Hi,

I am taking a year off from grades and I am going to learn some boogie. I was wondering if any of you out there play boogie-woogie and can offer some helpful tips on technique. Obviously you need a powerful left hand to bang out the repetitive bass and a fluid and independant right-hand for the riffs.

Also, do any of you know any good boogie sheet music to recommend? I have some but always on the look out for more.

Shelton

Hi

I have just started to learn the boogie woogie piano


A good book to get is Boogie Woogie Hanon by Leo Alfassy

This book has just about every boogie pattern ever used.

The book claims that by playing all 100 exercises you will have all the skills and techniques to play any piece of music ever written.

the book comes as a set of 3 the others are Jazz Hanon and Blues Hanon.
I have all 3 and in my opinion anyone serious about learning the piano should have these books.

I have to warn you that the exercises start of easy but get very hard very fast but hard in a good way, they are loads of fun to play and good for building strength in your fingers and boogie muscles.

Thanks for that Mack4. I'm always on the lookout for exercises which improve technique and are fun to do - I love bluesey jazzy sounds, and to be able to integrate those into a regular routine sounds more interesting than straight scales and arpeggios

Of course thanks to the internet I can order it right now. Now where did I put that credit card????

DAvid

I'd get the feel of the rhythm first before getting into the scales.. I only mean for a few hours, not weeks.

Perhaps begin with a walking bass on C (keep it simple?) and just jab a chord in this shape...

E A Bb D... Thats a beautiful sound. Its a C13/9 (A/Bb = 13th and D = 9th).

You can aply the same shape, and thus the same sound to the F key and G key if you choose to do the whole 12 bar structure.

Try it at about 130BPM (beats per minute) and jab the chord on the off beats, perhaps 1 1/2 and 3 1/2.

Get you going I should think
Dan

Hi! Sorry this is a really stupid question, but please could someone explain to me, what exactly Boogie-Woogie Piano is? Is it basically jazz music? I think I kind of know what it is, but I'm not too sure, really!!? Thanks xxxxx