the seat and back down again. Now, you might be able to
see what's going on here. I've called this turnaround
the chromatic thirds with octaves turnaround in C. The reason is because in
the middle of it there, you've got the in the G, and then you've got
the D-Sharp, that df. So that's just going down by
chromatic, their half-steps. And then again, you've got another just
chromatic set there onto the d and the f with
octave Cs in-between. That also might help
you to memorize it. So that's the first half
and the right hand. The second half, you can
move your hand down. Third finger is
gonna be on the D sharp and the fifth
and the G above. Then you're going to
slide again onto the IV. And then you're gonna go
second finger of the sea. Foam is gonna go down to
the chief below that. And then you're going
to go with it too. And your five of the F sharp, and then the D-Sharp. And then you're going
to just go down a half step to the
left, to the end. And the d. So the second half. Then it just as far
as timing goes, it's merely all triplets
apart from the last, which is back to the swirl. So all of it is
drip, drip, drip. That's the right-hand part. The left-hand doesn't come in on the first beat, but
the second beat, you're gonna go
fifth on the C below middle C and the B flat. And then the seeds hands underneath and the
right hand, again, it's just gonna be going
down by chromatic x, that it's playing two
on top each time, B-flat twice, twice, twice. And then the same touchy. And then you're going to go down to the left of your hand. Second finger on the
F-sharp down here. And your thumb is
gonna go up to the G. And then it's gonna
go a full octave lower there. And then
straight back up. A second part of the left hand is the left hand is
pretty much all swore. 1.2 and 34 and 1.2 and 3.4. And then together nicely
slow, fast the ball. And then just on that
second part there, when it come to this part, that you might have to lift your left thumb up because
your right hand takes over it. You see that? Then what smart I'm just going to count through 123,123.4. So that turnaround sounds
really cool when you get full fluency I've read. So if you can practice that until he
can play it from memory. And if it does feel
a bit tricky for those of you that
want an alternative, I'm going to show you a slightly easier version in
the next lecture.
39. Chromatic 3rds Turnaround - Easier Variation: Here is a slightly
easier version of that chromatic third turnaround for those of you that
would prefer it. This is what it sounds like. So here's how to play it. Your right hand starts with a, C and a, and then it
goes up to the df, and then the D sharp, F sharp, and then
goes to the GI price. And then the E flat and B flat. And then the, again twice. And then they see an E. So we'll just finish
it off in a second. But again, this is the reason why it's called the chromatic thirds because it's moving
in half or chromatids. Here. Can you see that? Then to finish off, they
just played this C, and then it goes down over
the top to the F sharp, D sharp with the
tyranny of five. Then the F and the D with you. So many fights. The right-hand path altogether, it's this tiny wise. It's pretty much all using the swung rhythm part
of the first beat, which is just a triplet. 3123. The left hand is
nice and simple. Again, it's moving in half-steps or chromatic, the B-flat. And then it just
an a, then a flat. And then, and then
it finishes off with a F-sharp down here and energy. So it's just adding
them together. Right hand starts with
a triplet on its own. Yeah. And then what
xbar with the timing? 123234. So that there is
another variation of the chromatic
third turnaround. So that as we progress
through this section, if I use a more
advanced turnaround, feel free to replace it with this version. If you want to.
40. C7 Tremelo Chord Finish: Okay, So this is just
a quick one for you. At the moment, we've
been developing these skills and
techniques so far. And the progression has been with the turnaround
on the 12th bar, which takes you
back to the stat. Sometimes I've been saying, if you want to finish
just end on a C7, here's just a quick
technique that you can use while you're
finishing cards, which is a tremolo
card on the C7. They sound like this. So I'll just go from
the last four bars of the 12th on the G. So that is a tremolo car there. But all I'm doing is I'm
playing the root in the left. And then the C7 card,
I'm breaking up, I'm playing the third E. And
then I'll play the seven, which is the B flat. But I'm rocking on that. That's slowed down a lot faster. Yeah. What you do is you can hit it with the
card first of all, and then you follow
up with a tremolo. So that is a technique you can use on your cards at the end, the C7 tremolo card.
41. Blues Licks 1 & 2 Etude 2 (with Chromatic 3rds Octave Turnaround): Let's put those
turnaround into practice. And to do this, we're
going to include them in the blues licks one and to practice piece that
you've just learned, which was the second attitude. And all you need to do is
play it exactly the same. But when you get to the 11th, 12th bar, you're going
to play the turnaround. So you can either choose the chromatic third
octave turnaround or the slightly simplified one. Whichever one you prefer. I'm going to play the chromatic
third octave turnaround. And also just to say, when I showed you it just before the right-hand
started on its own there. But I'm going to include a low C on the first
beat like this. Yeah, You don't have to do that, but if you want, That's
what I'm going to be doing. Yeah, and so on. So you can include that
low C if you want. Now, I'll just quickly
show you how that fits in. I'll take it from the ninth bar, which was on the G chord. And in the practice
piece you would just playing the blue one
here in the right. Here we go. Then the F bar. Then here is where the
turnaround fits in. Then you'd go back around
to the star and so on. So that's how it fits in. If you've already learned
that achieved properly. And also the turnaround, it's just a question of fitting the turnaround on
the 11th, 12th bar. And just quickly, for those
of you that are choosing to play this slightly
easier turnaround. Here's how it fits in as well. From a G chord again on
the ninth bar and hearing. And then again you could go
back to the star and so on. So that's how it fits in. And just one other thing, I'm also going to include that tremolo C7 chord that
we've just looked at as well. So what I'm going
to do, I'm going to play the whole practice piece. And because we're
playing this turnaround, I'm going to play you at twice. Because the turnaround is going to take you back to the start. Then the second time through, I'm still going to play
the octave turnaround. I'm going to keep it the same. But when I get to the 12th bar, I'm going to play one
extra bar just to finish on a C7 chord. But I'm also going to include that tremolo seven
at the end. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going
to just play it through so you can hear
what it sounds like. Alright, have fun with that. And in the next
lecture we're going to build on this even more.
42. Progressing in Blues - Etude 3: Like I said, we're
now going to build on that practice piece that
you've just been playing. So what we're going
to do is instead of playing the chromatic third
turnaround on the 11th, 12th bar, we're going to use it as an introduction
to the 12th bars. And then we're going to play
the 12th bars twice through. And then on the second
group of 12 bars, it's going to be played on
the 11th and 12th bath. It will make sense when I show
you where we're basically taking the blues licks
wanted to achieve. But we're playing
around with it with that in mind to
add some variety, rather than just alternating
between the two blues licks. Every time we're going
to include some of the minor Blues runs and techniques you've
already learned as well. This is designed to
help you to get used to jumping between the
different techniques and eventually lead you into improvising full pieces
all on your own. So I'm going to show you
how it all fits together. But first, I'm going to play you it so you can hear
what it sounds like. And I'm also going to
play along with a track. Okay, so that's what
it sounds like now. I'll just walk you through it. So it starts off with the
octave turnaround lick. And like I said,
it's a turnaround, but it also sounds good
as an introduction. So it starts off with
this turnaround, but of course you
can replace it with the simpler one if you want. This bit is the same
as the one to a 2D. Please let one on
the right hand, left hand with the transitions. Here, we're going to go
into the C minor blues, swung eighths, two octaves. Back to the blues lick one. Then here, the blue is
linked to in the riot. Then here on the G, the 11th bar, we're
going to go to the C Minor Blues
triplet eighth. So the trip, trip down to then here, the left hand is just
going to stay the same as the person you've
previously learned. And then it's gonna
do the optic cup. And the right hand if you want, you can just use a
blues lick one or two. But here I've just
included something different just for a
bit of extra variety. Here's what it sounds
like on its own. Yeah. So just to slow that down, Let's go into the E events. Yeah. Then you fall off, is you're gonna go to the G,
going to crush from the F sharp to the third E-flat. Then you're going to
do the third on the F sharp to the G with
a C above that. Then you're going
to play B-flat. Just play the first part for
that and I'll finish it off. Yeah. And then to finish it off again, it's just using the same
amount of blues here. You're going to crush
from the F sharp to the f again with your third, then second on the E-flat, and then some on the sea. That's two bars on the C bar and then the G bar
at the end of that 12th. So I'm just going to flip what
smart but with the timing. So you've got 1231234. Again, we've got some
nice syncopation. The end there are 1234. Then I'll show you that
part with both hands. 123 to three. And just to draw your
attention to something. So it starts here on the 123. The right hand comes in on the end after the three and then it's
together on the file. Yeah. The case That's the end of the first 12 files.
Let's say 12. We're not including the
introduction in that 12th. Then you go to the star. So the C minor, here's the two triplet. Okay, then this is going
to bring it to an end. Now, you're just gonna go
round to the second time here. It's the chromatic
third turnaround lake. But I'm going to
play the last seat at the start of it as well. Another fourth bit there.
You can leave it empty. I'm going to play an F and a C. And then I'm going to play a C7, which is going to
be, if I'm saying, then I'm going to play that
C7 terminal car like this. To finish. Three. If you want anything, just plunk the end
on a C as well. So that's how you
fit it altogether. So work through
that nice and slow. So you can get the
transition smooth and comfortable and then you
can gradually speed it up. Then eventually you can
play along with the tracks. First of all, play it
perhaps with a slower one. And then when you can do that, you can always try it with
a one at 70 bpm as well. So feel free to download the two backing tracks that go with this piece
of music as well.
43. Alternating Swung & Triplet Exercise (With Left Hand Chromatic Transitions): This lecture is extra
curricular really, along with learning
specific licks, risks, and techniques, a big part of this course is giving you the skills to
be able to improvise. And so with that in mind, to give you the ability
to improvise with a minor blue scale over
those chromatic transitions. And the walk-up turnaround. Here is an exercise
which alternates between the triplet and thrilled
aids in the right hand. This is what it sounds like. Alright, so that's
what it sounds like. And hopefully it
shouldn't be too tricky because like all the things in this class we're
building up to it. You've already learned the
left-hand pattern with the chromatic transitions
and the octave walk-up. And you've already done
the right-hand minor scale with those rhythms as well. So it's just a question
of putting it together, unlike in the previous exercise
earlier in the course, this one is just alternating between the swung rhythm and
then the triplet rhythm. And it's just moving
up and down again, two octaves from
middle C to TCS above. You may just be able to
play it straight away. But for those of you that
need a bit more help, I'm going to walk through
it slowly for you. So like I said, it starts off
with the swollen with them. So right hand starting on
the end after the wall. Well, okay, and then we're on
to the triplet from here, repeating the talk. Then going back up again. Okay, that takes the B-flat. And then you don't
play the C yet. You play the left-hand of
the F, the swung rhythm. Okay, and then went
back to the triplet. So we're repeating the
seat, the bottom here. The left hand. Thus transitions. Then you go down to the
G bar and you're left on the ninth bar,
right-handed swell. Still swell. On the F bar. Then triplets again. Welcome to the left hand. The k. Then you can repeat background or you can stop
it and finish on Etsy. But just to take another
look at that last bar there. So your right hand to
play the triplets. The left hand is playing
the octave walk-up, but he played together. Think about it in three. So your right hand is
going 123123123123. The left hand is playing on
the wall and the three with each octave, 12312312, 123. And then together 123123123123. And that's how we put
that last part together. And then yeah. Okay. So I just said that is an extra curricular exercise
that you can learn, but it will definitely help
you to get used to playing the mandible East Hill in
your right hand over the top of the left and jumps when
the chromatic transitions, which will mean that
eventually you'll be able to easily improvise
over the top of it.
44. Octave Harmony Triplet Rhythms Exercise: You've already done an
octave harmony exercise with swung rhythms. Now, I'd like you
to have a go at doing them with triplet rhythms and be able to play
up to harmony with triplet rhythms can add a
really great sound too. You're improvising, for example. So these octave triplets, so a little bit faster. You play all the way up to the B-flat and back down like this. And because of that, it
requires using the fourth, fifth fingers at the
same time at speed. So it may feel a
bit tricky on top. And some of you might
require a bit of practice to get the strength
up at the top there. So first of all,
practice going through the C minor blue scale with
the octave harmony on top. B flat as well. This time, you can use
the same fingering, except you need too far
from the B-flat there. I don't want you to get used
to it in the right hand. You can play it over the top
of the left-hand pattern, along with the extra
transition notes and the walk-up turnaround. And we added, turned into
a great sounding exercise. Here it is. So it may sound a
little bit repetitive, but it's really about technique. It's getting you to build
up the strength and stamina and your right hand
playing that octave harmony. So then eventually
you'll be able to fluidly improvise along
with that octave harmony. And then of course,
also been able to get the coordination
to play on top of that left hand jumping pattern. With the transitions are the octave walk on
the right hand, this is the same all
the way through. It's just a question
of making sure you're playing it
in the right place. So as I said, it's using
the triplet rhythm. But you're not
going to play it on the first beat of the bar, but then you're going
to plan the rest of the triplets like this. 1234. If I count the triplets,
it may be clearer. Trip, trip Perla. Can you hear that? Triple? Let triple, let,
triple, let triple. So basically play with every triplet beat
apartment the first. Then it's just a question
of putting it together. So you're left on his
painting on the wall and then your right hand
starts after that. So like this trip trip. Trip. And it just carries on. The left, starts
with time on it. Once you've got the coordination
salted for one bar, because you've already
let the left hand. You should be able to play
the whole thing quite easily. The only power which may
feel different rhythmically is the 12th bar because
of the walker pattern. If you just take a
quick look at this, when you put this part together, the left hand is swung and
the right hand is triplets. But the swung rhythm is playing
on the one on the three of a triplet with
them, 123123123123. So putting them
together, the first P, You just playing on
the wall and the three together like this. 12312323123. So that's the best way
to think about that bar. Your hand to play together on the first and the
third of the triplet, except the first b on the left
on its own, 123123123123. Now I'm just going
to play it through once, nice and slowly. So you've got something
for a reference. Wow.
45. Major Blues Scale: Using the major blues scale as a contrast against the Minor Blues scale when improvising, it makes a really
big difference to the sound that you can create. Especially over the top of this slow blues
chord progression, e.g. yes. It also is a short
example of the contrast between the major
and the minor blues. And when you combine
them, Sounds great. So these are the notes, the C Major Blues. We've got the C, D, E-flat, E, G, a, and then C. Here we go again. And fingering. You can kind of play
around with it, but I would suggest starting
off with the 1231234. And then the same
back down, 321321. If you're gonna go
up another octave, you can go 1231231. Yeah, and then you can
carry on for the top. And that's that, it's
reasonably simple. Practice that C major
blues scale until you know the notice and the fingering
perfectly and from memory. And in the next lecture, I've got another exercise that will help you to
get used to playing it over the top of the left-hand
pattern we're working with in order to give you the skills so you can
improvise with it.
46. Practice Improv Play Along with the Major Blues Scale: Hopefully now you feel
comfortable playing the major blues
scale over the top of that left hand
jumping pattern. Let's try moving away from the structure of those exercises and have a go at improvising with a major blue scale
in the right hand. So if you can try
to move away from just going up and
down the scale, you can go around in circles. And you can play around
with the rhythm. That's one of the most
important things. Mixing up those swung rhythms
and the triplet rhythms, as well as if he can playing around with
the rhythms even more. And also, I know that at
this point in the course, you've learned lots
of other risks, skills and techniques. But for the moment,
just focus on using the blue scale
in your right hand, just so you can really get control over it in
improvising, e.g. it's just playing around
the rhythms here. I was actually
playing in the sum, nice to passion and so on. So that was just a little
example of what you'd have a go at improvising with
major blue scale. Some of you might be
able to straightaway start improvising
with that new scale. But for those of
you that need it, this next part is up to you. So you can focus
on this new scale. I'm going to play the
left-hand pattern. And I'd like you to
start off playing around with a major blue
scale over the top. So if you feel confident enough
to try straightaway with both hands for this is just a way for you to
introduce it more gently. And I'm also going to play
along with the backing track. And so you've got
plenty of opportunities to play around with this
scale in your right hand. We're going to go through
the 12th bar form four times, All-in-all. So have a play around
and see what you can come up with. Let's go.
47. Major Blues Scale Exercise - Triplet 8ths: So that you can become
comfortable playing this scale over the
jumping left-hand pattern. Here is the blue
scale exercise with the triplet rhythms you did earlier with the eight
dots are quavers, except with the major blue scale instead in the right hand. And I'm going to show
you what it sounds like along with a backing track. So as you can see there, it's the same as the
triplet exercise. You're alert with a minor scale, except with the major
scale in the right hand. So if you've already
learned it properly, it shouldn't take you
too much practice to get this under
control as well. So the left hand is the same, the jumping pattern with
a chromatic transition. And at the end I
used to walk up, but I just did it one time through the finish
on the C at the end. If you are using any of
the simpler left hand, of course, you can
do that instead. It's just the right
hand, which we just need to apply the major blues scale. So this exercise is just
using two octaves again from Missy, Cs above. But going through the
major blues scale like this, far the top. And hopefully you've
already practiced that in the previous lecture. So it's just a question
of putting it together. So there's three notes of the major blues scale and you're right if everyone in your left. So now I'm just going to
walk you through it nice and slowly for those
of you that need it. But some of you might just be able to do this straightaway. So it starts off here, underneath and then
onto the F bar, right? That's coming together there. And then back on the
same. It's just the same. Your right hand. Done here. Together. The transition and
then onto the F bar, X bar transpose again, and then back to the C. Now to transitions here under
the ninth power with the G in the left, to the app. And then finally C bar,
and then the walker. And then again, with that, walk down the 12th bar, you've got the triplet
rhythm and you're right, but your left hand
is doing the swirl. See your left hand is playing
on the wall and the three, if that triplet at this, 123123123123 and then on the sea. So again, this is an
exercise that's just going to give you the ability to be able to improvise
that major blue scale over the top of that
left hand pattern. So practice it
until you complete smoothly without any stops, nice and slowly first, and then you can
gradually speed it up. And of course you can
try playing along with the backing tracks as well.
48. Major Blues Scale Exercise - Swung 8ths: Here is the same exercise, but with the swung rhythm applied to the major blue scale. And again, I'll show
you what it sounds like along with
the backing track. Okay. Again, you already
know all these parts. The left-hand button,
the right-hand scale, and you're already
familiar with the rhythm. So it's just a question
of putting them together. So like with the other
swung eighths exercise, using the minor
scale when you're putting together
your left hand stops on its own and then your
right hand follows this one. And let you see that. And then it just
carries on like that. One thing I will say is just
to do with the fingering, which I think will
make it easier. Start on your warm. But then rather than coming underneath, if you go too far and then you
flip on the repeated, see. Yeah. And then on the way down, 321321 here, flip stretch
too far from the repeated. See again, just make it
easier, but it's up to you. That's why I just did it. But if you want to stick to the 12312312312344321321
here, 1321321. That might feel a
little bit tricky on the way down with
this swung rhythm. The here you might want to
change it to this 432132. But again, that is just
preference with the fingering. So I'm just going
to play through it once now, nice and slowly. So you've got
something to refer to. So again, your left hand starts, your right hand follows
the status of each bar, f bar. Back to see two transitions to the G. By that, Let's see walk-up, finishing on the C. And then just wants on that 12th Barrett
again on the backup. You just playing together here. Unlike the triplet
bond, but again, not playing on the
wall at this one. The left-hand plot down. To finish on the C O, you can repeat it if
you want. There you go. Again. This is just an exercise so you can get used to playing those rhythms over the top of the left-hand jumps and
everything like that. So get full control of that. And then in the next lecture, we're going to have a
look at improvising with this major blue scale.
49. Improvisation Mixing the Major & Minor Blues Scales: Once you've got control over the major blues scale and you feel like you
can improvise with it. You can then start
to integrate it into the other stuff
you've learned so far. In this lecture, I just
want you to have a go at improvising with both the minor and the major
blues scales. So try mixing between them. If you want, you can
add other techniques and risks you've learned so far. But the main focus here is to get used to moving between the minor and the major blues
scales in C, for example. So have a go at improvising using both of those scales
in your right hand. If you do want to focus
just on your right hand, you can go to the
previous lecture and use that left-hand
practice piece that I did along with
that backing track or if you wanted to itself, but again, focused
on your right hand. You can just go back to a more basic left hand so
you can take out the transitions
in your left hand or even you can just
go to the basic carbs, which isn't earlier in the
class. It's up to you. But have a go and
see what happens.
50. A Classic Blues Chords Rocking Riff: Now let's take a look at
some classic blues riffs that we can integrate with
this slow blues pattern. So a classic blues riff would
be something like this. If you took my beginner's costs, you will already be able
to play this in the key of G. We can use these classic card patterns over the left hand Blues
pattern that we're learning. But we need to use it sparingly because I don't
really like the sound of it if we use it all
the way through e.g. it sounds okay. But for me it sounds like
just a little bit too much. So if you're going to use it, I would suggest utilizing that rocking pattern
in improvising, but as I said, sparingly to make it
sound more effective. And especially
sounds good If you play around with the
rhythms bar as well, e.g. and so on. So you get the idea of
using it here and there. And it's just a nice change
to the stuff we've been doing so far over the
top of this left hand. So if you don't
know them already, I'm going to take you through this rocking pattern
over the C chord, the F chord, and a G chord. So first of all, in C. So you can put it
anywhere on the piano. I'm going to show you up
here one octave above middle C. So it starts off with
their thumb on the sea. Then you're gonna
put your two on the D-Sharp and then
you're three on the CI, but your two is going to
slide up to the E like this. So this may feel familiar with the other stuff we've
been doing as well. Similar to the rocking
from the fifth. But instead the hump position is different from the start to see that it's going to
rock to the sea again. And then you're gonna
go too far up to the F, and then back down to the sea. Then you can go up to the
F sharp with your two. Then you're going to crush
from F sharp onto the gene, the B slot down and
then back down, then back down to
the F and the a, and then back down
to the sea again. So the C is coming
in-between each time, which is why it's the rocking
pattern because you keep rocking back to the sea to
show you that full thing. Then that would be 1
bar, then it could carry on round
again, if you will. So practice that over the sea card until you
feel comfortable with it. And then you can move
on to this form, which is f. Again, you can play this anywhere. But I'm going to show up here. So the F here, it's the same pattern but just from the f. So you're
going to slide your second finger from
the G-sharp to the a with a CBO like this. And then a 2.4 on
the fret of the D. Then you're going
to go be natural here. That's gonna be the crescendo onto the sea. A decent on top. Yet might have to push
your hand into the piano in order to fifth
finger to reach that E-flat above their head, back down to the B flat. There. Dave, the tuned for
that full secrets, that is. Then if you repeat that as
many times as you want, once you've got control of it. Like I said, don't use it all the time over the left-hand. You'll use it
sparingly, but yeah, repeat that until you've
got full control of it. Then finally, in G. So if the same person again,
it's the rocking pattern, rocking back down to the
root of the card each time, thumb on the G. Then you're going to
do the same thing. This time is second
finger is going to be on this A-Sharp
here are the flat. Then you're going
to slide again onto the B above with a d on top. Yeah. Rocking back down. It's tied to in the
fall of acidity. But Delta G, Then the second thing is going
to crush or the C-sharp. But then your three five's
going to play the D and the F. Yeah. Then you're gonna go
back down to the C and E for full secrets. That is. So practice that of the cloud of G as well until they complete
it nice and smoothly. Of course, you can play
them on any octave as well. So practice these patents until you are so comfortable
with them that you can play around with
the rhythms and the oldest of the third as well. And by that I mean, I was just showing you the
pattern from the bottom, middle, to the top. But when you feel comfortable
your bill to play around with the order of
that pattern as well. So once you've got control of all that,
in the next lecture, we'll take a look at integrating
those major blues cards over the top of the slow blues that
we've been working on.
51. Classic Blues Chords Rocking Riff Over Left Hand: Hopefully you've got control of those classic blues
riffs in the right hand. Now let's take a look
at playing them over the top of that
left hand pattern. So first of all, we
start off by applying that basic rhythm in the
right hand over the left. And then once you've got
full control of those paths, we'll take a look at
playing around with the rhythms and also the order of the notes in
the right-hand pattern, which will make the sound
much more exciting. But first, let's
get the foundation. So the first one
playing over the sea, the right hand starts
at the end of a bar. So it starts on the end after
the fall. If accounting. And then it comes
together on the wall like this, 4.1, 2.3. And so as you can see from that, it's the C that's playing on its own in
between the main beats. So it comes together on the
main beats, 1.2 and 3.0. So that's how you play
that with both hands. If are you just to
get used to that, try repeating that
over the sea card. So don't worry about
the 12th power farm. Just repeat the C bar and one, and 2.3 and 4.3. And so you can play that as many
times as you want until you got full
control of it. And then we'll take
a quick look at the F. This is the same,
the same rhythm. So if you've looked
the right hand and you already know the left, it should be nice
and straightforward. If film is playing on the end, the end of the previous bar. So you're going to go and then
it's together on the wall. So 123.4. So that's how we
put that together. I just play a couple
of times faster so you can see it free. So again, when
practicing that one, you can just stay on the F Codd for as long as you want until
you got full control of it. And then the one over the G
chord, it's the same thing. So g is playing in between. So it starts on the and
on the previous path. So then together on the
wall, gone to gray. And again, you can just practice that over the D card just
to get used to it. Green. Green. And all of these, like I said
in the previous lecture, you can move the octave down
if you want, higher up. So right now, I want you
to get full control over all three of those classic
rocking rifts in the C, F, and G chords. Along with the left hand, it's really important that
you've got full control of it. Because then when you do, you can play around
with the rhythms and the order of those rifts, which like I said at the
start of this lecture, makes it sound much
more exciting. And we'd be looking at
that in the next lecture.
52. Classic Blues Rocking Riff - Playing Around With the Rhythms & Order of the Patterns: Now I'd like you to have a
go at playing around with the rhythms as well as the order of the pattern
in your right hand. And what I mean by that is, at the moment we've been
keeping it nice and simple. But you can start
to play around with the order, the rhythms. So can you see what
I was doing that I wasn't just going
straight up and down. Not always go into
the C in between. And sometimes go up
to the top again. Uneven playing around
with the rhythms as well. Little triplet there. So this will take some experimenting. Again, I would advise,
is perhaps staying on the sea car just
to have a go rarely, just to play around. Just so you can focus on
playing around with it. You can also try
some syncopation. Can't remember syncopation
being in-between the main beat, 1.2 and 3,231.2. Can you see that I was going
in-between the beat 1234123. Yeah. So you can try that. All of the different
worlds on the f and the g, mixing up the order
of those thirds and playing around
with the rhythms. And remember, you can also
try to include some triplets seeking throw them in anywhere. Triple, let, triple, let in-between the swell and as well as syncopation,
which really well. So right now, work
through all three of those cold riffs until you feel comfortable playing
around with the rhythms, as well as mixing
up the order of the patterns in the right-hand.
53. Integrating the Classic Rocking Riffs Into Your Improvising: Hopefully by now you've got full control over those
classic blues rocking rifts. And you're also comfortable
with playing around with the order of the pattern
as well as the rhythms. Now I'd like you to have
a go at including some of those rocking rifts in
you're improvising and seeing if you can integrate
them with some of the other techniques
and riffs we've been looking at, e.g. so those were just a
few examples of me integrating the rocking
riff pattern in a minute. Some of the other techniques
we've been learning. Now, some of you may just
be able to integrate these riffs straightaway
into your improvising, whereas others may need
a bit more health. Let's take a closer look. So there's a few things you can do just to get used to this. One thing you can do is just
keep it nice and simple. Jumping from one riff
technique or scale to another. So not doing it quite as
mixed like firewalls, e.g. you could start off with a nice simple rocking riff
and then leave a gap. And then a scale maybe. But then if you go to
another rocking riff, but maybe changed the pattern of a gap and on to another technique you've
learned like so Chris knows. And then if you go to
another rocking pattern, but maybe play with the rhythm like one
of those triplets. Then a scale. Then the walking pattern. That's leaving lots of
gaps in your right hand. So you've got time to think. If there's any of you that
are still struggling to integrate these riffs
into your improvising. You may find it useful, just focusing on the
right hand on it. So what I'm going
to do now is play through the 12th
power form two times. So you can focus on trying to integrate those rifts in your
right hand over the top. And if you need more practice, you can always rewind
and go over this again. Let's go. Well, then 234.
54. Slow Blues Lick 3: By this point you've
learned plenty of scales, rifts, and techniques to
draw for monopolies plane. I'd next like to teach you some more blues
licks that you can integrate into your
improvisations. Here is the next one, and
it's got two variations. Here is the first one. The variation. Okay, so that's what
they sound like. They're really
nice to be able to slip into your improvisations. It's based on the
minor blue scale, and it's also using the octave harmony technique
that we've also looked at. So it starts up
here. So middle C is down here, up an octave. And then it starts on the third. Here are the F sharp, D five on a, C above that. Then your third is going to
slide on to the G. That. And then your fourth
is going to play the B flat there whilst holding the C above with your fifth I, then you're going
to go back down to the G with your third, but then you're going to
repeat this, see that? Okay. Then for the rest of the U5 is going to be playing
an octave harmony on top. The next part goes
second finger of the f with a C on top. Then second finger
on the E-flat, again with stay on top, and then an octave c. Then it repeats the same
three notes underneath, but it crushes from the F-sharp onto the
F with the third. So the E-flat. Then, welcome to the
first part of the lip goes that it just finishes with a second on
E-flat, C above again. Then you film comes
down to the sea. So the full lit goes high then for the timing is
mainly using triplet eighths, which is the most common
triplet with them we've been using in
this course so far. Except the first part
there on the slide. It's not actually a crush. It's using 16th notes, so it's twice the speed is, as you've been
doing this triplet. If the triplets
going triple, let, triple, let triple pattern, that can hear that. So that's just double
the speed there. And then the rest of it is
just triplets trip, trip. Except this last two notes here, which just goes onto
the swirl, swirl. It goes one and trip, trip two and 3.4. And then for the variation, it's exactly the same. Except for the end. You're going to crush
from the E flat to the natural or slight
variation altogether. Yeah, So just go into
the major third of the C code there at the end. So practice that right hand until they got full
control of it. And even better if
you can memorize it, then I'm just going
to show you how to play it over the left hand.
55. Slow Blues Lick 3 with Left Hand: So just in the interest
of keeping things simple so that you can focus on learning this.
Refund your right hand. We're going to take out the
left-hand transitions and we're just going to stay
on the sea as well. So we're just going to repeat
the pattern in the left. So it starts off
with a C on the one. Then it comes in with
the lip together here. And it's going then
that's the first triplet, that next one tread. And then again trend. And then the next
part on the swirl and you're right. That's it. I'll just repeat it again bit more smoothly
without me speaking. Well, then the variation is the same except the
change at the end. Left-hand stats, one trip. That then yeah. That's it. That's how you put
them together. And then that makes it quite
a nice little piece there if you just repeat that
over a couple of times. So I'm just going
to play through it twice so you can help. It sounds like and so you've
got something to refer to. The variation. They'll pay to get the variation. So practice that
at your own speed until it got full control of it. And then in the next lecture, we're going to add
to your arsenal of blues licks and learn at another
56. Slow Blues Lick 4: This next link sounds really cool when played
over the four chord, which in the cube C is the F, because it's crushing
up to the flat seven. This is what it sounds like. I'm going to dive straight in on the fifth part of the
12th, which is on the F. Can you hear that nice
tension in the lake? And it sounds really nice
when you contrast that by moving into the major
blues scale after. So here's how to play
it. It's based around the F7 chord in your right hand. So the F7 is this, but it's inverted, but to here. And then you're going
to take out the root. So the F there, the left hand is going to be
playing underneath. So that's the shape in your
right hand. The notes. So it starts off some indices
here, an octave above. And your second
finger is going to play the D and U5 and the a, but it's going to crush
from the D to the E-flat at this whilst
playing the a above? Slower. Yeah. Then you go into play
a C with your thumb. And then you can
go to your tuning five and the D and the a, back down to the sea. Then you're going to
go back up to the D, the a, and back down to the sea. That's half of the lake. Then we can repeat that again. And then timing
wise, it's triplets. So you're going to start on
the crush trip, trip, trip. So that's the lick and you
can play as long as you want. But that was just one full
bar in your right hand. Just a little bit of help with this one with the approach
to how we think about it. Because when I've taught
this to some people, they get confused by the way the notes move against
the left hand. So we just need
to think about it in two groups of six, like this, 123456, and then you
repeat that 123456. Then when you add your
left hand 123456. So notice when we get
to that second triplet, it started on the c456. So some people get
confused because they think it's triplets should
be starting with this. Yeah, but it's like a
rhythmic disposition is starting going then down. And then you start seeing
again on another group down. So hopefully that makes
sense and helps you to understand the way
the light is moving. Yeah, so practice it nice and slowly when you're doing it. First of all, your
right hand on its own, and then you can add
that left hand n. Then, like I said, it sounds
quite nice when you move into the major
blues scale and see. So here's just a chart
for bars that you can practice this
lifting your right hand. But it also moves into
the C major blue scale, which might be
something your tutor do when you're improvising. So it starts off with one
full bar of this lec. So 123. Then it carries on the
three beats of it, 123. Then on the fourth beat here, you're going to move into
the sea, made two blues. And then it goes to the C bar. You can just do 2 min
of the C major blue, so that the CI
left-hand carries on. From the second bar. Again. It goes 123. Then C major blues to the CEJ. Yeah. So this is something
you can just repeat as many times as you want just to get full control over that lifting
your right hand. So I'm just going to play
it through two times. Just see it's got
something to refer to. What's going on today.
57. Slow Blues Lick 5: Depending on your current
level of playing ability. This next lec may require some extra practice
because it's pretty fast, but the contrast in speed sounds really cool when
you throw it in. Amongst the other stuff
we've been learning so far. This is what it sounds like. So that's what it sounds like. Now, let's take a look. It's pretty much just
a group of notes from the C minor
blue scale repeated. So it's more to do with being able to play those
notes that speed. But first of all, let's
see where they are. So middle C here, up an octave and up
an octave again, in this position, you
can play it lower down, but I think it sounds
better higher up. So the Minor Blues
scale is this, as you already know. And it's just taking
the F sharp, F, B flat, and C, those fall notes
and then repeating them. Okay. So it's just
going like this. Yeah. But then it's just knowing how
many times to repeat them. Then there is a lot of
notes at the end which takes you out of that pattern. But we'll get to
that in a moment. So just knowing how many
times to play those formulas. So the note length are actually
30-second notes or demi, semiquavers. It's pretty fast. So I think the best way to count these notes is to
group them into false. So if one group is this format, then you repeat that
three times for one full beat in the
left, like this, 123. So those three
groups of four make one full between the
left, like this, 123. And then you carry
on in the left, your right hand repeats 123
and then another full beat. So 123. So that's the first three bits
of that bar then counting in the groups in
the right hand, 123-12-3123. Yeah. Then the last beat of
that bar, the right-hand, just go through
the C Minor Blues, but from the F. So F, D flat, C over the top with
your second on the B-flat, thumb underneath on the G, Then over-the-top,
far from the F sharp. Like this. The timing wise, those notes or 16th notes or semiquavers. So you can either go,
it might be easier to go one and 2.3 and count that triplet
beat there like that. So that is the full lip there. I'll play it all together with that counting 12, 312-312-3123. Yeah. So you can practice
that nice and slowly, making sure you're counting
those groups of notes correctly and build
up the speed. Then when you get to that
F-sharp there, like I said, you can then move into any kind of improvising
that you want. But just so you've got
something set to practice here, I'm just going to give you
something to lead it into.
58. Slow Blues Lick 5 Extended: So your left arm is going to
move into the f bar here. This small practice PCMH. Your right hand is
just going to carry on from that line there, just into the rest of
the C minor blues. So f, B-flat, E-flat, F, and then just timing trip. Okay, so just back to normal eighth notes
that are quavers. Then with your left hand
they're going to go. So just leading from that
last line that can you go. So then this full lit with
the extra part on the end, because like this, and I'll
play it slightly slower. So that's something you can practice and eventually
you can throw that into improvising and then just play
it once more a bit faster. But with the counting 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, and 3. And then you can repeat that
as many times as you want. So do that and then gradually
build up the speed. Like I say, technique wise, it may be tricky depending on your current level of ability. So it may take quite
a few practices over days or even weeks in order to get that up to a decent speed. But for those of you
that have funny, too difficult playing it
this fast at the moment. Don't worry, you can
always skip this lec for the moment and come back to it when you've built it more
strength and stamina. But using this as an exercise
when you warm up will help.
59. Blues Licks 1-5 in Practice - Etude 4: Now let's put all of those
blues licks into practice. The aim and improvising
is to be able to just drop the blues
licks in as and when. But what I've done for
you is I've put together another practice piece volume that incorporates all of them, just so you can get full
control over playing them. And when combined, they make a really nice
sounding blues piece. Here It tastes. Okay, so that's what
it sounds like. The first thing I will say
is that if you're one of those that found that blues
lick five at the top, the first row, a bit too fast. Feel free to replace it
with another blues lick. For instance, you
could just throw in the blues like one
again instead. Okay, so let's
take a look at it. And like I said, this
is just putting into practice all of these blues
licks you've learned. So if you've been following
the cost properly, you should know all of this is just a question of playing the blues licks in
the correct place. So the left hand is using the jumping pattern
and the transitions. But of course, if you want
to simplify it slightly, you can take out those
chromatic transitions. And it can simplify even
more if you want by taking out the jumps are
playing this simple curves. But now let's just
walk through it. So it starts off with
the blues lick one. So the left starts and
the right follows. Okay, and then here, when it goes back to the sea, it goes to the police three, which is the one with
the ultimate ended that. So it starts off with that here. Okay? And then when it comes to
this f here on the fifth bar, it goes to the police,
for which was this one. But what I've done
is I've shortened that lick and then I've gone
into their major blue scale. So just quickly play out what
it does in the right hand. So it goes. Okay, so what it's doing is it's taking the first group of six from that blues like
for, like this, 123456. And then it's taken
another 3123. And then that's when it goes
into the major blues scale. Some underneath and then swim. If I just take the main
beats, 12341 and 2.3. And notice that it also plays an E underneath that top see, which creates a nice harmony. Yeah. So when you add the
left-hand there, it's going, yeah. So that's the fifth and
sixth bar on the F. And then it goes
down to the sea. And here it's going into
that blue slick five. So the high will appear, right? Like I said, you can
replace this with another blues lick if you're
finding this too tricky. Okay? So this is the same as
what you've just learned, except when it comes out
of the liquid at the end, it stays on the sea
rather than coming up to the F in the left
hand, like this. And eventually it speed it up. Okay? And then on the
ninth bar here, the G bar, you can go to the blues
lick three this time. So the variation
where it goes at the end here. Okay? Then finally, on
the 11th bar here, gonna go back to the sea cart. And then the right hand is
going to play the blues, it to like this. And then you're going to
finish on the C here. There's gonna be no turnaround. It just 12,000 altogether. For this. He left. I was going to play one more of these left hand cards up there. And then your right
hand is just going to freely improvise on the
minor or major blue scale. Then you can just plunk
a C to finish it. So that's how those
blues licks fit over the top of the
left-hand pattern. Like I said, you've already learned all of
those blues licks. So hopefully it
shouldn't be too tricky, just fitting them
into the right place. I did mention that
on that seventh bar with the blues lick five, the first one, you can replace it with
another blue is lit. So hopefully you won't
find that too tricky. Once you've got control of it. Feel free to try and play along with the backing track as
well, which is quite fun. And feel free to rewind
this video to the start, where you can hear me
play this practice piece in full with that backing track.
60. Its Improv Time: Now it's time to have a go at improvising with what
you've learned so far. Some of you may be able to
just play around and integrate the scales with the
different licks, riffs, and techniques. But for those of you that
need a bit more guidance, it may be an idea to just start off by alternating between the different licks
and techniques like how they practice pieces
were put together by this, I mean changing between them
every bar or every 2 bar. So keeping them defined and
separate in the right hand. Once you feel comfortable alternating between
them like that, then you can start
to intertwine them more and play around
and not be a strict. So for the moment, as you go through
the progression, try alternating between the
major and minor blues scales, the different blues
licks and riffs, as well as adding
crush notes and octave harmony if you can, e.g. you could start off with
the Minor Blues scale. Then you could go on
to the blues lick too. Here. You could do
some major blue scale on the F bar here. Then back down to this C here. You could do the
players like 33k. You see what I'm
doing here? I'm just alternating between the different things
we've learned so far. So onto the G bar here, you could do the classic
blues rocking riff. Then down to this F bar here, you could do some
octave harmony. Then down to the sea here. You could do some more
of this rocking or if maybe then maybe some more minor
blues on this turnaround. So can you see that I
was just picking and choosing between the
different licks and risks, et cetera, that we've
learned in the right hand. So when you first
start off trying this, It's okay to rest
between the bars to give yourself time to think about what you don't
want to do next. The more you do it,
the more fluent you will become a recording of
the different techniques. Another approach
you can use so that you can get used to playing
around with the right hand, is to bring up one of the
backing tracks from earlier. So you can just improvise with your right hand on its own. This way, you can
focus on moving between the different scales
and licks, et cetera. Then when you get
more used to it, you can add the
left hand back in. And don't forget to play
around with the rhythms and to make use of syncopation
as well, if you can. But one thing I will say is
that as much as I can try to give you advice about
approaches to improvising, it really does come
down to you playing around at the piano and
figuring things out yourself. By this point, you've got
plenty of tools to work with. So you just need to try them out and see what you
can come up with. And it's absolutely fine to make mistakes
when improvising. If anything, mistakes are
good because it means you're playing out of your comfort
zone and pushing yourself. And what you'll
find is eventually you'll get into grooves
and you'll start to move between everything
much more fluently.
61. A Few Tips on Improvising with Scales: Quite often, when I
teach improvisation, I find that some students
can get stuck into the habit of just playing up
and down the scales. So don't be afraid to stay in the same area of the piano and play around more
with dividends, instead of always moving
up and down, e.g. So just then there was only playing for
different notes and I was more focusing on playing around with the rhythms and the audit of the notes. What's it just going up and
down that minor blue scale. You can use the scales to
create little melodies and emphasize them with
repetition like this. And like I've mentioned in
other parts of the course, you can also choose
a group of notes and repeat them in a circle
which has a good effect. Those are just a few points
to keep in mind when you're improvising with these
skills that you've learned.
62. Slow Blues Lick 6: I've got two more blues licks
that I wanted to teach you. The next one is using the
classic rocking third patterns. It's just using triplet rhythms. But because the way
the notes are moving, it sounds like a
rhythmic disposition. It sounds really
effective the way the notes are moving
against the left hand. This is what it sounds like. Alright, so that's
what it sounds like. Let's look into it. Like I said, is based around that classic
rocking third pattern. Yeah. But it's just
playing around with that pattern and then moving
back into the C minor blues. So it starts off with that first part of the classic rocking third riff with your second
finger on the E flat, G. And it slides onto the e with your two fingers to
the sea to fall on the F and a thumb back
down onto the seat. And then you're going
to do another one of these crushes from the E-flat
to the E and the G on top. But then here's where
the pattern changes. Because straight up
here to the S and the a student go
down to the film that then you're going to go to the top of that
pattern we did before, to the G and the B flat with
a crush on the F sharp. And then back down to the FDA. Then second finger goes
from E-flat to the E. Okay, so I'll just take
that first part. Okay. That's where it takes
you to. Then just goes thumb down to the sea. The top to the B-flat, from underneath to the G. And then you're going to just play the G and the C together. And that's the end
of the right hand. Lick them. So that last part is, it's all triplets apart
from the last Jian. Same. It's just you can hold the foot, lift your right hand. And just one tip here just to
do with your hand position. So you want to be playing quite high up into the piano there. Can you see you start
off on this part here. You want to be
pushing your hand in. You don't want to be doing
a twist to try and get your fifth finger to
reach that B flat. So you want to be pushing your
hand into the piano there. Come back that at the end. And then putting it together. Just nice and slow. You can just practice this
over the left-hand see bars. Yeah. So because of the triplets, you just playing the left hand on the first of every triplet. That trend? Yeah. And then you can repeat that as
many times as you want until you got
full control of it.
63. Slow Blues Lick 7: If you have taken my
beginner's costs, you may recognize
part of this lick, except it's been
extended even more. It makes use of the
octave harmonies and I think sounds really cool when played along with this slow blues
style. Here we go. Okay, so let's do it. So it starts off an
octave above middle C and also begins with an
octave c like that. Then you're going to be using
an octave harmony above whilst playing an E
flat with the two, natural, with your warm F. And then F sharp with a
two-by-three. So to do that. But then your third on the
G. Again, like I said, see above on every one
of those far that goes. Okay. And then your thumb
goes back down to the c. So that's the first
half of that first bar. Then the next half of that bar goes to on the F5 and the C, rocking back down to the sea. And then you're gonna go
second finger on the E flat, you're going to slide
up to the E or crush. Then if thumb's gonna
go to the sea over the top with your
two and the B flat, then thumb underneath
onto the G. The first half of that
lick goes like this. And the timing is just
all triplet eighth step. Then we move on
to the next half. So you've just done
this film on the C to B flat thumb on the G. Then you're
going to take your 13 and you get to play that scene that G
at the same time. Then two on the b-flat, similar G. Then you're gonna go over the
top of the third, but then you're going to
keep your five above. And they're going to crush
from the F sharp is the third onto the f like this. Yeah. Like that. Okay. And then to the E-flat, then some to the sea. And then here you've got
another Krishna up with your third from the F sharp to the G whilst playing
the C above. Yeah. Then the fourth and your
fifth on the B-flat and the C. And then you've got another crush from the F sharp to the G again
with this see on top. There is. And then you're going to crush
again from the F sharp to the F-Natural,
would you see on top? And then you're gonna go
second on the E-flat. Then thumb on the scene. So that part there is. And then it finishes on the
E-flat and C above. Swung rhythm that finishing
on the C on itself. So that last part there is, one thing I will say is that
part that it feels tricky. Playing all those
crush notes at speeds. Feel free to take them out
or whichever ones you want. If you got that. It's up to you. The last half of the Lick altogether is this. Those are all triplet
eighths as well there, apart from the last
bit which is swung, going, they're all going. Drip, drip, drip. So just play that
lick altogether. So you can see it as a whole.
64. Slow Blues Lick 7 with Left Hand: And then adding the left hand, we're going to do
about the see that one pound the F. And then we're
gonna go back to the sea. So with this one, it's important to know
that the right hand starts on the last half
beat of the previous bar. It's going like this. Then together with
the EPA and the C. Let me go to the F
and the left now. To the senior left. Yeah. Timing wise likely said
it's mainly triplets apart from the start and right at
the end, which is swirl. So it's 3-4 and three triplets. Trip, trip. So then if you want to
practice this lake, this is quite a nice
little exercise here. You can repeat these 4 bar over until you can
get full control. So if you're doing that,
then you need to do is play this C at the end of this bar here
should go 12 and 3.4. And then you jump in from
the triplet part again. Trip, trip. Trip. One small. You can see that. Well. Two and 3.4. Yeah. Yeah. So well, so you can even try practicing this lift repeatedly over the 12th bars, e.g. yeah. I'm gonna go to the F now. The chain. Yeah. So that's just
something you can do as extra curricular if you want. But that's a nice extended lick that you can throw in there. And it'll sound
really impressive and effective when you do.
65. Tremelo 3rds: Another common
technique you'll hear blues players use is a tremolo. And you've already
done a tremolo in that C7 ending carpeted. Can use this within your
improvising as well. So a tremolo on the piano is quickly
rocking backwards and forwards between notes in a card or just an
interval of two notes. A good one to use.
It's tremolo thirds, which sound like this. So that technique might
sound familiar to you. And to do them, like I said, it's just rocking backwards and forwards between two nodes. So if we take the C code and we're going to
take one of the third. So we'll take the e to the t. And it's just rocking
backwards and forwards like that, but
you're going to speed it up. So you may want to use fingers
that feel nice and strong. So 2413. Yeah. But it's just a question
of getting it nice and even then speeding it up. Then you can add
the left-hand side. Then it could maybe
go down. Yeah. You can start off
nice and simple. Once you get used to that, then you can start to
explore other thirds. So when you choosing
these thirds, a nice approach is to
use the first from the classic rocking third
riff like this. Can you see that
gives you plenty of first that you've
already learned. So now you can have a
go adding tremolo to those thirds in those rocking patterns
you've already learned. But then there's
another thing which I think sounds quite nice as well. So within these
rocking patterns, you've got these Krishna,
It's haven't yet. What sounds quite nice if you're doing this tremolo
third technique, if you slide from
those notes that from the D-sharp E-flat here. I then go into a tremolo like this here that are
from the F1 here. So that's another nice way to move into those terminal third, using the crush notes you've already learned from
that rocking pattern. Just on that same subject. You may have to adjust some of the fingering just
so you can get to the stronger fingers because
it might feel difficult rocking quickly from the
third to the fifth there. So you might want to adjust it. So you're moving T2
and your father. So that's a nice technique
that you can use. The tremolo thirds. Practice that until
you get control of it, and then you can incorporate
it into your improvising.
66. Octave Blues Scale Solos in Right Hand: One of the final
techniques I wanted to show you is soloing and improvising with the blue
scales using octaves, e.g. so it's really effective
on Tom's powerful and strong When you come in with it and can really bring
out your melodic lines. So have a go at play up and down both the major and
minor blues scales. Using up tips. When you're doing it helps to kind of lock your hand into position with your
first and your fifth. So you kind of create an action, a slight luck in your hand, which will help, especially
when you start to speed up. Then once you start to get
used to playing those scales, using up tips, you can just
start to introduce the left. One thing you can
do to help with this is go back over some of the exercises we
did with the scales. Just double them up, e.g. the swimmer octaves with the minor blues, and so on. And it can do that with the
triplet exercises as well. And also the same thing with the major scale
versions as well. And that will just help
you to get full control over playing those scales as
uptick in your right hand, which will then in
turn make it so you can sell an
improvised with them. One other thing you
might want to include, and you may have noticed
that I was doing, was adding those tremor lows, but with the octaves. Yeah, we sound
really cool when you just throw them in
every now and again. It's just the same
technique as I showed you with the
tremolo thirds, but with the octaves. So have a go at that as well.
67. The Slow Blues Cruise - Etude 5: Like with the previous
practice pieces, in order to get
full control over the different licks
and risks, et cetera. It helps to put them into practice within a
piece of music, rather than just learning
detached licks and expecting to be able to easily integrate them into
your improvising. So I've put together a
final attitude for you. And I've tried to incorporate
most of the licks, riffs, and techniques
that you've learned. Hopefully it will feel relatively
straightforward for you. Because like I said, you've already learned
all of these skills. So this attitude, it's really just an expansion from the
other ones you've done. Another bonus is that
learning this will give you a finished piece that
will show off all of the skills you've
learned in this course. So first of all, I'm
going to play it for you along with
a backing track. Okay, so I hope you
like the sound of that. Now, I'll show you
how to play it. Like I said, it's an expansion from the other practice pieces
you've done already. So you'll find that you can
already play parts of it. And then the other parts. It's just a question of playing the licks if already learned
in the right places, as well as risks and
other techniques, you've learned the cost as well. So what we'll do now is I'll
walk you through it slowly. And if there's any
parts that need me to go into a bit more detail, e.g. if there's a certain technique
that you've learned, but using new nuts, I'll do that as well. What I'm showing you this, if it feels like I'm going
through it too fast for you, remember, you can pause it and rewind any parts you want
to watch them again. The structure of the piece
is 2 bar as an introduction, and then it just goes through
the 12th bar blues form, two times through.
Okay, let's go. So it starts off with the chromatic third
turnaround lick, which lack of said also sounds good as an introduction as well. So here we go. The first of the 12th bars here, it's going to use
the blues lick one. And then the left hand is just the same blues pattern with the jumps that we've been
doing previously as well. Then it goes to the blues
lick three in the right hand. Left hand is just the same kit onto this F bar here. It's the blue slip fault
in the right hand. Here. I've added in a tremolo. So if you can just try and rock backwards and forwards
between the indices. Dust it too much. This yeah, I just played the card and
then I just did afterwards. Yeah, I came onto
this next bar here. We've got the major blues scale. So this is just using
the major blues scale to link up to another riff. The notes I started on an E-flat up here,
would you fall off? And then you're going to
slide to the natural. Second on the see, some
on the G of the third. Second to the E-flat, slide, up to the E. That down to
the sea, back up to the a. This is just using
that swung rhythm. So I'll play with the left. The E-flat starts before
the end of the last bar. On together on the E. Yeah. Then the next bar here, it's gonna go 35 on
the G and the B flat. Just using that
rocking thirds riff. But just to pass that. Then together. Your left hand,
then it's gonna go transition from the Shang. We're going to use
another part of the rocking third trip,
but on the G chord, the first part of it,
It's the right-hand t is gonna go here. Rather than go in like crushing
from his second tier 35. You can slide for a
second like that. On the fall. The reason is because then you can add on
another tremolo. And I think it's
easy to travel with the second four fingers. And you said just
preference though. So just that right-hand
part that on that g bar. Then with the left
hand transition here, this bar here, we're just gonna do it into the
Hall of Harmony, but we're gonna go down. It's not minor blue scale. Then backup. It's just
using a triplet with them. They're not playing on the wall. But the next part of
the triplet, 123. Yeah. With the left hand 13k. And then this next part here, which is the 11th of that 12, just say 13 on the music, but it's because we've got
an introduction of two. But as far as the 12th
bias goes, on this 11th, 12th on the C chord, it's going to use the dyslexics. But with the left hand. The
left hand here is just going to do the octave walk
upon the G. Okay, so at the end of it
there, you've got an octave, B-flat
octave, octave. So that bar play together. 1234. That right hand octave part there is coming in on the
top B-flat in your left. You've got the low. Okay. So that's the end of
the first 12 bar. That right-hand part there
is actually leading into the next group of 12 h. But
before we look at that, I'm just going to play through the first part for you now, nice and slowly so you can
see how it fits together. No. Okay, so that's the first 12 bar along with the introduction. It may be a good idea to get full control over
this first part. And then in the next lecture, I'll show you how to
play the second part.
68. The Slow Blues Cruise - Etude 5 - Part 2: It's good to carry on using the octave scale
technique to the F sharp. But then you're
going to do another tremolo on the octaves. So it's going to go up to
tremolo on the F sharp. Then it's going to
go G, B-flat, C. So I'll just play that
whole octave part there. So timing wise there. It's placed the octave
tremolo on the first beat. And then, but it goes to
the G that's on a triplet, but the second part of a
triplet, so trip three. But this 3.43. And then you've
already done this run here at the end of
the blues lick far. I've not put that first
part in this piece here, but I've taken the last
part of that blues lick. Remember that? Just through the Minor
Blues scale there. So it's a bit of detail that, but I think it needed it. So I'll just play
that whole part there but with the left hand. So I'll just go from the
end of the previous lec. Okay, that's it. Onto the F bar with that link. Okay, We're going to carry
out onto the C bar here, which is just using
the loose leaf three b in there at hand. Which is the alternate
part here at the end. Here is using the
major blues scale. Okay? So just to the
major blues scale. But you're not playing on the
first triplet, their trip. Trip. Then you're going to
put your first finger and your right hand onto the d. And then it's going to use another
rocking thirds riff. Okay? And then you're going
to slide on to the a 35 and the C E-flat, back down to the
thumb on the left, too far on the B-flat D. Then
you're going to get your third and your second on
the C and the a flat. Then you're going to
hold the seat belt slide or this or that. If firm is gonna
go down to the F, the top with all the to the underneath of the
thumb on the sea like this. With the left hand,
which is on the F bar, transition C-sharp, and your left hand goes
to f bars altogether. That it's just the blues lick to which you've already learned. Alternate ending though we're
gonna do another tremolo. Rather than just go to
the same holding it. You're gonna go do
another tremolo. K. Then you're going to
do the extended leg, this blues licks seven here, which you've just learned
a few lectures ago. The top of the left hand, she called and then the app. Sounds cool, doesn't it? Still want small k when we go to the C bar here? And here, we're going to use the chromatic third turnaround. But we're just going to
the first part of it. Just play a C rather. Go ahead. Just going to press
C and a senior left. Lossy there. And then it
goes into the liquid. Already know what she did
at the start as well. Okay. So we can finish that
rather than using it, turn it around into another 12 bar where she
can if you want. But we're going to
finish it here. So on the fourth
beat of that bar, you're going to go F and C. Then you're going to finish
on a C7 layer like this. Then you can do the tremolo, tremolo and the left as well. Then it can also freely
classic blues style that maybe plunk to finish
off in the end as well. Okay, So hopefully that all made sense like I did with
the first 12 bar. So you can see how those seconds
12 bar all fit together. And you've got a
reference point. If you're learning by
copying what I'm doing, rather than reading
the sheet music. I'm going to play through
it nice and slowly. But I'm going to join
in from the 12th bar, the first part, because
we've got that leading here. Okay? So I'm gonna go from the
octave walk-up turnaround here on the G bar from the
previous 12. Nice and slowly. Okay, So that is the second
part of that slow blues, Cruz, which pretty
much incorporates everything that
you've learned at some point in the course. I really hope you have fun
learning this like usual. Start off slowly into the complex without
pauses and hesitations between the bars are between
any tricky licks and stuff. When you've got control of it. There are two backing tracks. You can play along to. One being slightly slower
so you can get used to it. And then the other 65 BPM, which was the tempo I was
using when I showed you the full piece with the backing track in
the previous lecture. And for those of you that
find it useful when learning. In the next lecture, I'm going to play you the
full piece, nice and slowly. See I've got something
to refer to.
69. The Slow Blues Cruise - Full Piece Played Slowly (Practice Reference): Here is the slow blues crews. As you'd fall, pled nice and
slowly all the way through. For those of you that need it as a reference
point for learning.
70. Putting Everything Together: Now it's time for
you to have a go at combining everything that
you've learned together. So try alternating between the
different licks and riffs. Try chopping and changing
between the major blues scale, the Minor Blues scale. Try including the octave
World Cup in the left hand. The turnarounds, the octave
harmony, crush notes. All that jazz, or
should I say blues, but yes, have a go at
improvising with it all. So what I'm going to do is improvised a couple of
rounds of the 12th bars to give you some
examples of how you can incorporate the skills that you've learned in this course. I'll identify the
different techniques I'm using up above
on the screen. So you can see exactly
what I'm doing. And I'm only going
to be using skills and techniques that you've
learned in this course. Let's go. Wow.
71. A Short Intro on the Dominant 5th: This is just a very
short lesson to give you a nice quick intro
that you can use. So quite often, we've been
using this chromatic thirdly, because an intro, which is
also used for turnaround. Yeah. But you don't want to be
doing that every single time. Of course, you can just
dive straight into the 12th bars on the first, say. Yeah. But here's a very quick
way that you can ease your way into that
first of the 12th bars. And it's this. Yeah, that's all it is. F. F sharp, G was the octave in both
hands, and then he left. I'm just going to bounce
down to the timing wise. It's just using swung
eighths, 1.2, 3.4. Then you can go straight into improvising 12 h. After that, you can easily use this in any key that you're
playing in by simply go into the dominant columns
to the fifth from the root. I just climbing up to it. So if you're in the
key of D, yeah, just climb from the a and
then just go and so on. So that's it, a super quick
intro that you can use. Wow.
72. Play Along Practice Improv - 45bpm: For those of you that might
need a bit of extra help incorporating all these
different techniques into improvising. You can start by just focusing on what you're doing
in your right hand. I'd like you to have a go
at playing along with me. I'll play the left-hand part along with the backing track. You can have a go at
improvising on top. And this is just so
you can get used to making different choices
while you're playing. And also getting
used to the idea of sometimes thinking ahead
whilst you're playing. So you know what you're going to do when you're coming
up to the next bar. We'll start off with
a slower tempo. So you've got more
time to think. Then afterwards, we'll
speed it up a touch. So this is at fault
to five BPM and we're going to count in
with 2 bar are far. Before we begin.
We're going to go through the 12th
bar form two times. Okay, I hope you had
fun playing along with that and that
you managed to create some nice sounding
improvisations if you're finding this useful
in the next lecture. So you can get used
to improvising and making choices in your right
hand at a faster pace. I'm going to do the same again. But 60 BPM.
73. Final Play Along Improv Practice - 60bpm: Okay, so we're going to
do the same thing again, but a faster speed of 60 BPM. You improvise in the right hand, and I'm going to be
paying the left-hand along with a backing track. So I've got accounting
counting of 2 bar and then it's going twice through the 12th,
please. Let's go.
74. It's Over to You: If you felt comfortable
doing that. Now I'd like you to have a go at improvising with both hands. And if you can try
to incorporate as much as what we've done
in two you're playing. You may want to
have a go without the backing tracks
to start off with. Just to give you a
bit more flexibility as you're improvising. But either way, just have fun. And if you do make any
mistakes, it doesn't matter. It's live music. So once you've done
it, it's in the past. Just keep going and
enjoy yourself.
75. Alternate 8 Bar Blues - Applying Your New Skills: Once you've got control over the left-hand
chord progression, you can try including
the various licks and riffs and other techniques you've already learned
in the course. E.g. let's just say you
wanted to try doing the blues lick one
over the first 2 bar. So the blues lick
bond was 12341234, a case your left hand. The first 2 bar are 12341234. So just together, 123123. Sweet works, isn't
it? Let's keep going. So let's try that blue
thick far this one, which worked well over
the F car, didn't it? So here's an F Codd
on that third bar. Okay, So let's try it. 1234. Sounds good. Let's keep going. Yeah, sounds great, doesn't it? Then you can maybe try
some of the scales here. So let's go down to the
C code. In the left. We're going to play
some C Minor Blues. And onto the G and your left. Maybe some sea manager blues. You see how that's
working? Okay, so maybe let's do another round and let's maybe try to blues lick
two, which was this. Okay, 1234. Let's try on the first bar then. Three. Nice. Maybe let's try some
of the octave harmony. Go up again. So you can see how it works. It's not something else in that. So maybe here Let's try doing the blue C3a, which was this. Yeah. So that was started
on the second beat. So we'll start on that
seventh bar, or the 123123. Yeah, let's just do
one more round so you can see how these
different licks fit in. Maybe let's try doing six
on this first one here. Nice. Let's maybe just some octave
scales. Some traveler. Well, so if we go here, let's maybe try some circles, which was that kind of thing. But triplet eighth
may seem a bit slow at this tenth pope be 123. So let's double those up. So it's twice as fast
in the right hand. 123. Oh, yeah, sounds alright. Then let's go onto
the gene, the left. Let's maybe try doing some of the classic rocking third riff. I then go on to
the seventh power. Wish to see what
you could do here, you could always throw it the
chromatic third turnaround. Let this run. Yeah, let's throw that in there
on the last 2 bar. So you could put a C card, then you can just
throw it in that. That'll work. So I'm just gonna go
from the fifth bar so you can see how you
can lead into that. You've got 12332303. Finish it then, but
you could again use that as a
turnaround as well. So as you can see, all the
techniques and licks and stuff fit with this
left-hand chord progression. So I want you to
have a go at that and see if you can
incorporate them. And just have fun improvising on top of a different
left-hand progression. And then also just wanted
you to see how we can use the skills you've learned
in different scenarios.
76. Alternate Progression - The 8 Bar Blues: I wanted to include a, another blues chord
pattern to show you how easy it is to
apply the licks, rifts, and techniques you've learned to other progressions. Here it is. So it's in the same key. And you've already
done all the hard work learning all of the skills, scales and techniques,
and the right hand, while you need to do is learn
the left-hand progression. So here's how to
play the chords. So this progression is
an eight bar blues form. So there's 8 bar and then
it goes back around again. And the pattern is C7, E7, and F7, F sharp
diminished seven, and then C, G7. And then within
that seventh bar, you've got a C and then an F. And then the
eighth by you've got a C and a turnaround on the G. I just take you through
how to play those cards. So the first card is a C7, and I was playing it one
octave below middle C. And then an a B flat, the 531. I'm not playing the G. And it's four beats per bar and each card is played
twice per bar. So 1234, okay, that's
the first card. The next card is the E7. And again, it's the same
person at the moment. So as paying a G-sharp and then D was taking out
the fifth twice. And then the F7 do the same thing as
taking out the fifth. So E-flat. Yeah. And then here, F sharp
diminished seven. So an F sharp, normally it's
not that F sharp minor. To make it a diminished, you can omit the C-Sharp, go in to the sea, bring it in, see natural. And then I'm going to
add the E flat on top, which is the minor
seven interval on top. F-sharp minor. Okay, so the first 4 bar, or C7, you seven. F7, sharp diminished seven. Okay, so the last 4 bar, we've got another C bar. I was playing it like this
without the C. So it's like a rootless chord that you're playing in the key
of C and the right-hand. It works. Yeah. See that? Than a G7, I was just playing
it here, inverted. So D and F, G, and the next bar. And then on the seventh bar, I was just playing a C chord. Nice, easy. Tried there. And then you've got
two cards in this bar. So you've got C, and then
you're gonna go up to the f inversion, second
inversion there. So CFA, not order. Then the file of the
eight is the sea again. And again in that bar we're
going to play two cards, going to go down to a
G7 pledged g and f. So that bars, okay. So there's 4 bar that are 1234, 1234, 1234, 1234. In that example, I just
played it twice through. You can play it as many
times as you want. And then whenever you finish it, don't go down to the turnaround G7 chord
there because that would be your background
to another round of eight. So you can just finish on a C card without
going down to the G. So I'm just now going to play the progression two times through so you know
exactly what to practice. And so you've got
something to refer to.
77. Closing Thoughts: You've finished. I really
hope you've enjoyed this course is just one chapter in a series of blues classes
that are designed to not only help you to play
specific types of blues, but also enable you to freely improvise in those
styles as well. You may have noticed
that we stuck with the key of C in this course. This is because it's a great key to build a strong
foundation from and makes it much
easier when it comes to transposing your skills
into other keys. The next installment is on New Orleans blues
piano in the key of F. In it you'll learn how to play
in the New Orleans style, influenced by some
of the greats. But I'll also show you
how you can transpose this skills you've already learned into other keys as well. This way, you'll be
able to incorporate them into each new blue style. I didn't turn elevate
your development into becoming a great
all-round blues pianist. Thanks again for interestingly with your musical education. Again, I really
hope you liked it. That's it for now. Goodbye.