Blues Piano Lick #004

Fourth in an extensive series of killer Blues Piano Licks to add to you bag… by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle…

Table of Contents

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Prerequisites

Basic music reading skills… basic piano technique… the LOVE of music… and the discipline to study and practice the right way.

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Study, Practice, & Performance Tips

1. Never play these mindlessly and mechanically. Always aspire to play them musically.
2. Don’t just play dots. Play sounds!
3. Never think, hear, and play one note at time. Hear and play in complete phrases.
4. Don’t merely memorize these. Internalize them using all four musical intelligences: ears, intellect, eyes, and muscles.
5. Every time you practice something, you are programming your brain. So always play accurately.
6. 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.
7. Record Yourself, always. Listen to the playback immediately, and ask yourself: Is that what you intended to play?”
8. If anything feels tense or awkward, stop immediately and experiment with alternative fingerings or choreography.
9. Play 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!
10. When 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.
11. Although it takes time to talk about all the above practice habits, practicing them takes almost no time at all because they can all be done simultaneously!
12. 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.

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Blues Piano Lick #004

A rhythmic, syncopated four-bar idea in the key of E derived from the E Minor Blues Scale…

Performance Tips: 1. Don’t forget to shuffle the eighth notes, 2. No flams between the left and right hand, 3. Rests are notes, too. Give them their full value, 4. Play it the way you’d sing it and sing it like you mean it!

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Frank’s Rendition

Listen to Frank demonstrate one way to play this (with straight quarter notes in the left hand at 110 bpm)…

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Your Feedback Matters

Questions about fingering, interpretation, technique, rhythm, practice habits, ear training, transposition, other? Suggestions for making these lessons more effective? Thanks a bunch in advance.

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