Hi all, I live in Perth, Western Australia and have returned to the piano after a break of 30 years (kidds and career got in the way !!). I am thoroughly enjoying working through the on-line tutorials and have purchased the " Boogie book".
I have a question regarding integrating two of the licks into 12 bar blues format (Lick 1, tracks; 34 and 35). I have learnt these tracks (walking base is still challenging !), but can't figure how to do the chord change for 12 bar blues. Each of the other tracks in the book have the pick up note for the chord change as the last note of the measure, making the change sound "right", but the tacks noted just end, with-out a pick up note. I would really appreciate some help with this, as I like tack 35 in particular and want to be able to use it in full 12 bar blues chord changes and combined with other variations / licks.
Regards,
Dave M
Hi Dave! Welcome to the site.
Keep in mind there is no "right way" to do the answers to your questions. If you experiment with some different ways you will find the one that sounds right to you. Here are my suggestions though...
1) if the walking bass pattern is still challenging, substitute the basic shuffle pattern (as in track 27) for the left hand in track 35 for now. What you don't want to get in the habit of doing is to learn RH and LH together note-for-note. You want to approach this from a hand-independence standpoint. If you have to think about piecing together notes in RH then that means your LH doesn't quite have the muscle memory for its bass pattern yet.
2) Track 34, replace the last D# and G with the pickup note leading to the new key you want to go to.
3) Track 35, the exact same right hand can be used over all the changes. If you want to keep the same 4 bar phrase throughout all 12 bars, you can just leave it where it is and change the left hand through the changes. Hope this helps! If not let me know.