Fast Piano Lessons Blog

Here is a intermediate boogie woogie piano pattern for two hands on Dominant 7 chords! (G7)
It builds off of our last post Boogie Woogie Piano 101

This version gives you a much fuller blues boogie sound. It would work great while playing behind a singer, soloist or even all by itself. Try to tranpose this into the keys of G, C and D, then you could use it on a blues in G.

First I show you the key to this pattern: Your pinky fingers stay on the same note G. (:35)
Then we break it down step by step. (:52) Your left hand stays on the same note while your thumb moves up. In the right hand part, again your pinky stays the same while your right thumb moves the same direction as your left thumb. This creates a nice harmony between the two notes as they move together.
By moving your thumbs, you’re changing the notes from GDBG to CECG. This changes the chords from Gmajor to C major.

Watch out for muddiness! As you get lower on the piano with your left hand, you need to make sure to spread the notes out wider and wider. Rather than playing a G major triad in the low octaves (GBD) leave out the middle note and just play G and D.

This intermediate piano lesson takes you through the introduction used by billy joel and the chords to accompany yourself singing piano man. I also show you how to play harmonica without using your hands or a harmonica holder wrapped around your neck!

I dont show you the chords for the “la da da diddy…” I’ll save the video lesson on that section for another blog post, but here are the chords:
Am, Am/G, D/F#, F G,
Am, Am/G, D/F# D,
G, G/F, C/E, D, C

HARMONICA TABS:
I’ll have a video tutorial for this in a bit

Blow = B
Suck = S

BSB…SB..SBSB…
BBS..BS…
BSB…SB..SBSB…
BSBSB…

Let me know if there are any questions by posting comments and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Jerry Lee Lewis is a great piano player to learn from because he has so much energy. In this piano lesson we’re going to cover his song, “Great Balls of Fire.” Its a fast song that we can use the basslines we have been working on in. In the video lesson, I’ve broken down the basic but fast pattern (at :28) that gets used on the C F and G chords in this song.

VIDEO NOTES:
As the annotations in the video say: watch my pinky in the left hand for clues about what chord i’m playing. In this song as in most songs, the root of the chord gets played on beat one of the pattern.

In the beginning of the song (:18 through :28) notice I’m playing octaves in both hands. (Octaves are the same note, but 8 notes apart). In fast rock and roll, we are focused more on playing really fast and loud rhythms, so we give up big lush chords in exchange for a few reasons. One of the main reasons is that it would be cumbersome and inaccurate.

Ending:
Don’t worry about trying to copy the ending I played in this video. We will talk about endings in future blog posts. I got a little too excited during my solo and didn’t really plan ahead for the right ending. So I quickly tagged on a much better ending lick. On the plus side, you get to see two different possible endings to the song!
If you would like to learn more standard endings for the Blues, Rock, Jazz etc. Please post a request as a comment!

Authentic Bass Lines:
The bass lines we have been talking about in previous blog posts will work for this song, but someone noted that they are not completely authentic and Jerry Lee Lewis would use more of a boogie woogie pattern.
I would say that the focus is really on what your singing and right hand is doing, so your left hand doesn’t get enough attention for it to really matter what specific notes it plays. As long as the left hand rhythm is steady, the exact bass line doesn’t matter a whole lot.

With just 10 minutes a day on the Chord Master 5000, you can be on your way to the perfect chord shapes you’ve always desired… JUST KIDDING! It almost sounds like an ad for Bow-flex! If there were one exercise that I would do for fun and get good at my chords at the same time, I would play arpeggios.

The reason they are so helpful is because you practice finding the chord 8 times in each arpeggio in multiple different situations. AND THEY SOUND COOL! In the video below I walk you through how I play them:

I will play four octaves of the same chord. Lets use C for example:

1. I’ll start with two C major chords in each hand, C E G.
2. Then roll them from bottom to top, pinky to thumb in each hand (See video).
3. Left hand finishes then switched to right hand rolling from thumb to pinky.
4. While the right hand is rolling the chord, the left hand will start moving to the next highest C chord, crossing OVER THE TOP of the right hand.
5. Left hand start rolling the chord, while the right hand begins crossing UNDER the left. It moves to the next highest C chord.
6. Left hand then hits a single C note on the top when the right hand is finished and you play the opposite direction (from right to left).

NOTE: When you’re playing from right to left, this is the HARDEST part. You still play the C chord, but you’re starting with the top note G first, then E, then C. So you need to look for the G notes to correctly place the chord.

With my private lesson students that I teach in person, I ask them to play their 12 major chords and 12 minor chords in 30 seconds each and this is the exercise that helps them get up to speed! Some of them can even play 12 chords in 10 seconds!

Here is a country piano lick that would work for any part of werewolves of london or sweet home alabama. I like to use it in Jazz songs as well. For now, try and use it on ANY SONG that you’re playing with a major triad! In the video, In the video I show you how to play it on D major, C major and G major, but it will work on any major triad! Challenge yourself by trying to figure out the same notes on an F and A chord!

The pattern for this lick is: FLAT3, 3 8. These numbers are relative to any major scale. For example, lets use the C major scale (C D E F G A B).
The 8 means you count up 8 notes in the C major scale. The 3 means go up three notes (to E), and the Flat3 means count up three notes in the C major scale (to E) but then lower or flat whatever that note is a half step (Eflat).

To take this to other keys, you really should know the major scale for the key you want to play it in so that you can use FLAT3, 3, 8 to find the notes.

IF you don’t know the major scale, the trick is to find the third of the chord or triad. Lets start off with a triad like C which has the notes C, E, G. The E is the major third because its three notes up the C major scale from C (3). Count down one half step from E the major third and that is your minor third (Flat3). And then to find 8 is easy, its just the root of the chord (C) but 8 notes up.