billkeis.com

I know many people don’t like year-end letters but I couldn’t resist.

2016 was a wild year for many reasons.  I am very happy to be working in the music biz.  This is what I love to do and I’m looking forward to 2017.

Last year I had fun playing gigs with 11 different bands/artists.

I enjoyed working in my studio as a player, engineer, producer with 9 different clients.  Additionally, I wrote numerous songs, TV/Film cues, arrangements, charts and transcriptions.

A CD I worked on was released in 2016 – Chico 45th Anniversary ~ CHICO [latin, variety] (Bill Keis, mastering engineer, keyboards).  I’m looking forward to three more CDs being released in 2017.

As a teacher, my niche is teaching adults.  I cover many things including accompaniment skills, composing and how to play in a band.

Super cool news:  a student wrote and recorded a song for his wife for their anniversary, several students played casuals and sat in at nightclubs, one student (who was failing) got an “A” in her College music class.  In 2016 I reached a milestone…all 10 of my music books are now available on Amazon Kindle!

Wishing you a happy, healthy, prosperous 2017.  Let’s get together and make some noise!

Bill

(818) 246-6858

http://www.BillKeis.com/
http://www.BillKeisMusicLessons.com/

Blues in an extremely important style of music because it has influenced nearly all music since its beginning, circa 1890 A.D. Certainly this rich heritage deserves much study.

This article is by no means meant to cover even a fraction of the blues. The purpose here is simple. Define a few key elements of the blues that every 21st century musician should know.  This will get you started.

The Blues Chord Progression

The most basic version of Blues has a very simple chord progression that consists of only three chords: the I, IV and V chords of whatever key the song is in. These chords follow a specific sequence over 12 bars.

I  IV  I  I

IV  IV  I  I

V  IV  I  I  (or V when repeating)

Since countless songs have been written to this chord progression it is something that really should be memorized.

Additionally, most musicians know this progression and you probably wouldn’t be taken seriously if you don’t know it.

Improvisation

Although the blues is rather simple compared to many styles that followed it, playing blues is no easy task for a beginner. Even someone well-trained in Classical music might find playing the blues quite challenging.

The reason for this is that blues music has lots of improvisation. If that is new to you, now is the time to practice and get it down.

There are 3 Blues Scales.  They are:

Major Blues Scale 1 2 –3 3 5 6 8

example:  C  D  E flat  E  G  A  C

Minor Blues Scale 1–3 4 +4 (–5 )5 –7 8

example:  C  E flat  F  G flat G  B flat  C

Jazz Blues Scale    1 2 –3 3 4 +4 (–5) 5 6 –7 8

example:  C D E flat E F G flat G A B flat C

If you haven’t already done this, practice improvising in 4/4 with triplet feel up to at least 80 BPM in a few different keys.

Pick a key and then practice the 12 bar blues progression with a metronome until you can easily play it several times without losing the beat.

Then, begin to practice improvising over the blues progression using the data below.

Practice #1 until you’ve got it, then go on to #2, etc.

1. Major Blues Scale of the key for all chords (in major blues)
2. Minor Blues Scale of the key for all chords (in minor blues)
3. Minor Blues Scale of the key for all chords (in major blues)
4. Blues scale of the chord you are on
5. Jazz Blues Scale of the key for all chords (in major blues)

Summary

Have fun and do lots of improvisation and soon you’ll find you are well on you way to playing the blues.

Rhythm – the temporal (having to do with time) element of music relating to how sounds are made into patterns from Latin rhythmos from Greek rhythmos related to rhein meaning to flow (move in a steady unbroken manner)

Rhythm is quite a fascinating subject. At first glance, it can seem a bit elusive, similar to the subject of time. It is, however, quite manageable with a lot of practice.

First of all, I don’t think that some people have rhythm and some people don’t. I think good rhythmic skills can be learned by just about anyone, given enough practice of the right things.

A good place to start is to define some of the fundamental terms.  How to practice them is covered in my books.

Rhythm – when, and for how long, sounds are played based on various agreed upon units of measurement (beats, bars, subbeats)

Beat – the basic pulse of music that used as a stable point of reference and should be co-created by all the musicians

Time – a flow of beats

Tempo – the speed of the beats, often stated in B.P.M. (beats per minute)

Free time – Rubato, not in a steady tempo, speeding up and slowing down on purpose, often used for introductions and ending, however, a whole song could be played this way

Bar, Measure – a group of beats, the most common is 4 beats in a bar

Meter – the number of beats in a bar. When you say a song is in a triple meter for example, that means all the bars in that song will have 3 beats

Time Signature – the number of beats in a bar (meter) and which kind of note will represent 1 beat in the song

Downbeat – the first beat in a bar (also, the third beat is sometimes called a downbeat in quadruple meter – four beats per bar )

Upbeats, Offbeats – beats 2 & 4 (in a bar of 4 beats), beats 2 & 3 (in a bar of 3 beats)

Backbeat – beats 2 & 4 are often called backbeats, especially when they are accented (played loud, with extra stress)

Subbeat – a portion of a beat; beats are often divided into smaller beats, the most common divisions are 2, 3, 4 per beat – commonly referred to by their notational names: eighth notes, triplets, sixteenth notes

Rhythmic feel – the ‘feel’ of a song is caused by how the beats are divided; this is not the style of music, but how the song feels

Summary

Developing a high degree of rhythmic ability is essential to any musician and well worth the effort!

The Secrets of Improvisation – Part Two

Rhythmic Improvisation

Certainly if you want to play Jazz or Rock, or pretty much any style of music developed since 1900, you should be able to improvise rhythms.

However, even if you just want to play Classical music, practicing improvisation will still be helpful because it develops basic skills to a higher level than just reading notes does.

If we draw a comparison to talking, certainly you wouldn’t think of only speaking from a prepared script. So as a musician, why only play what is written on the page?

You will reach a higher level of command over rhythm, if you practice improvising rhythms.

Do the following drills by clapping, counting out loud and tapping your foot. Then play on your instrument, at first just one note or a chord.  After you are proficient, improvise with scales, etc.

1. 4/4 (no sub-beats) only quarter,half,dotted half, whole notes & rests
2. 3/4 (no sub-beats) only quarter,half,dotted half,whole notes & rests
3. 4/4 in eighth note feel
4. 3/4 in eighth note feel
5. 4/4 in triplet feel
6. 3/4 in triplet feel
7. 4/4 in sixteenth note feel
8. 3/4 in sixteenth note feel

Practice with a metronome.  The speed depends on your level: beginner, intermediate or advanced.  Here are some guidelines.

#1 & #2 from 120 – 240 BPM

#3 & #4 from 90 – 208 BPM

#5 & #6 from 60 – 140 BPM

#7 & #8 from 46 – 104 BPM

Work up to a point where you can freely improvise in each format including all the basic rhythmic figures and variations in dynamics.

To become a great improviser requires lots of knowledge about scales and chords and many other things.  An understanding of various styles of music and what those styles are composed of rhythmically, is very important.

See below for a list of styles and their rhythmic feels. This is a partial list. Some styles cross feels.

Eighth Note Feel

Pop ballads, Bossa Nova, Cha-cha, Rock, Pop Rock, Waltz, Tango

Triplet (Swing) Feel

Shuffle, Blues, 50’s, Dixieland, Swing, Bebop, Straight Ahead (Jazz), Jazz waltz, Country waltz, Show tunes, Reggae, Standards, Gospel

Sixteenth note feel

(Sometimes written as eighth notes in cut time)

Funk, R&B, Disco, Jazz Rock, Samba, Salsa, Calypso, Caribbean, Pop ballads, Fusion, Funk/Rock, Cumbia

Sixteenth note triplets ~ “swing sixteenths” feel

Hip – Hop, Funky Shuffle, Smooth Jazz, Modern Rock, R&B styles

If you play in the rhythm section: keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, percussion, it is also a good idea to practice improvising grooves.

A groove is a repeating rhythmic pattern, usually one or two bars long, that is played by one of the rhythm section instruments. Each player could be playing a different groove and they all work together or several players could be playing the same groove.

A groove ‘lays down the bed’ for the melody instruments to play on. Grooves will most commonly repeat for a section of a tune and then change to a new pattern for a new section. Fills would be played at the end of melodic phrases (commonly every 4 or 8 bars).

Rhythmic Improvisation is a very important secret of improvisation.

Improvise: to produce without preparation; to make up and perform with little or no preparation; to compose and perform at the same time.

In music, this usually refers to making up a melody over a chord progression1. This is a very easy and fun thing to do, if you know how. So how do you learn? The first thing is to realize that even though improvisation is done without preparation, there is a lot of things you can study and practice to improve this skill and make it more fun. Learn all your scales and chords inside and out. Experiment. Listen to a lot of different players.

Improvising music is very much like talking. Most people improvise conversation everyday. How long did it take to learn to do this? How did you learn to talk? Well, just like when you were growing up, start simple. Practice making up melodies without chords by using only a few notes or one scale at a time.

Chick Corea2 once said, “Play only what you hear. If you don’t hear anything, don’t play anything.” What does that mean? Well, it means to play only what you create in your mind, what you “hear” in your mind. And that is the goal: PLAY ONLY WHAT YOUR HEAR. And how can you get to that point?

Again, let’s compare improvising music to talking. When you tell a friend about a cool movie you saw last week, you get an idea and then say words to communicate your thoughts. The same thing should happen when you improvise. Get an idea of some sounds and then play those sounds. In other words, PLAY ONLY WHAT YOU HEAR.

My advice is to start simple. First learn to play over one chord, then two chords, then the 12 Bar Blues1, etc. Continue working up to improvising over a whole tune, but even then start with easier tunes like Pop or Country. After that you’ll be able to move on to Jazz.

Keep in mind the goal is to ‘play what you hear’ (play what you are creating in your mind). To develop that skill, you should often sing “la” or “da” when you practice improvisation.

Music is made up of melody, harmony, and rhythm. To become a great improviser, you have to learn a lot about all three of these subjects.

Above all, have fun!

1 Chord Progression: a sequence of chords played in a song.

2 Chick Corea: American jazz pianist and composer; b. Massachusetts June 12, 1941.

Perfect pitch means the ability to hear a sound and instantly recognize what the note is. In other words you can hear a sound and say, “that’s a G” or whatever the note is.

It is a fallacy that some people are born with it and that you can either do it or you can’t. This is a skill that can be acquired. I would say that it does seem to be less common that people learn late in life rather than earlier in life.

I realized that I had this skill when I was about six years old. My mother actually discovered it. She was playing the piano and I told her what note she was playing from the other room and she started testing me and she discovered that I had perfect pitch.

So what does that mean? Some people think that someone with perfect pitch can tell if something is out of tune better than someone who doesn’t have perfect pitch. That is not true, not necessarily. Something out of tune doesn’t bother me more than it bothers anyone else.

But basically it’s like this; perfect pitch is a kind of perception of the sound quality of a note. It is a fine perception of minute differences of quality. It’s not a question of the highness or lowness of the sound particularly. It’s more like the difference between orange and red, or the different shades of green, such as, bright green, pale green, pea green.

Someone working in art or say the subject of interior decorating or something like that would have a lot of experience with say being able to recognize colors. They may say something like, this color is sea green or this is lime green. Perfect pitch is similar to that, it’s a perception.

On a bigger scale it would be like being able to tell the difference between a piano verses a guitar. If you were playing the exact same note, same volume with your eyes closed it would be very obvious.

It’s the same thing with perfect pitch. There are 12 notes and you just have to memorize or learn to perceive that each one of them has something about it that gives it a certain quality that is different than the other notes.

“F” to me has a buzzing kind of quality. You could think of the shape of your mouth creating a zzz…, or ahh… whereas a “B flat” is a much more rounded sound, like an oohhh… It’s almost like the difference between the vowel sounds, a, e, i, o, u, or the different ways that you can make your voice sound. An E just has a certain sound – almost like the letter “E….” as opposed to “A”. C is a flat sound, not meaning low in pitch. Sort of “bland” is a better word to describe “C”, it is a more mundane sound.

Perfect pitch is what it is called, but a better name for it would be pitch recall or Absolute Pitch Recall. What that means is that you can remember what the A sounds like. Right now I could play an ”A” and have you sing the “A” and 10 seconds later I can ask you to sing an “A” and you could do it. That is because you remember what it sounds like.

But, what about 20 minutes from now, or an hour from now? What about tomorrow? You might not be able to do it. The point is if you have a very short- term memory with pitch, you probably don’t have perfect pitch.

So, if you could practice singing an “A” and then going back to the piano 5 minutes later and sing it again, and then 10 minutes later go back to the piano and sing it again, and then by gradually increasing the time you will begin to increase your certainty on what does an “A” actually sounds like. Then you’ll remember it. Then you could begin to start to develop perfect pitch.

The two main aspects are; 1) quality of the sound; trying to recognize the difference between pitches and 2) just increasing the time that you can actually remember one sound.

Perfect pitch is a very useful skill however it is not mandatory to becoming a successful musician. In fact, only about 10% of musicians I know have this skill.

Relative pitch, the ability to recognize notes after hearing a starting note, is more valuable and is easier to develop.

Dear Bill, 

The book is great. Got me thinking that anyone can learn music 

and you really can use drills and practice to hone any level 

of innate talent you might have. 

Thanks, Matt

Triads are three note chords. Even though they are the most basic chords, they are very important to learn because there are many songs that use only triads. Other more complex chords would be inappropriate. Additionally, triads are the building blocks of larger more complex chords.

There are six different triads; major, minor, augmented and diminished, suspended 4 and suspended 2.  Examples in C:

major C E G

minor C E flat G

augmented C E G sharp

diminished C E flat G flat

suspended 4  C F G

suspended 2 C D G

Root

The “home tone” of a chord is called the root. For example, in a C major triad, C is the root, in an F minor triad, F is the root, etc. This is similar to the first note of a scale which is called the tonic. The tonic is the “home tone” of a scale.

So, triads are made up of a root and two other notes which determine the type of chord (major, minor, etc)

The root of a chord is probably the most important note. It is most often played by bass players, in the left hand by piano players, as well as other applications.

Of course, the root is often played in the right hand on a piano, with the other two notes of the triad.

Practice Procedure

Beginner piano players should practice all the triad exercises on a piano or keyboard with right hand chords and left hand roots (one note). Advanced piano players should also practice with both hands playing chords.

Of course, these chords should be practiced from each of the 12 roots (in other words – all keys).

For more information see my eBook “The Basics of Harmony”

Of the three main ways to play the piano, solo piano is probably the most difficult. The reason is because you only have two hands, but you need to play all 3 elements (melody, chords, and bass notes). There are many ways to do this, which can be mixed and matched.

The best way to approach solo piano is to become very proficient with all the basic tools of music; scales, arpeggios, chords, rhythms, reading, etc., and then practice making up arrangements from melody and chord symbols with:

1. R.H.melody L.H.chords and then 2. R.H.chords L.H.bass 3. Then you’ll be ready to work on solo piano.

If you’re a beginner, you should learn several solo piano pieces before trying to make up your own arrangements. There is a vast amount of sheet music available with full grand staff arrangements for piano which will give you ideas that you can use for your own arrangements.

The basic idea is have the melody in your right hand be the highest note, and fill in notes from the chords under that. The left hand would commonly play roots in octaves or roots & 5ths or broken chords (1-5-10) or roots and 7ths.  The left hand could also play walking bass or other bass parts, depending on the style of music.

It is common to practice one hand at a time and then both hands together.

Once you’ve got the basic tune, the next step would be to add fills and then practice improvising the melody line (take a solo).

The end goal is to be able to look at piece of music that has only the melody and chord symbols and be able to instantly make up an appropriate arrangement. Of course an arrangement can further develop over time.

For more information see my eBook “For Piano & Keyboard Players Only”

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that!

I’ve been a piano teacher for over 25 years and I’ve heard countless people say, “I love the piano, I wish I could play,” or “oh, you teach piano, I used to play piano,” or “we had a piano when I was a kid,” or “I wish my mother had forced me to practice,” or “I never learned to read music, I always memorized what my teacher played. When she found out, I was in trouble!”

Of course studying music is a wonderful activity for a child. Whether he/she goes on to a career in music or not, it is still highly recommended. Numerous studies have concluded that children who study music do better in school. In general the world needs more art and music and even if one wasn’t interested in becoming a professional musician or making a living at it, playing music is a good thing!

The main point is, however, you can learn how to play music anytime. You don’t have to be a child to learn. I’ve taught countless people to play who never played as a child. In fact, often adults learn faster than children!

One can get many hours of enjoyment from the music. It really doesn’t take that long to get some satisfaction. Anyone can learn to play a song fairly quickly. Anyone can even learn to improvise (play by ear)! Whether you like Classical or Jazz, Rock or Pop, you can learn to play.

It has been said that the piano is the most important of all musical instruments. It is certainly the most versatile. I do think that it is a good idea to learn some skills on a keyboard even if you play sax or you are a vocalist.

The main point here is that it has been proven to me countless times with firsthand experience that anyone can learn to play well enough to have fun making music.

Good News!