Blues Piano Lesson: Killer Blues Piano Grace Notes

Lesson Goal: To quickly internalize commonly used Blues Piano Grace Notes… by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle…

Prerequisites

Basic music reading skills… the LOVE of music… and the discipline to study and practice.

Never play these mindlessly and mechanically. Always aspire to play them musically.
Your goal is not to merely memorize them, but to study and practice until you internalize them using all four musical intelligences: ears, intellect, eyes, and muscles.
Every time you practice something, you are programming your brain. So always play accurately.
Practice with a Click Track or a Rhythm Track. Doing so will give you immediate feedback on any rhythmic misconceptions or places where your timing gets sloppy.
Record Yourself. Always. Listen to the playback immediately. And ask yourself: Is that what you intended to play?”
If anything feels tense or awkward, stop immediately and experiment with alternative fingerings or choreography.
Play the keepers in other keys you expect to play in. By the way, once you see the patterns (which is guaranteed if you know your scales and chords) finding the notes in other keys will be a piece of cake!
If you feel stuck or overwhelmed, realize that anything can and will be mastered if you slow things down or break things down to small enough pieces.
Although it take time to talk about all the above practice habits, practicing them takes almost no time at all because they can all be done simultaneously!
Mastering all this takes no special talent. All it takes is a wee bit of knowledge and the discipline to employ a very short list of productive study and practice habits.

Grace notes are a fun and easy way to add some bluesy edge to your blues piano sound…

Each grace note is typically a blue note that slides into its related chord tone (b3 into 3 or b5 into 5).

First, listen to a typical Blues lick played without blues piano Grace Notes…

Now listen to the same idea played with blues piano Grace Notes…

Technique & Interpretation Tips…

Don’t play the grace note too short. Allow enough time for the bluesy sound-feeling of each grace note to make an impression.
Play the grace note and the target note as a single musical and physical impulse.
When the grace note is a black key and the main note a white key, slide the very same finger off of the black note onto the white note.
When going from white to white or white to black, you need to use different fingers, but the same notion applies: Play the grace note and the target note as a single musical and physical impulse, not two separate ideas.

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