Here’s a video of young Brandon ‘Taz’ Niederauer channeling Jimi Hendrix. Unbelievable!

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Here’s a video of Chuck Leavell playing with possibly one of rocks greatest guitar prodigies ever- Brandon ‘Taz’ Niederauer.

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Although everyone has their own way of learning, there are common themes on what works for improvisation. First, playing with others in a band setting helps push you out of your comfort zone to try new things. Second, is just spending time on the keyboard experimenting and exploring. The Groove Charts are really great for that because they provide a framework to work within but are open-ended enough that we have to improvise to fill in the blanks. Third is having a tool kit of riffs and techniques to draw from. This is where the old-school disciplined practice is required. The more you have to draw from( and in different keys) the easier it is too improvise. Try working with a half dozen of our songs that have improvisations which are similar in style to how you want to play. Work on the Improvisations and Exercises in multiple keys and then try applying them to different songs. Chuck relies on a only a handful of techniques that he has mastered, which is true of most musicians. For example, if you worked on the exercises and improvs for “Come and Go Blues”, “Southbound”, “Alberta”, and “Jessica” you would have a pretty good tool box for melodic blues and pentatonic improvisations. If you picked exercises and improvs from songs like “What’d I Say”, “Sympathy for the Devil”, and “Hey Pocky Away” you would have a tool box of chord-based rhythmic riffs. If you are having difficulty keeping a steady groove in your left-hand while improvising in the right-hand you might find the exercise above helpful.

Here’s a star studded jam session with Chuck Berry, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Steve Jordan, Chuck and the GREAT Johnnie Johnson. We definitely have to add a Johnnie Johnson lesson to our IROCKU catalogue. Chuck lays down a soulful solo at 02:30 into the video.

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Here’s part 2 of an interview Chuck did with Australian Musician Nov. 13, 2014.
Chuck talks about the different keyboards he plays on stage, irocku.com, and his environmental news website mnn.com.

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Here’s part I of an interview Chuck did with Australian Musician Nov. 13, 2014.
Chuck talks about Australian The Rolling Stones tour, playing with John Mayer, and his “Back to the Woods” Cd highlighting the role piano played on early blues.

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Chuck will be playing at the Cherry Bar in Melbourne, Australia on Nov 7.

Gigs

Here are some of additional thoughts and observations from teachers, students, members,

1) Playing piano is both a left and right brained activity. It sounds like you spend a lot of time on exercises and practicing ( left brained activities). We hear time and time again from students who practice a lot but still hit a plateau. It is often because they keep doing the same thing and are not experimenting enough. It’s human nature to stick to the same routine. For every hour you practice within your existing routine, try spending an hour getting off the page by exploring, experimenting, and improvising. Listen to a recording and try to figure it out on your own, or take a song you already know and try to add something new to it like changing the left hand groove or trying out different scales to improvise with. Always try to achieve an even balance between left-brained activities ( scales, exercises, reading) and right brained activities ( improvising, experimenting). It takes a lot of discipline to break out of your comfort zone.

2) Play with others. Playing in a band opens up new dimensions to your playing. It requires listening and responding to what the others are playing. Plus you learn things that you might not have otherwise learned. But most importantly, it pushes you out of your comfort zone and challenges you do try things you might otherwise not have tried.

3) You should check out the forum page for the workshop we did with the NYC schools. Chuck talks about playing Hanon in every key

http://www.irocku.com/community/topic/nyc-rock-keyboard-workshop-2/#post-2764

4) Our members tell us that the exercise at the following forum link is very useful for learning the rock rhythms. Try this exercise with as many left hand grooves as you can. 

http://www.irocku.com/community/topic/an-improvisation-exercise-2/#post-2000

5) Here’s an interesting book that might help you remove some creative barriers in your approach to learning.

“Effortless Mastery” by Kenny Werner

As both Cary and Collin suggest, tapping your foot is yet another element of playing that requires practice. You should ALWAYS practice with a metronome so tap your foot to the metronome whenever you practice. Then when you perform without a metronome you will have the coordination to tap to a steady beat.

In our videos, you might notice that Collin doesn’t always tap his feet. If you look very closely, instead of tapping his feet he actually clicks the back of his throat to keep time so his feet are free to use the pedals. It’s pretty amazing!!!

Yes, the workshop was truly a magical event. Let’s hope for many more.

“Keep on Gwine” by James Booker is an insane piece. We’ll add it to our list… that will make for a very challenging lesson.

During the session Chuck also went into detail on how he played “Alberta” ( Clapton Unplugged) and “Living in a Dream” ( Sea Level). We are turning these two songs into full lesson packages to be posted later this year.

We’d suggest you start with our Groove Charts. The groove charts provide a roadmap to the song that includes the chords and the left/right hand interaction. Chuck isn’t much of a reader himself, so he came up with the groove charts as a way to learn the essence of the song without getting bogged down reading notes.

In developing IROCKU, we found that one thing that separates rock from both classical and jazz keyboard playing is the syncopated interactions between the left and right hands. If you listen to any of the great rhythm players, (Nick Hopkins, Bill Preston, Elton John…) you’ll find that the interaction between both hands takes athletic prowess. We focus on this in the lessons because it is so fundamental to rock keyboard. So that said, we suggest that you do learn to read so you can challenge yourself with the rock rhythms. Check out Testimonials and you’ll find that a lot of people are commenting that the left hand syncopations and grooves are breathing new life into their playing. If you always play with a bass player this might not be necessary because you don’t want to get in their way but these syncopated techniques are fundamental to rock keyboard.

If you don’t plan on practicing to become a virtuoso pianist but want to hold your own while playing with a rock band here’s what we suggest:

1) Master the groove charts and get familiar with the different grooves in the common keys your band plays in.
2) Develop a very good left hand groove. The New Orleans and Ray Charles songs are best for this ( i.e. What’d I Say, Hey PockyAway, Tipitina, Hey Now, Cool Jerk, Rockin Pneumonia)
3) For improvising learn the major, minor, blues, pentatonic, and mixolydian scales in the keys your band plays in. Randomly practice playing them over the different left hand grooves. First play whole note scales, then half-note, then quarter, then eighth, and finally play the scales up and down in triplets over as many different grooves as possible. This will develop your left/right hand independence for improvising. Most great rock improvisers use cross-rhythms when improvising and this drill will lead to that. For some good riffs look to Chuck’s solos on the ABB Brothers and Sisters album ( Jessica, Come and Go Blues, Southbound). He packs more into these solos than most keyboardists ever play in a lifetime.

Q&A with Chuck Leavell: Thoughts on Teaching Piano

The NYC Department of Education hosted a Rock Piano Workshop with Chuck Leavell of the Rolling Stones. In the Question and Answers session, Chuck shares some of his thoughts how to teach piano.

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Q&A with Chuck Leavell: Musings of a Rockstar

The NYC Department of Education hosted a Rock Piano Workshop with Chuck Leavell of the Rolling Stones. In the Question and Answers session, Chuck shares some of his experiences as a rockstar and playing with the Rolling Stones.

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Q&A With Chuck Leavell: Thoughts on Improvising

The NYC Department of Education hosted a Rock Piano Workshop with Chuck Leavell of the Rolling Stones. In the Question and Answers session, Chuck shares some of his thoughts on improvising.

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Chuck Leavell Intro to IROCKU Piano Lessons

The NYC Department of Education hosted a Rock Piano Workshop with Chuck Leavell of the Rolling Stones. In Chuck’s intro, he shares the unique way he was taught to play piano and provides a brief overview of IROCKU.

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Chuck Leavell’s Piano Practice Routine

Here’s what Chuck practices when he’s getting ready to go out on tour. This video is a must see for anyone interested in taking their piano playing to the next level. You might be surprised that even a rock superstar sticks to the basics – finger exercises, scales, Hannon, octave drills, etc. Chuck ends the video playing a killer James Booker stride piano piece.

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NYC Music Teachers Jamming with Chuck Leavell

The NYC Department of Education hosted a Rock Piano Workshop with Chuck Leavell of the Rolling Stones and his IROCKU team. The workshop ended in a jam session with Chuck and some of the great music teachers of NYC. A special thanks to Barbara Murray for making this great event happen.

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Raffi Arto at age 10!!

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11 Year Old Billy Preston and Nat King Cole.

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Here’s Derek Trucks at 13!

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Here’s a beautiful song called “Savannah”.

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#t=74

Bruce-we’re glad you are enjoying the site. We are working on two new lessons, Alberta(Clapton version) and Living in a Dream ( Sea Level). Chuck recorded the advanced lessons and there’s some great stuff. Keep rockin

Here’s a link worth checking out:

How to mic a grand piano

Regarding the creation of an arrangement you nailed it- it’s a combination of artistic license, theory and method. Our arrangements are NOT transcriptions of the original, they are interpretations. Most original recordings have guitar, bass, voice, and drums so our arrangements incorporate components of each into the Lessons. While there is no simple answer we can break it down into the steps we go through.

Also know that different musicians might follow these steps in a different order. For example, a musician with a great ear might begin with step 2 or 4 and then add the rhythm while a drummer or rhythm guitar player might do the opposite. You will eventually develop your own approach but, in most cases, the following four steps are needed:

Step 1. You will need to determine the chord progression.This is really a learned process. The more you do it the easier it becomes. Knowing the chords of the various keys it essential. We provide a list of the chords under the ‘Lesson schedule’ for each song but you should try to figure out the chords on your own.The key of the song is usually the predominant sound, most often the note that phrases in the song begin or end with. Sit at the keyboard while listening to the song and play notes until you find the note that tends to be the key of the song. Once you’ve found the root then listen to when the chords of the song change and try to determine them. Focus on one particular instrument and listen for the chord changes. The bass or rhythm guitar are often the easiest to recognize chord changes. For rock, common chord choices would be the 4 chord ( ie F in the key of C) and the 5 chord( G in the key of C), also the 2m chord ( Dm in the key of C) and the 6m (Am in the key of C).

Step 2. Along with developing the chord progressions you will need to determine the underlying rhythm of the song. Create the groove chart. A lot of folks have been asking how to create a groove chart so we created a forum topic about it on the website. You might want to check that out.

Step 3. Once you have the Groove chart ( the chord progression and rhythm) you have the complete roadmap of the song. Now you can start working out your left hand. For IROCKU, we like to offer two to three different left hand patterns to keep the arrangement interesting. If it is a piano centric song the let hand might be obvious, if not try recreating what the bass player is doing. When Chuck plays he constantly changes his left hand pattern. It’s almost like he’s improvising with his left hand all the time. This is a technique he learned from Ian Stewart. It’s not human!!! Ray Charles tends to keep a more consistent left hand. For most of us, it is best to develop a couple of left hand patterns to use throughout the song. As you get comfortable you can start varying the pattern.

Step 4: Start listening to the melody and overlay pieces of the melody to your liking onto the groove. You can choose to play the complete melody or just highlights of it. Do whatever sounds good to you. With the right hand you want to try to recognize the scales that the song uses. Is it pentatonic, major, minor, blues, mixolydian, etc. Again, you will have to develop your ear for this. A good way to do this is by practicing all the different scales and developing an ear for each.

When we film our next lesson we’ll try to film this process per your suggestion.

Most rock musicians don’t read notes. Chuck says many of the bands he’s played with use the ‘Nashville Numbering System’. This system uses numbers to represent the chords to be played. The numbers represent the note of the scale and it’s corresponding chord in the particular key that you are playing. So if the song is in the key or C, a 1 would represent the C major chord, a 2 would represent D minor, 3 would be E minor, 4 would be F major, 5 would be G major, 6 would be A minor, 7 would be B diminished. Using this system rockers can notate a song using numbers and then play in any key they chose.

For the IROCKU groove charts we choose to simplify the process of mentally converting from the chord number to the chord letter by providing just the chord letters. We also provide the rhythm through the use of ‘slash notes’. The durations of slash notes are read similar to regular musical notation. So a slash quarter note gets 1 beat, a slash half note gets 2 beats, a slash whole notes gets 4 beats, etc. The slash notes look a little odd because they are elongated or diamond shaped instead of round but that is so the reader knows it’s a slash notation and not standard notation. The difference between slash notation and standard notation is that the position of the slash note on the musical staff has no relevance whatsoever. You can play whatever note you choose based on the chord letter represented above the staff. For classically trained musicians this might sound like musical chaos, but this allows the musician to create their own musical interpretation while staying within the rhythmic and tonal guidelines of the song.

Let’s use our sample lesson “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” intermediate level groove chart as an example. We’ll begin with the left hand. The left hand of each measure has a dotted quarter note followed by an eighth-note tied to a half-note. So this would be counted 1-1/2 beats for the fist note of the left hand and 2-1/2beats for the second note. For the actual note to be played in the left hand you would choose any note from the C chord that sounds good to you! As a starter play the root of the chord which is a C or maybe the root and fifth ( C and G) or maybe the C octave. For the second measure you would play the exact same rhythm pattern as the first measure but this time you are playing the F chord. So now try playing the root of the chord which is an F or maybe the root and fifth ( F and C) or maybe the F octave. Continue this for each measure until you have the left hand mastered.

Now for the right hand. The right hand of each measure has two quarter-notes followed by an eighth-note rest followed by a dotted quarter note. So this is counted 1 beat for the first note, 1 beat for the second note, followed by a 1/2 beat rest followed by 1-1/2 beats for the third note. This rhythmic pattern follows throughout the groove chart. For the actual note to be played in the right hand you would choose any note from the C chord that sounds good to you! As a starter play the root of the chord which is a C or maybe the root and fifth ( C and G) or maybe the C octave. Or you can play any inversion of the C chord ( C-E-G or E-G-C or G-C-E). For the second measure you would play the exact same rhythm pattern as the first measure but this time you are playing notes from the F chord.

The groove charts will provide you with the essence of the song to sing along with or accompany someone with or as launch pads for improvising. Once you’ve mastered the left and right hand groove with some simple notes or chords continue to experiment within the guidelines of the rhythm patterns and chord changes.

Leon Russell is one of rock’s most prolific players. He was a member of the famed Wrecking Crew and was a driving force behind Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishman. Leon Russell invented many of rocks cornerstone rhythms. Here’s his ballad “A Song For You”…

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Dr. John playing Professor Longhair’s “Tipitina”. Pretty good for a guy with 9-1/2 fingers.

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Here’s Dr. John(“Mac”) shredding the keys on “Mac’s Boogie”. Mac attributes much of his success to being able to play any song in any key. He encouraged IROCKU to include multiple keys in all our IROCKU exercises and improvs…we listened.

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Dr. John (Malcolm John “Mac” Rebennack, Jr.)inspired us to get IROCKU off the ground. We love you Mac….Here’s “Such a Night”. The ending of this song is pure keyboard wizardry.

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This could possibly be the most famous piano riff in rock history. Thank you Billy Preston- “Get Back”

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