Archive for February, 2011

How to Play Blues Piano

The ability to play blues piano is usually not expected of beginning pianists. There are reasons why most beginning pianists start out playing old songs written by classical composers from centuries past. Many songs written for the piano by such composers as Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky were originally intended as pieces to be used for lessons. Plus, the conventions of classical music lead to chord structures, harmonies, and melodies that were comparatively straight-forward, perfect for students who were not musical experts.

Attempting to play blues piano presents new challenges for pianists. Many non-musicians don’t realize the technical difficulty of blues and jazz music, but in fact, to be an accomplished musician in one of these genres requires years and years of intense training and practice. Some would even say that these musical genres are actually more complicated than pre-20th century musical forms, which would mean that blues and jazz musicians are, in general, the most accomplished and versatile musicians out there.

So, as you can guess, the decision to take the plunge into playing blues piano should not be made lightly. In order to have a true understanding of blues, its scales, harmonies, and rhythms, one needs to have at least a basic understanding of more traditional musical forms. Blues isn’t a parallel form of music to Classical and other traditional genres; no, it’s an augmentation of traditional music. Just like jazz, blues actually complicates traditional music. Thus, your study of blues piano requires at least a solid bedrock of musical knowledge.

I presume that you already know, at the very least, about the traditional major scale. For example, in order to understand and play the C blues scale, you must know the C Major scale.

If you have that knowledge, then it’s pretty simple. The blues scale simply takes the major scale and adds three extra notes. That’s it. The three extra notes are a flatted third, a flatted fifth, and a flatted seventh. Thus, the C blues scale has all of the same notes as the C Major scale — that is, C D E F G A B — with the three additional notes being E flat (or D sharp), G flat (or F sharp) and B flat (or A sharp).

That’s right, if you look closely at the blues scale, you’ll find that there are only two notes that are not included. In the C blues scale, only C sharp and G sharp are not played.

If you want to play blues piano, learning the blues scale is your first step. Even doing nothing more than playing the scale, you’ll hear a “bluesy-ness” to the scale, and if you are a fan of blues, it will sound great to your ears.

Once you can do this, you are ready to play blues piano. The next step is to try improvising. Come up with a chord progression. C F G C is a standard blues chord progression, except — and here is another important point — it is fairly standard in blues music to turn nearly every chord into a seventh chord. So, this progression, in blues form, would be C7 F7 G7 C7. Of course, with the new notes added in, you must remember that, in most cases, these should be played as minor 7th chords. Thus, both the C7 and F7 chords use notes that are not in the traditional C Major scale.

Once you have your chord progression down, improvising is easy. Come up with a simple, bluesy melody, and go from there. Just remember that in order for the music to have that special blues quality, you need to utilize those extra three notes that are not in the traditional scale. Those are the notes that give blues its edge. In that light, it’s really not difficult at all to play blues piano.

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Beginners Blues Guitar Lessons

Beginners Blues guitar lessons are ideal, if you’re just starting out learning to play the guitar. If you are reading this article then you are probably interested in learning blues guitar. There is nothing like being able to strum some cool Blues guitar riffs. Blues is an incredible genre of music.

At the heart and soul of most Blues songs is the guitar. If you’re just starting to learn to play, or always wanted to play the Blues, you have to remember one thing: Even the most skilled Blues guitar players were novices themselves at one time or another.

This is usually one of the simplest forms of music that has played a huge part in the evolution of other genres that are popular in today’s culture. The origin of Blues is thought to have began somewhere between 1870-1900.

The Blues peaked in popularity in the 1960′s. Back then it was one of the most cherished and loved music genres.  Blues paved the way for many other genres of music. When something becomes loved, its inevitable that it evolves and changes. Creative people, like musicians, often will take something and add their own style or flavor to it. That’s exactly what happened to the Blues.

Blues is often given credit for giving birth to the following genres of music: Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Bluegrass, and Rock and Roll. Blues is still alive and well. Blues music just doesn’t enjoy the same popularity it once did at its height. Even if Blues itself isn’t as popular, the genres that evolved from it are. You can still get a taste of Blues in some hit songs. Blues will never truly die.

Blues is mainly played with a guitar which makes the music all the more appealing to people who want to play guitar. For amateurs, there are many ways to learn how to play this type of music and one of them is by taking a beginners Blues guitar course. You will most likely learn what exactly Blues is. How it stands out from all the other genres. Most important, how it is successfully played on the guitar.

You can try to learn Blues songs on your own. However, your time would be better spent if you had the proper instruction.  You’ll sound a lot better and learn more quickly if you take some beginners Blues guitar lessons.

Considered as one of the most influential genres of music, Blues has contributed much to the success of most genres while retaining its identity as the one that started it all. If you’re a fan of blues who wants to relive those good old days, then a beginners Blues guitar system may just be right for you. As you can see, because Blues influenced so many other types of music, if you can master playing Blues music on your guitar, you’ll more easily be able to play other genres.

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What Everybody Needs to Know About Blues

The soul is to the body of a person as music is to the body of society. Music permeates into the soul of society and gives every decade its special mark. When we relieve the 50′s or the 60′s or the 70′s or the 80′s, its always the music of that generation that we reminisce. As we play on the music of a certain generation, the memories all go crashing down as we smile, we cry, we laugh at the good old days. Somehow the blues had made its mark on our collective spirit that it will not and cannot go away.

Originating from the pains and struggles of the black people, the blues represent the most poignant of all musical genres. The music is so haunting it feels like pain. It chokes the heart so beautifully while the lyrics become forever etched in our memories. The blues has already become part of us and it is here to stay. For every serious musician, one cannot say that he or she is a complete artist without learning to play the blues. Blues backing tracks are now available in the internet is helping the new gene

From the Southern United States in the 19th century, blues has sneaked its way in the music world yet has reached its peak of prominence during the 20th century. At present, the continuous revival of blues prominence is focused on by blues backing licks services open for public viewing online. A lot of great innovations are offered by these licks to satisfy every music buff that go on searching for the latest updates in blues. Moreover, these internet offers are catering basically to guitarists or to anybody who can never do away with their guitars and for those who want to make improvements on their guitar playing skills.

Before the next generations slowly forget the importance of the blues to music, we have to give every budding musician blues guitar lessons much like history lessons in the classroom. It is good that with the advent of the internet and the availability of blues tutorials, we can be more or less sure that the blues will always be here to stay. What is great is that the internet can provide a complete sensation of playing the blues.

We can easily Google famous blues artists and even watch them actually play. We can research and hear their melodies and we can access a variety of blues songs from the fast tempo to the very slow ones. What is more, we can actually start from the basics of blues then evolve a new genre that effectively combines blues music to the modern ones.

We can search the web for a variety of blues guitar lessons that we can choose from. We can search for the big names who are the giants of the blues such as Eric Clapton, BB King, and Albert King. There are websites that offer ten blues licks for every download with even a free guitar course. Today’s generation is simply lucky to have the internet which makes blues lesson really easy and enjoyable.

Learning to play the guitar is never easy. But with blues backing tracks, learning is made simple with an innovative approach. With blues backing tracks, the guitar enthusiasts will always remember to play with the desire of his heart. This is online tutorial and online music experience made for those you wants fun and great advantage from blues music.

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