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Blues Breakthrough (or, the Key is Turning)

Continuing with the breakthrough theme of the week, here's a bit about my blues breakthrough from Sunday afternoon.

Earlier this year, when I first resurrected this blog, I wrote about how I want to be able to sit at the piano and be able to improvise stuff and not have it sound like crap. Well, maybe I didn't use those exact words.

And So I Dove Right into Jazz Studies ...

I started revisiting my 2-5-1 progressions, then added color tones.  I found a very nice jazz piano teacher online and also discovered the Piano With Jonny website. I gamely took on PWJ's "Misty" challenge, would would include guidance on jazz solo techniques. I listened and listened and listened to the great jazz pianists, and any other jazz pianist that Spotify's algorithm would spit out at me. Alas ...

I could not find the enthusiasm I needed to do all of this. After hours of jazz-listening, I always had to give myself a good 15-20 minutes of Bach because all of the rootless voicings made me feel so ... rootless.

I canceled lessons with the jazz teacher because I wasn't motivated to practice. I stopped doing the 2-5-1 progressions, which felt like drudgery and weren't enabling me to improvise the way I thought they would. I finished the "Misty" challenge and thought, "Thank goodness that's over."

Sometime in late February/early March, I realized I didn't want to play jazz. I wanted to play blues.

And So I Dove Right into Blues Studies ...

It's crazy that I didn't realize this. I mean, I listen to the blues all the time. I play blues piano solos in my head all the time. Maybe I was thinking things like "jazz is complicated! jazz sophisticated!" and "blues is (are?) basic and boring." Or maybe not. I don't know what I was thinking. But I decided to abandon jazz (for now) and get myself some learning in the blues.

I started the 10-Lesson Blues Challenge on Piano With Jonny about a month ago, and I've made it to Lesson 4. It took this classically trained, sometimes advanced pianist a good month to be able to coordinate my left and right hands when playing the blues shuffle ... but I'm finally managing it.

And then, this past Sunday afternoon, I sat down for a monster blues practice. I watched the Piano With Jonny Lesson 4 video, and I stopped it every time Jonny said to practice, and I practiced. It took about 3 hours to get through the first 45 minutes of the 64-minute lesson.

But guess what! I am now able to improvise stuff and not have it sound like crap! See?

The above video focuses on using triplets in the right hand. I also made this video where I'm primarily using eighth notes.

What's even more exciting is that I've barely scratched the surface. The 10-Lesson Challenge is just the first block of PWJ's very long course in the blues. I still need to learn slides, turns, licks (ugh ... why do they have to call them "licks"?), intros, endings, and all sorts of other things that I don't know how to do yet.

But I'm getting there. I'm getting there!

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