Fast Piano Lessons Blog

In this video piano lesson, I walk you through at a fairly fast pace how to play an ending lick on a song in the key of C. This is an intermediate lesson, you’ll need to go back and rewind quite a few times to pick up the patterns.

How to create other Ending Licks:
Learn the Left hand bass line first and play it as close as you can to the way I played it in the video. Then learn the notes I play in the right hand for “STEP 1 at :20″ of the video. But realize, the right hand parts can be improvised using the C blues scale. That means just make up a bunch of stuff with the notes: C Eb F F# G Bb C and it’ll sound great! (But only if your left hand is providing a solid foundation). This opens you up to many different variations for ending turnarounds.

Dominant7#11 Chords are The Chord to End a Song With!
The C7#11 chord is spelled: C E G Bb D F# A.
Its a great voicing to use at the end of any Jazz, Rock or Blues song.
The Bb is the b7th. The D is the 9th. The F# is the 11th. The A is the 13th.

So its October, The month for dressing up in costumes! Thats why I’m wearing the glasses, they help me see the keys a little better

VIDEO REQUESTS:
This video was a request! I’m getting swamped with requests, but keep reminding me with posts on the blog and eventually I’ll get to your request. I’ve also been doing paid requests which are much higher quality and more in-depth. I usually run a rough draft sample lesson by you and then based on your feedback I make a custom video lesson for you!

This video continues on from the last piano lesson: Boogie Woogie 101 where we focused on some 2 handed patterns. In this video “Old Time Rock and Roll” I show you how to use those patterns in a song. There really isnt too much more to it!

The chords follow the 12 bar blues progression in C. This means the chords are C, F and G. Each time you start another 12 bar blues section you need to play the hook in the beginning.

The notes for the hook in the beginning are: C C C C C Bb A G.

Oh and Halloween is coming up, see if you can find the pirate hat!

On a side note: They used this song in a cat food commercial but changed the lyrics to, “Just take the Friskies off the shelf, your cat can eat them all by himself.”

When they were recording this song, one of the recording engineers made a mistake, which caused the false start at the beginning of the song. After listening back to the mistake, they decided to keep the changes.

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.

Who Is Jerry Lee Lewis?

Jerry Lee Lewis started his career out on Sam Phillips famous record label, Sun Records in 1956. He began as a solo artist and playing sessions with other artists on his label like Johnny Cash and Elvis. He had many successful songs, but “Great Balls of Fire” and “A Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On” were his two biggest hits.

How to Play Piano with Style:

The reason I’m sharing this video with you is not because of the specific chords or notes he was playing, but because Jerry Lee Lewis was a wild performer! While most traditional piano players sit down and are calm and worried about having proper posture while performing, Jerry had a lot of showy moves on the piano that made it really exciting to watch.

He would kick the piano bench over to stand up and at times he would even stand on the piano! While he was sitting down, he would shake his legs as if he were dancing. He also played A TON of big glissandos (slides) up and down the piano.

Lighting the Piano on Fire!

One of my favorites is that he would light the piano on fire, pouring kerosene on the top of the piano and creating fireballs during the song Great Balls of Fire.

These are all tricks that are pretty common now among contemporary piano rock artists like Billy Joel and Elton John thanks to Jerry Lee Lewis.

Guitar Vs Piano Rock Stars:

Until I watched videos of him, I had always considered piano to be less exciting than guitar and not a good lead instrument for a rock band. Guitarists are always entertaining to watch because its so easy for them to play standing up. This is a lot more visually entertaining than watching a classical pianist who except for his hands, sits still most of the time. (I’ve fallen asleep through more than one piano concert). Jerry Lee Lewis however made the piano really fun to watch and helped make it a lead instrument as exciting as guitar.

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.