Tips on learning rock/funk/blues piano?

[skier4467]

I'm a competent guitarist who is relearning how to play piano (I took childhood lessons). My problem is that whenever I sit down at piano I end up playing pretty stuff or new-age sounding songs. I'd like to play more rock, funk, and blues. Someday I'd like to be good enough to jam with a band.

 

Tomorrow I am receiving my Kurzweil sp76!!! I hope it will inspire me to play better than my old PSR36 from the 80s.

 

Besides taking lessons, what do you recommend in order to become better at playing upbeat stuff like rock, funk, and blues? BTW, I''m talking about EP Rhodes and organ sounds too.

 

Thanks for your time.

[bluemed]

1) Grab some CDs that have the kind of music you are talking about, pop them in the CD player, and try to play along.

- listen to what collection of notes the choice piano player is playing (e.g., Philosopher King's used to use lots of pentatonic ideas) Do not be surprised if you are playing very "simple" (but choice) chords

- try and get down some of the rhythmic ideas as to where the keyboard player is playing with respect to the beat. Often it is not what you play but how you play it.

2) Go down to the library and raid old Keyboard magazines for transcriptions, master classes, etc.

3) Search some of the tab web sites (e.g., tablorium, tabcrawler, etc.) for the basic chord changes and go from there.

4) Go to a music store and play through some sheet music pretending you are interested in their pianos

Anyways, these are some of the things I do. I hope they help.

cheers.

[djwayne]

I bought the Voyetra "Teach Me Piano" software program, I've gotten about half way thru it, it's good practice, and may get you started. I was having alot of computer problems, and it kept crashing on me, but that was my computer's fault. The program was informative though, and took you thru a bunch of steps, with good video shots, and fairly easy lessons.

 

They claim it's like taking two years of interactive piano lessons. I liked the teacher on the video much better than the real teacher I had when I was kid. This other teacher I had a few years ago, was a good player, but so advanced in theory, I couldn't understand a thing he was saying. So the software program and lots of practice is the best way I know of, to learn piano. Playing along with your favorite songs, then trying to do them on your own, helps.

[skier4467]

Thanks for the replies so far.

 

What about rhythm patterns?

[David Loving]

Do you have a metronome? You should practice with a metronome.

[djwayne]

Play along with a drum machine, or drum loops.

[Synthbro]

Unlike guitar (where one hand controls melodic/harmonic content and the other hand controls rhythm), the independent nature of your piano hands is one area that you'll need to get used to.

 

In different genres of music, what each piano hand is doing is different.

 

The one thing you should understand that is important is that in a group situation where there is a bass player, you must stay out of his range (except when you plan to exactly double his part in some way).

 

There is a wealth of recorded music out there ready for transcription. But also find working piano players and observe them playing / pick their brains.

 

You'll also find that in general, piano players have a more advanced understanding of harmony because they can actually play one to even maybe five tensions per chord on their instrument!

 

Larry Hopkins

[marino]

Originally posted by skier4467:

My problem is that whenever I sit down at piano I end up playing pretty stuff or new-age sounding songs. I'd like to play more rock, funk, and blues.

Yeah - it's so easy to be engulfed by the sound of the piano, and to forget it's a percussion instrument...

The first aid is to listen to some of the many great rhythmic players, like Bill Payne, early Stevie Wonder, Leon Russell, early Elton John, then - later - Herbie Hancock (a bit more complex...).

 

If you can read music, I can recommend four books:

 

Improvising Rock Piano by Jeffrey Gutcheon - quite old but excellent.

 

The Pop Piano Book by Mark Harrison - I don't have it yet, but everybody says good things about it, and Mark is an excellent player.

 

Jazz Exercises and Pieces by Oscar Peterson - how to build technique *and* phrasing in a jazz fashion.

 

Plus there's this book by John Novello, published by Berklee Press - "Keyboard Styles" or something like that.

 

None of those books is easy reading for a beginner, but even if you can't play all the pieces to perfection, they can give you an idea of what's involved in rhythm keyboard playing.

 

Of course, don't forget to study the instrument's technique and harmony - it's so much easier to understand harmony on the keyboard. Lessons with a good teacher would speed up thing immensely.

 

Hope this helps

 

Carlo

[David Loving]

Look up "homespun" lessons - tapes - cd's on google. They have all sorts of useful lessons at all levels. Good products, too. Good luck

[Rod S]

Originally posted by marino:

Improvising Rock Piano by Jeffrey Gutcheon - quite old but excellent.

 

The Pop Piano Book by Mark Harrison - I don't have it yet, but everybody says good things about it, and Mark is an excellent player.

 

Jazz Exercises and Pieces by Oscar Peterson - how to build technique *and* phrasing in a jazz fashion.

 

Plus there's this book by John Novello, published by Berklee Press - "Keyboard Styles" or something like that.

I have Mark's book - I like it. It's straightforward enough that you can work through the examples fairly quickly, and came up with quite useful ideas afterwards. I didn't like it in the beginning - I thought it was overly simplistic, but know I quite enjoy it; I think of it as 'building blocks'. I don't agree necessarily with way he describes a lot of what he's doing, but I think it's good that someone has gone thru the effort of doing it rather than just shoving random examples at you.

 

I keep wanting to pick up Jeffrey Gutcheon's book - haven't gotten around.

 

There's a Rock Keyboard series - I have the intermediate and the advanced. I find them interesting, and good for ideas, but there's way too much of a jump from both volumes. Plus they just kind of throw information at you. I think of it as a collection of licks and passages. One thing that I like about the book is that it shows the role of keyboard playing in the context of a band, which is quite useful.

[pete psingpy]

Originally posted by daveloving:

Look up "homespun" lessons - tapes - cd's on google. They have all sorts of useful lessons at all levels. Good products, too. Good luck

By the way, they are supposed to release a new DVD set of Dr. John in mid October...and it's all new material. Not that I've even come close to learning everything on the VHS videos and tapes.

[Dave Pierce]

Voicings, voicings, voicings. If you're a competent guitar player, you will probably find the types of voicings used on a keyboard somewhat alien to you. Play around with different voicings of four- and five-note chords until you get used to them. You won't necessarily use them all, but it will help get your brain out of the "6-strings" mode.

 

For blues, rootless voicings can be really useful. Try variations on this example:

 

For a standard blues A:

LH: A-E or A-G

RH: E-G-B-C# or G-B-C#-E

 

For funk, use a Wurly patch to get you in the mood. Fire up a nice bitey, barky Wurly patch, then lay down a funky bass/drum groove in your head. You'll be amazed what happens. Remember, D is the funkiest key.

 

--Dave

 

[shniggens]

Originally posted by Dave Pierce:

 

Remember, D is the funkiest key.

 

--Dave

 

;

Care to elaborate?

[Byrdman]

Originally posted by skier4467:

Tomorrow I am receiving my Kurzweil sp76!!! I hope it will inspire me to play better than my old PSR36 from the 80s.

 

Besides taking lessons, what do you recommend in order to become better at playing upbeat stuff like rock, funk, and blues? BTW, I''m talking about EP Rhodes and organ sounds too.

 

Thanks for your time.

Get hold of Professor Longhair's CDs. Its different to Detroit funk, but the New Orleans styles, of which Fess is one of the originators, are also very important.

 

Transcriptions are available but you can't learn this stuff from notes.

[mytzylplk]

I too have played guitar for many years and have been learnibg piano for a couple of years now.

It has been a grind as I can hear things in my mind but do not have the technique. Lately I have been able to take some lesson from a great teacher. The focus has been more on jazz(although the blues is very much apart of the lessons)and we use the Bill Dobbins book on jazz piano.

Anyhow Here's what I have been working on:

1. Major 7th, Dominant 7th, minor 7th, minor seven flat five, and diminished 7 chords in root position, both hands through the cycle of fifths ( C,F,Bflat etc)and chromatically. The goal is to be able to play at 100bpm with the metronome

 

2. Left hand plays the chord and right hand plays the appropriate scale

Major seven- ionian

Dominant 7- mixolydian

Minor 7-dorian

Minor 7 flat 5 super locrian

Diminished 7 - whole tone half tone

 

What I do with the minor seven chord excercises is play a blues pattern with the left hand such as 1-5 1-6 and play the scale over top. It's taken some time but I am developing some independance of the hands. Metronome is crucial!

We are doing other things such as chord progressions in all keys (2-5-1 etc.)

One last thing I do when practicing technique is to set the metronome to about 65 and play the scale with just the right hand and try to balance a quarter onb the flat surface of the top of my hand. I couldn't do it at first,but now I can itand has helped me tremendously with hand posture and scale mechanics et al.

I have worked hard at this and even though it is a "jazz" focus great things are happening when I play blues etc. Discipline is key for me I practice everyday at least an hour. Good luck! If you are interested in the Bill Dobbins book I can get you the ISBN #

 

CHeers

[Dave Pierce]

Originally posted by shniggens:

Originally posted by Dave Pierce:

 

Remember, D is the funkiest key.

 

--Dave

 

;

Care to elaborate?

It's a tongue-in-cheek quote from someone, don't remember who. James Brown maybe?

 

I have a tendency to toss out in-jokes that no one gets but me. I toss out hilarious puns on UNIX commands in staff meetings all the time. Problem is, on the current staff I'm the only one who knows UNIX. Well, at least I can entertain myself.

 

--Dave