Hi all, I live in Perth, Western Australia and have returned to the piano after a break of 30 years (kidds and career got in the way !!). I am thoroughly enjoying working through the on-line tutorials and have purchased the " Boogie book".
I have a question regarding integrating two of the licks into 12 bar blues format (Lick 1, tracks; 34 and 35). I have learnt these tracks (walking base is still challenging !), but can't figure how to do the chord change for 12 bar blues. Each of the other tracks in the book have the pick up note for the chord change as the last note of the measure, making the change sound "right", but the tacks noted just end, with-out a pick up note. I would really appreciate some help with this, as I like tack 35 in particular and want to be able to use it in full 12 bar blues chord changes and combined with other variations / licks.
Regards,
Dave M
Hi Dave! Welcome to the site.
Keep in mind there is no "right way" to do the answers to your questions. If you experiment with some different ways you will find the one that sounds right to you. Here are my suggestions though...
1) if the walking bass pattern is still challenging, substitute the basic shuffle pattern (as in track 27) for the left hand in track 35 for now. What you don't want to get in the habit of doing is to learn RH and LH together note-for-note. You want to approach this from a hand-independence standpoint. If you have to think about piecing together notes in RH then that means your LH doesn't quite have the muscle memory for its bass pattern yet.
2) Track 34, replace the last D# and G with the pickup note leading to the new key you want to go to.
3) Track 35, the exact same right hand can be used over all the changes. If you want to keep the same 4 bar phrase throughout all 12 bars, you can just leave it where it is and change the left hand through the changes. Hope this helps! If not let me know.
Hi Arthur, thank you so much for your amazingly quick response to my query, I will follow your advice for items 1 & 2.
I am sorry to bother you some more, but I am still at a loss in dealing with track 35 in 12 bar blues. I will try and rephrase my query:
Track 35 is a four bars long and therefore fits perfectly for the first 4 bars of the 1st (root) chord of the 12 bar blues format. Changing to the iv chord at the end of the 4th bar is easy as I just use the root of the iv chord on the last beat of the 4th bar as the pickup note (as indicated in track 27 in the book).
However, the ivth is played for just two bars; how do I get back to the 1st? The 1st is also played for only two bars; how do I get to the vth? For the next three bars (iv to v to 1st), I assume I can just play the first bar of the phrase. This bar ends on the root, which I can substitute for the root of the next chord I want to play. The last bar is a turnaround. I hope this all makes sense!
However, just rereading your response above; are you saying that I just play the same 4 bar phrase in the root chord for whatever key I choose, for the whole 12 bars, only changing the left hand to make the chord changes, in other words I don't play the right hand of the phrase in the ivth and vth chords?
Regards,
Dave M
Dave, I understand your confusion. What I am suggesting as one possible way to use the 4 bar phrase in 35 is to play the right hand 4 bar phrase 3 times, exactly as written (in G). Only the left hand will make the chord changes. The right hand stays in G position, even as the left hand plays over C and D. (don't play a turnaround) Or... if you do play a turnaround, play the turnaround with the right hand too. Hope this helps!
Hi Dave, Sorry for gate crashing your thread but I can't see an option to create a new thread in this forum.
Hi Arthur. I stumbled on your YouTube video "How to Play Boogie Woogie Piano" and was inspired to buy a second hand keyboard to have a go. I should say I turn 72 on Wednesday.
As a child a learned to play a little bit of right hand piano from my uncle but never could grasp the left hand and eventually went on and took up piano accordion lessons but didn't stick with it for very long. I struggled to read music, and would play many of the tunes by ear, much to the annoyance of my music teacher.
I joined the army in 1968 and was posted overseas so I sold my accordion for a case of beer, not touched a keyboard since.
So I have only been playing that left hand riff for two days and already I am beginning to see some measure of progress. I followed the links and purchased your book from Amazon. And was also delighted to find you had this Free Website. I look forward to working my way through the basics and on through the boot camp.
Thank you Sir for creating this wonderful website. What a great way for this old dog to see out my senior years, re-living my childhood passion.
Regards Archie
Located just outside Edinburgh, Scotland
Thank you Archie! I'm so happy you are getting some inspiration and a chance to learn boogie! On the "music theory" main page of the forum there should be a button on the top right of the thread list that says "create thread" if you want to create a new one in the future. Welcome to the site!