Here is a short video where I “fly over” the 12-bar blues to get an overall picture of what comprises the blues:
Posts Tagged ‘12 bar blues’
The Many Faces Of The 12-Bar Blues
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
Piano players who desire to learn the foundations of purely American music should start with the blues. This music form began over a century ago. Today’s jazz, hip-hop, rock-and-roll and rhythm and blues owes a debt to it.
Certainly, the word “blues” evokes a sense of the mood of being blue. The music has those qualities, but in its own way it is also capable of being very uplifting. Many blues songs are cries of hope for better days to come.
The blues form developed out of the African-American experience. The music we call blues is a touchstone back to their struggles in America and their growth as a people to more freedom. Blues songs are rooted in work songs, field chants, singing and talk. They also have their basis in spiritual songs and country ballads.
The first blues emerged out of the Deep South, in Texas, Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta. The music sang of the struggles of the worker and the impoverished lives many of them lived. Their great toil and sacrifice had articulation in stories, with many of them presented in song form.
A big boost to the stature of the blues came in 1912, when William Christopher Handy transcribed and published the song “Memphis Blues.” He was an African-American dance orchestra conductor. He gave himself the name “Father of the Blues” because of his tireless efforts to write, transcribe and publish blues music to get it to the masses.
The blues progressed from the Deep South to the north and entrenched itself in cities such as Chicago and Detroit. The music changed as it moved northward. No longer all about the poor conditions in the south, the music began to speak of the urban environments African-Americans were now living in.
The blues changed even more in the ’40s and ’50s as radio continued to spread its songs all over America. New electronic innovations lent the blues a different sound, with electric guitar at the forefront. Musicians carried this fresh electric sound with blues elements into the rock and R & B genre, which developed.
Those who hear that blues sound in much of today’s music may not understand that the music is very basic in its construction. A piano player desiring to learn the blues can understand its elements quickly with a little bit of study.
The most common blues heard and played are the 12-bar blues. Blues musicians found they could express their thoughts fully in a mere 12 bars or measures of music. However, there is room in these 12 bars for much creativity, whether musical or lyrical.
Almost all of blues music is in 4/4 time. This means there are four beats in each bar. Within a bar, each quarter note receives one beat. Further, a 12-bar blues song is broken down into three sections of four bars each. Musicians usually build blues chords on the first, fourth and fifth notes of an eight-note music scale. These form the blues chord progression. The first chord is typically prominent in the first four bars. The second four bars normally highlight the fourth chord of a scale, and the last four bars highlight the fifth chord of a scale.
For the lyrics to a blues song, the AAB pattern is predominant. A singer will sing the first and second four-bar verses with the same lines sung in each. The third four-bar verse will have different lines. Therefore A and A refer to the verses with the same lines; the B refers to the verse with different lines.
There can be different 12-bar segments in a blues song. When one 12-bar section gets resolved with the last four bars answering the previous eight, a new motif can develop in the next 12-bar section. In addition, while the 12-bar blues are the most common form in the blues arena, there are exceptions to it for variety and experimentation.
In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a movement in Britain, which brought about the “British Blues.” They were followers of the American blues tradition and very strict in following this form to a tee. This ended in the middle 1960s as the musicians from this country began to develop their own blues concepts and styles, although still based on the pioneering American blues school of thought.
The blues lends itself to much of the piano music available for playing today. Its influence is apparent in Broadway show tunes, film music and much music of the love-ballad type. Blues music can be a welcome addition to any pianist’s repertoire.
10 Piano Styles You Can Learn To Play
Friday, August 29th, 2008
When studying the piano, a student encounters a myriad piano styles. To master the instrument, at least several of these styles must be learned, and all if at all possible. Knowledge of various playing styles enables a pianist to enjoy and play in any genre and to cross-polinate styles to create a fusion he or she can call their own.
Many modern piano styles are based on the blues. The blues involve an emphasis on the major and minor pentatonic scales, with an additional note included. The flatted fifth is added to the minor pentatonic to create the blues scale. Many blues songs are based on a simple chord progression, known as 12-bar blues. This uses the I, IV and V chords of a scale to create a foundation for melodies and solos.
For example, rock piano was born out of the blues and then took on a life of it’s own in the stylings of Jerry Lee Lewis, Michael McDonald, Elton John, Billy Joel, and many others.
Cocktail piano is a style generally connected with Liberace, Eddy Duchin, Roger Williams, and others who play popular tunes with lots of great technique — lots of notes, runs, flourishes, and so on. But I hate to catagorize and of these great pianists, as many of them play in other styles as well.
Boogie-woogie is a piano style based on the blues. It started as a solo piano style, but has expanded into other genres, such as county-western and gospel. It differs from the blues in that it is considered dance music, while blues music traditionally expresses sadness and frustration.
Rhythm and blues piano is based on blues, jazz, and gospel styles. As the name suggests, the emphasis is on the rhythm of the song. Most R&B has a particular swing to it, with a strong feel of syncopation in the rhythm. Syncopation involves placing the stress on a normally unstressed beat. This often results in an almost off-time feel to the untrained ear.
Ragtime piano also incorporates syncopation. Ragtime uses syncopation in its melodies by placing melodic notes between the stressed beats of the rhythm. Ragtime is often considered the first completely American genre, even predating jazz.
Jazz piano encompasses such a broad palate of styles that it is impossible to describe. Many piano styles incorporate ideas borrowed from jazz, such as improvisation. An emphasis on extended chord forms also stems from jazz piano.
New age piano often involves less chord changes than other styles, instead relying on simple two-chord progressions and polychords. A polychord occurs when two different chords are played at once. This technique is taken from earlier classical works by composers such as Stravinsky.
Gospel piano is often similar to the blues, jazz and R&B. It emphasizes certain extended chords, such as the 11th, and usually has the swinging feel associated with jazz and R&B. The apparent simplicity of gospel songs often hides the fact that they are, indeed, quite musically complex. Syncopation is highly stressed in gospel music, as it contributes to the overall spiritual feel of the music.
Country and western piano has similar roots as blues piano. Both styles stem from earlier folk styles, often developed by the less fortunate people of the era. Many early country songs stem from Appalachian folk songs. Country and western piano is highlighted by very bright playing, with simple chord progressions underneath the melody.
Traditional sacred piano styles involve the playing of liturgical songs and hymns. These can range from the harmonically and rhythmically complex to simple two and three chord songs. Many hymns stem from folk songs of centuries past. The variety of sacred piano styles is as numerous as the liturgical songs themselves. These piano styles often involve a strict reading of notation, with less of an emphasis on personal interpretation than other styles.
The classical piano style is probably the most varied of all the styles. Classical music is older than other styles, and is considered to the proper grounds for musical instruction. Many elements of other piano styles come from classical music, and nearly all forms of musical theory are used in classical music. Classical music usually requires intense training to master, though there many pieces designed with the novice player in mind.
Though classical is often considered the high point of music, this “ain’t necessarily so.” For instance, many players who are “classically trained” have trouble adapting to the feel and sincerity of the blues. For this reason, a well-rounded player should be adaptable and learn as much about each of these piano styles as possible. In this way, a pianist is ready for any musical challenge. And besides, who knows where the future of music lies?
Piano Styles Galore at PlayPianoCatalog.com
How to Play Blues Piano: Getting Started
Monday, July 21st, 2008
The ability to play blues piano is usually not expected of beginning pianists. There are reasons why most beginning pianists start out playing old songs written by classical composers from centuries past. Many songs written for the piano by such composers as Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky were originally intended as pieces to be used for lessons. Plus, the conventions of classical music lead to chord structures, harmonies, and melodies that were comparatively straight-forward, perfect for students who were not musical experts.
Attempting to play blues piano presents new challenges for pianists. Many non-musicians don’t realize the technical difficulty of blues and jazz music, but in fact, to be an accomplished musician in one of these genres requires years and years of intense training and practice. Some would even say that these musical genres are actually more complicated than pre-20th century musical forms, which would mean that blues and jazz musicians are, in general, the most accomplished and versatile musicians out there.
So, as you can guess, the decision to take the plunge into playing blues piano should not be made lightly. In order to have a true understanding of blues, its scales, harmonies, and rhythms, one needs to have at least a basic understanding of more traditional musical forms. Blues isn’t a parallel form of music to Classical and other traditional genres; no, it’s an augmentation of traditional music. Just like jazz, blues actually complicates traditional music. Thus, unless you have a natural feel for the blues, your study of blues piano requires at least a solid bedrock of musical knowledge.
I presume that you already know, at the very least, about the traditional major scale. For example, in order to understand and play the C blues scale, you must know the C Major scale.
If you have that knowledge, then it’s pretty simple. The blues scale simply takes the major scale and adds three extra notes. That’s it. The three extra notes are a flatted third, a flatted fifth, and a flatted seventh. Thus, the C blues scale has all of the same notes as the C Major scale — that is, C D E F G A B — with the three additional notes being E flat (or D sharp), G flat (or F sharp) and B flat (or A sharp).
That’s right, if you look closely at the blues scale, you’ll find that there are only two notes that are not included. In the C blues scale, only C sharp and G sharp are not played.
If you want to play blues piano, learning the blues scale is your first step. Even doing nothing more than playing the scale, you’ll hear a “bluesy-ness” to the scale, and if you are a fan of blues, it will sound great to your ears.
Once you can do this, you are ready to play blues piano. The next step is to try improvising. Come up with a chord progression. C F G C is a standard blues chord progression, except — and here is another important point — it is fairly standard in blues music to turn nearly every chord into a seventh chord. So, this progression, in blues form, would be C7 F7 G7 C7. Of course, with the new notes added in, you must remember that, in most cases, these should be played as minor 7th chords. Thus, both the C7 and F7 chords use notes that are not in the traditional C Major scale.
Once you have your chord progression down, improvising is easy. Come up with a simple, bluesy melody, and go from there. Just remember that in order for the music to have that special blues quality, you need to utilize those extra three notes that are not in the traditional scale. Those are the notes that give blues its edge.
Piano Improvisation: How To Create Exciting New Music As You Play!
Sunday, July 6th, 2008
Improvisation (also known as improvising) is the act of making something up as you go along — an act with which we all have a little experience. Remember playing House or Doctor as a child, letting the game go wherever your mind would take you? That was improvisation. No rules, no boundaries, just the limitless potential of your imagination.
Similarly, musical improvisation is the act of “writing” (creating it as you play) a song while performing it, a technique found most often in jazz and bluegrass (but can be traced back to renowned classical improvisers like Handel and Bach). Of course, it’s a little more complicated than an imaginative children’s game. Though improvisation is a highly creative and flexible technique, it requires great skill on the part of the musician. A musician involved in an improvisation must have a detailed knowledge of chord structure and complicated scales and modes. The musician must also have an intuitive ability to structure a song on the fly; great improvisation thrives on its ability to sound not improvised but rather wholly composed. That illusion, the ability of a song to seem anything but spontaneously made up, is part of improvisation’s allure.
There are two basic forms of improvisation: structured improvisation and free improvisation. Structured improvisation, though a contradiction in terms, is the most common of the two. In this form, musicians will use a pre-determined series of chord changes, usually held down by the rhythm section, as the song’s base. The lead instrument in the improvisation (sometimes also pre-determined) then have the freedom to create new melodies and harmonies from these pre-determined chords. The flexibility of this improvisation form is dependent on the flexibility of the chord changes, and the musicians involved must be able to play exactly what they hear in their heads, as some complicated changes may not allow for large deviations.
If we were to improvise on a song such as “Billy Boy”, for example, we would follow the chord progressions of the song, but make up a different melody for it. Some musicians choose to stay fairly close to the melody by using neighboring tones and half-step slides and so on; other musicians feel free to completely abandon the traditional melody and make up a new melody entirely.
In addition to songs, many musicians in the jazz and rhythm & blues tradition improvise endlessly on the 12-bar blues, which has a chord progression using only the I, IV and V chords (also known as the “primary chords” of a given key) of whatever key the musicians are playing in. For example, if a jazz group was playing in the key of Bb, the improvisations would be based on the I, IV and V chords in the key of Bb: namely Bb, Eb, and F.
Of course musicians also add extra notes to chords such as the 7th — especially in the blues — and sometimes also change the harmony somewhat from time to time. But the recurring theme always reverts to the I - IV - V formula.
Free improvisation, on the other hand, is far more like a game of House or Doctor — it has no rules. Instead of focusing on harmony or melody, free improvisation focuses on the feeling and texture of the music and the way the instruments complement each other. This form tends to be far more experimental and rarely adheres to one style or genre or music — it is, quite simply, what it is.
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