Here is the famous piano crossover lick! It gets used a lot in blues, rock and country keyboard styles. Probably one of the most popular and common licks you’ll hear used on recordings. This can be used anytime you are improvising over a C chord.
You really should transpose this to other keys. Try and see how it is based around a C major triad and it will help you take it to new keys.
Video outline:
The first half of the video is a different lick over a 2 5 1 progression. In this key the 2 is Dminor, the 5 is G7 and the 1 chord is Cmajor 7.
Right around :15 is where the lick demonstration gets slowed down.
In this blues lick exercise for piano, the trick to playing the grace notes is to slide your pinky off the first note and land on the next key–all in one action.
This is great to use in the first two bars, or sixth and seventh bars of the 12 bar blues where you’re going from C to F. It really highlights the change in harmony because there’s an E in C but an Eb in F7.
Not sure what to call this version of jingle bells… Is it more jazz or blues or rock? You decide!
This is for all the intermediate to advanced players who have been asking for something a little bit more challenging, otherwise I would normally break this lesson down into smaller steps. See if you can steal a few of my voicings for chords!
Outline:
The first half is a little reserved with some jazz voicings.. but not for long!
The second half has a walking bass line in the left hand with the right hand embellishing the melody quite a bit with some extra blues notes.
At the end I’ve attached a blues lick ending walking down from C, Bb, A, Ab, G back to C while the right hand trys to solo like crazy.
And then the final chord: C13#11 (C E G Bb, D F# A)
Here is a good definition of a lick:
A lick is “a stock pattern or phrase” (Middleton 1990, p. 137). In other words, Its a short melody made of a small number of notes that you have rehearsed. You want to do this so you sound better prepared for playing solos or improvising.
I am constantly adding new licks to my musical vocabulary. Here are a few short ones to get started with as well as a short explanation of fingering for the blues scale:
This lesson starts off covering two different easy blues scale licks at :04
Then we cover the two hand positions at :15
Make sure to learn the scale from both hand positions. Otherwise your limiting your creative possibilities. If you just start improvising from the C note every single time, what should be “improvising” will fall into becoming very routine.
I show you the fingering for the blues scale at :40
There are two different options for fingering the C blues scale:
You could use 1212121. (Thumb, Pointer, Thumber Pointer Etc)
Or 1234123 (Thumb = 1, Pointer = 2, Middle = 3, Ring Finger = 4).
Its good to be comfortable playing both fingerings.
Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions by posting a comment!
In this piano lesson, we cover the Jazz standard: Summertime by George Gershwin. As usual I show you the final version first and then slowly break it down. STEP 1: DOWNLOAD the sheet music (fake book style) before watching the video. Then use it to follow along with the video lesson. Click here for the music chart: SUMMERTIME CHORD CHART
STRIDE PATTERNS:
Stride patterns are when your left hand plays just the root down and then jumps up an octave to play the missing notes from the chord. (2:19) The left hand is going to play the low single bass note on beats one and three. On beats two and four it will jump an octave up to play the chord. There are of course lots of different variations! In the video, I’ve slowed the left hand down half as fast. I’m only playing the root on beat one and the chord on beat 3.
GETTING STARTED WITH STRIDE: (Start Simple) 2:45
To get the hang of playing stride piano you want to first start out by practicing just with your left hand.
With your pinky, practice jumping from notes in different octaves. For example, play a low C (single note) then moving an octave up to play another C (single note). Keep working on this until you can do it in a steady rhythm without dropping a beat. Start off as slowly as you need to then gradually speed up!
The next step is to add the chords into the left hand on beats 2 and 4.
IMPROVISING:
To improvise on summertime, you want to use the Dmin blues scale. The notes for the D minor blues scale are [D F G G# A C D].
The Chords in Summertime:
Dmin7 can be played with the notes DFAC.
Gmin7 can be played with the notes G Bb D F. On Gmin7. In the video (:10 & :57), I’m playing an inversion of the chord (F Bb D) and leaving out the root because I played it earlier on beat 1.
Emin7(b5) can be played with the notes E G Bb D.
To add more walking bassline motion, I lead into A by playing Bb right before that. (:13)
A7 can be played with the notes A C# E G, however in the video I’m playing the root on beat one and then playing the chord without the root on beat 2
Fmaj7 can be played with the notes FACE. In the video (:24) I only play F & C to keep the chord from sounding muddy. Its a fast passage and a lot of notes are tricky!
Bb7 can be played with the notes [Bb D F Ab] but in the video (:25) I only play a shell voicing: Bb and Ab.
A7 can be played with the ntoes A C# E G and in the video I only play another shell voicing: A and G When you’re playing chords in a low range on the piano, use only the outside notes of the chords (shell voicings) to keep it from sounding muddy. It also makes it easier to play 2 notes from a chord rather than all 4.
