Learning To Play The Blues On Keyboard Or Piano Part I. A step by step guide

[mrdee 1]

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to learn to play the Blues.

 

A short historical insight:

The Blues first started during the days of slavery, in the 19th century, from African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States.

The genre found its origins in spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants and the lyrics were made by rhyming simple narrative ballads.

 

The style was originally used to express sadness, hence the terms "I've got the Blues" or "I am feeling Blue".

 

The structure of the Blues.

One of the reasons for me choosing the Blues as topic for a tutorial is its simplicity.

All you need to learn is three chords(*), and then play those chords in the right places over just twelve bars(*) and you have the foundation to start playing, singing, composing and improvising your own Blues songs.

The other advantage is that, once you master the Blues, the road will be open (in the beginning just by changing the tempo) to playing Boogie Woogie (a sort of "piano Blues") and even Rock 'n Roll as those styles have exactly the same stucture.

 

Explanation of some terms.

(*)A chord: a number of notes being sang or played at the same time.

(*)A bar: (Not the place where you go for a beer) Music is divided in equal parts, those parts are called bars.

 

The chords

As mentioned earlier, only three chords are needed to make up a Blues song.

I will now show you what those chords are and how to learn to play them:

The notes on a keyboard instrument are arranged as follows:

1) The 'C' chord:

Called C because the leftmost note (the root note) is C, on a keyboard instrument the notes are arranged as follows:

 

 

Practice this chord with your left hand, the principle is basically: start on C, and play one, miss one, play one, miss one, play one.

(Please do remember to try and play the notes at the same time, use little finger for C, middle finger for E and thumb for G.

 

2) The 'F' chord:

Practice this chord in the same way as C.

 

3) The 'G' chord:

(In the picture, the rightmost note (D) is chopped off a bit, nevertheless, the same principle (play, miss, play, miss, play) still goes.

practice the G chord in the same way as the two others.

 

After you manage to play the three chords individually, try to play them in the following way:

 

4 times C, 4 times F, 4 times G, count along (keep the tempo regularly while going C C C C F F F F G G G G.

 

Instead of counting, you can also use a metronome or set the rhythm unit of a keyboard to a Swing or Blues rhythm at a tempo of about 70-90.

 

In the next part I will show you how to get the Blues together with the chords in the proper places, and I will also show you a simpler way of playing the chords.

 

Have lots of fun practicing.