Transcripts
1. Promo video: Hey, which you also like to play such a blue
cell on the piano? Or do you prefer perhaps
to solo over rock? Well, after this course, you will also be able to create particular
solos on the piano. My name is Martin Cohen. I'm a jazz, blues
and rock musician, piano teacher and composer. I teach already
more than 25 years. I actually started my career
as a science teacher, but since many years already, I know full-time working
as a music teacher. So what can you expect
from this course? Well, first of all, we'll learn the skills that
you can use to improvise, which are the major and minor pentatonic scales
and the blue scale. You will also learn
extra notes you can add to make your solos
even more interesting. You will learn how to accompany your solo with left-hand chords. And to the left headquarters that you're going
to learn are not boring standard
left-hand course that most amateur students
in their solos, but the ones that proceeds in their solos and
that's contain those special nodes that entirely spice up the sound
of their accompaniments. Now, when you enroll
in this course, you've got lots of
extras with a value that largely exceeds the
price of this course, because you will get split along MP3 files with a whole bend that accompanies you
while you play your solo. You get those play
along files for all the 12 keys and
in different speeds. Also, you will get detailed PDF files with scales and with courts
and all the keys so that you will advance in
the most efficient way possible and start to create your first solos already from the
beginning of the course. Now, after completing
this course, you will be taken from
someone who never played any piano solo to
someone who is in place. Beautiful piano solos and
blues, rock, pop tunes. I'd like to thank you very much for your interest in my course. And I look forward to see
you inside of this course.
2. 1.1-How to use this course: Hi, and thank you so much
for choosing my course. Now, what's the best way to follow this piano
improvisation course? Well, the best is of course, to follow the lectures
in the given order. So after this section, which is the
introduction section, where I explained
the pentatonic scale and how to play
with swing field, which by the way
is very important for blues and also
jazz improvisation. You go to section two about
blues improvisation and then to section three about
rock improvisation. But imagine you want only to do rock improvisation and not blues improvisation
wants to do them. Well. I still recommend to
start with blues improvisation since there you will learn how to improvise with
the blue scale. And the blues scale is used
a lot in rock and pop music. So the improvisation
lessons in section three rely heavily on the skills and techniques learned
in section two. Now, the only thing you could
skip eventually in section two when you want to improvise as quickly as
possible on rock tunes, is all the lessons where you play also with the left hand. Okay, that's it for now. I wish you lots of success with this course and with
everything else. And I see you in
the next lecture.
3. 1.2-How to download resource files: This course contains quite
a lot of resource files. So e.g. MP3 files that you
can use as play along files, but also PDF files with scales
and the courts and more. So how can you download them? Well, to do that, be sure that you
are on the projects and resources tab
of this course. Then scroll down a little bit. And on your right
side you see here resources with a link to
download the resources. Now, to be honest,
this link doesn't lead you directly
to the resources, simply because the
resource file we'd be too large to attach here
to this course. Instead, you will
have a PDF file. So just click on the link
to download the PDF file. And once into PDF file, just click on the
link in the PDF file. And this takes you to a folder where you can
download the resources. Now as you can see, you'll see three folders. Each folder is for one
section in the course. So let me e.g. go to the second section to section about how to improvise
over a blues. Let me open that by
double-clicking. And there you see the lectures that
contain resource files. Now the numbers of
the lectures in this folder don't correspond with the numbers of the
lectures in the course. Now why not? That's because I put
those numbers in just to keep them
in the right order. In the right order
is the same order as the lectures appear
in this course. So you don't look at the numbers but at the title of the lecture. So let me open e.g. this one. You see here three MP3 files that you can use to
play along over. And you see that they
come in three speeds. 80 beats per minute, 95 beats per minute, and 110 beats per minute. Let me open another
one. This one, e.g. here you see that there
are three PDF files, so you can just open
them and view them. On the other hand, you see
here a zip file, MP3 dot zip. Now, why is that zip file? That's because there are a lot of play along
tracks and it will be too much to put each play along
track in this folder. So you just downloaded and
unzipped and you will, you will find all the MP3 files. Okay, so now you know how to
download the resource files. And what I would do
is either download it directly on your computer in the given structure
as you have it here on the Google Drive. Or what you also can do is just leave Google Drive
open while you take the course and be sure
that you keep track of which lectures
have resource files. Okay, that's it for now. See you in the next lecture.
4. 1.3-The major pentatonic scale: I will introduce you in this lecture to the
pentatonic scale. First, the major
pentatonic scale, and in the next lecture, the minor pentatonic scale. First of all, where does the
word pentatonic come from? Well, it comes from the Greek word penta,
which means five. Now, does this important? Because this five refers to the number of
notes in the scale. So it means that the
pentatonic scale is a scale with only five notes. Now, remember that the scales
that we've seen till now, so a major scale and the
natural minor scales, they all have seven nodes, e.g. the C major scale. Now perhaps you count
it with me and you counted eight nodes, 12345678. But the C, We played twice. C and the high NC, so we don't count it twice. That's why we actually only have seven notes in the scale, 1234567 and c. We
don't count it. So most scales we've seen
till now have seven nodes. The pentatonic scale
has five nodes. So how to form a
pentatonic scale? And I will start with the
C major pentatonic scale. Now, the major pentatonic scale is derived from the first, the second, the third, the fifth, and the sixth
notes of the major scale. So when we look in C Major
than the first, second, third, fifth, notes are C, D, E, G, and a. So that is the C major
pentatonic scale. So when we ended with a high C, like we did with
the major scale, it will be as follows. When you play it down. That's C major pentatonic. So very simple. Just take the first,
second, third, fifth, and sixth notes
of the major scale. Other example, G
major pentatonic. So the C major scale, as you know, is G, a, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G. So the first, second, third, fifth, and
sixth notes are G, a, B, D, and E. When you
played with the high G, It sounds as follows. Down. At our example, e.g. D. Major pentatonic. The D major scale. The first, second, third, fifth, and sixth notes are D, E, F sharp, a, and B. So when I play it up
and I take most of the high D and down. Now e.g. the a major
pentatonic scale. A major is, take the
first, second, third, fifth, and sixth notes, and you have a, B,
c-sharp, F-sharp, right? If I played a high, It's sounds. And down. Let me start on a black key now, e.g. E-flat major pentatonic. The E-flat major scale is. So first, second, third, fifth, and sixth notes are E flat, F, G, B flat, and C. So if I play it with
the high E flat, it sounds and down. Okay, so that's the
major pentatonic scale. Now you can find all the
major pentatonic scales have older 12 notes. And the resources
of this lecture.
5. 1.4-The minor pentatonic scale: Now that we've seen the
major pentatonic scale, it's time for the minor
pentatonic scale, and I will start with
a minor pentatonic. Now, why do I start with
a minor pentatonic? Because a minor pentatonic
has exactly the same notes in its pentatonic scale as
the C major pentatonic scale. Actually it works
in the same way as with relative majors and minors. You know that a minor is the
relative minor of C major. The a natural minor scale has exactly the same notes
as the C major scale. Now, it works the same way
with the pentatonic scales. So when you have a
major pentatonic scale, you go with minor third
down from C to a. And the minor pentatonic scale of a minor is done
exactly the same as the, exactly the same notes. I have to say the C
major pentatonic scale. Now remember that the C
major pentatonic scale consists of the nodes C, D, E, G, a, the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth
notes of the major scale. Now, when we start
this same scale, not on C but on a, we get C, D, and G. And I could
eventually also play a minor pentatonic scale. The a minor pentatonic
scale consists of the notes C, D, and G. I can play it up. Then I can play it down. So that's a minor pentatonic. Now in the same way I can find other minor pentatonic scales. So e.g. when I want to
note E minor pentatonic, well, what is the relative
major of E minor? Well, go with third and
minor third up from E, you arrive at G.
So we have to look at G major pentatonic scale. Now, the last
lecture you learned, that's G major pentatonic
consists of the notes G, a, B, D, and E. So when I take exactly
those same notes, but I start on E, I get the E minor
pentatonic scale. So E minor pentatonic consists
of the nodes E, G, a, B, and D. And if I play it up
and I include all sorts of high E, I get down. So that's E minor pentatonic. Know what other scales, major pentatonic scales that we see in the last
lecture, we saw e.g. also D major pentatonic. So, what's minor
pentatonic scale? Can I derive from the D
major pentatonic scale? Well, go from D minor
third down, arrive at B. So B minor pentatonic scale has exactly the same notes as
D major pentatonic scale. It only starts on B. Now remember that the D
major pentatonic scale consisted of the notes D, E, F sharp, a, and B. So when we take exactly
those same notes, but we start on B, we get B, D, F-sharp. And if I play it up and
I include the height, b, I get down. We also saw the a major
pentatonic scale. Remember that was a, B, C sharp, D, and F sharp. Now, a major pentatonic
scale is the same, has the same notes as the F-sharp minor pentatonic
scale because F sharp is a minor third
down from e, from a, sorry. So the F sharp minor
pentatonic scale consists of exactly
the same notes as the a major pentatonic scale. It only starts on
F-sharp instead of a. So those are Denotes
sharp, a, B, C-sharp. And you can include, of course, the high F sharp. So up and down. That is F sharp
minor pentatonic. Okay, The last major
pentatonic scale that we saw in the last
lecture was E-flat. Major pentatonic. I remember that was E flat, F, G, B flat, and C. Now, when I go a minor third down from
E-flat, I arrive at C. So C minor pentatonic scale has exactly the same notes as the E-flat major
pentatonic scale. It only starts on C. So C minor pentatonic
consists of the notes C, E flat, F, G, a, B-Flat. And when I play it up and
I include the high C, I get down. Now one other way to find
minor pentatonic scale. We can derive that e.g. from the C minor
pentatonic scale. So C, E flat, F, G, B flat. What notes are they? Those are not so
seen from C because we're talking about just
C minor pentatonic scale. So those are the root,
the minor third. Now you notice E-flat in the
scale of C is a minor third, the fourth, the fifth, and a minor seventh. If I want to find a totally other minor
pentatonic scale and I don't know what to denote some
of the major headed to the relative major
pentatonic scale is, well, I didn't just take
the root minor third, fourth, fifth, and
a minor seventh. So let me e.g. start on D. So what is the minor
pentatonic scale from D? Well, you know, of
course you can take the major pentatonic scale of F because F is a minor third, minor third up from D. But let me say I wanted to
take the other method, I don't know, denotes of the
F major pentatonic scale directly to know D
minor pentatonic. Okay, What was it wrote? Well, in this case, of
course, D minor third. Minor third in the scale of D
is f. Remember that a major scale in the indie necessarily to major
third in the scale of D. The F sharp minor
third is the root. Minor third, fourth, fifth, and a minor seventh. Remember that the minor
seventh is always a whole tone below the root. D minor pentatonic scale
consists of the notes D, E, F, G, a, and C. And when I play it up
and I includes the Heidi, I get and down. So you have two ways now of finding minor pentatonic scales. Now, in this way, you can find all the other minor pentatonic
scales that you want. But you can, of course, also look into resources of
this lecture where you find a PDF file with all the
minor pentatonic scales.
6. 1.5-Practicing the minor pentatonic scale: So we will start to practice with the minor pentatonic scale. It's good just to get
it in your fingers. And we will start with the minor pentatonic scale of C. So the C minor pentatonic scale, I will start with the
improvising section, also with two to improvise in C. Later we will see also
other tonalities. So first, C minor pentatonic, so I repeat here, those are the notes
C, E flat, F, G, a, B-Flat, C. And when
you want to practice it, first, we will just
play it up and down. Of course, this is
not improvising. It's just so that you
get to know there's a sticky learn the notes of the
C minor pentatonic scale. So you could use this fingering, 131-231-3123, and you could end if you
do it on two octaves, e.g. on the floor, if
you want to go on, you go again on the 123, etc. So first exercise is just going up and down. Now of course, it's like
always with practicing scales. It's not very fun jazz going
up and just going down. So that's why I created
a play along file to play along with
this, with this scale. So let me put it on and let me just play the
scale up and down, just over to play
along just fine. I will first do quarter notes. So when I just, when I started to
play a long file, you will hear the metronome
clicking four times before it starts and you go to play the scale in exactly
the same tempo is that the metronome clicks. So let me put it on
and let me show you. Okay, well this is
enough for now. I'll put it up. So what
you're actually doing, just with the music, with the play along
file just going up and down and up and down. Just for you to remember the notes of the
pentatonic scale. Okay, Now, this is
not very difficult, but it's a good exercise to just know well the C minor
pentatonic scale. When you want a little
bit more challenge, you can do eighth notes. So twice as fast. When the metronome Clicks 1234, you do, et cetera. Let me show you with the play along track, etc. Put it off. I think that for now this is enough to practice the C minor
pentatonic scale. Okay? So practice just with
the play along track. And it is where you will better know the C minor
pentatonic scale. And I see you in
the next lecture.
7. 1.5-Practicing with swing feel: In this lesson, we are again practicing the C minor
pentatonic scale. But what's the difference
with the last lecture? Well, the difference
is that we're going to play it with it swing fuel. So what does it swing few mean? Well, a swing feel. It's used a lot in
blues and jazz. And since we're practicing a
lot with blues progression in a tool to practice the minor pentatonic
and the blues scale, which we will do later. We do a lot of blues, so it's important that you can play them in,
in Springfield. So what does it mean swing feel? Springfield is actually
that you play, you could also say triplet feel. You've played with
a triplet field. Now, remember that a triplet, when you have e.g. a. Beat that goes on like this, you can say triple, let triple, let
triple, let triple, let triple it as a.dot.dot.dot.dot.11
enter two and 3.4 Enter. Now you can also
count like that. Now with a triplet feel, when you play eighth notes than the first eighth note falls on the first beat of
the triplets and the second eighth
note on the third, so the last beat
of the triplets. So that means that the
middle melt. You don't play. Actually you play
when you say triple, let you play a note on
the Dred and on the lead, but not on the on the
middle middle part there. So what you get when you say
her when this is the bead, triple, let triple, let,
triple, let triple. Let you do dum, dum, dum, dum. So this triplet field
is swing fuel is totally other than
straight eighth notes. Straight eighth notes would
be dumped that dum, dum, dum. Now I will do with Springfield. Dum, dum, dum, dum that. So when you play e.g. the C minor pentatonic, spelled C minor pentatonic
scale. You don't pay. You pay. You hear that? Dum, dum, dum. That means that the
play along track that I will use for
this lecture and that you can also download of course and resources of
this lecture, as always. Also has this triplet fuel. Okay? I will put it on,
you can hear it. Let me put it on here. Got you here. Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, um, and then 1.2 and
three and the four, and then you hear that off now. So in the play along file, you also clearly here
this triplets swing feel. So we're going to play that. Since in the last lecture you already practiced with
playing quarter notes. We're not going
to do right here. We're going directly
to play eighth notes. Eighth notes with triplet feel. So. So let me put on this file, this play alone file. And we're going to play
along with the play along with triplet
fill. There we go. Well, etc. You understand the principle? Let
me put it out. So you're going to practice
that play with triplet, fill with swing feel. After that. Try this first. After that, we're also
going to play triplets. So we're going to play
eighth nodes, bom, bom, but we're going to play
every note of the triplet, pap, pap, pap, pap dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot,
dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot that triple. Let triple, let
triple, let triple, let triple 1.2 and
3.4 and 1.2 and 3.4. And in this way, let me put on the play along file and we're going
to play the triplets. I went wrong here, but okay. You understand the principle. Let me put it as you
understand the principle, it going it's going faster. Of course, it's more
difficult than that. Just the eighth notes
with swing feel. But it's a good exercise. Now, of course, I
played here with the 95 beats per minute file. Into resources you can
download three speeds, 80 beats per minute, 95 beats per minutes, and 110 beats per minute. You start, of course, with the 80 beats per
minute file done. It's much easier to
do the triplets. This triplet feel
is this swing feel like you can also say triplet feel doesn't matter,
it's the same man. Is very important that you get it in your fingers because
we're going to use it a lot. So, have fun practicing
with the play along files with the C minor pentatonic
scale. In triplet feel.
8. 2.1-The Blues Progression: In the last lecture, when you practice with the
C minor pentatonic scale, the swing fill and
with a triplets, you did that over a
blues progression. Now, this blues progression
consists of the courts C, F, and G are actually C7, F7, and G7, which are, you know, that we're
in the key of C. So C is the one chord, F, which is the fourth note into C major scale,
is the four chord. F seventh chord is
the four chord. G7 is the five chord. So we are working
with 14.5 courts. Now this is very typical
for blues progressions, but perhaps you actually not even know what exactly
a blues progression is. So that's what I'm going to explain in this lecture
since it's very important, because we're going to practice a lot with blues progressions. Now, blues progression that you've been using in the
last lecture and that you also will use in
following lectures, which I will explain
in this lesson. It's actually the
most simple form of a blues progression. There are more complicated
blues progressions. But since this course is not specifically about blues
or blues progressions, we're talking now
about improvisation. It's not needed to know more complicated
blues progressions. And if you want to know more
about blues progressions, then you should do a blues
piano course. Of course. As I said, we will do
the most simple form of a blues progression
with only 14.5 courts. Now why will display here
the blues progression, the course progression of this standard blues that we
will use urine this course. Here. You see we have 12th measures. Now it doesn't mean that
every Blue's always have, has a 12th measures, but very often it has. And you see that indeed we have three different
types of courts. To C7, the F7 and the G7. So 2,124.5 chord,
as I said before. Now, if you followed my
lessons about playing by ear, and if you did in that six
section about playing by ear, diatonic chords, you
might wonder, hey, if C is the one court, why is it a dominant
seventh chord? Because we learned that
the one chord should be a major seventh chord,
the four chord. So the F7 should also be a major seventh chord,
diatonic chord. Only the G7 five court was
always a dominant chord. So that's okay, but why
does C and the F are not major seventh chords but
dominant seventh chords? Well, that's a typical
characteristic of blues. Especially with
this standard blues is always played with
it, just seventh chords. So it doesn't
follow the rules of classical harmony of the one to four to five
being major seventh, major seventh and
dominant seventh chords. Now they're just all
dominant seventh chord. So again, this is just a
characteristic the blues. Now, you might have noticed also in the last lecture that we played this C minor
pentatonic scale the whole time over
to Hole Blues, which means that apparently
it fits over to C7 chord, even over the F seventh chord, and also over the G7 chord. So if I can play this minor pentatonic
scale over to hold blues, why should I know the
chord progression? Because I can just play this C minor pentatonic scale without even having to
think of what chord. I mean, yeah, that's true. But remember that when
we did the exercise, we just went without thinking
up and down to scale, without even having
any structure. It was not related
really to when a new courts starts or so. It was just without thinking, going up and down to scale. It was just as an exercise it, when we're going to exercise to do improvisation
over two blues. In next lectures. Of course. We're going to
listen to the blues. We're going to listen when a line starts, when a line ends, when a whole round of
the blues is played, when a new round starts. We didn't even listen to
that in our last lecture. So for that reason it's
important to know how the, how the blues progression works. Another reason is that later, we're also going to
add the left hand. The left hand, you're
going to play chords. Now, of course, when you're
going to play courts, you need to know the
chord progression. That's what, that's
why I tell you what the basic blues
chord progression is. One other thing is, well, you know, you
see now before you. The blues progression in C, C major blues progression. What about all the
other tonalities? Blues and G I Blues
and D and blues and a or whatever other key. Yeah, we're going
to do that later. But for now, for the beginning, we're concentrating just
on the blues and see. Other question you
might have is, hey, does it glues, can have minor courts. Yes, that's possible. You have minor Bruce, minor blues chord progressions. But we're not going to
do that in this course. Again, this is not
a bleu scores. I'm ingest a blues progressions. You see many other
courts and only 14.5 courts, but also debt. It's beyond the scope
of this course. Okay. I've been talking a lot. I think that it's time now
to just listen to the blues. You will see while I'm
playing the blues for you, I will just play the blues
progression, nothing else. We don't do any exercise. I want you to get familiar with the sound of the
blues and that you familiarize yourself with
when a court to change comes, when around is ended, when a new round of
the blues is coming. That's important that you
feel this chord progression, that you feel the
blues. For that reason. I will show in this chord progression
exactly where we are, so that you can follow very precisely where
we are in blues. As I said, I've been talking
already far too much. Here it comes. Here is the blues. So you heard three rounds
of the blues in C. And in the practice files
that you have to practice how to MP3
player long files. It's also three rounds always. And after that you
have this ending. Now, it's very important,
as I said before, that you familiarize yourself
very well with his blues. If you're not familiar
with the blues, listen to it several times. Go back into video. Look also at the court's know exactly when the
courts changes are coming and know
when one round of the blues is finished and
when the next round starts, this is really very important to improvise in a comfortable way. I repeat, listen to
it several times. Look at the screen
where exactly you are, which courts and dental I
see you in the next lecture.
9. 2.2-Improvise with pentatonic Quarter and eighth notes: So what were you going
to do in this lesson is to create our first
improvisations, our first improv improvisational
lines on the blues. So we will do that, of course, with the C minor
pentatonic scale. And what we're going
to do is actually creating very simple
lines from the beginning, in the beginning just
with quarter notes. So if the beat goes like this, we just bomb the beat exactly together with the beat. I'm off. This blues. The same beat as the
metronome clicks, the first four clicks before
the, the blue starts. So just coordinate
is very simple. Just make lines.
I don't know why. You don't have to
start them to see you can start at another node here is what it looks a little bit longer line, but you can make also
short lines like this. For now, I, I ended
always on the sea, but you don't have to. You can add on another
tone, of course, of the C minor pentatonic scale. So let me just put
on the, the band, play along the MP3 player on file and let me just
make some examples. Now, it is before I start
to play along fine, It's very important
that you feel really familiar with the blues. As we did in the last lecture. You have to know exactly where, where you start your new phrase. Remember that first one? The scale just up and down. We didn't listen to
really do the blues. We just randomly up and down. Now I want you to
make the lines. So Nikki also listen, e.g. start on the first
beat of the measure. Now, I don't want to say
that you always have to start on the first
beat of measure. Actually, later on, we will also start on beat two or three, e.g. about 40 beginning, start. Always on beat one has. So if you've finished your line, wait till you can
start your line on an, on a good moment has so
on beat one over measure. Okay, let me just put
it on and let's meet. Try some lines. 234. That's enough weight. We restart here. Okay. Would you have been calls for a URL to the bumper line? Okay. You round balls to read. A little bit longer length. Okay. So it is already. So you saw that I made just lines of the C
minor pentatonic scale. Just make simple
lines, quarter notes. Now, I started every line now on the first
beat of a measure. But as I said before, you don't have to start
your line on the, always on the first
beat of measure. Actually, it's interesting
when you don't always start on the
first beat of a measure, you can start on the
second beat, 123412. So I started here on B2. You can also start on B3. 12341234, etcetera. Now
you know what I mean. Now, of course you will not always start a whole,
an utter beat. You will very often
still start on beat one. So we sometimes tarts,
started on beat one, sometimes B2, eventually on B3. You can also start on beat four. Why not? I think mostly
on beat one or B2. So let me put them
the bent on again. Let us try that. 1234. Here I started normally
on beat 1,234.1. I started on page two. Here on beat 112. I started on B3. Now I started to read for an hour, one, etcetera. Okay. For now. Now you, So you heard, I didn't always
start on beat one, but I still listened to
the blues to make phrases, not just randomly at random moment and stop
at a random moment. I still listen to the
structure of the blues. That's why it's important that
you're familiar with the, with the blues, with the
blues chord progression. That you know, where you can
start and end your line. And that, you know, when I'm around of the blues is finished
and a new round starts, you know, you have to
know where you are. Okay. So we did coordinates. Now, we start at either on the wound or on a
tour on the three. As I said, you can also
start on the forehead. I didn't I didn't show you that, but I think that's
obvious how to do that. After the coordinates we're
going to do eighth notes. Now, remember that you have to play with swing fueled
with triplet feel. So it's not 11.2 and 3.4, but it's 1.2 and 3.4. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Okay? I won't put
the band on and I will play with eighth notes. And I will eventually also mix some time,
some coordinates. So I will make a mix of quarter
notes and eighth notes, but watch out those eighth
notes have to be swung. So dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. Okay. Let me put a band on. No, not a big one. You heard that I didn't
start on beat one, but a bit later. Also here. Just note that even
a little bit longer. Well, okay. You
know what I mean? You make a mix of whole notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and swung eighth notes. And you start sometimes
on the beat, stumped, sometimes not on the beat, etc. Okay, let the band off. It's already at the end. Okay? So make a mix
of quarter notes, eighth notes, swung eighths
notes, very important. Start sometimes on the beat. Sometimes don't
start on the beat, but start on beat two. Or even. On an upbeat, you can
start at 1.2 and 3.4 e.g. then you start to just before
a new a new measure or one. And 2.3 and 4.1. And then I started
on the end of one. But you can also start
on beat 112341, etc. You can start wherever you want. Of course, as long as you
understand as he realized where you are in the
blues so that you know how to make your
phrase is how to start, how to end. That. You know, where a new
round starts, etc. So it's very important that you are very familiar with
the blues. I would say. You can use, by the way, the MP3 file that we used the
whole time that you could download in the resources of before already in
a former lecture. Okay, I would say have
much fun and yeah, just practice and
make nice new lines. And I'm sure that you
will have fun with it. Okay, see you in
the next lecture.
10. 2.3-Introduce triplets in your improvisation: So what we're going to do in this lecture is adding triplets. So we've done a quarter notes, swung eighth notes,
and now we're adding triplets. So e.g. or what you could do. When I make e.g. a combination of
swung eighth notes and triplets, I could do. Did you hear what? I didn't so first, our swung eighth
notes and triplets, Chipotle, it does hurt again. Swung eighth notes. Dose also, sorry, one and 3.4 swung eighth note, triplets and two times
two swung eighth notes. You can make other combinations. Of course, let me just put on the band and let
me just dry a bit. And so combine eighth notes, swung eighth notes,
quarter notes, triplets, start all the beat. Start on other beats,
start offbeat. Okay, let me put on
the band and let's try some things, etc. So you try all
those combinations. And you try all
the combinations. Don't worry if you make some mistakes how you sorted it also made some little mistakes. No problem at all. If you don't make mistakes, you will not advance. It's always like that. Try that. Combine coordinates,
swung eighth note, triplets, and sometimes make long lines at some times
make shorter lines. Start on the first beat, start on other beats, started on the upbeat
that you sorted. I very often started
on an upbeat. So if you, if you collapse
the beat 1.2 and 3.4, I start when my hand
is up, so sorry. Now you saw that I started
when my hand was up. You don't do that
every time, of course. You, you, you, you do. Sometimes she
started to really on the beat on differs
between second, third or fourth beat
and sometimes offbeat. Okay, enough to practice, I would say enjoy. And I see you in
the next lecture.
11. 2.4-The Blues Scale: Okay, So I hope that you
are quite familiar now with the pentatonic minor scale. Her to C minor pentatonic scale, because you've done
quite some exercises, so you should really have it in your fingers a
little bit now already. Now, after the minor, minor pentatonic scale,
I think it's now time to introduce
the blue scale. And actually, when you know
the minor pentatonic scale, blues scale is very simple
because it consists of the minor pentatonic scale
with only one node edit. Now, let me illustrate this. And you know, that's the C
minor pentatonic scale by now, you know why that's the route. I can also call
it one instead of the router, the minor third. And you can also
call it flat third, and it's the same of course. Fourth, fifth, minor seventh. And I will call it
the flat seventh now. And back to the road or one. So that's the minor
pentatonic scale, the C minor pentatonic scale. Now, the sea blues scale consists of these minor
pentatonic scale, the C minor pentatonic scale. And I add just one note. This is the F-sharp, or you can also call it G flat. And so that means it's the sharp four or the flat
five, doesn't matter. It's the same, I will call
it sharp for it for now. So might see, blues scale is then wrote for
one minor third, fourth, sharp 45, flat seven, and back to row one. And you hear that there's much more blue sea effect in this blue scale than with
the minor pentatonic scale. This just by adding this note. So this C blues go, it's really very
simple if you notice he minor pentatonic scale. Now, let me, just
for illustration, show you the a minor
pentatonic scale. We will, for now still
practice with this, see blues scale, but later on, I will also introduce
other tonalities. So let me just,
for illustration, show you the blue scale. Now, you know that the a
minor pentatonic scale consists of the
root minor thirds, which is just a minor third, because the a major scale
is the first three notes. This is the major third. Minor third is always
halftone lower. Yeah, so that's the flat three. So the E minor pentatonic
scale is flat, third, fourth, fifth,
minor seventh. And back to root, or one. Minor seventh is always a
whole tone below the root. Because normal
seventh, which is in the scale of a major,
would be this one. This is the major seventh. You can also say to seven, it's the seventh note
in the a major scale. So the minor seventh, flat seventh, is then the G. Again, the a minor
pentatonic scale you would already have, but root, minor thirds or
flat third, fourth, fifth, minor seventh, flat
seventh, vector road, or when we add the sharp fourth
or fifth, flip flat five. So what's the fourth
in the a major scale? Fourth is the D. So D sharp for work flat five is the
D sharp or B flat. So the, the blue scale is then D, D-sharp, E-flat, G. Okay, as I said, other blues scales and minor pentatonic scales will follow up later in the course. For now, concentrate mainly
on the sea blues scale, because that's what we're
going to use in next lectures.
12. 2.5-Practicing the blues scale: So now that you
know how the blues, the blues scale is, you're going to practice
with it on the piano. Now, first of all, we will practice just the blue
scale up and down, like we did with the minor
pentatonic scale later, we will make a nice
melodic lines here, really improvising, but just get used to
this blue skilled. See BlueSky. We'll
just go up and down this scale and we will do that with
a bent, of course. Otherwise it's no fun. But before I put the band on, I will just show you a little bit about
the finger positions. There. Several possibilities. One is to first 1234 and then with your
thump and g hat under ego, with your thumb under
your ring finger. For one octave, that
would be just like that. Another possibility would be using only those two fingers. For the last, you use Dunn. Also your index finger on the B-Flat has said
it would be 133123. When I play, you see me do actually both finger positions. When we go up more octaves. You could do then again, the first method
would be 123412. Doesn't go again on
one on the sea hassle. You go with your thumb
under your middle finger. 34123. Or if you want to
do more artists, don't end on the three buckets. You and on. You go on with
the finger one, et cetera. Down of course. As always the same thing, but in reverse order. If you use only those
two fingers that, and occasionally, occasionally
also the index finger, it would be say 2, 1 3, 1 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 2, 3 and back. 32. 131-313-1313. We have two possibilities. Okay? What we're going to do is practice with the
bent. As always. At first, we will practice with quarter notes
going up, going down. No, I will not. As was the case when we did when we practice
for the first time, the minor pentatonic scale
to C minor pentatonic scale go without thinking up
and down and up and down. You now know the
blues progression. So you should do it in
a nice way and start again on beat, one. On the next measure, I will show you how I let
me first put the band on 12 341-234-2333 for the other finger positions? 34. Okay. Well, you understand that? Let me put off then. So that's a quarter notes
and I always count to four before starting
to go down or back up, so that you are always nice. You always start
nicely onto one when starting a new round up or down. You can, you can do also. Eighth notes, watch out. Swung eighth notes, it died
or dad and dad are not that. Well, you know what now
what swing fuel is. So let me do that also. And we go also up and then we
have to wait a little bit. Now not for accounts. You will see how many
I put the band on. So there we go. 234. You saw that? The other finger
positions important? Well, let me let me
start the ventures. Important is that you
now don't count still four but just 34 and done. You restart to go back
up or to go back down. So that's eighth notes. You first do the
coordinate notes than do the eighth notes. Third exercise
would be triplets. So when the band is 1234, it will be only, we go now three octaves up
so that it fits with our, with our blues progression. So you see, this is a little bit
more challenging. I went wrong there too. Okay. Let me put on the band
and let me show you 234 more. 434. Okay, now you can get boring. Okay, so does this
already much more challenging when
some wrong also. So also that's in the end. I made a little mistake
with the fingering, also in this case. So with triplets, you
go up three octaves. Counts, 34 at the end of
a round up or round down. And then you start not
everyone up or down. Okay. I think that this
is quite challenging. Did a triplets. But yeah, of course in your improvisation you're
also going to use triplets, so it's good to
know how it works. Now, if you make some
mistakes, it doesn't matter. You see, I make them also important is that you
feel how it goes, that you feel how
this blue skin works, and that you can use those
quarter notes, eighth notes, swung eighth notes and
triplets in your solo. Okay. See you in the next lecture.
13. 2.6-Blues scale improvisation Quarter and eighth notes: Okay, Now that you know,
to see blue scale, it's time to improvise, to create some musical
lines with it. In this lecture, I will do, I will play, the band, will play some musical lines, and we'll do that with quarter notes and
with eighths notes, of course, with swing fuel there when I play
the eighth notes. So either on the beat
or with eighth notes. First time I did the, the coordinates in
the second time I did the eighth notes. This swung eighth notes. Okay. Let's start. I will just put the band on. You can, of course, start always with
the first beach. Good. Start on another bead. You can start on an upbeat. All the things that
we've learned with the, with the C minor
pentatonic scale. We will try to, to, to do that here in
this improvisation. But first, as I said, only with coordinates and swung eighth notes.
So there we go. 234. I started on a beach, sorry. Okay. It's the end
of the third round. Okay. So you heard me doing some several lines somewhere
nicer than the others. It doesn't matter. It's
just for practice reasons. You find your own lines, of course, which doesn't mean that you've
kinda take my lines. Of course you can.
You can first copy my lines and then later try
to find your own lines. Experiment. Played several times. This play along
track, by the way, just play along track is still the same one as that
we used before. And so when you cannot find it into
resources of this lecture, you go back In the
intellectuals with the, with the C minor
pentatonic scale, it's exactly the
same resource file. So try to do all those things. Coordinate notes, eighth
notes with swing feel, started on the beads, start on other beats. B2, b3 start on an upbeat. You can start just
before a beats. The first beat begins hazard, it's on beat four, or on the end of four. There are so many possibilities that you can, that you can use. So I would say, try it out and have lots of fun.
14. 2.7-Blues Scale Improvisation Adding triplets: Okay, let's take the
improvisation one step further. We're going to add triplets. So we don't only have quarter
notes and eighth notes, swung eighth notes,
but also triplets. So once again, coordinates
is just with the beat. Eighth notes is swung, eighth notes is as follows. And then triplets is. Okay. So, yeah, For the rest, we're going to apply all the tricks that
we've learned before. Start on beat one or B2, or on the end of one, or the end, or the end of four. Or as I want an upbeat, we're going to apply
all those tricks. We're only going to
add now triplets. So let's go. I will put on the band 234. Now you hear that I
apply everything. Yeah. Sometimes corridors notes,
sometimes eighth note, sometimes tripling. Sorry, little mistaken. Well, etc. So that's the
end. The third round. So apply all those tricks. Coordinates, swung,
eighths, notes, triplets, start on beat one, or B2, B3 on an upbeat, etc. So try it out. You can use my lines again, but don't forget to
create your own lines. Have fun and see you
in the next lecture.
15. 2.8-Blues Scale Improvisation Sliding: Let's try to add some more
embellishments to our solos. We're going to do is sliding at, we're going to use, we're going to slide
from the sharp forth. So the F sharp in the key of C, And as you know, where the whole time
in the key of C, What I mean by sliding is that
you slide with your finger from the F sharp
to either the G, and it's a quick movement, or sliding down to the F. It's sort of lines where we're adding ISO. So let's try it. I will
put on the band and I will put you don't
slight everywhere. Of course, I will
perhaps exaggerated a little bit just to show you
how you can use this slide, but use it from time to time. Okay, Let me put
the band on 234. Okay. That's the end long file. Okay. So I exaggerated it a bit. Of course, I put far
too much slides in it, but it was of course,
to show you the effect. So try it it also. For the rest. Of
course you, you, you use Gordon
notes, eighth notes, swung, eighth note,
triplets, and the slides. And of course, as always, you start on beat 1234,
on upbeats, etcetera. Okay, try that out, and I see you in
the next lecture.
16. 2.9-Blues Scale Improvisation Double Stops: Okay, we're going to add another embellishment,
so-called double stub. So what is a double stop? Actually, it's nothing
more than just playing two notes at
the same time had till now we have only play
one note at a time, but you can play two
notes at the same time. I didn't show you all
the possibilities. There are many more
possibilities. Of course, you can
even do drill work. And very often we combine this. Double stops already
trails with a slight, so e.g. slight double stamp. You see, I keep
playing this Jai Siya. Double stops. Or with a trill, r. Those are all possibilities. So we're going to add that
stores solos and I will, as I will put on the band
in awhile and I will try to solo with those double stops with those drills and with everything
that we've done before. So the quarter notes, eighth notes swung, eighth note. Triplets start on different
beats and upbeats, etc. So let me put the band on, let me try something. 234. I see this. It's also a way of
using this double sum. Okay, that's the end of
the play along track. Now, perhaps you saw me adding even some other
notes. I did this. And a is not in the, in the, what's it
called the Blues Scale. It is possible to add the a. I actually wanted to
talk about that later. But yeah, I was soloing and just throw
in through in the the a. But you'll get it from me later. For now. Let's just
concentrate on the blue scale. So what things did I will do? I did on the, on the octave. Here. You see, I do
it with the slide. All those kinds
of things you can add to your solo to make
it more interesting. So I would say, try this all out. Keep practicing all this stuff, everything after each lesson. Try to slightly add
all those techniques and practice them
a lot so that you really mastered them so that you familiarize yourself with all those techniques and just
enjoy soloing because it's, it's fantastic to do. Okay. I see you in
the next lecture.
17. 2.10-And now the left hand: So till now we've
been only a soloing, playing with our right-hand. What's to do with the left-hand? Well, actually you
can ask yourself, is it necessary to
play the left-hand? And the answer is, well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Imagine you're playing in
a band and you have drums, you have bass player, you have a guitar player who is playing chords behind your solo. Well, do you need a left-hand? Well, no, actually, no. You don't need the
left-hand since the guitar player is
already doing courts. And you have a bass player who accentuates the bass notes. And so you don't really need to play your left hand down and it's enough to play
just the right hand. But if you're playing
in a trio, e.g. bass, drums and piano. Bass player does
only bass notes. Well, you could eventually play chords then with your left hand. Or if you have also
a guitar player. So drums, bass, guitar, piano, and guitar player
only place some very, very subtitle sounds,
little background sounds. Then also you can still play
with your left hand courts. So that's what I'm going to
show you in this lecture. So remember the
blues progression, that was a 12th measures. So first four measures
of C7 to measures of F7, to measures of C7. One measure of G7, one measure of F7, and then the last two
measures are again C7. Now, I already told you this is only a very basic
chord progression, head or audit chord
progressions. Very often. The last measure of the
Blues, which is a C7. A G7 is played before starting
a new round of the blues. So you have a minor blues,
you have jazz blues. You have more advanced yes,
sorry, blues progressions. So there are so many variations, but since I said this
is not a bleu score, so I will just simply concentrate on the blues
progression that we know that, that I just mentioned. And we will just
play the courts. So what we can do is e.g. play C7 here. That's a second inversion. F seven years as
the root position, the G7 here, and that's
the third inversion. So G, B-flat, C, and E is the C7
squirts root major third minor sevenths than
the F seventh chord. Root major third minor seventh. And the G7 courts, Courts root major
third minor seventh. Of course, you can also
do other inversions. You could do e.g. this C7
is in first inversion, that F7 third inversion, and then G7 here in
second inversion. That's also a possibility. I will use this one for now. Of course, you can have a problem when you
want to solo here. But you could take, you can take temporarily two
fingers off to Soto here and add them later back in. Those are all
possibilities that are, you pay just higher up. Now. For now, I will only
concentrate on the left hand. I will not play to
write head because I hope you familiarize yourself
with the blues progression. When you pay the courts, you will even familiar, familiarize yourself more with the booth progression
because you have to know the court said
in April in order to play. The courts. So let me put on the blue side with the band and I will
just play those courts. So you try the same
thing, of course. So let me play, let
me put on the band. Go to the F7 chord, back to C7, G7, F7 as C7. New round of play, exactly the same
thing. Of course. Let me put off let
me put up the band. So you just practice this. I didn't know one round about. You can use the
three rounds of the, the play along file. Of course. Try those
inversions that I showed you. Try also other inversions. You can even go higher
up, but as you know, problem is, you get in the
way with your right hand. So this is only very short, short lecture just to show you
how you can play courts in your left hand and how to familiarize yourself
even more with the blue. So try this and I'll see
you in the next lecture.
18. 2.11-Adding the 9th: Now, when you did
the exercise in the last lecture where
he played the courts, if it's good, you're now
really very well familiarized with the blues and know exactly when the chord changes are, etc. Now, do you always have to
play the chords in this way? Doesn't it become a bit boring when you always
play it in this way? Well, yes, it becomes boring. So we need some variation. To make some variation,
we're going to add some, some notes to the courts. But before we add
notes to the courts, we will first take
some other notes off. And well, let me
take the C major, C dominant seventh chord. Let me just take it in
position to start with. Now, which notes are not so
very important in this court? Well, you would say, well, all the nodes that
are important, because of course
consists of the first, third, and fifth for a triad and including the seventh
for a seventh chord. So all the four are important. Well, that's not totally true. For instance, the fifth
is not that important. Why not? Well, take a look at
the difference between the three most important
courts that we, that we have. Those are the major seventh, the dominant seventh,
and the minor. So you know which notes
apart from the root. Now, which nodes are, which note, I should say
is in all three courts? Well, have a look. Don't. You see that the G is present in all three courts
apart from the root and it's also always present. Because in major seventh
chords, of course, dead ends to the face, but let me look at
it to other nodes, you have a major third
and a major seventh. The dominant seventh
chord is a major third, minor seventh, minor
seventh chord, minor third, and
a minor seventh. The third and the seventh
are always different and they actually define the
quality of the courts. So the third and the seven are the only two notes that define
the quality of the courts. In this case. It's a major seventh chord. In this case, it's a
dominant seventh chord. In this case, it's a
minor seventh chord. G. It doesn't say anything about
the quality of the chord. So that's why it's not so
very important to play the G. So you could actually just
play the courts as follows. So the major seventh, the dominant seventh.
Minor seventh. Now doesn't mean that you
may never play the fifth. Sometimes it's nice
suit to add the fifth, but it's not really needed to define the
court quality. Now. So that's one note
that we will not play. Not always play. I
should say that we will not always play in the
courts. Sometimes we do. Another note that we will
not always play is the root. Now you say, of course, Hey, the root, but that's
important because it's, well, the court is based on the root note heads even
named after the root node. Yeah, true. But if you have a bass
player, normally ablate, the bass player, place
already the root note, especially on the
first beat of measure. Measure. He will mostly play the root note of the court to
define, really did harmony. But even when you don't have a bass player and
you want to play, and he would use the
third and the seventh. This is a dominant
seventh chord. Now, your ear hears
actually the root, right? Because of the
harmony of the song. The ear hears the route already, so it's not always important,
important to pay it. So we can play rootless, rootless chords,
rootless voicings. Okay? But we said we would
add notes, okay? Before adding, I said we
will first take off notes. So two root and a
fifth we take off. What are we going to add? Now? Let me for now just
take the court as it is with root and fifth, just to explain you which notes
we're going to add later, we take them back off. So we have 1357. Now, I'm going to
say we add a ninth, watts in ninth, ninth. But I hear you say, well, I only have seven
different nodes. If I play my major
scale, e.g. I. Have 12345678 and then it stops. And aid is actually one. And then they go
back two to three. Okay, Let's call this one, not one but eight. Let's continue counting. This would be nine, isn't it? That seems a bit strange. Why would I call this dynein? Because it's
actually the second. Well, when I see it from
the perspective of 1357, then I go up in
thirds as you see, first a major third, minor third, then
another minor thirds. When I now go to the D, and I go up another major third. So it's the whole time
going up in thirds, sometimes minor thirds,
sometimes major thirds. So 1-6 is a third, 3-5 is a third, 5-7 is a thirst. So 7-9, there's also a third. So that's why I call
this note now nine. You can call it this
second if you want. It doesn't matter, but
I will call it denied. So we're adding to nine. So how does my C9 chord, so that's actually the
name of the chord, the C nine courts. Well, it looks as follows. We have, I will take it here. And I take off the
root and the fifth. So I only, I'm left
with Major third, minor seventh, and ninth. If you see a chord
symbol C nine down, it implies always,
always also the seventh. The seventh is also
always presents. The other way. If you
see a chord symbol C7, you may always adds the
ninth without any problem. So even if you see C7, you can make a C
ninth out of it. So this is another seat. I will call it C7. C7 chord, even if it's C9 chord. But this is our new C7 scores. Okay? It's a very open sound. We compare that with
what we had before. If you have r, and that's called
the normal C7 chord, that we have a lot of notes that are quite close to each other. And it might sound a bit full. At when we do this, we have a much more open sound. You can also nicely
solo over it. But just a way to nice
to be able to play here. Okay, how does this
look for the F7 chord? Well, remember, we did the C7, we did Major third, minor seventh, and the ninth. Well, let me take the major
seventh in F, that's a minor. What is a major third? Major third, minor seventh. Well, that's a whole
tone below the root. So to C, E flat and denied, Well, that's a whole
tone above the root. And this root 11
whole tone above G is the ninth in the key of F. So this is my seventh chords with the ninth
that's on F9 court. And g nine. Well, I do the same thing. I have third major, third key of G minor seven
notes on below the root. Ninth one pole tone
above the root. And this is my g nine chord. Now, you see that I'm very much up to the right
eye with my left hand, which doesn't gave
me possibilities to solo with my right hand
unless I'm solving higher up. Well, as I said, you don't always have
to play the ninth day. You can just simply play
for a G7 chord, e.g. minor seven. And major third. Same thing for the F chord, a minor seven, major thirds. C seventh chords with
the edit ninth has less problems
because as you see, we have still much room
left for the right-hand. But of course you can pay. No problem to exercise. Those. Courts were going to do the same thing as we did
in the last lecture. We just put on the
bands and we're just going to play those courts. Put on the band. And later you will
do the same thing. There we go. F7 chord effect to C7, G7, F7, C7, sorry, a new route. You are trying. Putting off the band, okay, so try it out yourself. And I see you in
the next lecture.
19. 2.12-Bringing both hands together: Okay, Let's try to bring
both hands together. So in the left hand we will play the courts and in the
right hand we will solo. We will start to
do it very simply. Which means I will just hit
the courts always on beat one of the measure like we
did in the exercise assigned a former two lectures. Later, we will add some
rhythm into left hand, but that's for later as I said. So you're going to do
e.g. to seek court. You can first play it in the classical way
with, with fifth root. I have to take my finger away
to be able to play here. For the first measure, e.g. in the second measure,
you could play this variation here
with the ninth. Seventh chord. When we play
higher up, we can play e.g. here, G7, same thing,
we can play it here. If we play loa have
we pay higher up? It can play here, etc. Okay. I will put on the band and it will
just improvise a bit. So interchanging the courts, this classical courts
with our nine courts. So let me put on the bend. Okay. So I kept it quite simple. I don't do too much
with my right hand. Because if you want to make
the best solo in your life, just starting out, well, that will not help
you very much. Just try it simple
in the beginning. And even if you do it simple, you can make mistakes
how you sorted. At the moment, I didn't hit the F chord at
the right moment. So that's all possible. Just be sure that you
keep it very simple. But always on the first beat. Well, I have to admit that
sometimes I didn't even play on the searcher has
beat because I was busy here that I started
on the second beat. That's no problem. In the next lesson, we're also going to see
that we're going to add some rhythm
with our left hand. That means that
you're not always playing on the first
beta and you see that I naturally already
started to do that. So if that happens to you, that you want at the same moments to play something here at
the same moment, be at the first beat with your left hand ready
for the next court? Yeah. Well, it's kinda
happened at your work, just doing something
here and oh, I forgot my first beat them you started on the second
beat is no problem at all. So keep it simple. Do it several times. Really. Practice this. I don't know, it depends on you how many times
you want to do it, but really try to get this left, right hand coordination there. And so that's why you have
to keep it simple and to do it many times so
that you really feel comfortable to go on
to the next lesson. So, see you in the next one.
20. 2.13-Adding rhythm in the left hand: Okay, Now, when you always
start on beat one to play, your court, also might
start to be a bit boring. And also, you saw that
in my last lecture. Sometimes you're so busy
with your right hand, your forgets to place
your chord on beat one. It's happened to me also
that I it a bit later, B2 or on the end of one. But you can, even
within a measure, within the four
counts of a measure, do some more rhythmic worker. You can do something to
make it more interesting. You can also change
the court has. So when you go from, Let, let me say from the
sea to the F chord, let me take that
classical courts now with the fifth and the root. You can also go on the end of four already to the next course before
the next measure starter. So 1,234.123. You can even do a
little jump like this. 1234. You get this. There are so many possibilities. So what did I do? 1,234.1, 234 e.g. that could be a little rhythmic variation
that you could make in your left hand before
I hit again deceit. And on the end of four, so before the next beat, I already hit my
escorts by F7 chord. All possibilities. Within one course you can change from this voicing to this one, or from when you are in
the f from here to here, you have so many
possibilities that your ear be your
guide of what sounds well and what sounds
well, less or okay. Let me put on the band
and just try some things. There we go. Okay. This list. Okay. So you saw that I
did several things. I did. This head is 12341, which I explained before. I also sometimes didn't even play play something
and then later on beat one, I don't know, I can't remember. Three or four. I started to give
one little map, directly went to the next court. I changed from this to
this within one measure, several possibilities that you can that you can check
out for yourself. You can discover
other possibilities that I didn't tell you. Other rhythmic possibilities. There's so much to do. The sky's the limit. So try that yourself
and add some rhythm. And I see you in
the next lecture.
21. 2.14-Adding the 13th: We are again adding some
notes to our courts. Remember last time
we added the ninth. And remember how that to deny. Let me take the classical
C seventh chord. It was because we call these different one to
three to five to seven. And this dynein
know if I would go on by going another third up, and I will stay in the key of C. So that will be a minor
third in this case to the F, Well, nine plus 211. So this would be the 11th, even if you can call it
the fourth, of course, but in this context, we call this the 11th. Now to be honest, 11th doesn't sound fantastic. Listen, when I play a normal C7 chord and
I add the seventh. 11th, sounds quite dissonant, so we will not add the 11th. So what's the next
one that we can add? Well, let's go another third, up from the 11th or from the
f within the C major scale. So here, a major
third this time up. 11 plus two is 13. So this is my 13th, which is of course the
same as the sixth, the 13th, but again, in this context, we
call it the 13th. That sounds nice. So what we're going to
do is to add the 13th. But first of all, let's, let's again take out
the root and the fifth. Now, I can add, of course the ninth and
the 13th at the same time, but let us now not add the
ninth is only the 13th. So what do we have? Two basic notes
of the court said was the major third,
minor seventh. So in the case of c, Let me do it here are
the major third to eat, the, the minor seven, D to B flat, and let me add a. Now of course, this is very far. I couldn't even have
quiet big hands, but it's almost
impossible to take it. So we will do, we will inverse
the seventh and the third. So I will take the seventh year. Minor seventh major third
here, and under 13. So this is my C 13th, but I could just call it a C7. Also. When you see C7, same bowl, you can
just add the 13th. Why not? By the way, if I would
also add to the ninth, which is here, I get this. It's also a possibility. But this is a CT which is quite often
used in jazz by the way. Yeah, so let me
paid with the root. So did you hear it better? It's nicer. If I leave out the ninth. Also very nice as a C7 chord. So, why don't I use them both? Ninth and the 13th? Well, you can, of course. I don't say don't do it. Who am I to say that? But perhaps it
sounds a bit fool. Sometimes it's depends
on the situation. If you're only playing with
a drummer and a bass player? Yeah, why not put
in 9.13 together? When there are more instruments, it quickly becomes quite full. Perhaps you prefer
a more open sound so that in that case, I would do this as
13th or justice C7. Now, this is quiet in the
range of my soloing us, so I'll do this one only when I'm higher up with
my right hand. Let us look at the F
teens or F7 chord. So I take my seventh, my third major third
minor, third, major third. Where is my 13th? Well remembered at
the 13th is altered. Is also 0. Sorry. I'm in a G chord, so I'm not even in the escorts. What am I saying? Sorry, I
will do due to GI court later. Let me first do the escorts. Sorry for the confusion. Of course, the minor seventh is here and major thirds here. I was speaking of the
F chord and my a, my head, I was already
with the G chord. So minor seven thirds. And where's the 13th? So remember that
the 13th is always the same note as the
sixth. Well, Let's go up. F-major scale, sorry to see where two sixes,
so that's 123456. So the D is our sixth or 13th. So when I add the d to those
two nodes, I get this one. This is my F3 genes
are simply F7. Would like to add to the ninth, which is the G. You
can get Discord I, but we said we would, we prefer a more open sound. So just these when I play
it with an F in the bass. Okay, so now finally to G
minor seventh. Major third. What is the 13th? Well, let's go up
into G major scale. In the 13th is the
same as the six. So 12356, and the E is our 13th. So this is our G7
or 13th courts, none with the base, with the root in the bass. So what's possibilities
do we have? So again, I started with C. We have classical C chords. We have the C9 chord. We have the 13th chord, the F. So we have to
classical F chord seven. We have the F, What was it? F9 here, and the F 13th here. For g, we have the
classical chords. I take note always
one inversion. You can take it in every
inversion you want, of course. Why not solely a root position? Of course you can,
but let me now take this third inversion has said this is the classical
geoid seventh chords. Now let me make the G9
Court is this one, G 13. So we haven't month a
lot more possibilities to make variation. So what should you do to
practice those courts? Well, normally you should have practiced already
did the standard had a face and you practice
with the ninth chords. So when you want to practice
with the 13th courts, you can of course do
the blues progression and play only 13th Corps. So you go to measures of C, one measure of, sorry,
two measures of f, back to measures of C than one measure of G
When measure, measure. And back to measures of C. I would suggest
that you do that, but I will not show it to
you because it's so obvious. So just take your play along file and try that several times so that you get
it in your fingers. After that, you're going
to try to solo with it. And we're going to try to use everything
we know till now. So the different forms of
the courts as the classical, the dynein courts,
the 13th chord. We add rhythm and we try to make a simple solo
with our right hand. At the same time, I do
this only when you are feeling comfortable
with the three types of courts that with
the classical course. The ninth and the 13th cortex, you can rapidly
change dose courts. So let me put on the play along file and let's
start and try something. Okay. So I didn't know
nothing special. I only added sometimes this 13th courts with what we
already knew as well. So with the three
types of chords, with the rhythmic patterns in the left hand and with the
soloing in the right hand. So try that also. And I see you in
the next lecture.
22. 2.15-Adding more notes: Now instead of adding only
the ninth or the 13th, or a combination or the
ninth and the 13th. You can add even more nodes. A very nice note to
add is the sharp nine. Okay, what's this sharp nine? Well, when you are
in a C7 chord, let me take a C7 chord
here when these is denied. Well, the sharp
ninth is this one. So it is a D-sharp. Now, this looks a little
bit as the minor third. In C major. This
is a major third, minor third, But we don't
see it as a minor third. We really see it as a sharp
nine because you cannot have a minor third
in a major chord. I also remembered that this node is also
in the blues scale. And also dare, we
called it deflects. Third, we called it, well, I didn't say minor third. I said I said floods three, but actually it's a sharp nine, but that doesn't matter. So the sharp nine, we're
going to add the sharp nine. Now, again, I will take
my faith and my root out. I go again to my two basic notes of
the courts with charge, as you know, the major thirds
and the minor sevenths, and I add my sharp nine. I will play it with
a C in the bass. Sounds nicer. Now this chord is
used a lot in jazz, but also a lot in blues
and even in rock music. So this is a very
useful court to know. Know. So we can add this
one to our playing. Also. E.g. when you're soloing, change between the
night and sharp night. That's also a nice
effect when you change between sharp
nine and denied. Of course you can
add other notes. Remember that I said that
the 11th didn't sound well. But look, when we
go to Halftone up to the sharp 11, it better. But to be honest, this becomes already
quite jazzy sound and we will not use it here. So for now, we just
add the sharp nine. Another note that you could eventually add is the flat 13. When the 13 in the
key of C is the a, that would be a flat. So now this sounds all
also already quite jazzy. And I would suggest for now that we only added
to the G7 squared y. Well, when you add it
to the seventh chord. So two of the 13th was
the E hazard flat. 13th is the E-flat, which is already in
our blues scale, her, and which is also our
sharp nine in the, in the scale of C. So you could e.g. just play this court sometimes. So F minor seventh is a major third and
E flat, the flat 13. Okay, So the only two
additions that we would make would be
adding the sharp nine. I show it now in the
C7 score Tie indices. We call the courts, by
the way, C7 sharp nine. Now you see it's notated here
above the virtual piano, C7 sharp nine, and we'll
play it again with a vase. C7 sharp nine. Okay, so we have
done the flat 13. But as I said, I
would only do it in the G7 chord for now. Concerning this sharp nine, I only showed it in C, yeah, I didn't show it in the
other in the other keys. So in G, what is the flat third? The, what did I say
to the sharp nine? Sorry. The sharp nine. Well, the ninth is the
a. Let me take it here. So the sharp nine is a sharp. So when we have, well, this would
be too far away. That's all that we inverse
the third and the seventh. Now this is the third
major, third minor seventh. And I take my sharp line here. This is G7 sharp nine. When I paid a G in the bass. Nice sound. For F Major
third, minor seventh. What is the 9th? That is this one. So the sharp line is this one. Yeah. You could add that also. Yeah. It's a little bit more dissonant
because this is a flat. Yeah, we don't use
that really in this. In the soloing. You go
to eventually added, perhaps not so
often as with the G seven sharp nine and C seven, sharon, that's all the
additions that we will add. Now. C7 sharp nine, G7 sharp line, and eventually sometimes
the G7 flat 13. So if you're going to add
all that to your solo, your solid will be even, even richer than it was without the addition
of those three chords. Let me just quickly play a little bit with Oscar
said so those courts, sorry. So I will put the band on. Okay. Okay. So you saw me year using
sometimes those sharp ninth and I think one or
two times I can't remember. This court had is
G, 7th flat 13. So try that out and see
you in the next one.
23. 2.16-Extend the blues scale with more notes: Okay, We will extend our blues scale with
some extra notes. So this time we're going to add notes not in our left-hand
node in the courts, but in the right hands, the hands in which
we're doing this solos. So remember how we have now just this flood 3445 flat seven, and back to root. So what notes are notes? Can we actually add? Well, we can use the notes of the C major pentatonic scale. Now, it's already a time, quite awhile ago that we did
the major pentatonic scale. So let me quickly
repeat it for you. The major pentatonic scale
consists of the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth
notes of the major scale. So that's first, second, third, fifth, and six. D, E, G, and a C major
pentatonic scale. So those notes we
could eventually add to our solo tour to the, to the blue scale. You saw me one time
before doing this. Remember? So actually used already the a, which is out of the C
major pentatonic scale. And look, I can do this. Let's see. I make a slight to
the e. And actually the e is just a major
third in the key of C, and we're playing in C major. So the E is totally natural tool to use
the IAEA in, in C major. So this is a nice little lick
that you could play here. So we have here, we added a D. You
could add it also. You see it less often perhaps,
but eventually added. You can add even more notes. Now, normally you
would say the B, it's not possible because we have our seventh,
minor seventh. But you could play it
as a passing note, as a chromatic
passing note, e.g. I. Don't stay on the, on the B, of course. Because in C major, listen how that sounds. Very decent. Dissonance.
You don't stay it. But if you do this, hardly
noticed that dissonance. Do you listen one more time? You hardly notice
the dissonance. Is this a chromatic
passing note, chromatic because we play, if you play all notes, this is chromatic playing, e.g. in this, in this case, it'd be, is it chromatic
passing notes? So e.g. this is a nice line. Why not? One thing I wanted to
say about the E is that you have to watch out when you're playing the F chord. Because if you have
E-flat minor third, so d, e, very dissonant. But again, if you're
just playing it quickly, you hardly notice
the dissonance. So you can play to eat, but don't stay on the E. Like that's very dissonance.
Don't stay on it. Yeah. So let me just
put the band on and apply some of the things that I just mentioned.
So there we go. Oh, Okay, so you heard me applying
some of those new tricks. So I tried it yourself
and have lots of fun.
24. 2.17-Blues Scale in G: Now till now we've been
improvising into key of C. And of course you don't always
improvise in the key of C. Sometimes you have to
improvise and another key. So let's look at some other keys and
let's start with the key of G. So in this lesson, I do only the right-hand. Later we come to the left-hand, but we have to know what the
blues scale is in the key of G. So remember the blue
scale that was rooted, in this case, G, of course, flat three or sharp
94, sharp 45. Minor seventh. You can eventually end with the high G. So you can
play that beat in the same way as with
the Cebu scale. So mainly you use your thumb
and your middle finger. Here. You could go down. Here, you use your
your index finger and you go back
again to your thumb. And with your with your middle finger has okay. So yeah. So you should
practice with that. You can just go up
and down the scale. You can use the play along file that is in the
resources of this lecture. Of course, you cannot
use the same play along file because we're not
anymore in the key of C. So in the, in the resources
you find the file in G, three files are three speeds, 80 beats per minute, 195 beats per minute than
110 beats per minute. Okay? So you do that. I propose you do that before
going on with this lecture. Just to get this in your finger, if you don't want to do it
with the play along file, you can just go up and
down to scale if you want, but get it in your fingers. That's important now, yeah. After you have practiced
with this blue scale, with this blue scale in G, you can try to make
some, some lines. Drill, remembered it, slides, etc. So try that also. And of course, you can use
the play log file for that. Perhaps I should show it. Let me just take the log
file and let me put it on and let me just
play it for you. Okay. I resolved now. You understand justice. Sorry, it would take
to play along file, try to practice this blue scale. You saw that I didn't add the extra nodes that
I talked about, 44 to see improvising. Let's add them also.
What was it again? It were the notes from the major pentatonic
scale and this k, in this case, the G
major pentatonic scale. So that's from g. First, second, third,
fifth, and sixth. So you can add those notes. Also. Remember that in C we did. So what's that in G? This slide. Here, slide. Okay. So that was a, no, it wasn't important one. Remember that in C, we sometimes even took the major
seventh sense, but only as a path
passing notes. So you could do that in G also. So degrade your
sentences, this one, so you do not e.g. this. Okay? So what I will
do one more time, put on the, the play
along file and I will play along also with
those other notes here. So blue scale plus those notes from the
major pentatonic scale. So there we go. Okay, that's the end of
the play along MP3 file. So you see, just practice
with the play along file and practice first, the blue scale,
just up and down, just to get the blue
scale in your fingers and g done your practice. You make solos, you make
lines with the blue scale. And when you've got that really
in your finger, fingers, you're adding all
the techniques, techniques that we
also saw with C i. So adding those major
pentatonic notes and the trills, double stops. So I would say, practice all that and then I see
you. The next one.
25. 2.18-Blues in G Left Hand: Okay, so we've done
the right-hand in g. Now let's look at the left-hand. So the courts. Now the 14.5 chords
that we need, while the one chord is
obviously G, that's a G7. Or how does third
inversion wheels are used to use it in the sea? Blues, so we know it already. So that's the one
chord, the four chord. And let's go to the fourth
note in a G major scale, 1234. Let's see C7. Well that one. We also know that
because the blues and C, obviously we used the C dominant seventh chord
year in second inversion. Of course you can do it in
first inversion if you want. What's the five chord? Well, 123, 45k, that's D. So D seventh chord
is the five chord. So I think that if I do it here, split is possible with
this one, with this sound. So that's the five chord. Now, we didn't only look at our classical dominant
seventh chords. We had some, some other courts, rootless voicings and
also without two-fifths. So let's look at that. Well, actually for g and for C, we already know them. But let me quickly
go over to mess. So the classic one, we
mostly use this one, a third inversion because it was not too low if you go here. Actually, it's also
possible to use this one. Depends a bit on the
sound you have on your on your keyboard, if it sounds well or not. So this one is okay. We used mostly in version. So what did we have more? We had the G9. So that was a, remember, G ninth chords. Obviously, it's very much in
the way of our right-hand, unless we play higher up. I said before, just
use third and seventh, major third and minor
seventh you once. That's enough. We had a G 13th. I remember this one. I do it quickly because
we saw them all already in the sea. Blues here. C major blues. So that's about g. Oh yeah, seven sharp nine. Also quite far to the right. Because if you do it
here, it is far too low. If you want to use that, courts have to take it here. Well, again, depends
on your sound. Perhaps you're a
piece of piano sound. Here, it doesn't. Perhaps your piano sound that
you choose is okay there. Let your ears, the
guides, your guide. So that was G. Let's have a look at C. So we saw already classical
seventh chords with the root, the fifth, the ninth. We know which from
the sea blows. The 13th. We also already know
it's, that's all we did. Dan did D chords. The D chord. So we have, It's possible, not too low, but you could put, eventually leave out the fifth. So we still have the
classical D chord. The minor, major, minor, major third, minor seventh. And of course in this case also the root fits perfectly well. The ninth. Well, you take major third, minor seventh, and ninth. Well it's always a whole
tone above the root. If the root, the root is the E, this would be your D9, D 13. Well, the third genes. Well, let me just go
up to the major scale. So let's remember the 13th is always the same as the sixth. So that's 123456. Hey, that's the B. The B is our sixth or 13th. So, yeah, when you take here
Major third, minor seventh, when you take here 13th, It's possible mountain, I prefer when it's
more open sound. But when you do it here,
yeah, you can't do it. Even impossible for my hands. And as I said before,
I have big heads. You have to inverse again
the third and the seventh. Take your seven year, your microcephaly,
your major third year. And you have your 13th here and just see if it sounds well here. No, No, I find it too low for this sound that
perhaps your sound, your piano sound is okay. But again, does
this quite far up. So you have to play in the
higher regions with your, with your right hand. Remember that four
to five chord. We also due dates,
the flat 13th. Remember with the GI, when we played in the key of C, that G was our five chord, and we have this
one as a flat 13th. Well, if D3 is this one, and this is the 13th of
your flat, 13th is here. Again. It's quite high. So probably we
won't use too much the 13th and genes unless
we're playing higher up. So now I did this very quickly. Those chord shapes for all those ninth and the 13th courts. Perhaps it's too quick for you, but the advantage of video is, of course, you can go back
and look at it again now. So if you don't remember
everything I said, just go back in the video
and see what I do that, pause the video and
try it all out. Now what is very
important for us is, of course, the
blues progression. I didn't even show it to you. Now you can find
the, the G chord. G blues had the chord
progression in G, in G major. You can find it in the
resources of this lecture. But let me just
quickly go over it. So again, your one chord is G, your four chord is C, and your five chord is D. So we have four times g. Let me take G3P and we're
now for measures of g. Then you have two
measures of c. Let me take a C voicing C7
forcing that's close, that's the C9 to see. And then again to G den, we have one measure of D7. Let me take this
one. Did the seventh because it's very
close to each other. One measure of C7. And again, two measures of GSM. Four times g. Two times c. Two times G. One time. One time two times g. Okay. And again, if you
don't remember, go to the Resources, download the PDF file with the blues progression and g.
Eventually printing it out. You can put it before
you on the piano. But it's of course, important to
familiarize yourself with those courts and G. So let's just play the left-hand together
with the play along file. Perhaps it's good to just start. Well, you could start, of course, with the
classical courts. And then you could do for D. So that's a G in
third inversion. What did I do? Foresee? First inversion
and D in root position. So if you want to try for debt, after that, you can try e.g. the ninth. So you do for G, that's the tie up, but okay, if you want to
practice that said together with the play low file, you take this for g, this
for C. You can take for D. This one. Will do that also with
play along track. And what you could also do is
just use the courts that I just showed you that are
close to each other. So C9 and D9, e.g. let me illustrate
this last one to you together with the
play along track. So there we go. 234. Okay. Just one round for now. Okay, So you tried
it also just to get a feeling for this blues in G. So I see you in
the next lecture.
26. 2.19-Blues in G Hands together: So now that you know how
to use the right hand, which nodes to use records
in your left hand? Well, yeah, of course it's timed to bring both
hands together. So what we're going to do, well, we're going to
solo in a right hand. We're going to use
everything we know. Notes of the blue scale, notes of the major
pentatonic scale. In G. The trills, the double stops, the slides, everything we know. Sorry. And in our left hand, we're going to use
the courts and we going to adds the
rhythm. Of course. The court said, We
didn't do that yet. When we practiced in
the last lecture, the structure of the blues in G. But now of course we're going to add a little bit of rhythm. So be well-prepared. Be sure that you that you have it everything
in your fingers, head, your right
hand, the left hand. You can easily now
apply all that. Said. Let me just put on the play along file and let's just try
something. There we go. So just try it out
yourself also. And well, I would
say lots of fun. And I see you in
the next lecture.
27. 2.20-Blues in D Left Hand: Alright, so now you know how
to improvise and C and G. So let's look at another key. And I thought that I would do a blues in D. So let's
look at the one, the four and the five
chords in the key of D. Well, obviously the one
chord is then DHEA. It's perhaps nice to leave the fifth out to have
a more open sound. If we take the
neoclassical cord, the classical board
without fifth then, but with the roots,
the forecourt. Well, let's go up in a
D major scale, 1234. Hey, that's G. That's when we know. So this is the classical cord
and its third inversion, G7 and third inversion, which speak later above, about ninths and 13th
and all that stuff. So the five chord, so 12345, hey, that's a, that's one that we
haven't seen yet. Okay, so what can we do? Well, yeah, DDD, a dominant
seventh chord is a, C-sharp, E and G Major
third. Minor seventh. Eventually take it
in third inversion. Anyway, are 14.5. Courts are done. D, seven, G7 and A7. So a good one to do now is to practice the blues progression
with those courts. So quickly. How is the
blues progression? By the way, as always, you can download it
in the resources. There's a PDF file with
the blues progression in D. So when the one chord is D to fork or G and
the five chord to a. Then we have sort of
blues progression is then for measures of d, two measures of g. Two measures of D, one measure of a, one measure of G. And to end its two
measures of D. But again, if you
can't remember it, go to the resources, find a PDF file, eventually printed out and put it in front of
you so that you have it before your eyes. Okay, so what did I say? Yeah, you should practice with that blues,
blues progression. I should say that you
get it in your fingers. You get familiarized with
this blues progression in D. So for now, I would
just play the classic, classical courts so you can play the open sound
without defied well, but if you want a
fifth in it, why not? And you can do as you want. You played D7. One courts the G7. For cords as the A7
as the five chord. You could take those inversions. If you feel better with
only root position, then you take only
root position. Up to you. Important is here that
you get familiar with the with the blues progression in D. So you can stop the video and do that now, before you go on. Not when, once you're familiar with this
booze prohibition D, you can do, of course, you can do all kinds of inversions if you want
to practice as well. But we can now look at
the 9th and to 13 scores. So let's have a look there. So we start with D, and let's
look at the d.school night. Well, actually we
noted the ninth, already, saw it in
the last lecture. Major third, minor seventh. Ninth. We owe, we
had a D7 sharp nine. This one. When this is denying, this is the sharp nine,
also use that one. I think I forgot to mention
that one in GBrowse, but anyway, you can, you can add that D7 sharp nine. What did we have more to D3? So to 13, whether it be how
we use this voicing for D3. Again, it's quite in the middle region where you have little conflict
with your right hand. But if you play
higher up or why not? So let's look at the four
chord, which is the G. Well, actually we know it also, also already yeah, 13, but we would start
with in China. So G9, we know it. This one. If you want to eventually G7
sharp knife, it's this one. And the G3, I just
showed it to you, but you already know
it because of the, the improvisation,
improvisation in C and then G. So we're left with an a. So what can we do with a? Let's first look at the A9. So what did we do? We use the major,
third, minor seventh. There it is. I always want to hold
zone below the root. And the ninth, which is one
whole so above the root. So this is a nine. You see that it's
quite high. Guide. You have conflicts
with your right hand. Unless you play up. Depending on your sound.
It could try here. Possible. But if for you the
sound is too low. What you could also do as a, as an ape Nine sound is this. So what do I have here? I have minor seventh
because the road is here. So one whole tone below the
root is the minor seventh. Above the root is my ninth now. So what do we still miss? We have minor seventh and ninth. We miss the major third.
So that's this one. And actually this would
be already a knife. You could use this. Why not? But yeah, it's
nicer in this case. Well, that's my opinion. I don't know what you think. To add the fifth. Listen to the difference. This is without
fifth. Is with fifth. You hear a difference. I find this nicer. This is an example of a rootless voicing where
you use the fifth. Most of the rootless voicings we use where without two-fifths, well, this is one
width the fifth. So as a A9, you could use this
instead of this one. Why not? Then?
What have we more? Oh yeah, the 13th. So what's the 13th
in the key of a? And remember again, at a 13th is the same
note as the sixth. So let's go up D, the a major
scale till we reach the 61234568. That's F sharp. So, well, we could do this, e.g. could do this e.g. a. Minor seventh, major third. That's the 13th, is a
nice voicing for a 13th. Which again is just
a seventh of course. But with an added the 13th. Yeah, you could even
eventually add the ninth also, which is the b. Since it's not so low, you can add more nodes. But if you really
want to keep it in, open out, that news
just those three nodes. And one last one. This is the five chord
and in D5 quarter we used also the flat 13th, and this is the third teens
that this is the flat 13th. A7 flat 13 is Dischord. Okay. So we have a whole
lot of courts. Now. I will actually only a courts. The courts with a as a bruit
there are new for you. So yeah, we can apart from
what we practiced before, which you practice because
I didn't show you, because it's very, very obvious, very simple how to do it. The classical courts, we can practice with
some other chords. So e.g. you could do this. Take a d nine, and then you could do g 13. I did very close. And then you could do a
nine voicing with the fifth that we get
I just explained. So let's try that one. Just to get familiar
with the blues. The blues progressions are
either blues progression in D. So let me put on the
blues progression and lets us try that. Okay, One round enough. Okay, so that's it for now. You just practice that so
that you get familiar with the progression in D. And I
see you in the next lecture.
28. 2.21-Blues Scale in D: Okay. The right-hand In d, what to do with the right-hand? Well, you know what, the blue scale and the extra notes from the
major pentatonic scale. So let's start with
the blue scale. So remember, blue scale is root, which is now D minor thirds, or let me call it
rather sharp nine. Sharp 45 minor seventh. And you can eventually end with the high D. Okay. Hi, So for the fingers
he could do this. 341. And when you add, you
can use finger three. If you don't add, you use
finger to one, sorry. Thump. You do the same thing. Okay. Quickly. But you can always go back into video
to see which fingers I use. And perhaps you like to use
other finger positions. But I think this dose dose should be good for, at least for my fingers. I think for everyone. Okay, So that's the blue scale, the deep blue scale. So perhaps the best is to first try to practice
with the blue scale. So go up and down. You can use, of course, the file into resources had
to play along file again, you have it in three speeds. 8,095.110 beats per minute, as always, go up and
down just to get familiar with the blue scale. After that, you can make
yeah, somebody lines there. Sorry, I use this one though. That's for later in our slides. Trills with a slide e.g. or the double steps. What did we have more? Well, that's about it. Okay, So try that
also tried to make some little lines. With it. You can use the
player long file to make nice musical lines
together with the blues. I will not show it for now because it's always
the same thing. So let me just add, now denotes the five notes of
the major pentatonic scale. So remember, it's the
12356 of the major scale, in this case a major scale
of D and the D major scale. So 12356 dose, dose, F sharp, a and B. So you can now create
lines that e.g. remember that we did this in C and G. So what's that indeed? Well, yeah, That's forgot to say that in this case
you cannot slide up. So you should do either
a quick movement with your two fingers or you
can just do it slower. It's also nice. Now I
used the major seventh. Remember that we did this
with C and F. We can also do it with only as
passing this major third, because major seventh, I'm not major third of
cork major seventh. Because you should
use the minor seventh because it's a dominant chord
that we use here at D7. But as it passing
note, no problem. Again. So in this case, this
sliding is not possible. Due It's quick, but
you can also do it. Then it's swung
eighth notes, e.g. so you also tried it out with the with the play along track. Let me just show you a better, let me try to solo a little
bit with all that we have. So with the blue scale
and with those with the pentatonic major
pentatonic scale notes. And with sometimes
that's passing note, the major seventh.
Now let me put it on. Hi. Okay, to see and track. So try that yourself. Make some nice melodic lines. And in the next lecture, we're trying to bring
both hands together.
29. 2.22-Blues in D Hands together: Okay, let's bring both hands together and play the blues and D. So we tried to do everything. We learned all the techniques. Left-hand. Add a
little bit of rhythm. Use all kinds of courts. Right-hand use here. Blue scale, you use the major
pentatonic scale, slides, drills, double stops,
and everything. And I'm okay when it's wet, this is all a little
bit too much for you. You can, of course,
also simply start with only three simple
types of left hand. Accompany meant courts. So d, g, and Disney, they're
close to each other. So use them only those three and create simple lines, e.g. first only with the blue scale, and a later at some other
stuff, like some slides. At some drills, some
double stops after that, after some extra nodes
than try to use. Also, other courts had an, those three that I just choked. Slightly build it up if
it's too difficult to do all this stuff at once. Let me put down the play along file and let's
just try. Okay. Okay. I did a little thing
also in the ending. Why not? Yeah, I
tried it yourself. And as I said, if it's too difficult to apply
all those things at once, build it up slowly. Have lots of fun. And
in the next lecture, we're going to do even
another tonality.
30. 2.23-Blues in Eb Left Hand: So I wanted to do it
more difficult key now, and with the route
on a black note, I wanted to do E-flat. That's what Blues in E-flat, improvising in the
E-flat blue scale, and adding the notes from
the major pentatonic, E flat major
pentatonic scale, etc. Now, the question
you might ask is, well, is this not too
difficult for me? Yeah, perhaps, perhaps
it is. Perhaps it's not. The question is also
shoot, I do this. Should I follow? The lecture is about
the E-flat blues. Well, yeah, it depends. If you're just not so
advanced player and just want to learn
to start to learn to improvise. I would say no. Also it's sold at mostly. You will not play on
those difficult keys. So if you play with
other people in a band or whatever, they will vary, probably not play
in difficult keys, so in E-flat or other, starting on other black notes. Well, sometimes they
will, of course, but I think that mostly they
will start on a wide is key, especially the first
six notes seen from C. So C, D, E, F, G, and a dose or yeah, the most played keys, even B is already
a bit less than. So. If you just focus on dose
keys, It's probably enough. But if you're more advanced and you're playing with a
band who wants to play in a, let's say difficult Qi. Well, yeah, of course,
then your shoot. Concentrate on being
able to do that also. So in that case,
follow those lectures. Why do I do this lecture
if it's not so very often? Well, for reasons of completeness and
also because I want, for DOS, who wants to play
a more difficult case? I want to show how
you can do that also. So E-flat. What's our 214.5 chords
in the key of E flat? Well, the one court,
obviously E-flat. So what is E-flat seven. So that's root. Third major, third minor seven. What's the forecourt? Well, we go up the
E-flat major scale, so 34, hey, it's A-Flat. So A-Flat is our four chord. So in a flat, seventh chord is what we're
going to play in the blues. So you have a flat
seventh chords. I wrote. Third major,
third minor seventh. So that's the four chord. What's the five chord? Well, that's, again, go up
the E-flat major scale, 345. Hey, that's B-flat. B-flat is our five chord. B flat seventh. That's this major
third, minor seven. Okay. So you should practice with those courts into
blues progression. Now, first of all, how does the blues progression
look like in E-flat? Well, it's always the same. If you're one chord is E-flat, your four chord is a flats and
your five chord is B flat. Well, then you have four
measures of the one chord, which is E flat, to measures of the four
chord, which is a flat. Two measures of the one
chord, which is E-flat. One measure of the five chord, which is B flat, one
measure of the forecourt, which has a flat end to end to have two measures of the
one chord, which is E-flat. Perhaps it goes a bit, a
little bit too quick for you, but you can download
in the resources of this lecture in a PDF file, the blues progression in E-flat. Yeah, So you can, you can
download it, print it out, put it in front of
you so you have it's before your eyes so that you can look at it so to speak. You know what the
E-flat, sorry to beat the E-flat blues is? Now, to get it in your fingers
to get familiar with it. It's good to practice with
the play along trick. You could, of course
do the root positions. But if you find it easier to have positions that are
close to each other, what you could do is the
E-flat just in root position, and then the A-flat. The second inversion. Leaflet, leaflet seventh,
second inversion. Those are close to each other. Okay, let me put on the band and just play
those inversions. You can, if you want to start
with the root positions, of course, if you
find that easier. You can also directly do those cores if you want
those, those inversions. Main thing is that you get
familiar with the E-flat blue. So let me put on the
play along track. A Fnet, back to E-flat. E-flat, A-flat,
D-flat to measure. Okay, this is the whole round, then you put it off.
This is whole round. You can do your three
rounds if you want. Now, of course, we don't play just the classical
course at the courts. Those word, I call
it the classical courts as soda with the 1357, with the root and the fifth. What about the
rootless voicings? So it starts with the E-flat, and I will first show
you E-flat nine. So this is E-flat nine. So what do we have here? This is the third minor seventh, always one whole
tone below the root, and one hotel above the root. We have tonight.
This is E-flat nine. The 13th. What's that? E flat 13th. So what do we have? We start with the flat
seven tone below the root, the third, and this is the 13th. Oh, can you see
that it's the 13th? Well, remember, thirteenths
is the same as the sixth. 1234566. Note in the scale
of E flat is C. So this is a flat 13. Oh yeah, by the way, when
we have E-flat nine, we can also easily make
E-flat seven sharp nine. I just raised a knife with a
half down to a sharp nine. This is E-flat. Seven sharp nine. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's
a bit about E-flat. Let's go to A-Flat, so we can make a flat nine here. So this is the third in the
key of a flat. Seventh. Note below the root. Alton above the
road is my ninth. So this is a flat nine. Let me directly to a flat seven sharp line
because I don't have to raise this one by a
semitone to the sharp nine. So this is a flat
seven sharp knife. A flat 13. Here we have seven because the root is here and it's a whole tone
below the root. The third and a flat is
the C. And the 13th. Yeah. So how can you see that? Again? The 13th
is the sixth one. The sixth in the a
major scale is the f. So this is a flat, 13th. So that's a flat. Let's have a look at B-flat. Let's start ticket here. Little bit low. Let
me take it here. Eventually played here,
but let me play it here. This third seen
from B flat flat 7, v or below the roots. When Holton, above the root, I have to see,
which is my ninth. This is B flat nine. Yeah, I don't easily we
can do sharp nine also had just raised this one, but you have to be sharp minor. B-flat seven, sharp nine. Let's look at B flat 13th. That's this one, because
this is my flat seventh. Oh, Tommy load root. The third major thirds
into key of B-flat, D. And this is the 13th. Again, you can see
that 13th is six to go up into the B flat
major scale, 123456. So the 13th, 13th. And since B flat
is the five chord, we've seen before that sometimes we can eventually
in the five chord, play also the flat 13th. So justice flatten this one
semitone to the flip 13th. And here we have B
flat seven, flat 13. Know, those are so many
courts all in once. So it might seem a little bit overwhelming now, I
can imagine that. Of course, if you
don't remember them, which I can completely
understand because it's very much information
all at once. You can always go
back into video. You can, you can eventually put it on a
paper which notes are in practice with it? At least you know,
what today are those chords that so
go back into video, stop the video at each cords, make a notation on a paper, and practice with them. Okay, let's let's
practice those courts just in the in the
play along track. So you can make some variations. But if you want to
keep it simple, in first instance,
you could do e.g. only ninth chords
are only 13 skirts. Or make a combination of courts that are
near to each other, e.g. B-flat, E-flat, A-flat. Take the a flat 13th, you only have to move those
two nodes via a halftone. See this one halftone down
and this 1.5 tone down. A flat 13th, very easy. And then you can use B-flat
13th, just everything. A halt on, up. Here. We have everything very
near to each other. E-flat, A-flat, B-flat. And it's also a great
way to start to, to, to, to practice with
the play along phi. Let me, let me show you quickly this just one
round. There we go. Okay. Route starts. Let me stop it. So breakfast that to
get a feeling for it is E-flat blue scale to
get familiar with it. As I said, I don't,
I don't show you all the exercises you can yourself try out our inversions. Try. Instead of starting with
the ninth chords in E-flat, start with the 13th. Dad, you can take e.g. a. Flat nine and B-flat nine. Take everything, a whole tone. Those are three that are
close to each other. A-flat. A-flat. B-flat. Okay. Okay. You practice as well, and then
I see you in the next one.
31. 2.24-Blues Scale in Eb: So what to do in the
right hand and E-flat? Let's first have a look at the, at the E-flat blues scale. So we started on E-flat
minor third or sharp nine. Remember the third
major third is the G. So your minor third is here. Four. Here, sharp 45. So we have minor seventh here. I've tried to familiarize
yourself with this boost gap. By the way, the pentatonic
minor pentatonic scale, E-flat is very simple. Look. It's only the black keys. So when you look at the black keys on your
keyboard, the hero, just the minor E-flat, minor pentatonic scale with, it's as easy as that. So if you wanted to improvise
in E-flat minor pentatonic, just, just use your black keys. It's as simple as that. And the only extra notes that you add to get out of
the minor pentatonic scale. The blue scale is
just add this word, which, which is the sharp four. So yeah, you can try
to create some lines. That was not a very special line because I just went
down the scale. Sorry, not this one. That's nothing. The blue scale, we come
later to that node. E.g. you can make your tools e.g. now, in this case, you have to slide
up and slide up. You cannot slide up of course, but you can use e.g. you're a thump on the a and dad do this as a sort of slides
very quickly from the with your thumb
and your index finger. When I do it very slowly, it is. But if you do it
quickly, alright, this one, your trill, or you're a double stops. You can make as many
as you want it. And then later, we can also add the notes of the
major pentatonic scale, which are in the
scale of E flat. 356. Those notes, E-flat, F, G, a, B-Flat, C. If we add those notes. We can also do this. E.g. I. Remember that
in C it was like this. Remember E-flat, The same thing. Transpose to E-flat would be if you want to do
it with this one. Sorry. Once again, I remember this major seventh that we could put in
as a passing note. Only as it passing
note because we are, of course in a
dominant chord here. And the major seventh normally doesn't belong
in a dominant chord. So you know, but as
it passing note, we did it earlier in C. I
remember we did this in C. So now in, in, in E-flat, we can do this. Okay, so try a little bit
all those things out, create some lines, and then try to play
with play along file. So let me try that now for you. By the end of the, play along fine. So try some simple lines
or if it's difficult, practice first, only with the blue scale and nothing more. Or even with all these
pentatonic scale head, those are only the black keys, or the black keys is just E flat minor pentatonic
scale, very easy. And you just add this note to
make it to the blue scale. So try that first out and later you can add the other notes and adds those slides here. Well, this is a
bit strange world because you cannot slide down. You have to slide up,
but it doesn't exist. So I try all that stuff. Wow. Slightly add more things. Had a double stops
at trails, etc. Okay, breakfast. Well, and in the next lecture, we're going to bring
both hands together.
32. 2.25-Blues in Eb Hands together: Okay, it's time to bring
both hands together. Everything we learned in
the last two lectures, left hand, right hand, are going to combine them. And we're going to play
both hands together. Now this is not so
easy of course, because it's quite difficult
key to improvising. But yeah, if you did well
the last two lectures, if you really practice well, first the left hand, all the combinations
and the right hand, you're quite, quite prepared to go out and to bring
both hands together. Now, of course, in the beginning
where we were difficult, but I propose that you
first yeah, just do simple. You could even just
start always on the one and just use
those courts, e.g. so for E-flat, A-flat, D-flat, all sort of
theory, just e.g. only those three courts
that started all of us on the wind and improvising, then it's not too difficult. Later. When you have that
in your hands. When you master that, and you
can also add other chords. So e.g. for the A-Flat, you use this one for
it to be flipped. This one sometimes add
sharp ninth, well, etc. And then you're going to add some rhythm
in the left-hand. Well, you know how it works. So anyway, let me just try
something just to show. Of course, you make
your own lines. You invent your own
left-hand accompaniment. Anyway, let's try. That's the end of
the play alone file. Yeah. You will probably do some more simple stuff that
you would do in C or in G. That's no problem, of course, make sure it aligns and
you'll get used to it. Eventually. Tried it out. Slightly build it up. If you want, you can
first, as I said, do simple chord start on the
one of each new measure. First, try only e.g. to the blue scale later
at some other stuff. Now, build it up slowly. Okay, So we don't know how to play in four
different tonalities. What about all the
other tonalities? Well, I will speak about
debt in the next lecture. So see you in the next one.
33. 2.26-Improvising in other keys: So as I said in
the last lecture, you've been improvising
in four different keys. So we started with
seed and G and D, And then we took E-flat. Now of course we have
12 different nodes. So we can make 12th
different blues progressions that we can transpose or boost progression and so are improvising in our
courts everything to 12 different keys to talk,
12 different tonalities. So after afford that, we've done There's
till eight lift. But the question is, of course, do you have to do them all? Ate? Well? I think that very
few people will probably do it because I
think I said it before. If you know how to play e.g. in the white keys, even the first six white keys. So C, D, E, F, G, and a, those are six white keys. So if you do the
blues in C and D, E, F, and G and an a, I think you've probably
enough to play, well, 90% of what
most people play. So if you're playing
in a band or playing with other
people or whatever, with those six keys, you can play 90% of the stuff. So you don't really
need to know to do it, to do it in all 12 keys. But if you want or if you play with other
people that want to play in, let me say in B-flat
or an F sharp. Well, you can, of course, takes a bit of practice, but when you put
in that practice, you'll definitely
be able to do it. Now of course, it's
going a bit too far to show you for every 12 keys, how to improvise him
that keys in those keys. So I will not do it in
this, in this course. You can do it yourself with the aid of what you
have learned until now. Anyway, you will find in the
resources of this lecture, the blues progression
in all the 12th keys. Besides that, you will also find in the resources
of this lecture, the blues scales, while the major
pentatonic scales notes, because we have them already in the beginning
of this course. In the, one of the
first lessons, I can't remember
exactly which lesson, but there you have already
the major pentatonic scale, so only two blues scales. You will find them in the
resources of this lecture. And what you will also find in the resources of
this lecture are the courts to 14.5
courts for every blues. So you can just lookup e.g. I want my, I don't know. F sharp ninth court or F? F sharp seven sharp nine chord. You look it up in the resources so you can
find all those courts there. So yeah, that's it. Oh yeah. One thing. Of course, you will find
in the resources also the backing tracks to play
along files, the MP3 files. For the blues in every tonality and for every tonality
in three speeds. 80 beats per minute, 95 beats per minute, and 110 beats per
minute so that it makes in total 36 file. So 12th and LLCs times
three speeds. Okay. So we have if you want
enough to practice with, but as I said, start
with the easy ones. You've done, C, G, and D as easy ones, do then a and B. And then you have
this six white keys. And I think you will have
more than enough to play. As I said, 90% of everything which you could
play with other people. Okay, lots of success. I see you in the next lecture.
34. 3.1-Rock Improvisation The Basics: Hi and welcome back. And we're going to do some rock. So no more blues, rock music. So what's the difference in improvising between rock
music and blues music? Well, for large parts, It's a lot of the same
because the blue scale and the pentatonic minor
pentatonic scale art and even two major
pentatonic scale are not used in rock music. And I would say that
that's a rock solos rely heavily on those pentatonic
and blues scales. So what we've learned
in the blue section, we will apply it
also to the music. So if you just came in here and didn't do any
of the blue section, I recommend that you do first
the blues improvisation. And actually it's enough to look only on the right
hand improvisation. So do both hands together. You don't need it for
Florida Rock improvisation, more on that later. So older, the
right-hand lessons, improvisation techniques. You should do that first. That'd be four going on here
with the rock improvisation. Now, one important thing that's really different in
Brock than in blues. You don't play with swing fuel. You don't play
with triplet feel. You play straight,
straight eighth notes. So not that data
but dot, dot, dot. This is very important. So of course, it was important that you passed
first through the blues, has audio through this
swing for you so that you know how to blues scale and everything works and
how you can improvise. But swing few is used a
lot in blues and jazz, but in rock and
also in funk music. No, it's straight,
just straight notes. This is important to know. Okay, Now, as I said, the blue scale and
dependent tonic scale, or are used a lot in rock music. So what would you
actually choose? What you choose, choose rotted and minor pentatonic
or rather the blue scale. There's only one note
difference that, but which one would you choose? Well, if you choose
the blue scale, you will definitely end up with a more bluesy sound than when you use just
a pentatonic scale. Now, does that matter? No, in a lot of cases, not a lot of rock music. You can very well
use the blue scale. But in some rock music, it might sound a little
bit to bluesy head. Is this bluesy agitate you have? Might, for some songs, be a little bit too much. I would say, let your ear be your guides on whether
to use the pentatonic, minor pentatonic scale or even two major pentatonic scale. We come back on that later, or two blues scale. Now, I have a chord
progression that we will use here for
this erupt lessons. And dare, the blue
scale fits very well. So I will use the blue scale
for now and I, but again, let your ears by b or your
guide and try it out. If you have another song, I try out the blue scale, dependent tonic scale, and see if the blue
scale fits or not. If not, then use the pentatonic scale, the minor pentatonic. So what were the major
pentatonic scale? So the chord progression
that I'm going to use, one measure of C minor, one measure of E-flat, one measure of B-flat, and one measure of a flat. Now, this is in the
key of C minor. So what shout, when we
did a blues lessons, we were in C major. And so that's why you
could use the E also. In this case, we will not use the e because we're in C minor. So that's very
important to realize. Another thing. I said, chord progression is C minor,
E-flat, B-flat, A-flat. I didn't say C minor seven. E flat seventh, B-flat
seven is a flat seventh are very often in rock
you see much more. Just try it's done. Seventh chords.
Always, of course, you will see seventh chords, but it's a lot less
than in blues or jazz. So that's why you see here two chord progression
without any 7th. Okay, enough talking. Let's, let's start. I choose here for an
Iraq, Oregon sound. As you can here. Well, let, let, let me
just play a little bit. What we, what we will
do is first just experiment a little bit with this chord
progression and play some little solo over it. If it's good, you know how
to play the blues scale. You know your tricks
from the blues lessons. So I don't have to
explain all that. That's all we're going to use. The sea blues scale. Okay, so be sure that you know how to play
the C blues scale. Okay, so what I'm going to do is put on the play
along track and just do some very simple solo work on this with this see
blues scale. There we go. Okay, So here, that's it. So try the same. Try to just solo a little bit. No, no, no difficult things. Just single notes. Try to explore a bit how that sounds over this
chord progression just to get used to it. Now, very important is that, you know that with the
blues improvisation, we use also the notes of
the major pentatonic scale in those 12345 notes, C, D, E, G, E, we don't use them here. Again, this piece is in C minor. All those courts in this chord progression come
from the C minor tonality. So in C minor you will
definitely not play an E. Also will very
often not sound well. Look, you have an A-flat chord here in the chord progression, so D Eventually, yes, you could play the D had
a ninth in the key of C. But for now, let's
just concentrate the blues scale and nothing
more, just single notes. Just tried it out. And I'll see you in
the next lecture.
35. 3.2-Adding double stops and trills: Okay, so we're adding
some more embellishments. And before we did
a very simple solo with just single notes. But before we do so, I wanted to talk about this. I didn't say it in
the last lecture, but you've seen two things. First thing is that I
play quiet high, high up. First when we did the blues, I was much more in this
region now a much higher. Why is that? Well, in rock? Very often, those guitarists, guitarists very present
in rock of course, very loud very often and very often are in the middle region
of the frequencies. So if you're going to play, they're also competing with a guitar player
and you know what, a guitar players and
they play very loud. Even if you ask them to turn the volume
a little bit down. Very often rock guitarists
don't even know what it mean. So so you need another way to show your
presence to be able to hear you. If you're playing here in the same region as a guitar to people won't even hear you. That's why I'm playing higher
up, higher frequencies. That's one thing. The second thing I
wanted to say is we're not going to
use the left-hand actually, or very little. Why? Well, imagine you're
doing courts here. Well, first of all, let me do some court doesn't
sound very well on it, so it's a bit too much. Also, very often a guitar
player will do courts. And you hear that with
the play along track where there is no guitar
and drums and bass. When you just play your solo
over to jumps and base, it's very often already enough. You don't need always courts. But as I said that to guitar
player will often do courts. So we're not even going
to use the left-hand. Okay? So what we're going
to do in this lesson, we're going to add
some embellishments. As I said, the first thing we're going to do is
add those double stub. Say again, if you forgot, forgot about the double steps. Go back to the blues lesson. Have very simply said it's just playing more than
one note at a time. Those are double stumps. Could even play. Three knows why. I didn't do this. Because then I'm
playing the a yes. So let's try it. It will just put on
the play along track and let's try to play also
with some double steps. Okay, So here. So tried it out. You see, you can
make your Soto much richer when you apply
this double stops. You saw also that I also
kept one tone ringing. Well, I didn't my solo
with my other fingers. That's also technique
with this rock Oregon. That creates a very nice sounds. So try that out also. Also, yeah, what
I wanted to say, it's nice when you hold one
note to play some chords. Let me take a higher C. Now, it's nice to play those courts. Let's see. It's very difficult
because it's, you have to stretch
your hand a lot. What you could do since you're
not using your left hand. Just take the highest
see with your left hand and then why not? Let me hear how that sounds when I put the play along track on. Okay. Well, I hold
it on very long. Perhaps you shouldn't
do it that long. But you see what
a nice effect it creates when you hold
it with your left hand. Then you have your right hand free to do some
soloing over this. See that this constantly
played a very nice effect. Okay? What other things can we do? The trills. Be sure that it doesn't
sound like single notes. You'll hardly lift
your fingers up here, so you very slowly. So I let it ring the whole time. Let me try that a little bit. So bringing all those
trails, double stops, trills, and you see that
your solo sounds much richer than when you
only do single nodes. So try that out also, that the play along
track is almost 5 min long so you can freely, solo, try a lot of things. I would say, lots of fun
with the play along track. And I see you in
the next lecture.
36. Adding 16th note triplets: Okay, We've come already quite
a long way with our Soto, but we can add even more. What we're going to do is
add triplets, 16th triplets. So they're not, the triplets
here used, used to. Normally, you know that
when the beat is like this, 1234, when you add triplets, it would be triple, let, triple let 123123. So three nodes every beat. Now, this sounds very
much already bluesy, because in a blues we
had this swing feel. Here. We don't have swing
fewer in his rocker June, no, Springfield, just a
straight eighth notes. But we're not going to
do a normal triplets. We're going to do
sixteenths triplets, edit the normal triplet, eighth notes and triplets, where you have 123123. What we're going
to do is triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet,
triplet, triplet. So you have six notes in a beat. I can't even say it that quick. 12 345-612-3456, 56c.
Difficult to say. Triplets. So wearing
do it quicker. Triplet, triplet,
triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet,
triplet, triplet. What we're going to do, e.g. is sorry. Or you can also go down. So what, what, what
am I doing here? Actually, I'm just going up
the blues scale that I go to. It's actually not
even the blue scale. It's the minor pentatonic scale. Because I don't use this note. C, E-flat, F E flat, F G, F, G, E flat, G, B flat, C, D flat, C, E flat. And then we continue
the same thing. We'll put on the play along track and let's
see how it sounds. Well, it sits around. You saw, I went one time up and onetime done with my
16th note triplets. Can you do only, can you only go up
or oligo don't know, of course thought you can
do whatever you want. E.g. this let me try that. Okay. So you saw me using
from time to time, some 16th note triplets. So you can just add just a
little part b, the whole time. Can be just very
short, doesn't matter. So try to put that
also in your solo. Okay, try that. And I see
you in the next lecture.
37. Adding the glissando: Okay, So I started this
lesson with a little solo. What you hurt? What I did work Gleason dose. So what are glissandos? Well, you saw me doing it. This is a glissando. So just take your hands
here and you go up. Now, it's nice when
your glissando starts on the end of the
glissando when it starts, e.g. on beat one on a certain note. So when you want to start at least some that
you could start e.g. on counted three and then be
ready On the count of 31234. Sorry. So you start with count four of the former beat and then start on beat one of
the next beat with your, with your notes
that you're aiming. 12341 e.g. be aware, don't leave a gap,
but it can do this. No, it should be one flow. You don't leave a gap there. So 123. So that's when you come
in with a glissando. You can also do a glissando down if when
you end a part of the solo, or it can even be in
the middle of a solo. So e.g. then you can continue your solo. You can also go in and out, or I should say Out and
in the other way round. That's all you're,
you're soloing. Sorry. You go and you go back
into your solo edit. Those are very nice effects. No one warning. Watch out. You can hurt yourself with
those glia cell knows. What I advise you
to do is just to try what is best for us. Some people do it
with the project. But since you're solely
soloing with your right hand, It's good to have your
right hand ready. After a glissando. That's why I prefer to do the glistening
with my left hand. Lift the gap her. Yeah, What I do is this. I put two fingers,
three fingers. Four is a bit much perhaps. But watch out. You can hurt yourself. Don't don't leave blood
on your keyboard. So try to find out what
for you is the best. You don't hurt
yourself and that you don't damage your
keyboard, of course, has tried it out several
times up those glissandos. And oh, yeah, what I wanted
to say also, that e.g. if you're playing with this
high C and you're doing this, I told you before that you
shouldn't do it with one hand. You should use your left hand. And when you want to
hold this high C, Now when you're going there with a glissando to this high, see. What you could do is have your left hand
Ready, e.g. sorry. But you can also do the
glissando with your left hand. Take the high note with
your right hand and later take it over
from your funeral, your right-hand. Let
me just show you. Then you start to do your
solo work with a writer. Don't leave a gap. I
think you do this. Take it off. You may not leave
a gap. Of course. You see that in this way, I have a used from
her left hand, even if I'm not playing chords. I have a use for
my left hand with the glissandos with this note. Let me just play a
little bit and use a bit of everything what
we've been speaking about. There we go. Sorry. Well, that's it. They're up. Okay. I made a little mistake
there. No problem. Hi. So I I sometimes came
in with a glissando. I just sometimes went out
of my solo, started again, or I went out, came back in with a glissando, out within Christendom
in with a glissando. My solo. What you saw
me doing also was this. This is another way of
using your, your, your, your left end just to
make some rhythmic, rhythmic effect is it puts e.g. on the sea. You don't have to do it on to C, e.g. so you can use your
left hand sometimes, in this case to add
some rhythmic effects. Okay? So that's,
it's a little bit about using all
those techniques. So what have we done? We used the blue scale than
we added double stops. We added trills, we
added 16th triplets. I didn't show it now
in this last solo, but of course you know how it works now has
since last lesson, we added the glissando. So you have a lot of
things to work on, try to, to, to, to implement all
those little tricks. And yeah, that's the way how you can use the blue
scale in rock solos. So have fun and practice a lot. And again, have lots of fun because that's
what it's all about.
38. Soloing with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th: So till now we've been mainly
be using the pentatonic, minor pentatonic
and the blue scale in our, all our improvisations. In fact, in the blues, you can overdo 124.5 chord. Always improvise
with the blue scale belonging to the one-quarter, so Blues and see about to
see seven F7 and the G7. We have seen that we can
improvise the whole time over to see blues scale. The same with this
chord progression with C minor, E-flat, B-flat, A-flat. We're improvising
the whole time. Until now. With the sea blue scale, it fits over all four chords. Why? Well, because those four chords, they belong to C minor tonality. If you don't know how
it works, I explain. So in my, in my core is about playing by ear the
so-called diatonic chords. All those courts had a C
minor, E-flat, B-flat, and E-flat are diatonic chords in the tonality of C minor, which is the same
tonality as E flat, because C minor, E-flat, our relative minor and
relative major of each other. That's it. That's why we can play the whole time,
the same scale. But it could also be interesting perhaps to apply a different
scale for each court. So the most simple thing which you could do is just
the chord tones, of course. So in C, you just improvise e.g. with a, C, E flat, and G with E-flat, E-flat, E-flat, G, B flat, just the core tones in B
flat, that's a, B-Flat, C, D. Those are a flat, C and E. E-flat, sorry. Well, it's interesting
when you add one extra note to those
courts, and that's the ninth. So in C minor scale of C, you know that the
d is the ninth. By the way, the
ninth, it's the same. Note for the minor scale
is for the major scale in both C major scale and in the old minor
scales that exist. So natural minor,
harmonic minor, melodic minor, D is always
the second-order nine. So the ninth is always the same. So in C, we could add to
those three notes, also to D. So we have C, D, E flat, and G notes
we could use. So just 1234 nodes. We could solo over. In E-flat. The ninth, always one
whole tone above the root, as you know, will be the f. So instead of only the
chord tones, E flat, G, B flat at the f, so that, that It's, so that's leaflets
have G, B-flat. Same thing for B flats. The ninth is the C one hold zone above the B flat to the root. Chord tones, B flat, D, F. And you add the C, B-flat, C, D, F, B flat chord. You just improvise
with those four toes. And then a flat, well, the core tones or a flat, C, E flat, and the ninth, one whole tone above
E-flat is the B-flat. So if you use in
the A-flat chord, a flat, B flat, C, E-flat. Well done when
you're in a flits. Court, just use dose tones. Of course, you have to think a little bit more
than when you were using to all the time without thinking just the C minor pentatonic
or to see blue scale. But this is a bit, a bit different in that
you have to think, what is my next court
that so you have to really know the chord
progression before. Actually. Didn't matter if you knew the
chord progression or not. Well, you should
know it'd be cool to know that you're in C minor, of course. But
that's all effort. Arrest you improvise the whole
time with the same notes. So know that when you're in
the C chord, you could e.g. do this exercise. This is not a solo
but an exercise. It a secret. In E-flat chord,
B-flat chord, a flat. Soda you the whole time. Repeat C minor, B-flat, B-flat, a, floods, etc. You could do that with
the play along track, of course, to, to practice, to practice those notes. First, just on every beat. 1, 2 3 4, 1 2 3, 1, 2 3 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Now let me quickly show you
just a little bit. 234. So what you have done that, then you can do a next
round twice as fast. Okay? Is it EK plus, there we go, etc. So that's an exercise to
do F first coordinates then eighth notes at remembered or not swung eighth notes, no triple, triplet feeling
just straight eighth notes. You could do it even
with quicker notes. Let me show you, et cetera. So those are good exercises to start getting this a little
bit in your fingers and to see where the notes are
that you have to play. When you've done that exercise. You could also exercise
with other shapes. So now we did 1235. You can also do 2351. That's foresee done for E-flat, That would be for a B-flat, That would be for
a flux that would be just for you to
recognize the shapes. So they can later
can quicker come up with the shape and then
improvise overdose notes. Of course you can do it
from the, from the third. So for, for C, third, fifth root, for the B flats, that would be sort of
third, fifth root. Second-order ninths,
for it to be flat. So that would be
third, fifth line. Perhaps I shouldn't call it
ninth year rather seconds because we take it's between
the first and the third. So it's rather a second
did in 19 Just case, but it's the same.
It doesn't matter. Okay. Last shape for a flat. So that would be That's
what its lines or second, I said second,
third, fifth root. So you do, you exercise
also with this shape. You couldn't do it
from the fifth. So that would be, so that's
the C chord, by the way, the C minor chord, that fifth
roots second, minor third. Then for the E flat, that would be a fifth roots seconds for the, for the B flat. So that would be fifth root, second, third, and fourth. 40 a flat courts, that would be fifth
roots, second, third. So the same exercises
that you did before with the when you started
on the route. You don't start on seconds. Then on the third and fifth, I will not show it to
you because it's obvious it you can also
do it going down. That's the basic
shape where you have your thumb on the first
bullet under root. You can do that also
with the other shapes. When we know this
going down, etc. So those are all
exercises to get used to the notes where it
can improvise with. So try those exercises. And then we come back in the next lecture and
we're going to make some lines with those shapes.
39. Making melodic lines: So when you practice well, in the last lecture with those
1235 notes in every court, when you have it in your
fingers and you can try to create some some melodic lines. Yeah, difficult to
say which lines? Because you have to come
up with your own lines. So let, let me, let me just try something. And of course you
can copy my things, but you can also come up
with your own things. Let me put on the play along track and let's
just try something. Okay, so here I just
made some lines. I sometimes use some more
than one note at a time. It sounds nice on
those three dots. Could use your left hand to make some written
rhythm in your solo. So just try some simple things. Now, the problem with
this organ sound is, normally with Oregon sounds, That's my sustained
pedal doesn't work out. And Oregon, you don't
have a sustained pedal. Hassle, e.g. when I press my sustain pedal
now, see, nothing happens. It doesn't ring the whole time, so I have to be very careful
not to leave strange gaps. Of course you can leave gaps because the whole time playing whole notes without a resting, it's not nice either. You have to make some
breaks sometimes, but when in your land you
leave some strange gaps. It's not always nicer. So you go to the next
court and you have a gap. You have to be sure that you link them
together if you want to, if you, if you're on
your end of your line, of course, and you
making a new line, you can take a breath and not linking the
two lines together. If you want to avoid that, there are gaps which you would otherwise not have
if you had your pedal. You can, with your
left hand to just play e.g. the root nodes. In that case, even if
you leave some gaps, the whole thing, the whole
thing sounds as one whole. Of course, only if
you want this effect, it's not always what you want. You can also leave one note. Of course, this is a
bit difficult to leap OneNote solo with the
rest of your heads. But in that case, you could leave e.g. always the root. What I did
was I first played the C, C minor chord that I played, the B-flat, which is not
the root of the leaflets. I left, it's the B-flat to go to the B-flat chord. A flat. Okay, now it sounds
a bit strange now because I'm explaining
it to save time. But let, let me just show
you what I mean with this up, et cetera. In that case. You can make nice lines that
are connected together. So that's another technique
that you could use. Let me just solo a little bit over it just to show what
things you could all do. Sometimes I'm passing notes, a note it is not in the court, but when you go from
one chord to the other, you can use passing
notes, of course. Okay. I would say breakfast a
little bit with this. Create your lines and
come up with new stuff. And I see you in
the next lecture.
40. Combining everything together: Okay, Now, if you want
some more variation, why wouldn't you combine this 1235 technique with the pentatonic and
the blue scale. So e.g. you're in your C chord and you're
playing your 1235. You could end delaying
with some notes from the blues scale than go
to the E flat chord. Starts with lumped
the three-five. Well, actually those notes are also into independent
tonics scale of course. But you can also, you don't have to do in one
measure with one court. Both are 1235 and
the blue scale, but you can, of course
here you can also do the whole measure. Was a C chord. The E flat chord. You start to do the dependent or the
pentatonic blues scale. Died in the B-flat. I go up 1235, well it's 5123. And then I go down
the blues scale. Alright, so when you
combine those two, let me, let me just show something
where I combine 1235 with sometimes the pentatonic or the blue scale Bond. Hi, you saw me going back end from 1235 into
the blue scale, back to 135, etcetera. Moving between the two. So dry that also tried
it out. To start. You can you can either do
mainly to want the three-five, three-five with sometimes
some blue scale, but you could also do
mainly blue scale and sometimes so some 1235.
Let me show you that. In this last example, I was mainly doing
the blue scale and sometimes I did some
1235 worker. Of course. You have to hold time to be
constant in which courts you are dangerous when you're
nicely solid doing in your, In your pentatonic
or your blue scale. And you want to do 1235 and you forgot which court you are. Yeah. Then you're
lost. Of course. We have to keep track the
whole time on where you are. Well, normally when you
would do to only do 1231235, you have to keep track
also, of course, the whole time of the
of the court urine. Okay. Well, you've
learned nums now some techniques with this 1235 and with the blue scale
and how to combine them. Of course, all the things we did in the blue
scale. You can also. Try to do them here
in this solo here also this a soda, the glissando, the trails. Already a little bit.
In this former solo. Double stops. If you combine
everything together, well, quite some vocabulary
already to solo. So let me end this now. Play you some solo
with all the texts, neat techniques that we
learned. There we go.
41. How to play in other keys: In section three of this course. So to section where he
did rock improvisation, you've been doing only
improvisation in C minor. So what about the other keys? Well, you can find
any resources of this lecture, the practice file. So the MP3 player long
files for this ROC June, the same chord progression
but in all the other keys. So you can practice this
progression in all 12 keys. Now, again, as I said
for the blue section, do you have to practice
all the 12th keys? Well, probably not. Most rock musicians will not
play in very difficult keys. I will not say never, but very probably not
a difficult keys. So also here I would say, try to practice in the
most into more easy keys. So after playing in C minor, which we did the whole
time in this section, e.g. the a minor version, the E minor version, and the D minor version. And then you could do
the G minor version and the F minor version. And I think that's done. You have already more than
enough to play, well, like with the blues, 90% of everything That's plate. After that, you can do
the more difficult keys. So how do you proceed
in another key? Well, you look up the blues
scale in debt particular key. You have all the
blues scales and all the 12th different keys in the lesson that's called
improvising in other keys. And that's at the end
of the blue section, at a section two. So there you go, all
the blues scales. Then you download in the resources of this lecture to play along file
indicate you want, let me say you want
to play in E minor. You take the blue scale
in E minor that you have from the improvising
and other keys lesson. At the end of section two, you download the play
along track in E minor. You apply all the tricks
that you've learned in this section with the
E minor blue scale. When you want to play the 1235, then you take of
each court the 1235, be aware that the first court is always the minor
Cortes 0 to E minor, and be sure that you've take is then the minor third
in the ADA courts, they are major courts in
this chord progression. There you can take
the major thirds, but for the first court, courts, that's always
a minor quartet. Take the minor third
instead of the major third, that'd be aware of that. So that's about practicing with the play along tracks with the chord progression that
we've done in C minor and that can be transposed
to all the other keys. What, when you have a totally
other chord progression and the chord
progression we did. Well, let me take an
example. You have e.g. the chord progression C, G, a minor, F. Now, this is a chord
progression that occurs very often in popular music. So how should you solo on
such a chord progression? Well, the first question
that you have to ask yourself is in which key
is this progression? Now the key of a song is not so very difficult to determine. First of all, you
have to find out the tonic note of the song. Now what does it tonic note, that's actually denote,
that feels like home. Very often. It's the last note in his
song, but not always. But when you play a tune, when you hear e.g. a. Chord progression, try to hum
which note feels like home. Note that it doesn't have
to be resolved to e.g. disown to be at rest than didn't note that
feels like home. Now, when you do that in the
chord progressions, C, G, a minor, F, You can just, while you play the
chord progression, play several notes on
the piano too few, or you can sing it to determine
which node fuels home. Now, if you do that, you will
see that it's the note C. So that means that the tonic note of this
chord progression is the C. Now, in which key is the song? Now when the tonic
note is C than the key of the song can be
C major or C minor. Now how do you see if
it's C major or C minor? Well, you see that the court used in this
corporation is C, C major, so the key of
the song must be C major. If it's not so obvious, what you can do is play the C major chord and the C minor chord over
the chord progression. See which one fits. You will hear that it's
the C major chord. If it's still not
very clear for you, you can also play just the major and minor third in the key of C. So that's the E or D, E-flat, C, which notes fits in the chord progression
in which one doesn't fit in a
chord progression. And you will hear that fits well the chord progression
and D E-flat not. So that's how you find out
the key of the song urine. Now that you know
the key of the song, which scale do you have to use to improvise over the song? Since we're in C major,
you could say, okay, I will use the C major
pentatonic scale. Yes, that's a good option. Now remember that the C
major pentatonic scale is exactly the same scale as the
a minor pentatonic scale. So instead of saying C major
pentatonic echo def settle. So a minor pentatonic scale. Now, why do I say a
minor pentatonic and not C major pentatonic
because we're in C major. Well, that's because the
a minor pentatonic scale is very close to a blues scale. It's only one node of
difference as you know. So if you want to use a blues scale over this
chord progression in C, you could use the blues scale, but if a blues scale doesn't fit over a certain song because
it sounds to bluesy. I've been speaking
of that earlier. You can choose for
a pentatonic scale. Well, in that case,
you would choose for C major pentatonic or
a minor pentatonic, which are the same notes. But if you're looking for a blue scale and
you're in a major key, then look for it's
relative minor. And from debt notes, you've
played the blues scale. So again, you're in C Major. What's the relative
minor of C major? Well, that's a minor. So you can use the
blues scale now. And as you know,
besides the blue scale, you can also use the 1235. When you use the 1235, mostly in combination
with the blue scale. As you know, when
you use the 1235, be aware that you played a
major third in major courts, but a minor third minor chords. So when you applied all the tips and tricks
in this lecture, you can now play the
solo over any rock, blues or pop tune in every key. Congratulations.