The Two-Note Trick That Plays an Entire 12-Bar Blues (+ 3 Blues Licks) | How to Play Blues Piano

[music] Hi everyone, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of music. In this lesson, we're going to look at how you can improvise over the blues using a very simple shell voicing that most blues musicians use either as they are as I'm teaching you or you can expand the shell. So, you can take a 37 and then add on and add some color. [music] And with the blues, since there are a lot of dominant seventh chords over a 12 bar system, most blues is on 12 bar, what you can do is you can even substitute those dominant seventh chords with other ones. You can add passing flavors. You can do a lot of colors to the dominant seventh chords. So for example, if you take a C7th right now, this is [music] C by the way. And if you take the shell, let's consider the shell first or learn the shell. The shell is three 7 flat. This makes up C7th. Yes, you can also play a G, but you don't have to really play it in the right hand. It's not adding that much unique uh harmonic flavor. So, [music] you can even play it in the left hand to thicken the sound. So, it widens it out. Now you can even play [music] the 3 seven flat as 7 flat 3 if you wish. So this is C7th. Now once you have this voicing [music] or this shell, you can expand it of course by maybe creating a ninth [music] flat 9 sharp n. You can also invert it [music] and get yourself a 13 or a C7 sharp [music] five sound and a host of other things along the way. So for the lesson, it's going to be more on the lines of improvisation where I'm going to teach you a few licks as you heard in the intro video. However, we will definitely build these shell voicings to add a lot more sophistication and harmonic color in future lessons. This lesson will be to take the shell 37 73. [music] I'm going to teach you a couple of rhythm patterns. You're going to hit those rhythm patterns and improvise. The advantage of the shell is it's just using two fingers. So, you can use all the other the other three fingers that are available to to play around with a melody or to create or to compose or to improvise. And the left hand, we'll keep it very simple for the lesson. It's just going to be 1 5 1 [music] 5. And the first thing we'll have to learn, of course, is the blues. 12 bar blues. We've done a lot of theoretical beginner piano lessons. We've gone into rock and roll. We've gone into boogie woogie. We've gone into gospel on our channel. So, we have a playlist for blues. Do check it out. And we leave you a few of the lessons that you could check out in the description. However, a great resource considering that we've been around for a few years now would be to check out our free tutorials website. We leave you a link in the description. This website will just have a repository of all the lessons that you might anyways [snorts] be searching for on YouTube, but you'll get our content, our videos, and you'll find an ecosystem where you'll also find the Patreon material, the links. So, it's all in one place as most of you have requested for. And that also reminds me to remind you if you haven't already, don't forget to hit that like, share, and subscribe button and turn on the bell for regular notifications. And for this lesson and all the other lessons, if you want study notes, if you want practice apps specific to this actual lesson and even the other lessons, a simple subscription is all that it takes on our Patreon channel. Do consider heading over there and supporting us and you'll get all the resources for this lesson, including a study guide, an app to practice, notation, and of obviously my own handwritten notes. Okay, let's get cracking. So, for this whole lesson, we'll study E and E blues. So, what's going to be the 12 bar progression on E? [music] First of all, E7th, E7th again, [music] E7th, E7th again, and then [singing] the A7th twice. A7th, E7th, [music] E7th again, B7th, [music] A7th, E7th. Now you can do B7th or I'm going to stick on E7. E7th E7. [music] So 12 bar. 1 2 [music] 3. Each chord played four times. >> [music] >> 4. Four played twice. One [music] played twice. Five played once. Four played once. [music] One played once or twice in [music] this case. Okay. The traditional way may not be to actually play these chords as blocks. We play patterns, right? >> [music] >> So I'll give you a rhythm pattern which we've not really done on the channel. We've used it for other things but not for blues I feel. So we'll come back to that. Let's focus on the left hand. The left hand's going to maintain a steady pulse which is just E B [music] E B root fifth root fifth. So, 1 3 4 2 3 [music] 4 1 2 4 1 2 3 And now count in the 12 bar. [music] Third bar and [music] a 3 4 and 2 and 3 and back to E. 2 3 4 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 [music] B A once E twice. The right hand first of all remember I've showed you the voicing 7 33 37 which we learned for C. Let's learn it on all these E chords. So for E7th [music] we're anyways playing the 1 five in the left hand. In the right hand, we'll do either three 7 [music] in this case, seven flat, or else we'll do [music] seven flat 3, which is D, G sharp. [music] You're just inverting it. So you can first start off by holding it [music] and do the same for A. [music] Come back to E. [music] B A E [music] Maybe work out all your inversions. [music] What about A? It'll be C sharp, G or G, [music] C sharp, D, G sharp. You can play for B7 A D sharp or [music] D sharp A. [music] Basically tritones are inversions of each other. [music] So when you invert a trionee, you just get the same thing. Unlike you know a perfect fourth when you invert it, you get a perfect fifth. Major third you invert it, you get a minor 6th and so on. So now coming to the rhythm pattern of the right hand. It's a simple Charleston rhythm pattern which is swing 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and four and 1 and 2 and 3. But there are two options. One would be 1 and [music] 2 and 3 and four. So you you can kind of make it legato stacato for some variety. And the first thing you need to practice is to snap 2 3 4 with your left hand. 2 3 4 1 2 3. So 1 2 with the right hand. 1 and 2 [music] and 3 and 4. 1 and 2 and 3. Right? Uh 1 and two. [music] And then the 12 bar continues like this. And then the bad and and then [music] PP. And [music] the displaced version of the Charleston would be 1 [music] 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 and 2 3 4 1 and 2 3 Right. 1 and 2 and 3 4 1 2 3 [music] 4 1 and 2 and 3 4 repeat. 2 3 4 1 and 2 [music] and 3 4 1 and 2 and 3 4 1 2 and [music] 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1. And when you combine the [music] two, you can do Charleston and then the displaced Charleston. What I like to do is the displaced one which starts at the end and ends on the three and then follow it up with the normal one. So that goes [music] very common in rock and roll music and blues music. [music] And then the back to [music] Okay, so Charleston is out of the way. We combine the Charleston now with the left hand five pattern. [music] Maybe just normal Charleston for now. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 [music] and 3 and four. Just get one chord before you journey forward. And four and [music] one and two and and then and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and [music] two and two and three and four and [music] one and two and three and then try the displaced. 1 and 2 and 3 and four and [music] 1 and 2 and 3 and four and 1 and 3 and four and 1 and 2 and 3 and four and [music] 1 and 3 and 1 and 3 and four and 1 and and [music] one and two and three and four and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and [music] one and two. You can also do these passing bass notes or these walking bass notes or ghost notes in the bass. We leave that for another lesson. So for things like [music] that ghost [music] [snorts] [music] back to [music] Okay, now coming back. Now, one way to improvise around the Charleston rhythm would just be to toggle between the Charleston hit of the chord [music] and then a lick. So, the first lick I have for you is E B D E B D [music] E. So, high E. Where does it start now? 1 and 2 [music] and 3 and four and 1 and 2 and 3 and 2 and 3 and those are the hit points. So, >> [music] >> But lick [music] on the A. Same lick is possible. Actually, [music] A, you don't play the lick on B because you're starting it the Charleston on B, right? You can even flip it around. You can do [music] I just like to start with a Charleston. It's a bit better for me. [music] Four and one. And you can build around this. For instance, [music] things like that. Ultimately, the two commonly used blues scales are the major blues. [music] This is basically a major pentatonic with the flat three. [music] Yeah. So that's E, F sharp, G, G sharp, B, C sharp, E. And then you have the minor blues, which is the minor pentatonic [music] with that blue note. >> [music] >> There we go. So you can compose licks around that. You can even take the rhythm pattern that I've given you and add some other note. So let me just take a spin with some random licks. [music] >> [music] [music] >> So the lick I gave you so far was Charleston parabora. [music] Don't forget to keep this [music] pumping the the E and the B of the left hand. >> [music] [music] >> You could displace the lick. Let me now show you another lick which can perhaps complement. [music] It goes with in context. [music] So what am I doing there? Either you can use three fingers to kind of slide to the B or you can just slide with just the ring finger. So [music] repeat [music] and and Okay. And for the last line or the turnaround, you could consider something like this, [music] a long one. So B, D, B, B flat, A, G. That's a nice E minor blues that goes over the B7th, [music] A7th, and the E7 chord. So, [music] I'm ending with a major with a [music] usual blues uh ending turnar around the four [music] trionee and five. So, let's try and put all the licks together in in one 12 bar iteration. >> [music] >> Lick one. Lick two and [music] lick one. Two long one. [music] And then [music] [music] and [music] so we've done this on E. It's definitely something you should try to transpose on other keys. for example on C. [music] You could also develop your own licks and perhaps post it on your uh social media or Instagram and I'll and tag me or the school and I'll be sure to check it out. So in a nutshell what has happened in this lesson 12 bar blues pretty much on the key of E. Each seventh chord had two voicings. [music] 3 7 flat or 7 flat 3. Again for A 3 seven flat [music] 7 flat 3. For B 3 7 flat 7 flat 3. What do we do with these uh voicings? If we play them in the Charleston which had two variations [music] or the displays [music] and then three licks second [music] and at the turn [music] one more name. [music] Okay. And a small thing to add just some masala would be whenever you're playing the trionee in any case the trionee voicing [music] right in the right hand you could do just a chromatic downward uh slide. Good. Good. Good. [music] >> [music] >> Hope you found the lesson useful and I hope to catch you in the next one as well. And for you to catch me in the next one, it's very important that you hit the subscribe and the bell for regular notifications. YouTube are doing very different stuff to the videos. uh the long form content which we normally do doesn't seem to propel forward as it used to due to the shorts and the AI generated videos and all that which we well the the era of competing has begun with all these other robots and other uh forms so to speak. Earlier YouTube was a long- form thing so it was kind of promoting our videos but for some reason it doesn't happen as much as it should. So it'll be great if you can support us there and uh where we can help you is you'll learn a lot more on this topic as well as every other uh YouTube lesson that we've ever done spanning so many genres, so many skill levels and things like that. So do consider becoming a Patreon member. These days we are adding very detailed study guides with notation with graphs with long material to read up on and the old stuff remains my handwritten notes. And what we've now recently tried to do is give you an app to actually train along as you practice cuz in this lesson I've just done E, the key of E. We've [snorts] not had time to do all 12. So on the Patreon you can actually work out all 12 with every single voice leading uh technique that is out there. The Charleston rhythm is also there and you can hear it and practice along. Okay, thanks a ton for watching. I'll catch you on the next one. Kiss.