Blues Piano Lesson: Killer Blues Piano Vamps

Lesson Goal: To quickly internalize a collection of must-have blues piano vamps… by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle…

Prerequisites

Basic music reading skills… basic scale, chord, and chord progression theory… basic technique… the LOVE of music… and the discipline to study and practice.

Study, Practice, & Performance Tips

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.

back to… Table of Contents

Blues Piano Vamp #1

The classic Muddy Waters blues vamp, great at slow tempos…

back to… Table of Contents

Blues Piano Vamp #2

This bread and butter blues vamp swings at medium tempos and is a great backdrop for introducing the band…

Don’t forget to shuffle the 1/8th notes!

back to… Table of Contents

Blues Piano Vamp #3

A relentless, circular bass line in the left hand with neighbor chords and minor-major mixture in the right…

Don’t forget to shuffle the 1/8ths!

back to… Table of Contents

Blues Piano Vamp #4

This blues vamp makes full use of all the blue notes (b3, b7, b5)…

Again, don’t forget to shuffle the 1/8ths!

back to… Table of Contents

Blues Piano Vamp #5

This tasty blues vamp conjures up images of the swamp…

back to… Table of Contents

Blues Piano Vamp #6

Slow, super laid back minor blues vamp a la Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine”…

This time, you want to play the 1/8th notes “straight”…

back to… Table of Contents

Blues Piano Vamp #7

A classic minor blues pattern….

Sing the bass line Do, Te, Le, So as you play…

back to… Table of Contents

Blues Piano Vamp #8

This minor blues vamp puts heavy emphasis on the super-bluesy b5, played on the downbeat in a triplet riff…

Don’t try to count the triplets using numbers; instead, scat the triplets: “boo-bah-duh/bah-buh-duh/bee-buh-duh/bah-buh-duh/etc” and play it like you mean it!