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Alright let's talk about blues, shall we?

I fell in love with Blues when I heard about Hugh Laurie's new Blues album called "Let Them Talk". I had a listen to it on YouTube and instantly felt a need to learn the Blues scale and how to play it.

So as I understand it, the melody can be played with only the notes from the Blues scale. If we think about the right hand only for a moment, how can you spice up the melody? I've seen some videos where instead of a single note, a chord or two notes are played to further give the note a Bluesy kick to it.

Another thing, I know of 12 bar blues. What are other types of blues?

Here is an example video of what I was talking about spicing up the melody. Just take a look at his right hand's finger action, what are the rules for such playing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na7SP87hq_Q

Wow, he's blowing through those so quick, it's clearly not for beginners. He's using a few techniques. In addition to using the C Blues scale, he's using a major scale as well (adding the E and A). He's also using an arpeggio, which is a broken chord (played one note at a time instead of all together). Played really fast, these can sound cool, but you should practice them slowly to get the accuracy down.

With blues, sometimes the beauty is in the simplicity. It's more of a rhythmic thing. So if I were you, I'd play around with just the notes of the blues scale, adding some rhythm and repeated notes, that sort of thing. Then you can add other notes.

There is a 16 bar blues. Also a jazz blues that has more than just 3 chords.

So does this mean you with your left hand you can play chords from C Major scale and with the right hand the melody with the notes from the Blues scales?

For example this song: http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/h/hugh_laurie/guess_im_a_fool_crd.htm

After 12-bar blues, probably the most common pattern is 8-bar blues.
Here's an example

A very common blues device (just from my experience, I've never read any books on it or anything) is to use the major third over the tonic chord, and the minor third over the subdominant. So, in the key of C, you might play a simple lick with the right hand involving the major third (in this case E) with the left hand playing the C chord. When the left hand moves to the F chord, you repeat the same right-hand lick, but this time with Eb (the minor third) substituted for the E. Try it - it is a characteristically bluesy thing to do.

Here's #1 in a series of blues licks.. maybe this'll help

That video illustrates exactly what I was talking about - use the major third over the I chord, the minor third over the IV chord.

Couple of things.

First most blues sound better with 7th chords. That is why the minor 3rd with the IV (ie the Eb with the F chord) is good because the Eb makes the F chord a 7th.

Second the blues scale incorporates the flat 5 and flat 7, so in C you have the 3 consecutive notes F,Gb,G plus you flatten the 7th scale note (B to Bb), to give the commonly used dominant 7 in blues vs. the major 7.

There are various strategies for soloing over blues songs. Using the same (minor) blues scale over the entire progression is one of them but in order to making your playing more varied you will want to throw in licks based on major scales also, which is something that the guy in the video you cited is doing at around the 25 second mark. If you are interested in learning the blues I highly recommend the book "Improvising Blues Piano" by Tim Richards. I play a lot of blues and I find myself using major licks far more than minor when I play blues piano with a band.

There's an excellent book floating out there on the Interweb (it's out of print).
"How to play Blues piano" by Junior Mance http://www.juniormance.com/

My favorite instruction material on how to play blues piano is Dave Frank's "Breakthrough to Improv: the secrets of Improvisation."(DVD or VHS) It's so user friendly and the exercises build so logically, yet it gives you all you need to start playing blues creatively with a little practice.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...p;url=search-alias%3Daps&x=0&y=0

Your left hand is usually doing the Bass line of the 12 bars...in other words you are playing C,F & G chords to the 12 bar beat while the right hand is playing the licks.

So, your left would play...C, C, C, C, F, F, C, C, G, F, C, C...I think I got this right.

Oh and that's just using major chords...as menioned above, the 7ths add that bluesy feel.

There's already been some great stuff posted so far. Just thought I'd chime in and say that you might be interested in a blog post that I wrote recently, called "Play The Blues in Ten Minutes." Here 'tis:

http://www.betterpiano.com/archives/play-the-blues-in-ten-minutes

I've been honored that it has been pretty well-received so far. Among other things, it has a file of a bass and drum track that you can play along with. Also, if you'd like to join the email list, one of the tips that comes through provides some more advanced things that you can do with that same lesson.

Best of luck!

-James



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James Dering
http://www.BetterPiano.com - A Resource for FREE Piano Goodies!
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Yes and no. He's using the chord minus the third. Small intervals don't sound good that low, so you just play the outside notes.

In your left hand, play the root note, and the fifth, you can then change the fifth up a full step to the sixth. For example, in C. C-G, C-A back and forth, you can use whatever rhythm feels right for you, something simple to start. Then when you move to an F chord, F-C, F-D, and so forth. This is a simple pattern to start out with, and you can then play your C blues scale in your right hand.

For the linked song, that's more of the jazz blues I talked about. Slightly more advanced when it comes to scales.

And for those that find the fifth/sixth part easy, Stanza is correct, the seventh gives it that bluesy sound. Try this variation for the left hand, based on what I said above.

The seventh is a half step above the 6. So you could play (in C): C-G, C-A, C-Bb, C-A.
Then the 4 chord would be: F-C, F-D, F-Eb, F-D
And finally the 5 chord: G-D, G-E, G-F

Keep in mind that C is an easy key. If you do this in other keys, you would have to know chords in those keys. If you don't, you can find the fifth by going 7 notes up. So for example, if you were playing in B, the first chord would have an F#. So the pattern would be: B-F#, B-G#, B-A, B-G#

Hope that helps and isn't too confusing.