Blues piano – the Moving Pair Riff 1

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THE MUSICARTA BLUES PIANO SERIES

Moving Pair Riff – Module One

The Moving Pair Riff series Module One is one of Musicarta’s free online blues piano lessons. The series builds quickly to this performance:

If you've 'just landed', dive right in or click up to the Blues Piano Lessons home page for an overview of Musicarta’s other 12-bar and blues modules. If you’re new to the site, please browse the tabs on the navbar, left, to get a feel for what’s on offer, or visit the Musicarta home page for a more methodical overview.

If you don’t quickly find what you want, search the site! (There’s a Contents index on the Search page as well.) Or listen to some performance samples in our audio Table of Contents and see if there’s something there you’d like to play.

This Musicarta Blues Piano free online piano lesson has MIDI support. (MIDI is the basic ‘computer music’ language.)

To benefit, you need to download the MIDI files for the page and have an application that can play them. Musicarta recommends the ‘MidiPiano’ virtual keyboard - a small, free, reliable application that's easy to download and use. (You can also listen to MIDI files as basic audio on e.g. Windows Media Player.)

Learn about MidiPiano via the left hand link below. Download the MIDI files for this module via the right hand link. (Check the folder for other learning material as well.)

Learn more about playing MIDI files on MidiPiano here

Download the Moving Pair riff MIDI files here.

Please take the time to download MidiPiano! You only have to do it once – most other Musicarta series have MIDI support and it will prove a valuable addition to your learning resources,. If you need help ‘unpacking’ your zipped MIDI file folder, there are full instructions on the Musicarta MidiPiano page (link, above left).

The Moving Pair riff

The basics of the Moving Pair 12-bar riff are:

a root note (which stays the same), and
a moving pair of notes.

Look at this illustration. It shows the piano keys the riff uses on chord G.

blues piano lessons

The left hand (green) plays G (the root – the note that stays the same). The right hand (red) plays the moving pair of notes. The ‘moving pair’ moves sideways one key at a time, up then down.

Find the notes using two hands. Use any old ‘sketch fingering’ (as in the photos) – using the same fingers for all the pairs is fine for now.

Try to play just the G-position pattern using the keyboard diagrams and these two performance files:

12bar_MP_M2

You can slow the performance down in most media players (and in MidiPiano) to make playing along easier.The written-out music looks like this:

blues piano

Be careful not to let the appearance of written music set your progress back! The music only represents the performance (the sound), and it’s the sound you want to reproduce, not ‘the music you want to read’.

The pattern in C

Now find the notes and play the same pattern built on root C using these keys:

blues piano

12bar_MP_M3

The written-out music for the pattern in C looks like this:

blues piano

Resist the temptation to play from the music – it’s only there ‘for the record’ and to give you an idea of ‘shape’. Rather use the keyboard diagrams to find the notes. You don’t play 12-bars from music!

The pattern in D

Find the notes and play the same pattern built on root D using these keys:

blues piano

12bar_MP_M4

The written-out music for the pattern in D looks like this:

blues piano

Remembering the keys

Note that the pattern in G uses only white keys:

blues piano

The patterns in C and D each use one black key. The black key in the C pattern is the highest of the five right hand keys:

blues piano

The black key in the D pattern is the lowest of the five right hand keys:

blues piano

Memorise the three groups of five notes, together with their chord symbol name. Twelve-bar playing involves a lot of jumping around with notes ‘due’ on every relentless beat. Not knowing the notes is not an option!

This is the end of the first ‘Moving Pair’ Musicarta blues piano module. Concentrate on learning the three groups of notes needed to play the pattern on G, C and D, and on memorising the pattern itself. If you are starting to wonder what fingers to use for the three patterns, go straight on to Module Two in the series.

SBI!