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Howdy! We all know the bass line: C-E-G-A-Bb (you go up and down and with all 3 chords of the non-jazz 12 bar blues). Does anyone have the fingerings one should use (I an thinking about playing in all keys) with this bass line?
Use whatever feels comfortable to you. For instance, in C major I like 5-4-2-1-2 better and prefer 3-1-2-1-2-1 on the F chord and 1-3-2-1-2-1-2-1 on G. But in a different key the fingering may be completely different (try D-flat major )
In the case of the left handed pattern in the original post, for keys like Eb or Bb (Eb G Bb C Db OR Bb D F G Ab) I would finger them 5-3-2-1-2 with the 2nd finger crossing over the thumb.
I personally wouldn't bother with the key of Gb, but that agony is at your discretion.
Howdy! We all know the bass line: C-E-G-A-Bb (you go up and down and with all 3 chords of the non-jazz 12 bar blues). Does anyone have the fingerings one should use (I an thinking about playing in all keys) with this bass line?
Mindful of typical tempos (1/8 notes at 120bpm max?) I would keep it rough and ready. There's a mountain of stuff to learn out there so don't waste your time turning basic blues ideas into model classical exercises. That means keeping the fingering consistent and simple - 5,3,2,1,1 for everything and just move your hand for I IV and V. Anything else is unnecessarily fussy. There's long-term benefit in making the thumb do the extra work. Also, this works in every key though I wouldn't bother with obscure keys you're never going to play in.
First, iamanders, I have to say you keep coming up with interesting and thought provoking questions. Your questions can provoke something I hadn't thought of with any focus lately.
So I thunk about it and I have to disagree with you DTonic. I did a quick A/B test. Using (in the key of C) the thumb to play A - Bb - A in an ascending then descending LH pattern is mechanically clumsy. 3 clunks in a row for the poor thumb. And it won't work uptempo at all. It's like saying "just use your butter knife, you don't need a screwdriver" (my analogy - I like it). You are going to need a screwdriver to use routinely. Even if you have to use it slowly and carefully while you get the feel of it.
So I'd say practice slowly turning the thumb under/hand over movements. You will be using them regularly if you venture into big boys music at all. Getting fluent and fluid with the thumb will eventually aid in doing a sort of rolling movement with the hand doing that "Coltrane thang" in the RH for example (no, I'm not saying you should expect to play like Coltrane). In the LH it will help with moving bass lines.
My opinion after pondering a bit. I welcome thoughtful discussion. This is an important fine point I believe.
Your OP stimulated me to thinking about Dr John playing IKO IKO. My memory (haven't found it yet) is of seeing DrJ doing some awkward slide with his left had thumb. When I listened to that on YT, this followed. I think I may study it a bit, then try and play along with some of it. It's a bit of a NO style catalog.
By choosing fingerings should go from the anatomical properties of hands . The natural shape of hands doesn't shell , as is often thought .
Therefore, with normal size of hands, not very comfortable to play major third 4-5, and the every third 3 -4. On the other hand, crossing thumb the forefinger is very natural, even if the thumb is on the black key.
Coltrane? No useful connection AFAICS. Nor Dr John's Iko Iko , a very different beast, very tenth-sy in the LH so the thumb has no choice but to trace out movement without assistance - and it's slow movement. But it's a reason enough to get practising that thumb more.
A huge error IMO to adopt a doctrinaire approach to technique in R&B and blues, to assume that what you've learnt formally will do the job. Save your thumb-under for where it matters; scales and arpeggios and the classics based on such technical artifice. For the wide vocab of New Orleans you'll need to get that LH thumb busy.
Here's a mini demo in Gb using the 5-3-2-1-1 fingering I use in all keys. Without the thumb on the 7th the intermediate kick notes would be inaccessible, and frankly, for solo piano, the basic 5 notes are drab played straight.
I was simply talking about being able to move fluidly up or down the keyboard when I joked about the Coltrane thang. I still think it's a mistake to raise the thumb repeatedly rather than moving over the thumb. But people do adopt all sort of techniques.
The Dr John and New Orleans references were simply something that iamanders stimulated me to recall, and I shared.
We can disagree about things. The "Someday My Prince" video below has my right hand moving fluidly around by employing the over the thumb and thumb under motion. I will try to record an audio illustration of a moving bass line (LH) to post tomorrow.
dire tonic ,you're right stylistic, but not right in relation to the question, which mentions the pattern 1-3 - 5 - 6 7 - 6 - 5 - 3 1 , and says nothing about broken octaves, flams, or kicks.
dire tonic ,you're right stylistic, but not right in relation to the question, which mentions the pattern 1-3 - 5 - 6 7 - 6 - 5 - 3 1 , and says nothing about broken octaves, flams, or kicks.
As I said, the basic 1-3-5-6-7-6-5-3-1 is dull and lacks the power to drive the RH. If you were to offer a recording of yourself playing it, you'd make my point for me.
So my suggested fingering is part 1 of a putative lesson. Part 2 is a simple kick into the thumb. If you teach thumb-under for this figure then either the student will never arrive at a musical way of playing it, or you're wasting his time having him trying to memorise a wide range of inconsistent fingering which will be cast aside later, risking the dreaded need to 'unlearn' what has taken considerable time to drill in.
We can disagree about things. The "Someday My Prince" video below has my right hand moving fluidly around by employing the over the thumb and thumb under motion. I will try to record an audio illustration of a moving bass line (LH) to post tomorrow.
I've no problem with difference of opinion but I don't see what a rather florid and jazzy RH has to do with a rhythmic New Orleans LH. They're chalk and cheese.
For sure, I play scales and I play them properly (one might even say fluidly) but they're irrelevant here.
I've no problem with difference of opinion but I don't see what a rather florid and jazzy RH has to do with a rhythmic New Orleans LH. They're chalk and cheese.
For sure, I play scales and I play them properly (one might even say fluidly) but they're irrelevant here.
You are correct about the New Orleans references. I hindsight I should NOT have included them. As for the florid, fluid "Someday My Prince", I used that to illustrate the value of thumb under/hand over in navigating the piano keyboard. It was all I have on hand since I'm not going to do a video for this point - I'd have to relearn how to (clumsily) use MovieMaker.
To illustrate my LH using a hand-over-thumb technique, I did a quick blues sketch. I was saying (in my earlier point) that this is fundamental to playing "big boys music". I was trying to be humorous. So much for that. But my point of being able to navigate the keyboard in a rapid scalar motion stands. I don't expect an early, or maybe even an intermediate player to do this at first. But, the technique (I maintain) is critical to eventually being able to play more fluidly.
I would say that most (DT may be an exception) players could not play this LH pattern without utilizing this technique.
I don't want to get into a contentious argument over this.I don't expect you to agree.
- apologies, I don't mean to irritate you by not agreeing, however your recording does raise some issues and you said you welcomed thoughtful discussion. I listened to your recording and did a quick mock-up of the first LH phrase with some observations borne out of my playing something that clearly falls under *your* fingers.
So there are three short strains of approx. 4 riffs; the first is what I'm guessing is the fingering you used - 5,5 on the C then 3,2,1,2 as per the original phrase and promoting the idea of thumb under. That's how I do the first short run. After that, I go to 5,5 then 5,3,2,1 which works much better for me, making it possible to play at a much faster tempo (3rd short strain) without any prep. This works for me because of the bounce.
But this is your phrase, and doesn't IMO have much in common with N.O. piano (I'm talking specifically LH here). Generally N.O. left hand is primitive*, has nothing in the way of ornamentation other than the occasional slide and has to swing (I mean in the sense of 'drive', not in the triplet sense necessarily!). The RH is another story, but we're not discussing that.
* and that's why I refute the dogged adherence to 'classical' technique where the LH is concerned - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
You are correct about the New Orleans references. I hindsight I should NOT have included them.
You keep bringing up the N.O. thing. I already stated that I just threw it in for general interest, but I shouldn't have. About 5 years ago I watched several of the Dr. John videos. I love how he plays IKO IKO. But the OP was asking about fingering for a BLUES LH pattern.
This morning I just invented a little left handed blues line and played with it for a while. I made a line that I thought flowed. And I tried to design it so that it played out better with the hand crossing the thumb. I tried your 5-5 up to 5 3 2 1 (as I recall). Mechanically you have to lift the hand up and lay it back down. If you by chance wanted to play the beginning C again, you'd have to lift your whole hand yet again. Hand over thumb and thumb under hand is an important rudiment. If one has it, one moves more efficiently. My opinion.
But different strokes for folks. Different ball players have vastly different techniques. It is an interesting discussion.
(Where the LH is concerned N.O. and Blues are pretty much interchangeable sharing a lot of the same territory. I'd describe your piece as a bluesy-jazzy hybrid rather than Blues per se which uses well-defined rhythm figures and simpler chord movements.)
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But the OP was asking about fingering for a BLUES LH pattern.
Exactly! I suggested a fingering for that pattern . You disagreed, insisting that thumb-under (let's call it TU) was necessary. So I recorded a video to show that to be false.
By all means, record your own video of the same pattern to show how TU improves matters. Illustration using a bespoke pattern from your own kind of music - one expressly "designed" to rely upon TU - shows nothing of relevance to the discussion here.
A huge error IMO to adopt a doctrinaire approach to technique in R&B and blues
Interesting discussion. I notice that "Improvising Blues Piano" (a well-regarded instructional book by Tim Richards) suggests thumb-under fingering for an exercise (on p. 103) that uses the 1-3-5-6-7-6-5-3 bass pattern. It's important to remember, though, that this is a special case: a very simple boogie pattern that is played without variation or ornamentation in a piece written for students.
As one progresses to playing more complex and musically authentic material, I agree with dire tonic's point that insisting on "conservatory-style" fingering can cause problems, especially when improvising. Very often, adopting a fingering scheme that has the thumb (or the pinkie) playing adjacent notes in a bass pattern is the best (or, if you like, the least worst) solution, especially when playing in styles that involve putting the LH more or less on autopilot while you improvise with the RH.
I myself have been working on walking LH bass lately, and I find that if I get too worried about "conservatory" fingering, I tend to get myself all jammed up.
And btw (please excuse the pedantry), the OP's example is not actually a walking bass; it's just a boogie pattern.
Last edited by slowtraveler; 07/26/1605:42 PM. Reason: added a thought
By all means, record your own video of the same pattern to show how TU improves matters. Illustration using a bespoke pattern from your own kind of music - one expressly "designed" to rely upon TU - shows nothing of relevance to the discussion here.
I don't know what you mean by "your own kind of music". I constructed a LH pattern along the lines of the original post. C-E-G-A-Bb - with some variation.
I'm probably not going to respond to what I anticipate will be some sort or argumentative cracks. I've illustrated my point, and you disagree.
I play 'my own kind of music' which, like everyone else's, is a pastiche of influences so please don't take offence. I already identified the piece you posted in this thread as jazzy-bluesy, something other than the OP's focus of interest which here is a basic blues LH with a specific pattern over a simple 3-chord trick - it's dance music characterised always by an LH using a simple rhythm and a strong pulse. Your riff uses the same notes but as you say was 'designed' in such a way as to rely upon TU. By its nature that puts it rhythmically some distance away from what's typical in the style.
eta: Thanks for taking the time to put a video together but why didn't you play the pattern the OP asked about? If you're going to make your LH fly around all over the keyboard then of course TU comes in very handy! But I say this is definitely NOT R&B left hand. You obviously think it is. Whatever. As long as we enjoy our music, no problem.
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