Blues Piano Artistry

hello and welcome to a newjazz lesson. in this video we will play a 12 bar bluesin c and we will learn some very useful techniquesto play a thrilling blues solo with the right hand. my name is oliver prehn by the way, and ihope you like this little blues solo because in a minute i will show you how todo this. we will discover that this solo is actuallybased on some very simple techniques. so all this are going to be really fun and hopefully you will explore some new stuff

you can add to your improvisation style whenplaying the blues… now, put your hand on the keys like this. here we got 4 notes: the a-note, the c-note,the d-note and the e-flat note. with the c-note in the bass the hand gripsounds like this. between our thumb and index finger we havea minor third… and we got 3 stepwise notes much closer toeach other in the top of our hand grip… minor third… and stepwise notes… ok, now we move our thumb to the note a halfstep above the fourth finger, the e-note,

like this… and we make the exact same hand grip… we got our minor third interval… and our 3 stepwise notes in the top… now let’s play a little solo on the c7 chordusing the two positions of our hand grip. we play the c7 chord in the left hand. now, with the right hand we will now playour hand grip… the hand grip has two positions. we can place our index finger on the c-note,and make the hand grip…

and we can move our thumb up a half step fromthe fourth finger to the e-note and play our hand grip from there… ok, now we will find an easy way to locatethe positions of our hand grip. look at your index finger. this finger should either be placed on thekeynote c… or we can place our index finger on the perfectfifth compared to the keynote c, the g-note… so the positions for our index finger areeither the keynote or the fifth, right? so these two positions are very easy to remember. when i improvise i use the index finger asa kind of mental pointer:

the keynote… the fifth… ok, our 12 bar blues contains other chordsthan the c7 chord. so what about the next chord, the f7 chord? how do we improvise on that chord? well, that’s easy. we simply just transpose our positions ofour hand grip to the f tonality. so where should we places our hand grip? well, look at the index finger – our mentalpointer. we simply just place the index finger on thekeynote of the current chord, the f-note…

and we make our hand grip… and we can place our index finger on the fifthcompared to the f-note and that’s the c-note, and we make our handgrip... so, when playing solo on the f7 chord we canplace our hand grip here… and here… now, let’s try to improvise over the c7-chordand the f7-chord… c7… f7… when playing the c7 chord we place our righthand index finger on the keynote c…

or a fifth above on the g-note… when playing the f7 chord we place our indexfinger on the keynote f… and a fifth above on the c-note… ok, what about the last chord, the g7-chord? maybe you have figured it out. we just place our index finger on the g-note,the keynote… and we can place our index finger on the fifth,the d-note… so, on the g7 chord we can play the hand gripat these two positions: index finger on g… index finger on d…

ok, let’s try to play through the entirechord progression. notice we play in a rubato style with rhythmicfreedom. later on we will improvise with a fixed tempo. but for now this is a very good way to practicethe positions of our hand grip. we can just dwell upon a single chord; learnthe positions of our hand grip. and when we are ready we go to the next chord,nice and easy. do not rush through this exercise… take your time and discover the opportunitiesof the hand grip – one chord at a time… ok, let’s try to play through the 12 barchord progression in a fixed tempo…

mmm what about 69 bpm… in the left hand i will play a simple walkingbass by the way. i have written down the basic notes for thatwalking bass if you should be interested. i will paste a link in the description below. in another lesson i also explain the basictechniques of this walking bass. i will paste a link to that lesson as well. ok, here we go… now look at the right hand. notice, with the hand grip technique we areforced to use the same piano fingering

no matter where on the keys we are and whatposition we play… and we can take advantage of that property. being familiar with the hand grip we can easilyrepeat phrases and motifs at different places on the keys… so a single motif can be played several placeson the keys using the exact same piano fingering. so we reuse a simple technique on the entireregister. when mastering this hand grip our improvisationget’s easier. we don’t have to think about scales andother theory stuff while playing. music does not have to be advanced and difficult

actually we need to free our mind from complicatedthoughts when performing… we need to do things as simple as possible… a simple improvisation is often the best improvisation… ok, very soon we will talk some theory andmake some reflections. when improvising using these hand grips ithink it’s really exiting to stop playing for a while and find out the theory behind all this. what are we actually playing? the next section will for sure be illuminating.

so stay tuned. so what scale are we playing when using ourhand grip at the different positions? well having c as our keynote we have thesenotes… and these notes… right? the a-note we have twice, so we remove thelower a-note. well, then we have this scale… in a previous lesson we learned about themixolydian scale. i will paste a link to that lesson in thedescription below. now, here we have the c-mixolydian scale… and we have learned that this mixolydian scalehas a so called “avoid” note, the f-note.

this f-note makes a harsh clash against themajor third note in the c-chord. so if we want to avoid this clash we mustleave out the f-note. and notice sometimes we actually deliberatelywant to make a dissonant clash. that’s why the term “avoid” is wrong,i think, but that’s another story. in our context we actually want to avoid theavoid note. so we leave out the f-note. in the previous lesson we also learned thatwe with succeed we can add a blue note to the mixolydian scale:the minor third. so we can play both major…

and minor… so, this distorted mixolydian scale is greatwhen improvising blues on the seven chords. and if we use our hand grip we can play thisscale automatically without thinking about looking up the scalewhile playing. we just place our index finger on the keynote… and the fifth… and we automatically have all the notes inour hand. and furthermore we avoid playing the notesstepwise up and down like this… this way of playing a solo often happens whenthinking too much in scales when playing.

then we just play the scale up and down andwe have a boring solo like this… but when we split up the scale by using thehand grip we automatically play small motifs and phrases. the hand grip invites us to break up the scaleand to play melodies and licks – in a natural way. the hand grip simply makes it easier for usto play music. ok, very soon we will expand and alter ourhand grip, slightly. these small changes can make our solo evenmore thrilling. here we have our hand grip with our indexfinger on the c-note. now let’s add the pinkie to the hand grip.

from the fourth finger, the e-flat-note, wego up a major third interval to the g-note and we got this five finger hand grip… between the first two fingers we got the minorthird interval… and between the two last fingers we got themajor third interval… and in the middle of our hand grip we gotthis stepwise movement… we can play our expanded hand grip at thesame positions as before. so, on the c7 chord we can play our expandedhand grip with the index finger on the keynote… and we can play the hand grip with the indexfinger on the fifth-note… let’s combine the two positions of the handgrip and play a little solo on the c7 chord…

well this works great don’t you think?... and let’s do the other chords as well… so everything is as before – we simply just place our index finger on thekeynote or the fifth of the current chord... the only difference is that we now occasionallyadd the pinkie to our hand grip… right now we do the rubato exercise by theway. so we play in a free rhythmic mode. in this way we can practice the hand gripwithout being stressed by a fixed speed. later on we will turn on the metronome again…

ok, if the fourth finger blue note is a blackkey like the e-flat note… we can slide this e-flat note up a half stepto the major third e-note like this… well, that’s a pretty cool trick i think… keeping the c-note in the bass we can alsodo the trick when the index finger is on the g-note... then we slide the b-flat note up to the b-note. i think doing this when the index finger ison the fifth, the g-note, is a little more dared - but in the right situations it also adds greatcolor to our sound… well it’s all up to us, what we feel for. now, let’s start the metronome again…

and we will try to include all the stuff wehave learned in this lesson… making exercises to a metronome is a reallygood thing to do. we will learn to make the blues in a steadyspeed. but if you are not ready for this, don’tworry. then you just have to make the rubato exercisesome more to be familiar with the hand grip. you can also skip the walking bass for a whilebut keep the metronome going… now we just play the keynotes in the bass– but we still improvise in a steady speed… now just fool around with your right hand… discover and explore small motifs that youlike…

now let’s also play the walking bass… ok, now, let me bring you many huge thanksfor all the donations i have received lately. with these donations it has actually beenpossible for me to cut down the hours at my regular daytimework. this means that i’m now apple to use moretime making music lessons. so thanks a lot my friends. i really really appreciate it. so, feel free to support my work with a dollaror two on paypal or patreon. but important: don’t feel obligated to donateanything.

i like my music and teaching stuff to be freelyavailable. just by watching my lessons and maybe giveme a like - you give me all the support i need. the best and warm regards from oliver prehn

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