Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum left hand improvisation

Well recently I've learned the blues scale in a couple keys, C, G, E, and F. It's alot of fun to go up and down the scales improvising with different rhythms in the right hand. Problem is my left hand just sits in my lap like a dead fish.

I've put maybe 3 or 4 hours into practicing the blues scales, but I want my left hand to learn, too. It's not that my left hand doesn't know the scales. If I bring it down to a lower octave I can smoothly switch the melody to being played with left hand and switch back to my right hand when i get into the higher octaves, without it sounding screwy. But I can't play a harmony with my left hand while playing a melody with my right hand.

It's just playing hands together that screws me up while improvising; I can play hands together just fine on pieces I've sat down and learned. I can get through maybe 4 quarter notes with both hands while improvising before it starts to sound awful. Is it just a matter of more practice? Also, I feel like I'm not even really sure what notes to hit with my left hand to accompany the melody being played by my right hand. What to do? Any hints, tips, etc.?

Try to make it simple at first. Do you know the 12-bar blues progression? The simplest is in the key of C Major. You start by improvising on the C blues scale, and in the LH you play a C major chord (C-E-G). For now, play the LH as whole notes as a blocked chord (all notes at once). You do this for 4 measures. Then improvise in the F scale while playing an F Major chord int he LH (F-A-C) for two measures, then back to C for two measures. Go up to G scale, with LH playing a G chord (G-B-D) for one measure, back to the F for one measure, then back to C for two measures.

Continue like this for a while until the LH is really comfortable. You might do this for a week or two. Then when you feel it's easy, try playing the LH chords differently. There are tons of boogie riffs that you can use, so do a lot of listening to boogies and blues. Pick a simpler one to do and practice that in the 12-bar blues progression LH alone until it's easy. Then try improvising over it with the RH.

It takes time, but it won't happen with your LH in your lap.

In basic blues piano, you would generally do most of the improvisatory work in the r.h., with the l.h. playing blues-type chords, which are typically three dominant seventh chords.

For example, using the C blues scale in the r.h., the l.h. would play C7, F7, and G7, that is, C E G Bb, F A C Eb, and G B D F, the "I, IV, V" chords in C major, but all played as dominant 7th chords.

You play blues piano by ear, using these three chords, and the blues scale. The chords are played in any order, and you can modify them, for example, by playing them in "stride" style, C--E G Bb, etc.

And you can start adding notes in the r.h. foreign to the C blues scale, and notes in the l.h. foreign to those three dominant 7th chords, and so forth.

I love the blues scales, and I play them a lot, especially when I play country, old-time R&R, or southern Gospel type music. Of course, I like what I call “pure blues” too.

I’ve also learned, as Gyro mentioned, that you can play odd notes that do not necessarily “go with” the cord you are playing in and it can sound rather unique.

The problem with playing by ear is that when I find a good combination of odd notes to add to my blues imprecision, it’s hard to remember exactly what I did the next time. Oh well, the randomness of improvising is what makes it interesting.

Take care,

Rick

I suggest learning a 12 bar blues, with some blues bass line patterns, and try expermenting with various ideas surrounding the left hand, i.e, C E G A Bb A G E, (This is the start of a 12 bar blues in C)
Then maybe try the same thing but maybe instead of 1 beat bass notes make it faster so make them quavers instead. This is a fairly simple exercise, and this is the key to Bass lines for blues on piano!!

Hope this is useful

Good topic. I always learn something when folks write about improvisation ideas, and I too like the blues scale.

I wanted to correct one misstatement in Gyro's post. The word "dominant" has a very specific meaning, which is the 5th step of a scale.
So, in C scale, C is 1, D=2, E=3, F=4, etc.
The fourth step is called the subdominant and the 5th is the dominant.
So, you could play C7, F7, and G7, but C7 would just be the 7th chord of the tonic, F7 is the subdominant 7th, and G7 is the dominant 7th chord.

The real reason this is important is because the dominant 7 tells you what key you are in. I used to think of G7, for instance, as the G chord with a flattened 7th (F instead of F#) but now when I hear the chord I think "I must be in key of C, and the G7 is going to take me home back to C", which is the way a dominant 7 chord is often used.

Don't know if this helped at all, but wanted to add it in.
Cheers!

Thanks for some input, everybody. My neighbor plays and he taught me this basic 12-bar blues thing, I am not really sure how to describe it though.

But I think I will do what you said, Morodiene, just practice practice practice with my left hand until I am totally comfortable with it then start adding some RH into it. And Gyro, I get what you are saying but I don't know any of the 7th chords, so I'll have to look into learning those. But thank you, everyone who replied, I definitely learned something from this thread.