THE MUSICARTA BLUES PIANO SERIES

Moving Pair Riff Module Seven Supplement B

Boogie Left Hand Patterns

Orientation

If you've 'just landed', please feel free to explore, but to get the most out of this module, you probably need to have worked through Musicarta's 'Moving Pair' series of blues piano lessons from the beginning. Click through here to the start of the series.

Musicarta Blues Piano modules have MIDI support. You can download MIDI files of the musical examples and play them on the free MidiPiano application. This is highly recommended and will greatly improve your progress. Learn more at the Musicarta MidiPiano page.

A boogie accompaniment in the bass is an obvious development of the Moving Pair material. You only need two notes though, or it sounds 'muddy'.

Here's the basic riff you'll be working with.

If you want to keep the 'kick', you'll have to play it two-handed. You need to play your downloaded MIDI in MidiPiano or another sequencer to see the separate left and right hand parts.

This could be enough for the keyboard player in a band to be playing, especially if they were doing vocals as well. Otherwise, settle for a left-hand-only, without-the-kick version.

Instead of the kick, you can roll the left hand and anticipate the little finger, as you can hear in the performance clip. Once you can play left hand solo 12-bar accompaniments, you will want to start adding right hand material. In the [module in preparation], you learn how to play an entire solo 12-bar chorus in G with just two right hand notes, but complete this lesson first!

'Two only' left hands

A lot of left hand solo 12-bar accompaniments use only two of the three pairs in our example riff (like the right hand in the Module Seven 'Two Only' riff).

Here's what that sounds like.

Remember, you don't have to do the little-finger anticipation to lay down a very acceptable blues/rock'n'roll rhythm.

'Shuffle' beat

Pure boogie often uses this pair on a 'shuffle' beat. This audio clip alternates measures of 'straight eight' and 'shuffle beat' left hand patterns, straight eight first.

NOTE: This is purely a listening-and-practising clip – you would never hear such a thing in performance.

As you can hear, the shuffle feel is lighter and wants to 'get on with it' – it suits a faster tempo.

Here's an shuffle feel audio performance at a more suitable speed, using the 'two only' left hand and a right hand made from pure 'Moving Pair' material.

Shuffle rhythm is sometimes called 'swing quavers' or 'triplet feel' in jazz. Written-out swing quaver/shuffle beat music is very confusing to read, so it's often written as straight quavers with the 'shuffle' rhythm indicated by this little 'Swing quavers' device:

So the audio performance you've just heard would be written like this:

It would sound like the audio performance immediately above, NOT like this, which is the straight-quaver version the music actually represents.

Shuffle-beat style is harder to play than straight eight styling – the notes are closer together. You need to practice a lot, and, above all, listen very closely, to sharpen your playing up to performance standard.

Other typical 12-bar left hand patterns

One common decoration of the basic pattern it's good to be aware of from the start is the introduction of the major and minor thirds inside the two pairs.

The 'crushed' minor third is used as a note in its own right. This is also the origin of this classic rock'n'roll/blues riff.

The major/minor thirds inside is a common decoration in shuffle beat boogie left hands too. Here's an example.

Playing in other keys

As you listen to archive 12-bar performances by the boogie-woogie greats like Albert Ammons, Pinetop Smith and Meade "Lux' Lewis and the records of the early rock'n'roll pianists like Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and 'Fats' Domino, you will hear dozens of shuffle boogie and straight-eight accompaniment patterns.

Soloing aside, most of these patterns use material already covered in the Musicarta Moving Pair riff series, and as your ear 'tunes in' to the material, you will realise that you can - or almost can - play them. You will want to start getting the material under your belt and moulding into your own unique 12-bar style.

The trouble is, not all 12-bar music is in key G! You have to be able to play in other keys, too!

The easiest way to learn to play the 12-bar material in these modules in other keys is to use the 'Key' utility in MidiPiano to raise or lower the whole MIDI performance file in pitch.

Use the up and down arrows to change key. Here's a table showing the number to use to transpose our G major 12-bar material into various other common keys.

Top musicians can transpose music into other keys in their heads, often without even thinking about it. Most of them have learned this skill by 'going through the motions' dozens and dozens of times.

Using MidiPiano to transpose and copying the result definitely qualifies as practise. You will start to see how the black keys help make other notes sound like 'home' (the 'tonic'). Musicarta presents many opportunities to learn this key professional skill. The Canon series has a dedicated section.

Check out the Transposing page (tab on the navbar) and use the Musicarta site Search page to find other Musicarta transposing material and exercises. Put yourself on a regular diet of transposing simple music like these 12-bar accompaniment patterns. Repetition works! Transposing reveals the bare bones of music – once you start to see how it works, all your musical learning speeds up.

Going on from here

This is the end of this Moving Pair Module Seven supplement module, 'Boogie Left Hand Patterns'.

To proceed, click back to Module Seven and listen to another of the 'other riffs' to see what you'd like to play next. Have another go at getting it by ear, then click through to the relevant module to develop your performance.

Once you can play left hand solo 12-bar accompaniments, you will want to start adding right hand material. Click through to the follow-on module [in preparation] to learn how to play an entire solo 12-bar chorus in G with just two right hand notes.

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