Learning To Play The Blues On Keyboard Of Piano Part Ii

[mrdee 1]

By now, you should be somewhat familiar with the three chords needed to play a Blues pattern.

A quick recap: the chords are C, F and G, and, for all three of them, beginning with the root note (the note which has the same name as the chord, you play one, miss one, play one, miss one, play one (just have another quick scan through Part I if you need to).

 

We are now going to learn how to slot those chords into their proper place so they fit into a Blues pattern.

 

"The Blues", or "a Blues song" is sometimes referred to as "a Twelve bar Blues", the simple reason being (as I mentioned in the previous part) a Blues song is made up of ony twelve bars (which can obviously be repeated a number of times, depending on the verses if it is vocal Blues, for example).

 

Below, you see the scheme of a Blues structure, as you can dee, there are twelve squares, where every square represents one bar.

(Do not forget, every bar in a Blues song has four beats, so in every bar you count 1-2-3-4 while playing your chords).

 

While doing the counting and playing the chords, just follow the diagram, and you will find yourself playing the chord structure of a "Twelve bar Blues".

 

 

In other words, you should be playing: C-2-3-4, C-2-3-4, C-2-3-4, C-2-3-4 (Top line)

F-2-3-4, F-2-3-4, C-2-3-4, C-2-3-4 (middle line)

G-2-3-4, F-2-3-4, C-2-3-4, C-2-3-4 (bottom line.

 

I will also show you a simpler way (some people find it simpler) of stringing your chords together:

 

Earlier, I mentioned the root note, which is tha note bearing the same name as the chord.

This means, in a C chord, C is the root note, in an F chord, F is the root note, and in a G chord, G is the root note.

 

If the leftmost note in the chord (as in the diagram below) is the root note, the chord is said to be in root position.

 

 

When you are playing a Blues song at its usual tempo (which is usually fairly slow), it is mostly not so much a problem playing all 3 chords in root position, however, if you want to speed up your song in order to turn it into a Boogie-Woogie or Rock n' Roll piece, then the switch from one chord to the next might become a bit problematic, since switching from C to F (especially) in root position can prove to be a bit of a leap.

That is where the use of "inversions comes in.

An inversion is when you move the root note from the bottom to another place: eg. while C (in root position) has the notes C - E - G in it, the 1st inversion will be E - G - C (The root note has moved up to the top) and the 2nd inversion will be G - C - E.

 

What is the advantage of using chord inversions?

 

As I mentioned earlier, it will avoid having to do a big leap from one chord to the next.

 

Let us have a look at the following:

 

 

Above is the root chord of C, below is the 2nd inversion of F.

While, when playing in root position, you had to do quite a leap to get from C to F, as you can see above, you can now just leave your finger on the C in place, while the fingers that played E and G in the C chord only have to move one note to the right.

 

You can then complete the whole thing with playing G in second inversion, as shown below:

 

 

It is, of course, up to the individual to do as they feel what is best for them, but, try to experiment with the system of both root only chords and inversions, and see what makes life easier for you.

 

There is some more practice stuff for you then.

 

Finally, in order to avoid people getting bored, a little word about the right hand:

 

When you feel you are beginning to master the chords with the left hand, you can begin to add a basic right hand pattern to experiment with (and when I say "basic", I mean it is only meant to help you on your way, it definitely WILL get better).

 

What you can do in the right hand, for now, separately to begin practising if you wish, but, later, in conjunction with your left-hand playing, is to use "broken chords".

That is, as the name implies, simply, instead of playing the notes of a chord together, break the chord up and play one note after the other.

 

For example, when you have the first four bars, which all contain a C chord, play "C - E - G - E / C - E - G - E / C - E - G - E / C - E - G - E", and, while doing so, you can nicely maintain the rhytghm of every bar, as all broken chords go in a 1 -2 -3 -4 pattern.

 

The same obviously goes for F, where you do "F - A - C- A", and G, in which case you play "G - B - D - B".

 

I have now given you a whole shedload of practice material, get practising, and look out for the next part of the tutorial, where I will make things a bit more interesting to play and to listen to.

 

Happy practising.

Edited August 1, 2011 by mrdee (see edit history)