Blues

May 27 - 2013

This lesson our band started playing together. It started of with only drums, base and keyboard together. We learned how to play a variation of the 12 bar blues progession so we didn’t only play shuffle beat the whole time. At first it was challenging but then it worked out fine. However when we played together we could only play the 12 bar blues progression twice, but in totally we have to play it about 7 or 8 times. At the end of the lesson the two singers joined us and we were able to play it with them as well. I found it challenging to play with the whole band because I just learned how to play the 12 bar blues progression with the both hands and then I had to play it without stoping to change chords. This meant that I sometimes played the wrong chord with one hand and it sounded very weird.

May 20 - 2013

This week I preformed my solo. I think it went pretty well. However when it was recorded I played it slightly wrong. When I play it I play the original version twice and then a variation of it once etc. However, instead I played the original version three times but I just kept on going and I did not stop. The feedback I got was that it was very good and that it sounded good/ bluesy when I played two notes fast after eachother.

Once we had finished that, we went on and decided our bands and what we were playing. I am playing keyboard. Then we went on practicing. A friend and I, who were both playing keyboard, practiced toghether. Since we had been working on our solos we had both forgotten the 12 bar blues progression slightly but it was not too hard to refresh it. I started learning how to play the advanced 12 bar blues progression for keyboard where you have to play cords with your left hand as well as your right. It was quite challenging at first since you had to move both your hands at once without moving to the wrong chord. 

May 13 - 2013

This lesson we finished our solos and some of us preformed. Since I had missed one lesson I was not one of them. Instead I will preform next week. I changed my solo slightly and decided on a final way of playing it. Before, I had always played the variations randomly but during this lesson I decided in what order I wanted to play them.

This lesson I was able to play my solo to the 12 bar blues progression without starting on the second phrase too early. Since I did not preform my solo this week I did not get any feedback. 

May 6 - 2013

This lesson I started making my solo. Everyone else started last week but I had to go to the dentist and therefore I missed the lesson. This lesson we had a substitute teacher so I did not know exactly what to do. The only instructions I got from the substitute teacher was that I had to create a solo that was 12 bars long using phrases. He also said that it was good to use rests as well. It was only after asking my friends that I found out that the solo had to fit to the 12 bar blues progression, therefore it has to fit to the D7 chord, the G7 chord and the A7 chord. I started by making up a phrase that was 8 beats (2 bars) including a long rest. Then I asked a friend to play the different chords while I played my solo.

I thought this was pretty easy since I have played piano for a really long time. I was able to make up my solo quite quickly since I created one phrase and then repeated it with some variation. When I was playing my solo with the full 12 bar blues progession I found that I was not very good at keeping the rest for as long as it was supposed to be. I started playing the second phrase way to early so  I did not finish when the blues progression finished, I finished about a bar before. However as I kept on practicing I managed to do this better but it was still not completely perfect. 

Apr 8 - 2013

Last lesson we started playing on the drums. Since we did not have enough drums for everyone we were divided into groups. In each group we took turns on playing the drums and while you were waiting you either practiced on your knees, like we had practiced before, or we practiced playing on the base guitar. The rhythm we played was a  basic drum rhythm but to make it more sutiable for blues we made the eight notes syncopated. when you were playing on the base guitar you played the developed 12 blues bar progression (D7, G7, D7, D7,G7, G7, D7, D7, A7, G7, D7, A7). However we only played the root of the chord.

I think all of this went pretty well. I knew the drum rhythm on my knees by heart so it was just to apply that onto the drums. For the base guitar we had to find where the notes were on the base but otherwise it was not too hard.

Feb 25 – 2013
The blues music originated from the African slaves that were brought to America. These people had hard life and sang to make their days go by faster. This was the beginning of blues music! Blues music most often expresses sadness because the slaves were very unhappy.

Robert Johnson was a famous American blues musician who only became 27 years old. He made his own songs and both sang and played guitar. He has influenced generations of blues musicians. Robert Johnson had a very famous myth about himself. It is said that he sold his sole to the devil at a crossroad in order to become successful.

"Robert Johnson." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Feb. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson>.

"Where and How Did the Blues Start?" WikiAnswers. N.p., 21 Feb. 2012. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. <http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_and_how_did_the_blues_start>.