Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum TIM RICHARDS - Improvising Blues Piano Book 1

I don't understand why not publish ebook, for ebook is an intermediate product of modern printing. Why not send an email to Tim?

Ah,sorry for the misunderstanding.

I have a couple of Ipad app/mags that do exactly that.

I did buy one kindle book that I had to email them and they replied with mp3 files for the book I brought. Long winded way of doing it but it worked.

Maybe when it comes to lesson books the likes of Amazon should offer an additional download for say £1 or $1 to download the media to accompany it (only allowing such downloads to those that have brought the book).

I'm still on the first unit - though I have jumped ahead and noodled about abit with some of the later excercises. I find that I still have a lot of trouble being smooth in the transitions between the chords, but there are signs of progress.

I tried doing some improvisations with the right hand, but it sounded pretty lame, and I had trouble maintaining a smooth flow in the right.

I have my first lesson with my new teacher on Tuesday and I hope he'll have some suggestions... I am pretty sure though that the first thing I'll hear is that I need to do a lot of repetitions!

Weiyan I'm looking forward to hearing your new version of Blueberry Hill!

Well, I had a week of "disruptions" so to speak. I started with a new piano teacher on Tuesday and he asked me to work on some specific things, so I've been doing that rather than focusing on the Blues. He did say to go ahead with the blues book and we'll look at it at the next lesson, so I hope to get some tips on how to improve my skill at maintaining the smoothness of the bass line. I feel pretty hopeless at that. I can play it if that's all I'm doing, but as soon as I add in the right hand it becomes very irregular! grrr.

I think the answer is going to be "practice"! But at the same time I hope that there might be some help in terms of HOW to practice better for this technique!

I just got this (based on the recommendation here) and I am in love!

Learning to play a walking bass, with a cool efficient fingering.  Learning to play a turnaround.  Learning a rhythmic variation for the right hand.  Getting the idea of improvising in a basic chord position (and allowing it to be inverted).  And this is all in the first six pages.

I like technical exercises, and my brain is busy buzzing with ideas for exercises, and how to isolate and get better at each component, and then how to put them together.... I can see spending a long happy time refining and experimenting with just what I've learned so far.

Plus -- oh, this is so fantastic! -- I think I can use the CD for ear training.  For a long long long time I've felt like I needed simple music to practice my aural skills with, and twelve bar blues would be a great place to start because the chord changes are predictable.  Yes, even knowing in advance that the chord is going to change from I to IV, and exactly when, I still struggle to understand what it is I've just heard.  So here on the CD are 72 12-bar blues pieces, arranged in slowly progressive order of difficulty, and it even comes with an answer key! in the form of the book itself.  So instead pf reading the music, and then listening to the CD, I'm going to listen to the CD first and try to work each piece out by ear, and then use the score to see how close I have gotten.

Something about the book and the idea of the blues give me freedom to improvise, at the same time as there is a structure.  This is part of what makes the first six pages so rich for me, because they're not just about learning to play whole notes against a walking bass, or memorizing a syncopated melody by brute force.  Instead, they're a doorway into countless experiments and varied exercises (remember, I like exercises), and learning to play music by really understanding from the inside what you're trying to do with it.

casinitaly, I look forward to continuing to compare notes (oh dear, no pun intended) with you.

Pianostudent88, I'm delighted to see how happy you are with this book! I agree with you about how exciting the first few pages are - what a great intro indeed.

I haven't done a lot on this as I'm getting into the groove with my new teacher, but I am practcing the walking basse and turn around in different keys to get my left hand well trained!

I'm not quite ready to dive too far in to this book yet. But bought it for the future, as they have a habit of going out of print.
Glad it's so good and look forward to getting to grips with it in the future.

Interesting lessons from listening to the CD, on loop:

* first step is hearing that there is a difference when the chords change. I pass! Yay! (This was not a given.)

* actually, the real first step might be hearing that the sound is the same when the chord does not change. I pass on this too! Yay!

* there are other things like hearing that all the notes of the walking bass in a measure belong to one chord, but because I know that these are straight 12-bar blues (for the most part, at least), I don't have to worry about detecting that. Instead I can focus in learning "all these sounds belong together as one chord/harmony).

* the first pieces all use V V I I in the last line, and I could hear the difference when they started using V IV I I. And I didn't even know they were going to switch to that. Yay! (I was primed by being more familiar with the V IV I I form, and wondering if it would show up. Otherwise I wouldn't have known what the second chord was, and I probably would have even doubted my ears that I was hearing a change.)

* I've learned to ignore the melody and listen to the LH. Yay! (I have usually found harmony/accompaniment/chords really hard to hear. Some later time I'll practice listening to the melody and hearing how it fits with the harmony. But not yet.)

* Interestingly, I don't hear the I-IV change as "up a fourth.". I do hear it as "up", and then later when they start playing it as "down a fifth" I do hear it as "down", but again, have no idea by how much, apart from music theory telling me the answer. My ears don't tell me the answer, and they don't think that it sounds like any of the reference songs I've tried to learn for intervals. So this is interesting to me. I can distinguish up from down, so: Yay!

* Similarly, I do hear the I-V change as "up" (or "down", when they start playing it down), but I don't hear it as "up a fifth" or "down a fourth.". And I hear the V-IV change as "down", but not as "down a whole step". I think you could convince me it's down by anything from a half-step to a fifth. But at least Yay! for being able to hear a change as small as what I know from theory is a whole step.

* I hear the I-IV change as different than the I-V change, and that the V target is higher than the IV target, at least when the changes go up. (Haven't paid attention yet for down changes.) This is major Yay! to be able to hear the difference between two events four measures apart. Yay! Yay! Yay!

I'm trying to write about this to show the kinds of component skills that can go into something that might seem as basic as recognizing a chord progression, or recognizing an interval, neither of which I'm very good at in the conventional kinds of ways that I think of for being able to test for these things.

There are other things I can think of to do, like play and record some progressions that are almost twelve bar blues, but not quite: change a chord here or there. Also record some twelve bar blues progressions. Then shuffle them and see if I can tell which are the twelve bar blues. That would tell me that I'm actually recognizing the IV and V as such, even though they don't make me think "fourth" or "fifth.". Or whether all I'm hearing is "up" or "down", and III and VI (for example) could be substituted without me detecting the difference. That's the kind of thing I think of as an unconventional way of testing for being able to hear an interval or a progression.

I'm very happy with all the things I've discovered I can hear. It wasn't in any way a given that I'd be able to hear them, even with being given the chord progression on a silver platter.

Blues is wonderful music, and I hope that all you folks do well with this book.

I would suggest that, if you are not doing it, add to your studies a steady diet of listening to good Blues music.

I prefer the older artists, such as Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Otis Spann, Howling Wolf, early Ray Charles, Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, etc.

Listening is key to grasping this music; It is often said that Blues is "caught" rather than "taught", i.e. you internalize it by listening.

Also, as you listen, try to zone in on one instrument, such as the Bass, or the Drums, etc. Study what that instrument is doing...try to map it out.

One reason why the old masters is preferable here is because the modern players learned by listening to the old guys, so IMO I would rather go to the source, rather than a second or third generation removed.

Thanks rocket88. I have done without adding music to my smartphone for several years, but blues music has inspired me to change that.

It is very helpful to have a list of musicians to listen to. I like going back to the source.

I've worked around the circle of fifths in the initial walking bass pattern. The given fingering works just more than half way around. For Db, Ab, Eb, Bb, and F, because of where the black keys lie, it feels more comfortable to change the fingering for IV. For all of those except F, it also feels more comfortable to change the fingering for the turnaround.

All the practicing I've been doing over the past year with major triads is paying off, because as I worked around the circle of fifths, my LH just seemed to know where the notes were.

Now to add my RH.

Welcome Stephen300o!

Rocket, I agree with you- and fortunately my husband was really into blues well before I was and he's got a great collection. Recently we've been listeing to Memphis Slim, and his stuff really is fabulous!

Pianostudent88 ---- I am really enjoying all that you're writing - I've been super busy this week so haven't replied in any detail, but I have experienced many of the things you are talking about and it is very exciting to see you reporting on these new skills.

I truly felt that I started hearing music differently a couple of years ago when I started on piano - now I feel I've hit a new and different (and richer) level of listening skills.
Ah, the adventure continues!

Weiyan..... where are you?

Rocket88, thank you for the recommendation. I like those old time blues too.

In recent days I practice Blueberry Hill again, focus on the rhythm part. The RH chord change is not easy. Accent 2nd and 4th beat, keep the bass line running.

Here is the sound file:
http://www.hypedsound.com/music/songs.php?action=listen&id=26271

Well done Weiyan, that's nice and steady with good stress patterns.

Did you feel relaxed playing it?
I find I still get a bit tense tying to keep the focus. I wonder how many months it will take for this sort of thing to feel more comfortable for me?
We shall see!

I have been intrigued by this book and this thread. So I just placed my order for it online. Hopefully it will be here soon! I'm guessing ~2 weeks. Sounds like fun so I'm really eager to get it!

Accomplishing smooth chord changes is always a significant challenge. If they are not easy, practice them until they are easy.

Suggestions:

1. Go Slower. As slow as necessary so you can make the changes 100% smoothly.

2. Practice playing the chords in groups of two, in the sequence in which they occur. Here, play one of the first chord, (The "one") then one of the second, (The "four") then back to one of the first. Cycle that back and forth. That is the most common change sequence in the song, so do it slowly over and over to get your hand very comfortable.

3. Then Practice the "one" chord followed by the "five" chord, which is another chord sequence. Then do the "five" followed by the "four".

4. Go slower. The #1 mistake people make is to go too fast. You are learning (practicing) it. Playing it at performance tempo is done after it is learned. I know, slow is hard to do, but do it anyways.

Slow and precise...its like the turtle and the rabbit...slow wins.

rocket88, thank you for this advice. I found it very helpful tonight and I already feel a difference in my playing. I may be going to be a tortoise, but I am going to be a tortoise with the best darn walking bass and off-on RH possible, in all keys.

I'll report in in three months when I start to learn my next tortoise skill .

It feels really good to slow down and focus on building my skills step by step.

It is interesting that sooner or later we all come to acknowledge the need to go slower.
I think what is ironic is that we build up some skills - which means we can go faster with the things we know...... then we start on new material (and in this case a whole new style) and we think we should be able to have a decent level of speed. But no. It is not so.

Nice to have you around as our coach Rocket88!

I forget the important of slow playing. Newbie like me always playing faster to show off.

Use Rocket88's method to practice again.

I think Tim Richard not suppose a newbie to play the rhythm part.

Casinitaly: Relax is not easy. When the my ipod recorder is on, I am stressed. Members here called ti RED LIGHT SYNDROME. So I keep on posting here to try to overcome it.

In recent days slow playing, I get something fast playing can't have. I can better control the 2nd / 4th beats accent. The chord change is smoother.