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Hi

First time post here - but i've been following this forum for quite some years ;-).

Some background :I have done a few years of music evening school for adults (alfred 1&2 and some of the simple numbers in the anna magdalena book were some of the books we used).

After i stopped i also found this wonderfull book of blues. However, i hit my limit very fast in this book:

1) pag 15 : beginners blues is ok but the second variation exercise , with the "do sol-mi do" bassline patern is hard. i'm losing a little bit of confidence with that, is persistence the key ? hands apart is ok but together i do get confused with this number.

2) pag 18: Beginners Boogie : Here also the second chorus gives the same problems, especially the parts where both hands are moving different.

The Bach parts also did take some time to learn, some months if i remember well, i'm a very slow and not well gifted learner.

Are there any specific tricks that could help me with learning these number ?

Thank You !

Wim

This is my recent play.

Riff Blues
No. 21 Improvising Blues Piano by Tim Richards

This is practice of sixth chords.

update: Change the link enable public access.

https://www.box.com/s/ucxf96razrzv1rapndtw

I can't access the file Weiyan !

Thank you. I updated the link of original post for public access.

https://www.box.com/s/ucxf96razrzv1rapndtw

Ok that works now!

Way to go Weiyan! You are really getting to be very good at this

Thanks for the book recommendation, cas... I've been thinking about getting a blues piano intro book, since my son's teacher has him doing a little of this. I've put it on my wish list on amazon, hoping that maybe it shows up in my stocking.

Hello .....

I have the book IMPROVISING BLUES PIANO and am considering making another run at it.

Just wondering if the interest and enthusiasm shown at the beginning of this thread, about a year ago, is still burning brightly or has the reality of the "work" involved served to extinguish that flame ?

Anyone ?

Hi Don,
I think Weiyan has been working away on it. I got side tracked when I started with my new teacher back in September.

I'd like to work on it over the summer and see what kind of progress I can make.

Maybe your post here was just what I needed to kick-start the project!

Let's see what we can do!

Sounds good.

Well, I am now working on Beginner's Blues on page 15. LOL ...

I will be asking my instructor to help me with this also so maybe this time I will make some progress.

How far have you progressed in the book ?

Not far at all, in fact I will start from the beginning again as it has been more than six months since I even opened it!!! I think that before I may have started on the second unit, but truly, I don't remember!

A fresh start is in order, and I can only hope that what I have learned over the past "school year" will have made a difference to my abilities in this area

We shall see!

I started it, and am quietly working through it (with teacher). Now at about page 65. The fun hasn't worn off.

I looked ahead, and found that he has "Blue Monk", which I've always loved, and never knew how to play. So the book really does go somewhere I'm interested in. And the improvisation suggestions are excellent.

For what the blues _really_ sounds like (as opposed to Tim Richard's simplified versions), I've been listening to a Smithsonian CD:

http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Piano-Blues-From-Smithsonian/dp/B0018OAOQW

I have a long way to go . . .

The book is suggested for "intermediate" pianists. But the fingerings are all written in, and they're pretty natural. I think a "beginner" could tackle it, slowly.

. Charles

It probably will. As you know, just the passage of time seems to improve some things that you had worked on previously.

Well, this will be slow-going so I do not expect this thread to stay in the fore but when I have something to post or inquire about ... I will. You do the same. Good Luck

AND ... anyone else who joins in ... please do the same.

Hi Charles,

Nice to hear from someone who is actually making progress.

Curious as to how long you have been at it ?

I hit a wall trying to improvise the RH over the LH. And I didn't feel as if learning a blues piece from notation and then trying to improv on it was getting to the heart of the matter for me. I'm inspired by Dave Frank's thread and video on modal vamping improv to tackle improv again, but probably not from Richards' book -- wonderful as the book seems to be for other people.

I hear you.

This stuff is tough.

We all have high hopes and we work on it for awhile and when things get bogged down, we (at least I do) tend to lose interest and move on to something else. That just seems to be the nature of the beast.

That is why having someone like Charles around can be a big help. Maybe he can give us the "tips" we need to get moving again when we come to a stop.

Two or three months. It's not easy work. When I played a blues version of "Silent Night" (over Tim Richards' LH pattern) and my teacher started laughing, I figured there was hope for me.

To improvise RH over LH, two suggestions:

. . . Have the LH part learned so well you don't have to
. . . think about playing it;

. . . Slow down the tempo, because you _will_ be thinking
. . . about the RH part, not just playing it.

People don't improvise "from scratch". They improvise from a toolkit of stuff they've practiced. Combinations of chords, patterns, rhythms that form "chunks" in the player's musical vocabulary. That's one of the lessons that Tim Richards teaches. [This may not apply to Keith Jarrett, but it's how most other people work.]

. Charles

PS: A friend once got two versions of Sonny Rollins (I think) playing "Night in Tunisia", made ten or twenty years apart. There's a fantastic riff at the start of the piece. He listened to both recordings, and said:

. . . "They're identical. He memorized it. I feel better, now."

Charles:

2 or 3 months ? I expected much longer.

I hope I can reach page 65 by the end of the year.

It would be great/motivational if you could post your rendition of one of the Blues pieces from the book. Something you are pretty comfortable with ... including the "improv".

Don't judge your progress by looking at someone else. You run _your_ race at _your_ speed. (That might make it a "journey", instead of a "race".)

Here's what I came up with - and the "warts" are obvious (this was only my thirteenth "take", today):

https://soundcloud.com/cpcohen1945/barrelhouse-blues-tim-richards

I already had a SoundCloud account. They're free, and the site is dead simple to use.

Enjoy --

. Charles

PS -- I've used 6th's (inverted thirds) where TR uses thirds, in many cases. Just style. And he covers it in the next section.

PPS -- the SoundCloud area includes some testing of the PX-350 "half-pedal" function -- please ignore that.

@ Charles:

Great Job !!!

That was very, very good.

The rhythm and timing was right on. No hesitations.

Like I said ... very motivational.

Now, here is the test .... LOL ...

Can you come up with another recording of that with a different improv section right now ? LOL ...

I know ... I am asking for a lot. But that is the goal ... Right ?

If not, that is fine. You did a great job on this and it will help me to keep pluggin' away.

Thanks.

I think of this as a long-term project. I bought the book about 6 months ago, & haven’t gone past the 12-bar blues in the 1st couple of variations. But I play it for a bit from memory practically every day, sometimes included in practicing scales & transposed into a couple of other keys. So far, the left hand is second nature, but coordinating it with the right hand isn't past a certain very slow speed. So I'll play with that for as long as it takes.

Charles, thanks for mentioning the Smithsonian CD; our local library has it, & I’ve placed a hold. Also, the idea of improvising other simple pieces over the LH sounds promising - I may try out the Soft Kitty Song Blues later today :-) & NICE PLAYING, btw!