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Hi everyone,
I am learning Blueberry Hill and I am struggling with the left hand. I have practiced it a lot on it's own but when I add the right hand it just falls apart. Has anyone got any tips on getting a solid left boogie? Or do I just need to keep practicing until I am numb?
Any help greatly appreciated.

Hi Chelly85,

I've found in my case I have to practice the left and right hand parts separately until I'm pretty comfortable with both, then

I practice them together at a very slow pace (which drives me nuts because I'm an old rocker who likes to play fast).
If it falls apart when you put them together you're probably trying to play too fast.

Better to learn slow and right than fast and wrong, the speed will come later.

I've had the pleasure of seeing/hearing/meeting some of the best Boogie Woogie players here in the States.
I'm nowhere near their level, but I have fun.

I'm sure others will have more insight than mine.

Keep practicing, keep playing, have fun!

I’m in the same struggle and the above advice sums it up. I’m always trying to speed up too soon and it will show.

My two cents:
What I do with my students is make several paper copies of the chart.
That way, we can mark 'em up with counting. Yep, we write the counting in.
Also, sometimes sheet music doesn't always line the rhythms up correctly,
so visually that can throw you off as well.
On some pieces we can write the counting directly in between the two clefs
so it is easier to see it.
Then after the right hand practice alone, left hand practice alone as Frank
suggested, we count out loud and repeat the individual hand practice before
combining the two hands.
Yes, it is a lot of work! But you'll get it after awhile!

Thanks all for the great tips. I will definitely be trying these out 🙂

Boogie-woogie is my favorite genre of piano music! There are several tutorials on YT of various left-hand boogie-woogie riffs and patterns; I've learned a lot by watching some of these. I tend to play the Jerry Lee Lewis style boogie-woogie a lot in the left hand. However, on Fats Domino's Blue-Berry Hill, I use a different riff that sounds similar to Fats original recording.

As others have said, you have to get the left hand pattern down, and memorized pretty good, and then do whatever you want to do with the right hand. But me giving piano playing advice is sort of like the blind leading the blind.

Here is a YT vid of me playing Blue Berry Hill on an old upright piano I had just purchased. The song is near the end of the video, so you might want to fast-forward a bit. My rendition of Blue Berry Hill in C (was originally recorded by Fats in Bb)l

Hope this helps!

Rick

I have played blues and boogie piano since I was ten years old, and I think the most important thing to get is a rock solid pulse you can feel in your whole body, around which you build both the left hand and right hand parts. The late great New Orleans pianist Eddie Bo, who I had the pleasure and privilege to meet and play four hand festival gigs with in Norway, told me 'you have to walk the beat, son' - meaning that he would tap the beat out with two feet, like walking, and then everything would fall into place from there. Of course, things are more difficult than that, but I do believe its a concept that may help build independence between the hands, because the focus is on the pulse/beat, not the figures, lines and fingerings.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhGdRgUfSWQ

Now that was some great Boogie-Woogie playing!! It had me walking with both feet tapping, and my head bobbing too, along with a big smile!

Nice to meet you Doc! :-)

Rick

Thank you! My pleasure.

Rickster, how fun!! Do you still have that piano? (I hope you at least took it down off of your truck.... BTW I followed the link to your saloon piano, which I've listened to before, but is just so much fun! I love your approach to pianos! You would have enjoyed the pianos I used to sometimes play when I lived in Japan and part of my job was to get on a boat and go teach at these little schools on these little islands, which usually had pianos sitting by the window, soaking up the salt air. There's something about those pianos, I always loved to play them.....

Thanks for the kind words, ShiroKuro! Actually, I cleaned that piano up good, replaced the bad/missing key-tops with new ivory-like plastic replicas, did some repairs, which included treating the tuning pin-block with CA-glue (super glue) to gain some tuning pin torque and got it in nice playing condition. I played it for a year or so and had a ball with it, and then I gave it to my younger sister, who had just bought a new house, as a house warming gift. She still has it and she loves it! Her and her husband play it regularly. I play it whenever I visit.

Sometimes these old pianos can still serve a purpose and still be playable with some TLC after many years; certainly not at the level of a newer, better piano, but still nostalgic elegance.

All the best!

Rick

Off-topic: (sorry for the hijack)

Shirokuro, for the longest time I wanted to say I just love your screen name! How appropriate for a piano player

Yoroshiku!

Rick,



I agree! Like you, I'm one of those people who likes to hear all the different voices that these old pianos can have, there's so much character and so much richness. that's also why I have a digital that I almost never play, ugh, so sterile!



Thank you Kanadajin! And nice to meet you! I saw your screen name before reading this message and thought -- oh someone else speaks Japanese!!

I was living in Japan when I started learning how to play piano, and that's where I bought my first digital and then upright -- appropriately enough, both Yamahas.

/thread-jack

An interesting challenge when learning from a record is, what key? Seems easy, but quite a few hit records had speed altered from original, to sound better presumably which explains some of the odd keys. I doubt many guitar centric songs were in Db but that's what is on some major records. My hunch, playing was in C, recording then sped up to have more energy.

I play Blueberry Hill in B because of a chart that claims to be definitive... But is that really the key?

Some charts use the original composer key, some use original recording key, some use the hit record key. Which to use?

Consider Light My Fire by Doors, original 45 a step or so higher than when issued on LP and later on CD. Presumption was that 45 was sped up, raising the key. Years later it was declared that a mistake during prep of original LP caused a slow down, not 45 speed up. The album was reissued at "proper" speed.

A few years ago the original Fats Domino recordings were re-released at their original tempo, which was slower than what was originally released.

A lot of people were upset because the songs were now noticeably slower.

ps...Blueberry Hill is not really a "Boogie-Woogie". It is much more a "Swamp Pop" style song, with 12/8 triplet beat, and a non-Boogie Woogie left hand, often an arpeggio.