Fast Piano Lessons Blog

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.

Click the music to blow it up!

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.

Click the music to enlarge it!

Grace notes are the tiny notes you see written in the example. Quickly slide your finger off the EDGE of the black key onto the white key.

Post a comment, let me know if the new digital keyboard (tiny one up top) is helpful!!!

Piano Video Outline:

:05 - An example of the lick

1:40 - This lick is shown over a blues and how to use some variations on the different chords, (C7 F7 G7).

2:20 - Changing harmony from C7 to F7 (watch out for the E natural going to E flat)

2:50 - A solo highlighting the change in harmony from C7 to F7.

This is the second piano lesson in a 3 part series with examples for how to play a ballad similar to the style that Elton John uses on songs like “Tiny Dancer”. In fact, the first pattern I play in the video is very similar to the piano introduction to Tiny Dancer.

Use these patterns as guidelines though. To make them your own, you’ll have to add a few different notes and rhythms here and there. Not even Elton John plays his piano parts the same way twice.

The chords are C major and F major.

OUTLINE:
:03 - Tiny Dancer example
:09 - Variations on the first example slowed down
:50 - Country lick slowed down

Practice Tips: Please realize that I’ve only shown you two examples on the C and F chords. Transpose them to another key to get the most benefit from them. For example, try to play these patterns on D & G, or E & A.

Here is a link to Lesson 1: Make Your Piano Ballads Sound Better

In this video lesson there are 2 boogie woogie patterns for the left hand. In fact, its these LEFT HAND patterns, (not right hand) and the swing that are characteristic of boogie woogie. For the left hand boogie woogie pattern, I would only focus on the easy one at :42 seconds.

The right hand patterns can be used in many styles, not just boogie woogie.
I really like 2:04 - swing 8th notes in the right hand and would practice that the most.
You could use that pattern on a blues or on a song like Great Balls of Fire.

Make sure you practice these patterns in different keys so you can apply them to songs other than a 12 bar blues in C.

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.