Fast Piano Lessons Blog

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.

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.

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.