Blues Piano Lessons Course Chapter 7, Section 1

Transcript from this piano lesson below:

Notice that my left hand is only playing two notes at a time. This is the simplest piano comp chord you can do but it can be nice and funky too. In the upcoming video, watch the left hand on the piano. You are going to see lots of instances where it's simply playing just those two-note tri-tone comp chords. Now, the left hand is going to be doing a lot of other things as well, but you'll see lots of occasions where it's simply laying down that two-note tri-tone comp chord.

Now the right hand is going to be doing lots of blues riffs and tricks that I'm going to show you in upcoming chapters. But this is an example specifically to show you those left-hand two-note comp chords that are so powerful. Watch for them, here we go.

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Did you see them? I played a whole lot of two-note left hand comp chords. Now let's study how to build them on the keyboard.

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The two notes that we'll be using to create these left hand comp chords are the third and the seventh of the Dominant 7th Chord. Remember that the Dominant 7th Chord is the number one most common chord used in the blues. Usually you'll see them written as a capital letter followed by a 7. Now here's a major brain saver, to find the Dominant 7th of any chord, simply play a note that's a whole step down from the root.

Watch the Video Version of this piano lesson (top of this page)

For instance, to find that mysterious note that turns C into C7, first start with the root which is C then go down a whole step which is B flat and just that quickly, you've found that Dominant 7th note that can turn C into C7. Now, we're putting the 7th down on the bottom of the chord which is usually considered an advanced musical technique; but once you know this very simple secret, this advanced technique becomes very easy to do. And you can play that Dominant 7th note anywhere you want. You can play a nice and low on the keyboard with your left hand, <note demo> that's the Dominant 7th down there, Or you can play it up high. Learning to do this is one of those very easy to understand musical shortcuts that can revolutionize your playing.

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Comp chords don't have to be complicated. They're just two notes played by the left hand on the piano. Isn't that crazy? Two notes can sound so fantastic. Sometimes less really is more.

Now the right hand is playing a whole lot of stuff but we'll dig in to that in future chapters.

Now if you pick two notes in the left hand to make comp chords it'll sound great if you pick the right notes. It's just like anything else in life. It doesn't have to be complicated but it does have to be right. Now the good news is that it's pretty easy to find these two notes. Let's check it out.

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In our piano lessons course title "Pattern Piano and Keyboard", which you can find on the net at playpianotoday.com, we studied the two notes of these comp chords specifically, thirds and sevenths. In fact, we went over every kind of seventh chord possible. If you really want to become a creative musician, you really need to go through "Pattern Piano and Keyboard". Here's why.

You can be a piano player or a keyboard player who just reads notes off the page and that's good, reading is important. To be a well-rounded musician, you eventually need to learn to read music. To do that, you can simply take lessons from most any local piano teacher and they'll teach you how to read. Now while I'm not minimizing the value of learning to read, the truth is that simply reading music does not make you a complete musician.

In order to completely free yourself up musically and become a creative musician, you need to understand what you are doing. Once you understand music, you'll find a new whole world of creative ideas will open up for you on the keyboard. "Pattern Piano and Keyboard" does exactly that. It starts from the ground up, it doesn't assume that you've ever played the piano before. But by the end of that course, you'll be able to play any song by ear, completely free from sheet music! In addition, you'll be able to come up with songs and arrangement of songs that have your own, unique sound. Something no one else has. And something that you can't get from the written page.

Now I know that's exactly what you're looking for because in truth, everyone is. When they sit down and play the piano, they want to be creative. So check it out at playpianotoday.com.

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Alright, let's study these tri-tone comp chords in detail. So far, we've been playing the twelve bar blues in the Key of C, which naturally makes the first chord C. And then we studied how it changed C into C7, that nice little trick. In fact, we're going to change every chord now in this 12 bar blues exercise into a Dominant 7th chord because it's just so nice, rich, and bluesy. So we'll play C7 like this:

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And then F will be F7 and then G will become G7. It's pretty simple.

Alright, let's go back to C. Now remember, we're going to make it C7 by putting a 7th at the bottom. Now, let me stack those notes traditionally with the Dominant 7th note up on top. That's how most people typically play it. It's a real simple way to play it but sometimes it's really useful. It's kind of like a Bebop chord, right? Maybe like a train coming down the track.

Now to build our first tri-tone, we're going to pick two of those notes: the third and the seventh, and that's it. So here we go. This is the first tri-tone comp chord. You saw me get all funky and get all jiggidy with it earlier in the video. So this is what we are going to play for C7. Just that simple little two-note comp chord. Of course, it looks just the same in the left hand except that it's played by the left hand. So that's what this looks like.

This has been Part One of Two in Chapter Seven. In part two, we're going to study in detail that tri-tone comp chord and how it's used in the blues. If you'd like to see more, come on over to keyboardblues.com.